“They covering for something?” Carl asked as he assisted Jack back to his feet.
More small bombs rained down from above as more manta raiders struck from the sea. The sailing ships were now massing around the still bulk of the Simbirsk. The attack was now being concentrated on their only way out of this madhouse.
“Well, if they wanted our attention, Colonel, they have gained it,” Henri said as he felt his pockets for more clips of .45-caliber ammo.
Just at that moment, a hundred of the Wasakoo burst over the side of Simbirsk. They came over en masse, and then all hell broke loose as sailors started to fight back at close quarters. Swords of bone and shell started to appear, and it was a terrifying sight as the Russian and British forces charged to meet the threat. Spears of twenty-foot length started sailing through the air and meeting the flesh of the brave men who fought for the ship under their feet.
This time it was Jack who returned the favor for the Frenchman. A Wasakoo had jumped onto the back of Farbeaux and raised a thick, powerful arm up to bring the sharp knife down and into Farbeaux’s back. Jack quickly shot the creature in the scaled forehead. The suddenness of his shot made Henri think he was shooting at him. When he realized Collins had just saved his life, all he could do was nod in thanks.
“They have us occupied here, so what is their game?” Jack asked anyone as he emptied his Thompson into a group of three Wasakoo as they had taken down one of the Russian sailors. The men were resisting the boarding of their ship with determined ferocity.
Everett wiped blood from his chin where an arrow had come close to decapitating him. He almost saw the large Wasakoo too late as it plunged a knife into the arm of Ryan, who cursed and dove away just as Everett unloosed a barrage of fire that nearly cut the Wasakoo in half. He assisted the injured Jason to his feet just as four more of the aquatic creatures came at them. Henri sliced through them, sending them all crashing to the deck.
A mile away, Peter the Great was taking heavy damage from the air war above them. The mantas were fast and dove quickly away as long lines of tracer fire crisscrossed the skies above. Shiloh was faring no better, as her weaponry was even weaker than that of the Russian ship. They were being boarded by the speedy sea turtles as Wasakoo jumped nimbly from sea turtles to the fast-moving Shiloh. Men were now fighting close quarter and hand to hand. Her beautiful fantail and bridge areas were awash with the chemically enhanced fireballs striking the great cruiser. Men were fighting from Jack staff to bow as the Aegis cruiser sliced the much slower sailing ships into glass and kindling.
There were over a thousand instances of hand-to-hand combat going on at any one time across the three ships. As much as Peter the Great and Shiloh were sacrificing for the safety of their ride home, the Simbirsk, they found themselves losing by superior numbers that were willing to die in the attack.
“Look!” Farbeaux called out above the din of firing weapons and screaming men and Wasakoo.
On the horizon, even more of the sailing ships came into view. Henri quickly numbered them in the hundreds.
Jack quickly figured this might not be just a ruse.
The Wasakoo were attacking with everything they had.
“You hear what?” Captain Thorne asked as he leaned into the sonar shack.
“Gunfire on the surface — a lot of it, Skipper,” the lieutenant said as he offered Thorne his own headset.
Thorne placed the headphones on and listened. It was so strange how one could hear popping noises on the surface of the sea almost a mile above them.
“What in the hell is going on up there?” He closed his eyes and listened, pressing both earpieces harder onto his head. “If it didn’t sound so crazy, I would almost have to say that it’s small-arms fire.” He looked up and watched the startled faces of the men around him. He removed the headphones and then left the sonar room. “Gary, what’s the situation with the ballast pumps?”
“Twenty minutes, Skipper,” the XO said as he went from station to station checking on his repaired systems. “But I don’t know about surfacing into a firefight. Right now, Houston’s like an eggshell sitting on the edge of a kitchen counter. I think someone could sink us with a well-placed rock.”
“Well, we may not have a choice; someone up there is fighting one hell of a battle, and we are bound to surface right into the middle of it. Weapons, keep the Harpoons warmed and ready, stern tubes seven, eight, nine, and ten loaded for war shot. The last two, I want drones ready to fire. Double-check our decoys. I want to be ready to loose weaps as soon as we break the surface.”
“You don’t think we’ll be able to control our ascent?” Devers asked Thorne quietly as he came to the navigation table.
“Not with a flaky ballast control system. I think once we start our ascent, there may be no stopping her from surfacing. I want to be ready for a fight if and when that happens.” Thorne leaned in closer to Devers. “Get the chief of the boat and get to the arms locker and distribute everything we have to the crew. M4s to the watch shift and nine millimeters to the officers. Empty out the locker.”
“Jesus, you’re expecting some real shit up there, aren’t you?”
“You never know — we pop off a torpedo and we may just kill ourselves. And the Harpoons could cook off in their vertical tubes. No, this way we can possibly fight the boat if we have to.” Again, his voice lowered. “Depending upon what it is we do meet up there, get the self-destruct sequence entered into the main computer. If this thing goes south and we have a possible boarding situation, I want to blow Houston right out from under the bastards.”
XO Devers saw the seriousness of his captain and then saw the men around him in the control room. For the first time, like Thorne had days earlier, he saw the bright young faces that were now being asked to do the nearly impossible.
“Chief of the Boat, to the arms locker, please.”
Thorne took the 1 MC mic. “Captain to crew, we blow ballast in twenty minutes.”
The horn sounded throughout the boat as small-arms weapons were disbursed as far as they could be.
“Make all preparations for getting under way,” Thorne said.
All eyes went from their individual consoles to the man standing next to the navigation table. Then the words were said that no submariner ever wants to hear.
“Stand by battle stations surface. Gentlemen, this one we may have to fight up close and personal. It sounds like there’s a gunfight going on up there, and guess who is on the fight card? Make all stations battle ready.”
The sailors of the USS Houston prepared for a surface battle that had not been fought between a submarine and a surface combatant since the end of World War II.
The broken and nearly blind and deaf Houston made ready for the fight of her life.
The marine lance corporal, a veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan, deployed the nine men in the makeshift rescue team off the beaten and worn trail that led to the diamond mine high above. It wasn’t until the twelve men had climbed to the midway point of the small mountain that they saw as well as heard the battle raging across the sea a few miles away. Most of the marines wanted to turn back at that point, knowing that a fight was taking place that had the ramifications of either staying in this strange world forever or helping in the fight to leave. One look at the determined faces of Charlie Ellenshaw and Master Chief Jenks staid their doubts. The two Event Group men would go it alone if need be.