“I hate to be the realist here, gentlemen, but what difference do the islanders make? It is not as if we can take them back with us.”
“We don’t play that damn mythical Prime Directive here, Colonel,” Ryan said, but Jack silenced him when he raised the radio.
“Captain, there’s not a lot we can do about your stolen boat. We’d better see what this gathering of ships is. Then I’ll let you keelhaul Jenks yourself—if you still keelhaul in the navy.”
“We do with pride. Now watch yourself over there, Colonel. Johnson out.”
Jack turned and nodded as he made for the hatchway and then quickly followed the others to the upper deck.
* * *
Men were scrambling everywhere. Russian sailors manned the twenty-millimeter and .50-caliber machine guns. Sailors lined the rails with their smaller close-quarter weapons, the venerable AK-47s. The Royal Marines had joined them, and all eyes looked to the northern seas.
“There,” Ryan said, pointing to the horizon.
Collins turned away from examining the readiness of both Peter the Great and Shiloh. He was relieved to see that, thanks to the overwhelming small-arms stores of the ancient Simbirsk, a ship out of time. The old girl had been filled to the brim with American-donated firearms from the days of the old alliance when the Soviet Union had needed everything the United States could ship to her in the earliest days of the war. Now Americans, Russians, and Brits all had either a Colt .45 semiautomatic tucked in their holsters or a weapon that every Axis soldier once feared, the venerable tommy gun—the Thompson submachine gun. One of these was tossed to Jack by Everett, who also slung a holstered .45 over his shoulder. Jack used the binoculars and finally saw what they were facing.
“Count, Mr. Ryan?” Jack asked as he focused on the distant ships.
“Fewer than sixty, no more.”
“Maybe we whittled them down a little more than we thought during their night attack,” Everett said as he too studied the distant fleet of sail.
Collins lowered the field glasses, and his look carried one of concern.
“You don’t have to say it, Colonel,” Henri said as he slammed a clip of ammunition into the Thompson. “Something is wrong. Why attack at midday? Why so few of them?”
“Well, since you have all the right questions, got any answers?” Carl asked, lowering his glasses and staring at the Frenchman.
Henri smiled and then charged the machine gun as he stepped to the railing. “In this world, Captain, I suspect that the answer is not going to be to our liking. I feel Salkukoff is out there, close by.” He again smiled as he faced the larger Everett. “And that is the man with a plan.”
“Yeah, great. I would have never guessed.”
Jack cursed when he saw Peter the Great casting off all her lines that linked her to the Simbirsk and in turn Shiloh. He started to raise the radio once more, but this time, Carl held him back. He shook his head and nodded toward the Shiloh. Jack turned and saw that Captain Johnson was doing the same thing.
“You can’t argue their logic, Jack. A captain is going to protect his ship at all costs. If they need to maneuver, they won’t want to be tied down. Without them, the Simbirsk doesn’t stand a chance anyway.”
Collins nodded in understanding. “What the hell. If this damn ship blinks out with all of us on deck, we’ll fry for sure, just like those boys on the Eldridge. Besides, if we don’t return with everyone we can, Niles will have our asses anyway.”
“See? No problem at all,” Everett said, commiserating with his boss.
“Here they come,” Ryan said.
They turned and watched the large sails of the ships unfurl and their outriggers dig into the violet waters of the sea. Some of the larger boats had to hold at least a hundred souls, the smaller, fifty.
An announcement in Russian and then one in English came across the loudspeakers: “Damage control parties stand by for fire suppression. Reserve units will stand by forward hatchway of turret number one.”
Across the way, Jack heard the now familiar announcement as broadcast by Captain Johnson. “Stand by to repel borders, port and starboard!”
The sterns of both missile cruisers churned to life. They sat unmoving, but still the microscopic sea life burst to the surface like a well of rainbow-colored water.
“Damn. This crap is getting real now,” Jason said as he watched from the port rail.
On came the fleet of processed wooden, shell, and skinned animal life that made up the Wasakoo seacraft. As all eyes watched, the sails were blown taut as the fast-attack craft came on far faster than anyone could believe. Some cut over the wakes of others, jumping high into the air and then coming down with a splash. The agility of the seamanship on display shocked the modern sailors. Other ships rolled heavily onto their outriggers. Again, the seamanship was astounding as the pilots of these strange and otherworldly ships almost defied the laws of gravity as they hopped over the swells their sisters were creating with their speed.
“Three thousand yards,” Ryan said as he finally placed the binoculars down and charged his own weapon.
As the speedy ships came closer, flags of different colors were hoisted by the strange creatures that sailed them. Suddenly, the sound of drums started thumping over the rush of sea and the cacophony of the men watching. The deep bass sound made the sailors of all nations lining the rails uneasy as they watched the attack unfold.
Before anyone realized it, the heavy weapons opened up. Large twenty-millimeter tracer fire lit up the afternoon sky as the missile cruisers opened up simultaneously. Being fed direct targeting from the spotty radar systems of both ships, the fire became deadly accurate as the exploding shells burst among the oncoming ships. Then the sixteen .50-caliber machine guns opened up. The green tracers streaked through the sky and started shredding the lead sails of the tough ships.
“My God, they’re chewing them up!” Ryan said, almost feeling sorry for the backward species in the crosshairs of a modern navy.
On the surface, the battle grew closer. The lead ships were either burning from the magnesium in the tracer fire or the explosion of the twenty- and forty-millimeter cannon fire. The din was deafening as the fire continued. A few of the smaller ships virtually disintegrated in front of their eyes as .50-caliber rapid fire tore through the wood, shell, and skin construction. The sickly green bodies started to be hit as many of the Wasakoo attackers chose death in the sea rather than the burning steel-jacketed dismemberment.
The explosion rocked the stern of Peter the Great. Even those lining the railings of Shiloh and Simbirsk ducked as the roar ripped over them. Jack cleared his vision as best he could and then saw the large black cloud as it reached skyward from the stern of the great battle cruiser. As he watched, he saw why as another round object came down on her deck. It rocked the ship once more as it too detonated. The sight was baffling at first, as he thought he was looking at some sort of giant bird. It was Henri who quickly realized what it truly was. He was the first to open fire into the blue of the sky.
A hundred manta-like winged creatures swooped in low. The wings weren’t the short, stubby sort you would see on normal manta rays, but long and silky looking. The scales were transparent in nature, making them light but strong. Each of these animals was saddled, and the Wasakoo rode them like stallions in a cavalry charge. They each tossed round balls that hit the decks of both cruisers and exploded. The grenade-like weapons were as deadly as their modern variant. Both Peter the Great and Shiloh were aflame before they even knew what was hitting them. After delivering their payloads, they drove back into the sea and vanished. Others rose to take their place, and more explosions rocked all three ships.
The volume of defensive fire slowed as each man tried to dodge the death being delivered from an area they never saw coming—the sky. Then the ships finally gained the right distance, and they too opened fire. This attack was far deadlier than the one from the air. The large arrows thumped down and around the men as they tried in vain to
dodge both explosives and the sharpened projectiles. They thumped into and penetrated the steel of all three ships. The small platelets of steel-like material attached to the arrows burst to killing life, like a magnesium flare. The steel of the decks and the bulkheads where they struck started to burn and melt. Men ran from conflagration to conflagration, extinguishing as best they could the sun-hot chemical.
The small-arms weapons fire erupted from the railings of all three ships. Jack and the others took aim and started placing a withering fire into the ships as they came close enough to start tossing grappling hooks toward the anchored ships.
Suddenly, Shiloh burst to life as her stern dug deeply into the sea as her large propellers churned at full speed. The turbine wash was so severe, it threw seawater high into the air enough so that Jack and his men were inundated with a blinding sea.
“Peter the Great is also moving!” Henri shouted as he quickly lashed out with the butt plate of the Thompson, sending one of the climbing Wasakoo flying back into the roiling ocean.
Two hundred yards away, Peter the Great, with her engines screaming, exploded into movement. Her bow dug in at first, and then, when her powerful power plant kicked in, the stern went down, and then the giant ship was off. As they watched both the smoldering ships moving off, the men fighting on the desk of Simbirsk felt their hearts sink. It was a lonely feeling, seeing all that firepower leaving you behind.
Still, the heavy bombardment from above continued as sailors fired into the sky. Magnesium-fed tracers of green, white, and red filled the air as bullets went in all directions. Simbirsk was now fighting for her life.
21
Jack realized that this was not a probe; this was an all-out Wasakoo assault. He leaned over the rail and fired on the closest of the sail-laden ships as they came alongside with the black-emblazoned skull and crossbones flags waving in the increasing winds of a growing storm. Sailors at the rails shot down into them, but still the ropes and grappling hooks kept sailing through the air to attach themselves to Simbirsk.
Peter the Great was going out to meet the oncoming fleet. Her main guns of fifty twenty-millimeter and forty-millimeter rounds chewed up the seas as she lay down a withering fire. As Collins managed a look through the din of noise and light, he saw that Peter the Great was causing severe damage to the attackers. At the bow of Simbirsk, Captain Jackson had placed the Aegis cruiser in between their only ride home and the maniacal Wasakoo as they charged forward. Jack had to admire the determination of this aquatic species as they gave their lives in massive numbers to accomplish their goal, of which Collins and the others had yet to see for themselves.
“Oh, come on!” Ryan said as he dodged one of the large arrows that dug into the steel deck next to his feet, forcing him to hop and jump out of the way. Henri quickly and alertly kicked out at the flaming steel attached to the bone weapon and kicked it over the side. Ryan nodded his thanks but quickly returned to the rail and pointed.
The seas parted, and thirty giant sea turtles rose to the surface. The wakes they created made it seem as though the strange sea life in this even stranger ocean was under some form of high-energy power. On the backs of these enormous turtles that were at minimum thirty-five feet in diameter were the Wasakoo in all their colored glory, waving swords and spears at the defenders. They shot arrows and spears and even catapulted the deadly extinguisher-resistant steel platelets into the quickly burning ship. Jack and the others started concentrating their fire on this new threat even as more of the flying mantas burst from the sea for a second strike from the sky.
To their front, the Shiloh was delivering a brutal defense against this new submerged threat. She rammed three of the turtles just as they broke the surface, forcing the massive bulk of Shiloh up and over the creatures, crushing the Wasakoo on their backs. Red blood mixed with the violet-colored sea as the world exploded around them.
The men at the railing ducked as the recently removed Gatling gun of the old and reliable R2-D2 system of Phalanx opened fire manually from the stern of Shiloh. Without their radar guidance system operating, the men operating the large cannon had a hard time placing the thousand rounds per minute exactly where they wanted them. Before they knew what was happening, over fifty of the Wasakoo were swept into the sea after the twenty-millimeter rounds bashed their fragile boats and bodies to pieces.
“This doesn’t make sense!” Jack yelled at Everett as the captain released a relentless burst of firepower from his Thompson. When that was out, he removed the old Colt .45 and started blasting those he had missed. He faced Jack as he replaced the pistol and then quickly slammed home another clip for the Thompson. “Why are they doing this?”
“Maybe because they are just mean bastards!” Jason offered before Carl could. The captain just shook his head.
“I don’t know, Jack—I gave up trying to figure this place out with the purple seas!” He fired again over the railing as a webbed-fingered hand appeared and tried to pull the Wasakoo up and over the rail. Everett’s rounds caught the strange creature right in the face and blew most of its head free of its body. Carl grimaced.
“They’re running a scam on us!” Jack said as he was pushed out of the way by Farbeaux, who saw the Wasakoo attack from the rear. He quickly shot the scale-covered creature in the chest three times as it crumpled to the deck.
“They covering for something?” Carl asked as he assisted Jack back to his feet.
More small bombs rained down from above as more manta raiders struck from the sea. The sailing ships were now massing around the still bulk of the Simbirsk. The attack was now being concentrated on their only way out of this madhouse.
“Well, if they wanted our attention, Colonel, they have gained it,” Henri said as he felt his pockets for more clips of .45-caliber ammo.
Just at that moment, a hundred of the Wasakoo burst over the side of Simbirsk. They came over en masse, and then all hell broke loose as sailors started to fight back at close quarters. Swords of bone and shell started to appear, and it was a terrifying sight as the Russian and British forces charged to meet the threat. Spears of twenty-foot length started sailing through the air and meeting the flesh of the brave men who fought for the ship under their feet.
This time it was Jack who returned the favor for the Frenchman. A Wasakoo had jumped onto the back of Farbeaux and raised a thick, powerful arm up to bring the sharp knife down and into Farbeaux’s back. Jack quickly shot the creature in the scaled forehead. The suddenness of his shot made Henri think he was shooting at him. When he realized Collins had just saved his life, all he could do was nod in thanks.
“They have us occupied here, so what is their game?” Jack asked anyone as he emptied his Thompson into a group of three Wasakoo as they had taken down one of the Russian sailors. The men were resisting the boarding of their ship with determined ferocity.
Everett wiped blood from his chin where an arrow had come close to decapitating him. He almost saw the large Wasakoo too late as it plunged a knife into the arm of Ryan, who cursed and dove away just as Everett unloosed a barrage of fire that nearly cut the Wasakoo in half. He assisted the injured Jason to his feet just as four more of the aquatic creatures came at them. Henri sliced through them, sending them all crashing to the deck.
A mile away, Peter the Great was taking heavy damage from the air war above them. The mantas were fast and dove quickly away as long lines of tracer fire crisscrossed the skies above. Shiloh was faring no better, as her weaponry was even weaker than that of the Russian ship. They were being boarded by the speedy sea turtles as Wasakoo jumped nimbly from sea turtles to the fast-moving Shiloh. Men were now fighting close quarter and hand to hand. Her beautiful fantail and bridge areas were awash with the chemically enhanced fireballs striking the great cruiser. Men were fighting from Jack staff to bow as the Aegis cruiser sliced the much slower sailing ships into glass and kindling.
There were over a thousand instances of hand-to-hand combat going on at any one time across the three ships.
As much as Peter the Great and Shiloh were sacrificing for the safety of their ride home, the Simbirsk, they found themselves losing by superior numbers that were willing to die in the attack.
“Look!” Farbeaux called out above the din of firing weapons and screaming men and Wasakoo.
On the horizon, even more of the sailing ships came into view. Henri quickly numbered them in the hundreds.
Jack quickly figured this might not be just a ruse.
The Wasakoo were attacking with everything they had.
LOS ANGELES–CLASS ATTACK SUBMARINE USS HOUSTON
“You hear what?” Captain Thorne asked as he leaned into the sonar shack.
“Gunfire on the surface—a lot of it, Skipper,” the lieutenant said as he offered Thorne his own headset.
Thorne placed the headphones on and listened. It was so strange how one could hear popping noises on the surface of the sea almost a mile above them.
“What in the hell is going on up there?” He closed his eyes and listened, pressing both earpieces harder onto his head. “If it didn’t sound so crazy, I would almost have to say that it’s small-arms fire.” He looked up and watched the startled faces of the men around him. He removed the headphones and then left the sonar room. “Gary, what’s the situation with the ballast pumps?”
“Twenty minutes, Skipper,” the XO said as he went from station to station checking on his repaired systems. “But I don’t know about surfacing into a firefight. Right now, Houston’s like an eggshell sitting on the edge of a kitchen counter. I think someone could sink us with a well-placed rock.”
“Well, we may not have a choice; someone up there is fighting one hell of a battle, and we are bound to surface right into the middle of it. Weapons, keep the Harpoons warmed and ready, stern tubes seven, eight, nine, and ten loaded for war shot. The last two, I want drones ready to fire. Double-check our decoys. I want to be ready to loose weaps as soon as we break the surface.”
Beyond the Sea--An Event Group Thriller Page 31
