Quillain sighed in disgust. “Well, there they go. They’re destroying everything before a bug-out.”
“Um-hmm,” Amanda replied absently. “If they were smart, they’d scuttle the Boghammers as well and escape overland to the Union border. But I don’t think they will. I’m betting that they’re going to try and get those gunboats out of there.”
She straightened abruptly, her seat back thumping Quillain back a few inches. Something glinted in the back of her hazel eyes now, a flame long kept hidden behind layers of patience and deliberation.
“Commander Lane, sound general quarters! Bring the ship to battle stations! Miss Banks, have the squadron clear for action! Surface engagement! Captain Quillain, have your Marines stand by for boarding!”
Steamer Lane hit the general alarm bell, its clangor sounding in the central bay of the hovercraft. Gunners and loaders scrambled back to their weapons. All hands re-donned their ear-shielding headsets as the side hatches slammed open and the stern gate dropped, the roar of the slipstream and the scream of the turbines flooding in.
“Fire control one and two, up! Pedestal mounts deployed. Loading surface engagement package. Hellfires and Hydras on the rails!”
“Portside 40 is up!”
“Starboard 40, standing by!”
“Stem 50’s manned and ready!’
Quillain hesitated for a moment in the rear of the cockpit, pressing back out of the way as Chief Tehoa swarmed up the ladder to man the cockpit guns. “I hope you’re right, Captain,” he said finally before dropping down into the hull.
Amanda hoped she was as well. Turning back to the tactical displays, she queried Operations again. “Chris, what’s happening in the hide now?”
“Ground search radar and FLIR indicate we have movement on the creek. Breaking tree cover soon… Yeah! We got three hostiles coming out! I say again, we’ve got three Bogs coming out of the crud. Check your visual!”
On the real-time video display, three sleek motor launches blasted out of the narrow stream channel and into open water. Running nose to tail, they punched through the low surf beyond the creek mouth and curved across the shallow bay, turning away from the onrushing PGs and heading for Union territory.
“I’ve got them!” Snowy called excitedly. “Steamer, they’re cutting around the point just outside of the shore break!”
Lane’s right hand came off the steering yoke for a fiercely emphasized thumbs-up. “Oh yeah, I see ’em, darlin’! Run, you motherfuckers! The shallows ain’t going to save you now!”
“Intercept bearing, Steamer,” Amanda ordered, coming forward to kneel between the two pilots. “Close until we’re just outside of effective machine-gun range, then hold station on them.”
Lane looked back at Amanda, his eyebrows lifted. “We’re not taking this bunch out?”
“Oh, we will,” Amanda smiled enigmatically, “eventually. But first I’ve got a few messages to send.” She reached back to her console and called up the command communications loop. “This is TACBOSS to squadron. Maintain echelon formation with the flag craft. Fire only on my order. I say again, fire only on my order.”
The Union gunboats howled across the width of Forecariah Bay, engines wide open and driving hard for the headlands at Passe du Nord. Streaming roostertails behind them, the forty-foot trimarans bucked and skipped as they cut across the troughs of the inbound ocean swells. Intermittently, a lightweight hull broke entirely free of the water on a seventh wave, soaring for an instant like a flying fish before smashing down again in an exploding welter of foam and spray.
Aboard the fleeing Boghammers, the Union seamen grimly clung to whatever handholds they could find and endured the battering. At the steering stations, the helmsmen looked back over their shoulders and pounded their throttles, trying to coax a few more revs out of the straining two-hundred horsepower outboards.
This had been their coast. There hadn’t been anything that they couldn’t either kill or disdainfully outrun. They had laughed at the coming of the American hovercraft, the “big winds that couldn’t blow.” The Union gunboatmen weren’t laughing now. Three snarling-jawed sea monsters held a rigid formation behind them, neither falling back nor closing the range, only awaiting their own pleasure and time.
Home was only a few minutes and miles farther down the coast, if those minutes and miles could somehow be bought. Boat captains yelled orders over the unmuffled roar of the engines and crewmen began flinging weapons and ammunition into the sea, trading armament for the extra turn of speed that might see them to safety.
With the Marine detachment ready for whatever might be demanded of it, Stone Quillain returned to the Queen’s cock pit. Shedding his helmet, he replaced it with a spare headset. “How we doing?” he inquired.
The question he wanted to ask was “What are we doing?” He knew full well that the seafighters had the speed and the reach to kill the Boghammers anytime they wanted. The big Marine couldn’t see why they were hesitating. But then, this Amanda Garrett female seemed to have a disturbing ability to see any number of things that he couldn’t.
“Very good, Captain,” she replied cheerfully. “We’ve cleared Passe du Sud, and that’s Point Sallatouk to port. It’s not far to the border now. Excuse me, have a little finessing to do.”
She accessed the command radio loop again. Quillain switched over as well, listening in on what this “finessing” was all about.
”Carondelet, Manassas, this is TACBOSS. TACNET imaging indicates that the Bogs have jettisoned most of their heavy armament. We can tighten it up a little now. Close to five hundred yards. Mister Marlin, keep the Manassas right in their wake and keep pushing. Mr. Clark, take the Carondelet to seaward and work in on their flank. Keep them shouldered against the coast. Mr. Lane, you enjoy surfing, you take the Queen in along the shore break. If these guys try for the beach, I want for us to be in position to cut them off.”
Three crisp acknowledgments sounded over the loop. Smoothly the three seafighters accelerated, pulling into their new stations in a half-circle behind the retreating Boghammers.
Quillain stared at Amanda. “You’re driving ’em!” he said, comprehension dawning. “You’re herding ’em right up against the beach!”
“Exactly.” She nodded in grim satisfaction. “The fishing villages along this stretch of coast have taken a lot of grief from the Union navy. I think it will do local morale some good for them to see these gentlemen being run out of Dodge.”
The harried gunboats and their PG pursuers were running parallel to an extended stretch of white beach dotted with grounded pirogues and drying racks. On the magnified MMS display, a scattering of fishermen could be seen, preparing to trail their nets out for the morning catch. They stood and stared as the mismatched convoy tore into view. Their wives and children streamed onto the sand as well, drawn down from their coastal village by the echoing howl of the hovercraft turbines.
Wariness and fear was replaced by a growing realization that, for once, they weren’t the ones having to run for their lives. Backs were slapped and fists were shaken at the Union Boghammers. Mouths opened to cheer and to shout jeers and derision after the fleeing toothless gunboats.
“It’s psywar, Stone,” she continued. “As I said at the briefing, if we’re going to win this thing, we have to hit Belewa with whatever we can, whenever we can.”
“Captain Garrett,” Snowy Banks said, looking back from the copilot’s station. “We’re three minutes out from the Guinea border. After that, we’re in Union territory.”
“Very good, Lieutenant. Maintain pursuit. That’s the next message we’re going to send. No sanctuaries.”