Large Screen Display

RAT CRAP!

It was shaping up to be just another Mark 1 Mod 0 standard Navy day in the intelligence biz — the system went Tango Uniform, again, so Marlow went off on a hunt for a two day old pastry and the latest rumors on this year’s Commanding Officer reorganization in the Center’s cafeteria. He returned, lips still coated with the pastry’s sugar glaze and mind utterly confused by reorg gossip about who was up, who was down, who would be promoted early, and so on. Suddenly his large screen screeched back to life and the tidbit of intelligence that had caught his attention earlier came back on the screen albeit inverted. After righting the image, he read that an allied intelligence service (i.e., the ROK Navy) had spotted the first unit of what some were calling the new “Kimpo” class submarine had been secretly launched a week ago. This unit, predictably enough, had no name assigned yet. That would take months of interagency meetings before some wise Senior Intelligence Service Officer at the CIA would tell the unwashed non-CIA peons what it would be regardless of their inputs. Given the international public threats of extinction floating back and forth across the Pacific Ocean during the past month, Marlow called it “Red Death for Dotard” to the amusement of his junior analyst contemporaries in adjoining cubicles.

Even more intriguing was the picture and analysis which accompanied the news of the launch. The submarine, photographed in a new construction dry dock positioned well away from everything else on the base at edge of the huge yard, appeared to have a strange pattern topside aft of the sail which formed two rows of large black circles. ROK Naval intelligence speculated that these circles were placeholders for the future development and fielding of undersea launched ballistic and cruise missles. They appeared to be much larger than was required to house the current NORK medium rnage missile that was last tested in 2015.

Larger seabased missles with serious intercontinental ranges had been expected to be years, if not a decade or more, off in the future. According to the message, subsequent imagery that was still being analyzed showed several of the circles open with objects inside that looked like weapons resting inside.

OH HOLY CRAP!

The implications were mind blowing. A new generation of NORK submarines, very, very quiet using sound deadening technology illegally transfered from the Russians and Germans years ago, loaded to the gills with nuke tipped missiles. This would upset the correlation of forces between the regional powers and destabilize the existing world situation.

Analyst Marlow knew that US fast attack submarines would be forced to track and preempt these boats’ operations 24/7, should the US be lucky enough to detect them acoustically engaging in pre-launch protocols. In the meantime, the NORK submarine fleet could sneak around the world and, if provoked, strike the US and her allies at will, undermining the half century old guarantees provided by the MAD doctrine — that no nuke power would launch a first strike against another for fear of retaliation.

Clearly, this should be written up — the fate of the free world depended on it.

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