Terminal Run

Mark 58 Alert/Acute unit one’s sonar never needed to go active. The massive hull of the Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier had been detected tens of miles ago, beckoning the torpedo in every foot of the journey. The hull was so massive and so gigantic that the sonar signal grew and grew until the world contained only the torpedo itself and the target. Soon the proximity hull detectors went off-scale, and the torpedo hit the ship. The direct-contact circuits bloomed into electronic activity, the processor routing the signal to the detonation circuits of the plasma warhead.

The warhead ignited in plasma incandescence at the forward starboard quarter of the aircraft carrier, the plasma blast vaporizing everything in its vicinity to a distance of fifty feet, carving a spherical hole in the hull where there was no longer steel or plastic or paint or jet fuel or bunks or personnel. In the ‘milliseconds after the vaporization, the plasma bottle collapsed and the blast was allowed to blow upward and outward, disintegrating every molecule of the forward third of the ship, and burning much of the rest. The shock wave that penetrated the ocean surface smashed the island like the fist of a god.

In the flag plot level of the Kaoling, the leading member of the fleet’s tactical duty officers, Commander Cheng Chi, had been glancing through the window at the flight deck below when the solid deck beneath his feet suddenly and violently rose up in a tenth of a second and threw him to the bulkhead, as if he had been standing on a huge spatula. The bulkhead became a wall of flashing stars, each of them containing an infinite amount of pain in a thousand varieties, the pain of his skull crushing, of his bones breaking, of his flesh gashing open, of his organs smashing, of his arteries severing. The dimming world, viewed through the blood flowing down his forehead, erupted in acrid black smoke as the bulkhead hurled his disfigured and broken body back to the deck. The navigation plot tumbled on top of him, shattering glass over him. The bare 220-volt electrical cables mercifully electrocuted him in the last second before power was lost, and his last thought was relief that the pain was certain to end. His consciousness ceased like a light suddenly shut off.

What remained of the aircraft carrier Kaoling was driven by the momentum of the city-sized vessel plowing through the sea at thirty-five knots and forced underwater. The aft deck disappeared into the violent foamy sea, the aft half of the ship misshapen and crushed as it departed the surface and sank in the deep water quickly, vanishing below the two-hundred-foot layer depth where the light from the surface ended, and proceeded deeper in the dark cold sea until several minutes later it smashed into the rocks of the bottom, eleven thousand feet beneath the still-foaming waves.

The other ships of the Kaoling’s task force were not as lucky. Most of those vessels were blown to pieces smaller than trucks, the scattered pieces of the ships sinking rapidly. Three minutes after the explosion of the carrier Kaoling, eighteen other major surface combatants no longer existed in any recognizable fashion, and the Red Chinese Battlegroup One was gutted. All that remained were a radio relay ship, four large fleet oilers, and six support ships containing food and spare parts for the fleet. The commanding officer of the radio relay vessel Dong Laou, a hundred-meter ugly monstrosity of radio antennae, was a lieutenant commander named Bao Xiung. Bao stood on the deck of the starboard bridge wing and watched the fires burning on the surface where the fleet had once sailed.

He dropped his binoculars and let them hang on the leather cord around his neck as he turned to his deck officer.

“You wanted a fight, Leader Meng,” he said dryly. “Now you have one. And what would your recommendation be for me, since all that appears to be left of the task force are a few support vessels?”

Young Lieutenant Meng Lo swallowed hard, then lowered his own binoculars slowly. “Sir, there must be an entire fleet of enemy submarines out there to have caused this damage. We have no choice. We must withdraw to the north and form up with Battlegroup Two. And radio the Admiralty to tell them about the disaster.”

Bao nodded, feeling guilty that he had been sarcastic to the idealistic youth. “Turn to the north, Leader Meng, and radio the support vessels that we have taken tactical command of the remnant of Battlegroup One, and order the others to continue north on a zigzag pattern. Perhaps zigzag pattern bear would be appropriate.”

“Yes, sir,” Meng stuttered, his face noticeably pale even in the dimness of the bridge lights and the light of the fires of the graves of their comrades. “It will be so, sir.”

Meng hurried into the bridge, leaving Bao behind, shaking his head sadly as the Dong Laou turned to the north to run from the vicious Americans.

Damn them to the seventh layer of hell, Bao thought. Damn them forever.