Around the rim of the South China Sea, similar events were taking place. On the Peninsula, every major fighter and transport air base was being hit by submarine-launched BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles. Aging B-52Hs from the 2nd Bombardment Wing at Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, staged out of Diego Garcia, launched waves of cruise missiles, taking out communications and command centers. The ships of PHIBRON 11 and their escorts would be effectively invisible to the Malaysians, until they came within sight of land.
25 nm/45.7 km North of the Coast of Brunei, 0200 Hours, September 20th, 2008
The LCAC slowed to a crawl and dropped its stern ramp just long enough for six rigid raider craft to slide out onto the gentle swell. Then it turned and headed back towards Iwo Jima (LPD-18), its mother ship, over the horizon, as Marines of the 31st MEU (SOC)'s Force Reconnaissance Platoon started their specially silenced outboard motors and headed inshore toward the mangrove swamps along Brunei's western border. Before sunrise, the boats would be securely hidden and the Marines would be humping through coastal jungle toward a daytime hideout on the edge of the rain forest. At the same time, a single MV-22B Osprey from the MEU (SOC)'s ACE made a low-level approach to the coast east of Brunei. Hugging the hills and dodging in and out of lush valleys, it made five touch-and-go landings, dropping off four-man reconnaissance teams. With their special observation and surveillance equipment, the teams would give Colonel Taskins continuous location and status reports on Malaysian forces in Brunei. Tomorrow night, they would all be very busy Marines.
Seria LNG Terminal, Brunei, 0000 Hours, September 21st, 2008
The Brunei-Shell Tankers motor vessel Bubuk was one of a handful of similar merchant ships that flew Brunei's gold, black, and white flag. Extraordinary ships they were. They displaced over 51,000 tons, and their specialized cargo was liquefied natural gas, stored at frigid temperatures in huge insulated spherical tanks that filled the spacious hulls. Crewed by expatriate British officers and Pakistani hands, a fleet of these vessels shuttled between Brunei and Japan. Bubuk was the only one that had been caught in port by the Malaysian takeover. The ship was not just an enormously valuable asset and a symbol of national sovereign; it was a floating bomb with the potential explosive force of a tactical nuke. Accidental or deliberate detonation of over 2,648,610 ft/75,000 m of volatile LNG would level Seria, a town of 25,000 people, along with several billion dollars worth of capital equipment. Tropic Fury planners quickly determined that Bubuk would have to be seized and secured, very carefully. This was exactly the kind of mission that U.S. Navy SEALs trained for, dreamed about, and salivated over. PHIBRON 11's SEAL detachment, embarked aboard Iwo Jima (LPD-18), drew the assignment.
Bubuk's designers had thoughtfully provided a small helipad over the stern, and this was the point of entry for the main SEAL boarding party-rappelling down a rope from a hovering CH-53. Reconnaissance had confirmed the presence of a handful of sentries on deck and around the jetty. They were taken out in just seconds after a series of stealthy bounds, followed by silenced shots from the SEALs' MP-5s. It took only a few minutes to liberate the crew from enforced captivity in the berthing areas, escort them to their stations, and get under way. Luckily, the Malaysians had allowed one engine to stay on-line to maintain the ship's electrical power, and in less than ten minutes the huge LNG ship was backing away from the pier, setting course to the north, out of harm's way.
Crossing the 12-m/22-km territorial limit, they passed a formation of fifteen AAAVs, headed ashore from Iwo Jima (LPD-18) at over 30 kt/55 kph. At the same time, a pair of AH-1W Cobra attack helicopters flew by, escorting the amphibious tractors to the beach. Ten minutes later, six LCACs from Bon Homme Richard (LHD-6) and Germantown (LSD-42) skimmed by, carrying M1A1 tanks and LAVs that would join the AAAVs, to form the armored task force that would take and hold western Brunei's oil production and storage facilities. It was less than thirty minutes to H-Hour.
Port of Muara, Brunei, 0100 Hours, September 21st, 2008
The patrol boats were going to be a problem. Captain Bill Schneider, commander of Golf Company, had obsessed about it for a week. His company of Marines had one of the toughest assignments of the entire operation. Dropped offshore in fragile, rigid raiding craft from Iwo Jima, they were to seize Muara's port facilities precisely at 0100. The sprawling cargo container port had the only wharf in the country that could accommodate the MPS ships, now standing by only 200 nm/366 km offshore. To deal with any patrol boats, he had placed Javelin teams in several of the lead boats, with orders to shoot first and count the pieces later. There was no time for such niceties as identification this evening.
Another problem was keeping the Malaysians from getting the alarm out on their arrival. The Malaysian communications net relied on almost untraceable satellite phones, registered with INMARSAT under the names of private businesses. Theoretically, the INMARSAT treaty prohibited use of its satellite channels for military operations, but the Eurocrats who controlled the system had stonewalled American attempts to impose an orbital "data embargo." International satellite telecommunications was a fiercely competitive business, and no Third World rogue state would ever trust a service provider that knuckled under to Western diplomatic pressure. But NSA technical wizards had provided the answer. One of the rigid raiders carried a compact, high-powered jammer that would disrupt cellular and satellite communications within a roughly 3-nm/5-km radius. Just enough to let the Marines establish a lodgment on the cargo wharf.
The raiders managed to get all the way to the dock before they were noticed. The two-man guard posts at the end of the pier were knocked out before they could sound an alarm. Within minutes, the Marines secured the wharf and a two-block perimeter of warehouses. They quickly set up strongpoints, anchored by a Javelin team and a light machine gun. This done, the young captain began to send out patrols aggressively, to determine whether the follow-on operation could start at midday. The patrols confirmed that the bulk of the Malaysian forces were dug in around the oil facilities and the international airport. Captain Schneider called Colonel Taskins in Bon Homme Richard's (LHD-6) LFOC, using his own secure satellite link. He recommending committing the reserve company at the dock, where resistance was minimal. This done, he settled down to defend his position and "hold until relieved."
BSB International Airport, Brunei, 0111 Hours, September 21st, 2008
Major Yasin had been wondering when the Americans would hit him, and was surprised when they had not struck the night before. Now he was receiving scattered reports of fighting at the oil production facilities and the harbor, but nothing in his area. At the request of his brigade commander, he released one company to head west to the oil fields. He was thankful that the Malaysian command had never authorized taking hostages or holding the civil population at risk. This whole affair was economic; pure and simple. This kept the battle honorable, though theft of a whole country still bothered him.
He was still contemplating the delicate balance of national policy and personal morality when eight HARMs, launched by AV-8s from Bon Homme Richard, crashed into his anti-aircraft and SAM positions, followed by a rain of GBU-29 JDAMS bombs. Before the thunder of the explosions had stilled, there was another more ominous sound. He heard the engines of heavy jet transports, growing quickly louder. As a stream of big planes passed overhead, he realized what was coming, and sounded the alarm. It did him little good. The 1st Battalion of the 325th Airborne jumped from an altitude of 500 feet/152.4 meters, putting them on the ground and into action quickly. Having been dropped with surprising precision directly on their objectives, the heavy weapons positions around the field, they took most of them within seconds of hitting the ground.