The base was blacked out as per Kinsford’s orders, and the only ground light to be seen was the occasional flash of a hand torch as the night watch went about their duties. Music still tinkled past the drawn curtains of the officers’ club, however.
The boat commanders of the Boghammer squadrons were hard at work celebrating their victory over the U.N. interdiction force. The base commander had lingered late in the club, sharing in their triumph, and he suspected that the party would rage until dawn. However, as base commander, Kinsford knew that he needed to set a good example. He also suspected that the big bugs from Monrovia would descend upon them at first light for a debriefing, and that was something not to be faced with a hangover. Accordingly, he had waved off half a dozen offers for “just a last one, mon,” and had stepped out into the night, taking this final slow stroll and look-about both to clear the beer fumes from his head and to ensure all was battened down for the night.
His jungle boots crunching on the gravel path, he strode on to the command post. He’d have a final check with the officer of the day and then turn in on the cot they had tucked away in a corner of the bunker. From the sound of it, there would be precious little sleep to be had up in officers’ country.
The command bunker smelled of mildew and of the metallic two-cycle exhaust of the communications generator. “Situation, Lieutenant?” Kinsford inquired. Descending the narrow steps into the thick-walled confines of the bunker, he brushed aside the mosquito-net door screen.
“All quiet, sir,” the duty officer replied, looking up from his field desk. He and the two signalmen manning the radios were the only staff on watch at this hour. “Nothing new to report.”
“Any advisories on U.N. reaction to our strike yet?”
Underlit by the glow of the low-turned gas lantern resting on the floor, the watch officer shook his head. “No, sir. Nothing on the landline or the Navy channels, and the coastwatcher net is still off the air. The Americans are still buggering the sideband commo.”
“Bloody marvelous.” Kinsford grunted. “We’ll probably have to wait for the post to arrive before we can get a clue as to what’s going on.”
Kinsford moved toward the blanketless cot set up on the duckboards in the corner of the bunker. “At any rate, I’m for a bit of sleep, lieutenant. They’re having too much fun up at the big house to manage it there.”
“Very good, Captain. You will find it most quiet down here at night.”
The watch officer’s words were rapidly disproven. As Kinsford unlaced a boot, one of the field telephones gave a rasping buzz. The watch officer scooped up the handset and exchanged a few rapid words with the caller.
“Captain, one of the gun positions reports an offshore sighting.”
“Can they identify the target?”
“No, sir. Just what looks to be three unidentified vessels in the sound.”
The Queen’s swimmer motors slowed, as did the flickering of the numerals on the readout of the Global Positioning Unit. “Steady as she goes,” Amanda murmured “Steady… All stop! Initiate station keeping.”
The position hack on the GPU display now exactly matched the one preset and locked in on the fire-control board.
“Station keeping, aye,” Steamer Lane replied quietly. Deftly, he began to work the motor throttles and propeller controls, keeping the Queen stationary on her GPU fix against the tug of current, wave, and wind.
“Rebel, at firing point,” Lieutenant Tony Marlin’s voice issued from the overhead speaker. The word from Clark aboard the Carondelet followed a few moments later. “Frenchman, spotted and station keeping.”
A bare mile off the bow lay the mouth of a small jungle river, glinting silver in the moonlight as it snaked back into the coastal forest. And by cranking up the magnification and light amplification of the Mast Mounted Sight, the buildings of the Yelibuya Boghammer base could be made out along its banks.
They had arrived. Now to do what they had come for.
“Little Pigs,” Amanda spoke into her command mike, “this is little Pig Lead. Rig for shore bombardment.”
Servos moaned and weapons pedestals elevated to firing position. Loading arms stabbed downward, acquiring and lifting rocket pods onto the mount rails.
“Frenchman, loaded and standing by.”
“This is Rebel. We are hot. Datalinks open.”
“Rebel and Frenchman, Little Pig Lead acknowledges.” Amanda toggled over to intercraft. “Fire control, link your systems. Stand by to commence fire.”
Below the cockpit, Danno O’Roark touched the key sequence that interlocked the Queen of the West’s fire-control system with that of her two sisters. Cybernetic whispers passed between the three craft. Targeting lists and engagement sequences were exchanged, the ones Danno and the Fryguy and Amanda Garrett had so carefully worked out on the voyage here. Weapons pedestals traversed and elevated, hunting with an almost biological eagerness for the proper angles and bearings.
“Fire-control systems have integrated, Captain. Initiating target selection and sequencing program… Program is up…. Systern safeties are off. All boards are green. Ready to fire.”
“Proceed, Mr. O’Roark. Commence firing.”
Two rocket pods per pedestal mount. Two mounts per hovercraft. Six mounts within the squadron. Twelve salvos of 2.75-inch artillery rockets hurled in a space of three and a half seconds. A rippling shriek of sound that tore the sky open and a molten gold glare on the wavecrests.
The pedestal ejectors hurled the emptied and smoldering rocket pods over the side. The weapons mounts whipped back to vertical and the loading arms slid the next flight into place. Again the pod muzzles panned and tracked. There was no human involvement at all now. All was tasked to the onboard computers and to the meticulously detailed fire-control program that purred and clicked within them.
Seven rockets per pod. Twelve pods per weapons bay. Two bays per hovercraft. Seventy-two pods to be expended.
Lightning sprang from the sea and thunder echoed from the land. Fire trails arced across the dark zenith, the Hydra rounds, like burning coals, raining down into the little pocket of hell that had been Yelibuya fleet base.
Seventy-two pods, five hundred and four rockets, each bearing a seventeen-pound high-explosive warhead. And all arriving on target within a three-minute interval.
“Captain Kinsford, the unidentified vessels have opened fire! We are—” A sharp terminating crackle issued from the field telephone as the set, man, and installation at the other end of the circuit ceased to exist.
The hammering roar of the Hydra salvos destroying the 40mm battery drowned out the wavering howl of the rounds coming in on the main base. Night became day as a holocaust glared in though the observation slits of the command bunker.
By chance, Kinsford had been looking inland, toward the mansion house/officers’ billet, and he saw its end. The tropics softened wood of the aged structure offered no resistance to the initial rocket cluster. They drilled through and burst within the building’s heart. The entire two-story structure seemed to lift off its foundations and float in midair for an instant before dissolving into a spray of flaming timbers and shredded sheet metal roofing.
Concussion buffeted the command bunker and Kinsford and the men of the night watch were hurled around its interior like dice in a gaming box. Clinging to the internal braces for support, the Union base commander caught fragmentary glimpses of his installation disintegrating around him.