Carnifex (62 page)

Abdul Aziz had, early on, thought that torpedoes and cruise missiles might be a useful adjunct to the
Hoogaboom
and its mission. Further reflection, however, had convinced him that the risk of detection, if placed aboard ship, was too great. This had not meant the idea was without merit, only that it needed further refinement.

Large torpedoes were out for a number of reasons, chief among these was that "large" equaled both "noticeable" and "too heavy and bulky to transport and set up in the jungle along the straits." There were, however, much smaller torpedoes available, from various Volgan crime syndicates, and for surprisingly little money. These torpedoes were not suitable for sinking a major warship, of course, but that wasn't their purpose. Rather, they were designed to home on engine noise to kill submarines. What would kill a submarine, Abdul thought, was likely to severely damage an AZIPOD.

This both torpedoes were trying to do, streaking under the water straight for the AZIPODs mounted at
Dos Lindas
' stern.

"Fish in the water! Fish in the water! Fuck! Fish in the water!"

Fosa heard the sonar man's announcement and dread filled his heart. Looking at the screen and seeing the torpedoes aligning themselves for a run at the propellers, he was about to give the command to kill power when radar screamed, "Moonbats! Moonbats! Moonbats! Cruise missiles incoming . . . Raid count: three . . . no, four . . . ah, shit! Six! Skipper, Moonbats six, all quarters."

"Surface Action, Port and Starboard," Fosa ordered. "Weapons free."

There was a whining overhead and a sudden
CRACK
as the laser mounted above the tower engaged one of the cruise missiles. Two more, much more muted,
CRACK
s sounded as the fore and aft lasers likewise engaged. In the distance, and it was not nearly enough distance, two explosions that had to be in the half ton of TNT range, told that the lasers had scored, if imperfectly. There were still four cruise missiles incoming and the smoke, apparently, made engagement more than a little problematic.

Again, the defensive lasers fired. Again, only two hit, creating huge angry clouds of hot gas and flying metal. But there had been six missiles. There were still two . . . and there was no more time.

"Fuck!" Robinson cursed as first two, then two more, of the
Ikhwan
's cruise missiles were destroyed. And then he saw a sight to gratify his heart as a massive explosion erupted on the ship's side, and another self detonated, so he thought, just above the tower atop the carrier. Within moments the ship's rear elevator, likewise, burst forth in smoke and fire. Atop the column of flame, Robinson thought he saw a helicopter being blasted upward.

"Take that, fuckers!"

Santisima Trinidad

The air was still heavily weighted with smoke from the shoreline fires. Pedraz scanned through it, as best he could, with the binoculars he carried as a matter of habit now. Sweeping his vision along the shoreline, Pedraz whispered, "
Nada
. Just fucking
nada
."

Even though the PTF was a few miles away from the
Dos Lindas
, the battle stations klaxon sounded clearly across the water. Then came the message from CIC to all escorts to expect attack by surface boats, probably suicide boats, and to close in on the flagship. Pedraz pulled on a set of headphones and then reached for the klaxon.

Before Pedraz could give the signal for battle stations a half dozen speedboats swarmed out from the banks of the strait. Clavell and Guptillo, manning the forward forty, engaged even without orders. Their first several shots missed, but then they were rewarded by a major blast as one of the speedboats simply disintegrated when a shell found what must have been a huge charge of explosive.

Cheering was cut short as, just off the port side, a flaming streak shot past, followed by another to starboard. The machine gunners, moving as quickly as their legs would carry them from wherever the call to battle stations had found them, were mostly too late to bring fire on the cruise missiles. Only one gun actually engaged, and it missed.

No time for orders, Pedraz took the con, himself, elbowing Francés out of the way. Pushing the throttle to maximum, he twisted the wheel to point the boat away from the shore and towards the threatened carrier. Clavell and Guptillo swung the forty around to engage another of the small boats but the
Trinidad
turned faster than they could traverse the gun.

No matter, by the time the
Trinidad
was headed toward the carrier, the rear machine gun crews were fighting desperately, causing the speedboats to have to maneuver to avoid being hit.

Pedraz thought,
If nothing else, it buys time. Now if only
 . . . 

He saw a massive explosion between the
Trinidad
and the flagship. He was about to cheer when he saw another explosion, above the carrier, and then another near the stern. He wasn't sure it was the flagship being hit until he spotted the Yakamov helicopter being launched strait up, riding a column of fire and disintegrating as it flew.

"Oh, fuck."

In his headphones, Pedraz heard, "Skipper? Dorado. Sonar's got two fish in the water, running shallow."

The ship lurched, tossing to the deck everyone on the bridge not already seated and strapped in. None of the thick windows quite shattered, but every portside window there was cracked, along with most of those a-starboard. Even through the blurring of the cracks, even from flat on his ass, Fosa saw the abruptly launched Yakamov, streaking upward like a comet.

"Near miss . . . ah, Hell, call it a hit. Hit Alpha, island structure, zero-four level. Hit Bravo, hangar deck, starboard side aft. Fire on the hangar deck! Damage control parties away."

A smoke-choked and shock-strained voice from somewhere below came over the speaker. "There
are
no . . . damage control . . . parties near the . . . hit."

"My Shshshiiippp!"

"Captain-san," Kurita said, groggily, "stay here and fight your ship. I will see to damage control." With that, the nonagenarian struggled to his feet and left, seeking the epicenter of the damage.

"Fight my ship . . . fight my ship . . . FIGHT MY FUCKING SHIP!"

In those few seconds, Fosa understood a part of what Kurita had been trying to tell him before, about ships having spirits and souls, about them being alive. At least he understood this much, that his ship was more valuable to him than his own life and must be preserved, at all costs consistent with its own honor.

Can something with honor be without a soul?

Hands gripping a plotting table, Fosa pulled himself to his feet. He heard machine gun and light cannon fire from all around as the gun crews finally got to their battle stations and began engaging the speedboats. Range was long but it couldn't hurt to try. He'd expended something over a million rounds of ammunition in training. If they couldn't get some stinking jury-rigged speedboats, no one could. He'd counted the number of explosions from cruise missiles. There had been six launches and six explosions. If the enemy had had more missiles, they'd have launched more, he thought.
What else threatens my ship
?

"Report!"

"That one above us took out the radar, Captain. Before that I had no hostile aircraft, captain," Radar said.

"Ours are still trying to organize out of cluster fuck mode, sir," said the air boss.

Sonar announced, "Skipper, I've still got two fish in the water, one each, port and starboard. Countermeasures are not, I repeat not, effective. First impact expected in seven minutes."

Seven minutes . . . seven minutes . . . a whole lifetime can pass in seven minutes.

Fosa reached for the microphone. "Escorts, this is Fosa."

"
Trinidad
, here, sir . . . 
Agustin
, sir."

"The flagship's been hit but I think we can save her," Fosa said. "What we can't do anything about from here are the torpedoes—you see them on sonar?"

"Aye" . . . "Aye."

Fosa gulped; this was a hard order to give. "I need you to try to bait the torpedoes away . . . and if that doesn't work . . . "

No arguments, no questions. "It's better they hit us than hit the
Dos Lindas
. Understood. This is
Agustin
, we'll try" . . . "
Trinidad
, Pedraz speaking. I'll give it a shot."

Unseen, Fosa nodded. "Good lads," he said into the microphone. Looking up at the operations board he ordered, "Warn the
Hoogaboom
off. Tell them we're under attack. And, air boss, get the planes onto those goddamned speedboats."

"
Hoogaboom
acknowledges, sir."

"Nav, give me a plot for the torpedo on our side, an
intercept
plot."

"You're shitting me, right, Chief?"

"Just give me the fucking intercept, Dorado," Pedraz said to the navigator.

"Be a minute," Dorado answered.

"You've got fifteen seconds, Pedro, I want to pass about four hundred meters in front of the thing."

It didn't even take fifteen seconds. In half that time Dorado came back, answering, "Fuck . . . can't do it, Chief. We're not fast enough."

Pedraz picked up the radio microphone and, keying it, said, "
Dos Lindas
, this is
Trinidad.
No chance to intercept on our side. Sorry."

"Captain,
Agustin
reports that they've caught the torpedo's attention and it's following them. They can stay ahead of it and lead it off.
Trinidad
says we're fucked. Impact, astern . . . two minutes."

"Hard a-port and then kill the AZIPODs."

The entire bridge crew turned and looked at Fosa as if he were mad.

"Hard a-port and then all, STOP, goddamit. Do it . . . then kill the fucking drives!"

The torpedo noted the instant drop off in screw noise. It might, had it been a less sophisticated torpedo, have then been fooled by the countermeasures the target deployed. It was, however, "competent" and, as such, had already eliminated the false noises from consideration. It had, further, tracked the speed of the carrier and was able, in general terms, to account for the continuing forward momentum of the target even if it lost its acoustic aiming point. A few degrees more steer and the torpedo continued on its merry way, aimed
almost
perfectly for the port side AZIPOD. Indeed, it would have been perfect, but that the ship was ever so slowly turning head on to the speeding torpedo.

For a nonagenarian, Kurita was fast on his feet. Perhaps it was that, unlike most human beings, there was just no mechanism in him to give in to frailty or pain. Whichever the case, he was down on third deck, as close as he could get to the fire, within moments of leaving the bridge.

Many men, burned, broken, and bleeding, sat quietly against bulkheads or crawled from the consuming flames. Others, caught in the blaze, screamed like children. Of the former, Kurita thought,
Brave boys. I am so proud of you.
Of the latter, generously he thought,
In extremity even a samurai might scream. And death by fire is extreme.

A fire-suited damage control party from another section of the ship arrived, just as Kurita did, its centurion reporting to the Yamatan.

"There is not enough room for all your people here, Centurion," Kurita said. "Use half to fight the fire. Have the other half carry off the wounded to clear the way."

The smoke wasn't bad, yet, but it was bad enough. Coughing, Kurita grabbed a SCBA, a Self Contained Breathing Apparatus mask, from a dispenser and put it on. It would interfere with giving commands, but continued inhalation of the smoke was likely to make him far too
dead
to give commands.

The problem, though, is that it is hard to tell how much of this smoke is from fire and how much from the initial explosion. Are the fuel lines breached? We have power. Is the air circulation system feeding oxygen to the flames? Has the fire breached the hangar deck fire curtains to either side of the rear elevator?

The only way to determine the answers was to look. Kurita lightly felt the near surface of a hatch that led to a balcony overlooking the hangar deck.
Not too bad. I wish the design had included a window. I must advise this to Fosa-san as soon as possible.

He opened the hatch and stuck his head out. His first thought was
Thank God the curtain was not breached.
Further inspection, however, showed that it
was
breached higher up. Thus, while no burning fuel was racing across the deck, hot smoke was oozing over and through the rent in the fire curtain's fabric. This was bad enough but what his eyes lit on next was actually enough to set his heart to racing.

Kurita lifted his mask and shouted, "Centurion, have your men stop work on the wounded! There is ordnance on the hangar deck and it MUST BE REMOVED!"

Then the deck lurched, knocking Kurita once again from his feet and slamming his head against a bulkhead. For a few moments he lost consciousness.

While the upward lurch of the deck threw Kurita from his feet, at the bridge the motion was much less. Fosa retained his footing, as did almost every man of the bridge crew. What he saw, though, when he looked at the engineering panel—a sudden Christmas tree of red and amber lights—made his heart sink.

Dead in the water. Shit . . . DEAD . . . in the water.

Fosa looked forward and saw that,
thank God for small blessings
, the
Dos Lindas
was at least not headed to land. It should, he crudely calculated, have lost all forward motion before there was a risk of grounding.

And when the corvettes get here, they can tow us a bit. Maybe it's not hopeless.

Fosa looked portward and saw a Finch diving on something he couldn't see for the flight deck. The Finch had all guns blazing. He saw it cease fire and pull up just before yet another massive explosion took place off the port side.

Indeed, maybe it's not hopeless.