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

east, toward the newly risen sun. It climbed just high enough to clear the Chungyang Mountains, the range that formed the island’s rocky central spine. Once clear of those mountains, the lumbering bird dropped low again and thundered across the coastline, finally heading out to sea.

Three-Three-Zero’s designated patrol box was a one-hundred-by-one-hundred-mile square that reached from the southern tip of Taiwan across the Luzon Strait to the Batanes Islands. Out to the east, it stretched across a hundred miles of what appeared to be an empty Philippine Sea. It was a huge piece of real estate to patrol, but Taiwan’s air anti-submarine-warfare assets were very limited. There were only a dozen or so P-3s and about an equal number of MH-60 helicopters, all hand-me-downs from the US, and they were tasked with patrolling hundreds of thousands of square miles. It was a case of a few hunters looking for some very dangerous needles in a very large haystack. They simply did the best they could with what they had.

So far, that had been enough to keep them safe and free.

Three-Three-Zero had just entered its patrol box when a new target suddenly appeared on the data link. In their pre-flight mission brief, the crew had been told that they might receive targeting over this particular data link, based on intel reports. They were also instructed to immediately prosecute any target they received that way. This was very much out of the ordinary. Those particular intel reports were typically days old and useless.

The pilot followed orders. He flew the aircraft to the reported target coordinates and lined up to drop a row of sonobuoys across the area. ASW was a frustrating job. It was often called “Awfully Slow Warfare” for a reason. Especially in this part of the world. Submarines never surfaced and invited attention. And despite the emphasis on reacting to information from this data link, the pilot hardly expected to find anything down there. But he was bound to take a look, even if only to break the monotony.

“Madman! Madman! Madman!” the sensor operator hollered.

His magnetic anomaly detection meter swung wildly. Bingo! There was a big hunk of iron below the surface of the sea, just a couple of hundred feet below them. However, looking out the plane’s window, they could see nothing but blue water and white wavetops.

The sonobuoys had only just dropped their sensitive hydrophones when the operator called out again. He announced that the sonobuoy data confirmed that they had themselves a submarine. And it had intruded well within the territorial waters claimed by Taiwan. Whoever was there was fair game.

As the P-3 swung around to line up again, the bomb-bay doors rolled open. A six-inch-diameter compact rapid attack weapon dropped out of the aircraft and splashed into the water two-hundred feet below. The sonobuoy operator listened as the submarine obviously heard the CRAW and began to frantically try to avoid the onrushing torpedo.

It was too late. The small weapon homed in on the sub’s single screw, just as it was designed to do. The fish’s two-kilo shape charge was not nearly large enough to do any significant damage if it hit anywhere else on its target. But it was more than powerful enough to knock a blade off the screw. The vibrations from the unbalanced spinning mass immediately began to violently shake the submarine, destroying the boat’s electric drive train even before the crew could get the shaft stopped. The hydrophones heard and relayed every decibel of agonizing noise.

The black submarine suddenly shot to the surface. There it lay, dead in the water. The warship was not going to steam anywhere anytime soon.

Three-Three-Zero's mission commander was still in the process of reporting they had successfully given one PLAN submarine a severe case of hemorrhoids when the same data link chirped once more, directing the P3 to a second contact.

By the time Three-Three-Zero's crew had finished their mission and were headed back to Pingtung with bomb bays empty, the comms channel was clogged with reports of similar successful attacks, all against subs in the waters near Taiwan. Thirty aircraft reported that they had gained positive contact on Chinese submarines and every one of them had carried out successful attacks.

Much of China’s submarine force was adrift on the surface, in plain sight. And most of the world’s military watched them with great interest on images sent down from various satellites.

Ψ

Yon Ba Deng was mystified and angry. But more than anything, he was fearful. Fearful his new promotion would now be yanked from him. Or worse.

His brilliant scheme to isolate Taiwan with his submarines—the plan he had sold to Tan Yong, China’s president—had been underway for barely a day and it was already coming apart. Somehow, almost half of his navy’s submarines had been delayed in departing by some mechanical problem or the other. Several others were reportedly limping back to port, broken before they ever reached their patrol area. And now the reports were flooding in from those boats that did make it to their patrol areas. Almost all of them had been located, attacked, and damaged. Several reported that they were barely able to make minimal speed and were heading for the nearest naval base, but necessarily on the surface. Most were requesting a tow home. Even more troubling were the three boats that had not yet reported in at all.

Yon Ba Deng ran his fingers through his thinning hair. He needed his brother to help him with the complexities of this most distressing submarine problem. But he was off creating diversions near Tonga. And, hopefully, figuring out a way to begin harvesting the gold near the Tonga Trench. Maybe Yon Hun Glo had some insight into whatever magic anti-submarine detection system and weaponry the Taiwanese seemed to suddenly have at their disposal.

Systems that appeared to have somehow made the ocean transparent. How else could they have located and successfully attacked so many of his invisible vessels?

But Yon Ba Deng feared his most serious problem was how