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The nine-foot-long missile shot away, reaching Mach 2.5 in seconds, quickly closing the gap before its infrared proximity fuse detonated its 20.8-pound WDU-17/B annular blast fragmentation warhead. The blast spread into a large circle that cut through the base of the ballistic missile.

But as the JL-2 trembled in midair before exploding in an impressive fireball almost five hundred feet in diameter, Amanda spotted a third flash by the waterline just aft of her starboard wing.

Seriously?

“One down, Ricky,” she said. “But they just fired a third one!”

* * *

Ricardo heard Amanda, but he was too busy accelerating like a damn rocket after the first missile while his nose-mounted Electro-Optical Targeting System tracked the JL-2 soaring past twenty thousand feet at Mach 1.8.

It’s getting away, he thought, firing a Sidewinder, which blazed skyward as its IR seeker tracked the superhot plume of the missile rising higher in the night sky.

Reaching its maximum speed of Mach 2.5, the Sidewinder went nearly vertical as it followed its target, but it could not close the gap. The ballistic missile was already rocketing past Mach 3 above forty thousand feet.

* * *

“Can’t catch it, Deedle,” Amanda heard Ricardo say as she squirmed from the g-forces halfway through her turn to get a better angle on the third JL-2.

The F-35C sensors tracked and targeted the missile climbing past three hundred feet at her ten o’clock two miles out. The system painted the information on her helmet-mounted display as it provided the seeker head of her second Sidewinder with sufficient information to launch.

“Adios,” she whispered as it shot out of her port pylon, scrambling after the powerful heat source. In the time that she completed her turn and leveled her wings, the Sidewinder had sliced through the ballistic missile’s solid-fuel rocket booster. Reverberating over the water, another impressive fireball stained the ocean in hues of orange and yellow.

“Two down and fresh out of winders,” she reported, coming back around and noticing the three radial ripples where the missiles had surfaced. They were in a line and spaced around three hundred feet.

Checking her timer and doing some quick math — and assuming the sub had continued in a straight course — she took an educated guess at its current position. And if she remembered her Annapolis classes on submarine warfare, the average depth to shoot those ballistic missiles was around 120 feet — give or take.

Pointing the nose of her Lightning at the suspected spot on the water, she armed her three Raytheon SDBs. The precision-guided bombs’ tri-mode seekers responded to radar, infrared homing, and semi-active laser guidance. Amanda selected the latter, staring at the target on the water and locking the laser.

The SDBs dropped from her center rails and immediately deployed their “diamondback” type winglets, gliding beneath the F-35C for a second before dropping right over the painted spot on the water.

As Amanda pulled up, the SDBs stabbed the surface at nearly three hundred feet per second. The 206-pound warheads, set to detonate by a cockpit-selectable delay function, went off twenty feet below the surface with a combined high-explosive charge equivalent to a pair of World War II MK9 depth charges.

* * *

Captain Shubei was about to give the order to fire the sub’s fourth missile, when the shock wave from twin blasts at a distance of one hundred feet tumbled the Type 094 submarine on its side, sending him crashing against a console.

Lights flickered and screens turned to snow while sonar operators jerked back, yanking off their headphones. The hull trembled and sailors rolled inside the control room as the ship absorbed the acoustic energy piercing the depths. Resonating across its full length, it popped dozens of rivets like machine guns, shattering panels and consoles, injuring sailors, and sparking off bulkheads.

Water began streaming from several places, short-circuiting systems as panels went dark. The submarine struggled to straighten itself.

Shubei regained his footing under the crimson glow of emergency lanterns. “Take us down!” he finally shouted, holding the side of his bleeding face. “All ahead flank! Right full rudder! Set depth seven-zero-zero feet! And get those leaks under control!”

As his crew went to work, Shubei tried very hard to hide his shock, wondering how in the world someone had managed to drop depth charges right on top of his vessel while operating well within the kill zone of the naval base’s batteries of surface-to-air missiles.

* * *

Amanda climbed towards Ricardo’s Lightning high up in the sky. But even higher, and barely visible in the upper atmosphere, she spotted the very faint plume of the first ballistic missile.

USS LAKE CHAMPLAIN (CG 57), TAIWAN STRAIT

Lt. Cmdr. Barbara Giannotti was the OOD on the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser when the call came in from Liberty Bell.

She immediately placed the ship on general quarters and said, “Get the captain on the bridge, pronto!”

Champlain cruised a mile aft of Vinson, equipped with the general-purpose, multi-mission Aegis weapons system that integrated air, surface, anti-submarine warfare sensors and engagement systems. The globally deployed Aegis provided the first line of defense for the fleet and land-based targets.

Standing behind the Aegis operators, Barbara tracked the JL-2 missile’s speed, altitude, and range as it arced through the stratosphere in a parabolic flight that left little room for speculation as to its intended target: the middle of the carrier group.

“Commander, I have three MIRVs,” the Aegis operator reported the instant the JL-2 missile released its payload of three multiple independent reentry vehicles, each presumably carrying a nuclear warhead.

“What’s happening, BG?” the captain asked, rushing inside the bridge, followed by two more officers.

“Incoming MIRVs, sir,” Barbara replied, pointing to the complex Aegis system already locked on the incoming warheads, one aimed at the front of the carrier group, the second at the center, and the third at the rear.

“Carry on,” the captain said.

“Cut them loose,” she said, giving the order to fire three RIM-174A Standard Extended Range Active Missiles with a range of 250 nautical miles and a ceiling higher than 110,000 feet.

Her heartbeat rocketing and her throat going dry, Barbara turned to see the first stage of the twenty-one-foot ERAMs ignite in a blaze that painted the surrounding night sky in shades of orange and white. The solid-propellant plumes splashed against the sleek outline of the guided-missile cruiser as they shot off from their respective Vertical Launching Tubes.

Don’t fail me, babies, she thought as the ERAMs hurtled skyward toward their respective targets, which were starting their descent through the upper atmosphere, entering their terminal phase.

Reaching a speed of Mach 3.5, the ERAMs became mere specks high in the southwestern skies before a bright flash indicated their second stages igniting, propelling them through their final interception courses.

“Eight seconds to impact,” the Aegis operator reported as Barbara felt a pressure in her chest and realized she had been holding her breath.

She exhaled slowly as three back-to-back flashes sparked high in the sky over the South China Sea, and a few seconds later, she heard their distant sonic booms, the sounds reminding her of Fourth of July reports.

“Targets down,” the Aegis operator replied.

As the bridge exploded in celebration, Barbara turned to her smiling CO and whispered, “Gotta hit the head, sir.” She barely had time to make it before she vomited.