Satan's Tail d-7

by Dale Brown

  You can say that again, thought Jed, twisting away.

  Diego Garcia

  0400

  Mack Smith stepped back from the communications console in the Dreamland Command trailer, walking a few steps toward the center conference area and then walking back. Now that he could walk — and he could, though his muscles were stiff and sore and his back ached and his neck seemed ridiculously stiff — now that he could walk he wanted to be out there where the action was, not sitting here in the stinking trailer trying to figure out what was going on from the radio and the lousy sitrep display.

  If he were out there, he'd be coordinating the aircraft better. They needed an aircraft coordinator in the Abner Read, directing the Megafortresses and the Flighthawks, and everything else, for that matter.

  If they had, they probably wouldn't have lost the Osprey.

  What he really wanted to do was be at the stick of an F-22, taking the MiGs down, two at a time.

  Give Starship some points, though — the kid had nailed half the Yemen Air Force. Of course, he hadn't seen the MiG that nearly tore the Megafortress in two. That's what came from having Zen teach these kids how to fly.

  Not that he had anything against Zen. He owed him a lot.

  Did he, though? What had Zen done except be a jerk?

  Well, he owed him that, then.

  Mack sat down at the console. The Abner Read had been struck by a missile.

  "Damn it," he said. "I ought to be there. I could have shot those damn things down."

  Aboard the Abner Read

  0102

  The first report was not good. The missile had hit the hangar area, igniting the fuel there.

  The next report was worse. A secondary explosion had ripped through part of the hull. They were taking on water and had to close down one of the sections below, even though there were men inside.

  Most likely the men were dead, but there was no way to know.

  The Abner Read listed toward starboard two or three degrees, and her bow had started to lift. Storm saw from the damage control graphic on the bridge hologram that a hatch to the compartment remained open. He pushed the sleeves of his shirt up, picturing the sailors there, then moved forward to the weapons bay. He punched the code, but rather than the petty officer he expected to pick up, he found himself talking to a young sailor, Tommy Hall. He knew Hall a little better than the seaman would have wished — two days before they sailed, the boatswain's mate second class had been brought before him for discipline.

  "Tommy, I need you to go to the engineering shop and find the emergency response team," Storm told him. "They're out of communication. Direct them to dog the hatch there, son. If they are not in sight, you have to do it yourself. You need to secure it, and you need to do it right now."

  "Sir, there's water on the deck here, a foot of water."

  Storm realized the situation was worse than he'd thought.

  "Yes, I understand," he said calmly. "Go and dog the hatch while it can still be closed."

  "I'm going to try, sir."

  "No, son, you're going to do it. I know you're going to do it, because I'm counting on you. You're going to close that hatch and you're going to save our ship."

  There was no answer. Storm felt the ship lurch; the list was getting worse.

  A firefighting team reported that they were tackling a fire behind the main exhaust. The lights flickered, but came back on strong.

  Storm looked at the hologram. If they didn't close off the compartment, the fuel ballast tanks and main diesel generator would be flooded. The damage done by the missile and the secondary explosion made it impossible to seal those compartments directly.

  If he were the sailor, would he close the hatch, knowing his friends were inside? Even if he were sure they were dead? Even if he knew his own life depended on it?

  Storm resisted the temptation to run down himself and se cure the hatch. His place was here, and besides, he knew he'd never make it in time.

  * * *

  Jennifer helped the corpsman carry the injured petty officer out of Tac into a small space used as an electrical shop. The corpsman checked the bandage she had used to stanch the bleeding from the man's neck.

  "You did a good job, miss," said the corpsman, getting up.

  "He'll live?"

  "I don't know," said the sailor honestly. "If we abandon ship, I just don't know." "Are we abandoning ship?"

  The man winced. "We've been hit pretty bad, and we're taking on water. But it's the captain's decision."

  * * *

  The voice was weak and punctuated by sobs. "I heard screaming," it said. "Did you secure the hatch?" "Yes, sir."

  "Good work, Tommy. Secure the door to the compartment. Tighten it down, and come up here to the bridge."

  "But—"

  "I need you up here right away," added Storm. "Can you get up here?" "I'll try, sir."

  "No, son, you come up here now because I need you, and because you're going to help save our ship. You're going to come here and save some lives."

  "Yes, sir, I am," said the young man, just firmly enough to convince Storm that he would.

  He glanced at the hologram, but already sensed that the ship had stopped settling. They were going to make it — but there was a hell of a lot of work to do.

  Aboard the Wisconsin

  0102

  Zen took Hawk One toward the Shark Boat, running at the craft from the east. There were two smaller craft tracking behind it — pirates chasing it off, or at least that was what it looked like.

  "English, look at this screen and tell me what you see," said Zen, authorizing the feed from the Flighthawk's infrared.

  "Well, if I didn't know any better," the ensign replied, "I'd say it was a Shark Boat running away from a battle. But that's impossible."

  "Why?"

  "For one thing, even if they had no weapons aboard, the Shark Boat could just turn around and run over them," said Ensign English. "Besides, there is no way that anyone working for Storm is going to run away from battle. The crews on those Shark Boats were handpicked, especially the captains. They'll fight to the bitter end."

  "Wisconsin, this is Flighthawk leader. I have a strange situation I want to sort out. Can you reach the Shark

  Boat?"

  "Negative," said Dog. "Danny is going out to talk to him." "Where is Danny?" "Stand by."

  The line clicked twice, and Danny Freah's voice exploded in Zen's ear.

  "Something's going on with that Shark Boat," he said. "He's going out into the open water — I think he's running from us."

  "I'll take a pass and put some shots across his bow."

  "Hold on," said Dog. "The control buoy for Piranha was hit in the gun battle. We're going to have to drop another buoy or we'll lose it. Danny — can you wait five minutes, or is time critical?"

  "Five minutes," repeated Danny. "That's OK. Yeah, all right, we need the submarine pen checked out, and the probe should go in ahead of the divers."

  "All right. Give us five minutes," said Dog.

  "Flighthawk leader," said Zen, agreeing.

  Gulf of Aden

  0105

  "Two of our boats are following us, Commander," said Saed. "Should we stop for them?"

  Ali stared into the blackness before him. The Ark Royal was roughly sixty miles away.

  Habib had made a wondrous discovery — according to the computer, there were two American missiles aboard the ship, Harpoon missiles. Ali had not worked with the missiles himself; the Italian Navy's standard antiship missile was the Otomat, a more limited weapon. The Otomat's accuracy and effective range were affected by the radar capabilities, which limited its over-the-horizon range to roughly twenty-five miles. Ali was not sure what the range of the Harpoons would be, or whether the ship's low profile meant the reach of its radar wasn't as good.

  It was all academic at the moment — Habib had not yet figured out how to use the weapon.

  Better to simply take the ship into the side of the
aircraft carrier and be done with it, Ali thought. Surely that was what God intended — the British would not fire on an American vessel. He would run close to it, launch the torpedoes from the forward hull tubes — those, at least, had a standard NATO command interface — and then ram the British ship, commending his soul to God.

  Sixty miles — given their present speed as well as the aircraft carrier's toward them. It would be over in a half hour, perhaps less.

  And then he would join his son Abu, finally at rest. Was it a sin to think of his son when God's sword was in his hand?

  "Commander, should we stop for our men?"

  "It serves no purpose," said Ali. "Keep on the present course, as fast as you can possibly go."

  * * *

  They were gaining on the Shark Boat, but very slowly. Danny's fuel gauge showed he was below a quarter tank; it was very possible he would run out of fuel before they reached it.

  "Colonel, if the pirates hijacked the Shark Boat, we should just blow it out of the water," said Danny.

  "I don't disagree," said Dog over the Dreamland frequency. "But we're out of Harpoons. We have no more weapons aboard."

  "What about the Abner Read?"

  "I have to check their status, but it wasn't good a few minutes ago. They're fighting to save their ship."

  "I have bullets," said Zen. "I'll turn them into Swiss cheese if I have to."

  "Slow them down, so we can get a boarding party on," said Danny. "We'll retake the ship."

  "I think that's going to be too risky, Danny," said Dog.

  "If you shoot up the ship, our people on it will die. There were five men aboard when the search parties left to search the area where the Osprey went down."

  "I don't know if it makes sense to risk your lives to save people who already might be dead," said Dog.

  Aboard the Abner Read

  0110

  When Jennifer made her way back to the Werewolf station, she found that Werewolf One had been taken down by the explosion. But Two remained in its orbit to the west, still circling in the holding pattern she'd given it. Roughly twenty minutes of fuel sat in its tanks, but there was no way it was going to get back down to the wrecked deck of the Ab-ner Read. In the meantime, the datalink into the Dreamland circuit was offline; she isolated the problem and decided she could fix it — maybe — with a simple reboot of the computer controlling the communications link.

  She pulled on a headset and listened, waiting for a chance to ask Storm about it.

  The captain sounded as calm as ever — more so, actually. The men responded quickly, and she realized that they thought they were going to make it.

  How much of the credit for that belonged to Storm? Some, at least. His calm demeanor as well as his orders had helped steady them during the worst crisis.

  "Captain, I have two questions," she said finally.

  "Yes?"

  Jennifer briefly explained the situation. "We've temporarily lost the connection to the Dreamland system, but I think I can get it back simply by rebooting and doing a new initialization. There's a slight risk that it'll wipe out everything, including your radio."

  "How slight?"

  "Two percent."

  "Do it. Next question?"

  "Werewolf Two is nearly out of fuel. If it would be useful to survey the ship, I can fly it overhead and try and get the infrared directly. Otherwise, I should try and land where it can be recovered later."

  "Can you land it on the Shark Boat covering the operations?" Storm asked.

  "Possibly. It depends on whether I can get the connection to the Wisconsin's radar back or not. I have a pretty limited viewer aboard the helo itself."

  "Captain, Shark Boat One is the boat we're having trouble reaching," said Eyes.

  Before Storm could answer, someone else broke onto the line, talking about damage to the ship, and Storm began talking to him. Jennifer went ahead with her reboot; rather than bothering with a full diagnostic, she tried plugging into Danny ashore.

  "Whiplash leader, this is Werewolf. What's your status?"

  "We're ten or fifteen miles from shore, pursuing the Shark Boat," said Danny, booming into her headset loud and clear. "What's going there?"

  "We've been heavily damaged, but we're still afloat," she said. "Are you saying Shark Boat One has been taken by the pirates?"

  "We're not sure, but it looks that way."

  "I can get the Werewolf there," she said. She hit the feed — she had voice communications, but no visuals on the Dreamland channel. The missile must have partially damaged the satellite antennas, which had been placed in the hangar area. "I've lost the sitrep plot but I can follow the standard headings and interpret the GPS data."

  "Could you buzz the ship and take a look at what's going on?" he asked.

  "Yes. Give me your GPS reading so I know where I'm going."

  "Stand by."

  Aboard the Wisconsin

  0118

  Zen checked on Hawk Two flying over the beach area in a preprogrammed mode, then went back to Hawk One, edging in the direction of Shark Boat One as the control buoy left Wisconsin's bomb bay.

  "In the water," said Ensign English over the interphone. "We're good to go."

  "Zen, let's take a look at that Shark Boat."

  "Flighthawk leader."

  Zen pushed Hawk One northwestward; he was roughly seven minutes from an intercept.

  "Flighthawk leader, this is Werewolf."

  "Go ahead, Werewolf."

  "I'm headed toward the Shark Boat."

  Zen smiled. "Race ya."

  Gulf of Aden

  0120

  Danny could see the low fantail of the ship three hundred yards away. They were finally closing in on them.

  Dog was right; risking the lives of the others to take the ship didn't make sense.

  Still, he was boarding that ship.

  He flipped the visor into the infrared scan from the Flighthawk, but the aircraft was too far to give him a useful image.

  "What do you think, Danny?" asked Dancer over the team communication circuit.

  "When the Flighthawk gets here, we see if we can figure out who's where on board. Then maybe we have the Flighthawk get their attention. We hop on. I don't think there's many people there — I can't see anyone on the rear deck."

  "The rear deck would be pretty wet," said Dancer. "Going to be very slippery, even with no one shooting at us. Why do you think they haven't turned to fight?"

  "I'm guessing they think we're on their side," said Danny. "But maybe they can't see us. Shit."

  "Shit?"

  "Hang on." Danny clicked back into the Dreamland frequency. "Jen — is the Shark Boat still getting signals from the Abner Read?"

  "I don't know."

  "Well, check. And have them cut if it is."

  "Will do — look, I'm about ten minutes from you."

  "We'll be here."

  * * *

  Ali looked at the screen.It seemed too good to be true — the target box squared and locked on the aircraft carrier.

  The screen blanked, then came back.

  It had to be the target.

  "You're sure it's the aircraft carrier?" he asked Habib. "I think so, Commander." What did he have to lose?

  The element of surprise. The Ark Royal showed no sign that it knew they were there. Ali knew from experience that the Shark Boat could probably avoid radar detection until the very last minute.

  If he was interpreting what he saw properly, the Ark Royal had two aircraft aloft. They were flying north of the aircraft carrier near Yemen. They would probably spot him and respond if he fired the Harpoons. The British had only two escorts with her; Ali knew one would be primarily for air defense and the other antisubmarine warfare. More than likely, the Shark Boat would be a match for both in a surface encounter — but only if she were manned by a crew familiar with her weapons.

  The American weapons would not miss. It was worth the risk.

  There was another aircraft twenty
miles to the east, close to the coast, and other icons they couldn't make out. But it was irrelevant — he had to act now. God willed it.

  "Fire," he told Habib.

  As his lieutenant reached for the button, the screen went blank again.

  * * *

  Zen slid the Flighthawk down toward the waves, riding the aircraft through two thousand feet, coming down to five hundred. The two speedboats were a hundred yards behind the Shark Boat; all three vessels were doing close to 52 knots.

  The radar aboard the Shark Boat had not been activated. It had a limited antiaircraft capability — two banks of heat seeking missiles that were essentially seagoing versions of the shoulder-launched Stinger were mounted in the superstructure fore and aft. As long as the radar was off and he got in without warning, he would be out of range before the system was activated.

  What he would do on the second pass remained to be seen.

  "Hold on, Danny, here we go," Zen said, starting his run.

  * * *

  "Ark Royal hasn't picked them up, as far as I can tell," said Dish. "Hasn't picked us up, for that matter." "Let's talk to them," said Dog.

  McNamara raised the British ship on the radio. The seaman on the Ark Royal was confused as to who they were.

  "This is EB-52 Wisconsin," Dog explained. "Part of Xray Pop Combined Action Group."

  "Are you the aircraft that was attacked by the Yemen planes?"

  "Negative," said Dog. "We're pursuing an American craft that may have been taken over by pirates." "Pirates?"

  There was a pause. A new voice came on the radio. "This is Captain Joyce. To whom have I the pleasure of speaking?"

  "Lieutenant Colonel Tecumseh Bastian, U.S. Air Force. There's an American vessel approaching you that we believe may have been hijacked by terrorists." He checked the screen and read the coordinates.

  "Impossible," said the captain. "I'm looking at the radar now. There's no ship there."

  "You're going to have to believe me. If the Shark Boat has been hijacked, it's going to be very hostile. It may attempt to attack you."

  "A dark day for him if he tries."