As a true hovercraft, the Queen of the West drew no water at all. But coming in as she was, like a bat out of hell, snagging a plenum-chamber skirt on a protruding coral head could prove catastrophic. Lane rocked his control yoke, fishtailing the Sea Fighter and swinging his camera arc, watching for the dark line in the pale surf that would denote a “shoulder” of a reef break, a tongue of deeper, smoother water showing the way through the jagged teeth of the coral.
He relied not on any training provided by the Navy but on the wave honed instincts gained in an adolescence spent surf-bumming up and down the California coast. Those instincts had served him well before; they did again now.
“Yeah, I got it! We got a hole! Rebel, Rebel, this is Royalty! Hey, Tony, maintain line astern! Follow me in!”
The Queen screamed through the gap in the reef at almost seventy knots, the Manassas hot on her tail. Sand loomed ahead.
“Snowy! All back! Reverse props!”
Scrounger Caitlin slammed the propeller controls to reverse, inverting the blade angles on the airscrews, changing them from a driving “push” to a braking “pull.” Lane shifted his right hand to the T-grip puff port controller in the center of the console, shoving it full forward. The bow puff ports, vents in the front edge of the plenum chamber, snapped open, the released jets of high-pressure air serving as retro-rockets to help slow the hurtling Sea Fighter.
The backing propellers and ports wouldn’t quite be enough, however.
Lane mashed down the interphone button on the control yoke. “Hang on!” he bellowed to all hands.
The decelerating Sea Fighter hit the beach in an explosion of spray and a tornado of sand. A low dune at the head of the beach launched the huge war machine into the air for a breathless, weightless second before they crashed into an inland brush patch. The Manassas plowed to a halt alongside the Queen a moment later.
Without requiring the order, Scrounger hit the kill switches, letting the Sea Fighter settle off cushion.
“Yeah, well, we’re here,” Lane commented.
On the tactical display, Amanda looked on as the microforce reached the islet, the faint skin tracks of the Sea Fighters disappearing with the land return.
“Combat Information Center, we have breakaway. How did that look to you?” she inquired.
“Looked good, ma’am. No RCM reflection on the Indonesian radar frequencies, and except for a degree of screaming about being run down by the crazy Americans, we have no radio traffic out of the frigate. No indication they spotted the launch. Our guys are outa here.”
“Very good, CIC. All task group element, breakaway achieved. Secure chaff and jamming. Wolf One, you may recover at your discretion. All ships return to standard cruise protocols and proceed on course. Well done.”
On the bridge of the Cunningham, Ken Hiro watched the Sutanto stagger away into the darkness. Like a cow pony with a recalcitrant calf, the Duke had herded the smaller Indonesian vessel through a full 180- degree turn.
Hiro took a deep, deliberate breath. The Lady still could make things interesting, even when she wasn’t in the captain’s chair. “Quartermaster, secure the searchlights. Helm, commence station keeping on the Carlson. Lee helm, all engines ahead standard.”
“This is intolerable!” Basry raged, stalking the Sutanto’s bridge. “Intolerable. Radio room, get me the American commander immediately! I will demand an apology for this outrage!”
“Captain…”
“Immediately!”
“But Captain,” the communications officer pleaded, “we already have a message from the American task group commander, designated for you personally.”
Basry paused in his stalking. “What? What does he say?”
“Uh, ‘To the commanding officer Indonesian warship Sutanto. We regret that you elected to close the range with our formation at an inopportune moment. We were conducting an antimissile exercise with which you accidentally became involved. Please accept our strongest possible apologies for your dis-accommodation.’”
The communications officer looked up from the message flimsy. “Signature Captain Amanda Lee Garrett, USN, Commander, Sea Fighter Task Force.”
Captain Basry opened his mouth, then shut it again as he realized he had nothing to say. A woman. On top of everything else, it had been done to him by a woman.
Basry had no idea of just what all had happened here, or why, or what he had not seen. There was only the deepening suspicion he had been made a fool of.
Powered down and silent, the Queen and the Manassas lay huddled on the nameless islet. Peering seaward over the low dunes, their MMS systems tracked the departure of the trio of larger ships. Presently, when the task force and its shadower were out of sight beyond the horizon, they would light off their turbines again and take their own departure. From here they would make their way to another hide on yet another nameless islet, dashing and crouching their way across the Indonesian archipelago like a pair of infantrymen sprinting from cover to cover.
This was what they had been made for.
For the moment, though, their crews and passengers could take a breather and a cold can of Coke be sipped. All hatches and cockpit windows gaped wide to admit the errant, cooling puffs of the night breeze and the sound of the breaking waves.
“Real interesting departure, Snowy,” Steamer Lane said softly.
Scrounger Caitlin’s attention quirked at the murmur. The Skipper did that every now and then. Just like he’d back-slip and use Miss Banks’s name every now and again when things got hot.
Ensign Sandra “Snowy” Banks had been the Queen’s first exec, and she’d ridden right seat for Mr. Lane for a lot of sea miles. That had been back when, before West Africa. Before they’d had to send Miss Banks back to her warrior’s rest in that quiet St. Louis cemetery. The skipper still remembered, though. Chief Caitlin did too.
Sometimes she wasn’t sure if it was just a slip of the tongue or if maybe Mr. Lane really was talking to the Queen’s old exec. Scrounger didn’t mind particularly either way. In fact, it would be kind of nice if Miss Banks could drop by every now and again, just so she could see that everything was being kept shipshape on the old Queen.
Scrounger smiled into the dark. “We’re taking care of business, ma’am,” she whispered.
“That was a most interesting evolution, Captain,” Commander Carberry commented with grave formality. With the old school’s dread of commenting on a superior officer’s performance, it was as close as he could come to a compliment.
Amanda gave an acknowledging tilt of her head in the screenglow. “The task force performed quite well. I’m pleased. When should we be in at Benoa Harbor? Around ten hundred?”
The chunky amphib commander didn’t even glance up at the navigation display. “We will be tying up at ten hundred hours exactly, ma’am.”
Amanda suppressed a smile. She would be willing to wager that the lines would be going over the side within one minute of that call. “Very well, then, I’ll stand down for a while. Keep me notified of any new developments.”
“Understood, Captain. Will do.”
Carberry faced forward, intent on the night beyond the bow of his ship. Amanda took a final look around the quiet, red-lit orderliness of the bridge and started aft.