Amanda initiated the high-speed replay from the point where the Duke had activated her radars. Watching intently, she saw the Argentine ships begin their antimissile zigzag ballet and the strike blossom on the lead Meko. Then she saw the trailing escort make its move.
From its slot at the four-o'clock position off the convoy's stern, it accelerated sharply, better than tripling its speed in what must have been a matter of seconds. It sheered inward toward the transport line, closing the range with it and merging into the purple blobs of chaff trailing back in the wake of the cargo ships.
"Hydrofoil!"
Someone with more cunning than common sense had ordered a thin-skinned coastal craft out into the wildest stretch of sea miles on the planet, and some crew with chrome-steel guts had obeyed-just on the chance that it might screw up someone's attack plan, just as it was doing.
"Where is he, Dix?" Amanda demanded.
"I can't pick him out. He's swung around on the farside of the transports and he's being masked by their counter-measures."
"Can you get a fix on radar emissions?"
"No, ma'am, he's gone EMCON."
Amanda lifted her voice. "Chris, Argentine hydrofoils, what do you have on them? Right now!"
"Sparviero missile corvette, twelve hundred tons' displacement, composite and aluminum construction, submerged tripedal foil system, hydropump propulsion! Sixty knots plus speed! Single OTO Melara seventy-six-millimeter forward, twin Breda forty-millimeters aft, four Exocet cells amidship!"
"Torpedo tubes?"
"None!"
"Right. Helm, maintain intercept heading on the transport line. Dix, what's that second Meko doing?"
"He's increased speed and has come around to port. It looks like he's cutting across the convoy course line back over to where we were. He's off the port quarter and looks to be passing us astern. I think he's still fixated on our first decoy cluster. Shall I engage?"
"Negative. If the fool hasn't figured out what the score is yet, don't point out the scoreboard. Target that hydrofoil the second he comes out from behind the freighter's chaff screen. He's up to something."
"Aye, aye, ma'am, but it's going to be tight. We're running out of range."
"So is he. Gunnery stations, stand by to engage surface targets!"
Amanda and her TACCO stared at the primary display, waiting for something solid to materialize out of the haze of chaff and ghost jamming.
He came, appearing around the bow of the now-leading fleet oiler, cutting the turn so close that he likely panicked every man on the bridge of the larger ship. Search and fire-control radars activating, the corvette raced away from the convoy line, aiming himself dead-on at the onrushing destroyer.
"Captain, target bearing zero degrees relative off the bow. Combined rate of closure… goddamn, one hundred and ten knots!"
For a moment Amanda was touched by admiration. This kid had been born of the same breed as the Jervis Bay and the "Little Boys" off of Samar. He was outmatched in technology and in firepower, and he had no hope of organized support. Yet, when the ships he was charged to protect were endangered, his response was a flaming, death-or-glory dive right into the guns of his enemy.
"Take him, Dix."
"Can't do it! He's come inside the arming perimeter of the Harpoons. They won't have enough time to come down out of boost mode and unsafely… Exocet launch!"
On the exterior monitors, a double streak of orange burned overhead through the fog, wobbling unsteadily. One of the Phalanx mounts burped out a startled responding burst. The closing range had pulled the fangs of the corvette as well.
"We're going to guns," Amanda ordered. "Gunners, action to starboard, set for full autofire. We'll rake him as we pass. Helm, ten degrees left rudder."
She had made the decision to angle off and open the range almost without thinking, an instinctive move to provide the Duke with a safety margin in this head-to-head standoff. It was impossible to know that less than two miles away, another captain was issuing the exact mirror to her command at almost the same instant for the same reason.
"Captain! Target altering course to starboard! Collision bearing!"
The Navicom system came to the same conclusion as the tactical officer a split second later. Collision alarms warbled at both the helm and command stations.
"Helm, emergency hard left rudder! Crash turn!"
Throwing a destroyer into a tight, minimum-radius turn while she's running flat out at flank speed is not generally considered to be a good idea. You could pop seams, crack frames, and shear years off her hull life. You could buckle the rudder post or tear it out altogether. Given a heavy sea state and a little bad luck, you could even capsize a ship as large and well found as the Cunningham.
Amanda had no choice. To try to reverse out of the turn to starboard meant having to fight the growing momentum of the swing to port they had already begun. To back engines and lose their speed meant probable death at the hands of the Argentine defenses. Survival meant turning inside of the collision point and praying that the Argentine captain could do the same.
The CIC crew felt the deck tilt ominously beneath their feet, and the blaring of a second set of alarms. almost drowned out the moaning of overloaded metal that echoed up out of the ship's structure.
"The roll inclinometer is approaching red-line limits, Captain!"
"I know, helm. Keep pushing her. She can take it."
Amanda was venturing into that unknown territory beyond listed design specifications. She was trusting to her mariner's instincts and to the years she had spent helping to create this ship. Going by the book would not save them now.
If it was bad in the CIC, it was terrifying topside. As the big ship leaned, Ken Hiro and the bridge crew were forced to brace themselves against whatever was available. Peering down and out of the starboard side of the windscreen, they could see the first wave curling green along the full length of the weather-deck railing.
Then it grew worse.
The Argentine corvette came into sight, tearing a furrow through the sea smoke. In the manner of hydrofoils, she was pitching into her turn as steeply as the American destroyer was listing out of hers. The tip of her stern foil was lifting out, slashing open the surface of the sea, and the twin horizontal geysers of her hydrojet drive thundered in her wake. She was attempting to avoid the impending collision as desperately as Cunningham and, just for the moment, the American destroyer hands were wishing her well.
"Okay, helm," Amanda said quietly. "Start bringing your rudder amidships. Not too fast or you'll lay her right over on her side. Let her get her head up."
The inclinometers shifted back into the safety zone and with a heavy, shuddering roll the Duke came upright on her new heading. A meager two hundred yards away, the Argentine corvette was running parallel to her, almost matching her course and speed. Muzzle flashes began to flare rhythmically at its bow and stern, and tracer rounds began to arc out at the Cunningham.
"Gunners, take him! All mounts traverse right and fire as you bear!"
Amanda could feel the shell hits, heavier and more muffled than the discharge of the Duke's own weapons. The first faint scent of burning plastic and hot metal began to seep in through the ventilators.
Back aft at the damage-control stations, the DC officers began calling down the warning lights appearing on their panels.
"I'm showing skin damage above the waterline between frames nineteen and twenty-two."
"Confirm that. We've got shell hits opposite number-two Vertical Launch System. Damage-control team Alpha Bravo responding."