The video link with the Queen of the West reactivated, filling with a different face, leaner, harder, more angular than Ensign Wilder’s, yet in its own way as painfully young. The Marine’s features were densely smeared with dark camou cream, and he wore a Kevlar K-Pot battle helmet with a camouflage cover. An AI-2 night-vision visor had been lifted onto the front helmet facing. Clipped to the right side of the K-Pot was his squad tactical radio; on the left was another cigarette-package-sized module, this one with a low-light television lens aiming forward.
“Possum One, this is Lieutenant Ives, Recon Able. We have the boats in the water, ready to move out on the line. Any further instructions?”
Stone keyed his mike. “Hi, Linc, this is Stone. Do it like you planned it, boy. You and your top go active on your helmet cams when you reach objective. We’ll just ride along in your shirt pocket and enjoy the view.”
The recon Marine’s lips tightened in a brief, tense smile. “I hope it’ll be a good ride, sir.”
“All that counts is doing the job and getting yourself home again, Marine. Move out.”
Stone went off circuit. “He’s a good boy,” he said almost to himself, “a real good boy. He just has to season some.”
“That’s so often the case,” Amanda replied.
The communications carriers from the microforce hissed softly through the overhead speakers, an occasional curt low-voiced comment or command sketching out the departure. A pair of new blue “friendly” surface hacks appeared on the tactical display, drifting slowly inward toward the Bugis moorage. On the MMS monitor, two small, heavily laden inflatables could be seen pulling away from the hovercraft, driven by silent electric outboards. Growing steadily less distinct, their humped out lines could be made out for a long time against the photo-multiplied glare of the village lights, then they were gone.
MacIntyre paced and Christine found a seat. Tran stood erect and silent by her side, sipping smoke from a Player’s cigarette.
“Drone Control,” Amanda lifted her voice, “let’s take another look at the target ships.”
Sixty thousand feet above Adat Tanjung, a camera turret swiveled and zoomed in. Yet another monitor lit off, showing the empty decks of a pair of rafted schooners, the image changing angle slowly and shimmering a little from atmospheric distortion.
“No situational change. No electronic or thermal emissions detected.”
The image jumped from schooner set to schooner set.
“No situational changes. No electronic or thermal emissions.” The SO murmured repetitively.
“All right. Let’s have a look at the village itself.”
The camera panned across the bay refocusing on the streets of Adat Tanjung.
Fires burned in the forecourts of many of the houses, people clustering about them. Around some, men stood, hands linked, swaying to an unheard song, women sitting in a wider circle beyond, moving to a different rhythm.
“What’s happening here, Nguyen?” Christine inquired.
“A lament is being sung in the memory of the dead, and the story of their lives is being retold for their friends and family. The Bugis are primarily Muslim, but many of the old ways and the old ceremonies live on.” Tran took a light draw on his cigarette. “The village has taken a hard hit with this raid. Nearly every family must have taken a loss.”
“How will they explain the losses to the authorities?” Amanda inquired.
“They won’t. This is of the tribe and the Bugis. The authorities will be Javanese. This will not be considered their affair. The Bugis are a proud people, fast to anger at intrusions. The island administrators generally recognize this and leave them to themselves. They remember Kandahar Muzakkar too well.”
Stone Quillain glanced around. “Kahar who?”
“A Bugis teacher and soldier who led a guerrilla-warfare campaign for Sulawesi independence. He and his followers battled with the Jakarta government for a decade and a half, from 1950 until his death in 1965. Sulawesi venerates his memory. The government fears it.”
On the tactical display, symbols for the two CRRCs separated, one moving toward each of the outermost pairs of rafted schooners.
“Nah, that’s not how you should be doing it, Linc,” Quillain murmured aloud. “You ought to get that inshore pair first.” The Marine started to reach for the Transmit key on the communications pad. Then he hesitated and reluctantly lowered his hand.
MacIntyre chuckled without mirth but not without sympathy. “Welcome to the upper echelons, Stone. All of this fabulous new C3I gear they keep coming up with lets us sit right on top of our people out in the field. One of the most important and toughest things we have to learn is how to sit back, shut up, and let ’em do the job their way.”
“Yeah, guess so.” Quillain drew his hand across his chin, the day’s whiskers rasping. “Does it get any better as you get up there a little more?”
The slim shadow seated beside Quillain answered the question. “No,” Amanda said, “just worse.”
A communications specialist spoke up from the console row ahead. “We’re getting helmet cam streams from Lieutenant Ives and his platoon sergeant.”
“Put ’em on Monitor Two. Split-screen it.”
Flickering low-light images filled the designated screen, the sterns of the two rafted sets of Bugis schooners looming out of the night. They were seeing what the two Marine boarding-team leaders were observing as it happened.
“This is just too goddamn weird,” Stone whispered.
More images. The side of a schooner… the rungs of a boarding ladder flowing past… shadowy shapes moving across a silver-gray deck, a whispered commentary flowing from the overhead speakers.
“This is section A, we’re aboard schooners One and Two…. Corby, Franklin, set the lookout…. You guys start working the other ship…. Section B boarding… all okay so far on Three and Four, Lieutenant… Nobody aboard…. That’s good. We’re good too. Start scanning, let’s go….”
Through their headsets, Christine and Tran fed their own careful prompts back over the communications loop. “Lieutenant Ives, this is Commander Rendino. Don’t forget to get the serial numbers off the engine block…. Gentlemen, on some pinisi the captain’s quarters will he nothing more than a patch of deck. Check any personal belongings you may see lying about….”
The feedback began.
“Mr. Tran this is Sergeant Patterson with B Section. We’re just over the keel of the Number Three schooner and our mine detector is reading right off the scale. Do these guys use scrap metal for ballast?”
“Negative, Sergeant,” he replied. “They use stone. Metal is too valuable. Start looking for signs of concealed fasteners or a hidden door of some kind in the decking.”
Wood scraped. Breath hissed, men swore silently. Then: “Yeah, yeah, we got it! We got guns! Man, this orange crate has some kind of teeth!”
Video images of heavy automatic weapons and recoilless rifles were recorded. Serial numbers were taken. The minutes marched past. Eyes flicked to the time hacks in the corners of the displays more and more often.
Finally: “Carlson, Carlson. This is Ives. We got the first four schooners pretty much covered. We confirm they all are armed. We’ve turned some documents, pretty standard stuff, bills of lading and so forth. There is no sign of a Global Positioning Unit on any of these ships. No navigational material at all except for regular ship’s charts.”
“Shit,” Christine hissed. “The captains probably took their GPUs ashore with them. Ives, make sure you get some high-definition photography of those charts. There might be some markings that will be useful.”