A second land attack missile followed the first out into the night a few seconds later. Running nose to tail, they leveled off at two thousand feet, briefly maintaining their launch headings. Then the tips of their razor blade wings snapped up and they reversed course, heading back for the coast and for Yelibuya Fleet Base.
The SeaSLAM ER (SEA-launched Standoff Land Attack Missile Expanded Response) was a true “smart bomb.” In fact, it was as intelligent as is conceivable for any weapons system. In the fire-control bay of the Queen of the West, targeting screens displayed television images beamed back from the Sea-SLAM nose cameras. With hands delicately moving controllers, Danno and the Fryguy flew their robotic charges on to their final destiny.
Yelibuya Fleet Base
Command Bunker 0142 Hours, Zone Time;
June 30, 2007
“Captain Kinsford, we are through to Mamba Point,” one of the signalmen croaked.
The air in the bunker rasped at the lungs, thick as it was with smoke and chemical taint and the stench of burning flesh. Kinsford stumbled to the partially functional radio console and caught up the hand mike. “Mamba Point. This is Captain Kinsford at Yelibuya Sound. Do you receive?”
“We receive, Yelibuya Sound.” The faint and distant voice of a living world issued from the transceiver speaker. “What is your situation?”
Kinsford had to try twice before he could force the words from his parched throat. “Mamba Point. Yelibuya Fleet Base has been destroyed.”
The Union captain never had the opportunity to hear the reply. Outside a piercing nasal whine grew in intensity and an explosion far greater than any that had come before took everyone in the command bunker off their feet. Support beams cracked, sand rained down from the overhead, and concussion blew the radio chassis completely away from the bunker walls.
Kinsford struggled to his feet and peered out through the distorted observation slits. The base ammunition bunker was gone. Nothing remained of it but a black and smoking crater gouged out of the ground.
Their attackers had ignored the fortified installations in their first attack. But now they were returning with a more potent armament to clean up the remnants. And if they had weapons powerful enough to kill the ammunition bunker …
“Out!” Kinsford bellowed. “Everyone, get out!” He threw himself at the narrow bunker door, but already that lethal, piercing whine was growing again.
Something pile-drivered vertically into the entryway. Kinsford got a split second’s impression of a gray cylindrical body and crumpled fins, then the fuse relays in the SeaSLAM’s five-hundred-pound warhead closed.
“TACNET, this is Little Pig Lead.”
“TACNET ’by.”
“Chris, are you still maintaining drone coverage over Yelibuya Sound at this time?”
“Affirmative on that. We have a Predator on station.”
“Acknowledged. We have executed our fire missions. Can you give us a poststrike assessment on the status of the Union naval base?”
“What Union naval base, boss ma’am?”
“Understood, TACNET. Operation completed. We are inbound to Floater 1.”
Mobile Offshore Base, Floater 1 0310 Hours, Zone Time;
June 30, 2007
One after another, the seafighters swept in from the predawn darkness. Boosting themselves up the boarding ramp, they slithered to a halt within their hangar slots, settling onto their bellies with a tired sigh of slowing fans. The waiting ground crews moved in and started unshipping service and access panels even as the personnel hatches swung open.
Amanda stepped away from the Queen of the West, her arm extended over her head with the fist clenched, a rallying call for the disembarking hovercrews. As they clustered around her in the scarlet worklights, she stepped up onto a toolbox to address them.
“Yesterday afternoon,” she began, “the Union managed to burn us a little. But tonight, we recovered and we shoved their little win right back down their throats. Well done to all hands. The enemy will not try this again soon.
“In fact, we should send General Belewa a thank-you letter, signed by everyone in this command. For by attacking us he’s given us the opportunity to go after him. And we are. After mission debriefing, I want all fighter crews to turn in and get as much rest as they can. You are going to need it. At oh twelve hundred today, there will be an O Group meeting for all officers and senior CPOs. We will be discussing new patrol zones, new operating doctrines, and new targets. There will be no more passive barrier patrols. There will be no more waiting for the other guy to start something. Ladies and gentlemen, the next time we go out, we will be on the offensive.”
There was no spirited cheering as might have been incorporated into some Hollywood potboiler, but eyes flared hot in defiance of a night’s worth of weariness and grim smiles tugged at a number of lips. And there was a verbal reaction of a sort, a soft, muttered growl of assent from among the assembled sea warriors.
It was the response Amanda had hoped for.
After dismissing all hands, she trudged over to her quarters module. As per her radioed request, Christine Rendino was waiting for her there with a stack of hard copy and computer media.
“Here you go, boss ma’am,” the intel said. “Everything we’ve got on Belewa’s coastal smuggling network into Côte d’Ivoire.”
“Very good, Chris.” Amanda hung her battle vest and pistol belt on the wall rack. Sinking down behind her desk, she yawned mightily. “What’s the status on the British minehunter? Were they able to keep her afloat?”
“With the help of half a dozen spare auxiliary pumps, yes. Santana has her in tow, and they should be up with us some time this morning. The Royal Navy has requested that we keep her alongside until they can survey the hulk and decide if she’s worth salvaging.”
“I’ve got no problem with that. We’ve got plenty of room for her crew. The survivors, anyway.” Amanda yawned again and leaned over the desk, rubbing the aching back of her neck. “When Santana completes the tow, I’m relieving her on Guinea East station and I’m sending her across to join Sirocco on Union East. As I promised, Chris, your day has come. Starting right now, Belewa’s smuggling pipeline is our new top priority.”
“Whoa! I thought you said we couldn’t afford to spare the hulls and manpower,” Christine replied, dropping into the chair across from her captain.
“That was then. This is now. By taking out Yelibuya Sound and its Boghammer groups, we’ve not only reduced Belewa’s available naval strength by one third, but we’ve eliminated the immediate seaborne threat to the Guinea coast. Now we get to jump on his back for a while.
“You’ve indicated to me that this oil-smuggling link is critical to Belewa’s war effort. Okay, if we go after that link, right now, with the seafighter group and the PCs both, we not only hurt him strategically by cutting off his fuel, but we’ll damage him operationally. We’ll pin down his remaining sea power Frenchside, trying to defend his maritime lines of communication.
“Yeah.” Christine nodded, her eyes thoughtful. “And between the aerostat radar, my recon drones, and the British patrol helicopters, we can probably spot any shift of Union naval westward in time to head them off at the pass.”
“Exactly. And with the Union navy out of the way, we can turn the Guinea East barrier patrol over to the Guinean navy and Maritime police. We’ve got a chance now, Chris. For the first time, we’ve really got a chance.” Reaching across to the stack of intelligence hard copy, Amanda selected and opened the first folder.
“It’s going to be a whole new ball game,” she continued, flipping open the file, “and we’ve got to develop a whole new mission profile to deal with these smugglers of yours.”
Christine tilted her head and examined her friend’s face. “Uh, that’s all well and good, boss ma’am. But fa’sure, don’t you think that getting horizontal and
catching a few zees might also be in order?”
Amanda chuckled softly. “Oh, I daresay it would. But I need at least an outline of a valid search and intercept doctrine for Frenchside, and I need it by that O Group meeting this noon. I want our people out there and hunting effectively by tonight. We’ve given Belewa one shock already, and I intend to give him another nasty surprise just as soon as I can. You go ahead and turn in. I want to tinker with this for a while.”
Christine sighed. Rising, she went to the small corner table that held Amanda’s one-burner hot plate and put on water for tea. Returning to her deskside chair, she reached for a second file. “Okay, I think the place we should start is with the primary Union reception and departure points …”
Yelibuya Sound Fleet Base 0601 Hours, Zone time;
June 30, 2007
The Union army helicopter settled onto its skids at the edge of the wasteland. Its two passengers disembarked and carefully began picking their way into the cratered and smoldering devastation.
A scattering of others were present. Army sappers posting warning flags around unexploded munitions. Aid men carrying in bodies and pieces of bodies. Union navy survivors, shocked and trembling and not yet quite believing that they had indeed survived.
Obe Belewa and Sako Atiba paused beside the crushed and riddled hulk of a Boghammer gunboat, blown a full two hundred feet away from the water’s edge.
“You were right, Obe,” Atiba said quietly. “She is a witch.”
Hands on hips, Belewa scanned the ruins of the naval base. “No, Sako,” he replied after a few moments. “For us, she is something far, far worse. She’s a warrior.”
Union East Station July 2007
And the new war began.
A war not of guns and missiles but of guile and wile, of invention and unconventionality, of slender dark hulls slinking through the night and a handful of vigilant and sleepless hunters.
“Okay, Johnny Bull Lead, he’s just about a quarter mile off your nose. Bearing 310 degrees true.”
The whup-whup-whup of helicopter rotors sounded in Christine Rendino’s headset, backdropping the voice of the British aviator. “Acknowledge that, Floater. We do have a young-fella-me-lad out there. Single man in a small pirogue. Moving in.”
Seated at her workstation in the TACNET trailer, Christine shifted the aerostat radar display to tactical ranging. Contentedly munching a Milky Way bar, she watched as the transponder hack of the Royal Navy Merlin crawled closer to the anonymous blip centered in the screen.
“Over the little bugger now, Floater. I say again, single party, very small boat. Looks to be just a fisherman. If he’s smuggling any petrol, he must be carrying it in a hip flask. You sure this is the chap we’re looking for?”
Christine activated a second display screen. For the past two hours she and her people had been monitoring a raft of Côte d’Ivoire fishing craft working the waters just short of the Union’s territorial waters. Now she called up and replayed the recorded radar imaging from those past two hours, running it at fast forward. Among the Brownian motion of the circling fishing boats, one blip stood out. At the enhanced replay speed, it could be seen following a meandering but intent course to the northwest and toward the borderline.
“Roger that, Johnny Bull. This is the dude we want. Are you sure there isn’t anything unusual at all about that boat?”
“Now that you mention it, Floater, the chap does have a whacking big motor on that thing for the size of the craft.”
“All right! Here we go! Betcha this guy is playing tugboat. Spiral slowly outward from his position and vertical search. I suspect you will find a pretty present.”
“Rog, Floater. Doin’ it.”
Christine took another bite of her candy bar and awaited developments.
“Right you were, Floater,” Dane’s pleased words came back a few minutes later. “Four oil drums, ballasted to float just under the surface. We’re hovering down over them now. Our lad must have cast off his tow when we popped over the horizon.”
“Too bad. He’s not hands-on with the stuff. We don’t get to bust this guy.”
“But he doesn’t get to make his deliveries, either. My door gunner is preparing to open the tins now.”
The sound of four short, precise machine-gun bursts leaked back over the circuit.
“Good heavens, Floater, I do believe the rude fellow is making a gesture.”
“Hey, Scrounge, what did you find over there?”
“Looks like about forty jerricans of diesel under the deck boards, and a dozen cases of motor oil.”
“Does the Captain have an explanation for it?”
“Yeah, Chief. He says it’s all for his personal use. He says he’s going up the coast to visit his mother.”
“Where’s his friggin’ mother live? Norway?”
Lounging in the side hatch of the Queen of the West, Stone Quillain eyed the deck of the heavily laden pinasse as it drifted alongside. Cases of brown bottles jammed its narrow deck, hundreds of cases.
“Howdebody, Captain,” the pinasse’s skipper called cheerfully from the tiller station at the stern.
“Real good, son,” Quillain called back. “Where you from and where you bound?”
“Half Cavalla, just short of Frenchside. Goin’ up to Fishtown for the coast trade. No law against that.”
“Depends on your cargo, son. What you carrying?”
“Nothin’ but beer, Captain. No law against beer. We make it good beer in Half Cavalla. You want a case?”
Quillain shook his head. “Thank you kindly for the offer, but no thanks. But tell you what. Since it’s a hot day out here and all, and you’re working so hard and everything, why don’t you drink one for us.”
The Union boatman grinned back and stepped up to the rear tier of stacked cases, reaching for a bottle. However, as the bottle came up, so did Quillain’s shotgun.
“Uh, not one of those, son. Why don’t you take a bottle from one of them cases up forward there.” Braced against the Marine’s hip, the barrel of the Mossberg described an arc and pointed like a grim and insistent finger.
The grin froze on the face of the boatman. Hesitantly, he went forward and selected a bottle. As he popped the cap off, the “beer” displayed a decided lack of effervescence.
“That’s it, son. You just take a big old drink now.”
Resolutely, the Union boatman lifted the bottle to his lips. Bubbles appeared within the container, the boatman’s cheeks bulged, and then came the explosive retch that ended the charade. He collapsed to the low rail of his craft, vomiting helplessly. The stench of gasoline and gastric distress issued across the few feet of water that separated the pinasse and the hovercraft.
“Now, I got to say that was a real good try, son,” Quillain commented with some sympathy. “We’re still going to arrest you and blow up your boat, but it was a real good try.”
Mobile Offshore Base, Floater 1 2330 Hours, Zone Time;
June 11, 2007
The Coke can plunked into the sea. Half filled with water ballast, it bobbed in the swells, glinting in the angled evening sun. Then the .45 roared. Two man-high jets of spray geysered up around it, making the can dance on the wave crest. The third round center-punched the red and silver container, driving it under. Stunned by the impact shock of the bullet, a small minnowlike fish floated to the surface and one of the Offshore Base’s colony of semitame cormorants swooped down gratefully to receive it.
“How’s that?” Amanda asked proudly, lowering the smoking automatic.
“Not good, not bad,” Stone Quillain grunted. “Comin’ along.”
He took another empty soda can from the cardboard box sitting on the battered mess table. Plunging it into a bucket of salt water, he let it fully fill, then hurled it into the air in a high arcing parabola twenty yards out
beyond the side of the platform.
His hand continued to move in a blur, scooping the M9 Beretta service pistol off the tabletop. Whipping it up and in line, the Marine fired a fast double tap. At the second sharp crack of the 9mm, the falling can exploded, aluminum confetti and water droplets raining into the sea.
Amanda cast a baleful glance at Quillain from beneath the visor of her baseball cap. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you that a southern gentleman always lets the lady win?”
The ear protectors she wore made her words echo hollowly. Amanda and Quillain had established an ad hoc firing range on the port side of the barge, as well as a habit of taking some target practice after dinner on those nights when an early patrol wasn’t scheduled.
Quillain laughed, a low, closed-mouthed huh, huh, huh. ”Why, that’d be what you call sexual discrimination. It’d get this old boy in a lot of trouble.”
“Yes, but it would do wonders for my sense of inferiority.”
“Like I said. You’re coming along.” Quillain set the Beretta back on the table and slipped back his ear guards. “You doing those dry fire drills I taught you?”
“Uh, when I can find the time,” Amanda replied guiltily.
It was Quillain’s turn for a baleful glare. “Fifteen minutes morning and night! You can sleep after you retire!” The big Marine slipped into drill sergeant mode. “The only right way to combat-carry a Model 1911-A Colt is Condition Three: shell in the chamber, hammer cocked, and safety on!
“You have to learn to swipe that safety off with your thumb every time you draw that weapon. It’s got to be instinct there’s no time to think in a gunfight! That means you repeat that draw-and-clear drill until it’s automatic! That means three thousand times. And you better get it right, because it’ll take ten thousand times around to unlearn it if you get it wrong !”
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