James Rosone, Miranda Watson
Cyber Warfare and the New World Order
USS Utah
Captain Hughes was feeling irritated; as a military man who had had years of punctuality violently punched into his brain, it really sent a bristling feeling up his spine to be running late for anything. Of course, it wasn’t his fault that his submarine, the USS Utah was the last vessel to make it to Hawaii. The sub had sustained some damage to its targeting system while battling Chinese destroyers off the coast of South Africa, and they had to stop while it was repaired for two days before making their way to San Diego to re-arm. They had made up a lot of time on their long journey from the South Atlantic Ocean to the Californian West Coast, but that didn’t stop Hughes from feeling like he wanted to punch a wall.
“Captain of the Boat (COB), can we make any further increase in speed?” asked Hughes.
“No, Sir. We are maxing out our capacity. Anything more and we will begin to cause damage,” replied the COB.
Captain Hughes popped all his knuckles, and then took a deep breath. He was eager for action. They were still several hundred miles away from the fleet of U.S. cruisers, SUDs, destroyers and frigates that were ready to engage the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) off the coast of Hawaii.
To try and calm himself down, he reviewed the battle plans again. The Japanese ships would attack the PLAN from the northwest of the Hawaiian Islands, and then the Americans would surround the fleet from the southeast. Like a shark catching the scent of blood in the water, he was eager for the hunt.
Patience was not Captain Hughes’ strongpoint. Even though they were still too far away to participate in the action, when the appointed time of attack arrived, he rushed over to the monitoring stations to get the most updated information about the situation on the frontlines.
What he heard was nothing short of chaos. The Japanese fleet began to send a flurry of messages.
“May Day, May Day! There were unknown Chinese submarines in the water! Please assist!” called one JDF Captain over the radio.
“We are taking fire from Chinese aircraft! Significant damage to our ship!” shouted another.
A third voice cried, “Attention! Cruise missiles have just been launched at us! Our hull is beginning to take on water. Performing evasive maneuvers to make it to the coastline.”
Captain Hughes could not imagine a scenario in which the Japanese forces would be so horribly beaten down so quickly. “Was our intel on the Chinese capabilities that far off?” he wondered.
He turned to the screen where they had the visual link established with the SUDs, but just as he directed his eyes that way, several torpedoes streaked towards the submarines. Then the video feeds cut out.
Hughes turned to Petty Officer Jack Davis, who manned a different readout. “Davis, can you tell whether the SUDs made it through the attack?”
Jack furiously typed for a moment as he tried to clarify the data he was looking at. “Sir, two of the SUDs were definitely destroyed. A third was badly damaged, but still holding together as far as I can tell. The fourth SUD seems to have disappeared from the face of the Earth.”
“Well, get to work Petty Officer! I want to find out what happened as soon as possible,” barked Hughes.
“Yes, Sir,” responded Davis. His fingers moved so quickly on the keyboard that it practically created smoke.
Suddenly, they received a radio transmission from the operator of the missing SUD. “Captain Hughes, if you can hear me, our readouts show that we’ve been attacked by three Chinese submarines. Wait…now also detecting several torpedoes that were dropped via helicopter…”
“What just happened, operator?” demanded the Captain.
“Sir, we’ve lost all transmissions from the SUD. It’s been destroyed,” he stammered.
Time stood still for just a moment as that information sunk in; Captain Hughes was lost in a quagmire of thoughts. 1t Petty Officer Nguyen jolted him out of that nebulous swirl of contemplation. “—Sir, we cannot detect any torpedoes headed towards the location where the Japanese fleet was supposed to be. We are still pretty far away, but our advanced sensors should have been able to pick up something.”
“Let’s send up a surveillance drone immediately,” ordered the Captain. “We need to have as much visual and electronic intelligence of what is going on as possible.”
The Utah rose to a depth of 40 ft. and launched their surveillance drone. This small solar-powered device could stay aloft indefinitely (if needed) and follow the Utah to provide continual surveillance and relay communications to other surface ships. As the drone gained altitude, it activated its long-range radar, capturing a picture of what was going on with the Japanese fleet and US naval ships in the area.
To their surprise, they did not see a swarm of Chinese aircraft or cruise missiles heading towards the Japanese fleet; it looked like the Chinese were only closing in on the small contingent of eight American ships. They could tell that those American ships were desperately trying to fight off the attack, but the numbers were clearly against them. They were going to be sunk. Something was still not adding up…
Suddenly, the communications link they had just established with the American ships was cut off before they could connect with them.
“Captain, we just lost contact with our drone and with the SUDs as well. We were receiving a message from them, but the transmission just cut off,” reported Commander Mitcham. He tried to maintain composure, but some of the color had gone out of his cheeks, making him appear ghostly as he spoke.
Captain Hughes was not one hundred percent sure what it all meant, but he had a bad feeling in his gut, so he ordered the ship to dive. “Chief of the Boat, take us down to depth 500 feet and get us under the thermal plain.”
The Chief of the Boat (COB), barked some orders to the sailors driving the boat. Over the PA system, a voice suddenly barked, “Dive! Dive! Dive!” Everyone braced themselves for the sudden jolt, and then the ship lurched downward.
Captain Hughes pulled his Commanding Officer (XO) over to the side and leaned in closer to his ear so only he could hear him speak. “Mitcham, go down to the Coms room and see what’s going on. We need to figure out what in the world is happening, understood?” directed the Captain.
The XO quickly asked, “You think the Chinese just knocked our communications out?”
“I’m not sure; it could just be a system glitch and those guys back in San Diego didn’t correctly fix it, but I want to make sure we know what’s going on before the rumor mill starts and people start to get nervous,” replied the Captain, running his fingers nervously through his hair.
“Ok, I’ll head over now,” the XO whispered as he headed off on his mission.
Out of nowhere, the Emergency Action Message (EAM) turned on and began to spit out a message. Lieutenant Commander Grady, the intelligence officer was nearby and grabbed the note as soon as it was done printing and walked it over to the Captain. “Captain, this isn’t good,” Commander Grady said as he showed the captain the EAM:
****FLASH****COMSUBPAC****FLASH****
SSN-801, DEFENSE COMMUNICATIONS UNDER CYBER ATTACK. REVERT TO UHF FOR COMMUNICATIONS. PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY AIR FORCE AIRBORNE TROOPS HEADING TOWARDS POINT LOMA AND SAN DIEGO. JAPANESE NAVAL TASK FORCE HEAVILY DAMAGED, RETREATING TO LOS ANGELES. TAKE UP STATION 25 MILES OFF OCEANSIDE, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA AND STANDBY FOR FURTHER ORDERS. END.
****FLASH****COMSUBPAC****FLASH****
The Captain looked over the EAM, digesting what it all meant. From what they saw with the limited drone data, the Japanese task force had not been attacked and it was the American task force that was being wiped out. None of this made any sense.