Hart grunted. “Good thing they couldn’t launch the full salvo they’d planned.”
Ainsworth slapped him on the shoulder. “Good thing indeed.”
Moments later, the sound of tons of ice shattering filled the ship. They both grabbed their consoles as the ship shuddered.
Ainsworth studied his controls. “All green here.”
Hart echoed the comment. “Same on my boards.” He deployed the bots to start healing the ice armor. “Lasers are down until we can get an optically clean layer of ice up again.” He brought up an earlier complaint. “We should have blown out the photo-optics on the fighters while we had the chance.”
“And make it hard for those fighters to shoot each other to shreds? The cyberwar team would have chewed us out and eaten us alive.”
Hart grumbled, “I suppose.” He cheered up. “Look at us, still alive.”
Ainsworth smiled. “As hopeless battles fare, this is going quite swimmingly, is it not?”
As Ping and Toni rendezvoused with their drone copters, letting the copters fan out in front of them, Ping was able to watch through the sensor fusion of all the drones as the American fighters shot each other down. She turned philosophical. “So, Toni, if one of the Americans shoots down five of his companions, does that make him an ace?”
Toni responded with harsh mirth. “If they come to the Prometheus, I’ll be happy to give them a Flying Ace award.”
Ping expressed her building impatience. “So, are they softened up enough?”
Toni responded with gentler mirth. “Yes, Airman, but only soft enough for the copters. You and I are still going to hold back.”
Ping sighed. “Spoilsport.”
About half the planes in the assault had killed each other, the second squadron leader included. The first squadron leader was sorting the others into a ragged formation when the pilot on the southwestern edge offered a puzzled observation. “There’s something coming up on us, I think. It’s—holy shit! There’s a whole wing of copters! Stealth copters! They’re invisible to both my radar and my infrared.”
The squadron leader’s spine prickled, then he calmed down. “Copters? How’d they even get here? The BrainTrust copters can’t fly that far, and they don’t carry any ordnance except…” he chuckled, “hornets.”
The originator of the warning cried out again. “I’m spiked! Two spikes, an AMRAAM and a Vympel Adder!”
The leader gasped. A Russian missile flying in tandem with an American missile? Omigod.
His mind whirled over the possibilities. He’d trained endlessly against the AMRAAM and knew how to evade it.
He’d also trained endlessly against the Adder, and he knew how to evade it as well.
But the two missiles had different weaknesses, requiring different maneuvers. He had no clue how to evade them both at the same time.
He’d bet nobody else knew how to evade them either.
More American and Russian missiles hurtled through the air. Desperately, the squadron leader focused on the main mission. He organized most of his planes to counter the copters while directing half a dozen into a full-afterburner charge heading toward the Chiron.
The copters spotted the threat and focused on the fighters targeting the isle ship.
In the end, four of his jets managed to drop their LRASMs one after the other in a straight line, to hit the same spot on the command deck of the enemy vessel. One after the other, they blasted into the same point in the ice. Layer after layer of ice disintegrated. Score! He could see a breach in the superstructure right where the CIC should be.
He’d accomplished his mission! The enemy command center had been blasted. Victory!
Then the AMRAAMs and Adders struck the fighters from the bombing run. Suddenly the squadron leader realized he flew alone and screamed on a general broadcast for anyone to hear, “Russian and American missiles flying in formation! We didn’t have a chance! Where’d they get that stuff?”
Then his plane got creamed, as had all the others. He ejected, and as his parachute popped, he contemplated the white sticky backing of the duct tape plastered across his faceplate.
After stewing furiously for thousands of feet of altitude as he descended to land gently in the ocean, he reiterated, screaming at the universe, “Russian missiles and American missiles! How the hell did they get that ordnance?”
The Russian Premier had started the day in an exceptionally good mood. His men had breached the BrainTrust with plenty of time to track down the damn doctor before the Alliance fleets wiped the archipelago from the seas.
And Pascha had been an absolute tiger in bed.
When Trixie had died in the turmoil at the White House, he’d briefly considered retiring Pascha as his mistress. He no longer needed her, after all, to keep Trixie on a leash.
But Pascha had risen to the occasion, not only reaching new heights of sexual excellence but personally interviewing and selecting additional beauties for his entertainment.
This morning, however, she had gone above and beyond. Among other things, she’d painted her fingernails a sensuous black. She’d smiled with savage heat when he asked about the mesmerizing pale blue glow that seemed to float around the tips.
Her lovemaking had gotten so intense that she’d cut bloody little half-moons in the skin on his back as she screamed in delirium. It still hurt when he put his shirt on, but it was a satisfying kind of hurt.
That was the way to wake up in the morning.
As the day had progressed, however, things had not gone as smoothly as he’d anticipated.
First, he’d lost contact with the Spetsnaz on board the BrainTrust. Without further data, he could now only hope they were still pursuing, capturing, and returning Dr. Dash to the sub. In retrospect, he realized it was a good thing the BrainTrust was putting up a good fight. He needed above all else for the Spetsnaz to escape with the doctor before the BrainTrust fleet started sinking.
And now this insane disaster with the American fighter planes. He looked at his tablet and listened to the last words of the American squadron leader, “Russian and American missiles! Where’d they get that stuff?”
The Premier clenched the tablet so hard his knuckles turned white. “Dmitri!”
Then a wave of nausea rolled over him. He bent double as he started to retch, ultimately falling into the pool of his own vomit. Pascha called the Kremlin hospital, and in moments, he was on a gurney in an ambulance.
Admiral Fang stood in the CIC of his aircraft carrier with his hands clasped behind his back. He’d let the Americans take the initiative so far. What a mistake.
Fang had built his reputation fighting pirates that harassed the shipping lanes leading to and from the many harbors scattered from Africa to China being built or upgraded as part of the Belt and Road Initiative. Not only had he been unusually successful at hunting down pirate vessels, but he’d also been even more successful in escaping from the paperwork associated with captured pirates. His after-action reports always regretfully observed that although he’d tried to persuade the enemy to surrender, the pirates had chosen to fight to the last man.
Although he never took prisoners, sometimes one of the pirates would escape. This too he described mournfully in his reports. Somehow overlooked in the report was that the bound prisoner had, just prior to his dazzling escape, witnessed his captain being strapped to the barrel of a 130mm gun and blown to pieces. Later intel suggested that these escapees usually told their mates at home to get out of the business before themselves finding a new line of work.
In this fashion, Fang had acquired some little notoriety throughout the Chinese navy. His initiative, his aggressive tactics, and his ruthless disregard for human life had all led to commendations, and eventually, the admiralty.
At this point in the Battle of the Open Seas, the admiral had been listening to the trials and tribulations of the American fleet with growing exasperation. They’d lost the intel war, so half their munitions were useless. They’d lost the cyberwar
, they’d lost the fight for air supremacy, and they’d apparently lost the undersea battle, although that was less clear since no one had a clue what had happened down there.
And the BrainTrust ships were now icebergs that the weaklings of America thought were unsinkable.
Well, Admiral Fang had a weapon that would make short work of that whole mess. Time to seize the initiative.
In the American military, control of nuclear munitions was not just tight, it was paranoic. The most psychotic of obsessive-compulsive management freaks would have found nothing wrong with their procedures. Except under the most extreme circumstances, you needed authorization from the President.
The Chinese military had long ago negotiated a more relaxed Politburo stance on the matter. Fleet admirals, and sometimes even ship captains, had considerably more leeway and full local control.
The need to achieve the objective of sinking an unsinkable fleet certainly met Fang’s criteria for nuclear release.
So he ordered the nearest cruiser to prep a nuclear-tipped YJ-62, target it at the center of the BrainTrust fleet, and fire when ready.
18
Final Jeopardy
We saw the whole sky flash with unbelievable brightness in spite of the very dark glasses we wore.
—Enrico Fermi, witnessing the first nuclear explosion
Jam and Chance took turns pacing, tigresses chained in place at the far end of the CIC from where Colin and Dash worked with hurried care to dodge disaster again and again.
Every time Jam looked over Dash’s shoulder at the erratic but steady progress of the Russians heading toward the CIC, she rushed on silent cat feet to the hatch that would take her down to confront the enemy. Every time she reached the hatch, Chance blocked her way, reminding her, “We’re the last line of defense. We don’t dare go on the attack and let somebody sneak past us.”
So they continued to pace until eventually, Dash turned to them. “They’ve arrived.”
Jam leapt to the hatch and twisted until her shoulder and her M4 assault rifle were exposed. She fired a long blast down the hall, dropping three enemy soldiers, then twisting out of the hatch before the Spetsnaz returned a torrent of bullets.
For a moment, Jam was puzzled. “Why aren’t they using grenades?”
Chance gave the obvious answer. “They know Dash is here. They don’t dare kill her by accident.”
Dash had snuck up on them while this was happening. “Don’t worry. Nothing bad will happen.” She stepped out into the passage.
Colin, Jam, and Chance all shouted, “No!”
Dash stood there, quite unruffled, staring at the approaching Russians. “Hold your fire.”
Jam peeked around the corner. The Russians were starting to move faster, some of them smiling when they saw the target of their mission. Jam’s mind raced as she tried to figure out what to do.
If she went out there and started shooting, the Russians would surely shoot back, endangering Dash. She could only see one way through this pending debacle. “Stay behind me and protect my back,” she whispered to Chance. Then she stepped out, throwing her rifle on the deck.
The Russians stopped for a moment, puzzled.
Jam lunged at the nearest one. A couple of the soldiers fired at her, but by then she was engaged face to face with the closest enemy. Her first blow staggered him, and she could have easily killed him with her second, but that was not her purpose. She snatched a smoke grenade off his belt and dropped it. She snatched a second and hurled it deeper into the ranks of soldiers. In moments, the smoke billowed around them.
Now no one dared start shooting. They would struggle hand to hand until one side or the other was defeated.
Jam finished the one from whom she’d stolen the grenades and moved, as blind as the Russians, to fight the second.
Her time with Khalid had trained her in merciless slaughter. Her last confrontation with Uwais had trained her to sense the slightest hint of sound and movement. Every twitch of an enemy was her friend. Every exhaled breath was her ally.
She could hear Chance struggling to keep up behind her, finishing the ones Jam had only momentarily crippled.
One enemy, oh so quiet, had heard her grapple with another. Jam felt the slash of his knife down her upper arm, cutting to the bone. She gasped, then struck the man who’d cut her and snatched the knife from his paralyzed fingers.
Bleeding profusely but wielding her attacker’s weapon, she accelerated.
So she danced, blindly, to the end of the passage and the end of the men.
By the time the smoke cleared, Jam was not even breathing hard. She stood numb, looking down at her body armor soaked in the blood of her enemies. “Not again,” she muttered in horror. “Dear Allah, not again.”
Chance took the knife from her trembling fingers and used it to slice off a chunk of her shirt. “Hold still.” She wrapped the strip of cloth around Jam’s arm.
Jam stared up the passage at Dash, who gazed back in indecision. Haltingly, Dash moved toward her, but Jam waved her back into the CIC. “Go, girl. Save us.”
Dash stepped through the hatch.
Colin shrieked, “Run!”
Too late. The sound of a terrific explosion ripped down the hall even as it threw Dash from the CIC, slamming her into the wall on the far side of the passage.
Dash shook her head as Jam hovered over her and Chance ran her fingers frenetically over every inch of Dash’s body, searching for wounds.
Dash spoke through thick lips. “I’m fine.”
Chance signaled Jam, and together they hauled Dash to her feet. “As nearly as I can tell, you’re right.” For just a moment, a twinkle appeared in her eyes. “I fear your beautiful gown might be a little the worse for wear.”
Dash looked down. Her lab coat was a smoking wreck. And beneath that…”It’s ruined.” She stared for a moment, then turned to Jam. “At last, I understand how you felt when the shark bit your dress.”
Dash watched with bemusement as both Chance and Jam seemed to relax at this pronouncement. Jam scooped Dash’s glasses from the deck and looked at the shattered lenses mournfully as she held them out.
Dash shook her head with a half-chuckle. “After Khalid, I had the eye surgery I’d been putting off for so many years. Those are just clear glass to make me look more mature. I don’t need them.”
Dash shook herself, shrugged off her companions, and headed back to the CIC.
As she moved, she picked up speed until she was running. “Colin!”
The CIC was a mess. A giant hole had been ripped in the outer wall, framed by the twisted metal of the ship’s superstructure.
Colin lay in a pool of blood, crumpled near the hole.
Chance rushed to him, but Dash turned toward the far wall of the CIC, where surprisingly little blast damage had occurred. “Chance, get a couple of bots and take him down to Wenara Wana.” She pointed at Jam. “Help me with this. We have to get operational again, at least enough to tell Amanda she’s in charge.”
Chance knelt by Colin, searching for signs of life.
With a complex blend of hysterical grief and urgent practicality, Dash issued her pronouncement oh so softly. “You can stop now, Chance. Colin is dead.”
Admiral Beck’s comm officer, now a man with no electronics, turned to the admiral. “The semaphore flags are ready, sir. Everyone is online.” He winced and corrected himself. “Everyone has acknowledged our signals.”
The admiral explained, half for himself, half for the others in the CIC, “Despite the heavy tactical losses, our fighter squadrons ultimately achieved strategic victory and accomplished their mission. At least four anti-ship missiles struck the enemy CIC, peeling away the ice armor and penetrating the ship. We can therefore assume we have successfully decapitated the enemy.”
Beck licked his lips. “Even so, we cannot prosecute the attack to final victory until we can reliably penetrate that ice armor. And we cannot blast through that armor as long as that laser ship lies between us,
wrecking our precision targeting. We must remove it from the equation.”
After a round of acknowledgment, he continued, “Let’s try this again. I want fifty missiles targeted on Bogey Twenty-Nine. I want them launched as a coordinated salvo. I want them targeted to strike dead amidships.”
As Dash had ordered, Chance called a pair of bots that took Colin away. As Dash had explicitly counter-ordered, Chance stayed behind to help get the CIC up and running.
In a surprisingly short time, the secondary screens came to life. Dash let out a breath. “Now to call Amanda.”
A soft alarm went off. Dash looked at it with fresh horror. “No, no, no. They cannot be so foolish.”
Chance and Jam could do nothing except watch as their friend’s face twisted in despair and tears shivered in her eyes. Dash whispered, “Ganesha, forgive me. I do not know how to handle this wisely.” She started speaking a string of codewords calmly and clearly for the computer. In the end, she pressed her hand down on the palmprint reader and spoke. “Launch. Launch. Launch.”
Dash turned and saw Chance’s and Jam’s quizzical expressions. “The Chinese are about to fire a nuclear missile.”
Fleet Captain Ainsworth and Security Chief Hart stood forlornly watching on the screen as dozens of enemy missiles launched from the American fleet. They had little doubt where they were flying.
Ainsworth asked, “Lasers up?”
Hart shrugged. “The bots have optically polished about half the surface, so about half our lasers are back in action.”
Ainsworth grunted. “I count fifty of them. Even with all the lasers, I doubt it would make a difference.”
Hart’s silence gave acknowledgment.
Ainsworth stuck out his hand. “It has been a pleasure serving with you.”
Braintrust- Requiem Page 33
