“I concur with Nanshang Island,” the operations officer said. “More Patriot missile radars! One is coming from Thitu. The other is coming from the Philippine mainland — from the southern tip of Palawan Island!”
“Can you estimate how many individual systems are energized?”
“Each site is energizing only one system.”
“Damn!” Wong said. “They have Patriot missile batteries, but they’re not turning all their systems on. They want us to guess how many and to be frightened. It’s a warning.”
He counted five railgun shells dodged before the expected bad news came. Unwilling to race face-first into an unknown amount of long-range surface-to-air missiles, the bombers and their fighter escorts were turning back to their air bases in the Guangzhou Military Region.
Worse, the Philippine jet fighters took advantage of the retreat and made sharp turns towards his task force, making his anti-air missiles precious for their primary purpose of defending his sky.
Wanting to blame his aviator colleagues for cowardice, he instead accepted the wisdom of their retreat. Philippine military forces had made a statement across a network of landmasses, and his countrymen needed to assess the risk.
But understanding his predicament failed to improve it.
In a moment of doubt, he considered giving up and running, but he considered himself committed. Forty miles from the railguns, he decided to drive forward and see his mission to its end.
CHAPTER 16
Glaring at Lieutenant Commander Flores had become an annoying necessity. Jake kept half an eye on him, wanting the look of terror on the man’s face to vanish.
But it remained, and the officer’s demeanor conveyed an isolating edginess. The former French Navy sailor who served as Jake’s quartermaster, monitoring the Wraith’s position under exacting scrutiny, had slid to the opposite side of the navigation table from Flores.
Jake smelled the Philippine leader’s fear but hoped that his spine would stiffen during real action. The test of his crew’s mettle was barreling down upon him in the form of a purposeful and deadly task force.
Staring at the tactical display beside his foldout captain’s chair, he slid a headset over his ear for a private conversation with Renard. He lifted his chin.
“Henri!”
“Yes, Jake?”
“Raise the communication buoy.”
With his link to the Frenchman established, he welcomed his mentor’s thoughts.
“I have five anti-submarine surface combatants heading my way, plus helicopters and a Shang submarine.”
“Correct,” Renard said. “You almost sound concerned.”
“My biggest concern is the Shang. That thing is dangerously quiet and has nuclear speed and endurance. But it needs to move fast to stay ahead of the surface ships. That will make it loud enough to hear.”
“Of course,” Renard said. “You have the tactical advantage of positioning. My greater concern for you is the helicopters.”
“It depends how close they get to me.”
“Would you like me to rid you of them now?”
“Is that possible? I thought the destroyer was jamming our railgun rounds. Shooting at helicopters without guidance is like swatting a fly with a pencil.”
The display showed the closest helicopter patrolling ten miles ahead of the line abreast of Chinese ships, ten miles from the Wraith. Jake felt safe at that distance, but not much closer.
“There’s a surprise in store for any of our Chinese adversaries who approach within line of sight of the module’s planar array,” Renard said. “In that event, we won’t need GPS satellite signals to guide rounds, but instead we can use the module’s closer and stronger power source.”
“You thought about that ahead of time?” Jake asked. “You considered jamming and made the rounds guidable by both GPS and local power? I don’t remember that in the tech manual.”
“It was an advanced, minimally tested feature I chose not to publish. But I have faith in it.”
“Field testing will tell,” Jake said.
“It makes neutralizing helicopters possible if they climb high enough to be exposed to our planar array. They need to climb to reposition between their searches with their dipping sonar systems.”
“Fine. If you get the chance, do me the favor. It’s going to get hectic out here, and I don’t need to accidentally end up underneath a helicopter.”
“Of course,” Renard said. “Now what of the surface combatants? The corvettes lack the firepower to threaten the railgun module, but the other three ships pose real risks, especially if they can position themselves to target the weakness where the Eagle Strike weapons penetrated the outer layer of armor.”
“You can handle the frigates, right?” Jake asked. “If they want to use their cannons, they’ll get close enough for you to guide rounds into them. I’ll shoot torpedoes at them if I can, but they’ll probably remain out of range while I’m dealing with the destroyer.”
“Correct,” Renard said. “Which places you in a quandary. You need to reposition yourself to protect the exposure in our armor from the destroyer, but doing so would sacrifice your ambush position for the Shang submarine. You’ll have to make noise and possibly detach your drones if you reposition.”
“I can keep the drones if I’m careful,” Jake said. “And I’m not here to protect my own ass from a submarine. I’m here to protect a fortress. I’ll get it done.”
He freed his mind from the strain of his responsibilities and considered the larger picture.
“What about the air battle?” he asked. “There’s still a bunch of missiles left in that task force.”
“We’ve reached a stalemate,” Renard said. “The destroyer’s remaining missiles were damaged in their launch cells, leaving only the frigates’ weapons as concerns.”
“They’re low on Eagle Strikes, right?”
“Low or even exhausted. No matter, they have so few left that the point defenses could defeat them. My concern is the anti-air missiles if used in surface-strike mode. That could become another saturation attack, and it’s a grave exposure if such missiles targeted the gap in the armor.”
“So what’s stopping them from shooting at us?”
“When the Patriots turned back the bombers, our fighter jets were free to vector towards the task force. They’re circling at low altitude outside of missile range, but they are forcing the frigates to preserve their arsenal.”
Jake did quick math in his head.
“That sounds to me like the task force still has enough missiles to hold off the fighters and slam a dozen or two missiles into the module.”
“But now that the Chinese are close enough to Palawan Island, they are in range of ground-attack Bronco aircraft. We are sending two squadrons towards them but keeping them out of missile range. We have also sent several dozen trainer and noncombatant aircraft into the sky. The Chinese air commander can’t distinguish threat from decoy and is forced to retain his anti-air defense arsenal.”
“I’m impressed, Pierre. My concern is—”
“Torpedo in the water!” Remy said.
Jake looked at the toad-shaped head of his sonar expert. Remy had been silent for hours, and the announcement without warning seemed surreal.
“Got to run,” he said.
“Understood,” Renard said. “Leave the line open as long as you can so that I can hear.”
As Jake dropped the headset to the console, he asked his instinctive questions.
“Whose torpedo, where, and intended target? Give me all you got, Antoine.”
Remy turned his head with deliberate calmness, lowering his earpiece to his neck.