Down in the CIC, Dix Beltrain was baring the Duke’s fangs.
“All stations. Stand easy.” Amanda spoke deliberately into her lip mike, keeping her voice low and totally neutral, allowing no inflection that might increase tensions or trigger a premature reaction. “Helmsman, let’s go for a reduction in aspect here. Maintain station keeping, but bring our bow around to the mouth of the inlet.”
“Aye, aye.”
Under the silent impulse of the auxiliary hydrojets, the destroyer’s knife-edged bow began to come around. The 76mm turret remained fixed on target, a pivot around which the ship seemed to turn.
“Captain,” Ken Hiro’s voice sounded in her headphones. “We make them out to be a pair of Red Chinese Block IB Luda guided missile destroyers, with a single Jianghu-class frigate screening them to seaward.”
“I concur on that, Ken.” Amanda had accessed the controls of the Mast Mounted Sighting System, zooming in and panning over the Chinese warships using a track ball con trailer. To the unaided human eye, there was nothing to be seen out there but black but to the powerful nite brite optics of the MMSS, night did not exist.
The Ludas were handsome ships. Built on the hull design of the old Soviet Kotlin class, they had the lean, greyhound sleekness of the old-school steam turbine destroyer. More to the point, however, both vessels still had their gun turrets trained fore and aft and the launching cells of their C-801 antiship missiles hadn’t been up angled into firing position. A quick call-up on another repeater verified that the Red task group was also running full EMCON, with all search and fire control radars down.
Slowly, the hair that was bristling down the back of her neck began to lower. Maybe these people were out hunting for trouble, but they weren’t hunting for the Duke. “I think we’re okay, Ken,” she said slowly into her headset. “I think that this is just a coincidence. That’s a pretty good slice of the surviving Communist surface fleet out there. I doubt they could have gotten it into position this fast just for us.”
“Yeah ” The tension in Hire’s voice eased down a notch as well. “I wonder what they’re up to!”
“Hard to say Maybe an antishipping sweep or a coastal bombardment run. Those Ludas each pack a couple of 130-millimeter mounts. They could be planning to shoot up a Nationalist supply depot or something as part of this big drive they’re building. Whatever it is, I think we’ll just lay low and let them go on their way.”
The Cunningham’s bow was coming around now, tracking on the passing hostile vessels. The tiger pattern camouflage on her hull merged her into the backdrop of the shore. The earlier generation Chinese optics would be left with nothing to see except for a narrow break in the white line of the surf.
A short time before, Amanda had been praying for Arkady’s return. Now she prayed that he would stay away just for a few minutes more, just until the enemy had disappeared beyond the southern headland.
Maybe that was why the voice that issued from the over head speaker carried the impact of an exploding bomb.
“Gray Lady, Gray Lady, this is Retainer Zero One. Do you copy?”
She loved him and she had been worried about him, but just for the moment, she could kill him.
“Retainer Zero One,” she snarled after dialing into the air operations frequency, “have hostile surface forces in the area!”
Low Probability of Intercept radio was just that. There was still a chance that they could be detected.
Arkady’s reply was unperturbed. “More than you know, Gray Lady. We’ve just hovered up over the ridgeline about three clicks south of your location. In addition to your Reds, there are three fast-attack craft in the next cove down the coast from you. Chris identifies them as Taiwanese Navy Hai Ou missile boats. Looks like hot times a-coming!”
“Acknowledged. Stand by, Zero One.”
Amanda toggled back to the Combat Information Center. “Lieutenant Selkirk, this is the Captain. Could this Red task group be the source of that first EM contact you had?”
“Negative, ma’am,” the Intelligence Officer replied emphatically. “The emissions coming off of these guys are burying the needle. That first contact was hardly there at all.”
Amanda nodded and gave herself a five count to think. By the time the count was finished, she had her ops plan assembled.
“Lee helm. Bring up your Power Rooms. We’re going to be moving.” Keying her headset, she continued. “All stations, this is the bridge. Here’s the situation. The Reds are sailing into an ambush. They’ve got one Nationalist missile-boat group stalking them to seaward and another waiting for them down the coast. As soon as they move into the cross fire, I suspect that the Nationalists are going to hit them with everything they’ve got. I intend to pull us out of here under the cover of the fireworks. Stealth systems.”
“Stealth, aye.”
“Mr. Mckelsie, we’ll try to sneak out under passive stealth alone. Keep all active jammers and decoy systems armed and on standby.”
“Will do.”
“Officer.”
“Here, ma’am.”
“Dix, bring up a couple of Standard HARM flights. If anyone gets a radar lock on us, I want you set to send a round right back up the beam.”
“Is that Red and Nationalist both, ma’am?”
“Negative. Red only. I guess we can allow that much favoritism.”
“Will do.”
“Main Engine Control.”
“Yo.”
“Everything you’ve got, Chief.”
“What else?” There was a faint tinge of surprise in Commander Thomson’s voice.
“Air One.”
“Air One, aye,” Lieutenant Nancy Delany, the Aviation Section’s exec, replied from the air operations center at the rear of the superstructure.
“We’re going to be making a flying recovery on your boss. Have the helipad prepped and standing by. I want that helo down and belowdecks as fast as possible.”
“We’ll be ready, ma’am.”
Amanda dialed back to the air ops channel “Gray Lady to Retainer. You are instructed to hold at your current position and maintain observation of the Nationalist missile boats. Report when they open fire, then proceed up the ridgeline and return to the ship. We will be departing the inlet at high speed and turning to the northeast. I repeat, to the northeast. Follow our wake out and recover immediately. The helipad is standing by to receive you.”
“Roger,” Arkady came back crisply “Will comply.”
Amanda paced behind the helm station. The duty helms man already had the maneuvering chart of the inlet dialed up on his console repeater, the water depths outlined in glowing azure computer graphics. His left hand played with the controls of the auxiliary hydrojets, while the fingers of his right curled around the rudder controller.
Beside him, the lee helm leaned in over the center pedestal, one hand on the propeller controls, the other on the master throttles. The power levers had already been firewalled and the glowing bars of the generator room output displays were dancing at their peak, matched from belowdecks by the whispering howl of the great Rolls Royce gas turbines. Amanda dropped a hand to the helmsman’s shoulder. “Okay Here’s how we’ll work it. I’m not going to have a whole lot of time for giving orders, so I’ll let you take us out. We’ve got some shoals around here, so keep us right in the center of the channel. As soon as we get the water for it, we’ll be turning away to the northeast. I’ll give you the word when. Got it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the young sailor replied tautly. Then they waited. One minute more… two…
To the south something like heat lightning played beyond the hills.