Sea fighter

by James H. Cobb

  En Route to Station

  Conakry, Guinea, is one of those places you can’t get to from here.

  Amanda spent eight plodding hours aboard the transatlantic shuttle between Washington, D.C., and London. More than enough time for her to become refreshed on all of the reasons she loathed travel by commercial airliner.

  To the good, the discomfort provided a useful counter-irritant to the regrets she had about leaving both Arkady and the Cunningham. It inspired her to bury herself in her new assignment as the most readily available escape. Avoiding the plasticky meal service, the boring in-flight movie, and the repeated conversational ploys of her equally boring seatmate, she drained the power cells of her laptop studying the event and country files available on the West African Union.

  She read until her eyes burned and she had to close them for a moment. When she opened them again, a premature dawn was breaking beyond the airliner’s windows and the pilot was announcing their descent into Heathrow.

  Transferring over to the RAF Transport Command base, all she saw of the United Kingdom was the lashing rain and overcast of an English spring as seen through a staff car’s windshield. That and the inside of the air base NAAFI canteen as she waited though a long afternoon for her next flight. Again to the plus, however, was the opportunity to exchange the panty hose and scratchy gabardine of her Blues for the soft-worn comfort of wash khakis.

  Two paperbacks and innumerable cups of tea later, the departure south to Conakry was called and a lumbering J Model Hercules of the Royal Air Force lifted off from a sodden runway.

  Her second night in the air proved to be far more pleasant than the first. As the sole passenger on board, she rode up forward in the Hercules cockpit, talking shop with the congenial RAF air crew and watching the stars gleam beyond the windscreen.

  Just after midnight, they executed a steep cowboy descent and touchdown at Gibraltar’s abbreviated airstrip for refueling. Stretching her legs on the darkened tarmac with the shadowy bulk of “The Rock” looming over her in the night, Amanda felt the first touch of Africa, the brush of the warm dry winds blowing northward from the Sahara.

  Airborne again, the Hercules started the long propeller driven trudge around the curve of the African peninsula. Taking her turn in one of the narrow crew bunks, Amanda found that sleep came easily.

  She was awakened by the light of the dawn sweeping across the cockpit as the aircraft turned southeast. Sipping a mug of ferocious tanker’s tea, she watched as the tip of Cape Verde drifted past under the port-side wing, the land’s end blazing green and gold against an azure sea. An hour later and they were in the pattern at Conakry.

  Conakry Base, Guinea 1025 Hours, Zone Time;

  May 8 2007

  The seafighter service ramp had been established beyond the seaward end of the Conakry base runway. It was something new for Amanda, a naval station with no piers, no docks, no moorages, only a gently sloping beach stabilized by a layer of the same kind of pierced aluminum planking the Seabees used for temporary runways. This was all that was needed by the sleek war machine that lay basking on the ramp like a great sea turtle, its cadre of service vehicles drawn up around it.

  Amanda dismounted from the Navy-gray HumVee that had carried her down from the headquarters building. The white flame of the sun danced off the waves in the estuary and the steambath heat and humidity struck as a physical assault. For someone fresh from a mid-Atlantic spring, the environment was going to take a little getting used to. As Amanda’s driver unloaded her seabag and briefcase, she stepped into the shadow of a parked fuel tanker to get her bearings and to examine her new command.

  The PGAC (Patrol Gunboat Air Cushion) had started its life as an LCAC (Landing Craft Air Cushion), a fast amphibious shuttle designed by Textron Marine Systems to rapidly move the men and equipment of a Marine landing force ashore from their transport vessels. However, the utility and effectiveness of the basic hovercraft design soon inspired American military planners to look for other applications for the technology. The PGACs, the seafighters, were one such new adaptation.

  Much had been altered in the redesigning. The landing ramps and the starkly utilitarian drive-through superstructure of the landing craft had been replaced with a sleek and flattened boatlike hull, crafted with the slightly odd angles and geometrics of stealth technology.

  Ninety feet in length by thirty-six in width, the hovercraft nestled down in a mass of heavy, black rubberized fabric like a gigantic deflated inner tube. The simile was apt, as these were the inflatable skirts of the plenum chamber that contained the bubble of high-pressure air that supported the vehicle when it was powered up and running.

  A streamlined cockpit or cab sat atop the hull a short distance back from the bow, while two massive air intakes were fared into the deck at the midships line. Right aft, a crossbar antenna mount rose above the hull, running across the full width of the stern like the spoiler foil of a sports car. Centered on the crossbar mount was the black discus shape of a radar scanner. A second snubmast, finlike and sharply raked, rose from just behind the cockpit. At its top was the lensed sphere of a Mast Mounted Sighting System, looking like the head of some goggle-eyed robot. Below the MMS, an American flag hung limply in the still and breathless air of the equatorial afternoon.

  The seafighter had been painted in a dusty gray light and dark camouflage, all but under the angle of the broad bow. There, in a touch of swashbuckling individuality, the standard camo pattern had been replaced by a snarling set of black shark’s teeth that ran the full breadth of the hull. Two beady, leering eyes had been added just beneath the peak of the bow to complete the image of a lunging sea monster. Along the rounded curve of the deck rim, just below the cockpit, she wore her ID number and name in phantom lettering:

  PGAC 02 USS QUEEN OF THE WEST

  Amanda found herself smiling. “Hello, Your Majesty,” she whispered.

  Unlike Amanda, the Navy service crew working around the grounded seafighter had already adapted to their working environment. The men worked stripped to the waist, while the female ratings had stagged the sleeves from their shirts and had cut their dungaree pants down to shorts. Tanned skins gleamed with sunblock and sweat, and an ice chest loaded with bottled water stood readily at hand in the shade of another parked vehicle, a succinct one-word order—DRINK!—written on the inside of its open lid.

  As she looked on, a man emerged from an overhead hatch in the top of the cockpit and made his way to the deck edge. The golden brown tone of this individual’s skin had nothing to do with the sun. He was royalty caste Samoan, a stocky, powerful keg of a man, square-set and solid muscle, the rating badge of a chief petty officer on the sleeve of his unbuttoned khaki shirt. “Hey, Commander Lane,” he yelled down, “we got the stores shipment secured in the center bay, and Scrounger reports we have a full load of fuel and water aboard. What’s the holdup on departure?”

  At ground level, another bare-chested man knelt inspecting the folds of the chamber skirt. Younger, more lightly built, and with hair and mustache sun-bleaching from brown to blond, he rose to his feet. Only the oil-stained oak-leaf insignia on his baseball cap marked him as an officer.

  “We’re holding on a passenger, Chief,” he yelled back, looking up. “Conakry HQ says that we’re going to be taking the new TACBOSS out to the Floater.”

  Commander Lane. Lieutenant Commander Jeffery Lane it must be. Amanda nodded to herself. This, then, would be the commanding officer of the seafighter squadron. She hadn’t known quite what to expect, and she hadn’t been disappointed.

  “The new TACBOSS?” Another voice joined in the conversation and a third figure appeared in the open-side hatch of the seafighter. “Jeez, Steamer, why didn’t you tell me?”

  The newcomer was long legged and slim, with a short honey-colored ponytail drawn back at the base of her neck. She looked more like a member of a cheerleading squad than she did
a combat crew member. The coppery gleam of a lieutenant junior grade’s bars at her collar put the lie to that concept. Amused bewilderment tugged at the corner of Amanda’s mouth. Lord, had she been that young fourteen years ago?

  The hover commander grinned and looked up into the doorway. “Mostly because I only got the word about five minutes ago myself. Besides, what’s the bitch? We’ve got the Queen squared away. Let him come.”

  “I’d have liked the chance to get myself squared away too. At least I could have borrowed a decent set of khakis from somebody.”

  Like the female enlisted hands, the JG had cut down her own uniform, seeking comfort over military regulation. Amanda found herself envying the younger woman’s bare armed and bare-legged freedom. Her own theoretically summer weight uniform was beginning to feel like a steamed horse blanket.

  “No sense in giving this guy any false expectations,” Lane replied confidently. “He’s going to have to find out about the real world sooner or later. Don’t sweat it, Snowy. We’ll larn him.”

  There was apparently a great deal Amanda was going to have to “larn,” and rapidly. She stepped out of the tanker’s shade and crossed the ramp to where the squadron commander stood.

  “Commander Lane?”

  He caught her rank as she approached and came to attention, his fingertips snapping to his brow in a salute. Amanda replied in kind and then extended her hand to shake his.

  “My name is Amanda Garrett. I’m your new Tactical Action Group commander.”

  The remainder of the introductions were conducted in the scant shade of the hovercraft’s flank.

  “Commander Garrett, this is Lieutenant Junior Grade Jillian Banks, the Queen’s exec and my copilot.”

  Amanda clasped hands with the uneasy young woman. “Snowy Banks?” she inquired smiling. “I’ve never heard of running names being used outside of the aviation wings before.”

  “We’re something new, Commander,” Snowy replied shyly, returning the smile. “No one’s exactly decided whether a hovercraft is a truck that can drive on water, a boat that can sail on the land, or an airplane that just flies really low.”

  “I use a running name myself, ma’am,” Lane added.

  “So I’ve heard.” Amanda nodded. “Steamer Lane. It’s a great surfing beach, but the water’s cold up there near San Francisco.”

  “And this is our Ben Tehoa, our senior chief.”

  “Of the boat and the squadron both?” Garrett inquired, gripping the CPO’s hand.

  “Yes, ma’am,” the Chief replied, his dark eyes meeting hers with quiet confidence. “You’re getting a real good outfit, Commander. One of the best. I guarantee.”

  Amanda would be willing to take the big man’s word for it. She could sense the experience and wisdom accrued over years of service and a multitude of cruises. Senior Chief Petty Officer Ben Tehoa was an archetype, a born sailor, one who would have no difficulty in living up to her expectations. In fact, she suspected she’d be kept on her toes living up to his.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you all,” she continued, studying the three sober-featured individuals who, in turn, were studying her. “I only wish it were under different circumstances. I know that Captain Emberly has left me a fine outfit, and I’ll try to build on the groundwork he’s set down. Unfortunately, I’m afraid I know next to nothing about hovercraft, and that includes this one.”

  She nodded toward the grounded machine that loomed over them. “Commander Lane, Miss Banks, Chief, I need to learn what these vehicles and this squadron can do, and fast. Consider this as the first day of Bonehead Hovercraft 101 and me as the new girl in school.”

  Lane, his exec, and the Chief swapped brief, sideways glances. Amanda had seen this phenomenon before. A complete nonverbal conference was taking place in a matter of a few seconds. Opinions stated, options discussed and a conclusion reached. Such things happened only within a team that had become so finely honed that it not only worked together but thought together as well.

  The conclusion was apparently favorable. Maybe they found a senior officer who didn’t claim automatic omnipotence refreshing.

  Lane flashed a broad grin. “No problem, ma’am. You’ll find there’s not all that much to it. Welcome aboard.”

  “Thank you, Commander. How about taking me on the walkaround?”

  “You got it, ma’am.”

  He reclaimed a ragged wash khaki shirt from the tailgate of a parked HumVee. “Hey, Slim, get Captain Garrett’s gear aboard the Queen. On the double! Ferguson! Get your support rigs clear. We’ll be firing up soon! Snowy, get topside and start the departure checklist.”

  “Are all three of the squadron craft named after Civil War gunboats?” Amanda inquired.

  “Yes, ma’am. The Queen here, the Carondelet, and the Manassas. There’s the Benton, too, but she’s the class test-bed vehicle back at Camp Pendleton.”

  As they started aft along the seafighter’s flank, Amanda caught the opening of a whispered exchange behind her.

  “Jeez God, Chief! Do you know who that is?”

  “I saw that Time magazine cover too, Miss Banks …”

  Amanda suppressed a grin, refocusing her attention on Lane’s words.

  “Okay, ma’am, essentially a hovercraft is a giant air pump. Our lift fans force air into the plenum chamber under the vehicle’s belly. This creates a bubble of high pressure that lifts the vehicle off the deck as the air tries to escape the confines of the chamber. This thin, friction-free film of air escaping from under the skirts is what a hovercraft rides on.”

  Amanda gave a nod. “I see. A while back, I was a member of a military mission to Sweden to have a look at their experimental Smyge-class stealth Fast Attack Craft. They’re hovercraft too, aren’t they?”

  “A close relative, ma’am. The Smyge is a Surface Effects Ship. Her plenum chamber has hard sidewalls that pierce the water’s surface. That makes her a pure-water vehicle, while the Queen here is a true hovercraft. Like the original LCACs, we’re fully amphibious.”

  Lane aimed a kick at the folds of heavy rubberized material the hover rested upon. “Our flexible chamber sidewalls allow us to sort of flow over obstacles. We can cross seventy percent of the world’s beaches and, as long as it’s comparatively flat, we can run on any kind of surface: swamps, sand, ice, pavement. Heck, I’ve had the Queen as much as five miles inland on training exercises and she’s taken to it like a champ.”

  “Aren’t these soft skirts a point of vulnerability? I’ve heard that was a problem with the hovercraft they experimented with in Vietnam.”

  Lane shook his head. “The old PACVs used a nylon finger skirt that was susceptible to battle damage. We use a rubberized multiplex Kevlar. When we’re up on the cushion, rifle caliber gunfire and low-velocity antitank grenades literally bounce off.”

  They rounded the Queen’s sloping stern. Here were the two huge, five-bladed drive propellers, each eleven-foot airscrew mounted within a circular duct shroud and each with a twinned set of rudders behind it. A broad ramp folded down between them, leading into the darkened interior of the vehicle.

  Amanda frowned slightly. “These PGs are supposed to have a low-radar cross section, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, ma’am. We’re stealthy. Passive stealth essentially. The only sections of the superstructure that have a lot of metal in them are the top of the plenum chamber assembly and the engine platform—what we call the raft. The raft rides very low to the water, while the rest of the superstructure is primarily made up of composite materials with a very low reflective level. The hull and all metallic structural elements have also been coated with a Macroballon-based stealth paint, and we have heavier RAM panel inserts around the engines, lift fans, and weapons bays.”

  “What about these big above-water airscrews? I know that a rotating propeller produces a large rad
ar signature.” Amanda’s frown deepened for a moment. Arkady had taught her about that. With a shake of her head, she thrust away the momentary intrusion of her personal life.

  Lane shrugged. “No sweat there. Our drive props are made out of the same thermoplastic composite they use for the propellers on the J- and K-model C-130s. They’re nine-tenths radar transparent. Fully closed up, we’re nothing but a bump on the sea.”

  Lane led her up the stern ramp into the Queen’s interior twelve-foot-wide central bay. At the rear end of the bay, a small semirigid rubber boat sat mounted on a launching track that ran back down the extended ramp/bay door. Amanda noted the boat’s powerful outboard motor and the mounting bracket for a machine gun at its bow.

  Her guide slapped the little craft’s inflated flank as he brushed past it. “This is our eight-man miniraider. It’s a cut down sixteen-foot variant of the big twenty-four-foot raider boats the Marines and SEALs use. Real good for landing and boarding operations.”

  Just forward of the boat, Lane reached up and slapped something else up in the shadows near the overhead. As Amanda’s eyes adjusted to the lack of light, she could make out a long, dark coffinlike mass filling in the upper left corner of the bay. Four circular base plates were set into the rear facing of the rectangular pod and hydraulic lift gear gleamed along its sides.

  “Our heavy hitters,” he went on laconically. “A four-round missile cell. Harpoon Twos for antishipping or SeaSLAMs for land attack. The launchers up-angle through the top of the hull and fire forward over the bow.”

  Amanda was impressed. “You have a SeaSLAM control station aboard?”

  “Yes, ma’am. A little farther up front. I’ll show you in a second.”

  “What kind of a loadout do you usually carry?”

  “Two and two. When we’re fully rigged out for serious ship hunting, we carry a second four-round cell back here, giving us a total of eight heavy missiles. We’ve got our star board launcher unshipped currently to make more room for carrying a boarding party.”