“Search sweep … going to target-acquisition mode! He’s trying for a snap shot!”
“We have bearing on the battery radar,” Dix Beltrain counterpointed. “Firing on bearing. HARM going out!”
Blue-white fire glared beyond the windscreen, over illuminating every square inch of the bridge interior. The watchstanders recoiled slightly from the crackling roar of the rocket ignition.
“Vampire! Vampire! We have an active HY-2 seeker head!”
“Light off all radars,” Amanda snapped. “Bring up point defenses and initiate full-spectrum ECM.”
“Hold it, Captain!” Mckelsie interjected. “We are not being targeted!”
“Belay last orders. Maintain full stealth. Are you sure, Mckelsie?”
“Positive, Captain! This is sidelobe only. We are not being targeted. We’re still clean.”
“Who’s he targeting, then?”
“I have no idea, Captain. It’s just not us … Stand by … HY-2 seeker head has just gone inactive. HY-2 is no longer a factor.”
One of the lookouts spoke up from his monitor. “Visual event bearing two two zero degrees relative off the port quarter. Appeared to be a detonation flash on the surface, Captain. Now snowing a continuous thermal flare on that bearing.”
“I think the Reds just had a friendly-fire incident, Captain,” Arkady said slowly. “I think Wyatt Earp out there just blew away one of his own boats.”
“But that’s not how they’re going to tell it in the press releases.”
Suddenly the weight of her helmet was unbearable. Reaching up, Amanda tugged at her chin-strap release and lifted it off. A freed droplet of perspiration trickled down and burned into her eyes. Reaching up again, she swiped it away with the back of her hand.
“Come right to zero nine zero, Arkady. Maintain all engines ahead full. God, let’s just get out of here.”
The Day-Glo-yellow life raft rode lightly on the slack sea.
Linked to it by a tether, its combination rescue light and watertight radio beacon bobbed beside it. Bosun Hoong used the onceper-second flash of its strobe as a guide as he towed in the limp form of Lieutenant Zhou.
The bosun rolled over the low, inflated sidewall of the raft, dragging the unconscious man in after him with a modest degree of difficulty. Positioning Zhou as comfortably as he could, Hoong began methodically investigating the pouches of survival gear that lined the raft’s interior.
A chemical light stick was discovered, and Hoong broke its interior capsule and shook it into life. Using its pale-green glow, he examined his commanding officer’s injuries. The younger man was breathing easily and the abrasion at his temple was only oozing a thin trickle of blood. He would likely enough live.
The bosun wrapped Zhou in a Mylar survival blanket taken from another pouch, taking a second one for himself.
He was just settling down at the far end of the raft when he heard Zhou moan and start to stir.
“We are well, Lieutenant,” he said.
“Hoong, what has happened?” Zhou exclaimed weakly, trying to pull himself upright.
“Rest quietly, sir. There is nothing to be done. The boat has been sunk and we are in a life raft.”
“A life raft?”
“Yes, sir. It was dropped by the ship that ran us down. They were Yankees, I think.”
The bosun gestured off into the hazy darkness. “There is also a fight going on out there somewhere. I’ve heard missile launches, and just before we reached this raft, I felt an explosion through the water. No telling who is winning.”
“The crew! What about the crew?”
“Dead,” Hoong replied, grabbing a bar of hard tropic chocolate from a ration pack. “We were broken in two, and the stern sank almost at once. Enginemen Chang and Waiu and Gunner Zhong went down with it.
“Helmsman Shi, Radioman Feng, and Torpedoman Liau were all crushed in the cockpit by the impact. Gunner Gang was up forward with me, but the young fool had taken off his life jacket.” The bosun peeled back the wrapper on the bar. “He drowned, I think.”
“The whole crew gone,” Zhou whispered. “How could that happen and we still live?”
Hoong took a judgmental bite of the chocolate. “Because it was not yet our time to die, Lieutenant,” he replied.
The Cunningham continued her run to the east, all hands still at their battle stations but with her engines slowed to ahead standard. They had crossed back over the Chinese twelve mile limit and the threat boards remained clear. They had successfully disengaged. The fire flash of the crisis had passed. Now the shadow of the aftermath loomed.
On the bridge, Vince Arkady glanced over at the captain’s chair. Amanda was seated in it, outlined against the glow of the telescreens, staring out into the darkness, silent and unmoving.
Arkady had known that on this cruise he would be faced with temptation. However, he had primarily been concerned with the physical variety. He hadn’t expected to encounter this deeper, more urgent desire — that of wanting to cross over to his lady in front of God and everybody, and to cradle her in his arms, and to whisper that somehow, everything would be all right.
The overhead speaker cut in, breaking the stillness.
“Captain, this is Raven’s Roost.” Christine Rendino’s voice was a total contrast to his own mood. The Intel didn’t sound in the least subdued. In fact, she sounded positively ebullient. “When you get a second, could you come down here? You’ve just got to see this!”
21
Bright island sunlight flooded the combination kitchen and breakfast nook of Elliot Macintyre’s flag quarters.
“But, Dad … “
The Admiral grinned to himself as he listened to the classic agonized cry of the American teenager. It was a sound he hadn’t had a chance to hear often enough in his life.
“Look, Judy,” he said in an equitable manner. “I know that all the kids go over to that nude beach at Waimanalo. I’m also certain that you’re mature enough to cope with it. Unfortunately, I’m not. Forget it.”
His daughter, fifteen and growing swiftly into the same kind of midnight-haired beauty that her mother had possessed, sighed dramatically and turned back to the kitchen range. Macintyre grinned outright and returned his attention to the morning paper.
As with anyone doing duty in the services, his career responsibilities had kept him away from his family far more than he had liked. With Judy, his youngest child, and the only one still living at home, he was enjoying his last opportunity at fatherhood.
Breakfast had become an unspoken pact between father and daughter, an atonement for their many separations. Come hell or high water, they would try to sit down at the same table and eat together as a family at least once each day.
“Then can I at least go over to Kirn’s this afternoon?”
Judy went on, deftly popping slices of Canadian bacon into a hot pan.
“Is everybody going to have their clothes on?”
“Father!”
“Be my guest.”
The phone rang, and Macintyre pushed his chair back from the table. “I’ll get it.”
“Okay. How do you want, scrambled or fried?”
“Scrambled. Two.”
He crossed over into the living room with its split-bamboo paneling and comfortable, eclectic collection of furnishings.
The telephone deck was located on a reading table at the end of the couch.
“Macintyre,” he said crisply into the handset.
“Admiral, this is Commander Doyle over in Operations.” Macintyre recognized the voice and the name of his morning duty officer. He also recognized the formalized urgency in the man’s speaking demeanor. “This communication will require a secure line, sir.”