Warshot (The Hunter Killer Series Book 6) by Don Keith (top ten ebook reader TXT) 📗

Meanwhile, Yon Hun Glo climbed up to the bridge just as they slowed to rendezvous with the pilot launch at the entrance to Avi Piha Channel.

With the Tongan harbor pilot aboard Wushiwu, the submarines steamed on, bows pointed down the funnel-shaped channel. As the line turned to the south and headed past Talufu’ou, each of them, without ever being aware, tripped the sensor field that ORCA One had laid only three days before. The sensors’ communication buoy up-linked the alerts to an overhead satellite. That meant Jon Ward’s intel team knew of the Chinese wolf pack’s arrival at Tonga even before the mooring lines were doubled.

The four submarines tied up alongside the Chinese container ship Pearl Moon, which was moored stern first to the quay. By midnight, camouflage had been constructed over the subs so that anyone looking down from overhead would only see a couple of broad, flat barges snuggled up next to the cargo ship.

An hour after the submarines disappeared under the camouflage nets, the Chinese research ship Zhang Jian motored into the port and tied up alongside the pier. The fully outfitted, deep-sea research ship was ostensibly cruising the South Pacific mapping migration patterns of pelagic fish as part of a Shanghai Ocean University project. The cover story did not really equate very well with the very-deep-water mineral recovery equipment that covered her ample and open main deck. That gear included the orange and white Fendouji manned submersible, one of only a few vessels in the world capable of reaching ocean depths as great as six miles.

Yon Hun Glo’s first action was to send word to the palace that he desired to hold a meeting with King Tofuwanga at the earliest opportunity the following morning. Then, with his submarines safely moored at their destination and their presence adequately hidden from prying eyes, and with the meeting with the country’s ruler arranged, Yon decided that his day’s work was complete. It was now time for him to turn in so he would be well rested for the next day’s important work.

Meanwhile, ORCA One had continued to follow the four submarines all the way to the moment when its command algorithm determined that the UUV was now within a restricted harbor. At that point, the submersible’s brain ordered the mission aborted and instructed the UUV to retrace its path back to open water. Once safely out of the Avi Piha channel again, ORCA One communicated back to the command center on the Portland, detailing its completed mission.

In Pago Pago, Joe Glass, Commodore of US Navy Submarine Squadron Seven, had learned of the Chinese submarines’ arrival at the port in Tonga at about the same time that Jon Ward had. Things were about to get very interesting in the backwaters of the Pacific, an ocean whose name literally meant peaceful and tranquil.

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The activity was massive, immediate, and very noticeable for any of the world’s naval powers who might be watching. Four harbor tugs pulled the George Washington away from the pier at the Yokosuka Naval Base. By the time she had cleared Agatsuma Island, the rest of the Seventh Fleet ships—every one of the destroyers and cruisers stationed there—had left the pier and were underway. They steamed in a long, impressive line down Tokyo Wan toward open water. The Blue Ridge, the more-than-fifty-year-old Seventh Fleet command ship, was delayed by several hours in getting underway as her long-suffering engineering department struggled to make essential repairs to her boilers.

The carrier airwing flew out of Atsugi Naval Air Facility to join up with the George Washington as the battle group headed almost due south. Task Force Seventy, the Seventh Fleet Battle Force, was underway, bows pointing south and proceeding at full speed.

At the same time, Task Force Seventy-Six, Seventh Fleet’s amphibious assault force, sortied out of Sasebo, Japan, steaming toward Okinawa. There, the Third Marine Expeditionary Unit was quickly making preparations to board the amphibs.

The ships of Destroyer Squadron Seven made an emergency sortie from Changi Naval Base in Singapore, northbound at full speed. Meanwhile, the Vinson Battle Group came from much farther away, from the Arabian Sea, across the Indian Ocean, then toward the Straits of Malacca.

The piers in San Diego, Pearl Harbor, and Bremerton, Washington, were eerily empty and lonely places once the haze-gray ships disappeared over the horizon, heading west.

The Navy was simply carrying out President Smitherman’s commands. But not even the top brass involved comprehended what was going on. Vice Admiral Stan Gray, Commander—Seventh Fleet, was totally confused by the vague orders. He was being asked to get underway with the greatest assembly of naval might put together since the end of World War Two. Then he was supposed to steam in tight little circles two hundred miles east of Taiwan. He was not to launch any aircraft sorties or take any actions that the Chinese or anyone else could even remotely construe as being offensive.

Just have all those warships steam in circles. There was no stated objective. And there was no end date.

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Joe Glass was well aware that he was on the wrong end of some damn serious problems. Even worse, they all seemed to have been dumped on him at once. As he stood in front of a large-screen display in the USS Portland’s Combat Information Center, he had to remind himself that problems were what he had signed up for in the first place. If things did not go sideways, there was little need for him. And he also reminded himself that he had the people and the machines available to address them. That was why he had gathered his small “command team” to review what they knew, what assets they had available, and to plan a course of action. Glass knew he had to get beyond how he conducted this process in his previous life, commanding a single submarine, and take advantage of everything else he had at his disposal to fix the issues piling up around him.

The Portland’s advanced Combat Information Center was