by David Poyer
“It’s an older class,” she agreed. “Definitely less capable than Jung’s other units.”
“The other van units are Ulsans too.” Mills frowned, massaging his eyelids. “I don’t get it.”
The CIC officer clutched his headset. “Forward lookout reports smoke from Hornet.”
Cheryl grabbed the joystick on the command desk, slewed the missile deck camera, and zoomed in. Mills rattled his keyboard, and video popped on the left display.
A black cloud billowed from the flight deck.
“I don’t see flames,” Mills said. “But that’s a hell of a lot of smoke.”
She hit the key of the 21MC. “Sonar, CO. Anything from about zero-one-zero relative? Torpedo noises, explosions?”
Chief Zotcher’s voice. “Negative, Skipper. Why do you—ah … oh … wait one.”
She jumped up and stalked across CIC, brushing past bent backs at consoles, and rattled the blue curtain aside. “We have smoke from Hornet,” she told the sonarmen.
One muttered, staring at his screen, “She just shut down a shaft too.”
“But no explosion?” Should she close, to help? Strange, there’d been nothing over the air.
“Skipper?” One of the air controlmen. “TAO’s asking you to step over.”
Back at the command desk, Mills pointed to text glowing on the LAN screen. “Command chat just came up.”
“I thought it didn’t work without satellites.”
“Guess they figured some way to do it without. Short range. Line of sight.”
“Or it’s someone trying to phish us. Remember, we were warned about comm compromises.”
The screen read:
BARBARIAN: All units Horde, this is Barbarian. Comm check.
“Answer up?”
“CIC, bridge: flashing light from carrier. Stand by … breaks as … ‘come up command chat ASAP.’”
She slid into the chair and pulled her keyboard into her lap.
MATADOR: This is SVI.
TURTLESHIP: Turtleship here.
BIRKENSTOCK: Online.
MARATHONER: Online.
FULLBORE: Present.
HALFBACK: Halfback online.
Seconds ticked by.
BARBARIAN: Is Hammerhead online?
No answer. “Earhart’s not answering up, either,” Mills observed.
“They’re USNS, not USS. May not have chat capability. And the sub may not want to transmit. Even to acknowledge,” Cheryl murmured.
BARBARIAN: Commander’s intent follows. Horde proceed base course one-one-zero speed twelve.
“Twelve knots?” Mills muttered. “Twelve?”
BARBARIAN: New screen stations as below. Execute to follow. Hammerhead position ahead of main body at 50 meters depth.
As the station assignments followed, Mills called up a formation diagram on the screen, and began pointing and clicking to sketch in the sectors. Cheryl pinched her lips with her fingers. At first glance it resembled a typical bent-line screen. But Lenson was pulling his most capable units back behind the main body. Leaving only the thinnest of lines ahead … three Ulsan-class ROKN frigates, and older flights, at that.
She, Mills, and the CIC officer exchanged puzzled looks. Usually, a hunter-killer group commander didn’t want to be in the thick of the ASW fight; the destroyers and frigates were specialized for that mission. But this was even bolder. Hornet was the highest-value unit out here. If the enemy got a mission kill on her, the whole task force was out of commission.
The 21MC clicked on. “TAO, Radio.”
“Go, Comm.”
“HF message in the clear from Hornet. I read back: ‘Fires under control. My port shaft is locked. Headed to Pearl for repairs. Can make no more than twelve knots.’”
Cheryl leaned back, nodding as it all clicked into place. Then leaned in and typed swiftly:
MATADOR: Quack, quack?
A moment passed. Then characters appeared.
BARBARIAN: Quack.
Mills was blinking. The CIC officer looked uncomfortable. “What gives, Skipper?” the TAO murmured. “That some kind of inside joke?”
“I guess you could say that.” She pushed back from the table, zipping the jacket up under her chin. She shivered, and not just with the air-conditioning. “He’s pulling a lame duck.”
“Explain?”
“We’re out here in a million square miles of ocean, with no clue where the enemy is until he strikes. The Chinese must have some kind of surveillance, or direction-finding capability. Though we don’t know what.
“Lenson’s going to take advantage of that, by making himself look like a target. Broadcasting a damage report. Making smoke. Shutting down a shaft. Probably, ballasting to produce that list too. All to make it look like Hornet was damaged in the Guam strike, and is heading back for repairs.”
Mills drew a deep breath. “And softening his front line to suck them in.”
She wondered if she looked as worried as they did. The tactic might attract the enemy, true. Localize the wolf pack in a way they couldn’t otherwise. But weakening the defenses at the critical point, directly ahead of the formation … the optimal axis for a determined submarine attack …
She pulled the Hydra from her belt. “XO, CO here.”
“XO here. What you need, Skipper?”
“Ollie, do this low profile, no fuss. But have all life rafts checked. And schedule an abandon-ship drill for tomorrow.”
“Ma’am? We already drilled—”
“Drill it again.” She signed off.
It was incredibly dangerous. Incredibly risky. Bold. And totally unorthodox.
Exactly the kind of tactic the Dan Lenson she knew might come up with.
10
Camp Pendleton, California
“THE King fucks the Queen!” Sergeant Abdulhamid shouted. His boots crunched in the tan, coarse, metal-littered sand as he stalked the berm along the firing line.
Hector Ramos swallowed dust and blinked grit out of his eyes. He was sweating hard in desert MARPATs and flak jacket, goggles, helmet, and gloves. California chafed in his shorts. Frowning, he noted it accumulating on the dust cover of his M240 too. The dust cover was plastic on the exposed side and metal underneath with just two small metal clips securing it to the barrel. Maybe he should have left it in the A bag. He started to wipe it with his sleeve, but was afraid to get dirt in the ventilation holes. Finally he bent and blew it off, but a moment later another layer sparkled on the black surface.
The trucks had arrived before dawn with the trainees and the weapons. They’d unloaded as the sun rose, handing down tons of ammo, then smashing off the thin white pine sheathing before setting up. The green metal boxes sat open ready to hand, hundreds of brass rounds gleaming like tired gold. Fine dust eddied past. Abdulhamid’s sweat gleamed in the sun. “The fucking infantry is the fucking Queen of the battlefield. Right? Well, the machine gun, he is the King. And the King fucks the Queen. Let’s hear it!”
“The King fucks the Queen.” The ragged chorus rolled along the firing line, under the broiling sun.
Infantry Training Battalion, Camp Pendleton, California. The first two weeks had been twelve hours a day of the skills of the MOS 0300 infantryman. Marksmanship under fire, grenades, identifying and countering IEDs. Manning convoys, basic tactics, combat conditioning, physical training. Land navigation, with forced marches through the hilly terrain. Urban combat and room-clearing training, the instructors told them, had been dropped, in the interest of “saving time.” To which Troy Whipkey, easily the most cynical human being Hector had ever met, had muttered, “So they can ship us to Korea faster.”
Only now it sounded like they might not get there. The Navy was pulling out of WestPac, leaving the forces there surrounded. It looked like the Army would be killed or captured.
“Gonna be up to us Marines, retrieve the situation,” one of the sergeants had told them. “Or die trying.”
“Most likely, die trying,” Whipkey had muttered, fid
geting beside Hector in the sunrotted training bleachers. Whipkey was a redneck from central Florida, but his attitude was anything but patriotic. He’d shot a kid who’d kept “mudding” his family’s back ten in his ATV. Fortunately, the kid hadn’t died, and the judge had given Whipkey a choice: jail or the Corps.
Hector had sweated the math and the map reading. But now they were in the MOS-specific training. Somehow, the Corps had decided he would be an 0331. A machine gunner, trained on the M240, the Mk-19 40mm grenade launcher, and the M-2 .50-cal machine gun. Or, as Sergeant Abdulhamid put it, “The most bad-boy high-speed muthafuckas to walk this fuckin’ valley, and the fuckin’ steel spine of this man’s Marine Corps.”
Now Abdulhamid yelled, “Remember, jundies, you ain’ got but so much ammo. We had to buy this shit wherever we could. Israel. Argentina. Germany. Ain’ no U.S. ammo till we get makin’ powder again. It’s gon’ go bang, but you gon’ get dispersion. Focus on your target reference point. Track in from that. Check your wind. Range is hot! Yallah yallah! Gun up.”
Forget Mirielle’s kisses in the dark, forget everything but the checklist in his head. Safety on F. Bolt to the rear. Hector slotted the charging handle to the forward position and flipped up the cover assembly. Ensure the feed tray, receiver assembly, and chamber are clear. He slapped it down. While maintaining rearward pressure, pull the trigger and ease the bolt assembly forward.
“Double link at the open end,” Troy yelled beside him. “Free of dirt and corrosion.”
Place the first round of the belt in the feed tray groove, double link leading, with open side of links face down. Hold the belt six rounds from the loading end. Ensure that the round remains in the feed tray groove, and close the cover assembly.
Yells began to proceed down toward them. “Gun one up!”
“Gun two up!”
“Ready,” Hector said. Beside him Troy yelled, “Gun three up!”
AMMUNITION: 7.62mm × 51
WEIGHT with bipod: 24 pounds
LENGTH: 47.5 inches
MAXIMUM effective range with tripod: 1800 meters (1.1 miles)
MAXIMUM range: 3725 meters (2.31 miles)
MAXIMUM rate of fire: 100 rounds/minute (sustained), 200 rounds/minute (rapid), 650–950 rounds/minute (cyclic)
He was wiping sweat out of his eyes with the back of his hand when, without warning, the targets began popping up, from fifty yards out to eight hundred. Whipkey was manning the combo scope/laser rangefinder, but there wasn’t time to cut ranges. Not for pop-ups. Sweating in the blazing sun, lying full length in the sand, Hector traversed, depressed, and pulled the trigger.
The M240 machine gun supports the rifleman in both offensive and defensive operations. The M240 provides the heavy volume of close and continuous fire needed to accomplish the mission. The M240 is used to engage targets beyond the range of individual weapons, with controlled and accurate fire. The long-range, close defensive, and final protective fires delivered by the M240 form an integral part of a unit’s defensive fires.
His gun was ugly and black and heavy and looked exactly like what it was, a machine to kill people as quickly and cheaply as possible. Sergeant Abdulhamid had assured them they would love it. Hector did not. It still seemed wrong to kill, but Abdulhamid said knowing how to use it might save his life and those of his fellow Marines.
The butt hammered his shoulder. Hot brass and parkerized steel disintegrating links spewed out, brass from the bottom, links from the right side, tinkling and smoking and piling until he had to scoop them out of the way with his elbow. Once in a while a round would hang up, and they had to clear it. Blue smoke eddied down the line on a breeze too slight to cool them.
The sergeant had told them not to depend on tracers. “Draws a line to you for the hajji with the RPG.” Abdulhamid referred to any enemy as a “hajji” and to Marines as “jundies.” He wouldn’t let them use just the optic sights either. “Fucking optics gonna go south on you. The internal components shift and you’ll lose the zero. Grease-smear, blood on the lens, you’re fucking toast. Learn the fucking irons. Fuck the Queen. You the King.”
Sometimes Hector wasn’t sure Abdulhamid was all there. Scuttlebutt was he’d been blown up too many times. He was Iraqi, a translator who’d joined the Marines. But he knew the Pig. That’s what he called the gun, the “Pig.” As in, “The Pig, that’s what’s gon’ fuck up them Chink hajjis.”
The officer came down the line and Abdulhamid went silent, glaring at them and making notes in his little green book. But the instant the captain was out of earshot in the hammering noise he was crouching again, shouting into their ears. “You boys rockin’ it? Feelin’ that seven-six-two love?”
“Feelin’ the love, Sergeant. Oorah!” Whipkey yelled.
“Then get on your fuckin’ target, Ray-mose! And keep your fuckin’ head down! You think Chink hajjis ain’ got snipers? You think Sar’n Abdul gon’ be holdin’ your pecker for you, in country? Think that punk-ass shooting get you through ITX? Well, we got special treat for you on Range 400 this time. Whippy!”
Whipkey howled, “Sergeant!”
“Hot barrel. Hot barrel! What is it, you don’ talk fuckin’ En-lish? What is a fuckin’ hot barrel?”
“A hot barrel is two hundred rounds fired in two minutes or less.”
“So when you gon’ pull you fuckin’ tongue out of my ass and change that fuckin’ barrel!”
* * *
A whistle blew. “Cease fire, cease fire,” someone called, and Hector and Troy rolled over and bellowed it too, passing it down the line. Hector panted, running perspiration. When he wiped his arm across his forehead his sleeve came down black. “The line is cold. Make all weapons Condition Four,” Abdulhamid shouted, stalking the berm. “Ammo to the centa line. Saved ammo, to the centa line. Brass and trash, in the buckets. Duds an’ misfires, in the live-round drum.”
Clear and unload … safety to fire F position. With his right hand, palm carefully up in case of a cook-off, Hector yanked the charging handle to the rear. He put his face in the dirt, flipped open the cover assembly, and did the physical safety check with his fingers. Whipkey did the visual check, looking for leftover brass, steel links, or live rounds. “Feed pawl assembly, feed tray, chamber,” he muttered. When he jerked his fingers out Hector racked the bolt again to jar anything in there out into view. They checked under the bolt and op rod assembly, then put it on F again and recocked. Hector pulled the trigger while he rode the bolt home on the empty chamber. He snapped down the ejection port cover and they both rolled onto their backs, holding up their arms. “Clear and safe!” they yelled in unison.
“Take a break,” Abdulhamid said. “Bongos’re on the way. We’ll clean back at the weps bay.” He added unenthusiastically, “Decent shootin’. But ain’t nobody shootin’ back, ’member. And down, down, down! Got to keep them fuckin’ heads down, or the hajjis shoot ’em off. Baroor, I don’t shit you.”
* * *
BACK in the sheds, they tore the guns apart. The cloying stench of CLP filled the bays. As Hector scrubbed, he noted chewed-up metal on one of the feed pawls. “Might be what kept hangin’ us up,” Troy muttered. When Abdulhamid came by, the sergeant told them to turn the part in to the armorer, get a replacement.
By the time the weapons were cleaned, reassembled, inspected, and turned in, the sky was dark. They climbed wearily into trucks for the ride to the mess hall. Most of the Mexican guys sat together, so they could speak Spanish without being hassled. But tonight they ate in silence, too fatigued to talk.
They were in the barracks when a lance corporal stuck his head in. “Liberty tomorrow,” he announced.
“Say what, man?”
“What’d he say?”
“Sunday liberty. Church services, them as wants ’em. The Shame Shuttle down to area 51 gate will run starting at oh-seven-hundred.”
* * *
THE line was already snaking out near the San Onofre gate when Hector joined it the next morning. Palm trees waved i
nvitingly. The wind smelled of the sea beyond. But the access was blocked with orange plastic barriers and concertina. Humvees with mounted .50s overlooked it, and armed sentries paced the barriers. Few of the liberty guys wore civvies. Most were in newly issued class charlies, olive drab trousers and tan open-collar shirts and soft garrison caps.
Just ahead of him in line was a woman with short dark hair sticking out from under her garrison cap. She was short but muscular and looked as if she could press a mortar baseplate a few times. When she glanced back he caught dark eyes, chiseled cheekbones, copper skin. Not Mexican, maybe south of there. More Indio in her blood. They didn’t have many women in 0331. Some had dropped out during the marches, but this one looked like she never dropped out of anything.
When she glanced back again he blurted, “Hey.”
“Hey.” She squinted, shading her eyes.
“Hector Ramos. 0331.”
“Coreguaje. Orietta Coreguaje. 0341.”
“Yeah? I don’t know why, when I looked at you I thought, mortars.”
“Oh, the big tubes. That must be why we ain’t seen you,” said Whipkey, leering up from behind Hector. “You friends with Heck-tor here?”
“Just met the guy.” She extended a hand coolly. “Orietta. And this here is my friend, Pruss.”
Pruss was blond and more heavily built, sort of like a guy. Hector actually took her for one at the first glance, then looked again. At the third glance, he still wasn’t sure. “Oorah, kill,” said Whipkey by way of greeting, looking her up and down.
“But they are off-limits,” Coreguaje added, apparently meaning Pruss. Whipkey’s face fell.
Pruss was in mortars too. And she, or he, had a phone, nonreg but some of the guys had them, and was saying Lyft was up again. Hector felt awkward not knowing how to address him, or her. Or, wait, “them,” Coreguaje had said. She could be gay. Or transgender—there’d been some transgender recruits at Parris Island. But they were all marines, and they got acquainted while they stood in line, and pretty soon it was understood they were going to be libo buddies. When they got up to the gate at last there were cars there along with the buses. A rowdy, shouting crowd of civilians, too, held at a distance by cops. Some seemed to be protesting the war. Others were clearly here to cheer it on, or at least to applaud the troops. Both sides were waving signs and shouting through bullhorns. Avoiding them all, the Marines found an Excursion with six seats open and somebody’s grandma driving.