The Genie and the Engineer 3: Ravages of War

by Glenn Michaels

  But this new message changed all of that. Apparently the attack on the Halsey had quite the impact on Washington’s thinking. Just an hour ago, right after the Halsey attack, he had received a highly modified set of Rules of Engagement for his carrier group to operate under, and now, they had the right to properly defend themselves.

  He grinned. The Halsey had paid a high price, in blood and lives. But his command would reap the benefit.

  The Chinese were going to regret tangling with the United States Navy. Regret it deeply.

  He climbed out of his chair and went over to check the navigation chart. The lead ship in the group, DDG 101, the USS Gridley, was less than an hour from entering the Luzon Straight, north of Babuyan Island. And there was an E-2D Hawkeye AWACS airborne, acting as a radar sentry, probing the air space through the Straight. What’s more, there were two SH-60 Seahawk helicopters working the waters with dipping sonars, checking for submarines.

  The Vinson would be through and into the South China Sea by mid-afternoon, at the latest. He grinned again. If the Chinese wanted a fight, they’d get one.

  Cipriano failed to notice the matching grin on the PAO (Public Affairs Officer), a lieutenant, standing on the far side of the bridge. Who, in reality, was the Errabêlu wizard Clarke, in disguise.

  THIRTEEN

  Ascraeus Mons

  Mars

  Thursday, 8:45 a.m. LMST

  April

  Day 132

  The black cube of a Scottie darted through the portal, hanging above the nearly airless surface of the caldera of Ascraeus Mons. He was followed, one by one, by more Daneels until there were a total of two hundred of them gathered together.

  A second portal opened allowing Paul, in his spacesuit, to float through and join them.

  He glanced around at all the black cubes suspended in mid-air, spotting Daneel 1 as the Scottie moved closer to him.

  “Ready when you are, Dad,” said a voice through a small transceiver mounted in Paul’s transparent diamond helmet.

  He nodded in reply.

  Daneel 1 lowered himself to the Martian surface where he made physical contact before casting a spell. A new portal opened, this time many millions of miles long, all the way to the surface of Earth’s Moon.

  This portal represented a new feature, only active for a little over a week now. In light of the nearly continuous stream of trips that were being made back and forth to Earth for supplies, Paul had directed that a more streamlined method be developed, this one using a very long range portal rather than a long series of short (300,000 miles each) portals across interplanetary space. Two weeks previously, Daneel 1 had therefore organized two small teams of Daneels, one at Ascraeus Mons and the other at Peary Crater on the North Pole of the Moon, to implement Paul’s request.

  Of the two teams, the one that went to Peary had by far the more difficult task. Their job was to construct a single solidified mass of lunar rock and soil in the northern rim mountains, one large enough to be used as an amulet with the power to reach Mars via a portal. The idea was to use Peary as the doorway for the trips back to Mars from the Earth.

  The team at Ascraeus Mons had a much easier job: enlarging the ‘solid rock’ of the caldera that Daneels 1 and 2 had created earlier, to make it big enough and powerful enough for the range necessary to reach all the way to the Moon.

  Why the Moon and not the Earth? The amount of the energy dissipated by such a long distance jump would be instantly detectable if one end of that long of a portal occurred anywhere on the Earth’s surface. Hence the need to use the Moon as a way station instead.

  The rim of Peary Crater at the Moon’s North Pole was chosen for a special purpose. It was the only spot on the lunar surface that received full sunlight for more than 90% of the year and which therefore would maintain a nearly constant temperature. It was Paul’s hope that they could one day build a small permanent transfer station there.

  The two hundred Scotties, led by Paul, arrived at the monolith at Peary. Paul took a moment to glance around at the terrain, somehow more stark and alien than that of Mars. Here the mountains were brighter, the shadows in the depth of the crater (which never saw sunlight) totally black and impenetrable.

  Then everyone portaled out again. This time the distance was much shorter, to a point ten thousand miles above the night side of Earth’s surface. From there, they darted, portal by portal, around the equator until they were on the daylight side, above the South China Sea. Slowly, they portaled in closer, to just 500 miles from the surface.

  Their timing was such that it was just a few minutes after noon in Manila in the Philippines.

  Paul cast a small spell to key the mike on his transceiver. “Daneel 1, create a grid search pattern of the northern end of the South China Sea. Assign each Daneel to visually scan a square of the grid. Use infrared if there are clouds in the way but keep the scan passive. Look for naval ships of any type, large aircraft or small jets moving at supersonic speeds. Report significant contacts.”

  “I will comply,” Daneel 1 said, in a perfect imitation of Seven of Nine’s feminine voice, from Star Trek Voyager.

  Paul raised his eyebrows and chuckled. “I’m creating an army of sci-fi geeks.”

  “Oh?” Daneel 1 replied. “Next thing you’ll be saying is that we’re blocks off the old chip.”

  “Ooh, ouch! I surrender, already. Please, do the visual scan.”

  “Roger, dodger.”

  “Uh, Daneel 66 here, Dad. I’m picking up UHF chatter, in the 250 to 380 MHz band from the area below! Listen to this!”

  Paul blinked, then focused his attention on the sudden buzz of radio traffic, interspersed with static filled pauses.

  “Nine! On your six! Break right, break right!” said an agitated deep male voice.

  “Copy, twelve,” replied another voice, breathing short heavy gasps.

  A second of static, followed by:

  “Fox two! Fox two!” shouted yet a third voice.

  “Eight is hit! Eight is hit! Going down! Ejecting!” cried a fourth voice.

  “Copy, eight!”

  “On his tail, on his tail! Guns, guns, guns!” shouted a fifth voice.

  Paul waved a hand and the radio chatter was cut off.

  “It would seem that the party has started without us,” Paul noted with a grim voice. “Daneel 1, find that dogfight! Then let’s take down a hundred Scotties, using the same tactics that Mom used in Brasilia last year to distract the pilots. Pass the word to take out any missiles in the air. Don’t try to be stealthy. I seriously doubt if there are any Oni or wizards in the cockpits of any of those planes.”

  “Right, Dad. Only…”

  “Only what?” asked a puzzled Paul. “We must hurry. People are dying, both Americans and Chinese.”

  “It’s just that ‘Having been a first officer yourself, you know that assuming that responsibility must, by definition, include the safety of the captain. I have no problem with following any rules you lay down, short of compromising your safety.’”

  Paul grunted in surprise at the quote, recognizing it from Star Trek: The Next Generation. And the next line was his.

  “And you don’t intend to back off from that position?” he asked, with a glower.

  “‘No, sir,’” replied Daneel 1 mostly firmly. “There are two hundred copies of me. And only one of you, Dad. You are not replaceable.”

  Paul sighed. “Something tells me that this is not the only time this conversation is going to come up. Very well. Take a hundred Daneels with you. Break up that dogfight!”

  “‘I MUST obey my master!’” Daneel 1 quipped, quoting Darth Vader in Star Wars, Return of the Jedi and using his deep distinctive voice.

  “Not Vader, please!” Paul begged, with a wince. “Keep me informed! Ah, Daneel 101, where are you?”

  “Here, Dad,” volunteered another black cube, moving forward through the crowd.

  There was a string bulb series of flashes as ninety-nine Daneels portaled out, fo
llowing Daneel 1 in the lead.

  “Daneel 101, please continue the visual search,” ordered Paul. “Find the carriers! And keep track of the radio chatter.”

  “‘Resistance is futile,’” the Scottie wisecracked.

  Paul cast his eyes heavenward in vexation. It was going to be that kind of day.

  Ω

  One hundred black cubes raced across the clear blue sky. A few miles in front of them were at least two dozen fighter jets, mostly American F/A-18 Hornets and Chinese Shenyang J-15’s in a free-for-all dogfight—spinning, banking, climbing, and dodging their way around the sky in all sorts of high G maneuvers. There were several small objects, apparently missiles that screamed through the air after various planes. One such made contact and there was an explosion, a plane spiraling out of control, breaking into pieces.

  It was a real furball of a fight!

  “Daneel 50! Rescue that pilot!” shouted Daneel 1 as the other Scotties neared the conflict. “All other Daneels, full holographic license! Engage!”

  Ω

  Lt. Riche the “Ruble” Towles banked his F/A-18F hard right, in an effort to shake the Chinese J-15 on his six and avoid a missile up his tail. Such was the G-forces on him that the lower part of his suit had inflated, to keep the blood from collecting in his legs. And even at that, his vision was blurring on the outer edges.

  Nevertheless, it was impossible to miss the sudden appearance of the large winged creature that descended out of the sky on his right wing, banking with him.

  He even recognized it, from the movie Avatar. Yeah, a mountain banshee, this one ridden by a Na’vi, his hair whipping wildly in the wind. The rider turned his head to Towles and, raising one hand, waved at him before turning back to the front.

  “No way!” Richie gasped, as he jerked the stick downward and back to the left, barely avoiding both the fictional flying beast and the PL-9 missile on his tail.

  Ω

  Lieutenant Commander Jerry “Eight Ball” Paxson, in Beef Eater 7, completed a high yo-yo maneuver, flattening out perfectly behind a J-15, lining the enemy plane up in his HUD.

  “Dead meat,” he hissed as his thumb moved to the missile launch button.

  But then his plane shook hard and three large black shapes shot past, one on each side of him and one above.

  For a moment, his mind refused to accept what he was seeing. Then they registered. Imperial TIE fighters! From Star Wars! No, not here!

  He yanked back on the stick, maneuvering for distance.

  Ω

  Both the Chinese and American pilots were frantically breaking free of the melee, clawing for distance, each pilot having experienced multiple “hallucinations” ranging from air-borne fire-breathing dragons to a Borg cube to a pterodactyl to flying saucers (from The Invaders) to various space fighters (from Babylon 5, Space 1999, Battlestar Galactica, UFO, The Last Starfighter and a host of other movies and TV shows).

  As the jet fighters fled the scene, heading back to their respective carriers, Daneel 1 arranged to have the pilots who had been shot down fished out of the sea and ‘returned.’ The two Chinese pilots (one alive and slightly injured, the other deceased) to be dropped via portal to Woody Island in the Paracel Island group. The Americans (one of them seriously wounded) on the front steps of the hospital on Antonio Bautista Air Base on Palawan island in the Philippines.

  Ω

  Paul tried to rub his hands to wipe off the sweat, a difficult thing to do when confined in a spacesuit. More sweat dewed on his brow, which he also could not reach.

  The spacesuit was getting a bit uncomfortable, both in terms of smell and the various itches that he could not scratch. And too, he had been in zero-G long enough that he had dispatched two Scotties down into the atmosphere with one of his air bottles to recharge it with oxygen. But despite the discomforts of his current situation, there really was no better place than here in low orbit to monitor the battle.

  While he was waiting on Daneel 1 for a progress update, Daneel 101 had reported locating both the Chinese and American fleets. Paul studied the holographic aerial view of the US aircraft carrier as it ploughed its way westward past the Luzon Strait. The other ships of the carrier strike group were positioned ahead of the carrier, up to twenty miles further west.

  Daneel 155 found the Chinese aircraft carrier and the associated destroyers and frigates 450 miles to the west, closer to Hainan Island. That fleet could be seen steaming on an intercept course with the American one.

  “I’m getting reports from other Daneels. They have visuals of four groups of aircraft in the area,” Daneel 101 told Paul.

  “Show me on a map,” Paul impatiently demanded.

  The standard holographic display popped up in front of them. “Group one seems to be holding station around the American carrier. There’s a second bigger group of planes, dead center between the two carriers. That must be the air battle. In the last few minutes, it looks like it has started breaking up. Whatever Daneel 1 is doing, it seems to be working. Group three is over the Chinese carrier. Probably a protective screen. Now, the puzzler is group four here to the north, not far off the Chinese coast, just east of Hong Kong.”

  “What’s funny about them?” Paul asked puzzled, studying the map. “They seem to be heading away from the battle.”

  “They are now. But a few minutes ago, they were heading in the direction of the American carrier.”

  A funny feeling came over Paul, as if someone had thrown a shovel full of dirt on his grave.

  “Daneel, get everyone searching really fast along the line between those planes and the US carrier. Look for small, fast moving and low-flying objects. Like cruise missiles.”

  “Acknowledged,” the Scottie replied crisply.

  Paul had to only fidget for a minute before Daneel 101 reported the results.

  “Dad! There’s a lot of them, moving at just under Mach 1, only a few minutes northwest of the American carrier group!”

  “Scramble everyone down there, right now!” Paul thundered, one eye twitching nervously. “I don’t care if there are Oni or wizards on those ships, those cruise missiles have to be stopped!”

  Ω

  Aboard the DDG 104 USS Sterett, Commander ‘Captain’ Kacie Yates stood on the wing of the bridge, studying the horizon with her set of binoculars.

  “Ma’am?!” interrupted a voice from inside the bridge. “CEC datalink from the E-2D. Intermittent contact, bogies to the northwest!”

  “Condition One!” she snapped as she lowered the glasses. “Helm! Make your course, tree-zeero-zeero! All ahead flank! Stand by birds!”

  She took a deep breath before stepping back into the confines of the bridge. Despite her naval rank, this would be her first time in actual combat. She prayed that both she and the crew not only survived but that they did not disgrace themselves under fire.

  Ω

  Forty-eight Chinese YJ-100 sea-skimming cruise missiles sped through the air just a hundred feet above the surface of the water at Mach 0.9, jinking slightly left and right, up and down, but otherwise maintaining an overall course to the southeast.

  SM-2 Block IIIB missiles fired from the USS Sterett had time to intercept five of them, before the YJ-100s shot passed the destroyer, ignoring the small ship, intent on a much bigger target. The CG-52 USS Bunker Hill, the Ticonderoga class missile cruiser in the carrier group, was at flank speed, moving in from the southwest, making a valiant attempt to intercept the cruise missiles. She launched a flock of both long range RIM-174 ERAM and shorter range RIM-162A ESSM missiles, both types of missiles screaming through the air towards their targets at over Mach 3.5.

  The remaining forty-three Chinese cruise missiles were now making far more radical evasive maneuvers as they entered the terminal phase of their flight.

  The USS Carl Vinson loomed in front of them, sailors racing along the carrier’s deck in an effort to put a little distance between themselves and the missiles’ point of impact.

  The carrier’s fir
st point-defense weapon, a RIM-116 missile, left its boxy mount, arching up slightly and jerking directly toward the first enemy cruise missile. A series of additional missiles rapidly followed. Two of the three Phalanx CIWS units (the only ones that could bear on the targets) spun in place, lining up and spewing forth streams of tungsten penetrator rounds from their six barrels.

  It wasn’t going to be enough, not against forty-three incoming targets. Not nearly enough.

  One lone figure stood motionless on the carrier’s flight deck, hands on hips, eyeing all the commotion in the air to the northwest, shaking his head in disapproval. Disheartened, Clarke lifted into the air, maneuvering away from the ship and the destruction that was coming. Airborne, he would wait nearby to see how the battle faired and to see if that pesky low-life Armstead was going to show up or not.

  Ω

  A hundred portals sprang open, scattered across the sea between the missiles and their target.

  “Banzai!” screamed all one hundred of the Scotties as they shot through, swinging northward in order to defend the American carrier.

  Paul was the last one on the scene, his first act to use the power of the chutzpah to blur the light spectrum in the air to the south, blocking anyone on the carrier from seeing what was happening. He didn’t care what the Normals might see, but he suspected there were Oni, perhaps even a wizard on the Vinson, and he wanted them in the dark as long as possible.

  Daneel 200 led a dozen other black cubes racing forward, head-on toward the cruise missiles. As Daneel 200 drew near, he opened a three foot diameter portal, the other end reaching down two thousand feet into the ocean. A column of water at nine hundred pounds per square inch roared out of the portal—

  —smashing squarely into the first oncoming missile, detonating it.

  The detonation of 500 kilograms of explosives had a pint-sized effect against the incredibly powerful pressurized column of water, the missile and the explosion instantly vanishing with very little effect.

  As Daneel 200 and the others shot forward, he closed the portal. There were more pigeons to fricassee here.