Trident Deception Series by Rick Campbell
Trident Deception #2
Empire Rising: A Novel
Rick Campbell
After a long, secret military buildup, China launches a swift and deadly attack on Taiwan. But that’s only their first move in a much deadlier game.In Rick Campbell's thrilling Empire Rising, Xiang Chenglei, Chinese president and party secretary, has both a problem and a plan. The problem is that China’s limited supply of oil is threatening to derail its economic growth and prosperity. Having failed to win access to a greater supply diplomatically, he sets his backup plan in motion. And what is war, but diplomacy by other means? The U.S. Pacific Fleet is the major military force in the area, and when Taiwan is invaded, the fleet is sent in to repel the invading Chinese forces. The U.S. military expects it to be an easy operation, but after a decades-long, top-secret buildup, China has military capabilities far greater than the United States is aware of. With hidden batteries of long range missiles, advanced cyber warfare capabilities, and a submarine fleet wielding a secret weapon, China is able to overwhelm the American fleet. In fact, China all but wipes out the U.S. Pacific Fleet—leaving them free to turn to their real objective—invasion and expansion across Asia, starting with the four main islands of Japan. While the Atlantic Fleet surges westward to defend its allies and respond to the destruction of their counterparts, it falls to an unlikely alliance of three people to stop this incursion and prevent an all-but-inevitable global war. National Security Advisor Christine O’Connor has critical information, but she’s trapped in Beijing; Captain Murray Wilson, commanding officer of the submarine USS Michigan must somehow infiltrate the Chinese submarine blockade; and Navy SEAL Jake Harrison must lead a strike team into the most hostile of territories with only hours to implement the most daring plan ever.
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Trident Deception #4
Blackmail
Rick Campbell
"As in Tom Clancy's technothrillers, the war maneuvers feel authentic and are described in stellar detail." —Booklist on Blackmail
In Rick Campbell's new thriller Blackmail*, a bold military and political strike by the Russian government leaves the U.S. reeling, crippled and vulnerable, with only a desperate long shot chance to avoid a devastating world war.*
The U.S. aircraft carrier patrolling the Western Pacific Ocean is severely damaged by a surprise salvo of cruise missiles. While the Russian government officially apologizes, claiming it was the result of fire control accident during a training exercise, it was instead a calculated provocation. With the U.S. Pacific fleet already severely under strength, the Russian President decides that the US response is a clear indication of their weakness, militarily and politically, and initiates a bold plan.
Political unrest is spreading through the Eastern European states. The Russian Northern Fleet moves swiftly in the Mediterranean Sea, the Russian army is moving west to the border, and Russian Baltic and Black Sea Fleets are mobilized. In one bold strike, the Russian army moves to reoccupy a large number of the industrialized areas of the former USSR, while blockading the vital sea passages through which the world’s oil and natural gas transit. To make matters worse, Russia’s Special Forces have wired every major oil and natural gas pipeline with explosives. If the U.S. makes one move to thwart Russia, they’ll destroy them all. The U.S. is risking disaster if it acts, but the alternative is quite possibly worse. Torn between the unthinkable and the impossible, the only possible move—to launch an attack on all fronts, simultaneously.
**Review
“Enthralling… The submarine and surface-ship battles are pitch-perfect, and readers will shudder with every missile strike and every exploding depth charge.” ―Publishers Weekly on Blackmail
“The best novel about a submarine since Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October.” ―Booklist (starred review) on *The Trident Deception *
“A military, techo-thriller throwback to the early days of Tom Clancy mixed with the best of W.E.B. Griffin…Empire Rising is a high-tech shoot-’em-up for a more thoughtful generation.” ―Providence Journal
About the Author
RICK CAMPBELL is a retired Navy Commander who spent more than twenty years on multiple submarine tours. On his last tour, he was one of the two men whose permission was required to launch the submarine’s nuclear warhead-tipped missiles. Campbell is the author of The Trident Deception, Empire Rising, and Ice Station Nautilus. He and lives with his family in the greater Washington, D.C. area.
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Trident Deception #4.50
Power Play
Rick Campbell
Power Play, a thrilling new Trident Deception short story by Rick Campbell.
The Russians have their newest class of nuclear attack submarine and is taking it, K-561 Kazan, on a shakedown cruise. Unbeknownst to them, however, this new submarine is being followed by an American submarine, the USS Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh is to gather any intelligence they can on this new Russian submarine while avoiding detection by the Russians. But what first appears to be the rollout of a new type of submarine, might well be something completely different. Instead the Pittsburgh witness a torpedo firing exercise—and the radical new technology might well not be the submarine, but the torpedo.
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