Admiral Manning nodded, trying not to show the wave of relief that flooded over him. The admiral’s daughter, Victoria Manning, was on board the USS Farragut, serving as the officer in charge of the ship’s helicopter detachment.
The Farragut had entered combat near Guam several days earlier, when the war had begun. Admiral Manning had been thinking about each of his children, but especially his only daughter, Victoria. Technically, the admiral had TACON, or tactical control of her ship. This was an extremely rare situation, and one that in peacetime would likely have been avoided administratively. While he felt an enormous responsibility to each of those he served, the question of Victoria’s well-being had been weighing on him.
“Thank you, Mr. Suggs.” The admiral made brief eye contact. Suggs was sharp. He knew what the admiral was really asking for, and why he was embarrassed to ask. He nodded towards the door on the side of his office.
Suggs opened it and held the door, standing at attention and calling, “Attention on deck!”
The Ford Strike Group conference room, known as the War Room, was once again filled with the senior officers and planners in the strike group. Representatives from all of the clans stood silently at attention as the admiral made his way in: the CAG, leader of the air wing; the commodore, in charge of DESRON; the information warfare commander; and the commanding officer of the aircraft carrier. Each of these men was an O-6, a Navy captain. Several O-5s had been deemed important enough that they also had seats at the center table. The long conference table was then surrounded by two dozen other seats. In front of each of those surrounding chairs stood the midlevel officers: the lieutenants and lieutenant commanders who ran the strike group’s day-to-day operations. These men and women had a variety of different functions. They provided intelligence, planned ship and aircraft movements, wrote the flight schedule, launched and recovered aircraft, and flew the aircraft. They knew everything that was going on in the strike group and communicated with all of the other assets that supported them, like drones, submarines, and special forces units.
“Seats, please.”
The group sat, and the chief of staff, sitting to the admiral’s right, spoke. “Admiral, good afternoon. First up, we have the geopolitical update. Events have been unfolding fast, so we felt it would be good to re-base everyone here on the latest.” The COS nodded towards a Navy intel officer in the front of the room, who went through a few slides with summarized information on the state of the United States and the world three days after the war began.
There were a million names for this brief. Here on the USS Ford, it began every day at zero eight hundred sharp. Military units around the world held the same periodic ritual. Many referred to it as the “ops-intel” brief. Operations and intelligence. This was the meeting where all of the folks running the show heard what was coming and allowed the bosses to hash out any decisions that needed to be made.
Like any military meeting, it was supposed to be quick, efficient, and emotionless. Those qualities were becoming harder to achieve.
“…We are now approximately one hundred and fifty miles south of Midway Island. Our current tasking has us escorting commercial aircraft and ships that are evacuating American families from Japan and Korea.”
Admiral Manning turned to the carrier CO and his CAG. “How many lines today?” The flight schedule operated on a set structure in order to maximize efficiency. Launches and recoveries were conducted in groups, or lines.
“Sir, we have eight planned. A section of fighters on each launch. Alert swing load aircraft on deck if needed.”
“ASW support?”
“We’ll have a P-8 and a P-3 overhead at all times, and three lines of helo coverage.”
Since this brief was classified only at the secret level, the admiral didn’t ask about where the submarines were located, but he knew that there were several fast-attack subs in the water space beneath them.
“VPU has a special projects plane tasked to monitor the US convoys headed out of Japan.”
“All ships and aircraft understand our maneuvering restrictions?” Under the terms of the US-China cease-fire agreement, US military assets were not permitted to travel west of the 144th east longitude line.
“Yes, sir. It’s been put out and is being closely monitored by all warfare commanders and watch teams.”
Admiral Manning nodded and looked at the intel officer standing by the projector screen. “Continue.”
The young officer summarized the situation. The Ford Strike Group, now over twenty ships strong, was moving its warships west to better provide security for the troop transports and cruise liners filled with American civilians fleeing Asia. China was allowing this tactical retreat to go unchallenged by their military, after the new US president had agreed to China’s temporary cease-fire.
The Chinese president, Cheng Jinshan, had proposed the temporary truce. US intelligence believed that Jinshan saw the cease-fire as a way to gain political favor globally. It also gave his forces the ability to maneuver into strategically advantageous positions while the Americans ceded valuable territory: Japan and Korea.
The negotiated cease-fire gave the Americans two weeks to move their forces east of the 144theast longitude line.
“What is the progress of the evacuation in Japan?”
“They expect to meet the timeline, sir. Civilians should be completely transferred by next week. Most of our critical military assets have been either moved or destroyed.”
“Destroyed?”
“Yes, sir. Several of the aircraft were damaged badly enough that they didn’t expect to be able to fly them out. Demo teams destroyed them so the Chinese couldn’t get any use out of it. At Kadina, the runways were demolished. PACCOM decided to cut our losses and destroy what was left on the ground there.”
“I see.”
The chief of staff said, “What about Korea?”
One of the officers sitting at the central table, the information war commander, spoke up. “Our intelligence reports show that the Korean peninsula has sustained heavy damage from shelling, rocket, and chemical attacks.”
Someone from the outer seats mumbled something. The only word the admiral heard was “…wasteland.”
“The number of US casualties — civilian included — is estimated to be in the tens of thousands. When the Koreans are factored in, some estimates put the death toll into the seven-figure range. It’s bad, sir. There are bodies lining the streets in many places. The North Koreans aren’t adhering to the cease-fire as of yet. They’ve moved their troops into Seoul, and there’s heavy fighting still going on.”
Silence filled the room. Admiral Manning knew from his top-secret-level briefs that the reason the North Koreans had been so effective in their initial attack was because they’d had Chinese military assistance. He also knew that Chinese diplomats and children of Chinese VIPs were being flown out of the US as part of the cease-fire deal. This was done without public knowledge, which wasn’t hard, since most electronics were down. But the fact that this information was being kept from the public was interesting.
“What about INCONUS?”
Most in the room held their breath as they watched the young intel officer bring up new slides. Everyone was worried about what was going on back home. The hardest part of this war wasn’t the fear of what might happen to you; it was knowing there wasn’t a damn thing you could do to protect your family back home as the US faced a postapocalyptic nightmare.
“Sir, the US is on day four since the EMP and infrastructure attacks. In some places, especially population centers, there are reports of riots and social unrest. Martial law had been declared, and the information I have suggests that the overall situation is gradually stabilizing.”