“All right, ladies and gentlemen,” Amanda Garrett’s quiet voice issued from the overhead speakers. “Here’s the situation. We have a single Union Boghammer advancing up the coast, presumably on a reconnaissance mission. As he’s heading in our direction, we’re going to let him come to us. We will attempt an ambush and capture. Hopefully, we can take him without a shoot-out. However, stand by for any eventuality. We will keep you posted as the situation develops.”
The Queen’s Marine squad marshaled at their station, seated with their backs against the bulkhead in the main bay, their weapons ready at hand. Quillain was cognizant of the twelve helmeted heads turned in his direction, the twelve sets of eyes watching for their company commander’s cue on how to react.
Quillain faked a yawn. “Looks like it’s gonna be the swabbies’ show for a while. Somebody give me a poke if they need us for anything.”
Claiming the end seat on the bench, Quillain slouched down and shut his eyes, his K-pot helmet in his lap and the Mossberg propped against his leg. Like the yawn, the attempt at sleep was a charade. He had the light headset of his PRC radio jacked into the hovercraft’s interphone system, and he maintained his situational awareness by monitoring the tense voices on the command channel.
“Bog holding course, steering three six zero. Speed still five knots. You guys have a ten-knot rate of closure. Separation two miles… Thanks, Chris… Steamer, this guy looks like he’s still right off the surf line. Is that going to be a problem?… Depends, ma’am. You want to run him up on the beach or take him offshore?… Let’s try and take him off shore… Fire Control. Do we have him on our radar?… Affirmative, ma’am. Range now three thousand yards, and I think I have a visual… Okay, Danno. Do you confirm target ID?… Yeah, that’s him, Captain. Confirming visual. We got a Bog… All right. Gunners, get me Hellfire locks on this guy. If he runs, I want a fast kill on him.… Roger, ma’am, Hellfires on the pedestals. We got locks. We are tracking…. Range two thousand… Range one thousand five hundred… Let him come in, guns.… Aye, aye, ma’am. Range one thousand. Come to Poppa.… We got position, Captain. Target bearing zero off the bow… Okay, Steamer. Go to station keeping. Kill our wake. Let him make final closure.… Roger. Range six-fifty… Arm flare tubes, we’ll take him at five hundred.… Okay, a little more… Okay, stand by… Flares now!”
The flare mortars on the weather deck of the Queen of the West tonked hollowly, hurling a cluster of sputtering projectiles into the sky. An instant later and the wave crests beyond the stern ramp burned white, reflecting the glare of the burning magnesium charges.
“UNION GUNBOAT!” Amanda Garrett’s voice was that of an angry goddess, thundering from the hovercraft’s loud speakers. “THIS IS THE UNITED STATES NAVY OPERATING UNDER UNITED NATIONS MANDATE! YOU HAVE MADE AN UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY INTO THE TERRITORIAL WATERS OF GUINEA. HEAVE TO AND PREPARE TO BE BOARDED. I SAY AGAIN, HEAVE TO AND PREPARE TO BE BOARDED! IF YOU RESIST, WE WILL OPEN FIRE!”
Quillain sat forward and donned his helmet. “Look alive, boys! We got business!” Keying the “Touch-to-Talk” pad of his headset, he spoke into the microphone. “Cockpit, this is the boarding team. How we looking?”
“The ambush appears successful,” Amanda replied warily. They’ve killed their engines, and they’re just sitting there about four hundred yards out.”
The flare launchers belched out another salvo, renewing the flickering false day outside.
“REMOVE THE AMMUNITION BELTS FROM YOUR MACHINE GUNS AND DROP ALL SMALL ARMS OVER THE SIDE. RAISE YOUR HANDS AND KEEP THEM RAISED. DO NOT RESIST AND YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED.”
“Okay, Stone.” Normally modulated, Amanda’s voice returned to his headset. “We’re moving in now. Standard procedure. We’ll take them aboard over the tail ramp.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.” Quillain lifted his thumb off the key. “Marines, stand by to receive prisoners! Covering team, load buckshot and take your stations! By the drill!”
The Queen was maneuvering again, closing in. The safety webbing across the mouth of the tailgate was dropped and the two Marine grenadiers knelt on either side of the stern gun mount, slamming juice-can-size shotgun shells into the lower breeches of their M-4/M-203 combo weapons.
The Navy gunner on the stern twin fifty looked over at Quillain. “How do you want this illuminated, sir?”
“We’ll do it white light, son. Wait till the Captain gives the word, then hit ’em with your beams. Once we illuminate, you keep it right in their eyes, you hear?”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
The second flight of flares sank into the sea, streaking the ocean’s surface with a brief pattern of wave shadows before guttering out entirely. The Queen sluggishly began to come about, bringing her stern in line with the Boghammer. Quillain felt his muscles bunch. This was the moment of greatest vulnerability, with the seafighter able only to bring its stern guns and the Marine’s small arms to bear on the potential threat.
A slender form in a battle vest came up beside Quillain. “How does it look?” Amanda asked.
“Let you know in a second, Captain. We clear to illuminate?’
“Light them up.”
Thanks to Scrounger Caitlin’s deft talents at acquisitioning, a pair of quarter-million-candlepower mercury iodide driving lights had been wired into the stern fifty-caliber mount. Now the gunner switched them on, sending twin sword blades of piercing silver light slashing through the darkness. They came to rest on the low gray-green hull of the Union gunboat.
The seafighter backed slowly toward the drifting Boghammer. As the smaller craft drew closer, more detail could be made out. The gunboat rode broadside-on. As per instruction, the belts had been removed from its heavy machine-gun mount and its twin barrels drooped down into the hull. There were no lighter weapons in sight, and the six-man Union crew sat in a grim row, their hands behind their heads and facing the American vessel.
The distance continued to lessen — fifty yards… forty…
Abruptly a warning switch tripped inside Quillain’s head. “Shit! They’re screwing with us!” He whipped the Mossberg up and in line, jacking a flechette round into the chamber. “I need more shooters back here!”
Marines surged to their company commander’s side, Squad Automatic Weaponsmen with their light machine guns braced on their hips, riflemen with their carbines leveled. Bolts slammed back and fire selectors snapped over to full autofire. Amanda Garrett was respectfully, but firmly, brushed aside and over against Quillain as the tailgate became a solid wall of leveled firepower.
“Target up! If any of those sumbitches move, I mean if they so much as twitch, hose ’em! Captain Garrett, heave to! Stop closing with the Bog!”
Without an instant’s hesitation, Amanda repeated the order into her lip mike. Seamlessly, command of the operation had passed to Stone Quillain.
The soft thrumming of the propellers stopped, and the only sound was the soft creaking of the hull and the occasional scuffling shift of a boot as a tense Marine rode with the slow pitching of the deck. The crew of the Boghammer continued to stare into the blaze of the gun lights.
“Okay!” Quillain relied on his own drill field bellow over the seafighter’s loud-hailer system. “Real easy now, drop the hand grenades over the side! Don’t die stupid!”
The Union captain screamed a wordless cry. Six arms whipped back, the ugly iron spheres held concealed behind the crewmen’s heads coming into view.