Choosers of the Slain

by James H. Cobb

  "We don't have that kind of time!"

  Wildly, she looked around the deck. Alternatives! The aircraft tie-downs wouldn't do it. Nor was there anything that would work in the winch compartment. For the first time, Amanda cursed the starkness mandated by the Duke's stealth design. Then she saw the personnel hatch just forward of the elevator.

  Dropping down beside it, she tore up the recessed dogging lever and threw the hatch open onto its holdback latch.

  Down below in the brightly illuminated hangar bay, startled Air Division hands looked up at her.

  "Get me two four-by-four shoring spars from the damage control locker and a heavy cable shackle," she screamed. "Move!"

  At the other end of the tether, Vince Arkady maintained his precarious balancing act, his eyes flicking from the Sea Comanche's instrumentation to the hazy constellation of ship's lights beneath its nose. In the odd moments he could spare for the FLIR display, all that could be seen were an endless series of green and black storm rollers arcing across

  infinity.

  "Lieutenant," Grestovitch reported levelly. "Just letting you know that we're starting to get ice buildup in the air intakes."

  "I know, Gus. I can feel the power loss."

  Lift loss too. The rotors were icing as well. Occasionally there was a soft, clicking impact on the outside of the cockpit as a fragment was flung free of the blades. Soon the Sea Comanche would grow weary of its burden and sink down into the sea.

  "Hope those guys don't take all night about this."

  That was a given. Arkady didn't bother to answer.

  The copper sulfate taste of fear was starting to build in the back of his throat. A little while ago, he'd bragged in front of a lady that he'd never been afraid of any aircraft in his life. That had been an inexact statement.

  All airmen fear the weather.

  Most won't admit it, but the fear is there. Weather doesn't give a damn how good you are, or how well trained, or how lucky. It just fills up your sky, and if you can't escape to the ground, or get out of its way, it kills you with the bland indifference of a boulder rolling over a bug.

  "Retainer, this is Gray Lady." Amanda's voice sounded in his earphones, distorted by wind roar and the feedback from the helo. "We have a further complication. The RAST system won't take the tether. You'll have to bring yourself down with your pod winch. We'll give you the word just as soon as we get things secured on this end."

  Out of the corner of his eye, the aviator followed the undulating snake of the cable down from his wing until it disappeared into the red glow of the helipad.

  "Why not?" he sighed.

  The cable end was bent around the center of the two shoring spars and a wrench flashed as the bolts of the shackle were tightened.

  "All secure, Captain!" the AC hand yelled up from the deck of the hangar bay.

  "Right. Everyone down there stand clear! Way clear!"

  Amanda returned her attention to deck level. "All hands! Turn loose of that cable and get back up against the superstructure!"

  As she waited for her order to be obeyed, she called in to the bridge. "Ken, we're bringing him down now. Stand by."

  "Aye, aye. We're set."

  "Retainer Zero One. We're ready to recover. Stand by."

  "Roger, Gray Lady. Let's get it done."

  She took a final look around to make sure the pad was clear, then she scrambled back herself.

  "Retainer, commence recovery now!"

  "Executing approach. Up dome!"

  The tether went taut and the shoring beams whipped upward and jammed across the hatch frame with a crash that made the deck shudder. Riding that pull, the shadowy outline of the Sea Comanche began to sweep down out of the storm rack.

  "Up dome!" Arkady was pushing his flying skill beyond consciousness, adapting and responding to a multitude of different factors simultaneously, with each second. Wind, power settings, rate of descent, the movement of the deck, the need to keep the undesigned load from stripping the gears of the reel drive.

  The helipad target grew larger rapidly, then too rapidly, as the Cunningham bucked like a mustang trying to rid itself of a horsefly.

  Arkady flared back, heaving taut. However, as the ship fell away once more, he felt Zero One twist in midair. Shit! The off-center drag from the sonar pod was now rolling them onto their side. Instead of trying to correct, Arkady dumped pitch and dove, followed the deck down. An instant later, the undercarriage hit with a crash that took up every millimeter of the shock-absorber play.

  Arkady's hands flew around the cockpit. Fuel flow off! Battle damage switches on! Ground brakes locked! Rotor brake engaged!

  "Gus, lock the winch reel!"

  "Got it!"

  Master power off!

  "Let's get out of this thing!" Arkady yelled.

  "No shit, Lieutenant!"

  The canopies swung open and the freezing blast from outside erased the pocket of warm air they had contained in a microsecond. As the two aviators swung down from the cockpit, the tie-down crew moved forward, waiting for the windmill of the rotors to slow before approaching the helo.

  "Glad you made it, sir," Chief Muller yelled, coming up to Arkady. "Real rough night out." "Tell me about it, Chief."

  Looking forward, Arkady saw a figure, still slender in her cold-weather gear, standing outlined in the glare of the red work arcs.

  Up on the bridge, Commander Ken Hiro shifted his vision from one bank of video monitors to another. One set was focused aft, covering the events developing on the helipad. The others, aimed forward, were operating in low-light mode. Scanning the sea ahead of the ship, they granted the bridge crew and the lookout team vision in the now near-total darkness of the failing day.

  One of those lookouts now sang out. "Object in the water. Bearing five degrees off the port bow, sir."

  More than an object. Hiro saw a small hill's worth of ice rolling down on them, a berg fragment being driven into the destroyer's path by the force of the storm.

  "Hard to starboard! Come right to zero zero zero degrees!"

  There was just barely enough time to get on the MC-1.

  "Beware on deck! We're going into the trough!"

  Amanda felt her ship turning across the weather even before Hiro's warning call thundered out of the deck speakers. The only constructive thing she could do in the seconds she had was to knock the open deck hatch off its holdbacks and slam it partially shut on the helo tether. A moment later, a wall of dark water curled up over the portside rail and collapsed down upon everyone on deck.

  As with the others of the recovery team, Amanda had been suffering from the slow, invasive chill coming on from the freezing spray and wind. The shock of this glacial-temperature inundation, though, made the heart stagger and slam in the chest and vision gray out.

  Amanda clung to the hatch frame until the liquid avalanche had passed. Shaking the salt water out of her eyes, she looked up and around. The majority of the other deckhands had been scythed down by the wave as well, and now, literally looming over them, was a new threat.

  There had been no chance to get Retainer Zero One's tie-downs secure. Its only hard connection with the deck was the single point of the sonar dome tether. Now, as the ship wallowed broadside on to the gale, the helicopter began to pivot around that hard point, skidding wildly across the slick decking with the force of the roll.

  In the bloody deck lights, the angular form of the helo resembled some insectoid horror from a 1950s science-fiction film, striving to break out of the pen of the containment barriers. As Amanda looked on, the sweeping Fenestron flattened two hands who had failed to get clear in time. Then she saw a third figure riding the side of the copter's fuselage like a cowboy trying to bulldog an out-sized steer.

  It was Arkady.

  "No!"

  She tried to scramble to her feet but found that she was fouled in the tangle of her lifeline and headset lead. Frantically, she struggled to kick clear as the ship reached the farside of its roll to starboa
rd.

  Arkady bailed off the helicopter as it began its reverse swing. Dragging the two injured men to their feet, he shoved them forward toward the safety of the superstructure. Instead of following, though, he recovered one of the nylon restraint straps they had been carrying and snubbed one end through a tie-down. The aviator was not going to allow his aircraft to kill itself.

  Amanda tore off her headset and hit her safety-belt release, freeing herself, but too late to intervene.

  Another deluge raked the destroyer's decks. This time, no one topside could even feel the searing cold of it. As Zero One began its new wild arc across the helipad, Arkady threw himself flat, letting the low-riding tail boom sweep over him. As the helo hesitated at the neutral point between waves, he rolled over onto his back and reached up, snapping the free end of the restraint to a hardpoint under the fuselage.

  Captured, Zero One jerked up short.

  A moment later, Chief Muller led the general charge to surround the helo and complete the tie-down. Amanda saw a set of wheel chocks adrift at her feet and she caught them up. Joining the rush, she dropped down beside one of the landing-gear trucks and pounded the rubber wedges into place on either side of the tire.

  A third wave sluiced across the deck, but without the intensity of the first two. With her turbines outscreaming the wind, the Cunningham was coming around again, clawing her way out of the trough to face the storm once more. It took a while longer to finish battening down the helipad. A dozen more restraint straps had to be linked between Zero One and the deck tie-downs and ratcheted tight. Her rotors were folded back and secured as well, all by men and women who were beginning to stagger as much from exhaustion and exposure as from the movement of the ship.

  A growing sense of dull unreality was beginning to fall upon Amanda. So much so that she failed to recognize the symptoms of her own critical loss of body heat. The only thing that seemed to catch in her mind were momentary flashes of Arkady's face as he worked around his aircraft. When she finally led her people back toward the shelter of the superstructure, the glowing oval of the watertight door seemed to be a hundred miles away.

  OFF THE ANTARCTIC SEA ICE PACK

  SIXTY MILES NORTH OF SEAL ISLAND

  1810 HOURS: MARCH 26, 2006

  The weather-deck hatch slammed shut, locking out the night and leaving the interior passageway crowded with sodden, snow-encrusted figures too weary to move.

  "Well, that was a bit of a chore," Arkady commented, leaning into the grab rail. "Think she'll be okay out there, Chief?"

  "Probably, just as long as we don't get crossways to the weather again. Sorry about having to leave her topside, sir. Trying to hog her down on the elevator tonight just wouldn't have been such a good idea."

  "Yeah, I know. You guys did good work out there, Chief."

  "Thank the Lady. She figured out how to get you down. Speaking God's honest, Lieutenant, I had you figured as turning up missing next muster."

  "Me too."

  Arkady lifted one hand from the rail and studied it judgmentally. Yep, he was going to have a real good case of the shakes here presently. Probably at least as good as after that dogfight the other day.

  "Get these people thawed out." Amanda Garrett was leaning back against the bulkhead a couple of feet down the passageway. Her eyes were closed, her voice hoarse and a little unsteady. "Forget water restrictions and get them under a hot shower for as long as it takes. Guelette and... the other guy who was knocked down out there. Go to sickbay and get checked out. Let's move."

  The recovery teams began to disperse, shuffling back down toward their berthing spaces. Gus Grestovitch was sitting on the deck, his head cradled in his arms. Arkady reached down and pulled him to his feet.

  "Come on, buddy. You heard the Lady. Up off your ass and fly."

  Grestovitch managed a wan grin as his pilot aimed him down the passageway.

  After a few moments, only he and his captain remained in the corridor. The day had turned full circle. Only now they were wet, half frozen, and trembling on the edge of collapse. What hadn't changed was that Arkady found himself thinking that she was still one of the most desirable of women. As for what Amanda thought, he wasn't quite sure.

  She was watching him now with that same look of almost fearful wariness that he'd seen outside of sick bay.

  She turned away from him and started forward. As she reached the passageway ladder up to the next level, her legs nearly buckled.

  "Hey, are you okay?" Hell, his own weren't all that solid as he hurried to her side.

  "I'm all right," she said thickly, clinging to the ladder railing. "I just need to get to the bridge."

  There was an unfocused haziness in her eyes that spooked him, and a pallor to her skin that went beyond mere exposure to cold.

  "Captain, you'd better obey your own orders and get under a hot shower for a while. You don't look so good."

  "I'm fine and I am needed on the bridge!" She tried to pull herself up the ladder, but slipped and went down hard with one knee on the riser.

  "Begging your pardon, ma'am, but I think you're going into hypothermic shock!"

  "Leave me alone, Lieutenant!"

  Something cracked inside Arkady. Reaching out, he grabbed the hood of her parka and literally shook her by the scruff of the neck. "Jesus, Lady, will you please think about yourself for five goddamned minutes!" he roared, groping for words that would reach her. "What happens to the ship if you go down? Who's going to get us out of here?"

  That did it. A degree of awareness snapped back into her eyes. "All right, all right! Help me to my cabin!"

  With his arm around her waist, they made it up the ladder and forward to her quarters, moving as unsteadily as if they'd split a full bottle of bourbon. Once inside the door, he yanked down the zips of her parka and peeled the mass of wet fabric off her shoulders, letting it drop to the deck.

  She jerked away from him. "I can manage for myself, Lieutenant!" she said tightly.

  "Fine! Do it!" He started to leave but found himself turning back to meet her gaze head-on. "And I'm not Lieutenant! I'm Arkady!"

  The cabin door slammed behind him.

  He stood out in the passageway for a few moments, riding with the pitch of the deck, and then looked up toward the overhead.

  "Now, why in the hell did I say that!"

  He slammed his flight helmet against the opposing interior bulkhead, producing an oilcanning boom and leaving a considerable dent in the sheet metal. With his forearm tingling from the shock of the blow, he stalked down to his own quarters.

  Amanda made her way to the cabin's head. Without attempting to undress, she kicked off her sea boots and climbed into the shower, turning on the hot water full force.

  It was almost a minute before she even began to feel the steaming warmth.

  She held her hands up to the flow from the shower spigot and worked her fingers until they eventually began to regain a degree of their flexibility. Then, slowly, she began to undress.

  Now that she was starting to recover, she could realize just how bad a shape she'd been in. Arkady had been right about her physical condition. How right was he about the other things?

  Since Annapolis, many of the men she had been involved with had been fellow naval officers. With some, she'd developed friendships. Others, she'd dated. With a select two or three, she had had affairs. What she had never done was to allow herself to become drawn to anyone in her chain of command. That was dancing on the edge of professional disaster. She had sworn that she would never leave herself so vulnerable.

  Unfortunately, along had come one Lieutenant Vincent Arkady, quietly demanding the right to care for her.

  In the cold environment, Amanda had been wearing one of her leotards under her uniform. Peeling out of this second skin, she dropped it to her feet. Her bra and briefs followed. Sinking down to the bottom of the cramped stall, she let the hot spray play over her shoulders.

  The overt answer was easy. She needed to end this, rig
ht now, before they both made fools of themselves.

  Unfortunately, the real world doesn't work on easy answers. This was going beyond a simple tug of physical desire. Out on that deck tonight, she had felt fear for him. Not just the sense of responsibility she felt for everyone under her command, but a deeper, personalized fear. One that radiated up from the core of her being. One born out of the realization of all the lost possibilities there would be if this man was taken from her.

  She kneeled on her discarded clothing. "Damn you...damn you ...damn you..."

  Only, this time she couldn't say if it was aimed at Arkady or herself.

  The Cunningham scissored steadily ahead through the storm rollers, the repetitive explosions of spray around her bow showing up as the faintest of pale flashes in the night.

  "How's she doing, Ken?"

  Hiro looked around to find Amanda standing at his shoulder, clad in fresh work khakis and with her still-damp hair pinned up on the back of her neck. She waved away the traditional call announcing her presence on the bridge.

  "We're doing okay, Captain. She's running tight and all boards are green. The helo looks like it's riding all right too."

  "Good enough. Let's take a look at the course."

  They stepped across the darkened bridge to the glowing surface of the chart table.

  "Still steering two nine oh, and we have resumed full blackout and EMCON. I've also bent on turns for a couple of extra knots. It'll eat into our fuel a little, but I figured that we'd want to get well clear of that last contact point before first light."

  "I concur." Amanda drew her nail across the surface of the chart tank. "We'll hold this heading and get back into the center of Drake Passage. Hugging the pack just isn't going to work for us."

  "Yeah. There's more drift out there than we were told to expect."

  "That, plus it gives the Argys a fixed geographical line they can hunt along for us. Going out into the Passage will put us closer to the Argentine air bases, but we'll just have to live with it. How about the weather?"