Ghost Fleet : A Novel of the Next World War (9780544145979) (53 page)

The second cruise missile stayed true to its targeting-software designer's intent. It made a final course correction and then enveloped the
Zumwalt
in a bloom of orange flame. The explosion rocked the ship, sending a shock wave through the mission center and tossing the captain over the balcony's railing.

When he came to, Simmons found himself on the lower level of the ship mission center. He pulled himself up by the arm of the radar operator's chair. Richter reached over and gave him a hand and then turned back to her screens. His back ached, but otherwise he seemed fine. Less so the room. Two of the wall screens had fallen off their mounts, one hitting the tactical action officer, who looked to have a broken collarbone. Acrid smoke made Simmons's eyes water.

“Somebody get the air back on,” he shouted. He looked for Cortez. He had been beside him a second ago, but now he was gone.

“XO! Damage report!” said Simmons.

The air started to clear in the room as the fans switched on, but the stink of fire and plastic remained. If they made it through, they were going to smell like this for weeks, Simmons mused.

“EV system back online, sir,” called Cortez. He tracked the ship's self-diagnostics on his glasses. “Working on the damage report.”

The voice came from the room's upper deck. Simmons raced back up the steps and saw Cortez kneeling, helping a sailor into his chair.

Cortez stood, straightened his glasses, and gave Simmons the battle-damage update as far as he knew it. The missile warhead had detonated just fore of the superstructure. The good news was all the fires were contained to the impact site, and ATHENA, propulsion, and radar were online.

The rest was bad news. The only operative external camera showed smoke and flame shrouding the ship's forward superstructure, blackening the whole surface. The laser turret on that side had evidently popped out of its mount before it settled back into place. The shock of the explosion had knocked loose power cables across the ship.

“Damage-control team is already on the way,” he said. “Fire-bots and ship's suppression system are operative.” Two more of the monitors flickered back on as more of the ship's external cameras rebooted. The faces of both officers fell at the images.

The
New York
listed over on its port side, almost at a forty-five-degree angle to the water's surface. The image zoomed in on the two smoldering holes in the sides of its hull, which were sucking more and more water into the bowels of the ship, dragging it down. Sailors leaped from the superstructure into the flaming waters around it, only to disappear as the ship rolled over on top of them.

Better off was the
America
, but not by much. The missile had apparently gone into the opening of its elevator lift. A delicate-looking mushroom cloud hung above the hole ripped in its flight deck. Secondary explosions from aviation fuel stored below punched jets of flame out into the air. Yet for all the smoke and fire, the ship looked steady in the water.

“How many?” said Simmons.

“
New York
had already disembarked most of their Marines, so ATHENA is reporting five-hundred-plus KIA or missing.
America
, another eight hundred and twenty-five. Those numbers will change as data updates,” Cortez replied softly.

“I meant our ship,” said Simmons.

“System shows seven dead, twenty-two wounded,” said Cortez. “Four missing.”

“My dad?” asked Simmons, lowering his voice. He squinted, suppressing something he did not want to feel now, or ever.

“No, sir. He's registering as active
¹¹⁵
with the damage-control team below decks,” said Cortez, placing his glasses on top of his head, transfixed by the sight of the hull of the now-capsized
New York
slipping under the waves.

Simmons didn't allow himself to feel any relief at the news. He gripped the railing until the tendons in his hands surrendered to the pain. The discomfort cleared his head and focused his attention.

“Helmsman, move us over parallel to the
America
,” said Simmons. “They're going to need our help fighting those fires.”

USS
Zumwalt
, Below Decks

Mike followed the caterpillar-like fire-bot down the smoky passageway, knowing it would lead him to where he was needed most.

“Hit it over there,” he heard Davidson say, his voice muffled through a smoke hood. Already the blaze was nearly under control. Brooks wielded an extinguisher, spraying foam and coolant on the seared metal and melted composite. Davidson gave the Mohawked kid a thumbs-up, the kind of silent compliment that meant the most to the young man. The fire-bot scooted ahead and detonated its fire-retardant-chemical payload near the Russian missile's impact point.

As the smoke cleared, daylight from the irregular oval hole in the deck above them punched through with a spotlight's intensity. Mike had Brooks spray the walls again, and he climbed up carefully to put his head through so he could see the deck-side damage. The missile appeared to have struck as the ship rolled, which deflected its blast skyward, not into the hull. The heat, though, had seared the entire superstructure, melting the composite material into something that looked more like cooled lava than the creased lines of the radar-deflecting design. He took in the wider view beyond, the
Z
edging closer to the burning USS
America
, two of its fire hoses spraying toward it. Mike looked down and spotted a figure splayed out on a litter being rushed somewhere by another sailor and a corpsman. It was Parker; the big sailor was crying as he tried to move a blackened arm. Mike rested his head on his forearm briefly, suddenly fatigued, and then began to climb down.

“Superstructure's all melted to shit,” said Mike, pulling off his smoke hood. Davidson did the same, coughing slightly. Brooks left his hood on.

“Take off your hood, Mo, surgeon general's orders. It's not the smoking that's going to kill you today,” said Mike, inhaling deeply.

Brooks reluctantly pulled the hood off and blinked bloodshot eyes.

Mike turned to Davidson. “We need to seal and reinforce that material up there; if we get into any kind of seas, it's going to get wet down here fast.”

“When's that going to happen?” said Davidson. “Chinese missiles don't care about whatever sea state we're in.”

“No,” said Mike. “But I do. Take care of the ship, and it'll take care of you. You should know that by now.”

“We can slap some epoxy and Kevlar ply up there, then brace it. Sound good?” asked Davidson, digging in his right ear, trying to clear it.

“It'll do,” said Mike. “Your ears okay?”

Davidson nodded and said, “Everything's tinny-sounding. But don't worry, Chief, I can still hear you if you need to chew my ass out.”

The radio slung over Mike's right shoulder started to squawk. “Chief? This is the captain,” his son said, as if he needed to identify himself to his own father. “What's your status? Over.”

“I'm okay, but we're counting multiple wounded, mainly burns and broken bones and burst eardrums. We've got a hole about twelve foot wide and some fire and heat damage. You can kiss whatever stealth signature we had goodbye. Fortunately, the missile didn't dig too deep. No structural damage that I can see. Main laser turret is going to need some major repair hours to get back into alignment, but we look to still be in business with the rail gun. I've got a damage-control party working on the hole. It's above the water line, but I want it sealed up.”

“Thank you, Chief. I knew I could count on you,” his son said. Mike could hear the relief in his voice, and he wasn't sure whether it was for him or for the role he was filling. Today, either would do.

USS
Zumwalt
Ship Mission Center

Captain Simmons felt a tap on his shoulder: Cortez letting him know they had finally gotten the link to the task force command network back up.

The video image filled the display screen, and Jamie looked at a grim-faced officer, Commander Alexander Anderson. Years ago, when he and Jamie were both just out of ROTC, they had served together onboard the USS
Chafee
. Anderson now had command of the
Port Royal
, which had pulled to the other side of the
America
and was adding the water from its fire hoses to help beat down the flames.

“Jamie, it's good to see you in one piece,” said Anderson. The officer had a slim face and narrow shoulders, and his uniform always looked slightly oversize. It was as if any extra calories his body had went to fueling his legendary brain.

“Same here,” said Simmons. “Ship's holding together. Crew too. We're still in the fight. Any word from Admiral Murray?”

“She's gone, sir,” said Anderson, shifting back to a formal tone now that he saw his old friend was unhurt. “Confirmed by the
America
's quartermaster, a petty officer who seems to be all that's left in command there. Reports all power out. She had to yell over to us with a bullhorn.” He paused. “Captain Simmons, you know what this means. If that petty officer is right, and we have to assume she is, at this point . . . with Admiral Murray dead, and Captain Brookings on the
America
. . .”

“I'm task force commander . . .” Simmons said, realizing what Anderson was saying.

“Yes, sir,” said Anderson. “Longboard is yours. We're in good hands, I know it.”

The two of them went silent for a few seconds as the moment sank in, and then they turned to business.

“With your permission, sir, I'd like to begin evacuating the
America
's crew.”

Simmons nodded even as he was trying to make up his mind.

“I don't like the idea of scuttling a ship still afloat,” Anderson continued, “but I like the idea of towing a forty-thousand-ton weight with an enemy fleet coming in behind us even less.”

Simmons finally realized what Anderson assumed their next course of action would be.

“We are not leaving behind either
America
or the Marines onshore,” said Simmons. “We will evacuate the wounded off the ship, but hold this line of position
¹¹⁶
until our main fleet or the enemy's arrives, whichever happens first.”

Anderson shifted slightly sideways, as if he did not quite believe what he was seeing and hearing. His eyes squinted and his brow wrinkled in what Simmons recognized was an eloquent objection forming, the kind of argument they might have had back in the
Chafee
's wardroom when they were young officers. Then the look washed away, and Anderson nodded with an exaggerated bob of his head.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

“We have to locate the enemy,” said Simmons. “It's that simple. I'm ordering
Orzel
out on picket duty and deploying all our Fire Scouts to maximum range. And God help us if they don't find what's out there coming for us.”

Vicinity of USS America, Pacific Ocean

He'd been close to greatness, thought Denisov. And yet now here he was, wondering whether he should try to take off his flight boots for added buoyancy. He slowly kicked his legs, knowing he was too far offshore to do anything but drift until something ate him or one of the American ships in the near distance plucked him from the water.

He lay back against the collar of his inflated life vest, watching the strange, thin, wedge-shaped American drones circle high overhead. They were now flying a combat air patrol against an airstrike that wouldn't come. “I was it, you stupid
abtomat
,
¹¹⁷
there's no more!” he screamed. Mindless machines, but lethal; he had to give them that.

A tingling at the back of his neck made him spin around. Seen from thousands of feet in the air, the Pacific looked inviting. But floating in it, he thought these waters were as dark and foreboding as his worst nightmare. Something was nearby, he could feel it.

An enormous black shape slowly moved through the sea maybe thirty yards beneath him. It surfaced a few hundred feet away, puffed a blast of air, and then went back under. No shark could be that big. He sighed with relief. A humpback whale, perhaps, content to eat krill, not Russian pilots.

He was alone for a little while longer. He was close enough to see the still-smoking USS
America
, and he was confident the little aircraft carrier had been the one his missile had hit. He watched the chiseled form of a massive destroyer pull alongside it; sailors appeared to be tethering the ships together. He recognized it as a
Zumwalt
-class ship and decided instead that had been the one his missile had hit; far better to have hit the more exotic creature with his last shot.

With his eyes stinging from the salt and sun, Denisov watched the litters of wounded men and women being passed off the burning
America
via ziplines strung between the two vessels. The sailors were bound up like mummies as they traveled from their dying ship to another with an uncertain future.

From the stern of the strange-looking ship, three small forms lifted off. When they formed up, he identified them as MQ-8 Fire Scout drones, scaled-down helicopters with pinched noses that looked like they had never made it out of aviation adolescence. Another two lifted off from the ship tethered to the other side of the
America
; some kind of cruiser or destroyer, he couldn't tell.

The drone helicopters paused in formation and then each set off in a different direction, looking like foraging steel wasps. They flew low, hugging the waves. One of the Fire Scouts flew almost directly overhead, the drone oblivious to Denisov as the force of its rotor's downdraft pushed him under the waves. At that moment, Denisov realized that maybe the Americans wouldn't come for him.