GWOT VII - No Peace Underwater
Jan. 16th, 2021 05:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGWOT VII - No Peace Underwater
The Captain of the Fleet sat at his desk, his back to the beautiful view of Monterey Bay from his fourteenth floor window.
Once in a while, when his back pained him, he would put down the paper he was looking at and turn. Just to look.
There were no computers in his office. A Marine brought his papers from the secure printer room below, or once in a while the archive room, and took them to his confidential secretary for review, archiving and more likely, destruction. All by hand. Nothing was scanned back into a computer. Ever.
At present he was reading yet another after action report.
The Americans were snooping around the greater San Francisco Bay Area, again. They couldn't get close to anything from Ensenada to Fort Bragg, but that didn't keep them from trying, and losing sub after sub to do it.
The game was rigged. Saturation coverage of captor mines, frequently serviced by the less capable LIDES, which in turn recharged their lithium batteries from an amazing variety of surface and sub-surface locations. Frequently, overflights by California ASW aircraft as well. Increasingly, California surface ships - all small hulls but built in astonishing numbers - joined the party.
There were things they were looking for. Questions the Americans had.
What was California's production rate of captor mines? Conventional mines? Command mines?
Did California have only the one undersea hull type - the infamous 'pipe bomb' Lithium Ion Diesel-Electric Submarine - or were there other underwater assets in the mix?
How did California always detect submarines off her coast? A sophisticated underwater sonar network, a dense mesh of hydrophones that made the pre-war SOSUS look like a child's tin can and string? Or ... something else?
Most critically - a literal MOIST SECRET in California's security language - how many LIDES did California actually have?
The answers did not merely mean war and peace. They meant the survival of California, and perhaps - more than perhaps - the world.
As long as he could keep the Americans thinking that their war was in California coastal waters. That their losses were bad luck.
He could, at this moment, pick up a telephone and give an order, a single codeword, to kill every American sub within four hundred miles of the California coast, and they would all die within the hour.
It was imperative that the Americans not realize this. That they were being played for fools. Suckered in, chased off. Occasionally - but not too often - they would 'lose' a sub.
###
Soledad Prison
California had neither the time nor the money to maintain the pre-War industrial prison system. Soledad had been emptied into the Homeland camp system, with selected 'volunteers' sent to the Special Troops in China and the relatively harmless released. But many Mexican nationals and those unlucky enough to have Californian surnames were sent Homeward Bound. Their murderers hung by the neck until dead, but that did not bring any of them back.
The farms had been kept running by trustee prisoners, under Homeland. The Resistance had chased away the Homeland guards, the ones who hadn't dropped their rifles and ran away, but the farm kept running. The old 'medium security' cell block was not economic to use as housing.
Then Marines had taken over the old facility. Suddenly. And a huge earth berm now surrounded the former medium security site. Razor mesh. Dogs with voiceboxes surgically removed, fed with a subsonic whistle. But no towers. The towers were taken down and low pillboxes took their place.
The prison was back in service. Neither the Marines nor the Army would say why, or what for.
The rumor was that it was a camp for genocidaires. But nowadays they were almost always expelled. Enough justice had been done. Trials were rare and executions nearly unheard of.
The rumor beneath the rumor was that it was for the keeping of political dissidents, despite the flourishing opposition to the Governor and even - within limits - a pro-American movement.
The secret, beyond which even people who should have known better did not look, was that the Marines kept would-be defectors from the California Naval Militia there. Incommunicado. Under lock and key, so that they could not compromise any secrets.
California had somewhere else for those rare cases. The submarine rescue simulator, playing a very real non-survivable scenario as the punishment imposed by general court-martial, followed by discreet 'chumming' in the parts of Monterey Bay still off-limits to fishing.
Soledad Prison was run directly by the Office of Naval Planning, although few knew it. And its entire purpose was to serve as an interrogation site.
###
The cell block was half full.
"No talking!" was the refrain from the guards. Remembering their SERE training, the sailors had tried to communicate with coughs, with timed sweeps of the broom, with clicks and taps. They were not let out of their cells at the same time. And the mild punishment for their attempts was that the TV set was turned up to deafening levels. Playing children's cartoons and animated movies.
Officers were kept either in luxury - trailers that had been used for staff - or in the misery of solitary confinement. It was up to them, whether they wanted to talk or not. They were not tortured. Rarely were they even yelled at. But they could eat steak and read books, or eat punishment loaf and count the tiny air holes in the door of their cell. Their choice.
But it was very carefully planned. At no time would the crew of a vessel be able to come into contact with the crew of any other vessel.
Each must think themselves the victim of bad luck.
Not a deliberate campaign.
###
Kerguelen Island
Even the Americans, by the occasional satellite pass, could see that the remote French colonial outpost was booming.
Freighters brought earthmoving equipment. Two piers had been painstakingly installed. Even a runway was being built. Apparently the French had thrown the environment out the window.
It was becoming a major naval base, as Diego Garcia had before it.
But for what possible reason? There was nothing strategic, had never been anything strategic, about Kerguelen. Isolated, wind-swept, its only benefit being as far away from anywhere as it was possible to be. Almost not worth putting in a runway.
When discovered, it had been named Desolation Island.
It was still desolate. But its population had been greatly expanded.
Intelligence failures are made of the inability to ask the next question.
Where did the French get the workforce?
California had sent them genocidaires who could not be exiled or rehabilitated. They went to the Legion, and many of those to China.
But California had also sent them other people. People whose very existence could not be admitted to.
###
Rules For Prisoners
Kerguelen Island
The fortunes of war have brought you to this place. Someday the war will end and you will be sent home. Until then, you can make your life comfortable, or unbearable. The choice is yours.
Over a year ago, the first prisoners were brought to Kerguelen.
Do not enter any building you are not explicitly welcomed into. You will be shot.
Never possess electronics. You will be shot.
Never attempt to board a boat or aircraft. You will be shot. If necessary we will sink the boat or shoot down the aircraft to protect the secret of this place.
There is nowhere to escape to. If you try, you will not be shot. But you will most likely freeze as we will not try very hard to rescue you from your own stupidity.
Work hard and well, and you will receive all the comforts of home.
Work poorly and we will feed you mutton and seaweed.
Refuse to work and we will feed you gruel.
You will get wine and vitamin pills in any case, we are not barbarians.
There is nothing you know that we want to know. That time is past.
Live, life, love. And in time you will see your families again.
###
Commanding Officer's Log
Captain Bill McFarland
Senior USN Officer, Kerguelen Island
Another forty two sailors joined us today. USS Thresher.
That means at least partial crews from seventeen submarines and five surface ships. Plus the occasional individual or small group rescue.
Over five hundred US Navy sailors. Minus an informant or two, most likely, but I have not discovered one yet.
Obviously the California Naval Militia is playing us for fools. We are kept incommunicado so that America doesn't find out.
Most submariners accept that if their sub is sunk, no one will come rescue them. Quick or slow, death in the dark.
But the Californians rescued all of us here. Some in shallow water, some in deep. A few on the surface.
Interrogations. Nothing illegal, no rough stuff. But much of it confirmations of what they clearly already know.
And their technology, their capabilities, demonstrated and implied. We are mice, in a house full of bored cats.
What do the Californians aspire to?
A broom at the masthead?
A clean sweep?!?
The Captain of the Fleet sat at his desk, his back to the beautiful view of Monterey Bay from his fourteenth floor window.
Once in a while, when his back pained him, he would put down the paper he was looking at and turn. Just to look.
There were no computers in his office. A Marine brought his papers from the secure printer room below, or once in a while the archive room, and took them to his confidential secretary for review, archiving and more likely, destruction. All by hand. Nothing was scanned back into a computer. Ever.
At present he was reading yet another after action report.
The Americans were snooping around the greater San Francisco Bay Area, again. They couldn't get close to anything from Ensenada to Fort Bragg, but that didn't keep them from trying, and losing sub after sub to do it.
The game was rigged. Saturation coverage of captor mines, frequently serviced by the less capable LIDES, which in turn recharged their lithium batteries from an amazing variety of surface and sub-surface locations. Frequently, overflights by California ASW aircraft as well. Increasingly, California surface ships - all small hulls but built in astonishing numbers - joined the party.
There were things they were looking for. Questions the Americans had.
What was California's production rate of captor mines? Conventional mines? Command mines?
Did California have only the one undersea hull type - the infamous 'pipe bomb' Lithium Ion Diesel-Electric Submarine - or were there other underwater assets in the mix?
How did California always detect submarines off her coast? A sophisticated underwater sonar network, a dense mesh of hydrophones that made the pre-war SOSUS look like a child's tin can and string? Or ... something else?
Most critically - a literal MOIST SECRET in California's security language - how many LIDES did California actually have?
The answers did not merely mean war and peace. They meant the survival of California, and perhaps - more than perhaps - the world.
As long as he could keep the Americans thinking that their war was in California coastal waters. That their losses were bad luck.
He could, at this moment, pick up a telephone and give an order, a single codeword, to kill every American sub within four hundred miles of the California coast, and they would all die within the hour.
It was imperative that the Americans not realize this. That they were being played for fools. Suckered in, chased off. Occasionally - but not too often - they would 'lose' a sub.
###
Soledad Prison
California had neither the time nor the money to maintain the pre-War industrial prison system. Soledad had been emptied into the Homeland camp system, with selected 'volunteers' sent to the Special Troops in China and the relatively harmless released. But many Mexican nationals and those unlucky enough to have Californian surnames were sent Homeward Bound. Their murderers hung by the neck until dead, but that did not bring any of them back.
The farms had been kept running by trustee prisoners, under Homeland. The Resistance had chased away the Homeland guards, the ones who hadn't dropped their rifles and ran away, but the farm kept running. The old 'medium security' cell block was not economic to use as housing.
Then Marines had taken over the old facility. Suddenly. And a huge earth berm now surrounded the former medium security site. Razor mesh. Dogs with voiceboxes surgically removed, fed with a subsonic whistle. But no towers. The towers were taken down and low pillboxes took their place.
The prison was back in service. Neither the Marines nor the Army would say why, or what for.
The rumor was that it was a camp for genocidaires. But nowadays they were almost always expelled. Enough justice had been done. Trials were rare and executions nearly unheard of.
The rumor beneath the rumor was that it was for the keeping of political dissidents, despite the flourishing opposition to the Governor and even - within limits - a pro-American movement.
The secret, beyond which even people who should have known better did not look, was that the Marines kept would-be defectors from the California Naval Militia there. Incommunicado. Under lock and key, so that they could not compromise any secrets.
California had somewhere else for those rare cases. The submarine rescue simulator, playing a very real non-survivable scenario as the punishment imposed by general court-martial, followed by discreet 'chumming' in the parts of Monterey Bay still off-limits to fishing.
Soledad Prison was run directly by the Office of Naval Planning, although few knew it. And its entire purpose was to serve as an interrogation site.
###
The cell block was half full.
"No talking!" was the refrain from the guards. Remembering their SERE training, the sailors had tried to communicate with coughs, with timed sweeps of the broom, with clicks and taps. They were not let out of their cells at the same time. And the mild punishment for their attempts was that the TV set was turned up to deafening levels. Playing children's cartoons and animated movies.
Officers were kept either in luxury - trailers that had been used for staff - or in the misery of solitary confinement. It was up to them, whether they wanted to talk or not. They were not tortured. Rarely were they even yelled at. But they could eat steak and read books, or eat punishment loaf and count the tiny air holes in the door of their cell. Their choice.
But it was very carefully planned. At no time would the crew of a vessel be able to come into contact with the crew of any other vessel.
Each must think themselves the victim of bad luck.
Not a deliberate campaign.
###
Kerguelen Island
Even the Americans, by the occasional satellite pass, could see that the remote French colonial outpost was booming.
Freighters brought earthmoving equipment. Two piers had been painstakingly installed. Even a runway was being built. Apparently the French had thrown the environment out the window.
It was becoming a major naval base, as Diego Garcia had before it.
But for what possible reason? There was nothing strategic, had never been anything strategic, about Kerguelen. Isolated, wind-swept, its only benefit being as far away from anywhere as it was possible to be. Almost not worth putting in a runway.
When discovered, it had been named Desolation Island.
It was still desolate. But its population had been greatly expanded.
Intelligence failures are made of the inability to ask the next question.
Where did the French get the workforce?
California had sent them genocidaires who could not be exiled or rehabilitated. They went to the Legion, and many of those to China.
But California had also sent them other people. People whose very existence could not be admitted to.
###
Rules For Prisoners
Kerguelen Island
The fortunes of war have brought you to this place. Someday the war will end and you will be sent home. Until then, you can make your life comfortable, or unbearable. The choice is yours.
Over a year ago, the first prisoners were brought to Kerguelen.
Do not enter any building you are not explicitly welcomed into. You will be shot.
Never possess electronics. You will be shot.
Never attempt to board a boat or aircraft. You will be shot. If necessary we will sink the boat or shoot down the aircraft to protect the secret of this place.
There is nowhere to escape to. If you try, you will not be shot. But you will most likely freeze as we will not try very hard to rescue you from your own stupidity.
Work hard and well, and you will receive all the comforts of home.
Work poorly and we will feed you mutton and seaweed.
Refuse to work and we will feed you gruel.
You will get wine and vitamin pills in any case, we are not barbarians.
There is nothing you know that we want to know. That time is past.
Live, life, love. And in time you will see your families again.
###
Commanding Officer's Log
Captain Bill McFarland
Senior USN Officer, Kerguelen Island
Another forty two sailors joined us today. USS Thresher.
That means at least partial crews from seventeen submarines and five surface ships. Plus the occasional individual or small group rescue.
Over five hundred US Navy sailors. Minus an informant or two, most likely, but I have not discovered one yet.
Obviously the California Naval Militia is playing us for fools. We are kept incommunicado so that America doesn't find out.
Most submariners accept that if their sub is sunk, no one will come rescue them. Quick or slow, death in the dark.
But the Californians rescued all of us here. Some in shallow water, some in deep. A few on the surface.
Interrogations. Nothing illegal, no rough stuff. But much of it confirmations of what they clearly already know.
And their technology, their capabilities, demonstrated and implied. We are mice, in a house full of bored cats.
What do the Californians aspire to?
A broom at the masthead?
A clean sweep?!?
