“Go for it, Rebel! Steamer, drop in behind Manassas. Carondelet, follow us in….”
“Frenchman executing … Oh Jesus! Jesus!”
“Clark, what’s going on? What’s happening back there?”
“Tony, they got the Queen! They got the Queen! Oh, God, they just blew the hell out of her!”
PGAC-02 USS Queen of the West 0230 Hours, Zone Time;
September 8, 2007
The gun layer commanding the Z mount of the Union corvette Promise had no idea that he’d targeted the American flag craft. With two fresh clips of ammunition in the breech of his SU-57 twin mount, he’d spotted the flash of a missile launch and had acquired a dim outline silhouetted in the uncertain light of the tanker burning inside the harbor. Hastily setting his sights, he’d smashed his foot down on the firing pedal, hosing all eight rounds at the target.
Fate or misfortune decreed that the Queen of the West would plow headlong into the fire stream.
Three 57mm rounds caught her low in the forehull. Punching through her composite skin, the shells exploded in the forward systems compartments.
In death, Gunner’s Mate 1st Class Daniel Sullivan O’Roark and Gunner’s Mate 2nd (Missile) Dwaine Robert Fry performed one final service for their crewmates. Their bodies absorbed the bulk of the shrapnel blast that ripped back into the main bay. More fragmentation tore upward, through the overhead and into the cockpit.
A fourth Union round struck lower, at the leading edge of the hull raft, tearing the forward end of the plenum chamber skirt loose from its mounting frame. The Queen’s supporting air bubble collapsed and she came off pad at fifty knots, plowing and skidding across the sea like a crashing airliner.
Every hand aboard not strapped down in a seat or secured by a monkey harness was first thrown forward against the bulkheads, then deluged by water bursting in under fire hose pressure through the shell holes. Turbine compressors stalled. Power faltered. Chaos commanded.
Up in the cockpit, Amanda felt the concussion of the shell hits and was aware of the jagged shards of metal punching upward through the deck. She heard Steamer Lane yell a warning, then a wordless agonized cry from Snowy Banks. Then they hit.
The hovercraft’s stern kicked upward as the bow dug in. The windscreen exploded back into the cockpit, pushed in by a wall of water. Possibly this latter event saved Amanda Garrett’s life. She hadn’t fastened her safety harness, and as the impact of the crash threw her forward out of the navigator’s chair, she was met by the cushioning blast of the inrushing sea. Caught between two irresistible forces, she was kicked away from consciousness.
But not completely.
A fragile thread remained, linking her to the world. To awareness. To the awareness that she yet lived and there were things that had to be done. The entity that was Amanda Garrett tugged recklessly on that thread, demanding that limbs move, senses record. Demanding that the battle continue.
Survival as a consideration was past. Only the blind, wounded-creature instinct to fight on remained. The will to die with her jaws locked in her foe’s throat.
Hands moved. Plexiglas shards cut. Salt water stung. She crawled, pulling herself back up to the navigator’s station. The wave that had deluged the cockpit drained away into the main hull and the emergency battle lights flickered on. Power. Somewhere there was still power.
Up onto her knees. The panel. The panel was dead. The screens dark.
Lower right pane quadrant. Double row of breaker resets. You know that! You know what to do!
Focusing on it, she demanded that her hand obey. It did, coming up as she fiercely watched. She thrust her palm against the reset switches, driving them back in.
Circuits sparked and sputtered, but responded. Solid state, shock proof, and water sealed, enough key elements remained intact within the multiply redundant systems net for partial function. Automatic battle-damage switches opened, isolating destroyed and shorting components. Relays cycled, seeking and finding functional links.
The panel screens lit off, telling Amanda a tale of catastrophe in their patterns of red and yellow warning prompts, but at least speaking to her.
Beyond the Queen’s battered hull, the battle still raged. Around her lay the dead and wounded. But all that mattered to Amanda at that moment was the joystick in her hands and the glowing square of light marked “Fire Control Systems Access.”
A weapons mount responded to her plea.
***STARBOARD PEDESTAL***
1**2.75 RKT / SINGLE FIRE
2**2.75 RKT / SINGLE FIRE
The main screen filled with the imaging of its thermographic sights, the spiderweb of the targeting grid coming up on call. Amanda’s hands moved the joystick, both fists clinched around it to suppress the trembling. The pedestal elevated, traversed, seeking the enemy.
Gun Corvette Promise … Navy of the West African Union … Former Nigerian Minesweeper Marabai … Length 167 feet …Armament …
Armament. At the Corvette’s bow and stern, muzzle flashes pulsed as she fired on the other craft of Amanda’s squadron. Trying to kill them as she had killed the Queen.
Rage building within her, Amanda Garrett reached out and wiped her enemies away.
Click … Click … Click … Click … Click.
Her doubled fingers closed convulsively on the trigger. Somehow neither the gunfire nor the sound of the Hydra rockets screaming out of their launching tubes registered on her mind, only the soft clicking of the firing button as it depressed.
Hell walked the decks of the Promise, deliberately, from stern to bow, consuming the gunners at their stations, twisting and smashing the gun mounts, stoking the flames with the stacked ready-use ammunition.
The sighting crosshairs elevated minutely, backtracking. Click … Click … Click … Click …
The side bulkheads of the bridge caved in and damnation swept the Promise’s officers away. Jagged fiery rents opened in the exposed side of the superstructure, letting in the fire and the death.
Down-angle. Stern to bow again. Hold the prime horizontal gauge at the waterline. Click … Click … Click … Click … Click …
In the engine rooms and magazines, hull plates exploded into jagged, white-hot shards, tearing, rending, ricocheting, seeking, leaving behind nothing in their passage but terror and searing pain. But then the sea followed, curling in over the broken sizzling steel and mangled flesh, soothing, cooling, engulfing ship and crew both in its promise of peace.
Click … Click … Click … Click … Click … Click … Click …
The rocket pods were empty. Amanda suddenly realized they had been empty for a long time. And there was a hand, shaking her by the shoulder. And there was a voice.
“Skipper, c’mon, let go. Skipper, can you hear me? It’s over. Let it go!”
Amanda looked away from the targeting screen. Stone Quillain knelt beside her, helmetless, blood and camo paint streaking his face. Gradually the rest of the world seeped back into her awareness.
Beyond the empty frames of the windscreen she saw the Union battle squadron, what remained of it. The gunboats Alliance and Unity, drifting and ablaze from bow to stern. And the corvette, the Promise, the outline of her flame-licked upperworks distorting as she slowly capsized.
The sounds of the night came back as well. The guns were silent, but Amanda heard the turbine howl of the Carondelet and the Manassas as they hurried to the side of their crippled sister and the thudding rotors of the first medevac helicopter in the distance.
Someone wept nearby. Across the cockpit, Steamer Lane cried as he cradled a small, pale, and very still form in his arms, her water-sodden fall of honey-colored hair fanned over his arm, her blood a growing dark stain on his uniform shirt.
Amanda returned her gaze to the navigator’s console and to her hands, still locked around the joystick. “Stone, could you help me here,
please?”
She was surprised at how normal her voice sounded.
With clumsy care, Stone helped break the grip of her frozen hands on the controller. Freed, Amanda fell away from the console and back against Quillain’s chest. Her face pressed against the wet, smoke-reeking fabric of his utilities and his arm came around her shoulders. For a long minute they huddled together, not as a man and a woman, but only as two battered and bone-weary animals propping each other up. For the first time since she had come to Africa, Amanda felt cold.
“I guess we won,” Quillain said in a cracked whisper. “Or at least as close as it’s going to get.”
Port Monrovia Oiling Pier 0245 Hours, Zone Time;
September 8, 2007
A vast, roiling cloud of smoke drifted slowly inland, underlit by the burning hulk of the tanker. The Bajara was settling to the channel floor, her hull glowing a dull red and her super structure collapsing in upon itself as the steel softened and buckled.
With the coming of dawn, the pall of burning petroleum would be a banner of disaster that would be seen for a hundred miles.
The defense force was coming in from the breakwaters, the uninjured helping the wounded. Those who could walk carried those who could not. Obe Belewa made himself stand out on the access road and watch as they stumbled past through the headlights of the command track.
There were things in their faces that he had never seen before. Things that he had never wanted to see in the face of his soldiers. Defeat, sullen disillusionment, despair.
They passed in silence, the only sound the scuffing of boots on the road. Muttered conversations and voices that had been lifted in anger out in the darkness, cut off abruptly as Belewa was recognized.
Obe could not blame them. He had promised them victory and now they knew him to be a liar.
Sako Atiba came up to stand at his shoulder. “General,” he said coldly, “the American radio jamming has stopped. We have regained communication with all regional headquarters and with Mamba Point government center. What are your orders?”
The Premier General opened his mouth to reply, but found that he had no orders left to give.
Mobile Offshore Base, Floater One 0305 Hours, Zone Time;
September 8, 2007
“We’re secure here, Admiral.” Amanda Garrett’s voice was steady as it issued from the speaker, but the effort behind each word could be easily read. ”Sirocco has the Queen under tow and we are inbound to the platform at this time. All wounded and injured have been medevaced. I am releasing Carondelet and Manassas for reservicing, and with your permission I am closing out the Wolfrider time line.”
“Permission granted,” Macintyre replied over the radio link. “Wolfrider is secured. Well done, Captain.”
“No, sir, not this time.” Pain and a faint tremor touched the distant voice. “I cost you, Admiral. They hurt us. More than I like to think about.”
Macintyre grimaced into the microphone. “You know your Kipling, Captain. Remember what he had to say about the ‘savage wars of peace’?”
“I do, Admiral. I’ve recalled that line a number of times lately.”
“Very well, then. When can we expect you back on the platform?”
“Shortly after first light, sir. I’m riding back in with the Queen and her crew. I’ll be available for debriefing at your convenience.”
“Stand down and get some rest when you get aboard, Captain. The debrief can wait. Macintyre out.”
Christine keyed her own headset, relaying Amanda’s orders. “Operations, the Lady says secure the Wolfrider time line. All task force elements stand down from general quarters and resume standard operational protocols. Pass the word to all hands. Mission successful.”
She looked around to the systems operators in the briefing trailer. “That includes you guys. Go get some sleep. We can knock down the workstations later. Well done, gang.”
The wall screens blinked off, one after another, as the systems powered down. Stiffly, the S.O.s levered themselves out of their chairs, stretching out the kinks of too many sitting hours out of their spines. Macintyre and the intel realized just the opposite, that they had been on their feet continuously since well before midnight. As the enlisted hands departed, the two officers doffed their headsets and sank down on opposite sides of the conference table.
Christine remained seated for only a moment, however. Rising once more, she moved to the blackboard on the trailer bulkhead and studied the blurred words printed on it.
POWER PROJECTION
MAINTAIN SEA LINES OF COMMUNICATION
MAINTAIN FLEET IN BEING
Lines had already been drawn through the first two missions. Now she picked up the chalk and drew one through the third. Then, turning to the trailer’s small onboard refrigerator, she knelt down, popped open the door, and removed two cold cans of Mountain Dew soda.
“The last of a good vintage, Admiral,” she said, returning to the table and placing one of the cans in front of Macintyre. “I’ve been saving them for a special occasion.”
“This qualifies, Chris. Thanks.”
“What was that thing you mentioned with the Captain?” the intel inquired, resuming her chair. “That Kipling thing?”
“The savage wars of peace?” Macintyre popped the pull ring on his can with his thumb. “It’s just a line from a poem about the old British colonial times. Not a very politically correct piece of work these days, but one that still holds some truths.” He took a long, deliberate pull of cold soda. “Evaluations, Commander. What happens next?”
Christine shrugged and sipped her drink. “This conflict, as we know it, is over, Admiral. Belewa is out of everything—seapower, fuel, time, everything. The direct threat to Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire has passed, although they’re going to have a new set of problems to deal with as the West African Union breaks up.”
Macintyre cocked an eyebrow. “You think the Union will self-destruct?”
“Unless something radically changes, fa’sure. The West African Union is a very new government and a very tenuous one. It has, in essence, been a tribal union built around a one man personality cult, that of General Obe Belewa. The people of the Union owed their allegiance to him personally and not to any concept of ‘nation.’ ”
Christine rolled the cool side of her drink can across her forehead. “A prime example of this kind of thing is post World War II Yugoslavia. For decades, Josip Broz Tito held a violently diverse ethnic and cultural grouping together by political savvy, personality, and force of will. However, once the ‘Little White Violet of the Mountains’ was removed from the equation, plotz!”
“The same principle applies here. As long as Belewa is a winner, as long as he can deliver the goods and make things better, his people will follow. But once he’s shown up to be a mere mortal … Well, he’s going to have to pull a real miracle out of his ass to salvage this situation.”
“Well, that’s his problem, and that of various kings, potentates, and diplomats,” Macintyre replied grimly. “We held up our part of the bargain, Chris. We knocked Belewa off his white horse. Now they get to figure out who climbs into the saddle next. They’re welcome to the job.”
The Admiral studied the brightly painted beverage container in his hand as if for the moment it had become very important. “She pulled it off for us again, didn’t she? Another of her patented miracle packages.”
Christine nodded. “Yeah, she did. She’s real good at that kind of thing. Sometimes, though, I wonder how many more she has left in her before she hits the big one.”
“The big one?”
The intel gave another sober nod. “Yeah. You know, the job that’s finally going to be so tough that she’s going to have to die to get it done.”
Macintyre glanced up. “You think that’s going to happen to her?”
“Admiral,
it’s bound to, barring the sudden onset of the millennium. Amanda is the most totally ‘give a damn’ person I’ve ever met. And the ‘give a damns’ usually get used up pretty fast.”
“That’s all too true.” Macintyre crossed his arms on the tabletop and stared down at a coffee mug ring, his craggy features thoughtful. “You sound like you know Amanda Garrett pretty well, Chris.”
The Intel shrugged. “I like to think I do. Why?”
“Because I think I’d like to know a little bit more about her myself. I don’t suppose you could provide me with a … briefing on the subject, could you?”
“Why not, sir. Where do you want to start?”
Vice Admiral Elliot “Eddie Mac” Macintyre hesitated for a long moment, then said, “What’s her favorite color?”
Christine Rendino looked away to hide her grin. “Green. She really likes green a lot.”
Conclusions
Monrovia, West African Union 0919 Hours, Zone Time; September 10, 2007
Crouching on the dusty floor of the long-abandoned shack, the Union Special Forces trooper peered through a gap between the warped boards nailed over the door.
He wore no uniform this day. Instead he was barefoot and clad in ragged civilian shirt and shorts. It had been carefully explained to him that this was a most secret and critical mission and that no one outside of himself and the military high command at Mamba Point must know of it.
He dug out the watch, one of the two objects he carried in his pockets, to check the time. They should be coming soon. The trooper returned to his vigil.
Outside, the crumbling macadam roadway was empty. Set midway between Monrovia and the airport, the hut was too far outside the city proper to see the passage of many foot travelers, and motor vehicles were now almost unknown. Only the government had any fuel left at all, and little enough of that.
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