by David Poyer
At least they wouldn’t suffer. Just be obliterated, instantaneously vaporized to hot gas.
Fainter roars, behind and above. The ship was carrying out its last instructions. Emptying its magazines. Aegis would die fighting.
Could a computer recognize the end of its own existence? Become conscious, in the last microseconds?
The door to the citadel was closed. Wenck hammered at it. “Open the fuck up!” he shouted. She and Terranova exchanged glances. What if the others didn’t let them in? Well, it probably wouldn’t make any difference.
It swung open at last. The remainder of the crew huddled inside. They stared up, blinking, pale, cheeks shining with sweat. Mills slammed the door behind them, twisting the dogs home with the wrench.
Cheryl checked her watch, drawing each breath slowly, savoring that single bite of air as if it were her last. The second hand was clicking from numeral to numeral. “Brace for shock,” she called, two seconds before the IPP time for the warheads targeted on the base.
The second hand clicked forward. Again.
A reddish-ocher flash flickered in her head, not behind her eyes, but so deep in her brain that it seemed for a moment more like her inmost soul, illuminated suddenly and brutally, from within and without alike, by a deep, all-encompassing russet-ruby light.
* * *
A moment later the steel around them whiplashed. It knocked those who were standing into power cabinets, fuel transfer pumps, and air-conditioning units, and jerked those who’d been sitting off their chairs. The lights cut off, plunging them into absolute darkness. The sound was beyond sound, a sharp solid cone that penetrated her eardrums like a steel spike. The compartment shook again, from side to side and up and down. It seemed to reel around them in the darkness.
The shock wave bass-drummed away, succeeded by silence. Ringing, earsplitting, eerie silence.
A beam cut the darkness. It flickered, went out, glowed on again.
The emergency lighting revealed pallid faces, some streaked with blood, others with tears. Bodies were sprawled around the compartment like rats tossed by a terrier.
Cheryl found herself on hands and knees on the starboard bulkhead, which seemed now to be the deck. It was still vibrating beneath her palms, thrumming like a huge taut string. But the compartment was totally silent.
Someone was shaking her. A young woman’s face above her, mouth open.
The corpsman, Duncanna Ryan. Cheryl shook her head, pointed to her ears. Then caught the tail of the shout as one ear, at least, returned to operation. “… okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m all right, Dunkie.”
Another voice was sobbing in the far corner, by the air-conditioning unit. “Somebody’s hurt.”
“Doc’s taking care of him. Can you get up?—Skipper’s okay!” Ryan yelled across the space.
Cheryl peered around, disoriented and dizzied. Was the compartment really on its side? A huge machine loomed ominously above her. The #2 fuel transfer pump, but at a crazy angle. Wrenched halfway off the shockproof mountings.
She felt weak, shaky, but when she kneaded her arm, it seemed no worse. Then she noticed that water was rolling this way and that across the deck. And that a stench of burning was penetrating the closed, quickly heating air of the compartment.
Bart Danenhower helped her to her feet. The big engineer didn’t look as if he was going to crack any jokes today. “We’re blown over. Nearly on our beam ends. Shock wave hit us on the port side.”
“Will we come back upright?”
“I’d need to be in DC Central to answer that.” He reached for his gas mask.
“Bart…”
“I’ll just stay out long enough to counterflood.”
“No. I mean, I’m going too. I have to get topside.”
“It’s gonna be bad up there.”
“Well, at least we know where one warhead was targeted.”
She wondered briefly if Savo’s weapons had connected, if Honolulu’s population still lived. Then pushed it from her mind. All that remained was to lead her people to safety. If she could.
If, indeed, it was safe outside the skin of the ship. Usually warheads were set for airburst, but there would still be fallout. Sleeted with neutrons already, though partially protected by fuel and steel and plastic, none of Savo’s crew needed more exposure. Not to mention whatever other horrors lurked up there: fire, spilled fuel …
The door clanked open, silhouetting Danenhower against the glow of the battle lanterns; then it closed again. She rapped out orders. Commence emergency destruction. Prepare to abandon ship. She clanged open the locker and rummaged for a protective suit. Bent, and began pulling it up over her coveralls.
* * *
SHE climbed toward the main deck, planting the heavy floppy rubber overboots clumsily on the ladder treads, peering through the curved plastic of the mask. The hood of the nuclear-bacteriological-chemical suit was drawstringed tight around the one-piece lens. She felt breathless in the Joint Service mask, but not as severely as in the old MCU-2. This mask was better balanced, too, with filters that stuck out on both sides. The thick rubber gloves cushioned the handrails she grabbed to pull herself up. She felt as if she were being controlled from a distance. By herself, or some other entity? That was the question.
At the main deck level she turned left for the door. She had to hammer the dogs to get it open. They groaned open reluctantly, meaning the superstructure was distorted by blast.
When she stepped outside she saw why.
The whole side of the ship was smoking, its paint blistered down to bare metal. The liferails were twisted inward. The heavy doubled lines holding Savo to the pier were charred, burning, dancing with bluish flame.
She surveyed smashed buildings, fiercely burning rubble. The cranes were toppled into acres of burning fuel. Beyond that she couldn’t see much for the smoke, but ground zero of at least one burst had been west of the harbor, perhaps over the old naval airstrip on Ford Island. Bracketing the base, for maximum damage.
Lifting each boot was an exertion. She plodded toward the brow. The metal gangway was buckled, crumpled up into the quarterdeck. It creaked and rocked alarmingly as she pulled herself onto it. Behind her the remaining crew edged out onto the main deck, then backtracked to head forward along the less-damaged starboard side.
Mills and McMottie accompanied her, as slow as she was in overboots and protective gear. Like large green grubs with insectile faces, they inchwormed over the groaning, rickety brow to the pier.
Here, concrete smoldered. The pier itself looked mostly whole, though cracks ran through it, but black puddles of liquid asphalt burned where the roadway had been patched. The darker surfaces had absorbed more heat from the fireball’s flash, torching anything that would burn. Then the overpressure, shock wave, blast, had knocked down every building and blown apart any structure that offered resistance.
Shading her gaze, she twisted to peer eastward. Expecting more smoke, fire, disaster. But though huge pyramids of flame and great black billows rose from the fuel facility, she didn’t see any smoke in the direction of the city. Had her missiles knocked down those warheads? Or had those only been decoys, cunningly aimed to force her to waste ordnance?
No answer suggested itself, so she turned back and plodded aft again, toward the little civilian-contractor tug that had been moored astern. As she’d hoped, it was still afloat, though listing. The black-painted hull was scorched and the rubber-tire fenders were still gouting yellow flame and thick inky smoke, but apparently the cruiser’s bulk had shielded it from the worst of the flash. The gangway had been blown into the water, leaving only shreds of aluminum, but the Savo sailors were able to clamber down to the deck. Cheryl and Mills headed for the pilothouse; McMottie found a main deck door and disappeared below.
Cheryl’s Hydra clicked on shortly after. “We’re in luck,” McMottie said. “One of the crew was sleeping aboard. Feels sick, but he says he can turn the engines over.”
“G
ood, Senior Chief. Get a mask on him. If you have any of those radiation pills left, give him a dose.” She peered through the glassless, blown-out window openings, the smoke from the burning rubber. If he felt sick already, the neutron flux up here must have been horrendous. So high that her own crew would be feeling the effects soon, though they’d been more sheltered.
She studied the controls. Z-drive, with twin joysticks to manage thrust, and nearly the same bollard pull in any direction. Ticos had no thrusters to control the bow, so they usually used two tugs to moor, one fast to the bow, the other standing by astern to call in as needed. She had only this one, and unfortunately, with all the topside damage, no idea now how the wind would take the ship.
They’d just have to cope. “Matt, get those lines cast off. Chief, let me know when we have propulsion.” Was she feeling nauseated too? She wasn’t sure if it was the mask, the horror all around, or the beginning of radiation sickness.
And it probably didn’t matter.
She just had one last thing to do.
A pair of Engine Ready lights illuminated on the panel. “Can only start two,” McMottie crackled over the Hydra.
“No problem, Senior Chief. That’ll be adequate.”
“Ready to answer all bells,” the engineer said, with a firm certainty in his tone. The pride of all the engineers who had propelled Navy ships through almost two centuries.
She punched the horn, but it didn’t work. Sheared off, probably. And slowly advanced the throttle, cautiously, listening in case any debris had ended up on the bottom near the screws.
The last charred, still-burning line to the pier parted in puffs of soot and sparks. The tug edged sideways out of its berth. She nudged the thrusters around, and it straightened and headed up Savo’s side. She hugged the cruiser’s hull, and when she bumped it, the tug’s still-smoldering fenders smeared off a black smoking smudge.
She halted at the bow, idling while the ad hoc line-handling party dropped a mooring line to Mills, standing on the tug’s broad rounded stern.
It didn’t have to be the towing hawser. They didn’t need to go far.
Mills stepped back from the bitts and flashed her a thumbs-up. She waved him clear and advanced the throttle again. The line came taut, but nothing happened. She examined the controls, then advanced them to 100 percent power. With a squeak and a tortured writhe, the heavy hawser went rigid-taut.
After several seconds, the cruiser lurched. The pier wall fell back a few feet, then stalled again. She backed off, letting them all recover, then applied full-ahead power once more. This time when the hawser came taut the tug shuddered, then slowly moved ahead.
Glancing back, she saw ten thousand tons of cruiser slow-marching after her. Savo’s upperworks were wrecked. The phased arrays had been blasted into junk. The pilothouse, all its glass blasted out, its paint scorched black, was visibly bent to starboard.
Once the pride of the fleet, USS Savo Island had taken her crew around the world. Fought in the Med, the Gulf, the Indian Ocean, the China Sea. Now she was a hopeless wreck, magazines empty, on fire, headed to her grave.
But even there, she could still serve.
With the tug’s engines pounding at full power, Cheryl steered out of the Southeast Loch, past the destroyer piers, into the turning basin. Ahead of her smoke boiled off USS Missouri. Aside from having her antennas sheared off, the old battleship seemed largely undamaged. Only her paint was on fire. The white concrete arch of the Arizona Memorial lay toppled and broken, smashed down into the sunken wreck below in a second, even more perfidious act of infamy.
Aiming the tug’s bow to port, she made for the channel out. Past Ford Island, off Hospital Point, the way to the sea pinched in. If she could scuttle athwart that narrowing entryway, Savo’s dying hulk, nearly six hundred feet long, would block the channel. If the raiding force managed to land, they’d have to debark across an open beach. She would deny any invader the harbor, the naval and ship repair facilities, the airfields … or what was left of them.
Mills stepped over the wreckage of the door to stand behind her. Squinting ahead, she picked out where best to ground the bow, east of the channel. But how to get the stern around? She squinted aft at the burning cruiser, trying to judge if the wind would help or hinder.
Mills’s glove on her shoulder. “What are we planning here, CO?”
“Trying to figure out where the stern’s going.”
Well, if she rammed the bow in hard enough, the inertia of thousands of tons of steel should swing the stern outward. If it didn’t stop where she wanted it, she’d just have to reposition the tug, and hold the ship in place as it settled.
She glanced at the Fathometer, but of course it was dead. Burned out by the electromagnetic pulse. The queer maroon flash she’d sensed even through closed eyelids. Staring through the shattered window, she nudged the thrusters left, overcorrected, corrected back.
A few minutes more, and she’d no longer be the skipper. Once Savo was in position, the engineers would trigger the demo charges and blow the bottom out.
Cheryl doubled over, gagging inside the mask. Bile rose in her throat. No question, her hands were shaking. “Eddie,” she whispered. “It won’t be long now.”
The second nuclear attack. And this time on an American base, a helpless city. Surely America would strike back after this. Surely China would pay.
But what about her crew? Perhaps they could straggle ashore, find shelter, a way to help fight off the approaching enemy. Or else just drag themselves to some dark corner, like a perishing animal, to lie down and die.
They would just have to see.
III
MY SHIP HAS NO RUDDER
13
The Karakoram Mountains
“HE is here, Lingxiù.” Guldulla loomed in the cave’s portal, blocking the light.
Teddy had been squatting on his haunches, mind empty, watching the clouds go by.
A month had passed since the raid on the pipeline. They’d taken even more losses on the march back. Drones tracked them night and day. Gunships struck each time they crossed a stream, a valley, the smallest patch of open ground. Mountain troops hit them twice, inserted by helo overlooking pinch points. At last Teddy had confiscated a herd of goats, and split the party up. Posing as locals moving their flocks to pasturage, they’d filtered back.
But only sixty-one fighters had stumbled in, out of two hundred. They’d lost dozens of weapons. All the donkeys, broken down, shot, or starved. No one had kept a count on the bearers, mostly slave women, at all.
The upside: Akhmad had been uphill during the battle, videotaping. Dubbed with stirring music and a running commentary of hate, they had a propaganda masterpiece. The Han controlled the internet. But copied and passed from bazaar to madrassa, hamlet to city by friendly truckers, the video brought in a flood of new recruits. He’d bloodied them with raids on police stations and wind generators, targeted assassinations of local officials and Uighur collaborators.
Some of the new arrivals, of course, had been spies. These Guldulla took down into the canyon. They did not return.
Now it was time to render an account.
* * *
INSTEAD of a greatcoat, on this visit their field officer wore a camo field jacket. Under it, though, was the same maroon turtle21neck. And the shoulder rig, of course. A duffel lay at his feet. Reflective sunglasses hid his eyes. His stubbled cheeks were altitude-burned. Three others stood with him: shorter, swarthier, in local dress and sandals. They looked uncomfortable with the Uighurs’ rifles pointed at them.
“Vladimir” shook hands. “Ted. I saw the video. Great optics! Congratulations!”
Teddy had to retwist his brain into English. At last he managed, “We took a lot of losses.”
The Agency liaison eyed him curiously. “How’s the leg?”
“It’s not too bad.”
“Doing okay, up here all alone?”
“I’m not alone. Yeah, I’m doing fine.”
�
��Okay, if you’re sure … Some good news. First, congratulations. You’re the million-dollar man.”
Teddy just stared at him.
“The Chinese put a bounty on you. A million dollars.” The guy seemed to reflect, then, that Obie might not see that as good news. He added, “And, well, that shopping list you gave me? I think you’ll like what you’re getting. Two truckfuls.”
“Trucks?”
“Well, they’re forty miles away. Parked, camo’d, and guarded. Back roads from India. The slants have beefed up their recon. Drops are getting risky; thought we’d better find an alternate supply route.” Vlad stripped off his gloves, looking around. “So … we go inside?”
“Maybe. Who’re your friends?” Teddy nodded at the others, liking neither the news of a price on his head, which around here meant literally, nor the fact the CIA officer had brought strangers along. Once the Han knew where the caves were, raids by their special ops teams wouldn’t be far behind.
Vladimir introduced “Pancho” and “Leonardo,” obviously code names. They muttered greetings in what he was pretty sure was Burushaski while extending limp handshakes.
Vlad said, “The Hunza operate on the other side of the border, in Azad Kashmir. Antigovernment, so they’re on our side. Sort of. Upstairs thought it’d be good for them to link up with you ITIM guys, since what we brought had to come through their territory. And, to be frank, they got a hefty cut.”
Teddy had had to put some sort of name on the video credits. ITIM—the Independent Turkistan Islamic Movement—harked back to an earlier resistance the Han had crushed. But also forward, to the promise of a union of all the Turkic peoples from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. And of course, above all, “Chinese” Turkistan. Teddy shook hands with them. Then turned to the third, who hadn’t been introduced yet. An older man with a grizzled beard. Squat, smiling, he hesitated before accepting Teddy’s handshake.
“And who’s this?”
“Call me Qurban,” the guy said in Uighur, still grinning. He and Guldulla eyed each other.