Pairs of AARGM-88 anti-radar missiles fell away from each aircraft. Igniting, they blazed toward the coast, the sonic booms of their passage resonating over the city.
Seconds later, the radar screens at the Regional Air Defense Center went blank as the HARMs obliterated the transmitter arrays, blinding the system. The Indonesian radar men never caught the second return from the Marine stealth birds as they launched the remainder of their load.
The strike fighters salvoed a variety of munition forms from their bomb bays, alike only in that each mounted a “Diamondback” Joint Direct Attack Munitions glide and guidance package. Razor-edged air foils snapped open and lift strakes caught the thin atmosphere at twenty-five thousand feet. Brought awake by its departure from its launch aircraft, each weapon locked onto the guidance signals of the Global Positioning Satellite network and began to steer toward the specific one-meter set of geographic co-ordinates that marked its final destiny.
The F-35s cranked hard over and reversed away from the coast, never once going “feet dry” over the city. Their packages delivered, their job was done. The bombs themselves would take it from here.
*
On the Alpha Display, they could see the Diamondback JDAMS radiating outward fanlike from their launch points.
“HARMs are in and the Indonesian radars are down, Captain,” an SO reported. “We have clean sky!”
“Very good. Inform Air One that they may commence launching operations.
Communications, advise the Embassy that they have incoming.”
*
The initial detonations at Halim Perdana Kusuma airbase were unimpressive, a series of rapid flickering flashes above the runways and a faint crackling sound like a protracted string of firecrackers. A soft whickering whisper followed as a multitude of soup-can-sized metallic objects rained out of the sky.
Each soup can hit the ground, bounced, flipped upright on its coil spring landing gear and exploded, its shaped charge warhead drilling down through the thick concrete. Lightning danced across the ground and taxiways; runways and parking aprons unzipped, dissolving into impassible rubble. Nothing with wings would be taking off from Halim Perdana Kusuma for the foreseeable future.
As a double insurance, each patch of shattered runway had a silent circle of sentries. More Intelligent soup cans sat upright, ominous and unexploded. These were “area denial munitions”, the politically correct Nelly phrase for land mines. Loaded into their bomblet bus with a more powerful ejection charge, they dropped around the edges of the havoc wreaked by the primary cratering charges. They would have to be dealt with, gingerly, before the runway repair crews could set to work.
*
East of the city, beyond the Sunter canal, the support elements of the 17th Motorized Brigade had established their base camp for the occupation of Jakarta. Here, within a fortified laager, were the critical “brains and guts” elements of the mobile force: the command and communications vehicles, the logistics trucks and fuel tankers, and the brigade’s battery of 105mm field howitzers, the only heavy artillery currently in position to cover the city and its approaches.
The brigade was a good one. Its commanders were not fools. They had dispersed their equipment and they had dug in deeply against the possibility of air attack, their sweating, swearing soldiers throwing up earthen blast berms and filling and emplacing multitudes of sandbags.
They had also positioned a portion of the brigade’s air defense troop of British-built Stryker combat tracks, armed with French-made Mistral surface-to-air missiles to cover the lager site. They thought they had made themselves ready for any eventuality.
Possibly that’s why no one was immediately concerned when more strings of flickering flashes were seen in the sky beyond the laager perimeter, especially when no ground explosions or other mayhem seemed to follow.
It didn’t occur to anyone that the flash strings were all taking place upwind. Nor could anyone see the armada of hundreds of small parachutes drifting in above the camp.
Dangling beneath each parachute was a flat, disc-shaped “skeet” loaded with a carefully shaped charge of high explosives and a tiny but discriminating package of electronics. Each skeet scanned the ground directly beneath it with microwave and infra-red microsensors, seeking for certain distinctive, recognizable geometric shapes: a truck, a tank, an artillery piece. When the “smart” sub-munition found such a shape, it exploded but in a most unique fashion.
The bottom of the skeet was made of an exotic copper alloy that was reshaped by the focused blast of the explosive charge into a semi-molten, armor-piercing dart that lanced straight down out of the sky like God’s own vengeance.
A jet of vivid green fire struck and pierced the deck of a Stryker anti-air vehicle positioned on the edge of the camp, and the track burst in a bubble of flame. More flame streaks rained down as scores of the skeet swarmed over the laager site. Command and communications vans were gutted. Fuel tankers fire-balled. Ammunition trucks exploded. Cannon were sawed in half. The deeply dug complex of field fortifications were irrelevant. The strikes all came from the most vulnerable point, directly overhead.
The doom bolts targeted only vehicles and equipment. The hapless soldiers trapped in the fire squall merely got in the way.
*
The bombs that took out the Indonesian Ministry of Defense and its garrison were not in the least exotic. Simple one-ton chunks of high explosive, they drilled through from its roof to its sub-basement, gutting the structure and caving it in upon itself.
In the Point Man Operations center, half a mile away across the square, Christine Rendino’s chair bounced a solid three inches into the air, the crash and tinkle of imploding windowpanes following the bludgeoning thunder of the explosions.
She shook the ringing out of her ears. “I think I hear our ride coming.”
*
The friendly position hacks were multiplying on the Alpha Display as air traffic built rapidly over Jakarta.
At the highest altitude, some sixty thousand feet, circled the big US Air Force Global Hawk surveillance drones, beaming down real-time radar and video imaging of the developing battle.
Below, at thirty-thousand feet, the Australian Air Force F/A-18s were establishing a Combat Air Patrol over Jakarta, ready to pounce on any outside aerial interference. Lower yet, the Shenandoah’s wave of scout and attack RPVs were sweeping in over the city.
On the ocean’s surface, the AAAV landing force was lining up on its objective beach while, the RIB raider boats peeled away from their escort slots, moving toward their own targets along the port waterfront.
More friendly hacks were blipping into existence on the display with every passing second. Muffled by the interceding decks, a continuous vibrant roar came from overhead. The topside monitors showed a stream of helicopters lifting off from the commando carrier: SPEED Cobras, SPEED Hawks and Little Birds, everything in the Shenandoah’s inventory. Yet more contacts were crawling down the screen from the north, the evacuation Ospreys moving up to their holding line.
Operation Trick or Treat was boiling down into one titanic air traffic control exercise.
“Captain, this is drone control,” a voice sounded in the earphones of Amanda’s headset. “All elements on station. Ready to start trolling.”
Amanda replied into her headset mike, “Drone control, stay high and mark targets of opportunity. Do not engage until we
get the fire base operational.”
“Aye aye, ma’am.” There was disappointment in the reply. It was obvious the RPV team wanted to start the hunt, but they couldn’t be wasted. Not yet anyway.
The Landing Force Op center was growing warm with the heat of computers and bodies. Someone slipped in through the light curtain and wordlessly passed around cold sports drinks and cans of soda. Amanda automatically took a sip without tasting what she was drinking.
“Sea Demon Six to Star Child. We’re holdin’ at departure line. Sky Island flight ready to commit.” Stone Quillain’s voice was torn with wind roar and rotor blast. To provide the lift weight for the four-man Sky Island teams and their small mountain of equipment and ammunition, the Army AH-6s that carried them had been stripped of their integral armament and their fuselage door panels until they were little more than flying skeletons. Stone would be clipped into a monkey harness, sitting on the bare deck of the Little Bird, his legs dangling over a thousand feet of empty air.
“Strike Lead to Star Child,” Vince Arkady’s voice interjected. “Strike group is up and on station above Sky Island flight. We are ready to rock
this town.”
“Acknowledged Strike Lead. Acknowledged Sea Demon Six. Stand by all air elements. Hold and orbit at your check lines. The fire base force is crossing the beach at this time.”
