‘I see it all,’ she answered. ‘And that must be communications away to the port. Speed and engine monitors on the starboard. It looks like a modern, integrated, top-of-the line system to me.’
As Richard nodded, a wiry young man with ‘SANDA’ embroidered on a badge sewn to his white shirt pocket turned from his position at the helmsman’s shoulder and smiled welcomingly. ‘She’s pretty impressive, don’t you think?’
‘She is indeed,’ boomed Max Asov, as he bounded up the steps behind Robin. ‘But she doesn’t stand a chance against my Zubr!’ He held up a Benincom cellphone. ‘Just tell me when to unleash the dogs of war. Though sharks would be more appropriate, I think. You reckon Shakespeare would approve? Sharks of war?’
‘I beg to differ, sir,’ riposted Sanda easily, disregarding all the Shakespeare stuff. ‘She stands a very good chance against your hovercraft. You have not taken into account the twin caterpillar 3616 diesels or the variable pitch propellers…’
‘Delivering, what, twenty-five knots? Thirty? My craft tops fifty. Even with a T80U main battle tank in her cargo hold. She’ll run rings round you!’ He nudged Richard knowingly. Richard realized right from the start that Max’s war-game had started as soon as he stepped aboard. Phase one was psyching out the opponent.
‘Perhaps,’ allowed the Lieutenant, losing just a little of his bonhomie. ‘But only because this is a game, sir. In a real encounter, I assure you our 125 millimetre gun and the RIM 116 missile system—’
‘Got several of those and then some. Or would have if this was for real!’ exulted the Russian, cheerfully turning this into a game of ‘Mine is bigger than yours’ as phase one of his war-game evolved into phase two. ‘And four missile defence systems to go with them. Your 125 millimetre gun is pretty impressive, though, especially in the face of my poor little 30 millimetre Gatlings. It is the same size as the gun on my T80 Tank, in fact. But I have several Gatlings, though I see you have one of them yourself mounted at the rear beside your helipad. Very useful when you turn tail and run for cover! My Ogons are 140 millimetre, though. And I have minelayers too. Guns are just so old-fashioned, aren’t they? Even guns with a twenty kilometre range. And I still say that speed and manoeuvrability will have the edge…’
‘We’ll see,’ concluded Captain Caleb, as he came up on to the bridge himself. ‘We’ll see.’
Twenty minutes later, all necessary formalities complete and the dockside rapidly diminishing behind them, Caleb ordered, ‘Full ahead both, please, Mister Sanda. You know the heading.’ The lieutenant, back at the helmsman’s shoulder, nodded and repeated the order, which the helmsman echoed in turn. And the corvette Otobo surged towards thirty knots. Richard was bouncing on the balls of his feet with excitement and Robin grudgingly felt his contagious enthusiasm beginning to infect her too.
‘Just say when you want the war-games to begin,’ said Max, at Richard’s shoulder, his eyes fixed on the warship’s battle displays — in which the Zubr featured sizeably and centrally, as it wallowed apparently powerlessly beside the Sevmash freighter which had brought it here. ‘You just need to say the word,’ he emphasized, pressing his cellphone to his ear. ‘I can call Captain Zhukov any time you want…’
‘Very well.’ Caleb turned. ‘Gentlemen,’ he announced formally in English to the bridge. ‘We are at war.’
What Max said to Captain Zhukov was lost in the clamour of the emergency stations alarm that Sanda set off on his captain’s word, but the effect on the huge Zubr hovercraft was electrifying. It simply vanished from the displays.
Richard looked up, hardly able to believe his eyes. Away ahead, the Sevmash freighter sat solidly, as though painted against the hard blue sky. But the Zubr was no longer anywhere near her. Clearly Captain Zhukov had not merely readied his toothless weapon systems, he had inflated the hovercraft’s skirt and put the massive fans on idle. And on Max’s word he had gone to full astern. Without any water resistance to drag at a keel that hardly broke the surface, he had gone from dead stop to fifty knots in a heartbeat. Fifty knots in the opposite direction to the one he was expected to be heading in. It was simply astonishing.
‘Incoming!’ called one of the men stationed in front.
‘Hard left,’ ordered Caleb and Otobo heeled into a screaming turn towards the distant delta. Running across the incoming swell, she started to pitch and roll as the one motor pushed her hard forward while the other pulled her hard back. She had an impressively tight turning circle, but inevitably she was fighting the physics of being half submerged in a way the hovercraft would never have to do. ‘Deploy countermeasures,’ Captain Caleb concluded his order. ‘Gun. Do you have him?’
‘The tracking is too slow, Captain,’ answered the gunnery officer. ‘We latch on to him but he slips away before we can engage…’
‘Press the fire mechanism as soon as you engage,’ ordered the captain. ‘The system will register a hit without actually firing the gun.’
‘Really?’ answered Asov. ‘You put my mind at rest of course. But where’s the fun?’
The last comment seemed to bypass Captain Caleb, who was already issuing his next command. ‘The 30 millimetre Gatling may fire as it engages. Its system is nimbler than the big gun’s, you see, Mr Asov. And I must observe that we are not running for cover.’
As he spoke, a lone missile exploded harmlessly in the air high above them, its powder-filled warhead sending a puff of blue smoke drifting down the wind.
‘Countermeasures effective, Captain…’
‘But it wasn’t a real missile,’ teased Max. ‘It was just a little rocket. A toy. Like on May Day in Moscow, you know?’
‘Thank you. Now, please engage the Gatling.’
‘Engaged,’ sang out the assistant gunnery officer. ‘No…’
Richard crossed behind the engine monitoring station and looked out of the starboard bridge-wing window. The huge hovercraft was speeding full ahead now, skipping across the water like a skimmed stone. It was on a parallel course to the corvette, but running at least twice as fast.
‘But then,’ needled Max’s voice from behind him, ‘if you can engage your one little Gatling then I can engage all of mine! Though I observe that Captain Zhukov is keeping just out of range — just on the two point five kilometre mark, I see. And what else is he doing? Oh yes! He’s running rings round you!’
Otobo completed her turn and ran straight ahead. As she steadied and came level, Richard stepped back to look over the top of the Doppler radar station, out over the hump of the gun, dead ahead. It was a dangerous but impressive manoeuvre because the Zubr was sitting exactly between the corvette and the grey-green hulk of the delta, its shoreline a little less than ten kilometres ahead according to the radar. Sideways on, the hovercraft presented an excellent target with a profile sixty metres long and fifteen metres high to the top of its radar mast. The three six metre fans on the stern gave out a tempting heat signal. ‘Gun?’ demanded Captain Caleb.
‘Any minute now, Captain…’