Thirteen hours after the initial bombardment of South Korea.
North Korea was known for being one of the darkest countries on the planet during its nights, as had been shown in many, many satellite images. The country was so impoverished that most of the areas within it had their electricity shut off after dark, after all. But this was destined to be a much brighter night than most, even if the brightness was only momentary, much like the average ambient temperature in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had skyrocketed on the sixth and ninth of August, 1945, respectively.
"ETA to drop zone, fifteen minutes."
Jose Rodriguez, a member of the US Air Force, had his eyes on the instruments in front of him and offhandedly replied, "Payload status?"
"All systems green. MOP is ready for deployment."
In the blackness of night, thirteen B2 Spirit stealth bombers were flying through North Korean airspace, each of them headed to separate targets in a synchronized attack. A few minutes after that brief exchange, all thirteen of the bombers had reached their targets and, in an eerie example of synchronicity, announced, “Ten seconds to drop.”
“Three.... Two.... One... release.”
With mechanical thuds, thirteen monstrous GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators left the bomb bays of thirteen B2 bombers, which all pushed their throttles to the stops as they accelerated to put distance between themselves and the impending detonations. As they accelerated, they also banked in a perfectly timed display of skill as they adjusted their course to head toward their next, less critical destinations.
Their initial targets had been North Korean nuclear missile silos, which contained the bulk of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. Their next targets were the infrastructure that allowed North Korea to produce nuclear weapons in the first place—nuclear enrichment centrifuges, missile production factories, assembly sites, and so on.
It would be a much brighter night than usual in North Korea.
……
While the bombers were carrying out their missions, underneath the surface of the ocean, a cat-and-mouse game was playing out between the American Los Angeles, Seawolf, and Virginia class attack submarines hunted down North Korea’s rather numerous submarine fleet. It wasn’t providing much of a challenge to the more technologically advanced American subs; their only difficulty was in picking targets from a target-rich environment, rather than finding them. It was much like shooting fish in a barrel, rather than digging rats out of their holes.
That was despite the fact that the North Korean submarines had been ordered to hide from the trade interdiction fleets at the time of their arrival just outside Korean territorial waters.
"Contact bearing two one seven relative, designated Sierra One," announced Petty Officer Ramirez, the lead sonar operator on the Virginia class submarine SSN-789 Indiana. The display in front of him was a screen that looked like a scrambled television signal, but to the experienced sonar technician, it painted a clear picture of a North Korean submarine.
Commander Harper, a tall man with salt-and-pepper hair, turned his head to Ramirez and asked, "Range?"
"5,000 yards and closing, Captain."
(Ed note: Every commander of a ship in the navy is referred to as “captain”, despite their actual rank. Oftentimes, on smaller ships and submarines, commanders (O6) are the “captains” of their vessels. Captain is actually a very high rank—just below admiral—so there are fewer of them than there are ships in the navy.)
The commander knew that the submarine they were tracking was a credible threat. The Indiana was under orders: no hesitation, no mercy. They were in a state of war.
"Torpedo room, ready tubes one and two," Harper commanded.
"Weapons, tubes one and two ready, sir."
The tension in the CIC was palpable. Every sailor knew their role, and they performed with chilling efficiency.
"Fire control, solution ready on Sierra One?"
"Yes, Captain. Solution plotted and ready."
Captain Harper paused for a moment, a weighty silence filling the space. "Fire tubes one and two."
"Fire tubes one and two, aye," the weapons officer's voice echoed, followed by the unmistakable sound of torpedoes launching. Two powerful weapons raced toward their target, guided by the Indiana's sophisticated systems.
The minutes that followed were tense. The sonar display showed the torpedoes' path, their predicted tracks converging with the enemy submarine's.
"Torpedoes running hot, straight, and normal," Ramirez announced.
A distant underwater explosion reverberated through the USS Indiana's hull. The shockwaves were felt both physically and emotionally.
"Sierra One, no longer on sonar, Captain," Ramirez reported, his voice a mix of relief and professionalism.
Captain Harper nodded, his face stoic. "Communicate the hit to command. Stay vigilant, there may be more out there."
The USS Indiana continued its silent patrol, its crew ever watchful in the shadowy depths, knowing that, in war, every decision has both weight and consequences.
……
It only took what felt like thirty minutes from the first bomb to the last for the entirety of North Korea’s nuclear program to be erased from the surface of the planet. Everything, from silos to factories, were rendered extinct by American stealth bombers, while their submarines suffered the fate of becoming very expensive, life-sized aquarium decorations on the bottom of the sea. All of their naval bases had also felt the love, being on the receiving end of saturation fire from naval guns at standoff range and constant bombing runs by carrier-based F/A-18 Hornets.
It wasn’t as though North Korea hadn’t prepared many plans for what to do in case of an attack by the joint nations of South Korea and America, but they had expected that there would be a warning before any shots were fired. The US was fond of its own voice to the extent that it much preferred, as a nation, to speak rather than shoot. But when it did shoot, its shots were as accurate as they were painful.
Kim Jong-Un’s belief that it could just deny involvement in the attack, as it had done in the past, or claimed that the attack had been carried out by rogue elements in the government—which it had—had turned out to be naive, at best. At worst, they believed that their nuclear arsenal would prove to be a restraining force on any potential hostilities and that things would end at the negotiation table, as it always had in the past.
But this time was different. The US had received actionable intelligence that accurately pinpointed North Korea’s nuclear sites from South Korea (courtesy of the nyxians that had infiltrated the sites when they’d been welcomed to the country as part of the advance team ahead of Alexander’s visit) and had chosen to act instead of forbear. Trump himself had practically giggled with glee and danced a jig when he’d heard that particular bit of intelligence, even though he had wrongly credited the South Korean intelligence service with the merit.
It was definitely a feather in his cap as president, he thought. He could forever claim with pride that he was the president that finally put a decisive end to the Korean War, a conflict that had stretched the better part of an entire century.
