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Crap, what the heck are we flying into?” he thought.

The two Hornets hit their afterburners and, in seconds, were zooming toward their maximum speed as they quickly closed the distance to the cargo vessels. In a matter of minutes, they came within range of their cameras and beamed the video back to the Ford, where they would analyze the ships for potential threats.

Lieutenant Commander Mary Teller, his back seater, was looking at the video display when she suddenly blurted out, “Those aren’t cargo holds, Josh. Those are vertical launch systems… hundreds of them!”

“Are you sure, Mary?” McDaniel asked in shock. “I’ve never heard of a VLS system on anything outside of a warship.”

“I’m telling you, those are VLSs. The entire ship is covered in them,” she replied. “I’m going to radio back to the carrier to see if they see it as well.”

“Hang on, Mary,” he said. “I’m going to make a low pass over the ships, so we can get a better look at them.”

He slowed them down and began a descent. Just as McDaniel flew over the first cargo ship, his missile warning alarm sounded in his headset, letting him know an enemy missile had just locked on to him. Before he even had a chance to react, his aircraft was hit by a Chinese FN-6 man-portable air-defense system, or MANPAD, erupting in flames before either he or his back seater was able to eject. His wingman, who had been flying at a slightly higher altitude, suddenly found himself being chased down by three FN-6 missiles as well. The missiles were so quick, they left very little time to react or get away. In mere seconds, both Hornets were downed.

* * *

Vice Admiral Jeff Richards sat in the wardroom, compiling some notes for a report he planned on writing following the end of the battle with the PLA Navy. He wanted to make sure he captured some ideas and feelings he had prior to the battle starting.

Lifting his cup of coffee to his lips, he took a long drink from the now-lukewarm java.

Suddenly, the general quarters alarm sounded. Instinctively, he got up and quickly made his way to the CIC to find out what was going on.

It took him nearly five minutes to move through the maze of corridors and ladder wells, wading through all the sailors running to and from one location to another. When he entered the CIC, he saw controlled chaos as the men and women running the CIC expertly managed the situation unfolding around them.

“Talk to me, people,” he said. “What the heck is going on?”

One of the battle managers, who had been watching the video images being relayed by the two Hornets, yelled out, “Raptor Flight is down! Raptor Flight is down!”

The CAG quickly jumped on that. “What do you mean, they’re down? Did they just disappear?”

“Sir, they were transmitting video and then all of a sudden it stopped. One second, they were there, and then everything went black. I think they may have been shot down,” he replied.

“Bring up the video they were broadcasting just before it went blank,” said Captain Fleece. She began biting her fingernails nervously.

The video began. To their collective horror, they saw what the pilots must have seen just before they died. The forward sections of the cargo vessels were covered in vertical launch systems. These merchant raiders had been converted into cruise missile platforms. They were less than 460 kilometers from the fleet, well within their operational range. Couple that with the flash message they’d just received, and it was suddenly clear — the fleet was moving right into a cleverly laid Chinese trap.

As Admiral Richards realized what was happening, anger billowed up inside him and he lashed out at his strike group commander and captain. “Why were these vessels not checked sooner? How could we have let them get so close to the fleet?” he yelled.

Admiral Cord and Captain Fleece were silent and stonefaced.

“Never mind,” said Richards, softening his tone. “We have to deal with them. I want those ships sunk now before they can launch their missiles, if we’re not already too late.”

Captain Fleece turned to the CAG. “Scramble your airwing,” she ordered. “Have them focus on disabling the enemy missiles that will be headed our way soon.”

Admiral Cord went to work getting the rest of the strike group ready and organized to deal with the newly identified threat. She ordered two more destroyers to move in the direction of the cargo vessels, since this would be the direction the largest quantity of enemy missiles would be traveling from. She also handed Admiral Richards the flash message from NORAD about the imminent attack. He only shook his head, as if he had known this was going to happen.

This is Korea all over again…” thought Richards.

He turned and walked over to a small cluster of workstations he had taken over, separate from where Admiral Cord would be coordinating her strike group. He needed to make sure the fleet was adjusting their ship formation and placing their defenses in the area most likely to receive the largest volume of enemy missiles. He also wanted to get on the radio to Guam and see if the Air Force would be able to get some tankers headed out in his direction so he could keep his aircraft in the air longer over the fleet while they dealt with this new threat.

* * *

Twenty-six thousand feet above the Allied fleet below, the myriad of surveillance cameras on the MQ-4C Triton UAV captured ballistic missile launches from the islands of Taiwan and Luzon. Within seconds, a short burst message was detected between the Chinese fleet and the cargo vessels. Shortly after, one of the now-classified merchant raiders fired off its missiles at the American fleet. While the first vessel disgorged its missiles, the Chinese destroyers with the main fleet also fired off their first volley of anti-ship missiles.

When the first merchant raider finished firing off its first set of two hundred missiles, the next two raiders fired off their own barrage. A couple of minutes went by, and then all five raiders fired off another barrage of missiles, holding their final barrage in reserve. As the missiles leveled out and headed toward the American fleet, it became clear the Chinese had timed the launches and elevation of the missiles so they would converge on the American fleet from multiple height levels and directions. This would make it significantly harder for the fleet’s close-in defense systems to move from one target to the next.

While the data was being transmitted to Guam and the fleet below, the outer skin of the drone suddenly became superheated. The paint started to peel, and in a fraction of a second, the inside guts of the drone overheated. Then the UAV suddenly crumpled under its own weight and airspeed as it disintegrated from the heat of a high-energy beam.

* * *

“Admiral Cord, we just lost the Triton feed,” announced a very nervous lieutenant. “One minute it was fine, sending us targeting data of the incoming missiles — then it just cut out. It’s no longer transmitting any data. Its transponder is also out.”

Cord grumbled. “Send a message out to the other strike groups about what just happened. Launch more drones and tell everyone to switch to the alternate plan. Unless the Chinese shoot our satellites down again, we’ll switch back to them,” she said, hoping the satellites would be able to pick up the slack.

The military satellite system was still recovering from the first Russian attack, when they’d carried out a complex “internet of things” attack that overheated many of the internal systems on the satellites, burning them out. SpaceX had been incredibly busy launching replacement satellites into orbit as fast as the factories could produce them. However, despite the valiant efforts by SpaceX and the satellite producers, not all of them had been replaced yet, so the ones they did have operating could only handle so much data.