Below him. at the foot of the interior vehicle ramp, the Queen of the West reached the head of the boarding bay. Voluminous though it was, there was spotting room for only two of the three hovercraft gunboats on the lower entry level. Accordingly a deft piece of deck-ape choreography was required.
As Stone looked on, two seamen dropped down from the overhead gantries onto the Queen’s broad back. Safety-lined against the tug of the lift fan intakes, they pulled the locking pins at the base of the swept-back snub mast just aft of the cockpit bulge, folding it flush with the Sea Fighter’s deck.
Simultaneously, another handling team dared the air blast boiling from beneath the plenum skirts to hook a heavy steel cable into a pad eye in the Queen’s stubby bow. Hauling clear, they gave the high sign to the winch operator in the bay overhead.
With the whir of its electric drives buried in the turbine howl, the cab of the traveling winch drew back along its tracks. Still riding on her air cushion, the Queen was cranked up the vehicle ramp into the midships hangar bay, a grade too steep for the hovercraft to climb under her own power.
In a Baseline San Antonio, a pair of garage decks would have occupied this space, storage for the trucks and AFVs of a Marine expeditionary unit. Aboard the Carlson, however, bulkheads and overheads had been removed and restructured to stretch the parking “foot” for the Sea Fighter squadron.
Stone pressed back against the bulkhead, holding his headset in place against the warm tornado blast of the Sea Fighter’s lift fans. Moving with ponderous deliberation, she squeezed past between the deck guide curbs, her bulging plenum chamber skirts and outwardly sloping underhull looming above the Marine and squadron service bands.
The Sea Fighter was painted in a mottled camouflage pattern that would show as a dusty low-rez gray in normal light. All, that is, except for the phantom-outline lettering of her name and hull numbers and for the black snarling shark’s jaws painted across the full face of the bow and the two leering eyes just below the stubby forepeak.
The pressurized skirts sagged as the Queen’s nose lifted above the curve of the ramp lip, the air pad partially collapsing as she “burped the cushion.” The top of the cockpit almost brushed the overhead winch tracks, then the Sea Fighter flumped level again, bobbling slightly as she eased onto her parking slot behind the single, standard Landing Craft Air Cushion assigned to the task force.
A few moments later her lift throttles were closed, and the Queen sank down with a whining metallic sigh, her deflating skirts making a crumpled nest of black rubberized Kevlar.
Quillain nodded approvingly. The Sea Fighters weren’t his particular area of expertise or authority, but he could appreciate any kind of military evolution well and smartly done.
Below, in the main landing bay, the Manassas and Carondelet completed recovery. Creeping to their tie down spots, they, too, powered down in sequence. The sudden silence seemed perturbingly empty — so much so that the voice that thundered over the MC-1 circuit was almost startling.
“Hovercraft recovery completed and stern gate secured. All hands, stand down from recovery stations. Be advised, ear protection is no longer required in the hangar or recovery bays.”
The bay lighting snapped from night red to standard white and the service hands moved in.
Like an aircraft, each sea fighter had two crews responsible for her: the onboard conning crew, who actively handled the hovercraft at sea, and an equally vital team of base service personnel who looked after her technical well-being.
Tie-down hands belayed the Queen to deck hard points, while access gangways swung out from the bayside gantries to her weather decks. Grounding wires were connected, auxiliary power cables were plugged in, and refueling hoses were hauled across the deck to filler points. Not an instant was wasted in readying the big war machine for its next call to arms.
Stone could appreciate that as well.
Keeping close to the bulkhead and out of the way of the bustling service hands, the Marine walked forward along the flank of the hover craft to the midship side hatch.
It swung open just as he reached it.
“Good morning, Stone,” Amanda called down from the open hatchway.
“How did it go tonight, Skipper?”
“As per the mission profile,” she replied. “We had a brush with a coastal patrol, but things never went beyond swapping electrons.”
Without waiting for the portable ladderway to be hooked in place, Stone’s redheaded (well, pretty much redheaded; there was some brown and blond in there that made an exact color hard to call) CO made the five-foot jump down to the antiskid decking. Sinking almost to her knees on landing, she accepted Stone’s extended hand to help lift her to her feet again.
Once, to Stone’s chagrin, there had been a time when he’d been extremely dubious about accepting this lady as a commander and a comrade.
That had been in West Africa. He’d wised up considerably since then.
Steamer Lane thumped to the deck a moment later, another veteran of Africa and another proven friend.
“And how’d the flying saucer do?” Quillain asked.
Amanda glanced up toward the Queen’s weather deck. Lieutenant Selkirk was already out of the cockpit hatch and hard at work examining the docked Cipher drone.
“The sensor pods are on the ground and Mr. Selkirk indicates that they seem to be working as advertised. From here on out, it’s in the hands of our friends in the NSA.”
Quillain’s perpetual frown deepened. “I guess remotes are all well and good, but I still think I should have taken some of my boys in there for a real look around.”
Amanda arched her eyebrows. “Be careful of what you wish for, Stone. It may come to that one of these days. If the Syrians get serious about their plutonium play-pretties, we might have to do a covert plug pulling on that operation. Neither the Israelis nor the Turks would take a Syrian bomb attempt casually, and the last thing this corner of the world needs is another excuse for a war.”
At that, a corner of Quillain’s mouth quirked up, just slightly. Stone could appreciate many things, but none more than a challenge, “Now, that,” he said, “could be a real interesting job of work. There are things this old boy could do with an atomic reactor… or to it.”
Lane chuckled and aimed a thumb at Quillain. “You know, ma’am, this guy scares me sometimes.”
Quillain did smile then, a grin that could only be described as wolfish. “Only sometimes?”
Amanda Garrett laughed and stretched luxuriantly, working the mission tension out of her muscles. “I’m sure our Mr. Quillain will try harder, Steamer. Now, would you gentlemen care to join me in the wardroom for a cup of coffee before—”
The MC-1 speakers cut her off.
“Now hear this. The TACBOSS is requested to contact the bridge immediately. I say again, the TACBOSS is requested to contact the bridge immediately.”
Before the amplified voice of the quartermaster faded, Quillain had snatched off his command headset, passing it to Amanda. Holding one of the earphones to the side of her head, she adjusted and keyed the lip mike.
“Bridge, this is Garrett. Go.”
Lane and Quillain looked on as Amanda’s features underwent the subtle transformation from relaxed comrade to alert and wary commander.
“Understood. You may inform the captain I’ll be joining him immediately on the bridge. In the meantime, bring the task group to general quarters.”
As the overhead Klaxons began to squall out the call to battle stations, she passed the headset back to the Marine. “Gentlemen, we may have underestimated the Syrian’s level of irritation. We’re being sharked by an unidentified aircraft. Steamer, get your crews back aboard the Little Pigs. Stand by for a combat launch. Stone, set your point defense procedures. Let’s move!”