SSN

    Mack immediately ordered firing point procedures. On his command, tubes one and two were immediately readied and fired.

    The Akula captain quickly realized that he had been discovered and that his sneak attack had failed. Hearing the American torpedoes enter the water, he did the only thing he could… he turned and ran.

    The Akula was fast. It turned and increased speed to over thirty-five knots as the Mk 48s closed in on its tail. And its captain was smart. As he fled, he launched several noisemaker decoys in an attempt to throw the Mk 48s off course.

    But neither the submarine's speed nor its captain's experience was enough. The first Mk 48 fell for the decoy. The second continued on, until it finished the job.

    The incredible explosion tore open the hull of the Akula and sent it to the bottom. The explosion was so loud that it almost masked the two subsequent explosions dial soon followed-the sound of two American helicopter-dropped Mk 50s exploding under the hull of the Chinese Kilo submarine.

    As soon as the two latest kills were confirmed, Cheyenne and Princeton exchanged radio messages congratulating each other on yet another successful combat operation.

    Once things began to calm down, a helicopter was flown out to the location of the downed SH-60. The remains of the destroyed Seahawk could be seen clearly from the sky. There were no survivors. Wartime losses were to be expected, but they were never without pain and sadness.

    With the danger eliminated, Cheyenne was free to return to her position, directly west of the Ticonderoga cruiser escort group. Mack gave the order to move out in front once more..

    He was beginning to understand why May you live in interesting times" was considered a curse in China. Things had been too interesting for too long. With luck, they would be allowed to take things a little bit slower before their next mission.

    He knew, though, as the crew of the downed SH-6U had found, that in war luck was a rare and fragile thing.

11. Battle Royale

    Something was wrong. Cheyenne had completed her refit, and once again had as many Mk 48 ADCAPs on board as McK.ee could give her-which was still less than Mack would have liked.

    But that wasn't what was bothering him. He was still thinking about their battle with the Chinese Hainan attack boats that, along with the four submarines, had been sent after Benthic Adventure.

    The thing was, both Cheyenne and the surface group had been lucky. Mack knew that, and he'd admit it if he had to. But fuck alone didn't account for everything. Since they had destroyed the Chinese surface and submarine group sent to attack Benthic Adventure, all aspects of the escort mission were proceeding far better than planned, and that was what was bothering Mack.

    Cheyenne, Princeton, and Gettysburg had not picked up any Chinese submarine or surface contacts for quite a long time now, and while Mack was happy to get the rest, it just wasn't right. The Chinese navy relied almost entirely upon numbers to accomplish their missions, and yet they had sent only five surface ships and four submarines to attack one of their prized targets.

    Mack didn't buy it. Something was wrong with that picture. Cheyenne should have detected at least several more Chinese surface or submarine contacts probing Benthic Adventure's defenses.

    Where, thought Mack, had the Chinese navy gone?

    He was about to find out, and he-along with the entire American command-was not going to like the answer.

    At Zhanjiang Naval Base in southern China, a massive force of over sixty ships and submarines was being readied. Their mission was simple: destroy the American aircraft carrier Independence and her entire Battle Group.

    The Independence Battle Group consisted of a rather large contingent of ships. This force included three Ticonderoga class Aegis Cruisers, Bunker Hill (CG-52), Mobile Bay (CG-53), and Port Royal (CG-73); two Arleigh Burke Aegis destroyers, John Paul Jones (DDG-53) and Paul Hamilton (DDG-60); three Spruance ASW destroyers, Hewitt (DD-966), O'Brien (DD-975), and Fletcher (DD-992); and three Perry class frigates, Rodney M. Davis (FFG-60), Thach (FFG-43), and McClusky (FFG-41). Patrolling beneath them was Columbia (SSN-771), a Los Angeles class submarine like Bremerton and Cheyenne.

    Within hours of their preparation, American satellites had detected the change in operating tempo at the Chinese naval base. While naval intelligence was not exactly sure what was going on, they did know that it was something major.

    As soon as the ships began to leave port, naval intelligence alerted Independence of this major movement. A force that size could only have one mission in mind- attack the American carrier group, destroy Independence, and sink the remainder of her escorts.