The Command

All at once the noise started. Slam. Slam. Slam. Two guns, each pumping out a seventy-pound projectile every three seconds. A more rapid drumfire from directly overhead: the chaff mortars, firing rounds of radar reflective foil. Styx was a big missile, but not a smart one. The chaff would probably fool it. But it was better to make sure.

A high-pitched wail, the missile fire warning alarm. A rattling bang, then the avalanche roar of a truckload of gravel being dumped. On the monitor the missile leaped out, blanking the image first with a flare of light and then a cloud of cottony smoke. Another roar, flare, and cloud, and two mach-three missiles were on their way. The guns had been firing for some seconds, but they’d pass the shells in the air. A fire control petty officer began chanting time and distance. Then called out, “I have target bloom, Vampire one … Evaluate as kill!”

“Vampire two turning left… no … seems to be seeking,” Camill told him.

Dan nodded. One hard kill. But the second Styx was trying to decide on its target. The small, hard blip its mother fire-control computer had told it to attack? Or the big new ones that had suddenly appeared? It turned away again, then back toward Horn once more. The guns were still banging away. Camill was gearing up for a second Sparrow salvo.

“TAO, Guns: radar video consistent with target breakup. Evaluate Vampire two as kill.”

“TAO, EW: Emitters ceased.”

Camill called, “Cease fire. Cease fire!”

“Ninety seconds from launch to splash,” Dan said, looking at his watch. Both missiles splashed at four miles from the ship, and within five seconds of each other. But it wasn’t over yet. Camill was looking at him, waiting.

“Take ’em,” Dan said.

“TAO, SWC: I have positive solution both targets.”

Camill said, eyes still locked with Dan’s, “Kill targets one and two with two Bulldogs each.”

“Salvo warning.” The SWC activated the salvo warning and vent damper alarms. The compartment ventilation fans spun down in a whirring decrescendo. The siren went off again.

Closer and much louder than the fantail-mounted Sparrows, the departing Harpoons rattled the deck plates and vibrated the tote boards like an elevated train going over their heads. A circuit breaker alarm began warbling. It went on and on. Faintly someone yelled, “Bulldog one away. Bulldog two away. Bulldog three away. Bulldog four away.”

Dan concentrated on his Seiko. Despite the closed dampers, a smell like scorched brake linings reached them. Time of flight: about three minutes. “All hands stand clear of Harpoon deck in preparation for launch,” the 1MC said. Yerega had gotten a little behind script, but it didn’t matter now. What counted was how well the millions of lines of code running in the dozens of linked computers had been written. How carefully some production drone had screwed parts into a missile body on a California assembly line. Maybe they’d get lucky. If they didn’t…

Sweat was trickling down his back, but he felt icy cold. He was waiting for the next “Vampire, Vampire.” Waiting with every muscle in his body drawn taut. But it didn’t come … It didn’t come.

Finally he couldn’t stand it any longer. “Targets?”

“Gone,” Camill said, staring at the big repeater.

“Turn to short wavelength.”

“Okay, now I have small intermittent returns at that range and bearing. Consistent with debris. Five … four … none.” He waited for the next sweep of the radar. Looked up. “Nothing but sea return.”

Dan mopped his face with his sleeve. The Combat team looked at him, to him, he supposed, for some hint as to whether it was okay to cheer. He couldn’t give them what they wanted. Frozen, paralyzed by the felt knowledge of how horribly other men had just died. Torn apart by explosive, burned, clawing at the sea as they sank into the final bloody darkness.

He couldn’t rejoice.

But neither could he be sorry. Whoever they were, they’d tried to kill him first.

Christ! Agonize about that later, Lenson! The question was, Who the hell had they been? And why had they fired? No state of war existed. No blockade or interdiction zone had been declared. Any regularly commissioned ship of war could have blown off Horn’s challenge and passed clear, and there was nothing Dan could have done about it.

The only answer he had was that they’d attacked to protect someone else. Someone who could be challenged, and stopped, and searched.

The satellite phone beeped. Dan gave the staff officer on the other end a quick rundown. “You sank them both?” the voice said at last.

“I returned fire. Hard kill on both hostile missiles. I then fired four RGM-84Cs on the shooters and observed impact. Both contacts have disappeared from the screen except for faint returns I evaluate as debris. Now proceeding to the point of impact.”

He got a doubtful “Roger, out,” and slammed the phone back into its holder. It popped out again, impelled by the spring, and this time he let it dangle.