Shattered Trident - Страница 79

Jerry pushed himself away from the table and stood. He needed to get back to his boat. He had to get her ready for war. Extending his hand, he responded confidently, “Understood, sir. North Dakota will be ready to set sail, whenever you give the order.”

“Very good, Captain. That’s all I can realistically expect.”

“Thank you for the coffee, sir, it was really good. So was the advice,” Jerry added sheepishly.

“You’re welcome, Jerry. Just let my staff know what your boat needs, and I’ll see to it that you get it ASAP.”

A slight smile popped on Jerry’s face. “If I know my XO, sir, your staff already has all the requisitions. Good afternoon, Commodore.”

12 September 2016

1700 Local Time

August 1st Building, Ministry of National Defense Compound

Beijing, People’s Republic of China

General Xi Ping walked wearily into the CMC conference room. It had been a long two days, and judging by the way the war was progressing, the days were likely to get even longer. He saw President Chen and General Su sitting at the conference table; each was reading one of the myriad of daily reports. Xi signaled an aide to bring him coffee, and an army major rushed a cup over to him. The general gulped the contents down quickly and returned the cup to the aide. Fortified with caffeine, Xi approached the two senior members of the Central Military Commission.

“Good afternoon, President Chen, General Su,” he greeted.

Chen looked up; his serious expression immediately became one of surprise, then concern. “General! Please forgive me, but you look dreadful!”

Xi chuckled lightly. “That’s because I feel dreadful, Comrade President.”

“I take it you have the final analysis of the third missile attack?” Su asked impatiently. They were all fatigued, thought the chief of the General Staff. And if Xi had to work extra-long hours to support final victory, well, that was the price of his promotion.

“Yes, General Su,” Xi answered testily. “And it’s as we feared. The Littoral Alliance nations are jamming the Beidou navigation system signals over their territories. The accuracy of our ballistic missiles was severely degraded. We missed most of the targets of interest in the last attack.”

“But how?!” Chen demanded. “General Hu assured us that the satellite navigation systems on all our missiles were highly resistant to jamming!”

“He was partially correct, sir,” Xi explained. “The receivers are upward-looking and are very resistant to jammers on the ground. Unfortunately, the Littoral Alliance has put the jammers in high-altitude, long-endurance UAVs. The receivers on our missiles looked right at them and accepted the more powerful, flawed signals as valid. It threw the missiles far off course.”

“Wonderful!” replied Su sarcastically. “So now instead of hitting important military and economic targets, our missiles are destroying hospitals, schools, and civilian residences—with photographs posted instantly on the Internet for the whole world to see!” Su’s face became crimson with anger. “Do you have any idea as to the magnitude of the propaganda bonanza we’ve handed the Littoral Alliance!?”

Xi became equally angry and stood his ground. “I believe, General, I explicitly briefed this commission that we would have two or three attacks before the Littoral Alliance would probably deploy countermeasures. General Hu disagreed, and you, sir, accepted his argument!”

“Generals!” shouted Chen Dao. “Fighting amongst ourselves will not help us win this war!”

Vice Chairmen Tian and Li, and General Shi, heard the president’s raised voice and immediately came over to the conference table. Su was silent, but obviously fuming. President Chen looked at Xi. “Do you have any recommendations on how to counter the jamming?”

“I have some ideas, but I need to discuss them with General Wang,” Xi responded. “Until then, I would recommend delaying any further large-scale ballistic missile attacks. Our inventory is now limited and we must husband our remaining resources.”

“I agree with General Xi,” said Tian. “We may have to look at using more missiles to support our attacks on Vietnamese defensive positions. We lost fourteen aircraft this morning during the saturation attack on their line at Cao-bang. Our bombers delivered their ordnance and were suddenly pounced on by low-flying fighters. We were ultimately successful in smashing through the Vietnamese defenses, but the losses in the air and on the ground were higher than we expected. We’ll have to reinforce both the air regiments and group armies with our reserves.”

Chen was perplexed. “How did the Vietnamese muster the necessary forces to oppose the strike? I thought we had command of the air over the front?”

“It would appear that a squadron or two of Indian Flankers have deployed to Vietnam, Comrade President,” a chagrined Li volunteered. “General Xi’s people suggested this was a possibility. But I discounted it as a foolish notion given India’s massive assault on Pakistan.” Li faced Xi and bowed. “Please accept my apology, Ping.”

Xi silently bowed in return.

“President Chen,” interrupted General Shi, the head of the political department, “while I agree we need to exercise caution in conducting future missile strikes, we can’t afford to lose the momentum we’ve achieved. Militarily speaking, the situation has turned to our advantage. We’ve plunged nearly fifty kilometers into Vietnam across the entire border in only three days. We’ve largely gained air and surface dominance in the seas around China, and Admiral Wei reports that he has confirmed the sinking of three enemy submarines. And, of course, we’ve inflicted considerable damage to our enemy through ballistic missile strikes. However, as positive as these indicators are, our position is far more tenuous from an economic and political perspective.

“According to General Ye in the logistics department, we’ve lost approximately fifteen percent of our tanker fleet, and about twenty percent of our refining capacity. We’ve sustained less damage to our storage and production facilities, but it is still noteworthy. And, of course, we have been completely cut off from any external sources of petroleum. Even if the war were to end right now, the long-term damage to our economy will be considerable, but ultimately recoverable.

“Current estimates point to a five-to-ten-year period required to regain our pre-war gross domestic product. However, the longer this war continues, the more damage our economy will suffer and the longer that recovery period becomes. Some of the analyses suggest there is a tipping point where economic collapse becomes likely, and that we are closer to that point than we think.

“Politically, we have a growing internal security issue looming before us. The people are getting more and more restive. The short-term economic downturn is causing significant anxiety, the fuel rationing policy is highly unpopular, and they are absolutely incensed about the complete cutoff of access to the Internet and social networking sites. If we do not successfully conclude this war soon, we may have an internal crisis on our hands as severe as the external one.”

Chen nodded his understanding. “Thank you, General Shi, your wisdom is greatly appreciated.” Turning toward the other members of the CMC, Chen continued, “We must regain the initiative in the aerospace dimension. We’ve started to turn the tide on the seas, and we’ve made great progress on land, but it is our air and missile strikes that will ultimately give us victory. General Xi, please work with General Wang’s staff to implement your ideas. As for the rest of you, any suggestions that you can come up with will be considered. The sooner we can resume effective missile attacks, the better.”

“Yes, Comrade President, I will attend to it immediately,” Xi replied. Then he hesitantly added, “But… there is another issue that I wish to bring to your attention.”

Chen was momentarily confused, then quickly realized that the conversation had wandered far afield shortly after the intelligence chief’s initial report. “I’m sorry, General, we became so fixated on the missile problem that I didn’t realize you had additional business. Please go on.”

Xi shuffled a little, uncomfortable with the topic he needed to raise. “Comrade President, I have an intelligence officer who is particularly gifted. He is socially inept, rude, and lives like a hermit in the basement of our building. In fact, his only redeeming quality is that he thinks darkly, and does it extremely well.”

The president and the other members of the CMC looked at Xi with a mixture of impatience and curiosity. Only Su seemed mildly amused. “I don’t know if I would call the ability to think evil thoughts a redeeming quality, Ping,” he said, smiling broadly.

“Normally, General Su, I would completely agree with you. But this intelligence officer is the one who wrote the assessments on the jamming of the Beidou system and the Indian Flanker deployment.”

The smile abruptly disappeared from the general’s face; the other members were suddenly keen to hear more. “Please continue,” ordered Chen.

“In the folder I just gave you, sir, there is a synopsis of Major Geng’s latest work. In this paper he presents a frightening argument as to why Japan will develop nuclear weapons, and will do so soon.”

The members of the CMC all looked at Xi with surprise and shock. It was several moments before some even tried to speak; Xi politely cut them off. “Please, listen to me first, then we can debate the merits of Geng’s work.