by Tom Grace
Skye smiled at the thought of her insurer paying for the lost satellite, allowing her to recover some of the cost of Zeus-2.
The moment Skye Aerospace lost contact with the dying communications satellite, Zeus-2 would shed its metallic skin and slip undetected into an orbit around the Earth’s poles. From there, only C. J. Skye would know where it was, and only she could direct its actions.
And in those first hours in space, Zeus-2 would stalk its first target.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
SANYA
Commander Shi Yucheng, executive officer onboard the Chinese destroyer Sanya, peered over the radar operator’s shoulder at the electronic display. A line of pale-green light swept the display in a clockwise fashion—like the second hand on the chronometer Shi had purchased while on liberty on Honolulu—refreshing the image with new data gathered in by the array spinning atop the ship’s superstructure. Aft and off the port side sailed Sanya’s sister ship, Hangzhou. Both vessels were Russian-built Sovremenny Class destroyers, two of five to be commissioned by mid-decade and the pride of the People’s Liberation Army Navy. Hangzhou’s radar return was strong and well defined.
After departing the final stop on their goodwill tour to Mexico and the United States, the destroyers and their fuel tenders had sailed out into the Pacific toward home. Two hundred miles west of the Hawaiian Islands, they changed course, heading due south. Both ships then switched off their three-palm frond I-band surface search radars and Sanya activated a Raytheon system favored by commercial vessels. It was an old trick, playing the part of a wolf in sheep’s clothes, but one that worked well.
Shi and the radar operator were in the Command Information Center, a windowless room protected deep within the armor of the ship. Captain Yao Shouye, a twenty-five year career naval officer, sat in his chair near the center of the room, reading through a sheaf of messages. Around him, dozens of other men on the current watch monitored all the ship’s systems—they were the mind of this lethal dragon.
Peeking up over the edge of the horizon, Sanya’s radar painted two strong returns—large vessels parked squarely on the equator.
“Captain,” Shi called out, “radar contact with target vessels. Thirtytwo kilometers out. Both are holding position at 154 west by zero north.”
Captain Yao ran the numbers in his head; they were less than forty minutes from Aequatus.
“Inform Hangzhou we have contact with target vessels. She is to move into position off the command ship’s port side. Increase speed to thirty knots. XO, you have the conn. I’ll be on the bridge.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
Aft of Virginia’s sail, Kilkenny and the SEAL platoon stood outside the lockout trunk, waiting for the submarine to reach the target area. The men were clad head to toe in black Neotex wetsuits and over their chests wore Draeger LAR-VI closed-circuit rebreathers. Each man’s body bristled with the weapons and equipment needed for his particular task. Fins dangled from waist clips and most of their masks were pulled down around their necks.
The premission excitement as they suited up had transitioned, as it always did, into a stoic silence. The game faces were on; it was almost time to do the job.
For this mission, the platoon had divided into two elements—a four-man unit to attack the unmanned launch platform and a twelve-man group to seize Aequatus. Kilkenny was to accompany the larger element.
Ralph and Stivers, the platoon’s junior officer, were initially resistant to the idea of a civilian traveling with them, even one who’d once been part of the teams. Years outside the insular community of SEALs could dull the razor’s edge conditioning—both of mind and body—required for special warfare. But the order stood, and for his part, Kilkenny had proven over the past two days that he could still think like a meat-eater. Kilkenny also understood that he was an outsider to the platoon and, as such, accepted a peripheral role in the assault.
Rainey remained with Grin in the torpedo room along with an off-duty sonar man named O’Roark who would assist in relaying targeting information to the control room.
The undersides of both Skye vessels were painted clearly in the imaging chamber—white solid shapes surrounded by the hazy, rippling surface of the ocean. Virginia, in the center of the chamber, was on a line that passed directly beneath the launch platform.
“Can you tighten up on the first target?” O’Roark asked.
“You bet.”
Grin tapped the keyboard and the holographic image zoomed in on a smaller cylinder of ocean. The dual pontoons and the eight partially submerged legs of Argo were now easily discernible. Eight small whirling vortices sprang from equidistant points on the pontoons—thrust controllers holding the structure in position over the equator. Grin placed a projection line stretching from the top of Virginia’s sail to the nearest of Argo’s pontoons—a numerical display beside the line measured off the angle and distance in feet.
They were approaching the first target from the northeast. Johnston’s plan was to pass beneath the launch platform and drop off the first unit of SEALs, then transit a shallow arc, sweeping behind the stern of Aequatus.
“Control Room, Torpedo Room,” O’Roark called out over the mike. “Target bearing two-six-five, distance four hundred yards.”
“Roger, Torpedo Room.”
Inside the imaging chamber, the multibladed propeller on Virginia’s tail slowed as the boat neared Argo. The submarine was reducing its relative speed of three knots—barely a crawl, but enough to maintain control of the vessel in the ocean current.
“Alpha, into the trunk!” Stivers announced.
Three SEALs followed him up the ladder into the arched chamber built into the boat’s upper hull. Virginia was the first submarine built with an internal lockout trunk, allowing her to deploy and recover nine SEALs at a time.
The last man into the trunk closed the watertight hatch. As soon as the hatch sealed, seawater began flowing in. The men set their masks and respirators and waited for the compartment to flood. When the water reached chest level, the men slipped on their fins. A complex assembly of valves controlled the flow of water into the trunk, filling it at a quick but even pace. In less than three minutes, the chamber was filled and pressure equalized with the ocean outside.
Stivers opened the hatch at the top of the vaulted ceiling and pushed it out. The flush-fit door on the top of the submarine rotated open and, one by one, the SEALs exited. When the last man was out, Stivers closed the hatch and the four divers swam out of the submarine’s slipstream. Less than a hundred feet above them was the dark silhouetted shape of Argo.
“Damn, that’s slick,” Rainey declared as four human figures emerged from the back of Virginia and began swimming toward the surface.
“Control, Torpedo Room,” O’Roark said. “Alpha is clear.”
“Roger, Torpedo Room. Proceeding to second insertion point.”
During Virginia’s transit toward Aequatus, the nine men of Bravo climbed into the lockout trunk and opened it to the sea. As soon as the submarine slowed, at 120 feet below the surface and just astern of the target, the men exited and the evolution was repeated for the three remaining SEALs and Kilkenny.
Grin watched as the thirteen divers swam toward the large white shape on the surface. At the current resolution, Aequatus’s tapered bow extended beyond the confines of the imaging chamber. With nearly three hundred feet more length in the keel and triple the breadth of beam, the surface ship dwarfed Virginia.
“I’d hate to be on that ship when those SEALs climb aboard,” O’Roark said. “If they’re smart, the folks up there’ll just give up.”
“Oh, C. J. Skye is smart, all right,” Rainey offered. “Genius-level smart.”
Grin kept his eyes on the ascending figures in the chamber, hoping all thirteen would return safely. “I think you two are confusing intelligence with wisdom. Given what’s happened so far, I just hope Skye’s wise enough to know when the jig is up.”
“Torpedo Room, Control,” the voice of
Virginia’s XO crackled over the intercom.
“Roger, Control,” O’Roark answered.
“Sonar reports surface contact bearing three-three-five, range seventeen thousand yards and coming in hot. Can you give an idea of what’s going on up there?”
Grin keyed in the information as quickly as Paulson spoke. The view inside the imaging chamber shrank until it described a twelve-mile-wide cylinder of ocean.
“Roger that, Control.” O’Roark’s eyes fixed on the holographic image. “We have two hulls—”
The two ships quickly grew in size until the image of each vessel was nearly a foot long. Like knives, the bows of the speeding ships cleaved the surface of the ocean, wakes spreading behind them in narrow pointed vees.
“—both hulls dual screw.”
“Here you go,” Grin said as his fingers pounded out a flourish of keystrokes.
Wire frame representations of both hulls, complete with dimensions, appeared in the imaging chamber beneath the acoustic daylight images.
“Length five-one-one-point-eight feet,” the sonar man read off. “Beam five-six-point-eight feet. Draft two-one-point-three feet.”
“Running it through the naval database,” Grin said, “and we have an ID.”
“Control, inbound surface contact appears to be a pair of Sovremenny Class destroyers.”
“Sovremenny?” Johnston spat. “What the hell are the Russians doing here?”
“Could be Chinese, sir,” Paulson offered. “And a pair of their destroyers pulled out of Pearl just ahead of us.”
“All I know is those aren’t U.S. Navy, so make sure we have targeting solutions on both of ’em in case this little party turns into a cluster-fuck.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
As Alpha approached Argo’s submerged pontoons, the element split into pairs. Each of the pontoons was equipped with two thrust controllers—essentially small directional propellers mounted strategically along the sides of the vessel below the water line. When linked with a computer and DGPS, the four controllers could hold the platform in position in all but the worst seas.
Stivers and his buddy went after the thrusters on the port side; the other pair of SEALs took the starboard. At the pivoting joint on each thruster, they placed a timed explosive charge. The amount of explosive in the charges wasn’t large—just enough to destroy the controllers without scuttling the platform.
The SEALs worked their way from stern to bow, up the keels of the pontoons. When the last charges were set, they swam up along the inside of the bow columns, took a short decompression stop at thirty-three feet, then proceeded to the surface. Four black heads bobbed out of the water into the shadow of the platform.
Stivers checked his dive watch.
Three … two … one …
On the Virginia, the four simultaneous detonations created a fuzzy ball of jittery fractals beneath the holographic pontoons in the imaging chamber. The four SEALs were headless forms, their upper torsos lost in the undulating surface layer. Then, one by one, the SEALs slipped out of the water and disappeared from view.
“Control, Torpedo Room,” O’Roark reported. “Alpha has taken out Argo thrust controllers and are moving topside.”
Argo’s captain stood at the virtual bridge of his vessel, checking over displays of the ship’s status. Minute changes in the launch platform’s latitude and longitude from the DGPS caught his eye.
“We’re drifting off position. What’s the situation with the thrust controllers?”
“They’re not responding,” his first officer replied. “I’m not getting a signal from any of them.”
The captain glanced up at the countdown clock. T minus seven minutes and counting.
“Damn. This is going to rile a lot a people.” He picked up the phone and punched in three digits. “Launch director, this is Argo. Be advised. Thrust controllers are not responding. LP is starting to drift off position.”
“How bad is the drift?” Skye asked the launch director.
“Negligible. The seas are calm. In the time remaining until launch, I estimate no more than twenty feet off the line.”
“Then continue the countdown.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Peng stood with Captain Jin Goujun on the bridge as the Hangzhou moved into position off the port side of Aequatus.
“Slow to five knots,” the captain ordered.
The steady low-frequency drone that accompanied their thirty-knot run to the equator ebbed away. To Peng, the sudden silence was a relief. He stared at the long white form just a few hundred meters away.
“So, now we catch this woman who murdered our yuhangyuans, eh?” the captain said with a confident leer.
“Yes,” Peng agreed. “Justice will be served.”
Peng kept to himself the nagging fear that a woman who could destroy a spacecraft in orbit was not to be underestimated.
“Cap’n,” Perez said, his voice slightly shaken. “You know those ships we picked up on radar a half-hour ago?”
“The sightseers? Yeah.”
“They’re pulling up alongside and I don’t think they’re here to watch the launch.”
Werner got up from his chair and grabbed a pair of binoculars on his way to the bridge windows. He didn’t need them. The long gray ship was less than a mile away, the entire length of its main deck bristling with weaponry. It was a sight that projected awe and fear. Werner raised the binoculars to his eyes and scanned the warship. Fluttering in the breeze he saw the flag of the People’s Republic of China.
“There’s another one just like it off the other side,” Perez said.
“Cap’n,” the radio operator called out. “We’re being hailed.”
“Pipe it through.”
Werner returned to his station and picked up the handset.
“This is Captain Werner of the Aequatus.”
“Aequatus, this is the Chinese destroyer Sanya,” Captain Yao announced. “Prepare to be boarded.”
“Negative, Sanya,” Werner said defiantly. “This is a United States flagged vessel. You have no right to board us.”
“You are harboring a criminal wanted for murder by the People’s Republic of China,” Yao snapped back.
“The hell we are,” Werner muttered off mike. “Sanya, we haven’t been anywhere near China. We are a commercial ship engaged in the peaceful launch of a communications satellite and your presence is interfering with our work.”
“Your work is irrelevant. Prepare to be boarded.”
“Cap’n, they’re lowering boats into the water.”
“CIC to Bridge,” Commander Shi called out over the intercom. “Radar control is locked on target.”
“Mr. Lin, how much do you think that rocket standing out there costs?” Captain Yao asked the bridge watch officer.
The lieutenant commander considered the question for a moment, fully aware that Sanya’s commanding officer was enjoying every moment as the instrument of his nation’s revenge. It was an assignment that guaranteed his promotion to flag rank.
“Possibly as much as a billion yuan, sir.”
“A suitable down payment for this woman’s crimes, don’t you think? Commence firing.”
Signals from the Kite Screech H/I/K-band radar poured into Sanya’s computer control system, where they were used to continuously update the firing solution on the Argo launch platform. As the ship’s forward turret swiveled into position, the dual 130-millimeter guns angled upward slightly, preparing to unleash a hellish barrage on the target three miles distant.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Atop the launch platform, the erector arm pulled away from the upright rocket, folding back down to horizontal. Communications tests between the rocket and Aequatus continued with all systems reporting nominal status.
Stivers and his SEALs removed their fins and clambered up the steel framework supporting the transfer hoist. It was a difficult climb equipped as they were. A SEAL nicknamed Spider-Man led the way up, pointing out the best hand
holds to his teammates. Arms aching, they swung themselves onto Argo’s lower deck.
Stivers again checked his watch. “Bravo’s in the water. Let’s move it!”
The two-hundred-foot Skye-4GR towered over Argo’s stern, a tall, slender column topped with a smooth-domed cap. White clouds of evaporating gases billowed around the rocket, and the air was filled with the low rumble of the boiling cryogenic fuels.
“LT,” Spider-Man called out, “it don’t look like they hit the off switch.”
Stivers led the team in a sprint to the control room. The door was unlocked and the room eerily empty. An LED display on the wall counted down the final seconds to launch.
“Shit! It’s still going up! Everybody off, now!” Stivers ordered.
The four men ran with all they had toward the starboard rail. A deafening shock wave, accompanied by a roiling cloud of superheated steam, scalded the SEALs as they leaped toward the water just a few hundred feet from the rocket. Their wetsuits liquefied, sticking to the men like hot tar. The blast struck them with such force that it crushed their chests and threw them over eighty feet away from the platform.
They were dead before the first rounds from Sanya’s forward guns hammered into Argo’s deck. In a minute of continuous fire, forty rounds of high-explosive, armor-piercing ordnance shattered the rigid structural framework of the main deck. Under the sagging weight of the weakened superstructure, Argo’s massive pontoons splayed outward and the ship folded in on itself.
