“That pretty much sums up the situation, Admiral. I see that promotions come easy in the Russian Navy these days. Over.”
Karpov ignored the remark, and got right down to business. “Consider your situation, Captain. I counted eight missiles off your deck, and lo and behold they were aimed at my ship, but none of them hit. So you’re sitting across the table from me with an empty pistol. As you have just seen, that is not the case on this side of the argument. Now what in God’s name are you doing here fighting with the IJN?”
“Defending Japan.” Harada kept it real simple.
“I see… Well you may be broadly unaware of the situation here, but if you were better versed, you would see that every action I have taken against Japan has been fully justified. Your country presently has troops on Siberian soil, and one of two things will happen—Japan will either withdraw those troops and return all occupied territories to Siberian sovereignty, or I will take them by force. We started with Kamchatka earlier this year, and now the order of the day is Sakhalin Island. You people have been calling it Karafuto, but that is about to change.”
“Perhaps so,” said Harada in return. “Then again perhaps not.”
“Captain, don’t play tough guy out here with me, believe me, you’ll regret it. Your presence here was quite a surprise, to say the least, but radar signatures don’t lie, and my reflexes are as good as they come. Now, I’m not stupid, and I know exactly what you just tried to pull here. It failed. You’ve expended your SSMs, and if you persist, you’ll be expending a good deal more of your SAMs as well.”
Fukada looked over at the Captain, his eyes wide, mouthing something which prompted Harada to pause. “Mister Fukada?”
“He’s bluffing! They just threw thirteen missiles at us and we knocked each and every one down. He’s empty too, or at most he may have but one or two missiles left.”
“I’m not so sure,” said Harada. “The first twelve were all Sunburns. But that last number was something new. Did you get a signature on it, Otani?”
“I thought it was an upgraded Onyx, but it was just too damn fast. Had to be something new—maybe a Zirkon variant—hypersonic, sir.”
“Well pinch me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think they load those missiles in sets of one. That has to be one egg from a full nest. I’m betting he’s not bragging here. He’s got more under his forward deck than we first thought.” But Harada had to play the game here, and see what this man really wanted.
“It seems to me that you’ve expended a good many SAMs as well—not to mention the thirteen flies we swatted down over here. Don’t get pushy, Admiral. As you have seen, we can defend ourselves.”
“Well that’s damn well what you’ll be doing then, because you’re done insofar as offense goes. You want to close the range and try that 127mm deck gun? We have one too, right on the bow—along with six more 152s on three twin turrets. Let me put it to you this way, Captain. You throw another missile at my helos and I’ll throw the kitchen sink at yours. As for that airborne contact just crossing over the eastern shore of Sakhalin about 60 nautical miles to our southwest, those planes are about to have a really bad day. Now you can either get on the radio and save some lives, or I’ll take them apart, plane by plane, the instant they break through my 40 mile range circle. After that, I’ll see if that surface action group 20 miles off your bow has any SM-2s. I don’t think so. And when I’m done with them, I’ll come south for you. It’s either that, or you turn tail and withdraw. Your call, Captain. Vladimir Karpov, over and out.”
Harada said nothing more, switching off the handset and returning it to its cradle. “Damned if we do, damned if we don’t,” he muttered. “Lieutenant Commander, what do you make of this?”
“He’s right on one count, sir. We’re sitting here with an empty pistol—except for one thing, the rail gun. We don’t have to close on him to use that. We’ve had the range for the last thirty minutes.”
“Yes, but something tells me that would be like poking a stick in a beehive. Mister Honjo, what’s our SM-2 count looking like?”
“Thinning out, sir. We’ve got 13 forward and 23 more aft. 36 total on that system, and then we have the 12 SM-3s.”
“Anyway you look at it,” said Fukada, “we’ll be an empty shell if he does have another batch of those hypersonic SSMs. Neither of the two SM-2s we fired were able to get a hard target lock before that last missile was in its terminal run. That’s just not good enough. We would have to use the SM-3s, and hope to god we see them coming earlier. We can’t let another of those hypersonic jobs get inside 20 klicks before we pick it up.” Fukada had a hard face, but there was a crack in his bravado that Harada clearly perceived.
“If we do use the rail gun, and get any kind of a hit, bet on him throwing anything he has left,” said Harada.
“I’m not so sure about that,” said Fukada. “He’s already put thirteen missiles on us, and with nothing to show for it. I’m willing to bet that’s more ordnance than he’s used in all other operations here, though that’s a guess. We really have no idea how long he’s been here. The point I’m making, sir, is that those missiles matter. That’s his might and muscle here, and once it’s gone, it’s gone for good, just like our missiles.”
“So you’re suggesting we thumb our nose at this bastard just to get him to burn through his missile inventory?”
“We do that, and we’ve mission killed him, sir. He’ll probably have his SAMs in good numbers, but there is no way he could really hurt the IJN after that. So what I’m betting on is that he knows that as well.”
“Explain.”
“He can’t expend all his ordnance trying to take us out, because if he does, he’s basically just a fast anti-aircraft cruiser after that. In that event, we tell Yamamoto that he needs to hold his carriers in reserve, and then he can go after that bastard with his battleships. I don’t think an S-300 SAM will put much of a dent in Yamato.”
“Well that’s real creative, Mister Fukada. You want me to provoke him into throwing a basket full of hypersonic missiles at us, just so we can spoil his party here. The only problem with that is we may not be here to give that friendly advice to Yamamoto.” Harada thought, and then decided to raise the stakes. He reached for the handset again, and nodded for Shiota to broadcast.
“Now hear this, battlecruiser Kirov. This is the IJN, DDG-180, Takami—come back.”
“BCG Kirov receiving,” came the reply. “Go ahead, Takami.”
“Captain Harada speaking, and you can tell your Admiral Karpov there that we’re not going anywhere. If you’ve got the SSMs, we’ve got the SAMs, so bring it on. Once we pull your teeth, you won’t be much more than a radar picket here, and that’s as good as a K.I.A. as far as I’m concerned. JS-Takami, over and out.”
“Looks like they’ve called our bet,” said Fedorov looking at the Admiral.
“Yes,” said Karpov, “that seems to be the case, but I don’t think it will take all 39 of our remaining SSMs to kill that ship.”
“True, but if they do have the SAMs then we may have to expend a fairly good number to overcome their defense. They know that, and in true Japanese fashion, they are going to stand there and bar the door, come what may.”