by Dale Brown
“Not yet, sir.”
If Ali turned the ships around and raced west, they could engage Satan’s Tail before two hours passed. At the same time, the Al Bushra could launch her missiles against it. The American would be caught between the two forces.
If the American was where these reports said he was.
The oiler would have to sail on alone. And the Sharia would have to return to its mooring. She was not ready to do battle.
It was a gamble, based on possibly inaccurate information. But if he waited to verify it, the chance might slip through his fingers.
Had God given him the Al Bushra for this attempt? It had not been required for the oiler, and seemed to have no other role—surely it was intended to attack the devil ship.
“Signal the other boats,” said Ali. “Satan’s Tail awaits.”
Khamis Mushait Air Base
0020
“WHERE ARE YOU?”
“Fifty feet over Al Huwaymi, heading out toward the gulf,” Zen told his wife Breanna. The control unit for the Werewolves had been housed in the hangar behind the Megafortress parking area. Zen sat surrounded by the large black carrying cases used to ship the equipment, a tangle of wires forming a nest around his wheelchair. The control unit had only two panels set up. Both were twenty-one-inch LCD flatscreens. The panel on the right showed a three-dimension simulation of where the Werewolf was, the area it flew over rendered as a wire model, with green and red lines delineating the topography. The Werewolf was a stubby yellow double cross that, if you squinted just right, looked a little like the aircraft itself. It reminded Zen of the first Flighthawk simulation—which wasn’t coincidental, since the program was essentially the same one.
Give or take five million lines of code …
The panel on the left showed the video feed from the Werewolf’s nose. The camera was not light-enhanced, and even though they were using the Dreamland satellite system, the transmission was choppy.
“Doesn’t it feel weird to be sitting here in a hangar, five hundred miles away, guiding an aircraft over hostile territory?” asked Breanna as she handed Zen an ice cold cola.
“Four hundred and seventy-two miles away, and Yemen is not necessarily hostile territory,” said Zen. “The computer is actually doing the flying. I just nudge the control stick every so often so it thinks I’m in control.”
“You know what I mean. I can see with the Flighthawks. I mean, you’re in a plane. But this—it’s like a computer game.”
“I guess,” said Zen, taking the cola.
“You used to say that.”
“I used to.” He took a long sip from the soda. “I guess I’ve gotten used to it.”
“I guess.”
“Ten years from now, Bree, everything will be remote control.”
“I hope not.”
“Well, how did it feel flying the Unmanned Bomber?” he asked.
“Too weird. That’s why I gave it up.”
“Temporarily. For the deployment in the Pacific.”
“Permanently.”
Zen glanced up at her. Breanna had gone through a lengthy debate several months before when she was offered command of the Unmanned Bomber project. It was an important project and a very important position, especially for an ambitious female captain. The Unmanned Bomber was a hypersonic aircraft designed to be fitted with either a laser or a high-energy discharge weapon. There was no guarantee that the UMB, as it was known at Dreamland, would go into production, but even if it didn’t, the project was likely to be the touchstone for a dozen future systems, from engines to weapons. Taking command of the project would surely put Breanna on the fast track for a general’s star, and beyond.
“You don’t want the project?” Zen asked.
“I like to fly when I fly,” she said.
“Well, some of us can’t.”
“I don’t mean it like that,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder.
“No harm, no foul,” he said. He’d have to save the discussion about her future for another time. “I gotta do a cut here in thirty seconds,” he added. “Then I have to contact Xray Pop and make sure the global positioning system is working properly. Okay?”
“Never interrupt a pilot on a mission, even when he’s sitting in a hangar 472 miles away.”
“Four hundred and eighty-five. These things move pretty quick.”
Aboard the Wisconsin,
over the Gulf of Aden
0055
“THE OMAN SHIP IS NOW HEADING NORTHEAST,” SAID DISH.
“Still moving ahead.”
“What about the tanker?” Dog asked.
“He’s still more or less where he was. A little closer to the coast maybe. Definitely moving, just not very fast.”
“What do you think, Tommy?” Dog asked Delaford.
“The Oman patrol boat, the Al Bushra ship, she’s headed in Xray Pop’s direction. Beyond that, though, I’m just not sure. He’s at twenty knots or so. That’s close to his top speed, if not right at it.”
“Still doesn’t answer any hails,” said McNamara.
Dog banked the Megafortress. They were at 35,000 feet, twenty miles off the coast of Somalia. None of the Ethiopian aircraft they’d tussled with the night before had come out.
Several radars in Yemen had switched on and off during the night, but they were too far away to find them.
“Have a contact I think is the Abner Read,” said Dish.
“Just barely there. Very small radar return, now twenty miles to our east. Couple of other very small ships, very small, about ten miles farther east. The radar signature is so small we can’t even ID the ship. Kind of like looking at a stealth bomber. I’d guess it’s next to invisible to a surface radar until you’re maybe inside five miles.”
“You sure about those locations?”
“Locations? Absolutely.”
“Commander Delaford—the Shark Boats that patrol with the Abner Read … Would they be trailing him by ten miles?”
“I’m not sure, Colonel. Why?”
“Just two of them,” said Dog.
“Actually we have four now, Colonel. They’re moving fast—faster than he is. About fifty knots.” Dog reached to the communications panel, punching into the Dreamland circuit.
“Zen, have you contacted the Abner Read?”
“I’m supposed to radio the ship when I’m five miles away, about forty-five seconds from now,” said Zen, piloting the Werewolf. “We’re about ten miles due north of the last calculated rendezvous point.”
“We have some contacts to your east. Can you see them?”
“Hang on.”
Dog watched the composite radar screen, which compiled the positions of both surface and ship contacts. The Werewolf was closer to the trailing ships than to the Abner Read.
“Can’t see them,” said Zen. “I can change course.”
“Don’t do that,” said Dog. “You say you’re only five miles from the Abner Read?”
“Affirmative. They have to turn their lights on for me to land. The automated system can’t interface with them, and they’re a moving target.”
“All right. Contact them and arrange to drop those com units. I’m going to talk to Captain Gale and suggest you check out these contacts. How much fuel do you have aboard?”
“Another thirty minutes worth. I was told they had fuel on the ship.”
“They do. Stand by.”
Aboard the Abner Read,
Gulf of Aden
0100
STORM COULD HEAR THE AIRCRAFT APPROACHING IN THE distance.
“Lights,” he said into his microphone.
The landing deck of the destroyer glowed white. Storm looked upward, as much to shield his eyes as to look for the helicopter. The sound grew louder, the roar of a steam loco-motive drowning out the sounds of the Abner Read; the hum of her engines and the high-pitched hiss of her lights.
“There, Captain, there she is.”
The aircraft buzzed across th
e fantail, ten feet off the deck. It circled to the right, buzzing to the end of the glow and coming back. It looked more like an alien spaceship than a helicopter. It took another pass, and then spun smartly around, dropping into a hover and descending on the Abner Read‘s helicopter landing pad.
Storm had never seen anything like it. The aircraft looked like a combination of an airplane and a helicopter. It was small, its body no bigger than a good-sized desk. And it had just executed a perfect landing on a destroyer moving at close to forty knots, all the while guided by someone hundreds of miles away.
He didn’t like Bastian, but he had to give the devil his due—his techno toys worked pretty damn well.
Two of the Abner Read crewmen approached the helicopter as its rotors spun down. Because the Werewolf was so small, there was little clearance between the deck and the rotors, and they had to wait until the propellers stopped spinning. When they finally did, the men rushed forward, leaned in with big chain cutters, and snapped the wire restraints that held the case beneath the Werewolf’s belly. The aircraft had landed on it; there was no way to retrieve it until the helo took off.
“Go!” yelled Storm. “Go!”
The rotors spun in opposite directions, making an eerie whirling sound. The first revolution seemed lazy, almost against its will; the second was a little faster; with the third, the aircraft sprung upward in a fury and was gone.
“Lights!” yelled Storm.
As the lights were doused, the voice of one of the men in the Tactical Center below yelled over the combat intercom system: “Here they come!”
“Hard right rudder!” said Storm. “Weapons! Prepare to fire!”
Khamis Mushait Air Base
0112
A LONG STREAK OF YELLOW FLASHED IN THE SCREEN, morphing to white and then breaking back into yellow. Zen leaned on the control stick for the Werewolf, whipping the robot helicopter out of the line of fire. The computer opened a targeting window at the right side of his screen, boxing the cannon on the deck of the lead pirate ship. Zen reached forward and tapped the screen, manually designating the target and allowing the computer to fire as soon as it was locked. Unlike in the Flighthawk, he didn’t have to line up head-on for a shot—the computer rotated the chain gun, firing to the right as the Werewolf flew nearly parallel to its target. The 30mm shells drew a thick line across the front of the small patrol craft, tearing through the gun, surrounding deck, and nearby superstructure. Zen banked sharply and took manual control of the gun to rake the rear of the patrol craft. The computer recorded the hits on a wire-model projection in the targeting screen, painting them as dark red flashes and estimating the damage: No critical systems had been hit, but the vessel’s forward gun was out of action.
A barrage of bullets erupted from a second patrol boat a half mile away. The Werewolf pirouetted in the sky as Zen lined up the new target. The target box painted the enemy ship’s bridge; Zen stabbed the screen and concentrated on ducking the sudden burst of bullets from the enemy ship.
The Werewolf fired several times, recording hits on the bridge, but the patrol boat continued to fire and Zen had to pull off.
His control screen flashed red. FUEL STATE LOW, said a message in the middle of the screen.
“Is that all?” he said, relieved, but as if in answer, the computer flashed a fresh message:
DAMAGE TO REAR STABLIZER FIN. 25 PERCENT.
And then several others in rapid succession:
DAMAGE TO HYDRAULIC SYSTEM 1. OFFLINE.
DAMAGE TO HYDRAULIC SYSTEM 2. 24 PERCENT.
DAMAGE TO CONTROL SYSTEM 1, CPU UNIT. 20 PERCENT.
“Now’s where it starts to get interesting,” said Zen, pushing the joystick to line up for another run at the pirate.
Aboard the Abner Read,
Gulf of Aden
0114
“MISSILE AWAY!”
A Harpoon missile leapt from the vertical launcher on the forward deck. The flare from the lower stage of the rocket glared through the windscreen at the front of the bridge, painting the gear and crew an eerie yellow.
“Where are my guns!” Storm barked into his microphone.
At least three people answered, “Firing!” as the destroyer started to rock with the beat of six 155mm shells fired in rapid succession from the forward weapon. The crew on the bridge and in the Tactical Center cheered as the weapon hit home.
“Target one is demolished!”
“Target one sunk!”
“We got the son of a bitch.”
“Take that for Commander Marcum, you bastards!”
“Take out the rest of the boats,” said Storm calmly. “Steady, gentlemen. Executive officer, Eyes, everyone, steady, now. We have not yet begun to fight.”
Gulf of Aden
0115
THE SEA AROUND THEM ERUPTED AS THE AMERICAN SHIP began spitting its shells. A helicopter zipped above, firing a cannon at the lead vessel in Ali’s flotilla. One of the crewmen began firing the machine gun at it, the barrage so close and loud that Ali had to put his mouth directly to his helmsman’s ear to make himself be heard.
“Continue the attack!” he shouted. “We need more time.
Torpedoes!” he added. “Fire the torpedoes!” One of the shells from Satan’s Tail landed in the water ten or fifteen yards away, sending a spray of salt water over the boat. The small vessel rocked back and forth, slapped by the waves and explosions.
“Torpedoes! Fire!” yelled Ali. He reached down and picked up the flare gun. As the flare shot upward, he pulled the satellite phone from his pocket. “Fire on these coordinates!” he told his cousin Mabrukah aboard the Oman missile boat. “Fire! Fire! Fire!”
Aboard the Wisconsin,
over the Gulf of Aden
0115
“MISSILE IN THE AIR!” YELLED STARSHIP, HIS VOICE SO LOUD Dog probably could have heard him without the benefit of the interphone system. “Two missiles in the air!”
“Exocet antiship missiles,” said Dog’s copilot, Kevin McNamara, much more calmly. “Fired toward the Abner Read.”
“That’s good enough for me,” said Dog. “Target the Oman ship. Open bomb bay doors.”
“Bay,” repeated the copilot.
The Megafortress bucked as the large doors at the base of the rear fuselage swung open. Dog pushed his stick forward, nosing into a fifteen-degree angle toward the vessel that had just launched the missiles.
“Vessel targeted,” said McNamara.
“Fire Harpoon.”
The missile clunked off the rotating dispenser, already on a direct line to the enemy ship. Four hundred eighty-eight pounds of high explosives were locked into the fat target less than eight miles away.
Dog hit the preset button on the communications panel to open the radio channel to Storm. But the Abner Read‘s crew apparently had not been able to activate the communications unit yet.
“Broadcast a missile warning to Abner Read,” Dog told McNamara.
“Already have. Harpoon two is ready to fire.”
“Fire Harpoon two.”
“Launching.”
The turbojet engine at the rear of the missiles ignited, ramping their airspeed toward five hundred knots. They had one more of the antiship weapons left.
“Radar system on the missile boat is attempting to lock,” said the copilot.
“ECMs,” said Dog, ordering electronic counter measures.
“They’re firing surface-to-air missiles! Radar-guided!
Harpoon one missed,” said McNamara, incredulous.
“Target them again.”
“Targeting. Missile in the air! Coming for us.” Dog held to his course, waiting for the copilot to lock the Harpoon’s guidance system on the target. The missile that had been launched was identified as an SA-S-4; the Wisconsin was flying at the outer edge of its range, though that was no guarantee of safety. With the bomb bay doors open, the Megafortress’s radar cross section was more than ample for the missile’s guidance system to see. They were high but
moving relatively slow, and except for the ECMs, which confused the missile’s guidance systems, they would be an easy target.
“We have a lock,” said the copilot.
“Fire Harpoon,” said Dog.
“Firing.”
“Crew, stand by for some jinking,” said Dog. “Button us up, Kevin.”
As their last antiship missile dropped from the belly, the copilot closed the bomb bay, instantly making them less visible to radar. Dog pressed the chaff release button, sending bundles of metallic tinsel into the air. An old but still effective counterweapon, the chaff acted like a smoke screen, making it harder for the enemy to pick the Megafortress out of the sky. Dog jabbed the control stick to jerk the Megafortress in a new direction, a wide receiver giving the defensive backs an open-field fake.
Even so, it wasn’t enough—a warning tone in Dog’s headset told him the missile was closing in.
STARSHIP POINTED THE FLIGHTHAWK TOWARD THE SHIP, leaning toward the screen as he nosed into a forty-five-degree dive, plunging at the rectangular bridge at the center of his screen. A puff of smoke flashed at the left side of his screen, and black lines began to rise on the right.
Starship felt the Megafortress lurch beneath him. He fought off the distraction. The targeting pipper danced left and right, the ship below seeming to slip back and forth as if it sensed he was coming. The screen blinked yellow and he pressed the trigger, even though he knew it was too early. The shells trailed downward and he let go, pulling up on the stick as the Flighthawk lost some of its momentum. He had no target now; he’d ruined his approach by firing too soon and was caught flatfooted in the air, flying toward a cloud of antiaircraft fire. Starship bit the side of his lip, angry but trying to control his emotions, knowing he wasn’t that far off. He managed to duck right and pull around sharply enough to get a burst in, this time on target, but he was beyond the vessel before he could fire more than a handful of bullets.
Starship leveled off, took a breath, then pushed the plane into a long, almost lackadaisical bank low over the ocean, trying to convince himself that this was just another of the hundred or two hundred simulations he had run with Zen and Kick during training a few months before. Kick had been better at the attack missions—he’d flown an A-10A Warthog, a real stick and rudder aircraft, and was used to using the cannon on surface targets. Starship had learned a lot just by watching his laid-back, no rush approach; it was a different head than the balls-out fighter jock Starship was used to.
