Sea Strike Read online

  Where were the torpedo boats?

  The first rank of landing tracks was holding just off the surf line Rocket launchers flared on their broad, armored backs and projectiles arced up and across the beach, each trailing a heavy line behind it Kai recognized the technology at work Those lines were hoses Hoses that were even now pressurizing and filling with a liquid high-explosive When fired, the hoses would burn through the beach minefield, the concussion triggering sympathetic detonations amid the mines buried there, clearing a path The Nationalist combat engineers keyed their firing switches Blue-white chain lightning laced the beach, each bolt flanked by lesser, sandy explosions Thin though it might have been, the last barrier was down The lead Nationalist Amtrac, a massive, American-built LVTP-7, heaved out of the surf Transitioning from its propellers to tank treads, it gingerly began to pick its way up one of the blast-cleared channels.

  Kai prayed that he would see the flash of one of his own missile launchers, that the tractor would stumble to a halt spewing flame.

  It did not, and a second followed it up out of the sea, and a third.

  The Nationalist frigate was firing over the Amtracs now-- deliberate hammering bursts from its main turret, each carefully targeted at the beach fortifications.

  Kai bitterly considered how the one good thing about his dearth of troops was that he was able to disperse what he did have out among a large number of fortifications. Chiang's bastard sons would be expending a lot of their time and ammunition demolishing empty bunkers.

  Then, abruptly, Kai realized something, something that made the cold hand of a corpse close around his heart.

  The Nationalist frigate was keeping to a very deliberate fire-control template. Probably operating under GPU guidance, it was systematically picking off a series of the beach defense emplacements.

  And it was targeting only those emplacements that had men assigned to them.

  "Treason!" he whispered.

  The Nationalists must have gained such knowledge of his troop deployments from within his own headquarters company.

  "Treason!" he choked.

  "Sir?"

  Kai pounded his fist against the frame of the observation slit. "The damned Nationalists have infiltrated us, Lieutenant!

  That's how they know our defense deployments so well!

  Some filthy traitor inside our own regiment has sold us out!"

  "No, sir," his aide replied quietly. "There are no traitors here."

  "By all that is sacred, there are! They knew that this was a weak point on the coast! They knew the positioning of our beach obstacles. They even know our troop deployments.

  There is a traitor, Lieutenant, and if we get out of this alive, I will see him hunted down and hanged!"

  SEA STRIKE I There was no answer, except for the sound of a rifle bolt being drawn back.

  Kai started to turn away from the observation slit, his hand instinctively going for the pistol holstered at his belt. Before he could complete either move, however, something smashed him down from the concrete observation step. Colonel Yuan Kai had only time enough to acknowledge an instant of pain and a momentary chaotic image of his aide standing in the bunker doorway, raking the room with gunfire.

  As Kai fell, the aide pivoted, his short-barreled Type 56 assault rifle still clamped to his hip and hammering terror.

  The two signals specialists tried to get to their feet, one clawing for his own weapon, the other attempting to lift his hands in surrender.

  The lieutenant slashed his fire stream across them, sending them both to the floor. Lifting his aim, the aide used the last few 7.62mm rounds in the clip to destroy the bunker's communications console.

  Ejecting the empty magazine, he swiftly reloaded, watching the bunker doorway for anyone investigating the gunfire.

  No one came. The chaos out in the night had blanketed this little pocket of killing. The aide took a single deep, deliberate breath.

  "No, my colonel," he said almost apologetically to the blood-streaked room. "There are no traitors here tonight.

  Only patriots."

  Ducking out through the low doorway of the bunker, the aide headed down the communications trench. His work here was finished. However, the regimental Political Officer and the Chief of Staff still had to be dealt with down at the auxiliary command post.

  USS CUNNINGHAM, DOG-79

  1332 HOURS ZONE TIME; JULY 15, 2006

  Commander Amanda Lee Garrett peered over the shoulder of her chief engineer, watching the blocks of red and yellow play across the schematics on the computer flatscreens. Each told a tale of catastrophic damage and systems failure. The enemy missile strike had hurt the USS

  Cunningham--badly.

  "Mr. Mckelsie? Stealth systems status?"

  "Everything's off line except for the chaff launchers. The hit's taken out both the transformers and the envelope processor stack."

  The Duke's lean and acerbic stealth systems officer had his khaki shirt unbuttoned in the heat. They'd lost air conditioning early on in the engagement and the ventilators had been dogged down to seal out the smoke that was rapidly saturating the ship's internal spaces. The temperature in the Combat Information Center was skyrocketing as a result.

  Uniform protocols had been abandoned. He ran a hand back through his damp, thinning red hair and continued the litany of disaster.

  "We've also taken skin damage, and these fires are going to start cooking the RAM off the hull in pretty short order.

  As of right now, we are bare-ass naked."

  "Damn, damn, damn! Dix, tac situation?"

  Lieutenant Dixon Lovejoy Beltrain, the Duke's tactical action officer, leaned in over his console, stripped to the waist, his quarterback's torso slick with sweat.

  "Hostile strike flight has disengaged," he reported. "All other incoming rounds have been foxed or intercepted. Board is clearing."

  Miraculously, the great SPY-2 A arrays of the destroyer's Aegis radar system were still functional and feeding their images onto the Large Screen Display that dominated the forward bulkhead of the Combat Information Center.

  "That's something, anyway," Amanda muttered. They were being granted a little time. Maybe enough to make repairs and escape.

  "Raven's Roost, do we have a weapons ID yet?"

  "Raven's Roost" was the Duke's Electronic Intelligence gathering section, one of the four subsystem bays that angled off from the octagonal CIC compartment. A boyishly slender figure appeared at the bay mouth a moment later.

  "An Otomat Mark Three, Boss Ma'am," Lieutenant Christine Rendino replied. "One round. Air launched."

  Again, a little plus. The Italian-built Otomat used a jet propulsion system. Honest flame from burning kerosene and no chunks of unconsumed rocket fuel sprayed around to complicate fire and damage control.

  Christine took another step or two into the central compartment.

  "How bad are we?"

  The little Intel officer's reaction to the temperature had been to knot the shirt of her work khakis up under her breasts and to bind a sweatband around her short ash-blond hair.

  "Real bad. We took the hit right in Power Room Three.

  Main Engine Control was taken out as well, and we've got fires all over the place back there."

  Perspiration stung Amanda's eyes, and impatiently she swiped it away with the back of her hand. She was feeling the heat as intensely as her subordinates were, but captain's dignity had limited her to rolling up her sleeves and pony tailing her own thick sorrel-colored mane with a rubber band stolen from a chart table.

  "Captain!" It was the rating stationed at the CIC's helm station. "All rudder and engine control has just gone down.

  The ship is losing way and is no longer responding to the helm."

  "Damn, damn, damn!" Amanda spun back to the damage control panels.

  Chief Thomson was dialing down through the hull schematics to the lower deck levels. By another small miracle, the craggy lieutenant commander had been off station, outside of Main
Engine Control, when the missile had hit.

  "We've lost both primary cable trunks. The portside was cut by the initial explosion, and we just had a burn through into the starboard.

  The Halon flood didn't hold it. We've lost too much compartment integrity."

  The Cunningham's spinal cord had just been severed.

  "What about the hangar bay?"

  "No direct involvement yet, but they have a major fire right under their deck plates. The big problem is going to be the aviation-fuel bunker and the helo-armaments magazine.

  They're right down there in the affected frames."

  "Do we still have deluge control in those spaces?"

  "So far."

  "Arm the systems and stand by to flood on my command."

  "Aye, aye, Captain."

  The aft compartment hatch swung open, giving entrance to both a gas-masked sailor and a billowing cloud of white smoke. Amanda slammed the door back against its gaskets and twisted the dogging handle as the seaman tore off his breathing gear.

  "Report from DC Alpha Delta," he reported breathlessly.

  "All engineering watch officers are dead or missing, ma'am.

  They were all either in Power Three or Main Engine Control when we took the hit. Chief Nelson reports that we're holding the fire at frame nineteen, but we're not getting it pushed back."

  "How bad's the hull damage?" Amanda demanded.

  "One hole on the port side at frame twenty, ma'am. ' six by four. Just above the waterline."

  "How are they doing on the farside of the fire?"

  "No contact with Delta Fox. We can tell they're workin' it, but no commo."

  Amanda internalized another savage curse. With the intercom and sound-powered nets down, she knew more about what was happening two hundred miles away than she did inside the bulkheads of her own ship.

  "Captain!" Thomson yelled from the DC panels. "We got a high-temperature warning in the helo-ordnance magazine!"

  "Execute the flood."

  "That extra weight aft could put the impact hole under the waterline, Captain. With our internal integrity shot, we could lose the entire block to uncontrolled flooding."

  "I'm counting on it. A little water won't kill us, Chief, but this fire just might."

  "Captain," the seaman runner spoke up. "Chief Nelson still has rescue parties aft of the bulkheads looking for survivors."

  "Hold the flood!" Amanda stabbed a finger at the runner.

  "Get back down to Chief Nelson and tell him that he has ... " Think, Amanda, how long can that weaponry take exposure to direct flame before destabilizing? Three minutes? "... two minutes to pull his teams back behind the bulkheads and get things buttoned up. Then get topside and go aft over the weather decks. Inform the Delta Fox leader of the same thing. Got it? Go!"

  "Aye, aye!" He pulled on his gas mask again and plunged back out into the almost solid wall of smoke beyond the hatchway.

  The atmosphere inside the CIC was also rapidly becoming contaminated.

  Soon the duty watch would be needing their smoke masks as well. Amanda ignored the thickening air and returned her attention to the damage-control screens.

  She had to get her ship moving again. Thankfully, that task might not be too insurmountable. The Cunningham-class destroyer utilized an integrated electric drive. Her main motors were carried outside of the hull in twin pylon-mounted propulsor pods similar to the engines of a dirigible airship.

  There were no shaft alleys to flood. No boiler to explode.

  No reduction gears to strip. One just had to get the power from point A to point B.

  She drew a fingertip across the primary display. "We've got to run a set of jumpers from the transformer bay of Generator Room Two, here, to the primary propulsor junction box back at frame twenty-two. Then a second set of power cables and a new control linkage back to the steering engine room."

  "Shouldn't be any problem except for the junction box," Thomson replied.

  "It butts right up against that transverse bulkhead there. We got fire just on the other side of it now, and there's going to be water in a minute. God knows what kind of shape it's in. I'd better get back there and have a look at it."

  "I'll take care of that, Chief," Amanda said. "Notify Commander Hiro on the bridge that he has the con."

  "Begging your pardon, ma'am, but I'm not sure that's such a good idea."

  "Chief, you're the last of the senior engineering staff we have left. I need you here, so that leaves me. I helped work on the design of the Duke's drives; I should be able to figure out what's busted, and what's not. Anyway, I need to take a look around and see what kind of shape we're in."

  "As you say, ma'am."

  "I'll send a runner back with word of what's going on in > the stern.

  Initiate that magazine flood now. And get the internal communications hack on line! Carry on." |

  She removed a smoke mask from its locker beside the | hatch. Popping the plastic caps off its filters, she strapped it .

  on. Taking a battle lantern from its rack, she opened the watertight door and plunged out into the vapor-filled passageway. '

  Throughout the entire explosion of activity within the CIC, ' two of the naval officers present had taken no active part in , the operations. A full captain and a lieutenant commander, they had stood by, silently observing as the men and women of the duty watch had dealt with the developing disaster.

  Now, still unspeaking, the senior of the pair donned his own breathing mask and followed Amanda.

  The battle lantern had been an act of futility. The smoke killed the beam in only a couple of feet. This wasn't as critical as it might have been, however. Amanda Garrett knew , the Duke's interior spaces like the back of her hand.

  Surrounding her in the murk, handy-billy motors roared, wood slammed into metal as shoring timbers were hammered into place, and the men and women of the DC teams blasphemed their way through their procedures.

  She hesitated for a second in the passageway, then turned to the ladder that led one level up.

  The Cunningham's wardroom had been converted into a casualty receiving station. Its limited deck space was jammed ' now with loaded stretchers and cluttered with discarded | medical-stores packaging. The Cunningham's chief hospitalcorpsman, Bonnie Robinson, was working her way around the compartment running triage on the moaning injured for; Doc Golden.

  Lieutenant Commander Daniel "Doc" Golden was the latist-addition to the Duke's company. It wasn't a common thing for a Navy doctor to be assigned aboard a destroyer.

  Normally, small surface combatants had to make do with only a corpsman and the hope for a fast medivac out to a carrier or tender.

  However, the Cunningham had been designed for independent operations, and Amanda had recently made herself insufferable in certain quarters until she had acquired Golden.

  She had lost a crewman on her last cruise because she hadn't had a physician aboard ship. She would not let that happen again.

  "How are we doing on the wounded, Doc?" Amanda asked, lifting her smoke mask.

  "We don't have nearly enough of them," Golden replied, working over an IV set. "We've got a whole lot of Missing in Actions down in the engineering spaces." Golden moved with a youthful swiftness that seemed incompatible with a head balding toward middle age. His usual air of studied casualness had been transformed into a focused professionalism.

  "What's the status of the ones we have been able to get to?"

  "What you'd expect. Flash burns and concussion injuries.

  We're getting a lot of smoke inhalation now."

  As if in response to his words the passageway hatch swung open, admitting another billow of smoke and a pair of DC hands carrying a third limp form between them.

  "Smoke?"

  "Yes, sir. Mask failure."

  "Set her down in the corner and get some O2 into her.

  Robinson, we've got another customer!"

  "Aye, sir."

  Golden glanced back at his CO. "An
d while we're on the subject, Captain, this place is beginning to remind me of a Ramada Inn I stayed at in Miami Beach once. The air conditioning doesn't work, and you can't open the windows.

  Request permission to start evacuating the wounded out onto the weather decks. These people need uncontaminated air."

  Amanda considered for a few moments. "Negative. We're still in a combat situation here. We may have to start launching missiles again at any time. I don't want unprotected personnel topside if it can be avoided."

  "Captain ... "

  "Hold out here for as long as you can. If evacuation becomes absolutely imperative, notify me. That's all, Doc."

  "As you say, Captain."

  Amanda Garrett resealed her mask and left the wardroom.

  The four-striper who had been shadowing her, and who had been observing silently throughout her dialog with Doc Golden, followed suit.

  Amanda dropped back down one deck and headed aft, moving through the smoke-saturated passageways with an ease and a swiftness that was almost supernatural. She stepped over unseen hoses and cables and around gaping access panels simply because she projected that they would be there in this given situation.

  Passing through another watertight door, she sensed she was entering into a comparatively large open space, the Cunningham's belowdecks helicopter hangar. Turning to her left, she stepped ten paces off to starboard, station-keeping by brushing her fingertips along the bulkhead. The form that she knew should be there loomed before her.