Thunder Run (Maelstrom Rising Book 6)

by Peter Nealen

  It was a dangerous game. When engagement times are measured in seconds, even at those distances, often the first one to fire wins. Too much talking—when first blood had already been drawn on the ground—could mean a quick death for whoever was too slow on the trigger.

  The Danish aircraft hadn’t gotten a shot off. More missiles were in the air, and I saw a distant flash as at least one of them hit. We were much too far away to see if the pilot managed to eject.

  More flares erupted across the sky as the Danes scattered and evaded. Another missile hit with a bright flash.

  Then they were returning fire, and things got more complicated.

  The sky above us became a hash of flares and missile trails. One of the Danish missiles got its target, and one of our birds—it was too high to see whether it was a Lightning II or a Super Hornet—came apart in a billowing fireball.

  The Danes had F-16s and F-35s of their own. They were just about every bit as capable as our guys were.

  As suddenly as it had started, the aerial furball was over. The Danes were scattering and heading for the deck, turning away and showing their afterburners as they returned to base. They’d drawn blood, but apparently weren’t willing to sacrifice any more than the two or three birds they’d lost to get a strike in on the Amphibious Strike Group passing through the middle of their country.

  Once again, numbers and civilized attitudes told against them.

  I couldn’t say I was going to complain.

  Turning back toward the east, we resumed our vigil, waiting for the next push.

  ***

  The next push never came. Or if it was going to, it didn’t come before the Ospreys came back in, escorted by Marine Vipers off the Iwo. Once again, we had to fight the prop wash to get aboard in an orderly manner, maintaining security as we hustled onto the birds. In a way, it was a little easier; we could lean into the wind as we boarded.

  Once everyone was up, the Ospreys rose into the early morning sky and turned north, practically skimming the water as they raced back toward the Iwo Jima. It was almost 0500, and it was starting to get light in the east.

  It took less time to get back to the ship than the insert flight had taken. Still, the sun was coming up as we hustled off the birds and toward the hatch leading below.

  The strike group was just entering the Kattegat, and the land to east and west was almost invisible, even as the sun began to rise over the eastern horizon. It would be several more hours before we turned into the Skagerrak. Even longer before we neared our jump-off point.

  “Hey, Matt!” Weiss was hustling toward us, his Marines already heading belowdecks. He jerked his head toward the island as he joined us. “Once you guys get settled, if you and the other team leaders want to come up to our ready room, we should have a decent feed from the CIC. You’ll be able to maintain some SA up there, instead of just sitting in berthing, wondering what’s going on.”

  I glanced over at Tucker and Burkhart, who were already heading below with their teams, then nodded. “Appreciate it. We’ll be up in a few minutes.”

  “You need a Marine to show you the way?”

  I chuckled, recalling Hartrick’s old saw from Selection. If you’re not navigating, you’re lost. “Nah, we’ll find our way back. Thanks, though.”

  It didn’t take long to get down to our berthing, though it still wasn’t an easy time. The passageways and the hatches were narrow enough that we had to keep stepping aside for traffic moving in the opposite direction, not to mention the occasional helmet, NVG mount, or pack getting caught up on the lip of a hatch.

  Finally, we were crammed down in our berthing, getting in each other’s way as we tried to get weapons and gear stowed again. I waded through the press to find Tucker and Burkhart.

  “Weiss invited us up to the ready room to keep an eye on the situation. Says he’s got a decent feed from the CIC.” I was still wearing my gear; I’d dropped my pack and weapon in my rack, but wanted to get this figured out first. “I figure we should probably run shifts, that way we can get some shut-eye before we’ve got to go hot again.” I checked my watch. “We should have a couple of days, but we all know how that works.”

  Tucker shrugged. “Sounds like a good idea to me. We can keep our finger on the, shall we say, ‘hearts and minds’ pulse around here, too.”

  That was a good point. Weiss seemed to have accepted us, but he was also an officer. The platoon sergeants and team leaders were likely to be in and out of the ready room as near-term prep continued, and we might be able to get more of a feel for where we stood with the rest of the Recon Marines. I’d known a lot of Marines who would be fine with anybody who was willing to get stuck in, but I’d also known a lot of Marines who’d essentially been brainwashed to look down on and hate anyone who wasn’t part of their unit, or didn’t fall into the Marine Corps’ box. I may even have been one of them, once upon a time.

  We were all pretty far outside that box.

  “I’ll take first watch, unless one of you guys really wants it.” I was still a little keyed up, anyway.

  Tucker looked a little uncertain. I could tell that he really wanted to hit the rack, but at the same time, felt kind of guilty about the desire and the eagerness he was feeling to take me up on the offer.

  Burkhart had none of the same hesitation. “Two-hour shifts? Sounds like a plan to me. Wake me up when it’s my turn.”

  Tucker shot him a sour look as he turned away. Bobby Burkhart had been doing this for a long time, and sometimes his give-a-damn was busted. Right now appeared to be one of those times.

  With Burkhart disappearing into his team’s racks, Tucker glanced at his watch. “The offensive is supposed to kick off tonight. So, we’ve got…about two days.”

  I nodded, turning back toward my own rack. “Provided everything goes according to plan. You know how that works.”

  He might have chuckled. “Do I ever.”

  ***

  The ready room was quiet and abandoned except for the Force platoon’s comm NCO, a sergeant named Gertz who looked up as I came in. He looked like he was in his mid-twenties, skinny in that lean, greyhound sort of way that Recon Marines get.

  “You one of the Triarii?” He stood up as I walked in. He’d been working at one of the laptops, a PRC-152 next to it.

  I waved him down. “Yeah. Matt Bowen. Your platoon commander said we could hang out in here, keep an eye on what’s going on.”

  He nodded and waved at the plasma screens. “He told me. Grab yourself a chair. There’s usually only a couple of us in here at any one time.” He sat back down and turned his attention to the laptop again.

  I sat down and scanned the screens. One displayed a plot of the strait, with each of the ships in the expeditionary strike group represented by a small blue icon, surrounded by their overlapping radar and sonar circles. Aircraft from the Abraham Lincoln still circled overhead, though we were reaching the limits of their range. We’d have to hand over to the Dwight D. Eisenhower soon.

  The other screen showed alternating video feeds from around the ship’s island. Not quite as informative as the plot on the main screen, but it provided more of an immediate sense of what was going on. Right then, it was just showing empty water and the escort ships around the Iwo, as well as the occasional glimpse of the F-35s as they came down to land and rearm.

  Gertz was working, but he kept glancing up as he did so, looking at me more often than he was the screens. I was mostly watching the plot, and glancing at the video feed, though I’d brought a well-worn Louis L’Amour novel in my ruck. Sometimes there’s only so long you can stare at the screen when nothing’s happening.

  I glanced up and caught his eye as he was staring at me over the top of the laptop screen. “Something on your mind, Sergeant?”

  He glanced back down at the screen, as if he’d been caught at something. “Nothing, sir.”

  I snorted. “I got out as a corporal, son. I ain’t no ‘sir.’” Though I knew why he’d said it. Marines are
taught from boot camp to address civilians as “sir.”

  Though I knew he was a little uncertain about me. After all, I was sitting in his platoon ready room, wearing dirty olive-green fatigues, after being on the ground with his platoon, though my hair was out of regs even for Recon guys—and I noticed that all of these Force Recon Marines appeared to have higher and tighter haircuts than the Recon guys I’d been around briefly during my four years—and my gray-shot red goatee was well outside the realm of possibility for them. My beard alone was probably a source of some envy.

  He hesitated at that, then looked up at me. “I’ve wondered about you guys. I’ve heard… Well, I’ve heard enough stuff that it can’t all be true. Since half of it seems to contradict the other half.”

  The hatch behind me opened before I could answer. A lanky, broad-shouldered man in digital woodland combat shirt and trousers, with Staff Sergeant chevrons on his shoulder pocket flaps, stepped in as Gertz finished talking. He took us both in at a glance.

  “That’s because half of it’s lies, Gertz.” He stuck out his hand and I stood and shook it. “Staff Sergeant Myers. Team One team leader.” He sat down at one of the other laptops. “I’ve got an older brother who’s with you guys, somewhere up in the Northwest.”

  I raised an eyebrow, thinking. “I think I might know a Myers. Is he one of the Grex Luporum guys?”

  Myers nodded. “Got out at ten from 1st MSOB, and went right over. Says he’s never looked back.”

  I chuckled. “I was an 0331, and I’ve sure as hell never looked back.”

  Myers frowned. “I thought the GL teams only took former SOF guys.”

  “Technically, you’re right. I’m stubborn, though. My boss decided to give me enough rope to hang myself, and I did what I could with it.”

  Gertz looked slightly impressed. Myers shrugged.

  Gertz was frowning a little. “What brings you guys out here, anyway? We’ve heard a few things about what you’ve been doing, but not why.”

  I leaned back in the chair, letting my face and voice go cold. “Doing what we do. When the USG decides not to do what they’re supposed to, we step in.”

  Myers shot Gertz a look, and an uncomfortable silence settled over the room. “I take it you boys aren’t exactly encouraged to speak your minds?” I was on dangerous ground, and I knew it, but I was tired enough that I didn’t care that much.

  “You know how it is.” Myers’ voice was as neutral as he could get it. “There’s the right way, the wrong way, and the Marine Corps way.”

  I snorted a little. “That doesn’t sound like the Recon Marine from back in my day.”

  I could feel the bitterness intensify. “Yeah, well. Times change. It’s a new era.” Apparently, I’d hit a sore spot.

  It wasn’t a new one, from what I’d learned from Scott and Hartrick. There had been attempts to “fix” Recon for years, and most Recon bubbas resented it deeply.

  Something on the plot caught my eye, and I looked up. A large red circle around a red submarine icon had appeared on the screen, somewhere due north of the Leyte Gulf. And even as we all turned toward the screens, the video feed showed one of the cruiser’s SH-87 helicopters spooling up on her rear deck, then lifting and cruising off toward the contact, keeping low.

  “Looks like we get front row seats to an antisubmarine fight, boys.”

  ***

  Just watching the plot and the video feed was a lot less exciting that it might have seemed. The Hunt for Red October it was not.

  We watched the helos fly back and forth across the water for what felt like hours, dropping sonobuoys as they went. The circle around the hostile submarine icon shrank a couple of times as the sonobuoys caught the boat with a ping, but then got steadily larger again as they lost the contact. Whoever was out there, they knew their business. But they were still having a hard time getting in close.

  I was starting to turn my attention back to the book when something finally happened.

  “That looked like a torpedo.” Gertz had been trying to work his comms piece, but had been mostly distracted by the antisubmarine warfare going on outside.

  “Nah, probably just another sonobuoy.” Myers had lost interest about half an hour before, and was bent over the laptop he’d come in to use, probably working on planning for his own team. I figured most of that should have been done already, given that we were, if I was keeping count right, less than forty-five hours from launch. But maybe he was one of those team leaders who has to keep tweaking things right up to the last moment.

  “Whoa!” I looked up at Gertz’s exclamation, and saw why he’d reacted. The water had just heaved, and then white foam fountained up from the surface, turning a dirty black after a moment.

  “Scratch one sub.” Indeed, when I looked up at the plot, the red silhouette of the submarine was blinking, and a moment later, it vanished.

  They’d tried to stop us. They’d failed.

  Now it was just a matter of what they’d try next. We still had a long way to go.

  Chapter 25

  Shortly after the sub got sent to the bottom in little tiny pieces, Tucker came to relieve me, still muttering about Burkhart’s laziness. I was really struggling to stay awake at that point, so I really didn’t mind shuffling off to the rack. It had been a long day, followed by a long night.

  I got back to the berthing and pulled my boots off, but stayed in my fatigues. The entire strike group was at General Quarters. We might not have specifically assigned battlestations, but we’d still be ready to do something if the ship got hit.

  I was asleep in seconds.

  ***

  True to form, I didn’t sleep well, at least not after the first couple of hours. I woke up when Burkhart’s alarm went off on his watch, and he shuffled around, grumbling, before heading up to the ready room. I was starting to drift off again when Tucker came back in, even though he was trying to stay quiet. As quiet as could be in a small compartment full of snoring dudes, anyway.

  I was glad that we weren’t trying to hide from sonar. Our teams alone were probably audible for miles.

  It’s weird how that works, sometimes. I couldn’t recall any of us snoring in a hide site recently. We’d slept as quietly as we’d moved. But get us somewhere reasonably safe, and it was like a collision of sawmills.

  I dozed off again, drifting in and out until my own watch chirped. I sat up from my cramped position in the coffin rack, with my feet tucked against my rucksack, and in my bleariness didn’t quite calculate the space well enough. I cracked my head on the overhead and stifled a groan.

  It felt almost like sleeping off and on for four hours had only made my exhaustion worse as I pulled my boots on and headed back up to the ready room. I thought I remembered there being a coffee maker up there, but in my mental fog I couldn’t be entirely sure. I hoped there was.

  Burkhart was staring blearily at the plot when I got up there. The ready room was a bit more crowded than before. Captain Weiss and Gunny Ortiz were in there, along with another of their team leaders. That one seemed to be going over things with Ortiz, while Weiss frowned at the laptop in front of him. Weiss looked harried and exhausted, and was sipping coffee past the dip in his lip as he squinted at the screen.

  He looked up as I came in. “First setback already.” He pointed to the laptop in front of him. “The offensive is late kicking off. At least, the German part of it. Sounds like the southern assault went on schedule, but the Army’s dragging ass in Swiebodzin. Which means that we’ve been pushed twelve hours to the right, for right now.”

  I grimaced as I went over to the coffee machine, fortunately still half-full, and punched Burkhart in the shoulder. “Naturally. Can’t have things go according to plan, now, can we? Any word on why the holdup?”

  Burkhart shook his head. “Not a peep. Naturally. My guess is that Settar doesn’t have quite the leadership capability that her online bio waxes so rhapsodic about.”

  I glanced over at him as I filled a paper cup. “You
must be short on sleep. That’s a lot of long words for you.”

  His grimace was downright comical. “So, let’s do handover so I can go back to the rack.” Clearly, Bobby Burkhart wasn’t that concerned about maintaining any sort of hardass image in front of the Marines.

  Handover didn’t take long. Not much had happened after the sub had gotten blown to hell. Drills had continued, and everyone was still on high alert, but so far, the Danes appeared to be licking their wounds. The Swedes, for whatever reason, seemed to be sitting this one out.

  We were almost out of the Kattegat. Another three or four hours and we’d be clear of the Skagerrak and out into the North Sea.

  It didn’t mean we were going to be out of the woods. After all, the French Navy, what was left of it, was still out there. The Dwight D. Eisenhower and her Carrier Strike Group was farther north, between Norway and Scotland, keeping clear of a head-to-head with the Charles de Gaulle, back at sea after the hammering she’d taken during the battle for Gdansk.

  And now we were going to be hanging out at sea for another twelve hours, at least, waiting for the hammer to fall again.

  I finished my abbreviated handover with Burkhart and sat down, sipping coffee strong enough to strip paint, and watched the plot.

  Now all we could do was wait.

  ***

  Time dragged on for the next two days. We got spotty reports from northern Italy/southern France. The assault on Strasbourg was running into serious problems, bogged down in the Jura Mountains and stalled out south of Dijon. They were soaking up casualties, though not as badly as they might have. It seemed that the French were having difficulty reinforcing their delaying action, largely thanks to Nouveau Gallia, which had started pushing from Narbonne.

  Doubtless to the American commanders’ chagrin. The official stance on Nouveau Gallia was that they were an illegal secessionist movement.