Battleship (Movie Tie-in Edition) (19 page)

One of the more notable residents of Kaneohe Bay was the Marine Corps Base (MCB) Hawaii. MCB Hawaii maintained key operations, training, and support facilities and provided services that were essential for the readiness and global projection of ground combat forces and aviation units, and the well-being, morale, and safety of military personnel, their families, and the civilian workforce. They managed installations and natural resources situated on a total of forty-five hundred
acres throughout the island of Oahu, including Camp Smith, Marine Corps Training Area Bellows, Manana Family Housing Area, Pearl City Warehouse Annex, Puuoloa Range Complex, and of course Kaneohe Bay.

The MCB was under high alert because of what was transpiring globally, but no one could have been prepared for what was about to happen.

Sirens sounded throughout the MCB as unknown, incoming objects showed up on the tracking instruments. Marines immediately scrambled, charging out of hangars, off drill fields, everywhere and anywhere, to defend the base.

Within seconds the twin metal spheres tore through MCB Hawaii. Initially they zeroed in on the airfield, ripping through helicopters and airplanes as if they were wet tissue paper. Huge pieces of metal were sent hurtling in all directions and the first thing the Marines needed to do was fall back, take shelter, lest they wind up being gutted or beheaded by flying shards. As soon as they managed to find cover, they then opened fire with their rifles and guns upon the spheres.

It proved to be ineffectual. For the most part the spheres were simply too fast. It would have been impossible to get a bead on them with anything short of computer tracking, and even then it would have been challenging. A few shots did strike them, more by luck than anything else, but all that happened was the bullets pinged off them without inflicting the slightest bit of damage.

Once every vehicle that could potentially have gone airborne was reduced to nothing but scraps of twisted metal, the spheres headed for the weapons depot. Seconds later the base was wracked with explosions. The air became thick with vast plumes of black smoke, and fire crackled through the MCB. And as the Marines struggled to find ways of containing it, the spheres—as if their assault had barely been worthy of their time—hurtled away, heading
for Camp Smith and anywhere else that seemed as if it could provide even the slightest airborne military threat.

From the deck of the
Missouri
, populated mostly by tourists, old salts, and a grizzled gunner, they could see smoke rising in the distance from the MCB.

There had been no Japanese aircraft, no howling of bombs or staccato assault of bullets from diving Zeroes. Nevertheless the parallels to times long past were unmistakable. Men who were in their eighties now remembered being brand-spanking-new recruits, thrilled to be assigned to Pearl Harbor, only to wind up witnessing firsthand the assault that wound up waking the sleeping giant and sending the United States howling for payback into World War II.

They were seeing history repeating itself, and within their hearts, sleeping giants roared to life once more.

The wind was blowing steadily east. Sam and her client, Mick, were climbing up the hill, going west, and as a consequence didn’t see any of it. Sam did catch, briefly, the faint whiff of something burning. But she heard no trees crackling, no indication of anything on fire. And then, with a slight shift of the wind, the smell was gone, and she chalked it up to somebody barbequing around a campfire somewhere.

The shirt she was wearing under her light jacket was thick with sweat as she walked along a dirt road. It was an access road, probably to accommodate park rangers, and so wider and a bit easier to maneuver. She needed it since she was starting to have trouble keeping her footing on the uncertain side paths, plus she was still worried that Mick might stumble and fall. She was certain he could physically withstand any bumps and bruises he might incur, but she didn’t want his ego to take a battering.

She needn’t have worried, though. His confidence seemed
to be growing with every step. Plus, she realized, he might actually be having an easier time of it in some respects because her heart had to push blood throughout her entire body. Since his legs were truncated, there could well be less strain on his system than there was on hers. “You sure can climb the hell out of a mountain,” she said.

“
This
is not a mountain,” he said disdainfully.

“It’s more of a mountain than that chair you had your ass parked in this morning when I found you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You got a little attitude on you there, Miss Admiral’s Daughter.”

“I don’t have an attitude.” She reached down, picked up a large rock that was in her path and tossed it to the side of the road. “I’m just not real big on strong, competent men not living up to their potential.”

Mick snorted at that. “You talking about me or the part-time fiancé that’s got that vein on the top of your forehead going like a freight train?”

His casual reply annoyed the hell out of her, mostly because she despised the notion that she was that easy to read. In point of fact she had indeed been concerned about, and fretting over, Hopper. She just hadn’t thought that it was so obvious.

Sam was about to tell him that her personal life was none of his damned business. Her job was to make sure he pulled his head out of his ass and made proper use of those extremely expensive legs taxpayer dollars had bought for him. Considering he’d spent the past months alternating between feeling sorry for himself and taking out his anger on physical therapists who were just trying to help him, he hardly had license to be judgmental about Hopper. It was high time he started getting his act together. She was prepared to unload this and more on him, but all of that vanished from her mind when something hurtled past just overhead, with an ear-splitting howl that reminded her of the old stories about banshees her grandmother
used to tell her.
When you hear the howl of the banshee, death is near
. It froze her for a moment, and then the ground beneath her feet vibrated violently in response to whatever the hell it was that had shot past right over their heads, flying so low that it created a massive suction in its wake. Branches, stones, and dirt were all yanked into the air after it, and Sam and Mick—taking refuge behind some large trees—barely managed to avoid being hauled up along with all the detritus.

Seconds later the noise and jet wash subsided. Sam’s hair was completely askew and she made vague attempts to tamp it back into place, having little to no luck. “What the hell was
that
?” she said.

“No idea.”

“A low-flying jet? Something from the MCB at K-Bay?” That made no sense to her, though. Why would a jet be flying that low? It was insanely unsafe for both the pilot and anyone who might be in the area.

She knew there was a ridge nearby that would provide them a view of the base. It wasn’t terribly likely that they’d get any answers from this distance, but at least they’d be able to see if fighters were scrambling. Sam clambered toward the ridge, Mick right behind her. No words were exchanged between them as they made their way up to the vantage point: a few minutes later they were staring down in astonishment toward the distant base.

They couldn’t make out a damned thing. The entire base was blocked by black smoke, blowing away from the ridge.

“What’s going on down there?” she said.

“Don’t know. Fire, maybe.”

“Fire definitely. But what caused it? Maybe we should go down and—”

“And what? Put it out? I left my fire truck in my other pants.”

She nodded, silently acknowledging the absurdity of
the notion. A couple of additional bodies weren’t going to do any good down there. The base was filled with marines who were trained to handle any situation. They didn’t need a civilian and a soldier with a couple of artificial legs inserting themselves into the middle of it.

So they returned to the road they’d been hiking and continued on their path. The conversation between them became somewhat muted as they speculated on the cause of the fire at the base, wondering if that was somehow connected with the unseen jet that had hurtled past them at a dangerously low altitude.

Then they heard the sound of tires coming up the dirt path and they moved to one side, giving way, assuming it was some sort of official vehicle heading toward them. They turned out to be correct, as a police Jeep Wrangler cruised up quickly behind them and then pulled over.

There was a cop at the wheel who looked like he’d grown up watching reruns of
Walker, Texas Ranger
, and had modeled himself on them accordingly. Armed to the teeth, he had a name tag that read “Blake.” He looked at Sam and Mick as if they had no business being there.

“You’re going to need to get off the mountain and find cover,” he said brusquely. He acted as if he was irritated that he needed to take the time to tell them this. “The roads are cut off and we’re evacuating the area.”

“What’s happening?” said Sam.

Mick pointed toward the sky. “Something just did a flyby. Does this have anything to do with—?”

The cop didn’t even let him complete the sentence. “The island is under attack.”

They were stunned into silence for a moment. “From who?” Mick finally managed to say.

“We don’t know for sure. They’ve taken out the Marine base. Some people are …” He paused, looking for all the world as if he felt he was insane even for thinking the next words. “… using the word ‘alien.’ ”

“Alien?” Mick didn’t understand. “You mean, like … Mexicans?”

Sam didn’t know if she should feel more sorry for Mick or for the cop. She couldn’t keep the skepticism from her voice. “I think he means like little green men from outer space.”

Mick snorted at that. “Oh, well, that’s not so bad, then. I mean, when they start giving me rectal probes, maybe they can check my prostate while they’re up there.”

“I’m glad you think this is some sort of big joke,” said Blake. “Meanwhile the Navy’s engaging off the coast—”

“Wait … what?”
Oh my God … Hopper … Stone … Dad …

As Sam tried to reorient herself around the bombshell that the cop had dropped on her, another Jeep came skidding to a hard stop behind Blake’s. There were three cops in that one. Two cops, with name tags indicating they were Officers Burns and Strodel, were in the front. A third, Kline, was crunched in the back. He hopped out and came around to the Jeep that Blake was driving, hopping into the passenger’s side. He was carrying a shotgun and chambered it meaningfully as he climbed in. It wasn’t a gesture meant to be threatening to Sam or Mick; instead he was simply preparing for whatever it was that lay up the road.

Sam was still working on processing what Blake had told her. “The Navy? What do you mean ‘the Navy’? Which ship?” She had her cell phone in her hand but wasn’t getting any signal. The bars were flatlined.
Piece of crap phone
. “Please, can I use your phone? I need to make a call.”

Blake shook his head. “No service. Phones, radios, everything is dead. Miss,” and he was clearly at the last of his patience, “we need you both off the mountain.
Now
.”

“Okay, well,” Mick said, “can you give us a ride down to—?”

The only response the cops provided was to shift the Jeeps into gear. Seconds later both of them raced up the road, leaving Sam and Mick in a cloud of dust.

“Well, I feel so much safer now,” said Mick. Then, realizing where Sam’s head must be at, he turned to her and said, “I’m sure semi-fiancé is just fine—”

She put up a hand, trying to keep her voice from trembling. “Mick, could you just … not. Right now. Just not.”

“Right. Okay.” He actually sounded borderline contrite.

She needed a few moments to compose herself. It was one thing if she’d known in advance that Hopper was being deployed to an active war zone. She would have had time to mentally prepare for that and hope for the best. But this had caught her flat-footed. It was just supposed to be war games. Now all of a sudden they were … What? Battling alien invaders? She was suddenly feeling nostalgic for when the biggest problem they had was that Hopper was looking at a court-martial.
My God, what’s going to happen next?

The thought barely had time to cross her mind when there was a hellacious noise from where the cops had gone. The screaming of human voices was combined with the screaming of metal, becoming one huge cacophony of destruction.

Every bit of common sense would have dictated that Sam run in the opposite direction. Instead she ran toward the source of the upheaval, Mick doing his damnedest to keep up with her. The road curved to the right and suddenly a hand clamped onto her shoulder. She was about to let out a yelp when another covered her mouth and turned her violently around.

It was Mick, and the perpetual look of annoyance was gone, replaced with total focus on Sam’s safety, not to mention his own. It was easy for her to forget that this
was a trained soldier, a man who had been dropped into the middle of life and death situations and come through them … well, alive, if not in one piece.

He dragged her to the side of the road and whispered fiercely in her ear, “Are you stupid or something? Little Miss Admiral’s Daughter should know better than to go running into the middle of a fight without a clear idea of what she’s getting into. Now stay behind me, got that?”

She nodded, her eyes wide. Slowly he removed his hand from her mouth. She looked up at him and said quietly, “You caught up with me. That’s … wow.”

“Yeah, well, stopping someone from doing something incredibly idiotic can be a huge incentive.” Then he put a finger to his lips to indicate they should stop talking. He moved slowly down the road, Sam following behind him.

Unfortunately stealth was a slight problem because the servos in Mick’s legs continued to whir softly. He winced visibly at the noise and endeavored to keep his legs as straight as possible. If he didn’t move his knees, then the noise was minimal.

Having taken the lead, he made his way to the bend in the road, gesturing for her to stay back and keep her mouth shut. Whatever the hell had caused the ruckus was gone, but Mick was determined not to run headlong into an unknown situation. Mentally Sam scolded herself; she should have known better and, if he ever heard about it, her father would have something to say.