Target Lock

Benoa Port, Bali 1913 Hours, Zone Time: August 20, 2008

Like all sound plans for a military operation, the one for the Bugis assault was simple, relying on speed and shock effect. At the 1915 execution time, the dockside ground forces would open fire, raking the decks of the U.S. warships, suppressing or wiping out the topside security patrols. Then the mine launches would race in.

After planting their limpet mines against the hulls of the ships, the launch crews would set their timers and retreat. The resulting detonations would disable or possibly even start sinking the American vessels. In the confusion that would follow the mine attack, the land force would board the crippled vessels, completing the destruction of the ships and crews and, hopefully, finding and freeing some of their fellow Bugis who they had been told were being held aboard the task force.

The pirate clan leader commanding the ground strike force was confident. There was no reason the plan shouldn’t work. The polisi had been bought off. His security was tight. There was no sign of unusual activity aboard the target ship, and he was two minutes away from ordering the assault. From his warehouse observation post, he peered through the crack in the door a final time.

And scowled.

The American gangway watches stationed on the quay apron, the first individuals scheduled to die in the attack, were scrambling hastily up to the bow of the LPD and the stern of the cruiser, ducking out of sight over the deck lip. In fact, suddenly no one was visible aboard either ship. The roving security patrols had disappeared as well.

There was a stillness that could only be called ominous. The dark tinted bridge windscreen of the LPD looked down impassively on the quayside, and there was no sound except the lapping of the waves against the breakwater. Then came the hiss and rumble and the steady, rising whine of massive marine engines turning over.

The Americans were getting under way! One minute from the attack and the damn targets were preparing to sail!

The Bugis clan leader was stunned. He should have realized that the assault was blown and that his critical element of surprise was gone. No doubt, given a few more seconds to think, he would have reached this conclusion and aborted the operation. Unfortunately for him — for he would die shortly — and for the rest of his assault force, his hunter’s instincts triggered first. His prey was escaping!

He screamed the order to attack.

The scream was magnified two hundred times over as the Bugis poured from concealment within the row of warehouses… and ran headlong into a storm of automatic-weapons fire. The weatherdecks and upperworks of the ships blazed, Marines and Navy security opening up on the pirate force.

The Bugis were staggered by the ferocity of their reception, but they were Bugis: They scattered, taking cover behind the rows of cargo pallets that had been artfully positioned for them by port stevedores during the day. Shooting back, they strove to perform their initial mission. If they could not suppress the ships’ defenses, maybe they could at least distract them enough for the mine launches to deliver their body blows.

Even this would not be easy. The battle was escalating, and the defenders were bringing heavier and more fearful weapons to bear. Grenades exploded over the heads of the Bugis gunners as they crouched behind what they thought was secure cover. Heavy tracer streams arced down from the corners of the Carlson’s forward deckhouse, autocannon shells chewing through and scattering pallets and men both. For just this kind of infighting, the LPD had been equipped with four of the same kind of Mark 46 30mm turrets carried by the new Marine Advanced Armored Assault Vehicle, a precaution that paid for itself now.

But there was something else, something the Bugis had never before encountered — something terrifying.

Pain, sporadic waves of terrible, burning, sourceless pain, as if the Bugis were being engulfed by invisible flames. Pain agonizing enough to make a brave man drop his weapon and scream.

The raiders were Bugis pirates, fearless in the face of other men and willing to dare the clean death of a bullet. But what man could fight this work of demons? Raiders began to slough away, fleeing for the safety of the cool, uncursed shadows.

Just off the Carlson’s Combat Information Center, in a cramped fire control station colloquially known as “Zap Gun Alley,” Lieutenant Linda Janovic looked over the shoulders of her “gunners” as they kept their weapons in play.

Janovic was the Carlson’s Ship-Mounted Area Denial Systems officer. She greatly enjoyed this career slot, not merely because it kept her on the cutting edge of technology, but also because while she was proud to serve in her nation’s military, she didn’t particularly enjoy the thought of having to kill people.

SMADS was the star of the new generation of nonlethal ordnance coming into service that theoretically permitted an enemy to be disabled and defeated without the application of outright death and destruction. The Area Denial System was literally a science fiction “ray gun” brought into reality, its parabolic emitters generating a focused beam of silent, invisible, microwave energy. While a short-term exposure was not physically damaging to a human being, the target underwent an experience that had been described as “having a hot light bulb pressed against every square inch of skin.” Very distracting, if nothing else.

Through the Cooperative Engagement net, Lieutenant Janovic had gathered the Cunningham’s SMADS mounts under her control, splitting the tasking. The three emitters that could be brought to bear on the land battle — the Duke’s stern mount and two forward superstructure mounts of the LPD — were under the direct guidance of her systems operators.

Leaning over the shoulders of her SOs, she watched through their sighting monitors as they put fire into the enemy. She was satisfied with what she saw. There were explosions or sprawled bodies accountable to her batteries, but wherever the crosshairs of her sighting systems were laid, the volume of enemy fire dropped immediately as their foes abandoned thoughts of aggression and focused on getting the hell somewhere else.

The remaining forward SMADS mount on the Cunningham and the aft emitters of the Carlson had been handed off to the Duke’s controller. Their job was to assist with seaward security, and up to this moment they had not energized a beam. Now a voice sounded in Janovic’s headset.

“Carlson control, this is Duke SMADS. We have unidentified small craft coming in fast! Multiple targets!”

Janovic slapped a hand down on the access pad of a secondary monitor, flipping through the imaging from the forward targeting cameras. Half a dozen small outboard launches were converging on the moorage, showing no lights or other identification. It didn’t make sense for any of the local boatmen to come rushing into a firefight, but there was a chance these might be Indonesian police or military craft coming to assist the task force.

But then, that was the beauty of SMADS: If you made a mistake you could apologize to the victim afterward.

“Cook ’em,” Janovic snapped. At the speed of light, the beams lashed out.

The SMADS projectors were state-of-the-art nonlethal projected energy weapons. However, the dynamite mines aboard the Bugis attack launches were crude, simple explosive devices. As the two differing technologies encountered each other, odd, unintended things happened. The copper wiring between the timer and battery units and the industrial grade blasting caps embedded in the explosives acted as a receiving antenna for the sudden massive surge of microwave energy. Induction currents resulted.

The lead mine launch vanished in a tremendous explosion.

Janovic recognized the mechanism and its meaning instantly. “Shit! Suicide boats! Cunningham, hose ’em! Hose ’em!”

Emitter dishes slammed from traverse stop to traverse stop, spraying the night with energy. As each boat was trapped in a beam, it disintegrated, its crew slain in bewilderment by their own weapons. Aboard the last of the six, someone must have had a realization. Frantically they tried to jettison their mines; they got one over the side in time but were a split second late with the next.

Janovic’s guts twisted sickeningly as the spray plumes of the explosions collapsed and the smoke clouds dissipated. It had been too much to hope for, that there might be a way to fight a war without the blood.

“Captain,” the OOD yelled over the raging stammer of the gunfire. “All engine rooms report ready to answer bells!”

The bridge windscreen had taken hits heavy enough to blow two of the armor-glass panes out of their frames, letting in the full uproar of the battle along with the occasional ricocheting rifle slug. Still, Carberry stood immobile, his hands behind his back, disregarding the blood trickling from the cut on his forehead. If he was a legend within his war-gaming hobby, the little man was building another here.

“Very well. Signal the Cunningham to get under way.” Somehow Carberry didn’t find it necessary to lift his voice to be heard. “We’ll hold departure until she’s clear.”

“Aye, aye.”

A few moments later, a string of flashbulblike bursts danced along the flanks of the Duke, the crack of the mini-explosions lost amid the gunfire.

In planning for an emergency exit under fire, Amanda Garrett hadn’t liked the notion of exposing a sea and anchor detail on the decks of her ships. Accordingly the broad V of hawsers and spring lines used in the Mediterranean-type mooring of the task force had been doctored for a rapid departure.

Foam rubber flotation cladding had been wrapped around the upper shipside ends of the lines, ensuring that they couldn’t sink and foul a propeller, then a loop of explosive tape had been lapped around each hawser head. Wired for remote detonation, the ships could be cut free with the single push of a button.

The water boiled along the Cunningham’s flanks as the contra-rotating propellers of her propulsor pods cut water. As smoothly and almost as swiftly as an accelerating automobile; the cruiser hauled away from the seawall. Running blacked-out, she faded into the night in a matter of a few seconds.

“The Cunningham is away, Captain.”

“Very well, Mr. Johnson. Clear our lines, please. Helm, steady as she goes. Lee helm, all engines back one third.”

The Marine demo man hit his firing box and a second string of flashes danced around the perimeter of the LPD’s deck, the hawsers falling away. Diesel powered and backing with conventional screws, the Carlson’s response wasn’t as decisive, but she began to reverse, the gang plank crashing from her forecastle to hang vertically against the seawall. The small-arms fire trailed off as the LPD opened the range, following her consort into the darkness. A pirate fired an antitank rocket at the ship in a final futile gesture. It streaked past the bridge, sputtering sparks like a malfunctioning firework, and fell wasted into the harbor waters. A point defense turret yammered a long, angry replying burst, having the last word. The battle of Benoa Port was over.

“Lee helm, port ahead one third. Continue backing starboard one third. Mr. Johnson, you may resume the conn. Ware her about and follow the Cunningham out through the Turtle Island channel. Maintain blackout topside until further orders, and procure the damage and casualty reports with all speed, please.”

“Will do, sir.”

“Order the Sea Fighter squadron to execute an immediate combat launch to recover the shore party at rendezvous point as per ops plan Bravo. Also, get some drone recon up and have two of the helicopter gun ships spotted on five-minute ready alert.”

“Will do, Captain. Uh, would you like someone to have a look at that cut, sir?”

Carberry unclasped his hands. He was past the trembling now. Reaching up, he touched the coagulating blood on his forehead. “Probably a good idea, Mr. Johnson. Have sick bay send a pharmacist’s mate up should they have one free.”

Not a bad action at all, Carberry thought. It had been rather good having the Carlson cover the cruiser’s departure. It would remind the surface warfare crowd that the amphibious forces were fighting ships as well.

“Mr. Johnson, another thing. Please inform the ship’s company that I am satisfied with their performance tonight. No, on second thought, make that eminently satisfied.”