Around the perimeter, Union boat commanders bellowed futilely at their gunners and a ragged curtain of tracers swept across the kill zone mere seconds too late. The seafighters had cleared the fire stream nexus, the converging storm of autoweapons fire only chopping the water in their wakes.
At fifty knots and with their speed still increasing, the hovercraft flotilla streaked through the ruptured “chest” of the Buffalo formation and into the clear. Behind them, the “horns” began breaking up, the Union squadron’s leaders confused and dismayed at the failure of their trap.
Escape and evasion for the American craft would have been a simple thing at that moment, but that wasn’t why Amanda had brought them here. “Little Pigs! Echelon turn to starboard! Hard about one hundred and eighty degrees! Independent targeting! Fire as you bear! Take ’em down!”
Steamer locked the air rudders over, bringing them around in a sweeping turn to the east, reversing their course and bringing the Queen of the West in line with the disintegrating left horn of the Union formation. Smoothly ski jumping across the Queen’s wake, the Carondelet and Manassas re-assumed their formation slots, clearing their firing arcs. The hunted had turned and had become the hunters.
There had been no time for Danno and the FryGuy to recycle the pedestal mounts and reload with fresh rocket pods. It was all gun work now. On her tactical screen, Amanda saw the death pips of the two 30mm mounts converge on the first Boghammer in the Union line.
The autocannons raged, the Queen’s frame shuddering with their recoil. The cockpit machine guns joined in an instant later. Chief Tehoa might have lacked the computerized fire control of the pedestal mounts, but his tracers stitched into the target with near-equal accuracy.
The Boghammer writhed, the water around it leaping and boiling. The explosive cannon shells tore away chunks of Fiberglas and flesh, while the higher-velocity machine-gun slugs simply drilled through. Fuel cells and ammunition boxes yielded to the torment, flame smeared across the surface of the sea, ending in a burgeoning explosion.
The Carondelet destroyed a second gunboat, the Manassas a third. A fourth perished as its panicking helmsman cranked his wheel over too hard in a wild effort to turn away from destruction. The Boghammer capsized, its pale belly flashing in the moonlight as it dumped its crew into the sea.
Then the free kills were over. The gunboats of the western horn came screaming across to aid their comrades in the eastern half of the Union formation. The Little Pigs turned again to face the new threat, tracer tentacles lashing and intertwining across the wavetops as the range closed. Converging at a cumulative speed of near a hundred knots, seconds-brief broadsides were exchanged as the two formations intermeshed and drove through one another once more.
In the cockpit of the Queen, Amanda grimly braced herself in the navigator’s chair. Her part in this fight was finished for the moment. Each side had executed its carefully preplotted gambit against the other. Now the battle had dissolved into a chaos beyond all leadership and direction. Now it was in the hands of the pilots and gunners, the sole question left being who could kill the fastest and most efficiently. She was only along for the ride.
For Steamer Lane, the battle of Cape Palma would be a series of frozen impressions strung like beads along a central cord braided of panic and terror. There was the sound of the guns, the syncopated hammering of the 30 mikes, the sharper, angrier stutter of the machine guns, and the deliberate cough of the grenade launchers. Propellant smoke filled the cockpit like the cigarette haze in a crowded bar, thick, sweet, and powdery on the tongue. His neck ached from the weight of his helmet and vision visor as he wildly twisted his head, maintaining his situational awareness.
Lastly he would recall the face of Snowy Banks. She leaned in over the center console, her lips curled in a snarl of concentration and her eyes fixed on the movements of his hands on the main wheel and throttle. Using the puff-port controller, she augmented the air rudders, helping to hold the hovercraft into their repeated snaking turns.
The engagement became a savage two-dimensional dog fight, wakes and tracer streams tangling wildly as the two unlike forces struggled for tactical advantage. The larger seafighters had the speed and the firepower, while the smaller Union gunboats had sheer number and a tighter turning radius.
A rhythm became established within the battle, a grotesque dance of fire and destruction. A Boghammer swarm would converge on the Queen, striving to pen her in and pin her down like a dog pack on a bear. Steamer would firewall his throttles, breaking out of the ring, then reversing back upon his attackers. Cutting one gunboat out of the pod, he would herd the Boghammer away from the covering fire of its squadron mates, then position so that his weapons crews could smash it.
It was a new page in the history of warfare, a naval engagement such as Mahan or Yamamoto never dreamed of. And yet Steamer found himself struck by a sense of déjà vu, an overwhelming sense that he had experienced this all before.
In a free instant between maneuvers, he recognized the source. The shouts and cries of his gunners over the intercom, like the dialog of an old World War II air war movie.
“Bogs at ten o’clock!”
“Watch it! Manassas is out that way! Watch for her strobes. Do not blue on blue!”
“Hear ya, Chief!”
“Fuck! I’m jammed! Port-side forty is down! Somebody cover port-side!”
“This is Danno! Covering port!”
“Bog going to starboard, trending aft!”
“Starboard forty has acquired! Target still trending aft! Stern mount, take him!”
“This is stern… we see him! Mister Lane! Gimme rudder! Gimme left rudder!.. I’m on him! I’m on him! God, that sucker’s burning!”
As the hovercraft swerved and bucked across the sea, the ammo humpers couldn’t stay on their feet down in the main hull. Rather, they dragged the ammunition cases to the door mounts on their hands and knees. Supported by their monkey harnesses, the gunners stood ankle deep amid smoldering shell casings, blessing the spray that hazed in through the open hatches. It cooled the blazing-hot gun barrels, staving off meltdown.
Then there was that other sound as well, beyond the hoarse shriek of the engines and the yammering of the weapons. A sound almost felt rather than heard, the sporadic thunk… thunk… thunk of high-velocity bullet strikes punching through the bulkheads. The seafighters were mostly armored against rifle-caliber gunfire, but more than rifles were being used against them this night. It was only a matter of time and failing luck.
“Royalty, Royalty, this is Frenchman! We’re hit! We’re hit! We’ve lost a power room! We’re losing cushion!”
Amanda’s head snapped up from the tactical screen. “Steamer,” she yelled, “the Carondelet is in trouble. Steer three seven five! Converge and cover!”
“Doing it!”
She crushed her thumb down on the transmit key. “Rebel, this is Royalty. Close up with Frenchman. Cover her!”
“Already on the way, ma’am. The cavalry is charging!”
Like a school of piranha scenting blood, the surviving Boghammers also converged on the cripple, seeking vengeance against their tormentors. Setting a racetrack fire pattern around the damaged and wallowing Carondelet, they raked her mercilessly, blue-water Apaches circling an isolated fort.