Target Lock

by James H. Cobb

  Stone wasn’t sure yet about all of the gee-whiz electronic gadgetry built into the new weapons, such as the laser-ranged proximity fusing system or the Heads Up display sighting link with their night vision visors. But Lord, he could sure appreciate the firepower.

  The SABR was a composite weapons system, like the old M-16 assault rifle/M-203 grenade launcher pairing. It mated two superb Heckler & Koch designs, the G-36 assault rifle and a 20mm grenade launcher variant of the CAWS semiautomatic combat shotgun, into a single, lethal whole.

  The SABRs were perfect for the kind of work to come. All sorts of useful things could be fired out of those 20mm tubes beyond mere high explosives.

  Leaning out of the open side hatch again, Stone refreshed his situational awareness. Shattered and half-sunken, the pirate gunboats trailed alongside the freighter on their mooring lines, their weapons silenced and their crews dead. The Bugis boarding party, denied their escape route, must be frantically trying to organize a defense. Even as he looked on, the Piskov’s deck lights abruptly went out, plunging the vessel into darkness.

  “Why, thank you kindly gentlemen,” Stone chuckled. Lifting his voice, he spoke over the tactical circuit. “Platoon! Vision up!”

  With his free hand, he lowered his AI2 nite-brite visor, settling it into place over the lens interface of his gas mask. The world went bright in tones of luminescent green as the visor photomultipliers boosted the star and moon glow into the equivalency of broad daylight.

  Now Quillain could pick out the two Seawolf Hueys converging on the Piskov, making their suppression run. As they got the range the 25mm turrets began to belch once more. This time, however, the gunships were firing anti-riot munitions. Stone’s night-vision visor overloaded as a flickering wave’ of blinding light washed over the freighter’s upperworks.

  Aboard the Piskov, havoc rained from the sky. A barrage of proximity-fused flashbang grenades burst overhead, producing an eye-piercing magnesium glare and battering waves of concussion. Most of the topside gunners were thrown to the deck, the wind knocked out of them. And when they gasped for their lost breath, they found themselves inhaling a lung-scalding mixture of military-grade CS teargas and capsicum dust. Gas grenades had alternated with the flashbangs in the OCSW belts.

  In seconds, a choking cloud of chemical vapor engulfed the Russian freighter. With their eyes swelling shut, the stunned and agonized Indonesians staggered through the haze. Retching, weeping, and cursing, they were incapable of reacting effectively to anything, even to the growing roar of rotors overhead.

  The big HH-60 flared out and went to hover over the midships weather deck of the freighter.

  “Stand up!”

  The assault platoon rose to their feet, hunching against the curve of the helicopter’s fuselage.

  “Rope out!”

  The helo’s crew chief rolled the carefully coiled fastrope out of the hatch. With one end connected to the boom of the helicopter’s winch, the other snaked freely to the deck. Stone shot a last glance downward to verify that the aircraft wasn’t drifting laterally and that the end of the cable had indeed touched down forty feet below.

  “Go!”

  He was the first man out of the hatch. Throwing his arms and legs around the cable, he slid down it like a fireman descending a fire station pole. It was a tricky move, and a missed grip could mean trouble, but it lived up to its name: fastrope.

  Stone grabbed loose and dropped the last couple of feet to the deck. Unslinging his SABR, he ducked aside, clearing the way for the next man coming down two seconds behind him. Whipping his weapon to his shoulder, he scanned for threats, both to himself and to the Oceanhawk overhead. A good chalk, well trained in fastroping, could clear a hovering liftship in thirty seconds. But in a combat zone, that could be twenty-nine seconds too long.

  Stone caught movement out of the corner of his eye. The rotorblast had momentarily dispersed the haze of riot gas, and Stone spotted a figure moving out on the wing of the Piskov’s bridge. Instantly the Marine recognized the dangerous straightness of a rifle barrel. Not incapacitated by the gas, thanks to his position high in the superstructure, a pirate leveled an AK-47 at the station-keeping helicopter.

  Stone thumbed his fire selector to Autorifle and lined up on the target, but someone else beat him to the draw.

  Wolf One lifted from behind the deckhouse. Her portside door gunner had also caught the move made by the Bugis boarder, and the multiple muzzles of his minigun swung to bear on target.

  A powerful helium-neon laser sight had been married to the frame of the weapon. Its beam was invisible to normal human vision, but readily apparent in the gunner’s Helmet Mounted Display visor. To aim, he pointed the finger of coherent light at his target. Where the beam touched, his bullets struck.

  The door gunner brushed his firing switch, and the minigun sang its death song. It wasn’t a clatter or a rattle but rather a brief, piercing tone, as from a giant tuning fork. The rotating gun barrels of the miniature Gatling gun blurred, a foot-wide ball of flame dancing before them. A needle-fine beam of light, visible to the eye this time like some science fiction blaster bolt, lanced from the heart of this fireball, linking the weapon with its target.

  Indeed, this was a kind of death ray. The light marked a stream of tracer bullets. Even firing at low rate, the MX-214 delivered four hundred rounds a minute, better than six rounds of 5.56mm NATO per second.

  The human frame is not designed to have congress with such a concentration of kinetic energy. The pirate did not merely die. He exploded.

  The last Marine hit the Piskov’s deck, and the lift helo nosed down and hauled away into the safety of the night, leaving the two smaller gun ships to orbit watchfully.

  Breaking down into two-man rifle teams, the Force Recon platoon dispersed. Each Marine had his SABR’s grenade launcher loaded with nonlethal riot munitions, but each also had thirty rounds of 5.56mn NATO on call for an instant, deadly backup.

  Helium-Neon targeting lasers probed unseen through the lingering smog of tear gas. Foam-soled combat boots scuffed lightly on deck plates. Filtered American voices whispered terse progress reports over the squad radiolink. Other voices, choking and pain-wracked, cried out in Bahasa Indonesia, cursing or calling for aid.

  Contact was swift in coming.

  With their night-vision systems and gas masks, the Marines had the edge, a small one. A pair of SABR launchers roared, with the hollowness denoting “jellybag” rounds going out. A pirate gagged as the high-velocity blobs of dense polymer caught him in the gut and slapped him off his feet. Seconds later, the Bugis’s agony was compounded as nylon “disposacuffs” bit around his wrists. Then it was eased as a spring-loaded injector fired a potent dose of fast-acting barbiturate into his buttock.

  “Bravo Team Two here. Hostile secured. Portside forward.”

  “Roger. One down.”

  Two figures in the murk recognized each other as enemy at almost the same second. Almost. The one in the Marine utilities brought the over-and-under barrels of his weapon up first. The one in the sun-faded denim caught the massive jet of concentrated capsicum powder full in the face. His assault rifle clattered to the deck and he followed, incapable of doing anything except scream.

  “This is Charley One. Hostile secured at forecastle break. Forecastle clear. Working aft.”

  “Roger.”

  A sharp metallic ping sounded as a grenade safety lever flicked clear and a thumping rattle followed as a flashbang bounced across the deck. The two Bugis crouched in the theoretical shelter of a ventilator housing goggled at the little cardboard cylinder that rolled to stop at their feet.

  WHAM!

  “Double header. Portside quarter.”

  From somewhere aft, an Uzi machine pistol cut loose, spraying the night, the wild shooting of a panicked gunner seeking to suppress his own growing fear with fire and noise. A SABR snapped back an angry three round burst in rifle mode.

  “Able Two. Boloed one at the base of the deckhouse. S
orry ’bout that. Had to do him fast.”

  “Shit happens, Able Two. FIDO.”

  The front facing of the superstructure loomed through the dissipating gas screen. Quillain went flat against it. With his back against solid steel, he paused to regain his situational awareness. Over the next few seconds, Lieutenant Brice Donovan, the force recon platoon leader, his senior sergeant, and his communications specialist all scuttled in to join Stone against the bulkhead. A few feet away a body lay sprawled on the deck, the blood soaking the dead man’s ragged shirt black in the nite-brite visors. Stone and the other Marines ignored the fallen pirate. They had other, more critical points of concern.

  “How are we doing, Brice?” Quillain inquired through the speaking diaphragm of his mask.

  “Looking good, sir,” the younger man murmured back. “Weather deck sweep completed and all personnel hatches padlocked for’rard. All fire teams positioning to enter the superstructure.”

  “Good ’nuff. Able takes the bridge. Charley goes for the engine room. Bravo goes for the crew’s quarters. We’ll try for officers’ country from this side. Let’s look lively. I bet somebody’s thinkin’ hostage about now.”

  “Aye, aye.”

  As Donovan relayed his orders over the squad circuit, Quillain cut over to the command channel on his Leprechaun transceiver, his own transmission paired down to the stark minimum of verbiage and a maximum of information. “Dragon Six to TACBOSS. Deck secured. Prisoners taken. No blue casualties. Going inboard.”

  “Acknowledged, Stone. Good luck,” Amanda Garrett replied, taking the two-word luxury of a human concern.

  An entry hatch was set into the superstructure bulkhead two meters outboard and to starboard of their position. Stone took a second to eject the jellyround magazine from the grenade launcher of his SABR, replacing it with half a dozen loads of good old-fashioned double-ought buck shot. Unhooking a flashbang from his harness, he glanced at the platoon sergeant and nodded toward the hatch.

  Ducking low to stay out of the line of sight of the inset porthole, the noncom slithered along the bulkhead to the hatch. Flipping open the locking dogs, he crouched, ready to yank the hatch open and duck back.

  “All teams ready to effect entry, sir,” Donovan reported.

  “Okay,” Quillain replied, “we go on my mark. Three … two … one … mark!”

  The sergeant flung the hatch open and Stone flipped his concussion grenade inside. Four seconds later the blaze and slant of the detonation made the seed of bulkheads ring. More hollow thuds reverberated through the ship’s structure as the other assault teams opened their paths into the deckhouse.

  Stone and his section instantly followed the flashbang in, SABRs shouldered and leveled.

  Nothing. Stone flipped up his night-vision visor. The interior lights were still on and the grilled fixtures in the narrow passageway overhead revealed chipped green paint and oil-grimy linoleum decking. The ventilator fans had apparently been cut off along with the deck work lights, so the internal atmosphere of the ship was comparatively gas free.

  Directly ahead, down the passage, a metal frame ladderway extended up to the next deck. And from that level came the sound of slamming doors and angered, frightened voices.

  Lifting a hand, Stone issued a series of wordless commands, swift, concise gestures that silently deployed his team. All hands pressed back tightly against the sides of the passageway. While Donovan and his R/T covered the front aspect of the ladder, Stone and the platoon sergeant slithered along the bulkheads. Staying out of the field of view of anyone peering from the deck above, they positioned behind the open structure ladder.

  The wait that followed was a brief one.

  “You down there!” It was impossible to tell if the speaker using the unfamiliar English words was asking a question or making an accusation.

  “You down there!” The Marines made no move. No sound. Instinct whispered that lives were at stake.

  Suddenly a submachine gun raved from overhead, a stream of 9mm slugs and a rain of shell casings pouring down into the passageway. Bullets whined and screamed off steel, ricochets and metal fragmentation filling the air.

  The Marines held. Stone smothered a grunt as a reflected projectile caught him under the ribs, the multiple layers of Kevlar in his interceptor vest reducing the death blow to a savage punch in the guts. Down the passage, the Marine radioman staggered, then caught himself, silently forcing his weight back onto his damaged limb, blood soaking the leg of his utilities.

  The rattle of the autoweapon ceased as the magazine emptied.

  Not a sound in the passageway, not the shift of a boot or the hiss of a breath. The platoon sergeant slowly lifted a hand and touched a flashbang, looking at Stone questioningly. Quillain shook his head. For the next few seconds, half measures wouldn’t be adequate. Stone indicated the steel sphere of a fragmentation grenade. The noncom nodded and unhooked one of the deadly little hand bombs.

  The ladderway creaked. A pair of seaboots and blue serge trousers appeared, descending the steps, their wearer moving awkwardly with his hands raised, a Caucasian, a ship’s officer, four tarnished gold bars on the shoulder straps of his uniform shirt.

  As the Russian captain’s eyes came below the level of overhead, he saw the two Marines facing the ladder, and he hesitated. The sight must have been an unnerving one. Two big men, helmeted, camouflaged, bulked out in body armor, battlefield electronics, and load-bearing harness, both with exotic weapons leveled.

  Urgently, Donovan gestured for the Russian to stand on. Comprehending, the ship’s officer continued his descent to the passageway deck.

  Again Donovan gestured. Get forward! Get behind us!

  The Russian obeyed. As he passed beyond the field of view from the deck above, he tapped his chest, pointed upward, and held up three emphatic fingers. Three more friendlies!

  The first, second, and third mates of the Piskov followed their captain down the ladder, the last being a stocky young blonde woman. However, the next set of legs to descend was thin, barefoot, and clad in ragged dungarees, the darkness of the skin marking the non-Slavic origin.

  There was the softest of clicks as the sergeant pulled the pin from his grenade.

  Stone caught the gleam of an Uzi barrel tracking the last officer down. Angling the SABR upward, Quillain slid the barrels between two of the ladder steps. Aiming at the back of the pirate’s knee, he squeezed the 20mm trigger, conducting a very swift and violent amputation.

  The roar of the grenade launcher and the scream of the falling pirate merged. As the Bugis plummeted the rest of the way to the deck, Stone snatched for the rags of Russian he knew.

  “Spetsnaz!” he bellowed. “Amerikanski spetsnaz!” Whipping around the ladder, he aimed upward, hosing buckshot into the faces of the other startled hostage-takers. The safety lever of the platoon sergeant’s grenade clattered on the deck, and Stone heard the noncom yell out his timing count. “One … two … three!”

  At “three,” the noncom hurled the frag up to the next level. Both he and Stone ducked back from the shrapnel that sprayed down the ladderway.

  No further sound or action came from topside. Now the Marine R/T could swear savagely and sink down to the deck, clutching at his wounded calf. The pirate lay still in a pool of scarlet at the base of the ladder. With no chance to yank him clear of the grenade pattern, the fragmentation had finished what Stone’s buckshot load had started.

  Donovan and his sergeant rushed the ladder, climbing swiftly to secure the upper deck, their boots leaving blood marks on the treads.

  As Stone socked a fresh magazine into the grenade launcher, he found himself surrounded by the Russian ship’s officers, all of who had mistaken his one warning yell for a working knowledge of the Russian tongue.

  “Yeah, whatever. Dos vedanya, y’all. Donovan, what’s going on up there?”

  “Two hostiles down. Officers’ country and wardroom clear,” the yell came back.

  Waving the Russians back, Quill
ain keyed his comma pad. “Ship’s officers secured. All elements, report status. Charley Team, c’mon back?”

  “Charley Team here. Engine room secured. No contacts. But we got open hatches into the vehicle decks”

  “Roger that. Hold position and keep ’em covered. Able Team, go.”

  “Bridge and radio room secured. Two hostiles. One up, one down. We also have the helo carrying the intel team orbiting and requesting instructions.”

  “Tell ’em to hold. We still got a party going on down here. Bravo, go.”

  “Crew’s and engineer’s quarters secured. According to the chief engineer, all hands are present and accounted for. Some of them are a little roughed up, but nothing major.”

  “Good ’nough. We’re in the starboard deckhouse passageway, for ward, on the main deck. We got the captain and the mates with us. Come and collect ’em, then move the crew to the fantail and hold ’em there. Also, signal the lift ship that we need a dustoff. Private Lingerman caught one …”

  Stone glanced over at the wounded Marine. The Piskov’s female third mate, who was actually kind of cute, now that Stone had a second to study on it, was helping Lingerman apply a first-aid pack to his leg. The R/T’s eyes showed the grin he wore behind his gas mask, and he gave Stone a thumbs-up.

  “… not bad, though. No rush.”

  “Aye, aye, Skipper. Doin’ it.”

  Stone switched back to his Leprechaun transceiver. Dialing through the alternate command channels, he found one that would induct through the steel bulkheads surrounding him. “Dragon Six to TACBOSS. You copy?”

  “TACBOSS here, Stone. Go.”

  “Crew secured alive and well. Prisoners taken. One man lightly wounded. Superstructure, weatherdecks, and engine room secured. I think we still got hostiles on the vehicle decks. Starting to sweep now.”

  “Well done, Marine. Stand on. The prizemaster will likely be with the cargo. Get him alive for me, Stone.”