Location
Central strait
Mosquito Fleet · Mission 5 · Central strait
OPERATIONAL ORDER 2026-12-13-LRK-031 Eyes only. Captain R. Tahami, Boghammar-7. USS BAINBRIDGE (DDG-96) conducting Freedom of Navigation transit through claimed waters, central strait. Maintain visible presence. Do not allow penetration without challenge. Engagement authorized only if challenged first. You are looking for the line. You will know it when you find it. Do not cross it. — Cmdr. M. Alavi, Larak Naval Station
Cockpit and net traffic recorded during the operation, timestamped from mission start.
USS Bainbridge (DDG-96) is an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer commissioned in 2005, one of the most numerous and capable surface-combatant classes ever built. The name carries lineage back to Commodore William Bainbridge of the early US Navy and the Barbary Wars.
This Bainbridge earned its public fame in April 2009, when it responded to the hijacking of the container ship Maersk Alabama off Somalia. After Captain Richard Phillips was taken hostage in an enclosed lifeboat, Bainbridge shadowed it for days; with Phillips' life judged in immediate danger, Navy SEAL snipers firing from the destroyer's fantail killed three pirates in near-simultaneous shots and freed him — the operation dramatised in the film Captain Phillips. Arleigh Burke destroyers form the backbone of US carrier strike groups, carrying the Aegis combat system, SM-series surface-to-air missiles and Tomahawk cruise missiles. In the strait, a single such ship represents firepower an entire IRGCN squadron is designed to offset through numbers.
A scene from the campaign's narrative, shown after a successful run. Mild spoilers.
*Bainbridge* is a smudge on the eastern horizon now. Reza unclenches his hands from the wheel and finds that he has sweat through the back of his shirt.
Yusef is at the rail. Larak is pulling closer. He is folding a cloth diagram of the SPY-1D radar coverage envelope that some unfortunate intelligence officer drew for him in 2014.
"Two hundred ninety," Yusef says. "It was an Airbus. They saw an F-14 because they were ready to see one. They had been at general quarters for forty minutes."
He folds a corner under another corner.
"Their captain testified that the system told him it was descending and accelerating. The system told him because the system was wrong. The Airbus was climbing."
Reza waits.
"Two missiles. Three hundred meters separation. Two hundred ninety souls."
The folded cloth is back to its original shape.
"You did the right thing tonight, Captain. You did not become Captain Rogers. You did not give Captain Greene a reason to become Captain Rogers."
He looks at the eastern horizon for a long moment.
"It is not a small thing."