It wasn’t merely a congratulatory gesture. Instead it was the signal Beast had been waiting for. Immediately he radioed down to CIC. “Raikes! Cover target point, alpha with guns and birds.”
“Hello, there,” Raikes’s voice came over the radio, and Beast knew what that meant: She had the stinger in her crosshairs.
Hiroki, with a pair of binoculars, watched one of the aliens fumbling blindly for its helmet. “Hit him!” said Hiroki.
Raikes’s gun started firing. So did the guns of the other officers. Every available weapon on the ship was hammering away at the stinger.
The alien vessel tried to come about, but was hit by a broadside of 5-inch shells. It was clear that systems were failing all over the ship. Shields flared once again, trying to keep the ship impervious to attack, but after numerous shots the ordnance was getting through, punching into the ship’s shell, ripping the stinger apart. A blast tore apart the supports of one of the stinger’s starboard pontoons, ripping out the entire leg. The mortally wounded ship toppled sideways into the water. It started to slide beneath the surface.
“Oh no you don’t, you bastard,” said Raikes, moving to the missile station. “No quarter asked or given. You don’t get away that easy.” She targeted the sinking vessel faster than she’d ever targeted anything in her life. “Been saving one for ya,” said Raikes, and she fired.
The missile flew straight and true and struck the stinger just before it could disappear beneath the water. It was possible that the ship offered no further threat. It was also possible that it was trying to get away so it could regroup, quickly repair itself somehow and come at them again. Either way it didn’t matter, as the missile struck home, blowing the stinger to pieces. The explosion was massive, a gigantic spout of water leaping skyward.
Some of the spray fell upon the bridge, where Beast endeavored to fist bump Hiroki. But the diminutive Japanese officer was so convulsed with joy and excitement that he returned the bump with force that seemed insanely out of proportion to his size. So much so, in fact, that he wound up slamming Beast’s fist back into his face, causing the much larger man to stagger and almost fall over.
The civilians on the beach screamed in joy as the ocean water rained down on them, dancing around, shouting, “U.S.A! U.S.A!” It was likely they didn’t fully understand everything that was happening. But as far as they were concerned, if a Navy destroyer was blowing some other ship to smithereens, then the other guys were up to no good and were enemies of the United States.
Hopper watched from the foredeck as the stinger burned furiously. Then he turned to Nagata. “What was it again? Mitsubishi?”
“Natsu… cam—”
“Right, right. Natsu campu. Are you kidding me?” He stuck out a hand. “That’s some damn fine shooting, my friend. I give it up to you, Nagata, I really do. I—”
Nagata didn’t take his hand. Stirrings of the old animosity began to awaken in Hopper. Are we back to this? Are we back to dissing each other and—? Then he realized that Nagata wasn’t even looking at him, but instead past him. “Captain,” Nagata said slowly, “we have a problem. Something’s coming our way.”
The time of testing is over, and the Sea Commander is deeply furious. The pilot of the guardian vessel is his hatchling mate… was his hatchling mate. He is the best of the best, and now he is gone, thanks to the test subjects.
The Sea Commander will not tolerate this insult. Nor does he see any reason to prolong the encounter. He orders the top bay doors opened and the spheres launched.
That should attend to them.
Hopper stared at four whirring globes hovering in the distance nearby that strange alien structure, as if determining where to go. “Those things again?”
Ord’s eyes widened. “Oh shit.”
The globes were heading their way. Whirling blades had extended all over them, spinning away, and they were heading straight toward the John Paul Jones.
“Can… can the hull withstand those?” Hopper asked Beast.
“Captain, I don’t know what those things are, or what the blades are composed of, but if I had to guess, I’d say they’re going to shred us.”
“Not to mention,” Nagata added with his customary sangfroid, “even if the hulls were capable of withstanding the assault—which I suspect they aren’t—the crewmen…”
Oh my God. “Beast! Get below on damage control! Keep us afloat for as long as you can! Ord… just get the hell out of here!” As the two men scrambled to obey, Hopper hit the shipwide PA system and shouted, “Brace! Brace for…” He groped for a word and, remembering what Beast had said, shouted, “…for shredders!”
Using the defense systems was simply not an option. The shredders were too fast and too small.
The shredders fanned out, two of them coming in from the port side, the other looping around to the starboard. Fore and aft, a coordinated attack, leaving the ship nowhere to move and with no means of defending itself. They tore into the John Paul Jones, sliding down the length of her, tearing deep furrows in the metal.
Within the ship, crewmen who had moments earlier heard the captain’s warning and said to one another, “What the hell is a shredder?” cried out and jumped back as glistening blades tore through the bulkheads, slicing through the ship like a laser beam. The shredders dug into the John Paul Jones, jackals ripping into a crippled lion, tearing up everything they could get near.
On Waikiki Beach, the jubilation from mere moments earlier now seemed nothing but a distant memory. Tourists and natives alike stood there in horror, many of them screaming, but their screams were drowned out by the shrieking of the metal as the shredders tore through it.
The shredders crisscrossed the ship with such elegance that it almost seemed choreographed. Once each of them reached the far end of the vessel, they simply doubled back, creating more gigantic gashes in the hull. The John Paul Jones trembled and shuddered under the assault, helpless to return or slow the attack, helpless to do anything except take it for as long as it could. And that wasn’t going to be much longer at all.
The Sea Commander watches with silent approval, but also belatedly with just the faintest tinge of regret.
The spheres are not his preferred weapons. Missiles at least provide the prey a sporting chance. An opportunity to use their resourcefulness, to display signs of personal mettle.
Not that they do not deserve death for what they did to the Sea Commander’s hatchling mate. No, they most certainly do. But the Sea Commander would far prefer to attend to it himself. To pound the vessel into submission, then have a shuttle bring him over to the boat, have the ship’s commander brought before him, whereupon the Sea Commander would crush the life out of the creature himself. He would enjoy looking into its eyes as darkness claimed it.
However, that is an indulgence, and the Sea Commander—much like his other surviving hatchling mate, the Land Commander—does not believe in indulgences. Tests are for results, and wars are to be won. There is no room in that narrow formulation for personal vendettas, no matter how much satisfaction they may bring with them.
Let the spheres take them, then.
It’s a more merciful end than they deserve.
Two X-shaped gashes now festooned both sides of the ship. Explosions rocked her, making it look as if the John Paul Jones was trembling with fear over her impending demise. She began to list, water pouring in through the tears in the hull the shredders had ripped into it. The shredders promptly came back together in midair as if having a quick conference—baseball players converging on an invisible mound to decide how to handle the next batter—and then they descended upon the ship in four different directions, seeking to wreak havoc upon the crew itself.