Tehoa jacked in the phone link of his headset and the power lead for his night-vision visor. Then he tested the electric drive motors of the gun ring, traversing the mount a few degrees to port and starboard. He also verified that the heavy rocket flare called for in Captain Garrett’s mission plan was ready within reach. Finally he pulled the Velcro tabs of the gun covers, stripping away the water- and spray-proof nylon shroud, baring the two big Browning heavy machine guns and their brassy, gleaming belts of shells.
As he stuffed the cover down into the cockpit, Tehoa felt the flow of the slipstream shift across his face. He looked up again to find the squadron turning in toward the coast, their formation shifting from a cruising line astern to their staggered combat echelon.
Aiming their stubby bows at the Union flotilla, the seafighters started to close the range. The showdown at OK Corral had begun.
“Maintain speed at twenty knots until order for blow through.” On the command circuit Amanda spoke over the unmuffled squall of the turbines. “Forget the smuggling craft. Keep between the Boghammers and the coast. I say again, stay on the Bogs! I want hard kills!”
“Frenchman, acknowledging.”
“Rebel, rajah.”
Up forward, Steamer Lane lifted a hand in a dimly visible OK sign. He and Snowy had shifted their instrumentation lighting from standard night red to the filtered blue-green compatible with the night-vision visors they now wore.
Amanda’s fingers played over the controls of her own multimode telepanels as well. Shifting the radar and tactical displays to secondary screens, she accessed fire control, a targeting recticle snapping up on her main scope. If one of the main control stations went down during the engagement, she had to be ready to assume direction of a weapons pedestal. Likewise, should the fight go long range, an extra designator might be needed for the Hellfire missiles. During their long hours on patrol, she’d had Danno O’Roark teach her the gunnery drills just for such situations. She rechecked each panel setting with careful deliberation. This time it would be no drill.
She depressed a key and a ranging laser lashed out.
“Operations, range to target six thousand yards and closing. Do we have any reaction yet?”
The Boghammers had radios; they must be hearing the challenge. At least some of the gunboats should have night bright binoculars as well; they should be able see the American hovercraft converging on their formation.
“Acknowledged, Little Pig Lead.” Christine Rendino’s voice sounded stone cool in Amanda’s headset, stone cool. “They’ve got you spotted. We are monitoring a traffic spike on the Union radio channels… Be advised the Union battle line is increasing speed.”
Amanda noted it as well. Wakes flashed in the moonlight as engines throttled up. Rooster tails lifting behind them, the line of gunboats accelerated, coming up onto the plane.
“Little Pig Lead!” Christine spoke sharply. “Targets are turning in on you!”
With the synchronicity of a sparrow flock, the Boghammer flotilla pivoted ninety degrees to port. The line-astern formation became a wave front, a maritime cavalry charge thundering toward the seafighter group.
“We see it, Operations,” Amanda noted, pleased with the stability of her voice. “Range now five five double zero. Rate of closure forty-five knots.” Her eyes flicked up from the targeting scope to the radar display. “We’ve given them their setup for the Buffalo. Let’s see if they go for it.”
“Acknowledged. Watching for it…Yeah! End squadrons are continuing to increase speed. We got a Buffalo. Confirm we got a Buffalo!”
On the radar screen, the Union line-abreast formation became concave, the ends curving inward toward the seafighter group, the “chest” lagging back to confront the foe, while the swiftly moving “horns” swept around to converge on the seafighter’s flanks.
A grim smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. For a long time she had considered how to best evade this favored maneuver of the Union gunboatmen. In the end, however, she elected not to evade the Buffalo but to embrace it. Amanda keyed her headset mike.
“Little Pigs, power up!”
Snowy Banks leaned in over the central console. One small hand shoved the drive throttles forward, the other coming back on the propeller controls, pulling pitch from the prop blades and killing their grip on the air. Even as the turbines spooled up to their maximum output, the speed of the hover craft increased only slightly, the augmented horsepower wasted by the futile flailing of the airscrews. A heavy vibration and an agonized metallic wailing grew from back aft. The hovercraft’s power plants shuddered on their bedplates, threatening an imminent overrev.
“Little Pigs, designate targets!”
The death pips of the sighting systems crawled across the tactical display and settled on the two Boghammers directly ahead of the Queen, the same fire template being set simultaneously aboard both the Manassas and the Carondelet.
Others were seeking targets in the night as well. Shooting stars streaked up from the sea, converging overhead. Parachute flares burst alight over the American formation, silvery magnesium flame glaring. The seafighters stood on across a shadowless sea of shimmering mercury.
Amanda could see that the encirclement was almost complete, the hovercraft driving ever deeper into the horseshoe shaped bucket formed by the Boghammer group. In moments, the Union gunboats would be at an effective firing range.
And yet she could not open fire, in spite of the longer range of her own force’s weapons. The U.N. rules of engagement were clear. The interdiction forces were authorized to use deadly force only in self-defense. The enemy must fire the first shot, or in this instance, barrage. Be damned that none of your own people would be left alive to reply.
“Little Pigs,” she snapped over the command channel. “Stand by flares!”
But then, in her own conscience, Amanda had long ago resolved that quandary. When confronted with rules of war that unnecessarily put one’s own people at risk, one became tactically innovative.
Or, to put it bluntly, one cheats.
“Little Pigs, fire flares!”
The cockpit gunners aboard all three hovercraft released their illumination rounds. Only instead of firing the projectiles vertically into the air, they aimed their launch canisters horizontally, at the line of onrushing Boghammers.
Harmless though they were, the balls of multicolored flame looked most impressive streaking toward the Union gunboats. And all it required was a single nervous finger on a single trigger.
From off to starboard, a tracer stream licked out of the darkness.
“Little Pigs! We are under attack! Guns free! Guns free! Engage, engage, engage!”
Six weapons pedestals screamed hoarsely and spat rocket salvos into the sky. Six swarms of Hydra rockets arced through the night like hornets from hell and the six Boghammers at the apex of the Buffalo formation were engulfed, dying amid thunder and spray.
“Little Pigs! Execute blow-through!”
Snowy slammed the propeller controls forward. Racing prop blades shifted pitch and caught air. With one hundred percent of their propulsion power instantly onstream, the Queen lunged forward with a neck-snapping surge of acceleration, her sisters following suit as they raced for the gap they had blasted in the Union line of battle.