Empire Rising (19 page)

Carrier Air Wing ELEVEN Commander, Captain Helen Corcoran, joined Harrow on Vulture's Row, assessing the damaged Flight Deck in silence. The Iraq War veteran didn't need to say anything; her eyes said it all. In less than twenty minutes, her jets would begin falling from the sky, their fuel tanks empty. Likewise for
George Washington
's air wing, circling in tandem with
Nimitz
's above the lone remaining carrier. Corcoran had considered Bingoing all aircraft to Kadena Air Base on Okinawa, until the Air Force fighters recalled by 18th Wing had been shot down by another swarm of missiles. Their aircraft were safer inside
Nimitz
's screen of destroyers and cruisers. However, if Harrow didn't return
Nimitz
to flight operations, figuring out how to land jets on three-fourths of a Flight Deck, what remained of two air wings would crash into the Pacific Ocean.

Restoring the nuclear reactors to operation was crucial. Control rods in both reactors had unlatched from the impact of the DF-21 missile, and both plants had been shut down by the reactors' core protection circuitry. Reactor Department personnel were frantically inspecting both reactor plants for damage, and Harrow had already given permission to conduct Fast Recovery Start-Ups if no damage had been incurred. If there was any possibility of returning to flight operations,
Nimitz
needed both reactors on-line. He needed speed.

The only way Corcoran's jets could land was if
Nimitz
was racing into the wind, allowing the aircraft to land at a relatively slow speed. Not only had the missile blasted a crater in the Flight Deck, it also damaged the four arresting cables. The jets normally latched one of the arresting wires with their tailhooks as they landed, slowing the aircraft to a halt in two seconds. Without arresting cables, the aircraft would have to slow using nothing but their brakes. Even with the carrier at ahead flank, recovering aircraft without arresting cables and with a forty-foot hole in the Flight Deck would normally be an impossible feat.

Thank God for bad weather. Harrow looked up into the overcast skies, blustery winds blowing beneath a heavy blanket of steel-gray clouds. The winds were now howling from the south at sixty knots. If
Nimitz
could restore propulsion and head into those winds at maximum speed, they might have a chance. As Harrow wondered how much longer it would take to restart the reactors, the lights inside the Bridge flickered. The normal fluorescent lighting blinked on, and the yellow emergency lighting faded. Harrow left Vulture's Row, stepping inside the Bridge as a report came across the announcing circuit.

“Bridge, DC Central. Fast Recovery Start-Up of both reactors is complete. Ready to answer all Bells.”

Harrow turned to the Conning Officer, Lieutenant Nathan Reynolds. “Bring her into the wind and increase speed to ahead flank.”

Lieutenant Reynolds complied. “Helm, all ahead flank. Right full rudder, steady course one-eight-zero.” As Harrow's wounded carrier turned into the wind, his eyes shifted between the Voyage Management System—displaying ship's speed—and the MORIAH wind velocity display. Captain Corcoran stopped beside him, no doubt doing the mental calculations, determining if the carrier's speed combined with the blustery headwind were enough to offset the speed of the aircraft as they landed.

As
Nimitz
steadied on course 180, the Air Boss, stationed in the Tower one deck above the Bridge, reported over the 23-MC, “Bridge, Tower. I need a Green Deck. Aircraft 612 is on emergency fuel and making its approach. 714 and 628 are also inbound.”

Harrow looked aft through the Bridge windows, but couldn't see the approaching aircraft. Thick black smoke from the fire belowdecks roiled upward through the gaping hole in the Flight Deck, obscuring his vision. Landing would be even more perilous than he had envisioned. Land too early and the aircraft's landing gear would catch on the twisted metal edges of the crater, tearing the jet to pieces. Land too late and the aircraft would careen off the front of the carrier's bow. To complicate matters further, the pilots would be landing blind, their vision obscured by the thick black smoke trailing behind
Nimitz
.

To compensate for the lack of visibility, Corcoran had ordered automated landings, directing combat systems to recalculate the landing point to just forward of the crater in the Flight Deck. Unfortunately, that solved only one of the problems. The other was wind speed.

“It's not going to work,” Corcoran said.

Harrow turned back to examine ship and wind speed, then ran the numbers, confirming Corcoran's assessment. The relative speed of the approaching aircraft was still too high; they wouldn't be able to stop before running out of runway. Harrow worked through the calculations again, determining how much faster
Nimitz
would have to travel.

They needed five more knots.

But the carrier was already at maximum speed, both reactors operating at one hundred percent power.

Harrow turned toward Corcoran, his eyes locking with hers. In a few minutes her jets would begin dropping from the sky, the pilots ejecting as their engines flamed out—two entire air wings lost, with the pilots splashing into waters infested with enemy submarines. With only
Texas
protecting them,
Nimitz
couldn't loiter while the strike group rescued their pilots. As distasteful as it was, the safety of his carrier and the six thousand men and women aboard were a higher priority. He would be forced to abandon the pilots. There was nothing he could do about it.

The hell there was.

Harrow picked up the handheld wireless. “DC Central, Bridge. This is the Captain. Put the RO on line.”

A few seconds later, the Reactor Officer responded. “RO.”

Harrow needed to eke out five more knots from the main engines. With both reactors already at full power, there was only one option.

“RO, Captain. Override reactor protection and increase shaft turns to one hundred ten percent power.” There was silence on the line. Harrow knew what his Reactor Officer was thinking. He'd been ordered to break the most sacred rule in the nuclear power navy.

Violate reactor safety.

But Harrow had the authority and no alternative. He wasn't going to lose what was left of two air wings because of a measly five knots. It was likely there was enough of a safety margin to allow reactor operation at one hundred ten percent power for the time required to retrieve the two air wings. If the reactors required new cores when this was over, so be it.

The Reactor Officer finally acknowledged Harrow's order. “Override reactor protection and increase shaft turns to one hundred ten percent power, both reactors, RO, aye.”

Harrow returned his attention to the Voyage Management System, and a moment later, the carrier's speed began inching upward. The Air Boss's voice came across the 23-MC again. “Bridge, Tower. One minute before the first recovery. I need a Green Deck and I need it now!”

The digital speed indicator ticked upward, increasing in one-tenth-knot increments as the first jet descended toward the carrier's Flight Deck. Harrow moved next to the Captain's chair. He had no choice. Reaching over to the communication console, he pressed the small green button, giving the Air Boss a Green Deck for flight operations.

Harrow joined Corcoran at the port Bridge windows, looking aft as his stomach turned queasy, waiting to learn if they had increased speed enough. The incoming pilot would be blind now, enveloped in the thick black smoke trailing behind the carrier. The seconds ticked away and there was still nothing.

The first jet emerged from the black plume, its wheels touching down just past the edge of the crater. The Hornet's ailerons flared upward and a puff of white smoke appeared by the jet's tires, the smoke trailing from the aircraft's landing gear as it sped toward the bow. Harrow leaned forward, urging his ship faster through the water, buying the extra few feet that would let the aircraft stop before it ran out of real estate. The jet screeched to a halt with its nose landing gear only four feet from the end of the Flight Deck.

Harrow let out a sigh of relief as the jet turned sharply to starboard, moving slowly out of the way as a second jet emerged from the black smoke, touching down with a screech and a puff of white smoke from its tires. As the first jet moved toward the forward starboard elevator, the second jet also ground to a halt four feet from the carrier's bow.

One by one, Captain Corcoran's air wing, followed by
George Washington
's, landed safely aboard USS
Nimitz
.

 

27

USS
MICHIGAN

In the submarine's Radio Room, just forward of Control, Christine stood between Captain Murray Wilson and the ship's Executive Officer, waiting while the submarine's leading Radioman, Chief Jeff Walkup, slid Christine's flash drive into a laptop computer. It was their last chance to retrieve the data from the small device she'd been handed in the Great Hall of the People. Although
Michigan
's crew was normally prohibited from inserting flash drives into their computers for fear of viruses, they'd been given the go-ahead to use stand-alone computers. Unfortunately, none of the computers so far could access what appeared to be a simple flash drive.

The last few hours aboard
Michigan
had passed quickly. Following her introduction to Captain Wilson, the submarine's Medical Officer had followed up with an extensive evaluation, replacing the ad hoc Band-Aids applied by Lieutenant Harrison during her underwater journey with a white gauze bandage wrapped around her upper arm. There was little collateral damage aside from the small hole in her arm, which Commander Aleo had thoroughly disinfected, then stitched shut on both ends. Her arm now rested in a sling, which made traversing through the submarine's hatches difficult, with only one arm to keep her balance.

As Lieutenant Commander Kelly Haas explained, Christine had moved in with the Executive Officer. She'd been given his bunk, with the submarine's second-in-command moving to the spare upper rack. She hadn't had a chance to interface much with Lieutenant Commander Paul Greenwood though, as he had been busy assisting Wilson in Control during their tense transit through the Bohai Sea.

Chief Walkup removed the flash drive from his computer, turning to Christine and the two officers beside her. “It's a secure flash drive, which requires an encryption key.”

“Encryption key?” Wilson asked.

“A password,” Walkup explained. “But good luck breaking it. Depending on the length of the password, you could be talking over a trillion possibilities. And if the password uses Chinese characters instead of English letters and numbers, you can add a lot more zeros to that number. If you want to break into this flash drive, we're going to need to get it to one of our three-letter agencies.”

Chief Walkup handed the flash drive back to Wilson.

Wilson studied the flash drive in his palm before replying. “The Pentagon wants this data immediately, by whatever means required.” Wilson handed the flash drive to his XO. “Prep for UAV launch.”

*   *   *

A few minutes later, Christine stood next to the Executive Officer in the aft port corner of Control as
Michigan
prepared to ascend to periscope depth. As the Officer of the Deck made final preparations, Lieutenant Commander Greenwood filled Christine in on the details of
Michigan
's UAVs. “We've got two types of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles aboard. The first is the Switchblade, which we launch out the bottom of the submarine from our Trash Disposal Unit. Unfortunately, our little shit-bird—pardon the French—doesn't have the required range. We've got to get the flash drive to Okinawa, which means we'll have to use one of our large UAVs. We have seven UAVs instead of Tomahawks stored in Missile Tube Ten.”

Moments earlier, Greenwood had handed Christine's flash drive to an awaiting Missile Tech, who opened a hatch in the side of the missile tube and removed an access panel in the launch canister, inserting the drive into a compartment in the UAV. Greenwood explained the UAV would be ejected to the ocean's surface, where its container would pop open and deliver an electric charge to the UAV, launching it. The UAV was an electric fuel cell-powered X-wing airfoil with just enough range to reach the Air Force base on Okinawa.

Lieutenant Cordero, the submarine's Officer of the Deck, announced
Michigan
was proceeding to periscope depth, and all conversation in Control ceased. It was imperative they ensure there were no Chinese forces nearby that could detect their launch. As the submarine rose toward the surface, Christine leaned forward, compensating for the ten-degree up angle. The only sound in Control was the occasional depth report from the Diving Officer of the Watch.

The submarine's angle leveled off and Cordero began circling on the Conn, twisting the periscope in a continuous clockwise rotation, searching the horizon for nearby ships.

After determining there were no ships that were a collision hazard, Cordero announced, “No close contacts!”

Muted conversations resumed in Control, accompanied by the faint staccato chirp from the early warning antenna mounted on top of the periscope, searching the surrounding airwaves for enemy radars. Cordero followed up with several revolutions with the periscope optics at maximum elevation, scouring the sky for aircraft capable of detecting their periscope.

A moment later, Sonar reported no contacts, followed by the operator in Radio who monitored the submarine's Electromagnetic Surveillance Measures (ESM) equipment, who reported there were no contacts exceeding a signal strength of five, and none with threat parameters. Lieutenant Cordero, meanwhile, followed his quick assessment of the surface and air with a detailed survey of all quadrants in high power, finally reporting to the submarine's Captain that the ship held no air or surface contacts.