Vengeance

by Brian Falkner

  “There it is.” Nikoz’s voice sounded intrigued, not concerned by the blip that had appeared on the 3D radar scope.

  Long range coastal radar had initially picked up the ship, sailing where no ship was supposed to be, and Zane’s group had been diverted from their regular patrol to investigate.

  “I see it,” Zane said.

  “If that’s an enemy ship, they’re either very brave or very stupid,” Nikoz said.

  “That’s not human. That’s one of ours.”

  The voice came from Shelz’ah, the newest member of his patrol team. She was young and inexperienced but her skills with the Razer were quite extraordinary. She had just returned from Chukchi where she had earned the Bzadian Sash, the air force’s third highest honour, during the abortive crossing of the Bering Strait.

  “You’re sure?” Zane asked.

  “It’s QW-73. One of our coastal patrol boats,” Shelz’ah said. “The profile fits exactly. It was reported sunk yesterday.”

  “Doesn’t look very sunk to me,” Nikoz said.

  “It’s moving south,” Zane said. “Alter course to zero four seven, descend to two thousand metres.”

  The three Razers, as if a single craft, banked slightly as they swivelled onto the new heading. They were travelling at about thirteen hundred kilometres per hour, to conserve fuel, just above the speed of sound.

  Sharp thunder, far distant, like the cracking of a whip, made Price turn her head, although there was nothing to be seen, not even stars. The expanse of the sail, black against the night sky, blocked everything in that direction.

  Even so, she couldn’t stop herself looking. The sound brought her back to reality. This was not a pleasure cruise. This was war, and they were about to sail into the middle of it.

  “What have you got, Tsar?” she asked.

  “Those three fast movers,” The Tsar said, focused intently on the scope. “Still heading away from us though. For now.”

  “Good,” Price said. “Let’s hope they stay that way.”

  “And if they don’t?” Wall asked.

  “Then they’re in for a nasty surprise,” Price said. She automatically looked to the east where their guardian angels – a wing of ACOG’s brand-new scream jets – were circling just over the horizon.

  Monster saw her glance at the sky. “Why they call scream jets?” he asked. “Make noise like bang, not like scream.” He imitated the sound of the planes. “Bang, bang, bang.”

  “Because Pukes are gonna scream when they hear ’em coming,” The Tsar said.

  “It’s the sound the engine makes as the plane approaches ignition speed,” Barnard said.

  Wall laughed. “I like The Tsar’s answer better.”

  “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” Barnard said.

  “And the Pukes don’t have anything that fast?” Wall asked.

  “Not even close,” Barnard said.

  “Unless they can come up with a way of countering the screamers, the air war is about to turn in our favour,” Price said. “And who controls the air, controls the battlefield.”

  There was silence from her team as the implications of that began to sink in. For the first time in over a decade, there was a possibility of not just surviving, but of actually winning the war. It would be too late though for Emile. And Hunter. And Wilton.

  Price turned her face away from the breeze. The cool sea air was making her eyes water.

  The Tsar handed the scope to Wall and came to sit by Price. He put his arm around her shoulders.

  She turned and stared at him until he took his arm away.

  “You looked cold, Big Dog,” he said.

  “I’m your commanding officer,” Price said. “You salute me; you don’t hug me.”

  “Aye-aye, Captain,” The Tsar said, saluting comically.

  “Monster’s the captain,” Price said.

  She reached over and put his arm back around her shoulders. She was cold. She moved slightly, nestling her back into him.

  “What’s going on over there?” Monster called out from the back of the boat. “Hands off my girl.”

  “I was cold,” Price called back, smiling. “And I didn’t know The Tsar was your girlfriend.”

  The Tsar moved his arm around her neck and pretended to strangle her. She laughed and struggled, pushing his arm back. Monster laughed too.

  “Anyway,” Price said. “At least I’m not lying naked in a bed with an Inupiat woman.”

  Monster stopped laughing abruptly and she felt The Tsar draw away a little.

  “Bit harsh,” Wall said.

  Price regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth. In the wilds of the Bering Strait, a native Inupiat woman, Corazon, had saved Monster’s life by bringing up his body temperature when he had hypothermia. But Corazon’s husband, Nukilik, had died helping the Angels, and thinking of her brought back memories of him.

  The silence stretched interminably. It was The Tsar who finally broke it. “Did I ever tell you my story about the mayor’s wife?” he asked.

  “No,” Price said, trying not to sound too grateful for the diversion.

  “Do we really want to hear this?” Barnard asked.

  The Tsar ignored her. “Okay, first you have to understand that my parents were quite well off.”

  “So you were a spoiled rich kid,” Barnard said. “That explains a lot.”

  “Bite me,” The Tsar said.

  “I have too much respect for my tastebuds,” Barnard said.

  “Was your father in the Russian mafia?” Wall asked.

  “Nah, manufacturing,” The Tsar said. “Nothing exciting.”

  “Manufacturing, yeah right,” Wall said. “That’s like those American mobsters saying they’re in the waste disposal business.”

  “Anyway, you know how some people have deodorising spray in their toilets?” The Tsar said. “We had perfume.”

  “Perfume?” Price asked, twisting around to look at him.

  “Yep. Expensive stuff, hundreds of dollars a bottle. Big names, like Chanel and Givenchy, stuff like that.”

  “Nice for some,” Barnard said.

  The Tsar laughed loudly and abruptly. “So one day when I was young we went out for dinner to a fancy restaurant. This man walked in with his wife. He was the local mayor. She was this elegant lady in a long flowing gown, manicured everything, diamond earrings and pearls up to here. My dad knew him, so they came over to say hello. And the wife was being all cute and smiling at me and saying how adorable I was and I turned to my mum and said, ‘that lady smells just like our toilet.’”

  “Always the charmer,” Barnard said, amid the laughter.

  “Thanks,” Price murmured so that only The Tsar could hear.

  “For what?” he asked, but he gave her shoulders a small squeeze.

  When The Tsar had first come on the team she had thought him shallow and vain. “I bet he never saw a mirror he didn’t like,” Barnard had once said. But there was more to him than that, and she had – they all had – grown to like his confidence and charm. He genuinely cared about people and that made all the difference, she thought.

  “That ship is getting closer,” Wall said. “Seems to be heading right for us.”

  “It’s not,” The Tsar said. “It’s just circling. We’ll pass well in front of it.”

  “Visual identification confirmed,” Shelz’ah said. “It’s QW-73, but it’s been badly damaged.”

  The ship was quickly disappearing behind them, and their high-definition cameras had identified the shape as they had passed overhead.

  “I wonder if anyone got out alive?” Shelz’ah said.

  Zane keyed his radio. “Coastal Defence Command, this is Patrol Echo Three Four.”

  “Go ahead Echo Three Four.”

  “We have identified the target as one of our own ships, QW-73.”

  “That was reported sunk yesterday.”

  “The report was wrong,” Zane said. “What would you like us to do?”


  The answer took a few seconds to come back.

  “We need visual confirmation of the state of the vessel. Check for survivors.”

  “There won’t be any survivors,” Nikoz said. “Look at the heat signature. It’s glowing like a rocket tail.”

  “We have our orders. We’ll give it another quick fly-by, just to be sure,” Zane said.

  “Those fast movers just turned around,” Wall said.

  “Check it out, Tsar,” Price said. She was immediately conscious of the lack of The Tsar’s warmth against her as he moved to take back the scope from Wall.

  He nodded. “They’re turning, descending too. Coming right back at us.”

  “You think they’ve seen us?” Price asked.

  “I doubt it,” The Tsar said. “We’re practically invisible. They’re probably checking out that floating shipwreck.”

  Price considered that for a moment. In the ice desert that was the Bering Strait mid-winter she had made decisions that, even at the time, seemed reckless. Decisions that had cost lives.

  “Let’s play it safe,” she said. “Drop the sails and camo cover.”

  Monster turned the bow into the wind and Price ducked instinctively as the boom swung towards her. The sheets snapped taut as the boom reached the centre-line of the yacht. Barnard and Wall lowered the sails. The boat went quiet, the dark canvas no longer straining against the ocean air, the bow no longer rising and falling. They drifted, a cork bobbing restlessly but noiselessly on the ocean. They all wrapped camo sheets around their shoulders to conceal the heat generated by their bodies.

  The yacht was made of wood and fibreglass, virtually invisible to radar. The hull, the mast and the sails were all black. The yacht would be hard to see, even with night-vision goggles, but they could take no risks. Their lives depended on it. More importantly, the mission depended on it.

  “Those fast movers are five klicks out,” The Tsar said. “Damn, I need to pee.”

  “Dude, you’ve been peeing like it’s the world pee champs and you got a chance at the gold,” Wall said.

  “Must be the sound of all this water around us,” The Tsar said.

  “Just go over side,” Monster said.

  “Don’t,” Price said. “Just hold it. Unless you want the high-res cameras on those jets to see your wee willie winkie.”

  “They’re not high res enough for that,” Barnard said.

  Everyone laughed, although Price wasn’t sure if Barnard had been making a joke or had simply taken her literally. With Barnard sometimes it was hard to tell. She was by far the smartest person on the team, but socially she could be awkward. In many ways she was the opposite of The Tsar.

  “Keep calling the range,” Price said.

  “Three klicks,” The Tsar said.

  A gust of wind caught the rigging and a pulley knocked against the mast, a sudden loud clanging. Wall moved quickly to tighten a sheet.

  “Two klicks.”

  There was complete silence except for the light wash of waves against the side of the boat.

  “One klick.”

  The silence was broken by a rising, hissing whistle, which rapidly turned into a roar, as somewhere high above them three fast-moving Bzadian jets cut tracks through the dark night sky.

  “Any chance they saw us?” Price asked.

  “I guess we’ll know real soon,” The Tsar said.

  “Just a burnt-out hulk,” Zane said.

  “Nobody survived that,” Nikoz said.

  “I’ll call it in and we’ll head back,” Zane said. “Alter course to–”

  “Wait,” Shelz’ah said. “I have an anomaly on the scope, just south of the ship.”

  “I didn’t see anything,” Nikoz said.

  “A very weak heat signature,” Shelz’ah said. “May be nothing.”

  Zane re-ran the video from his surveillance cameras. The smouldering hulk of the ship glowed white on the thermal imaging. To the south was a faint smudge. Shelz’ah had good eyes. He froze the video at that point and flicked between thermal imaging and night vision. The blackness of the ocean was flecked with white caps, dull but visible in the faint starlight, except at the location of the smudge. There was some kind of object in the water. He zoomed in.

  “Okay, I see it,” Zane said. “Possibly some wreckage in the water? Floating debris?”

  “What about a life raft?” Nikoz asked.

  “There’s no emergency beacon,” Zane said.

  “It’s not drifting; it’s under power of some kind,” Shelz’ah said. “Look behind it, there is evidence of a wake.”

  Zane looked and now he saw that too. A mild vee-shaped disturbance in the water.

  Zane’s craft shuddered as it struck an invisible patch of turbulence. Wild air. An unexpected bump in what had been an otherwise clear and smooth flight. He barely noticed it. His focus was on his scopes.

  “Okay, we’re going back for another look,” he said. “Reduce speed to seven hundred, descend to one thousand. We’ll go low and slow, see if the scopes can pick up a better image.”

  “Ship she is getting real close,” Monster said.

  “How close?” Price asked.

  Monster pointed to the north. A large black shape was blotting out the stars on the horizon. Price could hear it now, a low dull throb.

  “Tsar, if it stays on its current course and speed, how close is it going to get?” Price asked.

  “Too close,” The Tsar said. “We’re drifting right into its path.”

  “Damn!” Price said. “Can we raise the sails yet?”

  “Just waiting for those jets to clear the area …” The Tsar broke off. “No. They’re coming back. Descending. Guess they want a closer look.”

  Price glanced back at the ship. A scorched wreck, but one that would smash their little yacht to matchsticks and plough the debris under the furrows of the ocean if they got in its way. Yet if they raised their sails they greatly increased their radar area and their risk of detection by the air patrol.

  “What are your orders, LT?” Monster asked.

  Again Price played it safe.

  “Do nothing,” she said. “We wait. We have no choice. Let’s just hope our guardian angels have got their eyes open.”

  Zane’s enemy aircraft warning indicator went off as they lined up on the floating shipwreck and the faint radar signature nearby.

  “What the hell?” he said.

  Six enemy aircraft had appeared to the east, right on the edge of their radar.

  “Time we were gone,” Shelz’ah said.

  “They’re a long way off,” Nikoz said. “And even if they get close, we can outrun them.”

  “We’ll take one more look at this anomaly,” Zane said. “We’ll disappear long before those planes get within missile range.”

  He called in the position, and a brief report on what they had seen, as they continued to descend and slow for their next pass.

  “Light it up,” he said. “Let’s get some high-res shots of this thing.”

  “I think we should get out of here,” Shelz’ah said.

  She seemed nervous for someone who had earned the Bzadian Sash.

  The fast little Razer had a top speed of more than mach 3. The fastest human fighters were less than half that fast.

  “This won’t take long,” Zane said. “Switch on your floodlights … now.”

  Three new stars winked into existence in the sky to the north. Bright spots, moving rapidly against the silky back cloth of the night sky.

  “Dammit,” Price said.

  “They’ll see us for sure,” The Tsar said.

  “We gotta move,” Wall said.

  “Move where?” Barnard asked.

  “Raise the sail,” Price said.

  “But …” The Tsar began.

  “Just raise it,” Price snapped. “There’s no time to argue.”

  Wall and Barnard were already pulling on the sheets. The sail rustled as it rose up and the air pressed into it.

  “
Monster, can you get us across in front of the ship?” Price asked.

  “Can try,” Monster said.

  “Then tack behind it,” Price said.

  It was going to be close, whatever happened. The derelict, smouldering ship was almost upon them, but the air patrol was coming in fast.

  The yacht was moving now but not quickly enough, Price could see that. The ship was too close, the bow cutting through the water directly at them. The yacht was only just beginning to accelerate.

  “We’re not going to make it,” Wall said.

  “We have to make it,” Price said.

  “We’re not going to,” Wall said.

  The ship seemed so close that Price could almost reach out and touch it. A large black hull, unlit, blotting out the stars, the water splitting into two dense swells at the vee of the bow. The superstructure was gone. What was left was a twisted, smoking skeleton. The hull was scorched but intact.

  The clean ocean breeze was tainted by an acrid stench of burning oil and metal, and something else that Price didn’t want to think about.

  Closer it came, heading directly at them. The yacht seemed sluggish; too late Price realised that the ship was blocking their wind. Their sails were limp. The yacht was moving, but barely. And still on came the ship, and so too did the three moving lights in the sky to the east, growing brighter all the time. In just a few seconds they would be like a rabbit caught in headlights. And about to become roadkill.

  “Brace yourselves!” Price called, as the metal bow of the ship bore down on them. “Brace yourselves!”

  “This ain’t good!” Wall shouted.

  “Monster, get us out of this!” Price called out, unnecessarily. He was doing his best.

  She glanced up at the oncoming aircraft then back to see the metal edge that was the bow of the ship towering above her, rising up, prior to crashing down and surely pulverising them in the process. She shut her mouth and held her breath to stop herself from screaming.

  But, in a small miracle, it was the ship itself that saved them: the pressure wave of the hull puffing into their sails, pushing them forwards and away, just a small nudge, but enough that the surging bow wave lifted them, pushing them over and through. The yacht leaned, over and over, until Price was sure it would capsize, but then suddenly righted itself.