*
Six, six, four! Six, six, four! Arkady allowed his pilot’s instincts to sidle his aircraft down the ridgeline to his next firing position, while his conscious mind feverishly chanted the numeric mantra. He liked the sound of it less each time he did so.
The strike squadron had sixteen Penguin rounds remaining, barring his last silver bullet, with three critical targets left to kill. The larger Van Speijk frigate had the battery of more sophisticated, more lethal American-made Harpoon surface-to-surface missiles. The big Ivan Rogov amphibious ship had the area-defense Crotal SAM system and was the biggest threat to Arkady’s helicopters. And the trailing escort, the smaller Parchim-class frigate. had a set of Exocet tubes. It couldn’t be ignored.
He had decided on a ‘six, six, four’ dispersion as the least-worst kill template on the three targeted missile ships. But with the little Penguins, every round would have to hit to ensure the destruction of all three vessels. And that just wasn’t going to happen.
After that, he’d have only his one uncommitted missile to try and tidy up with.
“Flights call your positioning?”
“Point flight, on station, Lead!”
“Amphib flight on station!”
“Trailer flight on station!”
Had Amanda been plagued by this kind of second-guessing before she’d committed to one of her plans? She must have, yet she never hinted at it by word or gesture. It was too late for second thoughts anyway.
“All flights, hover up and engage primary targets!”
*
“CIC, this is the bridge! Clear the casemate mounts!”
On the Shenandoah’s fore and aft hull quarters, massive, hinged steel panels swung outward and down, hydraulic shock absorbers catching and braking their fall. Compact domed turrets were revealed within the hull pockets and slender gun barrels trained outboard with a venomous whine.
*
“Radar and communications are degrading, captain! High intensity military grade
jamming on all frequencies!”
“What are we getting from task force flag?” the senior captain of the rebel battle squadron demanded.
The scene on the darkened bridge of the command frigate Nala was one of organized hysteria, demands for information flowing out over the phone and radio circuits, fragmentary and fearfully unsatisfactory responses returning.
“The transport force is under attack from aircraft and artillery fire, possibly
from a ship or shore battery,” his exec blurted back, pressing the earphones of a headset close. “The missile boats are being cut to pieces!”
“Do we have targeting data?”
“No sir. No valid targets are registering on any bearings.”
“Orders? What about orders from the Task Force Flag?”
“Only repeated commands to engage the enemy.”
Damn it! “What enemy? Where?” The squadron commander tore off his uniform cap and dashed it to the deck. “What’s the status of the Fatahillah?”
“There’s something burning off the bow, sir!” one of the bridge lookouts shouted.
“Radar, what do you see?”
The systems operator lifted his face from the radar hood. “I believe one of the segments of the Fatahillah has sunk, sir. I only register
one contact on her last bearing. We should be coming up on her soon.”
“Where’s the merchant ship she collided with?”
“It’s still out there, sir. Bearing … approximately ten degrees off our port bow.”
“What’s the range? The heading? The speed?”
“We don’t have a clear plot, sir. Jamming is intensive from multiple points and we’re entering a chaff cloud.”
“It could be from the Fatahillah’s countermeasures launchers,” the exec interjected. “They could have fired accidentally in the collision.”
“And maybe they didn’t! Have gunnery control train on the bearing of that merchant ship! Fire
illumination flares!”
“Sir, that could illuminate us as well!”
“To hell with that! We’ve got to see!”
“Aye aye, sir. Gunnery control, this is the bridge …”
“Captain!” It was the bridge wing lookout. “A ship! A ship off the bow!”
There was a shape in the rain-streaked night, a mammoth outline displacing the surface mist, riding the pale streak of a boiling wake. It was cutting across the frigate’s course line, moving at a speed no mere merchantman should be able to reach.
Suddenly, flame starkly backlit the big intruder and a roaring wave of devastation swept back over the frigate, raking it from stem to stern. The decks bucked and heaved. The wheelhouse windscreen imploded in a shotgun blast of jagged glass. Men screamed and fell as bullets and shell fragments ricocheted and howled.
The Nala’s captain collapsed to the glass-sharded deck, clutching at a torn thigh. “Fire! Open Fire!”
