Dark Watch

“Sounds good,” Cabrillo responded. “Call me when you have visual.” The ops team watched the trawler approach the Oregon through low-light cameras mounted high atop a deck crane. The Kra IV matched the description given by the few survivors of pirate attacks. She was seventy-three-feet long and beamy, with a blunt bow and an open aft deck. She sported a tall A-frame derrick over her fantail, and they could see a single cargo container lashed just aft of her pilothouse. The distortion of the night optics couldn’t prevent the crew from seeing that the trawler was well-worn. Her machinery looked as dilapidated as that aboard the Oregon, and Juan decided the pirates used the same ruse the Corporation utilized to lull their adversaries.

“Target is twenty yards to starboard,” Eddie radioed. “I can see a dozen or so men on her deck. They’re dressed mostly in shorts or jeans. A few are wearing foul weather gear. They look like they’re carrying equipment, but I bet it’s cover for weapons.”

“Acknowledged.” Cabrillo called down to the engine room to tell Max to cut the smoke screen. With their forward speed down to almost zero, the thick smog blew across the decks and would make visual identification difficult for Seng, as well as the operators of the remote machine guns.

Eddie watched one of the “fishermen” raise a bullhorn to his mouth and hail the Oregon. He stepped from the shadows and took a position at the head of the gangway stairs. A bead of sweat trickled down his rib cage. “Are we glad to see you,” he called back with the right tinge of fear and relief. He noted that the curtain of smoke began to thin. “I think we have contained the fire but don’t know what damage we’ve sustained.”

“We will offer any assistance we can,” the pirate replied. Eddie could hear the mocking tone in his voice through his accent.

As the two boats came together, deckhands on the Kra IV secured their ship to the gangway, and two of the pirates started up the stairs. If the first shot was to come, now was the time. Eddie tensed, his pistol out of its holster but held out of view.

Several things happened in the space of the next few seconds. Unseen searchlights on the trawler snapped on, bathing the side of the Oregon in stark white light and overloading most of the crew’s night vision capabilities. Just short of the deck, the leading pirate raised an automatic and put two quick rounds into Eddie’s chest and motioned to his companions. They charged up the gangway, shouting incoherent challenges as another dozen men rushed from the Kra’s pilothouse.

Eddie felt as though he’d been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer. He staggered back, his body numb. He heard more than felt his pistol fall from his deadened fingers.

Four of the pirates had gained the deck by the time Eddie’s men reacted. Two of them were cut down in the first burst of gunfire from their concealed positions, but five more reached the Oregon to take their place. That they were meeting resistance sent the boarding party into a frenzy. They came on like berserkers eager for battle. In another few seconds the odds were five to one against the Corporation fighters and lengthening with every tick of the clock. Red beams from laser sights crisscrossed in the smoke as the firefight turned into a frenzy.

As soon as the screens in the op center whited out under the luminous onslaught of the arc lamps, Cabrillo understood the pirates’ strategy. It had been called shock and awe during the second Gulf War — overwhelm your enemy in the first few moments of battle by creating the maximum confusion. An untrained crew on a merchant vessel would be so paralyzed by the lights, the screams, and the sheer number of men storming their ship that they wouldn’t even get off a mayday.

And while the tactic was designed to defeat an unarmed crew, it also happened to negate the Corporation’s advantage. The night vision gear was worthless, and there was still too much smoke blanketing the deck to use regular sights. The infrared system couldn’t discern friend from foe, so for the moment the remote gunners were useless.

Cabrillo launched himself from his chair, snatching a pair of night vision goggles and a machine pistol from the rack along the aft bulkhead. He was in the elevator before anyone knew he’d moved.

“Lock down the elevator when I reach the bridge,” he called as the hydraulic lift whisked him five stories to the bridge.