Target Lock

USS Cunningham, CLA-79, on Buccaneer Station 30 Miles West of Crab’s Claw Cape 0721 Hours, Zone Time: August 25, 2008

“Navicom reports we are on station, sir,” the helmsman said, looking up from his station at the central bridge console. “CIC verifies we have matching coordinates for Firing Station Buccaneer as per the action plan.”

“Very good, Helm,” Commander Ken Hiro replied. “Stop all engines. Initiate active station-keeping. Quartermaster, sound general quarters, bombardment stations!”

Throughout the superstructure and hull, the bawling Klaxons sounded the call to arms. In drill and in reality Hiro had heard them sound many times before aboard the Duke. There was a different tone to them now, though. Before, he had been serving as Amanda Garrett’s executive officer. Now he was Captain, under God, and they were sounding the call to battle under his command.

I wonder if your throat was dry that first time in Drake’s Passage, ma’am, Hiro thought to a presence not at his side. It sure didn’t sound or look like it.

It was that way every time, Ken, every time. Trust your ship. Trust your crew. You’ve got them both ready.

But you’re going to be the one under our guns out there, ma’am.

Ken visualized the ironic lift of a pair of brows. Why do you think I’m glad it’s the Duke doing the job? Carry on, Mr. Hiro.

“Aye, aye, ma’am.” He smiled and whispered the acknowledgment aloud. Turning to the racked combat gear on the rear bridge bulkhead, he took down and donned the combination flak vest and lifejacket and the gray Kevlar helmet with the white-stenciled CAPTAIN on its brow.

Down the long open sweep of the Cunninham’s foredeck, in the forward-most Vertical Launch System array, half a dozen missile silo lurches swung open, big silo hatches, taking up four of the standard bunch cells.

Aft of VLS Array One, in the space taken up by what at one time had been the second of the Duke’s three Vertical Launch Systems, another pair of rectangular hatches retracted, revealing a pair of guide tracks set in slots in the deck. A pair of massive gun barrels slid up the tracks, fixed to fire forward at a shallow angle off the bow, they locked into train with only a couple of feet of muzzle protruding.

These were the VGAS (Vertical Gun for Advanced Ships) mounts, 155mm ultra range cannon designed to take advantage of the revolution in precision-guided munitions.

Why go to all the trouble of aiming the gun when one could simply tell the shell where it was supposed to go?

By taking advantage of a fixed mount braced and set within the hull, the big pieces could be autoloaded from their magazine, giving them a hands-off rate of fire of fifteen rounds per minute per barrel. Likewise, the recoil of a fixed mount could be more readily dealt with, permitting propellant and chamber pressures far in excess of a turreted weapon. Today’s mission could be fired with reduced charges and no RAP rocket boosters for the shells. The range was only thirty miles, point-blank for the 110-mile potential reach of the VGAS system.

Directly beneath the Cunningham’s bridge, the gun tube of the axblade stealth turret whined as it elevated. The forward turret mount was a fleet-standard ERGM (Extended Range Guided Munitions) five-inch 64. A little brother to VGAS, it could only hurl a 120mm round to sixty-three miles.

Ken Hiro wondered at how things ran in cycles. In the Navy he’d enlisted in, the guided missile was king and the cannon only a feeble auxiliary. Now he was partaking in the return of something once thought to be extinct, the big gun cruiser.

“Captain, the ship is at all-stop and is station-keeping.”

“Very good, Helm. Stand by to hand off bearing alignment to Fire Control.”

“Captain, the ship is at general quarters. All battle boards read green. All battle stations manned and ready.”

“Very good, Quartermaster.”

“Captain,” a third voice sounded in Hiro’s command headset, “this is Air One. We have just received a Seawolf departure order from Task Force AIRBOSS. Aircraft are spotted and ready in all respects for launch. Request permission to proceed.”

“Carry on, Air One. Launch your aircraft. State the status on our spotter drones.”

“Drones Able and Bravo are responding and functional and are holding at Waypoint Jolly Roger. T minus twelve minutes forty-five seconds to advanced deployment by the time line.”

“Understood.”

As the rotor thunder grew from the helipad aft, Ken crossed to the captain’s chair at the corner of the bridge. Faking the appropriate relaxed demeanor for “the Old Man,” he lifted himself into the chair and dialed up the MC-1 circuit.

“All hands, this is the captain. We will be commencing fire shortly. This shoot is going to be for my old boss, and the Duke’s old skipper. Let’s show the Lady we can do it right.”