After Sarah and Fletcher had left, General Stephens sat back in his chair reflecting on their options. Deep in thought, Stephens didn’t register the phone ringing at first. On the third ring he came out of his reverie and answered languidly.
‘This is General Stephens.’
‘General, surveillance has identified three Chinese aircraft moving at hypersonic speed down the east coast towards Sydney.’
‘Jesus.’ General Stephens’ eyes widened.
There was a knock at the door and two security officers walked in. ‘Sir, you’re required in the conference room immediately. Please come with us.’
‘Yes, of course,’ replied General Stephens.
The two security agents led the general down the corridor and into the lift, which dropped quickly. Once through the security protocols, General Stephens walked into the dimly-lit conference room. Looking up at the main screen showing real-time satellite images of the three jets, he found himself marvelling for a second that the image was so clear, given how fast the jets were travelling. The images were so detailed they could make out the pilots and see their arms reaching to press buttons in their cockpits.
‘Time to reach Sydney?’ asked General Stephens.
‘Two minutes, sir,’ said the young operations officer seated at the other end of the long table.
Sarah and Fletcher walked in, mouths dropping as they took in the image of the fighters on the screen.
‘Have all the appropriate services been alerted — fire, ambulance, hospitals, police?’ demanded the general.
‘Yes, all services have been alerted according to protocols,’ replied Sarah.
‘Fletch. Likely targets?’
‘We’re really not sure. Could be the nuclear power facilities, could be Garden Island naval base, or Port Botany. They’re our likely targets.’
‘Have they been warned?’
‘Yes, Marty. We’ve done everything we can. A fighter squadron has been launched from Picton, but at this rate they are still five minutes away.’
General Stephens looked up at the screen again. The image of the jets pulled back to show the coastline as they tore past a populated area.
‘That was Newcastle, sir,’ announced the imaging operator.
Then the jets slowed as Sydney came into view.
‘Sir, they’ve reduced speed to Mach 0.9.’
General Stephens and the others sat, mesmerised by the image on the screen as the jets, still in formation, turned sharply down the harbour.
‘It’s got to be Garden Island,’ said Fletcher, staring at the screen, horrified.
The recently installed Garden Island missile defence battery located on the waterfront at the naval base had struggled to achieve a radar-lock, given the low altitude of the jets. Inside their crowded control room, it was pandemonium. As the jets passed Palm Beach on the Northern Beaches, the Garden Island radars locked on, a shrill alarm was emitted in the control room and the head operator immediately slammed the fire button. Over 100 missiles erupted from the large square missile battery. Shooting out to meet the jets, they left a cloud of smoke lingering above the water. Individual guidance computers, constantly calculating the expected point of contact with the Chinese warplanes, controlled each missile. They worked both individually and as a network by splaying themselves to create the widest possible line of defence. With three seconds to calculated impact, the missiles disintegrated, firing thousands of pieces of shrapnel forward and creating a huge curtain of destruction through which the fighter planes could never fly unscathed.
The moment the missiles had launched, the state-of-the-art Chinese fighters detected the threat and automatically released counter-measures, taking evasive action. The computers took over the planes, as human reaction speeds could never compete — there were only microseconds to evade the missile defence. When the missiles exploded, creating their defence curtain, the Chinese jets were already well away and were stabilising and returning to their flight path.
The jets screamed through the heads of Sydney Harbour at low altitude — low enough to clip a mast if a yacht got in their way. The noise was deafening. It was 11 am in Sydney and people were going about their daily lives. The war in the desert was everywhere in the media, but still so far away. Most of the people who were quick enough to see the jets thought it was a display by the RAAF.
Three seconds after turning into the harbour, the jets had their target locked and they let loose a total of six TOM-TOMs (Tailored Ordinance Munitions). These missiles were individually programmed to provide precise detonation to deliver the maximum destruction to their target.
The missiles tore ahead of the jets with a trail of fire, smoke and a screaming roar. The three lead missiles, broke away from the formation, shooting high into the sky until they were directly above the bridge before angling down into the bridge. The TOM-TOMs were so accurately guided that they weaved in between the huge spans of the bridge so as to hit the preordained point of contact. All six TOM-TOMs ploughed into the Sydney Harbour Bridge in concert, erupting into a series of fireballs that engulfed the structure.
The jets screamed above the bridge, banking steeply before circling around and heading out the way they had come.
In the conference room of the SOF, they saw it all happen in high-definition.
‘Christ, they’ve hit the bridge,’ muttered Fletcher in shock.
General Stephens stood and stared, teeth bared.
‘Can we estimate how many people were on the bridge?’ he asked, not taking his eyes off the screen.
‘Could be a few hundred,’ said Sarah, stunned.
‘They didn’t even bother with the fucking military targets,’ said Stephens, trying to make sense of it.
The entire centre section of Sydney’s famous landmark and major transport link was engulfed in a cloud of thick black smoke, flames rolling out. The intense heat generated by the explosions quickly melted the steel. Then, with a sickening jolt, one side of the bridge dropped and broke away from the northern end. Vehicles and train carriages slid down into the boiling harbour waters. Then the southern side let go. With a horrifying groan, the entire mid-section of the bridge collapsed, crashing into the harbour, sending fountains of water and steam into the air.
The enormous smoke cloud hung around the bridge like a veil.
‘Dear God, what have they done?’ whispered General Stephens. He ordered Fletcher to get a chopper organised. ‘I want to be there in 30 minutes.’
‘Marty, that is not a good idea. They may… ’
‘I’m not asking. Do it,’ said General Stephens, staring at Fletcher.
Fletcher got up and left to organise the helicopter and fighter escort.
Sarah, responded to her MiLA’s ring, listened for a few seconds, then hung up. ‘General, Chairman Yun wishes to speak to you.’
General Stephens was flustered. He needed to compose himself and he knew it. ‘Okay, set up the link in here, but don’t open the link until I say. Understood?’
‘Yes, General,’ said Sarah, immediately turning to the young operations officer and gesturing for him to leave the room with her.
General Stephens rested his elbows on the table and put his head in his hands. Sitting back in his seat, he took two deep breaths and leaned forward to open the up-link. Chairman Yun’s image came up on the massive screen in crystal-clear high-definition.
Struggling to maintain his composure, General Stephens started. ‘Yun, you have purposely attacked a major city, killing hundreds of civilians. What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
‘General Stephens, I am deeply sorry for your loss of civilian life,’ the chairman said calmly. ‘I am most regretful that it has come to this. However, it was necessary to demonstrate that you will not go unpunished for your continued actions against our supply lines and infrastructure. I learnt yesterday of your attack on a rail bridge near Mount Isa in Queensland. I decided that if you destroy one of my bridges, I will destroy one of yours.’