The Rise of the Speaker

by Pete Driscoll

  This flotilla was the purest – in terms of race – that had flown the American flag since the first world war, every single crewman was a perfect specimen of Americanness; there were a few ethnics and non-Christians serving on some of the other ships, maybe even a few Jews, but the Cole at least was pure.

  “Okay…” he said to himself as he flicked the butt of his cigarette into the black waters of the Atlantic, “… who is joining us on this grand expedition?” Harry was more than a Navy man, he was – as his friends would joke – a Navy nerd, proud in his ability to name every ship in the US Navy by their hull number alone and although the light from the western horizon had started to fade, he could still make out some of the ships around him in the carrier group formation.

  The carrier was in the centre of the formation, his ship – the Cole – was at the carriers 5 o’clock at a range of about 300 yards. At 3 o’clock, and slightly closer to the Carl Vison, was the guided missile cruiser USS Anzio. Three other destroyers made up the 2, 10 and 7 o’clock positions, the Bulkeley, the Winston. S. Churchill and the Nitze. The other cruiser at 9 was the USS Chancellorsville. These seven ships made up the centre of the task force with the rest of the ships spread out in an increasingly wide defensive circle around them. He could only make out three of them from where he stood, and only the hull numbers of two of them; the destroyers Mason and Farragut but he knew from mustering at Norfolk that there were Amphibious assault ships, more missile cruisers and destroyers and a host of support ships somewhere out of view and also, lurking beneath the inky black waters, at least two nuclear powered attack submarines stalked the depths. It was a truly humbling amount of firepower.

  He wasn’t due on duty until midnight, so – lighting another cigarette – he leant back against the rail and smirked in the knowledge that most of his ship mates were running drills, mopping decks or cleaning the head while he was relaxing on deck. It was a nice evening, it reminded him of his childhood vacations to the Florida coast; warm and calm. The sea was steady, and he watched in admiration as the hulking beast of the Carl Vinson sliced through the shallow waves on its way to battle.

  He stayed there – smoking and watching the objects of his obsession – until long after dark, the ships now only distinguishable by their running lights and the illumination from a few port holes; the dull glow from the ship’s respective bridges barely visible from this distance. A noise caught his attention as it drifted across the water.

  Sounds like an alarm

  A gust of wind drowned out the noise, he shrugged and drew another lung full of smoke from his cigarette. When the wind died down, the noise seemed louder, now coming from two directions instead of one, he straightened himself up and peered into the darkness, had the bridge on the Anzio turned green? That was only ever used when the ship was in combat. No, couldn’t be. They were in the middle of nowhere, the enemy was still over a thousand miles away.

  Suddenly, a white light partially blinded him as it shot into the sky from the missile pods on the front of the cruiser. They’re firing? “What the…” The general alarm cut his sentence short.

  “All hands to action stations!” the voice of the Exo blared from the speakers above the warble of the general alarm, “I repeat, all hands to action stations, this is not a drill!” Harry flicked his half-finished cigarette into the sea, turning towards the hatch just in time to watch the front of his ship light up as two Sea Sparrow ship-to-ship missiles were launched into the air, levelling off after 100ft and flying off to the south. The streaks of other missiles fired from various ships in the fleet lit up the sky as they turned and flew overhead, racing – assumedly – towards the distant enemy.

  Maybe they weren’t thousands of miles away… Did Atlantia even have a navy?

  He peered down the side of the ship, squinting into the distant South as the missiles faded from view. Flashes? The missiles couldn’t have hit the enemy already, could they? And why the hell were they green? Harry had never seen action before, but he was pretty sure that explosions were orange or even white, not green. The flashes reminded him of watching the state fair’s fireworks display through the Florida fog, or watching a distant – green – lighting storm that was raging across the horizon.

  A green flash slammed into the front of Carl Vinson at the exact point the flight deck met the hull – jerking Harry’s mind back to the present. A deafening explosion echoed around the fleet as the top of the carrier ripped open like a hot knife through butter, a gouge being ripped along the flight deck and sheets of plated deck armour, broken aircraft and shattered bodies were thrown into the air as a green explosion erupted out of the gaping gash as the bolt exploded deep within the bowels of the vessel, burning debris was thrown into the sea and the whole command bridge that towered over the flight deck was illuminated by the bright green fires that engulfed the deck. A few seconds later, the command bridge itself was hit; another green flash erupting into a massive and violent explosion inside the base of the tower, the sounds of alarms and screaming men was drowned out by metal groaning in complaint as the tower collapsed under its own weight – its support structure obliterated – the tower ripped from its moorings and toppled into the sea.

  Harry could only watch in helpless disbelief.

  He felt the Cole lurch, as his ship – like every other ship in the flotilla – turned and spread out; a sinking ship posed a significant danger to vessels close by so, by spreading out, they not only negated that risk, but made it harder for enemy fire to hit concentrations of ships.

  His eyes were still fixed on the burning hulk of the Carl Vinson as the Cole began turning away, the Anzio was doing the same but in the opposite direction, moving in front of, and perpendicular to the stricken carrier. The other destroyers in the formation were moving away from the devastated ship as well, Harry could see the aft of the Farragut, its engines powering it further away into the distance as more green flashes flew through the sky, the sounds of distant explosions and the green glows illuminating the sky all around indicating that at least some of the flashes had hit their mark.

  Another green flash lit up the sky, Harry’s eyes shooting back to the Anzio as two bolts slammed into the superstructure at the centre of the ship, snapping the vessel in half like a dried twig. Another enormous fireball pillowed into the sky as the twisted metal buckled and sheared under the force of the impact, the front of the ship rolled onto its side almost immediately, the rear section bobbed in place for a moment as the sea rushed into the now open hull. Within a few seconds, the propellers were raising out of the sea as the weight of the water pulled the damaged section into the sea.

  It had been less than thirty seconds since the Carl Vinson was hit, Harry managed to pull his eyes away from the Anzio and its upright stern just in time to see a bolt hit the Winston S. Churchill, in a heartbeat the ship disappeared inside an enormous explosion as the impact ignited the magazine. Every bullet, torpedo and missile in the ship’s arsenal detonated simultaneously ripping the ship apart. By the time the fireball cleared, all that was left of the Churchill – the sister ship of the Cole – was a few pieces of burning wreckage and a sea of debris.

  Another two bolts hit the side of the Carl Vinson closest to Harry, tearing massive holes in the hull at the waterline, holes almost big enough to accommodate the Cole, and the carrier started listing heavily to the damaged starboard side. The Nitze was on its port side, Harry hadn’t even seen her get hit, but couldn’t pull his eyes away as he watched it continue to capsize, her belly now bobbing above the waves as her damaged superstructure pulled her down. As the Cole cleared the flaming wreckage of the Carl Vinson, the burning Chancellorsville came into view, her decks completely engulfed in flames, she too was slowly slipping into the water.

  Another blinding white light pulled Harry’s attention to the front of his own ship as another salvo of missiles were launched towards the enemy, noticeably fewer missiles from other ships rose into the air to follow them. His eyes immediately shot back towards
the sea as an immense gout of water exploded out of the waves between the Cole and sinking Chancellorsville, not doubt signalling the destruction of a submarine. Harry found himself hoping that it was one of the enemy subs that had blown up, but the scene of carnage and destruction all around him gave him a strong suspicion that the opposite was true.

  A voice pulled his focus to the hatchway of the Cole, his eyes not willing to leave the scene of lifeboats being frantically lowered from the Carl Vinson; they were conspicuous in their absence from all the other wreckages. But the voice persisted.

  “…Rivers!” He recognised the man who was yelling to him from the door into the aft superstructure. Bo Daniels had been a member of his clan chapter and they had signed up together, but with a college degree, Daniels had been made a lieutenant and Harry’s superior. “What the hell are you doing!?! Get your ass to your post! Can’t you see we are under attack!?! Action stations, dammit, Action stations!”

  Harry couldn’t talk, he scanned his eyes across the guard rail at the burning and sinking fleet all around him, an unshakable feeling of dread filling the place in his chest where his heart had once been. He shook his head clear and started forward; Daniels was right, this was the time to fight! Stock could be taken of their losses after they had taught a lesson to the Atlantians, their liberal leaders, racially inferior population and…

  Bo Daniels disappeared in sheet of green flames as a bolt hit the Cole in the bridge, ripped through the superstructure and exploded in the helicopter hanger a few feet from where the men were standing. Harry’s hands came up instinctively to shield his face from the flames but the searing heat of the fireball wracked every nerve of his flesh as he felt himself being thrown into the air, his body being lifted by the force of the blast and launched away from the Cole. His skin cracked and melted; his uniform burned from his body and the excruciating and blinding pain was only slightly abated when the inky black sea came up to meet him.

  Harry somehow found the strength to kick his way to the surface, the chocking water being coughed from his lungs as the silence beneath the waves was replaced by the deafening roar and groaning metal of the Cole – now 30ft away – burning against the night sky, the bridge was a tangle mess of twisted steel and the superstructure was a blazing inferno. He looked to his left as three bolts hit the Farragut, pieces of debris flying into the air. The Amphibious assault ship that he had been so keen to sight earlier – The USS Tripoli – had turned and was steaming away from the battle, listing slightly and flames billowing from two holes in the deck. Most of the support ships were withdrawing as well, but a number more were either aflame or sinking. The Bulkeley was also powering away, the majority of its superstructure had been blown out of existence, but the bridge was apparently still intact. In fact, any ship which hadn’t been destroyed or disabled had now turned and was fleeing the battle, green flashes racing across the sky after them.

  He looked back towards his own ship just as another bolt hit it, this time in front of the main gun and the Cole immediately started listing forward, the shockwave from the new blast threw a wave over his head, Harry coughed and spluttered trying to get the thick salty liquid out of his lungs and tried to regain his bearings, maybe there was a lifeboat close enough to pick him up and…

  Wait… thick? Water shouldn’t be thick…

  He lifted his hands from the water, for the first time seeing the burned away stubs that were once his fingers, parts of skin were burned away almost to the bone, other parts looked like it had melted and reset on his body in twisted and hideously deformed patterns. He stared as his ruined and useless appendages before he noticed the black sticky substance. He sniffed it… Oil?

  He turned himself around, trying to desperately swim away from the slick but – being unsure where is was coming from – he was swimming blind. The Chancellorsville was gone, so was the Nitze and both halves of the Anzio, the Carl Vinson was a much bigger vessel and due to its size, was taking longer to go down. He could see the men running furiously around the deck, some trying to deploy lifeboats, others trying to tackle the enormous flames spewing from the gash along the deck. Even from this angle and distance, the damage was impossible to miss, if he could get close enough, he might be spotted by one of the lifeboat crews and rescued, it was his only hope… his ruined hands were useless for swimming, he could only guess at the state of his legs and staying afloat was becoming harder by the moment.

  A speck of movement caught his eye on the deck of the Carl Vinson, as a burning plane started to slide along the listing deck. Harry watched in terror as it reached the side of the ship, teetering on the safety rails for a few seconds before it toppled towards the sea. He looked down at the water lapping at his chin.

  As soon as the wreckage hit the water, the sea erupted in flame. A hellscape of fire raced across the surface towards him, he tried to close his eyes, realising for the first time that his eye lids had been almost completely burned away, he had no choice but to watch the inferno as it shot across the sea and enveloped his body. His face and arms burned in the fires and the water boiled as his ears picked up the disembodied sound of his own screams – a noise that he would never have imagined a human capable of making.

  Finally – Mercifully – darkness came.

  He greeted it gratefully.