Target Lock

Bridge of the Frigate Sutanto 0801 Hours, Zone Time: August 25, 2008

MacIntyre lifted his finger from the communications pad. “Miss Nichols, take us in, please. You have the helm.”

Labelle Nichols, still at the helm station she had claimed since the boarding, spun the Sutanto’s wheel hard over, starting the frigate’s bow on its arc toward the mouth of the inlet.

“Going in, sir.” The young woman sounded incredibly cool and collected for her first act of barratry. “Lee helm, all engines ahead emergency.”

The enlisted hand at the engine controls rolled his throttles forward to their stops.

MacIntyre strode across the bridge, past the helm stations and past the lounging bulk of Stone Quillain, to the ship interphone. Lifting the handset from its cradle, he rang through to the main engine control.

“Engine Room, this is the bridge. This is it. Lock it all down and get the hell out of there!”

“Engine Room, aye!” the voice answered from the belly of the doomed ship.

“Eddie Mac’s taking us in!” the engineering CPO bawled down the narrow passage between the thundering pair of Hyundai marine diesels. “Haul ass, you guys, haul ass!”

The three other members of the skeleton black gang needed no urging. They were the last hands below the frigate’s waterline. They raced forward to the ladderway that led up to the comparative safety of mid decks.

The veteran chief petty officer counted them up the ladder, three in with him, three out ahead of him. Before he followed, instinct made him pause for a last second for a look at the gauge banks on the main engine control boards.

Some needles were already starting their climb into the red zone. Whoever had been running coolant and lubrication maintenance on this plant needed to be taken out and shot after he’d been hung. Oh, well, it wasn’t as if it mattered all that much.

He started to climb.

Two levels above, he unlatched the ladder trunk hatch and slammed it shut, kicking the locking dogs solidly into place. All watertight doors and hatches below the frigate’s waterline had been tightly closed, just as all doors and hatches above the waterline had been securely wedged open against the risk of their freezing shut from frame distortion.

The central passageway of the main deck, one level below topside, was a rank and crowded place that smelled heavily of both heat and tension sweat. Spalling mats had been run down either side of the passage with the intent that the Kevlar armor combined with the steel ship’s hull would keep the space bullet- and fragmentation-free. Or such was the theory. Battle lanterns had also been spaced down the passageway. They were now being switched on in preparation for the loss of the internal lighting.

All hands, Marine and Navy, had their spot staked out. The CPO had left his combat gear parked at his. Hastily he dragged the MOLLE harness and flak vest on over the green utilities he wore. Donning his K-Pot helmet, he sank down with his back to the bulkhead and tried to remember the loading and clearing drill for his twelve-gauge combat shotgun.

From the feel of the hull, they had completed their turn and were reaching flank speed. Not long before the show starts. Crazy damn way to do things! Hope the admiral knows what he’s doing. Hope the main bearings on Number Two hold out. Probably they’re red-hot by now. Too late to worry about it. Hell of a way to treat a ship.

The chief glanced at the three youthful Motor Macs huddled together against the bulkhead across from him. Two guys and a girl, all three of them just out of high school. Good kids and good sailors. They’d all volunteered for this job, practically begging for it, but they were looking scared now. Just about as scared as the CPO felt.

He gave them the slightest nod of his head and a bored smile that indicated that this was just another day leading to twenty and out.

That’s part of a chief’s job.