Sea fighter

by James H. Cobb

  “Still green and quiet. We think we’ve got the guard force eliminated and the crew secure, but we’re still working a compartment-by-compartment search. We haven’t found those damn kids yet, either. I’m hoping they may already be over the side.”

  Stepping out onto the starboard-side bridge wing, Quillain looked aft. He saw the set of red and green running lights standing boldly in toward the tanker as if the craft that carried them had every right in the world to be there.

  “Keep that search going until you’re absolutely sure,” Amanda replied. “You’ve got about five minutes before I come alongside. We can’t risk getting a bunch of children trapped in the middle of a firefight.”

  At that instant, somewhere down in the superstructure, an automatic weapon emptied in a single protracted burst, an angry flurry of single shots following.

  An excited voice cut into the channel. “This is Corporal Clasky, second squad. Skipper, we got trouble on deck two! We got a man down! We need a corpsman!”

  “Roger that! Corpsman to deck two! All elements! We are blown! We are blown! Clasky, what have we got down there?”

  “It’s those goddamn kids, sir! The little bastards have guns! They’re shooting at us!”

  At the midships gangway, Sergeant Tallman thumbed off the FALN’s safety and muttered under his breath to the men crouching along the railings. “Look alive, boys. We got business.”

  In response to the small-arms fire aboard the tanker, Union troops in platoon strength streamed out from the dockside shelters and double-timed for the gangway. The officer leading then yelled up a question. Tallman responded with a casual wave of his arm, the details of his equipment and uniform still lost in the deck’s shadows.

  “Steady, let ’em come in. Let ’em bunch up. Grenade launchers, load antipersonnel. Pick your targets.” Tallman crooned softly, easing the mode selector of the FALN to full automatic. “Make the first one count, then rock and roll.”

  The lead elements of the Union platoon clustered at the base of the gangway and their officer set first foot upon it. That was Tallman’s mark.

  “Take ’em!” he yelled. Whipping the FALN to his shoulder, he held down the trigger.

  The Union platoon melted under the raking storm of bullets and buckshot. Bodies crumpled to the pier decking or fell into the gap between the ship and the pilings. Other Union troopers out in the night recovered rapidly from their surprise, however. Muzzle flashes flickered back among the dockside sheds, and slugs whined off the tanker’s side.

  “Stay down! Stay back in the cover of the deck lip. Riflemen, set to sermiauto! Grenadiers and SAW men, pick your targets! Conserve your ammo!” Tallman reached for his own M-4 lying on deck nearby, then noted the sprawled form of the Union sentry he had slain. Reaching over, he grabbed a fresh twenty-round clip of 7.62 NATO from the dead soldier’s belt. “Waste not, want not,” the NCO muttered, socking the reload into the FALN’s magazine well.

  Port Monrovia Defense HQ 0135 Hours, Zone Time; September 8, 2007

  “What is our signals status?” Belewa demanded. “Who do we have communications with?”

  “High-intensity jamming on all standard bands, General,” the sweating radioman replied, frantically hunting up and down the frequency range for clear air. “Possibly we are being received elsewhere, but I can’t read any acknowledgments.”

  “What about the main government station at Mamba Point?”

  “I had burn-through with them for a moment, General. But then they dropped off the net. I cannot reestablish contact.”

  Belewa gritted his teeth. If the first American SLAM missile had destroyed the Port power-relay station, then the second must have targeted the transmitters on the top floor of the Mamba Point Hotel.

  “The city telephone exchange is down,” Sako Atiba reported from his position, crouched before the command track’s bank of field phones. “We have only our tactical land-lines around the harbor area. The Americans are executing their classic Baghdad strike template, using their cruise missiles to kill our communications and power.”

  “They’ve held off on their radio jamming until this moment as well,” Belewa muttered. “Their primary assault is under way and we still aren’t seeing it. Check all perimeter outposts. Something has to be happening out there!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Belewa stepped out of the fuggy interior of the Styre and stood on the lowered tail ramp. Looking up at the sky, he let the rain cool his face, wishing it could also cool the fevered thoughts in his mind. He had lost the initiative and he was losing the battle. He could sense it. Bit by bit, the Leopard was hooking away his control with deft claws. She laughed at him, taunting, dancing always just out of his reach as she worked to steal his kingdom.

  Thank God for the rain. It hid the tears of frustration and rage from his men.

  “General!” Atiba appeared in the rear hatch. “Northern sector reports one of their outpost squads has disappeared. Also that one of the breakwater patrols is overdue. They are investigating—”

  Belewa spun around to face his chief of staff. “To hell with that! We know what’s happening. They’re already inside! Get through to Payne Field any way you can. Tell them to launch that gunship! Get it out here! Then order the reserve company down to the oiling pier! Reinforce the inner perimeter and get me the guard commander aboard the tanker!”

  “Yes, sir!” Atiba disappeared back into the command track’s interior, snapping commands to its crew. He returned after only a moment. “General, there is no response on the tanker landline!”

  From the direction of the oiling pier came a sudden, muffled crackle of gunshots. More weapons joined in a few moments later, sharper, more piercing discharges building in a rising crescendo of automatic fire.

  “They’re trying to board the tanker,” Atiba exclaimed wildly, staring out into the night.

  Belewa instinctively gauged the volumes and angles of the discharges. “No … No, they’re already aboard the tanker! Sako! Fire full illumination. Then order every man we’ve got to converge on the oiling pier! Every man!”

  Yanking the Browning Hi Power from his belt holster, Belewa ran in the direction of the growing firefight.

  Harbor Tug Union Banner 0138 Hours, Zone Time; September 8, 2007

  Monitoring her own end of the tactical net, Amanda heard Quillain’s cry of “We are blown! We are blown!” and knew that the operation had just run out of grace time. She couldn’t hear the gunfire at first over the chugging rumble of the tug’s engines. But other indications of the Union response swiftly became apparent.

  Flare rockets and mortar-launched star shells arced out over the harbor and burst, cracking open the night with their glare. Amanda’s night-vision visor overloaded, and impatiently she yanked it away from her eyes. She also reached instinctively for the running light switch, then hesitated. There would be no cover of darkness now anyway, and perhaps the Union defenders had yet to realize that two of their vessels had been hijacked.

  “Stone, do you copy?” To hell with radio protocol now! “What’s your situation?”

  “It’s those goddamn kids!” Quillain snarled back. “They aren’t just kids. They’re a bunch of those kid soldiers you hear about down in these parts.”

  Indeed she had heard about them. They were an aspect of the brutal, total-war conflicts that had ravaged West Africa. Ten- and eleven-year-old boys, children barely big enough to pick up a rifle, had been drawn or thrust into the ranks of the combatants. Frequently they became some of the most savage and merciless killers. This was the advantage the child warrior had over the adult, not having lived long enough to either understand what it meant to take life or to fear death.

  To Obe Belewa’s credit, he had never used them in his battles. At least until now.

  “They’re forted up in one of the bunkrooms,” Stone continued. “
The little shits are hosing down anything that moves in the passageway. They’ve already got one man wounded.”

  “Can you get at them, Stone?”

  “We’re working on it. But even if we do, ain’t no way we’re going to get them or the Algerian crew down that gangway. We got a major firefight going along the pier. Union reinforcements are already movin’ in on us.”

  “I’m coming in fast as well. Have the line-handling detail standing by. I’ll be coming in under your counter in about two more minutes. Switch to alternative evacuation plan. I say again, switch to alternative evacuation plan.”

  “Roger that, Skipper. Line-handling detail is standing by. We’ll give you all the cover we can. I’m going below to see if I can get those damn kids sorted out.”

  “Hurry, Stone! We don’t have a lot of time here.”

  “You tell me about it!” The Marine clicked off circuit.

  Amanda edged the tug’s throttles open another notch and gave the wheel a half-spin to starboard. She would swing wide and move in from the southwest, keeping the bulk of the tanker between herself and the pier for as long as she could. Given the fight raging between the boarding party and the Union defense forces, maybe the tug would be ignored for a time longer. At least until the Union troops realized what she was attempting.

  On the tug’s foredeck, her own “main battery,” the four Marines of the prize crew, crouched low behind the bow towing butts. They had come prepared for heavy combat, two of the men bearing Squad Automatic Weapons, the second pair M4/M203 carbine and grenade launcher combinations.

  “On deck!” Amanda yelled through the glassless side panel of the windscreen. “Hold your fire until we’re fired upon directly. Don’t tip off anyone that there’s a prize crew aboard.”

  The team leader responded with an acknowledging wave.

  The pier and the tanker loomed ahead, the Bajara’s superstructure now starkly outlined by sweeping vehicle spotlights. Amanda could hear the gunfire now over the churning of the bow wave and the rumble of the Banner’s diesels.

  Aboard the Tanker Bajara 0140 Hours, Zone Time; September 8, 2007

  As the rifle slugs whined past, Quillain dodged to one side and hunkered closer to the deck. However, as conscious thought caught up with this actions, he realized that it was a futile gesture. The bullets had been ricochets, glancing wildly off the bulkhead at the “L” bend in the passageway ahead. He was as likely to be hit by one while standing erect as he was crawling on his belly.

  Corporal Clasky’s rifle team, minus their casualty, pressed back against the inner bulkhead.” What’s the situation?” Quillain demanded, dropping in behind them.

  “No change, sir,” Clasky replied. The little sons of bitches tried to bust out a minute or so ago, but we discouraged ’em with a couple of flashbangs. Other than that, they’ve just been shooting up the place like they’re sitting on a truckload of ammo.”

  “Let me have a look.” Quillain edged past the other Marines to the bend in the passageway. The fire team leader handed him a small stainless-steel mirror, and Quillain used it to peer around the corner.

  He observed another short length of grimy ship’s corridor with a watertight door centered in it. The door stood half open, and as Quillain looked on, a small face, dark and gaunt, peered cautiously around the rusted hatch frame.

  Lord A’mighty! They hadn’t been exaggerating. They were just kids, not even old enough to be looking at the girls yet.

  “We got the passageway on the other side secured?” Quillain demanded.

  The team leader nodded. “Yeah, we got another four men on the other side. Corporal Donovan and his guys.”

  “Right.” Quillain nodded. “We give ’em one chance. Then we go in after ’em.”

  Quillain bellowed around the corner, using his best drill instructor inflection. “Listen up in there! This is the United States Marines! Surrender! Drop your weapons! Come out with your hands behind your head and nobody gets hurt!”

  The first half of the reply he received consisted of a barrage of shrill, defiant, and amazingly obscene invective. Then the muzzle of a Sterling machine pistol slithered around the door frame, the weapon’s clip being emptied in a single long barrel-burning burst.

  “Okay, you little dickheads,” Quillain muttered. “You asked for it. Corporal, pass the word to all hands belowdecks. Mask up.”

  Quillain doffed his helmet for a second and dug a gas mask out of its pouch on his MOLLE harness. With the other members of the firing team following suit, he popped the safety caps off the filters and settled the mask over his head, tugging the straps snug for an airtight seal.

  “You boys set?” he asked over his shoulder, his voice muffled.

  A string of equally muffled acknowledgments came back.

  “Okay, Corporal, I want you and one other man with me. Have him put in another flashbang first. Then you and I follow it up with a couple of cans of CS. I want a fast, heavy concentration. We got to knock the fight out of these brats.”

  “You got it, sir.”

  “Okay, we go on three. One … two … three!”

  The first Marine pivoted around the corner, aiming a hard thrown flashbang grenade at the hatchway. The flashbang was a nonlethal munition that, true to its name, produced a dazzling burst of light and a loud but harmless explosion potent enough to momentarily stun an unprepared target.

  The piercing C-R-A-A-A-C-K of the munition reverberating in the passageway was the signal for Quillain and the corporal to move. Yanking the pins out of the tear gas cylinders, they pitched them into the bunkroom, glancing them off the open door so they landed on the deck inside. Two softer muffled thuds followed, then a growing chorus of gags and retches.

  The boy soldiers had been unprepared for the charge of riot gas. Gasping from the flashbang’s concussion, they found themselves suddenly inhaling lungfuls of biting military strength CS. A scream resounded from the bunkroom as someone tried to snatch up one of the grenades to hurl it back into the passageway. The young hero had discovered too late that the grenade’s thermal antitamper charge had already heated the metal canister to a sizzling temperature.

  Quillain and the two fire teams moved in to flank the bunkroom hatchway. Even through his mask, Quillain felt a coolness around his eyes, a leakage that indicated the gas concentration in the area was truly ferocious. No unprotected individual would be able to take it for long.

  Sure enough, the first boy warrior came stumbling blindly out of the compartment, a warrior no longer, but a weeping, terrified child seeking escape. Quillain swatted the submachine gun out of his hands. Yanking the double-lapped cartridge belt from around his waist, Stone shoved him on down the line to the other Marines. The other youths followed, wheezing and helpless, all will to resist quashed.

  “Get ’em up to the main messroom with the Algerians,” Quillain commanded. “And get ’em in life jackets.”

  “Should we try and wash the tear gas off of ’em, Skipper?”

  “Don’t bother. They’re going to be taking a swim here in a minute.”

  Port Monrovia Oiling Pier 0145 Hours, Zone Time; September 8, 2007

  Belewa shoved aside the barrel of the Carl Gustav launcher. “No rockets!” he yelled to the weapons crew. “That’s an order! No rockets! No grenades! We can’t risk setting fire to that ship!”

  Dropping down in the shelter of a piling head, the General studied the pierside battleground through smarting, smoke narrowed eyes. The Americans had the position, no doubt of that. The tanker’s steel sides rose a good ten feet above the dock like the wall of a medieval castle, the gap between the hull and the pier’s edge serving as its moat.

  The American Marines were taking full advantage of this high ground, pouring a steady hail of gunfire down from the deck edge upon anything that moved below. Other Marine marksmen raked the
full length of the pier from the Bajara’s superstructure, the sprawled bodies of Union soldiers on the pier’s decking standing testament to both their position and accuracy. Nor did the Americans have any limitations on the weapons they could employ. Marine grenadiers had demolished and ignited the dockside sheds with high explosives and white phosphorus, the spreading flames further hindering the Union counteroffensive.

  If the Americans had a weakness, it had to be in the limited size of their boarding force. Belewa could see but a single chance. The gangway amidships. The “drawbridge” to the “castle.” Seize that and the tanker’s decks might be regained. There the Union’s superior numbers would count once more.

  With the clatter of treads and the bellow of an unmuffled diesel, a Steyr armored personnel carrier lumbered up to the base of the oiling dock. Too heavy to proceed out onto the pier decking, it dropped its tail ramp and discharged its rifle squad. Getting to his feet, Belewa ran to the side of the idling APC, ignoring the bullet strikes around his feet.

  “Use your machine gun,” he yelled up to the track commander. “Hold this position and fire on the tanker’s deck house. Keep their heads down!”

  The track commander nodded broadly in reply and swung his GPMG in line with the Bajara’s superstructure. As the weapon began chopping off short, aimed bursts, Belewa continued on to where the track’s infantry squad had gone to ground.

  “Bren gunners! Lay down covering fire! Drive them back from the rail! Riflemen, follow me! Forward!”

  Harbor Tug Union Banner 0145 Hours, Zone Time; September 8, 2007

  Amanda doused the tug’s running lights as she came in on the tanker’s quarter. Spinning the wheel to its port stop, she whipped the Banner into a tight, foaming turn. Handy as with all of her breed, the little tug came about almost within her own length, her stern coming in line with the Bajara’s.