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Just as he did, the doors started to close. For a moment Mack thought he was going to crash into them, which would perhaps have been the ultimate embarrassment. Fortunately, they slid back and he made it inside without a crash.
‘Don’t tire yourself out,’ called Zen after him. ‘I want to race you later.’
‘That was a bit over the top.’
Zen whirled his head around, surprised by his wife’s voice. Breanna had come out from the building while he was watching Mack make his maiden progression in a wheelchair.
Zen shifted his wheelchair around to face her. ‘Somebody’s got to put him in his place.’
‘You’re being way too cruel, Zen.’
‘Turnaround is fair play.’
‘He never tormented you like that.’
‘No, he just made me a cripple.’
Zen, controlling two robot aircraft as well as his own, had been engaged in a mock dogfight with Mack nearly two years before, when one of the robots clipped his wing at very low altitude. The ensuing crash had cost Zen the use of his legs. Technically, Mack had not caused the crash – but in every other way, he had, egging him on, doing much the same thing that Zen had just done to him, and cheating on the accepted rules for the engagement.
‘I never thought there would be a day when Mack Smith outclassed Zen Stockard,’ said Bree.
‘You going for breakfast?’ Zen asked, changing the subject.
Breanna frowned at him, but then said, ‘I have an hour to kill before prepping for my test flight. I thought I’d get some breakfast over at the Red Room. I haven’t had a good omelet since Brunei.’
‘I’ll walk with you. No, wait.’ He put his hands on the wheels and pulled back for a launch. ‘I’ll race you.’
Aboard DD(L) 01 Abner Read, off the Horn of Africa 3 November 1997 1902
Captain Harold ‘Storm’ Gale put the binoculars down and folded his arms across his chest. The sea ahead of Abner Read was mottled and gray; the sun had just set, and an unusually thick storm front sent a light mist across his bow, obscuring not just his sailor’s vision, but the long-range infrared sensors that were looking for telltale signs of ships in the distance.
Perfect conditions for pirates. And perfect conditions for hunting them.
‘Two boats,’ said the Abner Read’s captain, Commander Robert Marcum. He was looking over the shoulder of the petty officer manning the integrated imaging system on the bridge to Storm’s left. The screen synthesized data from several different sensors, presenting them in an easy-to-read format. ‘Just closing to five thousand meters.’
‘Adjust our course,’ said Storm. He walked from the window at the front of the bridge to the holographic display, where data from the Tactical Warfare Center – his ship’s version of a combat information center – was projected, showing the Abner Read’s position and that of the oil tanker they had been shadowing. The holographic display presented a real-time view of the ocean created from ship’s sensors, complete with a computerized version of the surrounding geographic features and a rundown of threats within sensor range. The display could show everything from standard chart data to the range and likelihood of one of the Abner Read’s Harpoon missiles hitting a target; it was one of three aboard the ship, allowing the group commander to choose whether to be in the Tactical Warfare Center or on the bridge during the engagement. (It also allowed the Navy to designate a ship’s captain as overall group commander, a plan contemplated for the future.) Storm spent most of his time in Tac, which would have been the ‘traditional’ place for a group warfare commander to station himself; tonight, the lure of the hunt had drawn him here so he might actually see his prey.
Storm studied the three-dimensional image, gauging his location and that of the other ships. The contacts were identified by the sensors as fast patrol boats – small, light ships equipped with a deck gun, grenade launchers, and possibly torpedoes. They were the modern-day equivalent of the PT boats that America had used to help turn the tide in Guadalcanal and other fierce, shallow-water conflicts in the Pacific during World War II.
The question was: Whose boats were they? One of Oman’s or Egypt’s accompanying local merchants, in which case they were friendly? One of four known to be operated by Somalian fanatics turned pirates, in which case they were hostile? Or one of the half dozen belonging to Yemen, in which case they were somewhere in the middle?
The three other vessels in Littoral Surface Action Group XP One were several nautical miles to the south, too far away to help if these turned out to be the pirates he was hunting. This was the Abner Read’s fight to win or lose.
Storm reached to his belt and keyed his mike to talk to Lt Commander Jack ‘Eyes’ Eisenberg, who was in the Tactical Warfare Center one deck below the bridge. His wireless headset and its controller were linked to a shipboard fiber-optics network that could instantly connect him not only with all the sailors on the Abner Read, but the commanders of the vessels in the rest of his task group. With the touch of a button, he could click into one of several preset conferenced channels, allowing all of his war fighters to speak to each other and with him in battle.
‘Eyes, what do we have?’
‘Two boats. Roughly the size of Super Dvoras. They should be our pirates.’
‘If they are, there’ll be at least two more.’
‘We’re looking. Should we go to active radar?’
‘No, let’s hold off. No sense telling them we’re here.’
Past experience told them that the small boats could detect radar; more than likely they would run away, as they had several times before.
The contacts had been found by a towed array equipped with a passive sonar system to listen to the sea around it. Designed for use in the comparatively shallow waters, the system compiled data on surface as well as submarine vessels. Like devices such as the AN/SQR-18A (V) Sonar Tactical Towed Array System – used on the Knox-class frigates from the late 1970s on – the Littoral Towed Array System, or LITAS, was built around a series of hydrophones that listened for different sounds in the water. These were then interpreted and translated into ship contacts.
In theory, LITAS could hear anything within a twelve-mile radius of the ship, even in littoral waters where sounds were plentiful and easily altered by the shallow floor of the ocean. But like much else aboard the Abner Read and its companion vessels, the new technology still needed some adjustments; five miles had proven the average effective range thus far on the voyage, and the presence of a very loud vessel such as the oil tanker tended to mask noises very close to it. The approaching storm would also limit the range.
The four-ship war group Storm headed was as much about testing new technology as she was about catching the pirates. And the Abner Read was the centerpiece of both the task group and the tests. Named for a World War II destroyer that fought bravely in the Pacific until being sunk by kamikazes, the new ship had all the spirit of her predecessor but looked nothing like her. In fact, though she was called a destroyer, she bore little resemblance to other destroyers in the U.S. Navy – or any other navy.
It had often been said that the U.S. Navy’s Arleigh Burke destroyers represented the culmination of nearly one hundred years of warship design. Truly, the Arleigh Burkes were the head of the class, in many ways as powerful as World War II battleships and as self-sufficient. The Abner Read showed what the next one hundred years would bring. Indeed, there were many who hadn’t wanted to call her a destroyer at all; proposals had ranged from ‘littoral warfare ship’ to ‘coastal cruiser.’ The Navy might be ready for a radical new weapon, but a new name seemed too much of a break with tradition, and so she was designated a ‘destroyer, littoral’ – or DD(L) – the first and so far only member of her class.
At 110 meters, she was a good deal shorter than the Arleigh Burke class, closer in size to a frigate or even a corvette. Where the Arleigh Burkes had a bulky silhouette dominated by a massive radar bulkhead, a large mast, and thick stacks, the Abner Read looked like a pyramid on a jackknife. A pair of angled pillboxes sat on the forward section of the deck, which was so low to the water, the gun housings were generally wet. Her stern looked like a flat deck; the section over what would have held the rudder on another ship was open to the ocean, as if the sea wanted to keep a finger on her back. The ship didn’t have one rudder – it had several, located in strategic spots along the tumbleform hull. The rudder and hull design made the Abner Read extremely maneuverable at low and high speed. And while the exotically shaped underside and wet deck took a bit of getting used to, the Abner Read had remarkably good sea-keeping abilities for a small ship. It didn’t so much float across the waves as blow right through them. Stormy ocean crossings were almost comfortable, certainly more so than in a conventional ship of the same size, even though the vessel had been designed primarily for shallow coastal waters.
The screws that propelled the ship were located almost amidships, recessed in a faceted structure that helped reduce their sound. They were powered by gas turbines whose exhausts were cooled before being released through the baffled and radar-protected funnel. The engines could propel the Abner Read to about forty knots in calm water. More important, she could sustain that speed for forty-eight hours without noticeable strain.
The three smaller craft that had accompanied the Abner Read to the Gulf of Aden looked a bit like miniature versions of her. Officially called Littoral Warfare Craft, or LWCs, they were designed from the keel up to work with the DD(L). Not only did their captains receive orders from a commander in the DD(L)’s tactical center, but the ship received sensor data as well – each had an integrated imaging system on her bridge identical to the one on the Abner Read. The vessels were crewed by only fifteen men, and in fact could be taken into combat by as few as five, though the mission had shown that a somewhat larger complement would be more comfortable. About 40 meters long, they were roughly the size of a coastal patrol boat and needed only twelve feet of draft at full load displacement. The vessels had a 25mm gun on the forward deck, a pair of multipurpose missile launchers – loaded, in this case, with Harpoon antiship missiles – toward the stern, and below-waterline torpedo and mine dispensers. Smaller than the Abner Read, they had a correspondingly smaller radar signature. Their long, knifelike bows and finlike superstructures had led inevitably to a warlike nickname: Shark Boats.
XP Group 1 – better known as Xray Pop – was one of twelve proposed integrated littoral warfare combat groups that would eventually combine surface warfare ships with unmanned helicopters and aerial vehicles, small submarines, and Marine combat teams. But like Xray Pop, the littoral warfare concept was still very much a work in progress. The Navy had said ‘XP’ stood for ‘extended patrol.’ The sailors who manned the ships knew it actually meant ‘expect problems.’
Storm firmly believed littoral warfare was the Navy’s future. The teething pains he suffered on this maiden mission would help shape warfare for the next fifty years. He’d freed Xray Pop from the engineering spaces and Pentagon offices and dragged littoral warfare out into the real world, and he meant to show it would work.
Which meant sinking the bastards in the little boats.
‘One of the unidentified patrol craft is heading in our direction,’ said Eyes.
‘Do they see us?’
‘Not sure.’
Storm moved back to the window of the bridge. The UAVs designed to operate off the ship’s fantail were running nearly eighteen months behind schedule. Without them, the Abner Read had no beyond-the-horizon capability and in fact had a very limited weapons range. Storm hadn’t intended on operating completely without airborne cover – a pair of P-3 Orions from the Seventh Fleet had been moved up to Kuwait to provide reconnaissance during his operation. But the P-3s had been pulled out for higher priority missions in the Philippines, and the promised replacements had not materialized. And while he had been offered helicopters, these were still back in Pearl Harbor, as near as he could determine.
Not that he would have wanted them anyway. They were too big for the Abner Read’s low-slung hangar area, which had been designed for the UAVs. They’d have had to be lashed to the helipad.
‘More contacts,’ said Eyes. ‘Two more patrol boats. I think these are the Somalians, Captain.’
‘They’re a bit far from home,’ said Storm, feeling his heart beginning to pound. ‘Are you sure these are not Yemen craft?’
‘We’re working on it.’
Storm could hear the voices of the others in the background, ringing out as more information flooded the sensors. The Tactical Warfare Center was a Combat Information Center on steroids. A holographic display similar to the smaller one on the bridge dominated the compartment. Synthesized from all of the available sensor inputs on the ship, as well as external ones piped in over the shared Littoral Warfare Network, the display showed the commander everything in the battle area. It also could provide scenarios for confronting an enemy, which made it useful for planning. Tac also held the Abner Read’s radar, sonar, and weapons stations.
Two more contacts were made, then a third: Storm felt the adrenaline rising throughout the ship, the scent of blood filtering through the environmental system – the Abner Read was on the hunt.
‘Two more boats. Small coastal craft.’
‘No markings.’
‘Deck guns on one.’
‘Another contact. Something bigger.’
‘Storm, we have an Osa II,’ said Eyes. ‘Definitely a Yemen boat – what’s he doing out?’
The Osa II was a Russian-made missile boat that carried Soviet-era SSN-2A/B ‘Styx’ surface-to-surface missiles. A potent craft when first designed, the Osas were now long in the tooth but packed a reasonable wallop if well-skippered and in good repair. The Yemen ships were neither.
Storm studied the tactical display. The Osa II flickered at the far end of the hologram, about five miles away.
‘Looks like they’re getting ready to attack the tanker,’ said Commander Marcum.
‘Good,’ Storm told the ship’s captain.
‘Gunfire! They’re shooting across the tanker’s bow!’ Eyes paused for only a second, gathering information from one of the crewmen manning the high-tech systems below. ‘The oil tanker is radioing for assistance. They are under attack.’
‘Weapons,’ said Storm.
‘Weapons!’ repeated the captain, addressing his weapons officer.
‘Weapons,’ bellowed the officer on duty in the weapons center, Ensign Hacienda. The ensign’s voice was so loud Storm might have been able to hear it without the communications gear.
‘Prepare to fire the gun,’ said Marcum.
‘Ready, sir.’
‘At your order, Storm.’
The gun was a 155mm Advanced Gun System, housed in the sleek box on the forward deck. The weapon fired a variety of different shells, including one with a range of nearly one hundred miles that could correct its flight path while on course for its target. At the moment, the Abner Read carried only unguided or ‘ballistic’ ammunition, which had a range of roughly twenty-two miles – more than enough to pound one of the boats firing on the tanker.
‘Eyes, give them fair warning,’ said Storm.
‘Aye, Captain.’ The disdain for the rules of engagement was evident in his voice. Storm shared the sentiment, though he did not voice his opinion.
‘No acknowledgment. Attack is continuing. We –’
Eyes was nearly drowned out by a stream of curses from one of the men on duty in the Tactical Center. Storm knew exactly what had happened – the computer had gone off-line again, probably as they attempted to transmit a fresh warning in Arabic using the computer system’s prerecorded message capability. It was one of the more problematic modules in the integrated computing system. It would take at least a full minute to bring it back.
The tanker’s running lights were visible in the distance. Storm picked up his glasses and scanned the horizon. They were still too far from the small patrol boats to see them, even with the infrared.
‘Missile in the air!’
The warning came not from one of the men on the bridge or the Tactical Center, but from the computer system, which used a real-language module for important warnings. Talking wasn’t the only thing it did: In the time it took Storm to glance down at the threat screen on the Abner Read’s ‘dashboard’ at the center of the bridge, the computer had managed to identify the weapon and predict its course.
A Styx antiship missile.
‘Well, we know which side he’s on,’ said Storm sarcastically. ‘Countermeasures. Target the Osa II.’
The ship’s captain moved to implement the instructions. He didn’t need Storm to tell him what to do – and in fact he wouldn’t have been ship’s captain of the Abner Read if he weren’t among the most competent commanders in the Navy – but he also knew Storm well enough to realize the captain wouldn’t sit in the background, especially in combat.
‘Computer IDs the missile as a type P-20M with an MS-2A seeker,’ said Eyes.
The MS-2A was a solid-state radar that featured the ability to home in on the electronic countermeasures – or ECMs – being used to jam it.
‘Is he locked on us?’ asked Commander Marcum.
‘Negative. Trajectory makes it appear as if he fired without radar, maybe hoping we’d go to the ECMs and he’d get a lock.’
Or it was fired ineptly, which Storm thought more likely. Nonetheless, they had to act as if it were the former.
The holographic information system projected the missile’s path – a clean miss. As Eyes said, the missile was aimed well wide of them; it would hit the ocean about a half mile to the south.
‘Belay ECMs,’ said Marcum. ‘Repeat: no countermeasures. Target the missile boat with our gun.’
Storm nodded. Marcum really understood how to fight these guys. He’d make a good group commander down the road.
‘Missile is on terminal attack,’ warned the computer.
The Styx missile slid downward, riding just a few feet above the waves, where it was extremely difficult to stop. One of the Phalanx 20mm Gatling guns that provided close-in antiair coverage rotated at the rear of the ship, tracking the antiship missile as it passed. A yellow cone glowed in the holographic display, and the gun engaged, obliterating the missile at long range, even though it wasn’t a threat.
A problem with the program of the automated defensive weapons system, Storm noted. It tended to be somewhat overprotective – not necessarily a bad thing, but something that could stand a little tweaking.
‘Torpedoes!’ sang the computer.
‘Toward us or the tanker?’ Storm demanded.
‘Not sure,’ said Eyes, who was scrambling to make sense of what was going on.
‘Who fired the torpedoes? The missile boat?’ said Marcum.
‘Negative – they must have come from the patrol craft. That’s a new development.’
The patrol craft were relatively small, and until now had not been seen with torpedo tubes on their decks. Storm decided this was a compliment, in a way – after a week of running off, they’d decided to change their tactics.
The tanker was about three miles off their port bow, with the attacking pirates slightly to starboard. This was not the usual pattern of attacks – ordinarily four or five fast patrol boats and a few small speedboats would charge a slow-moving, heavily laden ship, fire a few dozen slugs to get its attention, and then send a heavily armed boarding party aboard. The ship’s captain would be persuaded to phone his company headquarters and have a transfer made to an offshore account specially set up for the night. Once the transfer was made – the amount would be about ten thousand dollars, relatively small considering the value of the cargo – the tanker would be allowed to go on its way. The small ‘fee’ charged helped guarantee that the pirates would get it; most multinational companies considered it a pittance, cheaper than a port tax – or trying to prosecute the perpetrators.
‘Those torpedoes are definitely headed in our direction,’ said Eyes. ‘We don’t have guidance data.’
Marcum ordered evasive action. As the helmsman put the Abner Read into a sharp turn, the ship’s forward torpedo tubes opened, expelling a pair of small torpedo-like devices. They swam about a quarter of a mile; at that point, the skin peeled away from their bellies and they began emitting a thick fog of bubbles. The air in the water created a sonic fog in the water similar to the noise made by the ship. The destroyer, meanwhile, swung onto a new course designed to minimize its profile to the enemy.
‘They must have guessed we’d be nearby,’ said Marcum. ‘I think they homed in on our radio signal when we tried to warn the oiler and threw everything they had at us. Rules of engagement, Captain. They make no sense.’
‘Noted for the record,’ said Storm.
And wholeheartedly agreed with.
‘Tanker captain says he’s been fired on,’ reported communications. ‘Asking for assistance.’
