Free Kirov Saga: Armageddon (Kirov Series) by John Schettler Page A

the boat when it came to war fighting was a
set of four torpedo tubes firing the Mark-48 Mod 9 Torpedo. An old warrior from
the late 1980s, the Mark 48 held on with many updates and modifications that
now saw it capable of delivering a 650 pound warhead to a target well over 20
miles away at a speed of 40 to 55 knots. The boat also had 12 BGM-109 land
attack Tomahawk cruise missiles.
    So when war came to the Pacific, Mississippi was ready for
anything the enemy could put in the sea. Her officers and crew were equally
ready, and today she was commanded by Captain James Donahue, gliding silently
through the waters off the southern coast of Hokkaido. The boat was beneath the
big ash plume that had been blowing south from the Demon Volcano, snooping out
any potential Russian sub activity there when it received new orders on its
secure comm-link channel.
    “What’s up, skipper.” The XO, Chris Chambers, was just getting the
word now.
    “COMSUBRON 7 wants us to transit the Tsugaru Strait tonight and take
up a position here.” The Captain pointed at a location on the digital map, just
west of the strait, out in the Sea of Japan. “It took them three tries to get
us the message too. Communications have been a bear with that eruption still
ongoing. In any case, we’re supposed to operate in loose cooperation with a
Japanese task force coming out of Maizuru… a couple subs and a small surface
action group.”
    “Maizuru? That far south?”
    “Chitose and Hachinohe have been forced to shut down operations,
just like Misawa. That damn ash fall has practically blanketed all of Hokkaido.
Magnetic disturbances have practically shut down most of the comm spectrum as
well, so you can forget reliable sensor data from any land based facility
there. The base at Maizuru is now top of the list for operations in the Sea of
Japan. It’s far enough south and the airwaves are clear down there.”
    “So they’re giving us the inside channel this time? I like it much
better out in the deep blue.”
    “They don’t think the action there is likely to heat up after that
last engagement. Now everything seems to be focused on the Sea of Japan and
points south. We’ll be playing flank guard on this team. The Japanese want to
move up a sea interdiction patrol from Maizuru to monitor the corridor and
watch for any new Russian sub deployments out of Vladivostok. Someone at Navy
Intel got a hair up his ass and thinks that new Russian boat has slipped away.”
    “Kazan?”
    “That’s the one. It participated in that missile barrage against
Tanner’s group on Washington . Then it seemed to sail into a black hole.
They thought it might be up replenishing, which is a pretty good bet, but the
Russians have moved their carrier south through the Tartar Strait off Sakhalin
Island, and that raised a few eyebrows at Naval Intel.”
    “How so, skipper?”
    “Who knows. Maybe they think the Russkies will put all their good
chips on the Admiral Kuznetsov now that Kirov has gone down.”
    “That must have been a hard blow for them.”
    “Yeah? Well they delivered a few haymakers themselves. Word is Washington is going to have to be moved from Guam to Pearl. They’re offloading her
remaining strike aircraft and ordnance at Guam according to the report I got
yesterday.”
    “What about the Chinese, sir? It seems to me we have more to worry
about with them than we do with the Russians now.”
    “If they have anything in the Sea of Japan it will be ours for
breakfast if we run into them. Most everything they’ve deployed recently is
coming out of the Yellow Sea, so it will be in the East China Sea or standing
off the Tsushima Straits. That’s the real hot zone. This duty here is probably
going to be low and slow. I think we’ll just sit tight off Oshima Island under
a nice thermocline and bide our time.”
    “Campy says his waterfall looks positively ugly.” He was referring
to the boat’s chief sonar operator, Ensign Eugene Campanella. The visual