Anyone standing was instantly thrown to the deck, or into a bulkhead. The shock was hard enough to break bone. It also knocked dozens of pieces of machinery and electronic equipment out of commission as it rippled through the hull. The ship’s screws, turned slightly toward the mine, were both shattered, and the propeller shafts were twisted out of true. Worst of all, both diesel engines, massive multiton blocks of steel, were torn off their foundations and slammed into bulkheads.
As the force of the explosion whipped through the minelayer it sprung the seams on several hull plates. Some of her structural members were broken and a spot on the hull nearest the blast was dished in. The ship’s keel was actually bent, wrenched out of alignment. But Sachsenwald was still watertight. Her hull was not breached.
The worst result was fire. Diesel fuel pipes, cracked by the shock and still under pressure, spewed a fine mist into the engineering compartment. The minelayer had righted itself, and was starting a roll in the other direction, when a spark ignited the fuel-air mixture. Another explosion rumbled through the ship, killing every man in engineering instantly.
Those of the bridge crew who could stand were getting up when they heard and felt the thunder aft. A quick glance back confirmed their worst fears. A wide, dark column of black smoke billowed high above their ship. Flames licked red and orange deep in the heart of the smoke.
Sachsenwald’s captain, sitting on the deck with a broken ankle, ordered damage control teams into action on the double. He had already determined to fight for his ship’s life as long as she was above water. He had no choice. If the fire burned out of control, no one abandoning ship could possibly get far enough away in time.
But the fire was already out of control. Ruptured bulkheads had allowed the flames to reach the mine hold aft. Broken in a dozen places, its automatic sprinkler system couldn’t put out enough water to keep the mines cool.
Only a fifth of Sachsenwald’s mines had been laid, so the compartment was still packed to capacity. Heated to near-red heat by the flames roaring through the hold, several of them “cooked off,” detonating and starting a chain reaction. SAI mines were smaller than the British Stonefish, but there were eight hundred of them aboard the minelayer — more than sixty tons of high explosive crammed together in a small space.
Sachsenwald disappeared in a wall of water, fire, smoke, and hurtling debris — shredded by a stuttering series of explosions, each big enough to have wrecked the ship by itself. Separate blasts followed each other so closely that they were almost indistinguishable. It took almost forty-five seconds for all the mines to explode.
Several were blown clear and burst in midair, or in the water after they landed.
The shock wave roaring outward from the fireball and smoke cloud was strong enough to rock the furthest ship, Koln, a Bremen-class frigate nearly three kilometers away. Pieces of Sachsenwald’s shattered hull cascaded onto her deck, smashing radar and radio antennas and killing several sailors caught out in the open. All of the minelayer’s escorts were damaged by flying debris.
There was worse to come.
While racing to the scene, Bayern, the other escorting frigate, fell afoul of another of Ursula’s Stonefish mines. Gutted by the resulting blast, she also sank. Unlike Sachsenwald, though, some of her crewmen survived.
Some years ago, the Defense Ministry’s old basement storage areas had been gutted and replaced by a state-of-the-art situation room. Although not a true command center, the room did allow ministry officials, as well as the rest of the French national leadership, to see the big picture while still being close to their offices and the comforts of the capital.
The gleaming facility, filled with floor-to-ceiling color map displays and computer terminals, was the pride of French industry. High-ranking foreign visitors were often taken on tours, to showcase the technology that France might provide to them, for a price.
With most of the Confederation’s Defense Committee there, the room was crowded to capacity. French and German officers of all services filled the space, tensely discussing the unfolding events. Nicolas Desaix, flanked by Admiral Gibierge, sat in one of the elevated seats near the center.
They were watching a battle. Gibierge had alerted his superiors the evening before that the Combined Forces were moving.
An increased number of enemy surveillance flights, a sharp rise in the amount of coded radio traffic, and unusual activity at British airfields had convinced him that the offensive he had predicted was about to begin. He was right.
Some officials, notably the Defense Minister and his closest military subordinates, arrived before dawn. They were in time to see the Tomahawk strikes raining down all over France and Germany, to hear the reports of Sachsenwald’s and Bayern’s loss, and to receive news of a commando attack on the naval base at Brest. All were bad in themselves, but the men in the situation room knew they were just the opening moves. Like the first drops of rain, these pinprick raids around the periphery would continue throughout the storm. Everyone waited for the lightning.
The center screen had been set up to show the Channel coast, the Low Countries, Germany’s north coast, and the southern half of the North Sea. Data from many sources, including an American-built E-3 radar plane, was fused into a single integrated picture. As Desaix watched, a second E-3 took off from its base at Avord, reinforcing the one already aloft.
Colored symbols flowed across the display, showing aircraft and ship positions, courses, and speeds. Even an amateur could see patterns in the movement: fighters and antisubmarine planes on their patrols, ships entering and leaving port, and, in the center, two massive groups of red symbols.
Tracking the American carrier battle groups had been easy. In the crowded North Sea, information was more important than concealment, so almost every American radar was on. EurCon surveillance units had located each radiating ship and classified them based on the types of radars they carried. Other ships, not radiating, could be seen by airborne radar.
One symbol was labeled George Washington, another Theodore Roosevelt.
Each was surrounded by a cluster of red ship symbols — their escorts, tankers, and replenishment ships. Circles, centered on the carriers, showed the range of their aircraft and their escorts’ land attack cruise missiles. Other circles, centered on French and German air bases, showed the range of the aircraft based there. The range circle for George Washington almost touched the German coast near Wilhelmshaven.
Gibierge checked the clock, then leaned over and whispered to Desaix. “Our strike is launching now, Foreign Minister. With luck, we can catch the Americans right in the act of launching their own attacks.”
“Won’t they see it coming?” asked Desaix.
The admiral shook his head confidently. “We have jammer aircraft screening the attack formation, both standing off and providing direct escort for our strike planes. By the time the Americans can get a clear picture, our strike will be in the air and well on its way.” He smiled wolfishly. “These Combined Forces are moving exactly as we expected them to. We will make them pay for their predictability.”