He released the button and let the 1MC mike drop, snatching up his binoculars in time to see three watertight doors on the Aranella’s superstructure fly open. The range between the two vessels was diminishing quickly.
Men in camo uniforms appeared in the three doorways, joined immediately by one more on the freighter’s starboard bridge wing. All four of the newcomers pointed long cylindrical objects toward the incoming patrol boat.
Four quick flares erupted and four ribbons of smoke streaked across the remaining stretch of water separating the freighter from the patrol boat.
“Incoming!” Whitaker screamed. “Hard right rudder! Now!”
The bow of the Sawfish swung sharply to the right, and Whitaker had to grab for a handhold to keep his footing.
Two of the hurtling projectiles shot past the port side bridge windows, to detonate against the wave tops somewhere in the distance. The third rocket slammed into the port side hull below the main deck where it exploded with the force of a grenade, tearing through the 3/16 inch steel plate like so much aluminum foil.
Flames and black smoke boiled out of the ragged hole. The port diesel had been hit. Robbed of half her motive power, the Sawfish began to slow.
The last rocket struck the forecastle forward of the superstructure, killing one machine gunner instantly, and leaving the other unconscious on the deck, bleeding from a dozen wounds. The shockwave blew in the forward bridge windows, sending fragments of shattered safety glass flying with the speed of bullets.
Something — glass, a scrap of superstructure, maybe a chunk of the rocket warhead — struck Whitaker high on his right chest, punching through ribs and organs like a gunshot, and sending him sprawling backwards.
He lay on the deck; vision blurred; ears still reverberating with the unbearably loud sound of the explosion; brain not quite processing.
There was pain. More pain than he had ever imagined possible — in many parts of his body. But nothing compared to the pulsing core of agony that had claimed his chest.
He lost track of his surroundings. Momentarily forgot who he was, and how he had come to be here.
Gradually, his senses returned. The smell of burning. The murmurs and cries of injured men and women. Vision throbbed and wavered back into focus, and he found himself staring up at the overhead, the once-pristine paint now riddled with gouges and streaked with soot.
His thoughts stumbled along in the wake of his senses, shock-addled brain sluggishly regaining the ability to reason, and remember.
He needed to do something. Needed to get his boat and his crew — what was left of them — out of danger. Needed to report the attack…
One attempt at getting up was all it took. The already staggering pain in his chest shot up to unimaginable intensities. His vision went gray and he nearly lost consciousness again.
Okay… standing up was no longer on the menu. Maybe he could turn his head.
He did. A couple of yards away, his helmsman was struggling to her feet. One arm dangled limply, and the left side of her young face was smeared with blood.
Whitaker’s first attempt at speech turned into a wet cough that sent his vision spiraling back into the gray zone.
He took several slow and cautious breaths before he tried again. His voice came out in a low rasp. “Does she…” He had to stop and swallow before continuing. “Does she… answer the helm?”
The helmsman looked around dazedly before catching sight of her Officer-in-Charge. She shook her head as if to clear it, and blinked several times. “What was that, Master Chief?”
Whitaker swallowed again. “Does she answer the helm?”
The sailor glanced around and located the familiar shape of the control console. “Just a minute… Let me check…”
A few seconds later, she looked back and nodded. “Helm still answers.”
Whitaker closed his eyes. Good. They had rudder control and the starboard engine was on line. However bad the damage was, the Sawfish could maneuver.
“I think I’m going to lose consciousness again,” he said. “So I’m giving you your orders now.”
“Okay,” said the helmsman. “I mean aye-aye. What are my orders, Master Chief?”
It was getting harder for Whitaker to talk, and he seemed to have lost the ability to raise his eyelids. “If you would be so kind,” he whispered, “please get us the fuck out of here.”
The helmsman might have acknowledged the order. If so, BMCM Ray Whitaker was no longer around to hear it.
CHAPTER 1
Captain Zachary Heller sat in his raised command chair at the center of CIC. Dimly-lit and low-ceilinged, Combat Information Center was the focal point of the ship’s integrated weapons and sensor suites. From their consoles around the perimeter of the compartment, Heller’s CIC crew operated the radars, infrared detectors, optical sensors, missiles, guns, lasers, and torpedoes that gave his warship dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, and every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
That final part — if Heller had spoken it aloud — would have earned him a lengthy and tedious lecture from his father. The last in a (previously) unbroken line of orthodox cantors, Abba had never really forgiven him for leaving synagogue to attend the U.S. Naval Academy. Even now, more than a decade and a half later, Abba referred to his son’s chosen career path as: ‘running away to join the Navy.’
If the old man were here right now, the crew might see their vaunted commanding officer catch an earful for perverting the words of the Torah. The thought brought a smile to Heller’s lips. Wouldn’t that be a sight?
Abba would not be impressed by any of this. Not the supersonic missiles. Not the vast computer processing capacity of the integrated combat systems. Not the radar-gobbling stealth technology that made USS Bowie an electromagnetic wraith. Not the autonomous robot drones that extended the ship’s detection envelopes. Not even the 200-kilowatt laser that the crew had taken to calling the “death ray.”
The highest-ranking officer in Abba’s chain of command was a few million paygrades senior to the Chief of Naval Operations. Or so the old man believed.
Heller didn’t need supernatural leadership to make his life interesting. Nor supernatural enemies, for that matter. The flesh-and-blood kind were quite enough to occupy his time.
His eyes went to the two horizontal banks of video monitors that covered the forward bulkhead of CIC. The upper row was dedicated to tactical feeds: four 65-inch ultra-high-definition display screens, each one showing a sprinkling of color-coded symbols that marked every aircraft, submarine, and ship within USS Bowie’s area of responsibility. Blue for friendly, white for neutral, yellow for unknown.
The other available color-code (red for hostile) had not yet appeared on the tactical displays outside of training scenarios. The ship had just completed workups for her first deployment. She had never seen combat or real-world action of any kind. That would undoubtedly change at some point in the future, but — for now — she was un-blooded and unproven.
The lead vessel of the ‘Flight Four’ Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyers, the Bowie was the U.S. Navy’s most advanced warship. Her design incorporated every cutting-edge stealth technology known to the American defense industry. As a result, she resembled previous Arleigh Burke destroyers in hull-form only. From the main deck up, she was a study in minimal profile trapezoids and oblique angles, her steel structure sheathed in radar-absorbent chromogenic polycarbon.