Looking at Commander Grady, the Captain said, “This just doesn’t jive. The message says the Japanese were attacked and are retreating to L.A. — but before our drone was taken offline, we couldn’t see any signs that they had been damaged at all. We picked up the same messages from the JDF COMSUBPAC, but the drone’s radar and other sensors couldn’t find any sign of this supposed battle. What are your thoughts?” asked the Captain.
Commander Grady paused briefly before he responded, “Sir, I agree, none of this makes sense. Before the drone feed cut out, we were analyzing what was going on with the Japanese fleet. What we saw was the JDF fleet turning away from Hawaii and heading towards L.A. at what appeared to be flank speed. The JDF continued to emit distress calls saying they were under attack, but we could not detect what confrontation they were talking about. Another strange thing my analyst reported was that he saw several JDF anti-submarine helicopters heading back towards the carriers. Back-tracing their flight tracks, it places them right on top of our SUDs just as they were reporting being under attack by Chinese torpedoes and being destroyed.”
Commander Grady cleared his throat before he continued, “My other analyst was looking at the PLAN fleet, and she saw the ships had changed direction from heading towards the JDF to a track that would take them to San Diego…they were also heading at flank speed. Sir, my guys need a bit more time to make a full case, but I believe we may have just been sucker-punched by the JDF and the PLAN.” His fists clenched tighter as he spoke, an unconscious expression of his anger.
Despite the mounting evidence, Captain Hughes looked surprised by Commander Grady’s implication. He responded in a very calculated manner. “I think you are right… you need more time to analyze the information before making a call like that. We need to be one hundred percent certain before we make that assumption. In the meantime, we will move towards Oceanside at best speed and get on station. I want to have an officer’s meeting in the boardroom in one hour. You have until then to determine what in the blazes just happened, Commander.”
Nodding in agreement, Grady answered, “Yes, Sir. We’ll get this figured out sir. Sorry if I was jumping to a conclusion before I had all the facts.”
Not wanting to discourage his newly promoted Commander, the Captain countered, “No, it’s not your fault. I just want to make sure everyone has all the full details of this cluster mess before we make a decision that could cost us all our careers. Attacking an ally is no small step.”
Almost an hour had gone by, and still no one really knew what had happened until Commander Mitcham called from the Coms room. “Captain Hughes, we’ve been able to regain control of the surveillance drone by using the Ultra-High Frequency (UHF) system. Once we re-established connection, we moved the drone closer in the direction of the JDF fleet to see what was going on. We’ve been able to determine with certainty that the Japanese fleet did not sustain any damage or losses; they are still moving at flank speed towards Los Angeles.”
“Sir,” he continued, “We also saw wreckage and life boats in the vicinity of where the America frigates and destroyers had been when they were attacked. A couple of PLAN ships were nearly to them already, and will probably pick them up, interning the crews as POWs for the remainder of the war.”
The Captain turned to Commander Grady, “After we relay this information to the COMSUBPAC, it’s time to call the meeting of the senior officers to discuss what our next steps are.”
The pow-wow lasted for twenty minutes as they pieced all the information together. Finally, the Captain spoke up, “So, I think we all collectively agree that the JDF must have sunk the SUDs using Chinese torpedoes to make it look like the Chinese were really the attackers. The question remains — was this the action of a rogue JDF Admiral, or did Japan just officially join the war on the side of the Axis?”
“That about sums it up, Sir,” replied the COB. “I’m not sure we will be able to come to a 100 % conclusion on that one. Should we go ahead and use our drone to send our assessment off to the COMSUBPAC?”
“Yes, go ahead. I want you to also request permission to engage the JDF Fleet. We are closer to them than the PLAN fleet.”
“Roger that, Captain.”
Angels in Flight
Major Theodore Cruse’s flight of F41 Archangels had relocated to the Groom Lake Region (commonly referred to as Area 51) two days ago, after a reporter from the Boston Globe wrote a piece that mentioned that the F41s were flying out of Minot, North Dakota. Their team had changed Air Force bases a couple of times to try and keep the Russian and Chinese intelligence guessing at their location. America did not have many F41s, so the few they did have needed to be protected at all costs.
Colonel Leed walked into the flight operations room and found Major Cruse talking with one of the intelligence operations officers. He approached him quickly and signaled to get his attention before he interjected, “Major Cruse, we just received an emergency message via the UHF system, scrambling your flight to head towards Hawaii to assist the JDF fleet that is currently engaging the PLAN. Apparently, the Chinese got the jump on them and they are in trouble. The message also said we lost four of our underwater drone subs, so we have lost all real-time information and intelligence of what is going on right now.” The colonel was visibly sweating as he spoke.
The other officers near Cruse who had overheard the conversation were dumbfounded by the announcement. The Air Force had worked up an ironclad plan to support the JDF fleet’s amphibious assault of the Hawaiian Islands. Now it appeared that fleet was in shambles.
Major Cruse digested the announcement and then turned around to alert the rest of his officers and get them to their aircraft. It took them twenty minutes to get their flight suits on and get the F41s ready airborne. Once in the air, they immediately began heading towards Hawaii at maximum pace. Even at top speed, it was still going to take the flight of six F41s close to two hours before they would be on station and able to assess the situation.
Major Cruse immediately began to try and get in touch with the JDF fleet via the UHF system until their digital links could be re-established. After several attempts, they were finally able to let them know they were about two hours away from their position and would be on station shortly to assist them. After about five minutes, the JDF responded back, asking if Major Cruse could share their flight information and tracking signal so they could monitor their progress and share information with them as it came available. Not knowing that the JDF had just turned on the Americans, Major Cruse agreed and established a real-time tracking link of their location to help better coordinate the fleet defenses.
Thus far, Admiral Tomohisa Kawano’s fleet had pulled off the greatest surprise attack in history. The PLA hackers had been able to use their access to the American Defense Communication System to take it down and massively disrupt communications on the West Coast of America. The PLAN had launched a massive missile attack against the ten American ships that were heading towards the JDF fleet to assist them. The U.S. Task Force consisted of four guided missile frigates, three destroyers and one guided missile cruiser — a formidable group, but no match for the PLAN fleet on their own. All but one of the ships was sunk in the attack; however, one of the guided missile cruisers managed to escape, taking only minor damage, and headed at full speed back towards San Diego.