by Glynn James
“Fuck,” Drake hissed. He already basically knew where their Virginia-class nuclear-powered fast attack sub was – playing catch-up on the Atlantic crossing, at its much slower top speed. But he’d been hoping for some kind of miracle. The Washington was exactly what they needed to counter a giant battlecruiser, and to protect them. That was basically its whole job.
It just wasn’t there to do it.
“Too far for torpedos,” Campbell said. “Her Polaris missiles, conventionally armed, might do the job. But they’d be in flight long enough that the Nakhimov would have every chance of knocking them down. Her ABM defense capabilities are formidable.”
“Unlike ours at the moment,” Drake grimaced. “Worth trying anyway?”
Campbell shook her head. “No. Not if it means tipping our hand.” She didn’t have to elaborate. Drake knew full well that the most valuable weapon any sub has is the fact that you don’t know she’s there. “When she catches us up, then the battlecruiser becomes a candidate for a Mark 48 torpedo wax job.”
“But not until then,” Drake agreed, resigned now. “And still no new launch signatures, or other signs of offensive posture from the Nakhimov?”
“You’ll hear it here first.”
So for the moment it was still a stand-off. Albeit one where the two combatants were racing away from each other at top speed. Drake knew things could definitely be a hell of a lot worse. Still, anxiety and foreboding seemed to close in on him in the already claustrophobic CIC.
What the hell is Ivan playing at…? he thought.
“I’m on the flag bridge,” Drake said, turning to leave. “Join me in the briefing room – the second we’re out of range of those Shipwrecks.”
* * *
Homer found Emily in the first place he looked for – in the MARSOC team room, cataloging and stowing high explosives for the Marines. Evidently she’d been promoted. She’d come a long way since Alpha rescued her from that pirate ship on Lake Michigan.
“What’s happening?” she asked, rising and turning to face Homer as he entered, one child in his arms, the other running behind him. It was impossible, on this higher deck, and closer to the fore, not to be aware there was some kind of ship-wide emergency going on. At the general quarters alarm, the Marines had exited the compartment like someone blew the airlock. But Emily had stayed, and was now here alone.
“Someone’s taking potshots at us,” Homer said calmly, as he handed off Isabel with one hand, and pulled Ben around in front of him with the other.
“Oh, hello there,” Emily said, taking the weight of the adorable little girl and brushing her milky-white hair out of her eyes. Isabel looked scared, and Ben as if he was trying to be brave. Glancing back up to Homer, Emily said, “Some pretty noisy potshots…”
“Can you take these two back to our cabin – and stay with them for a while?”
“No problem. Any idea how long?”
Homer hesitated. “I might be some time.”
Emily nodded. “Go do your job.”
Homer kissed both kids on the tops of their heads and exited at speed – but very smoothly.
Slow is smooth, he recited in his head, out of long habit, smooth is fast…
* * *
Drake shut the hatch of the briefing room behind him and pressed his back up against it. He and Abrams were the only occupants so far. The XO had just given him an update on the damage-control effort. It was all being handled by the people whose job that was, and these two senior leaders had no additional value to add there. So they just kept their hands and feet clear, and let their people get on with it.
This also meant they had a couple of minutes – not only to catch their breath, but to try to address the strategic situation. There were so many damned questions.
Drake looked up at his XO tiredly. “Okay, I’ll bite. What the hell just happened?”
Abrams shrugged, and paused before answering. “I’d say we got lazy – and careless. In a dead world, we thought we could just steam around with impunity, and no one would fuck with us.”
Drake rolled his eyes. “What we forgot is that there are still other survivors. And survivors can be goddamned dangerous.”
“Though they don’t usually have the wherewithal to drop Shipwreck missile swarms on our heads.”
“Touché,” Drake said.
But then he shook his head to clear it – and realized the philosophical questions could wait. What they really needed to focus on first was answering the ones that were most likely to keep everyone alive. Not least because, as they couldn’t forget, it wasn’t just the crew of the ship.
In a real sense, all humanity was on this vessel.
“Okay,” Drake said, willing the fog off his brain. “So the Russians ran…”
“Because they don’t know how degraded we are.”
“Right. They also don’t know our escort sub is a thousand kilometers off-station.”
Abrams nodded. “They can’t outrun air, but they can outrun the sub. And they’d be damned motivated to do so.”
Drake squinted in thought. “And as good as their ASW capabilities are, they know a Virginia-class sub captain won’t lose any sleep over it. He’ll just dodge their torpedoes and rockets, laugh at their sub-hunting helo, and send their asses to the bottom.”
Anti-submarine warfare was a major function of the Kirov-class battlecruiser. But beating them at that game was the major function of the Virginia-class fast attack subs.
And they were unmatched at it.
“So that much makes sense,” Drake said. “But – and here’s the real question – why the hell did they fire on us in the first place?”
Abrams shrugged. “Simple apocalypse rules? Shoot first, save the questions for Trivial Pursuit. Two years in, there aren’t a lot of nice guys out there still breathing air.”
Drake squinted. “Maybe. But I’m not sold. Think about where we found them.”
“Anchored off the Saldanha naval depot?”
“Exactly. I wonder if maybe they found a good teat to suck at – a good source of supplies. And having got there first, they weren’t real interested in sharing.”
“Huh,” Abrams said. “As in, Fuck off, this is our spot? Simple scarcity, then – the great driver of conflict, both before civilization and after it. Okay, if that was it… then why’d they give up so easily?”
Drake scratched his chin. He was starting to need a shave. “I think it’s like you said – they didn’t follow up their initial attack because, if the first missile swarm didn’t do the job, they couldn’t be sure another would – either because our close-in defenses worked, or because their missiles didn’t. And they had to presume our sub would be hauling ass toward them. Either way, at that point, they’d definitely be feeling like the dipshits who brought a knife to a gunfight.”
Abrams chuckled once, not actually all that amused. “Yeah, they just have no idea the guns we have – the Sparrows and CIWS – are empty. And that our sub is MIA.”
“Otherwise they would have come in for the kill.”
“But they also have no idea we can’t launch aircraft – and they must know there’s no way they can outrun our air? Much less hide from it.”
Drake shrugged. “Their air defense capabilities are awesome. Or maybe they’re just betting we don’t want to risk the birds. Or that we’re out of JP5, or very low. Which we are.” Drake was referring to the jet fuel that had a higher flashpoint than the standard JP8, and that they used on the carrier, when they could get it.
Abrams leaned back against the table. “Or maybe they’re simply betting we just don’t want to get caught up in a street brawl, if we can possibly avoid it.”
Drake just looked at him dully, letting that float there.
* * *
While Drake and Abrams sat in slightly stunned silence, the hatch to the briefing room knocked twice, then opened. Behind it was Handon.
Drake looked up. "What do you need, Sergeant Major?"
Handon stepp
ed inside. "Honestly? I need to keep an eye on the tactical situation."
Drake snorted once. "You mean keep an eye on whether this ship’s going to continue floating."
Handon just shrugged. It was true.
Drake gave him the fifteen-second rundown on who had attacked them, the result, and the current state of play.
“Kirov-class?” Handon asked. “Am I correct in remembering those were the largest surface combatant warships in the world?”
Now Drake shrugged. “What can I tell you? They’re nuclear-powered, plus armed to the gills. It’s like Pimp My Ride for the apocalypse.”
But Handon instantly identified the key issue.
“Okay, but why are they now running from aircraft they know they can’t outrun?” He knew enough about naval surface warfare to know that in planes vs. ships, planes (almost) always won.
Drake said, “The XO here thinks they’re gambling that we’ll back down after getting hit once. That we’ll decide this isn’t a punch-up we can afford to be in.”
Handon’s brow lowered. “As a matter of fact, it isn’t.” He paused to pin the other two with his gaze. “I’m sure you don’t need me to point this out, but we actually can’t afford to waste the time, or take the risk, of slugging it out with them. Or with any other survivors. That’s a sideshow, at best.”
Handon paused, as he was immediately pierced with a feeling of hypocrisy. He had done exactly what he was decrying now, getting into a profitless fight with armed survivors back on Lake Michigan. But – thanks in part to Henno, mainly due to learning the hard way – he’d had a Come to Jesus moment on this issue.
And he was now one hundred percent mission-focused.
He went on. “The clock’s ticking. And all that matters is our mission. Getting to Somalia, getting Patient Zero, and getting it and Park’s vaccine the hell out of here and back to Britain. And seconds count. If the Russians are in our way, we get them out of it. But if we can walk away, we walk.”
Abrams gave him a No argument there look.
But Drake said: “Two problems with that.”
“Yeah?”
“One, the Nakhimov is heading south – straight down the coast. And that’s our route, as well.”
Handon decocked slightly. “And to go around them, while staying out of range of their missiles…”
“Yeah. Would add at least another day, maybe two. And that’s if they don’t go right back up the other coast.”
“Which,” Abrams added, “is by far the most common route after rounding the Cape of Good Hope.”
Handon shook his head. “So they’d essentially be blocking us the whole way.”
“Honestly,” Drake said, “we have no idea what they’re going to do. They don’t call Ivan crazy for nothing.”
“What’s the second problem?”
But before Drake could answer, the hatch knocked again. Behind it was LT Campbell. Before she was even in the room, she said, “We’ve just passed 200 kilometers from the Nakhimov. We’re out of Shipwreck range.”
“Thank fuck,” Drake said, Abrams mouthing it in sync.
Campbell tried to close the hatch behind her, but it was pushed open against her. Behind it was an ensign, who stuck his head in. “Commander, DCS reports the fire has been suppressed – and the angle deck made safe. PriFly says both birds are on deck and into their pre-flight.”
Now, when the ensign tried to leave, he in turn found himself blocked by the thick body of the Air Boss. This was turning into a real traffic snarl. The ensign slipped under the Boss’s thick arm as he held the hatch open then entered. He instantly pinned Drake with his deadly serious eye, and said, “We’re go for launch.”
Drake looked over at Abrams, then Handon.
The Air Boss went on: “But I want to take a pass through this attack mission profile, before we send young pilots out to watery graves. We can audible it while they’re in flight, bu—”
Drake interrupted him. “Stand your fliers down.”
The Boss’s mouth opened, and stayed that way for two full beats. “Sir?”
“You’ve got your orders. We’re out of range of the Nakhimov’s anti-ship missiles, and out of danger. This battle is over, for now. And we won – by surviving. Keep two birds and fliers on the deck on cockpit standby, the other two on ready-room alert.”
The Air Boss shook his head in disbelief. But his commander’s intent had been communicated, with zero distortion.
Without another word, he saluted and exited.
Pretty Much
JFK - 02 Deck
Gunny Fick all but hurdled bodies as he salmon-spawned up the main companionway running the length of 02 Deck. He’d just dropped off two walking wounded down at the hospital, after having pulled both of them to something like safety from the missile impact point up top. Now he was half-covered in blood, and the-other-half-covered in soot, and leaving quite a lot of both on people as he elbowed past them.
And that’s my good deed for today, motherfuckers, he thought. He was glad to help, it was everybody’s job to help, and those were his brothers and sisters hurt up there. But the Good Samaritan act had also left him out of position. He needed to be somewhere he was plugged into what the hell was going on – the bigger picture.
That pretty much meant the bridge, which was where he was headed now. Knowledge of what the hell is going on was usually what kept you alive in combat. And that knowledge was very thin on the ground throughout the rest of the boat right now.
Chaos continued to rule. Wounded were still being brought down, red-shirted flight deck personnel still going up, and sailors and officers going every which way. Elbowing past a couple of smaller and weaker men, Fick spotted one of his own people, Corporal Raible, fighting in the opposite direction.
“Hey, Corporal, where the fuck’s Ice Cube?”
Raible shrugged without slowing. “Last I saw Coulson he was pulling people out of the wreckage.”
“That fire out yet?”
“Pretty much,” Raible tossed over his shoulder, disappearing into the flow of pedestrian traffic.
Well, that’s good at least, Fick thought.
His supply of Marines was currently smaller than it had ever been, and he didn’t need it getting any smaller – not with what was still facing them, on both coasts of Africa. He really didn’t need to lose guys in shipboard damage control.
Passing an intersection, motion caught his eye from a parallel companionway, but moving in the opposite direction, toward the stern. Fick’s first thought was that whoever that was had a lot more brains than he did, using the much less crowded route to get where they were going. And then he recognized them: it was Alpha team. Predator was hard to mistake – for anything but, maybe, a fucking Predator.
And they were all carrying weapons, assault packs, and… wait, was that a combat rubber raiding craft? Deflated and stowed, it consisted of one big heavy bag of rubber boat, and another bigger, heavier, waterproof bag of outboard motor. Fick recognized it because his team had four of them.
Jesus, did they bring their own barbecue and keg to the party, too?
These guys heading aft with their own lifeboat honestly struck Fick as a bit like rats fleeing a sinking ship. And it wasn’t even sinking – yet. But Alpha had their mission, and his Marines had theirs, and Fick had no doubt those guys would Charlie Mike and complete theirs – no matter what.
But that was the difference between Alpha and the Marines – MARSOC sank or swam with this ship and its crew, also no matter what.
As the tooled-up operators disappeared from sight, Fick carried on elbowing people aside.
Because this shit, evidently, still wasn’t over.
* * *
Now it was Drake, Abrams, Campbell, and Handon in the briefing room. They hadn’t planned it this way. But it was suddenly looking like this would be the group to make the critical calls that were required now.
“Okay,” Campbell said. “Why’d you scrap the air attack?”
“Because sinking Russian warships isn’t our mission.”
Campbell just held Drake’s gaze.
“And we also have to shepherd our air power. I’m not wild about spending our dwindling JP5 flying jets right now, never mind chasing Russians around the south Atlantic. I’m also not wild about spending our limited ordnance. But what I’m really worried about is losing the planes and pilots – we may really miss them when we have troops in contact on the ground in Somalia. And that battlecruiser has crushing air defense capabilities.”
“Which we can overwhelm,” Campbell said.
“Yeah, sure. And I can just hear the captain of the Nakhimov having this same conversation with his missile captain an hour ago.”
“Point taken.”
“We’ve sailed the hell out of danger. Now we can pick our time and place. Which ain’t now. Or here.”
“Roger that,” Campbell said.
“Breaking contact was the right call,” Handon said. “Neither revenge nor retribution are on the menu. What we need, all we need, is to complete our remaining taskings. The question is how best to do it, from here.”
“The scavenging mission,” Abrams said, looking up at the others. “At Saldanha naval station. Can we even afford to run that now? With that big dangerous bastard floating around out there somewhere?"
Drake said, "Can we afford not to? I don’t know that we have any real choice. The Somalia mission is a no-go without an ammo and supplies top-up." He looked at Handon. “Right?”
Handon shrugged. “Anything’s possible. But it would definitely be even more of an elaborate form of suicide than otherwise.”
Drake gave him a look like – What the hell does that actually mean?
Handon sat up straighter. “Okay. If we got into any kind of extended engagement in the African interior… well, it wouldn’t be very extended without ammo. And the team would probably go down. Basically, if we’re playing the odds, which we inevitably are, then – yeah, we need the scavenging mission first. To give us some kind of reasonable chance of success in Somalia.”
Abrams said, “What about going elsewhere? Finding some other facility to scavenge?”