Reflexive Fire - 01 (42 page)

   Crewmen Danuj Vyapari winced as voices crackled over his headset.

   The high tech Zumwalt-class destroyers flanked the super-liner like twin bodyguards, watching the horizon for threats.  Now it seemed a Trojan Horse had sneaked right past them. 

   The storm that beat all three ships was bad enough, giving even veteran Indian crewmen on board a case of seasickness.  Now the hulking cruise liner was on fire, smoke billowing from its port side while gunfire and explosions flashed.

   The Zumwalt was outfitted primarily with twenty-four long-range cruise missiles, Danuj fulfilling his role as the gunner on the ship's single rail gun.  Working his control toggles, he swung the gun turret from facing outboard to take aim at the ship they were supposed to be protecting.

   It was a concept that he had studied as an engineering student.  The rail gun consisted of two parallel conductive rails that when connected to a power source would send electrons racing up the negative rail across a projectile seated inside the gun and then back down the positive rail, creating an electro-magnetic force.  The EM energy produced utilized the Lorentz force to fire the metal projectile down the rails at unprecedented speeds of up to twenty kilometers a second.  Useful as long-range artillery or a missile defense shield, to his surprise he was now being ordered to use it as a short-range sniper rifle.

   The gun captain was screaming in his ears, no doubt due to someone else screaming in his.

   While a five inch gun on a modern naval ship was traditionally crewed by fifteen or so men, the rail gun system made use of various automated systems, narrowing the crew down to three.  The gun captain, gunner, and one crewman to run the fire-control system.

   There were no trajectories to account for and no computerized calculation to adjust for the Coriolis Effect.  Just a simple order.  Really, a waste of talent for a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology. 

   “Deck Five, mid-ship, third window from the left.”

   “Roger,” Danuj acknowledged.

   Someone was getting frustrated up there if they were firing on their own ship.

   Originally, one of the Zumwalts had been crewed entirely by Indians and the other entirely by Pakistanis.  Some white guy's logic was that it would prevent ethnic strife while on board.  In a return to colonialism, both ships were captained by former British admirals, so no one was surprised at such a ridiculous idea.  They had to be convinced that having two cutting-edge warships manned completely by two groups of opposing national, religious, and political ideologies would not end well. 

   Like the others, he was well-educated and recruited while still in college.  All he had to do was sit in a simulator and play video games all day, making thousands of dollars a month, supposedly testing out some new software.  Then they had been contracted to fulfill their positions for real, this time on a destroyer that had just slipped off a dry dock in South Korea a month before.

   The autoloader slammed the metal cube projectile into the breach and locked into position.

   What had held back the development of the rail gun for so long was the massive friction created every time it was fired.  The projectile moved so fast that it created more muzzle flash than a conventional cannon.  The metal alloy cube created so much friction as it moved along the rails that it burned up the surrounding oxygen, creating a massive plume of plasma in its wake.  Alloys and coatings had been developed to make the rails much more durable, but they were still expected to be replaced every month or so, depending on frequency of use.

   “Confirm target,” the FCS crewmen said, double-checking Danuj's targeting.  “Fire when ready.”

   The gunner's hand was slippery with sweat as he palmed the joystick and pulled the trigger.

   Deckard moved his hand back off the M203 and took up the M4's pistol grip.

   He walked a line of 5.56 rounds up the first gunman's sternum until he popped the grape at the top.  With his back against the wall, he targeted the second gunman rolling across the floor as the ship rolled with the crash of each wave.  He was still sliding and fumbling with his rifle when Deckard double-tapped him.

   The third managed to get to his feet and slide right into Deckard before he could sweep his barrel in his direction.  The two crashed to the ground amid the tables and chairs that slammed into the wall next to them.

   The mercenary was straddled on Deckard's chest, his rifle pinned under his attacker.  Drawing the pistol from the drop holster on his thigh, Deckard saw the crazed look in his attacker's eyes leaving no doubt in Deckard's mind that he meant to finish the job.

   Both men cringed unexpectedly as one of the supporting columns behind them disappeared.  It sounded as if an invisible herd of elephants was crashing through the dining room.

   Deckard saw the opening and lunged.

   The mercenary had been foolhardy enough to mount his combat blade upside down on his body armor.  Maybe he thought he could draw it quicker from that position, maybe he had just been watching too many movies.  The blade was perfectly positioned for an opponent to make use of while grappling.

   Reaching up, Deckard tore the fighting knife from its sheath and sunk it deep into the mercenary's neck.

   The contract killer gurgled on his own blood as Deckard pushed him to the side and got to his feet.

   The second shot was deafening.

   The buffet lines were taken out in a flash, spraying whatever was left all over the ceiling.  A fist-sized hole was left smoking in the wall.  Strangely he noted that the hole was in the shape of a perfect cube, when a third shot pulped one of his Kazakh troops.

   The American mercenaries looked just as shocked as the Samruk men who struggled amid the tangle of furniture and clutter they were trapped in.  The fourth shot slammed into one of them, severing him in half.  Another was showered with his comrade's blood before Deckard finished him with his M4.

   The next shot disintegrated a flat screen mounted on the wall behind him.

   The former soldier wasn't entirely sure who or what was shooting at them but had an eerie feeling that it was him they were aiming for.

   Deckard hit the floor as a super-heated blast passed just over his back and destroyed a grand piano in the corner of the room.

   “Everyone out,” he ordered to any of his men left alive.  “We-”

   His words were cut short as another wave crashed into the ship, sending him forward, face first.  As they bounced off the hardwood floor, water surged down from the staircase in the center of the room in a quickly growing waterfall.  The
pop, pop, pop
of a pistol continued to fire from somewhere.  Another projectile flew through the room at blinding speed, taking out several chandeliers in its path.

   Bits of glass dusted his hair as he shouldered the M4, sending a burst into an enemy desperately firing shot after shot from his pistol in a panic.

   As the ship tilted from one side to the other, Deckard stopped fighting it and rolled away as autofire stitched across the floor off his flank.

   Landing on one knee, he exhausted the rest of his magazine, punching down targets like bowling pins.  Dropping an empty magazine, he thumbed his last round into the M203.

Thirty Five

   A solid steel hatch slammed shut on the Kazakh assault team and locked shut with a
clack-clack
spin of a wheel.

   Corporal Fedorchenko reached down and removed the night vision goggles from one of the dead American security contractors.  Loosening the straps he slid the monocle over his left eye before tightening it in place.

   Scanning the rest of his team, the Samruk mercenary smiled.

   The AN/PSQ-20 Enhanced Night Vision goggles combined third-generation image-intensification technology with a scanner that read the infrared heat produced by the human body.  You could see at night while also pinpointing targets by their thermal signature.

   The corporal barked at Ospanov and the other four men in his team.  Shifting through blood and spent brass, they recovered the PSQ-20s off the remaining bodies.  Somewhere between decks Seven and Eight things had gotten ugly.  For all he knew, they were the only survivors from Bravo Company.  Whether they were all that were left or not, the Kazakhs intended to go down fighting.

   Ospanov swung the thermal night vision goggles up on its swing mount while he worked the door.  The others adjusted their equipment and reloaded their weapons for the final push.  Fedorchenko readied a smoke grenade.

   Nodding to his team leader, Ospanov was ready to initiate the countdown.

   The team stacked up down the hall, giving Ospanov plenty of distance as he initiated the time fuse.  Sparks flew across the corridor as he began the burn sequence.  Running back, he jumped into the stack with the other assaulters.

   When it blew, it was even worse than when they had run over the land mine in Burma.  The overpressure was nearly enough to do them in even though they had inserted hearing protection and covered their ears with their hands.

   The heavy steel door had crumpled under the force of the plastic explosives and imploded into the helm of the ship.  The crew members were ready, and gunfire blasted through the open hatch, anticipating the Kazakhs' entry as they approached.

   Fedorchenko underhanded his smoke grenade through the hatch.  Allowing the smoke to billow for a moment, the team pulled their newly liberated PSQ-20 goggles over their eyes as Ospanov lobbed a flash-bang through the door.

   Pouring through the entrance, they alternated between moving to the left and right, leaving them staggered against the near wall.  Underneath their equipment and inside a cloud of thick smoke their situation felt hot and claustrophobic.

   Scanning from side to side, the thermal detection unit in their goggles cut right through the smoke, outlining human targets in blazes of red to indicate body heat signatures.  The Kazakhs point shot each thermal signature, aiming their barrels through the haze as if pointing an accusing finger at the crewmen.  Bursts of auto fire cut through the smoke for tense seconds before a creepy quiet left them alone in the room.

   As the smoke cleared, Fedorchenko visually confirmed that his men were all still on their feet.

   His assault team had captured the helm.

   Deckard chambered the 40mm buckshot round into his grenade launcher and triggered the shot.  The two enemy guns-for-hire were caught in the open absorbing twenty-seven buckshot pellets that spun them both around in a macabre dance of death.

   The dining hall was rocked again, another superheated projectile slicing through the walls steadily turning the room into a slice of Swiss cheese.

   Deckard heard a thump.  Turning towards the source, he saw another of his men smeared against the wall, missing the upper portion of his shoulder, clavicle, and half of his face.

   Running for the exit, the next hypersonic missile missed him by inches.

   “What the hell do you think you are doing?”

   Incredulous, Chad spun around, eager for confrontation.

   “Cleaning up your mess.”

   Hieronymus' eyes went wild. 

   Chad grinned for the first time in days.  The old man wasn't used to people telling him how it is.

   “Stand them down,” the oligarch ordered the Indian crewmen.  “Stand them down immediately.”

   “Yes, sir,” the senior captain on deck chirped.

   “They'll be here in minutes,” Chad said, crossing his arms in front of him.

   “It's your job to make sure that doesn't happen,” the old man reiterated.  “And make it happen without destroying the ship.  Johnston Atoll is gone, and all we have left is the enclave in Hawaii or one of our bunkers in Micronesia.  With the ship on fire and you punching it full of holes we'll be lucky if the Zumwalts can tow us that far.”

   “What the fuck were you thinking hiring that guy?” Chad asked, pointing at the flat screen monitor bolted to one of the walls.  The picture displayed live footage from one of the security cameras.  A Caucasian mercenary in jungle fatigues fired a buckshot round from a captured grenade launcher, shredding two of Chad's men.

   “O'Brien.  Our calculations gave the odds of something like this happening as one in thirteen quadrillion chance of happening.  A statistical impossibility,” the old man stated flatly.

   “Your statistics count for exactly jack and shit when you don't even know who you are talking about.  That guy on that monitor is named Deckard, not O'Brien.”

   “Impossible.  Kammler Associates had their best people dig up the dirt on this guy.”

   “He must have had some deep cover.  I'm telling you that guy's name is Deckard.”

   “Are you sure?”

   “I never worked with him personally, but he has been on the CIA's targets of opportunity list for years now.  He used to work for the Agency's Special Activities Division and had a little bit of a falling out with them, to say the least.”

   Hieronymus looked like he was about to have a heart attack.

   “Sir,” one of the Indians interrupted.  “The helm has just been overrun.”

   At his age, Chad wouldn't put it past him.

   “Fix this,” the old man said through clenched teeth.  “Fix this now.”

   Deckard slipped down the stairs amid a cascade of water flowing from somewhere above.

   The situation had gotten a little hot in his opinion.  Dropping to a lower deck, maybe they could avoid some security as they infiltrated through the ship, making their way for the enemy's operations center.  Reaching the landing, Deckard was grateful that the cannon fire had ceased.  Whatever the hell that thing was, it wasn't anything he had seen before.

   The Kazakh behind him slid on unsure footing in the puddle of water as Deckard held up a fist.

   They had moved down into a service area that guests weren't supposed to see.  The hold looked to be packed to the ceiling with luggage and supplies.  The passengers were in it for the long haul, probably intending to stick it out for several months at sea before making landfall in their new world.

   When the coast looked clear he took a knee, prepared to lay down support fire as he waved his men forward.  Pat took point, rifle leading the way.  There were only a few of them left.  A couple of his C/co Corporals along with JF and Pat.

   When the last Kazakh troop passed, Deckard glanced back checking their six, before picking up and moving with his team.  As they began moving through aisle after aisle of stowed luggage, the ship trembled once again, the floor slanting at an angle as another wave tumbled over the Crown of the Pacific.

   The mercenaries reached out and clutched anything in reach for support.  Most of them grabbed onto the metal racks that the ship's supplies were strapped into.  Pat found a metal attachment point on the floor that made a convenient handhold.

   Jean-Francoise yelped as he somersaulted head over heels and crashed into one of the aisles at the end of the hold.  He came to a stop on his rear end and was trying to regain some sense of orientation when Deckard heard a snapping like someone plucked a giant rubber band.

   Metal clanked across metal as an industrial forklift broke free from its lashings and rolled down the aisle as the ship continued to list to one side.

   JF looked up a moment too late, the forklift slamming into him head-on with a bone crunching crack.

   A second later the boat righted itself, the forklift rolling back on its wheels.  JF's body slumped to the floor, his face crushed, an exaggerated caricature of the man he had been a moment before.  Deckard turned away.  His comrade's face looked like a Halloween mask.

   “Let's go,” Pat said, grabbing Deckard by the sleeve.

   Now wasn't the time to dwell on what could have been.

   “Listen to me, Deckard.”

   Jogging through lifeless mechanical rooms and empty corridors, he tried not to.

   “This is where you make the right decision and get with the winning team,” the voice of the PA system blared.  “I did what I had to do, to make sure my family is protected, that we have a place in what is coming.  Hieronymus tells me he is disappointed in your decisions but impressed by your abilities.  They are going to give you one last chance.