Choosers of the Slain

42

The Cunningham's RPV control station was located at the far end of the cramped Elint bay, and Amanda Garrett and Christine Rendino were forced to squeeze in around the operator's chair to see the display screens. During those odd moments when his attention wandered, Arkady found the close, warm presence of the two women rather disconcerting, Amanda's clear-water-and-wildflowers scent mingling with Christine's muskier cologne.

With a side-stick controller in his right hand and a throttle in his left, Arkady was "flying" one of the Duke's Boeing Brave 2000 reconnaissance drones, a small, stealthy, Remotely Piloted Vehicle that resembled a stumpy cruise missile. On his head he wore a bulbous virtual-reality helmet with its display visor flipped down over his face.

A whole different world existed inside that helmet. It was as if he were sitting in a cockpit aboard the drone itself, a three-dimensional, computer-graphics simulacrum of its surrounding environment being projected on the inner curve of the visor. He could look "down" and see the surface of the ocean represented by a glowing white-on-blue grid pattern marching beneath the "nose" of the RPV. He could look "up" and see the cloud cover represented by a wider-hatched gray grid overhead. He could sweep the "horizon" with a turn of his head, and a blip of thumb pressure on a control-stick button would materialize a systems-status display or a navigational readout in front of his eyes.

Pilot and drone were connected via a tight-beam UHF relay through an orbiting Milstar communications satellite. The data link was a violation of stealth protocols; however, Amanda had wanted to see her enemies as something more than a symbol on a screen.

"Navicom readouts indicate you're coming in on the primary search zone," Christine murmured. "Keep your eyes open."

"I got 'em already. I'm acquiring multiple air-search radars bearing zero off the nose."

Within the VR program, radar waves could be made as readily visible to the human eye as the beam of a flashlight. Arkady could "see" the convoy's search systems on his horizon, sweeping and pulsing in pale red like a cluster of lighthouse beacons.

"Okay, that's them. Stay alert for the distant covering force. Satellite scan indicates they're running out ahead of the main body of the convoy."

"Roger, I'm taking her down to the deck."

Arkady rolled the controller forward, and two hundred miles to the north the RPV dipped its nose in response and sank toward the surface of the sea.

To Amanda and Christine, there was something rather eerie in the alert, watchful movements of Arkady's head as he peered about with his distant telepresence eyes. After a few moments, his attention fixed on something.

"Okay, I've got the covering force. Three of 'em, running in column."

Christine reached forward and tapped a series of keys, activating the drone's camera turret. A flatscreen came on, displaying a televised view of blurred gray wave tops. Using a trackball controller, she slewed the camera around to the bearing Arkady had indicated. In the visual range, nothing could be seen but a curtain of sea smoke. The touch of another key, however, switched the system over to thermographic imaging.

The horizon snapped clear, presenting a vista like a photographic negative: three ghostly pale ships sailing against a dark sea and sky.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce you to the Argentine First Destroyer Squadron," Christine murmured, "genus Animosos italianos. About five thousand tons' displacement each, a single five-inch gun forward, three OTO Melara seventy-six-millimeter Super Rapid point defense mounts, Aster surface-to-air missile system, two tubes for type B-515 dual-mode torpedoes, and an eight-cell Exocet launcher. The guy in the center there with the enlarged helicopter hangar aft and the slightly different bridge silhouette will be your task-force flagship."

Amanda leaned forward to study the screens, her shoulder brushing unthinkingly against Arkady's. He had noticed that she'd been unusually quiet, and now, through the touch of her, he could feel her tension.

"They're being a bit slow on the uptake, aren't they, Chris?" she commented.

"They don't know we're out there yet, boss ma'am. These guys aren't radiating at all. Total radio and radar silence. They've been running that way ever since they cleared the coast."

"Any change in their positioning?"

"Not really. They've been holding out here about ten miles off the port or starboard bow of the convoy. Probably they're station keeping on the convoy's radar emissions."

"Do they seem to be favoring either side?" Amanda pressed.

"No. According to the reconsat data, about once a watch they tack on a little extra speed and cross over the course line from one side to the other. It seems to be a set operational pattern."

They watched as the trio of missile destroyers drifted away aft on the screen.

"Do you want me to circle back, Skipper?" Arkady asked.

"Negative. Let's have a look at the convoy itself."

"Aye, aye. Going on in."

The cruise drone cut swiftly across the distance to the second Argentine formation. In less than a minute, the boxy outline of a Meko-class destroyer materialized on the screens. Simultaneously, the signal intelligence display on the RPV control console began to trill urgently.

"Heads up, Arkady," Christine warned. "Their radar is starting to get a return off you."

"Rog. Better bring up the gyrostabilizer on the camera platform. I'm going to have to dazzle 'em with my fancy footwork here in a second."

To Arkady, the enemy vessel was a yellow outline sketch on the blue and white cross-hatch sea, its air/sea search sweep a wide-angled pink floodlight radiating from its masthead. Suddenly the Argentines' fire-control radars lit off, tight, angry, scarlet beams that lashed out and tried to engulf the drone. Asterisk patterns in bright orange began to dance around the drone, denoting the shells that had started to burst around it.

On the thermal imager, Christine and Amanda saw pulsing white gouts of flame appear fore and aft on the destroyer as its 40mm turrets opened fire.

"Nothing wrong with this guy's reaction," Amanda commented grimly. "Get around him, Arkady."

He was too busy to verbalize an answer. He shaved a few more feet off his already perilously low altitude and threw the drone through a series of violent scissoring maneuvers to shake the flak. Then he cut hard right across the stern of the Meko. Another hard turn to port pulled it back onto the course line, and a few seconds later the RPV was streaking down the convoy's starboard flank.

One after another, its camera panned past the ships in the transport column. The big, modern-looking freighter with its aft-mounted superstructure and its decks stacked high with prefab housing modules. The bulkier, more massive vessel with the distinctive M rigs of a naval oiler. The smaller tank-landing ship, one-third of the displacement of the others and yet with its topside crowded with a miscellany of stores and equipment. Then they were past and the air around the drone again filled with the hot flare of air-bursting shells.

"I'm taking flak again," Arkady reported.

"We see it," Christine replied. "It's coming in from the nearside trailing escort. One of the little guys."

"I want a look at them too," Amanda ordered.

"Okay, we'll be coming up on the nearside ship in a second." The intel peered intently into the monitor. "Yeah, there he is. An A-69 corvette. French-built. A real golden oldie."

"Old or not," Arkady cut in, "this guy has an Argentine Annie Oakley in that bow turret. This gunfire is getting too close to be funny."

"Let's get the eyeball verification on those farside escorts," Amanda began. "Come right…"

The image on the repeater screen jarred wildly and broke up. Within the VR helmet, Arkady saw red damage-alert warnings flash past in front of his eyes too rapidly to be read. The drone slewed wildly and the graphics sea surface rushed up toward him. His world went abruptly black.

"Damn, damn, damn!" Amanda's fist struck the back of his chair with a soft thump.

He lifted off the VR helmet and shook his head, striving also to shake off the sensation that he had just died in a plane crash.

"Sorry, ladies. They busted me."

"Such is life, pal. At least your little bod wasn't out there to get perforated too," Christine replied, backing out of her corner of the station. "Ah well, at least we know pretty much what the setup is. Good enough for government work."

"It isn't good enough, Lieutenant!" Amanda snapped. "I am taking this ship into a combat situation, and I cannot afford to rely on toss-off guesswork!"

Christine's eyes widened and she recoiled slightly under the impact of the words.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am," she replied quietly. "We have verified one Meko 360-class destroyer and one A-69-class corvette with the convoy close-escort group. Signal intelligence has also identified the emissions signature of a second 360-class vessel. As to the remaining light escort, sat-scan verifies that it's less than three hundred feet long, diesel-powered, and it displays the emission signature of the standard Argentine light surface forces systems package.

"Possibly it could be one of their Meko 140-class corvettes or a Sparviero fast-attack craft, but, as the Argentines usually operate their naval vessels in two- or three-ship squadrons of like types, my best estimate is that it is a second A-69."

As she spoke, she watched the burst of anger drain out of Amanda to be replaced by a look of deep weariness. Christine had always thought that her friend had looked young for her age. Just for the moment, though, the reverse was true.

"We could get another drone up there in another twenty minutes, Captain," Arkady said from the control station. He had listened quietly throughout the exchange, not turning in his chair.

"No. We might need those last three Braves later, and I want to get back under EMCON. We'll go on Christine's assessment. Secure the drone systems, Arkady. Chris, have your people run a detailed analysis on the signal intelligence we've recorded off this mission. See if there might be anything out of the individual ship-emission patterns we can make use of."

"Aye, aye."

Amanda departed the bay. Lieutenant Rendino waited until her captain was well clear before she leaned back against a side console. She produced a soft, thoughtful whistle.

"She's cool, sis," Arkady said, starting to power down the workstation.

"I know. She's getting flayed worse than all the rest of us put together. It's just that I've been running with the Lady for some time now, and I've never seen the load hit her this hard before. It's kind of spooky. Sort of like God getting a migraine."

"She's cool," Arkady repeated evenly, gazing into the empty screens of his station. "She's just calling the ball for the first time and learning about all the shit they don't put in the books."