The Grail

CHAPTER 19

“My name is Ts’ang Chieh, court official to the most noble Emperor Shi Huangdi, Commander of all the World, the Hidden Ruler whose reign goes from rising to setting sun and beyond.” A smile creased the unlined face. “At least that is what we showed to the world in our time.”

“I am Lexina, leader of The Ones Who Wait, and these are Elek and Coridan of my order. The machine taught you our language?”

Ts’ang was in front of the guardian, just released from its glow. “To one who knows, the ways of the guardian are many. I have been updated on the current situation. It is most grave. The forces of Aspasia’s Shadow are mobilizing. There is much I do not understand yet, but there is danger.”

“Does the Emperor sleep below?” Lexina asked.

Ts’ang nodded. “He sleeps.”

“Is the Emperor Shi Huangdi actually Artad?”

“In a manner of speaking, he was. The Emperor Shi Huangdi wore the ka of Artad, thus he was Artad.”

“But the real Artad is here?” Lexina asked.

“Yes. He has slept for almost thirteen thousand years.”

Lexina’s body was so tense, it was practically vibrating. “Will you waken him now?”

Ts’ang nodded. “It is time.”

Turcotte lay on his back in the sand looking up at the clear blue desert sky while Fassid nervously paced back and forth just below the crest of the dune. They were six miles from the site of Turcotte’s aborted assassination. Fassid checked his watch for the tenth time in the last five minutes.

“Two minutes before, two minutes after,” Turcotte said.

“What?”

Turcotte was tired, emotionally and physically exhausted. He felt rather detached and calm, an unusual state for him on an exfiltration pickup zone in hostile territory. “Exfiltration window in special ops is two minutes before the appointed, until two minutes after. Four minutes altogether. If the exfil aircraft doesn’t show in that window, you go to the emergency plan. Do you have an emergency plan?”

“Yes,” Fassid said. “I start praying to Allah.”

“Not much of a plan,” Turcotte noted.

“I didn’t have much time,” Fassid said. He looked at his watch. “Our window has just opened.” He cocked his head. “I hear nothing.”

Turcotte couldn’t even add up the number of times on training and real missions when he’d listened for the sound of helicopter blades. He estimated that over half of those occasions he’d been disappointed and left standing on the pickup zone (PZ) as the window closed, left to move to an alternate PZ or into an escape and evasion plan. It was why he wasn’t even getting up, searching the horizon. If the Israeli helicopter showed, fine. If it didn’t, he was certainly better off than he’d been an hour ago when he’d anticipated imminent death. Frankly, he didn’t much care.

“Ah!” Fassid was jumping up and down like a schoolchild as a small helicopter popped up over the sand dune and swung around to come in for a landing forty feet away. It was amazingly quiet, and Turcotte knew why as he recognized the model — the McDonnell-Douglas MDX.

Built around the venerable MD-530 bubble frame, the MDX was on the cutting edge, incorporating NOTAR — no tail rotor — technology, thus eliminating the largest producer of noise on helicopters: the small tail rotor had to rotate at much higher speeds than the main blades. Instead of a tail rotor, compressed air was ejected from the side of the tail boom to keep the helicopter’s torque in balance.

“Come on, come on,” Fassid grabbed Turcotte’s arm.

Turcotte got to his feet and put his hand over his eyes for some protection against the blowing sand. He followed Fassid on board, getting into the backseat. The pilot and co-pilot immediately took off, even before he had the door shut behind him.

The helicopter banked hard, then sped east, less than ten feet above the sand. The pilots kept the craft low and in a couple of minutes they reached the Nile, skimming across the surface of the water, barely missing a scow’s mast, then over the desert on the other side, heading toward the Gulf of Suez.

Turcotte reached up and pulled down a headset hanging from the ceiling and put it on. He listened as the pilots called out checkpoints to each other, confirming their escape route. Then a tone chimed, and one of the pilots cursed.

“What’s that?” Turcotte asked.

“Radar lock from above,” the co-pilot responded. Turcotte leaned against the glass and looked up. Etched against the blue sky were two white contrails from Egyptian jets.

“We know we got picked up on radar coming in,” the co-pilot informed him, “and they’ve scrambled everything they can get in the air to track us down.”

“You’ve got company at eleven o’clock,” Turcotte told them. He was amazed the Israelis had continued and made the pickup if they’d been detected. Every helicopter pilot he’d ever met had described the possibility of a battle between a helicopter and a jet as the equivalent of that between a poodle and a pit bull.

“How far until our feet are wet?” Turcotte asked.

“Forty-six miles to the Gulf,” the co-pilot answered. “But remember, we gave the Sinai back to the Egyptians in the peace accord.”

“And we stationed peacekeepers on the Sinai,” Turcotte said. “Can you get me a radio link to South Camp?”

South Camp was located near Sharm El Sheikh, on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula and home to part of the multinational peacekeeping force put in place by the United Nations after the Camp David Peace Accords in 1979. Turcotte knew there was a strong U.S. presence there.

“You’ve got a channel on the MNF frequency,” the co-pilot said. “Better buckle up.”

Turcotte was slammed against the side door as the helicopter turned perpendicular to the ground and dove into a wadi, now ever closer to the ground, something Turcotte had not thought possible.

“Can you get us over the water?” Turcotte asked the co-pilot, before he keyed the radio. He could see that the two jets were in a steep dive, heading toward them.

“We’re sure going to try. We’ve got a few tricks we can use.”

Turcotte keyed the radio and demanded to speak to the senior American officer at South Camp. As Turcotte talked to South Camp, the MDX began bobbing and weaving as the two jets rapidly approached.

Out of the comer of his eye, Turcotte saw a missile flash by, then explode into a sand dune. He felt his stomach tighten as the MDX spun one hundred and eighty degrees, abruptly halting forward movement. The two jets roared past, then the helicopter reversed once more and continued on course. It took the jets almost a dozen miles to loop around for another pass.

“What are they doing?” the co-pilot yelled.

Turcotte slid the side door open and leaned out. He could see the two Egyptian planes coming around, very low this time, at just slightly faster than their stall speed. “Gun run,” Turcotte replied. “Low and as slow as they can go.” He knew that if they were going to fire missiles again, the jets would be much higher to try to keep a heat lock. The helicopter must have some sort of anti-radar device and heat diffusers given that they had survived the first attack.

“Range?” the co-pilot wanted to know.

“Two miles and closing,” Turcotte informed the pilots.

“They’ll wait until they’re right behind us before shooting. Maybe a quarter mile,” the pilot said.

“How do you know that?” Turcotte asked.

“We’ve read their tactical manuals,” the pilot said.

“One mile and closing,” Turcotte said. “How far to the coast?” he asked. “Eight miles.”

He knew they weren’t going to make it. The two planes coming dead on for the tail of the helicopter looked like rapidly approaching darts.

“Half mile,” Turcotte said. “Now!” the co-pilot yelled.

Turcotte felt his stomach slam downward as the nose of the helicopter abruptly lifted. He blinked, realizing he was now looking at the desert floor, then he was completely disoriented as the MDX went vertical and began to loop over.

The two jets went by below and Turcotte was upside down, held in place only by the shoulder straps. His stomach completed the roll as they came around and down, now behind the two jets.

“Fire!” the pilot ordered. A stinger missile leapt from the weapons pod and raced after the jets.

“Fire.” Another missile trailed the first.

The Egyptian jets broke, one right, one left, desperately kicking in their afterburners to escape the missiles bearing down on them. They’d played right into the Israelis’ hands by coming down to low level and losing the ability to trade altitude for speed.

Turcotte turned from watching the second fireball as he heard a loud, retching sound. Fassid was puking all over himself on the other side of the chopper.

“The Gulf,” the co-pilot announced as they cleared a dune and a flat stretch of water as far as they could see appeared ahead.

“We’ve got two more fast-movers on radar,” the pilot said. “ETA six mikes.”

“Where will we be in six minutes?” Turcotte asked.

“Halfway across the Gulf.”

Turcotte keyed the radio. “Vanguard Six, this is Area Five One Six. Over?” He felt a wave of relief as he was instantly answered. “This is Vanguard Six.”

“Six, do you have us on screen? Over,” Turcotte asked. “Roger. Over.”

“Your intercept time to us? Over?”

“Ten mikes. Over.”

“Make it six,” Turcotte said, “or there won’t be anything to meet. Over.”

“We’ll try.”

The pilots had the MDX about twenty feet over the Gulf of Suez, engines maxed out. The interior smelled foul from Fassid’s vomit, but that was the least of anyone’s concern. Turcotte wasn’t scared. He’d always been capable of shutting down his emotions in battle, but on those occasions he’d had some control over his fate. Here he was just a passenger on an aircraft that was either going to make it or go up in a ball of flame, with the latter the more likely event.

“Ship to the right,” Fassid reported.

Turcotte looked past the Egyptian officer. A midsized freighter flying a Liberian flag was steaming up the Gulf, heading for the Canal. He keyed the intercom. “Can we use the ship for cover?”

In reply the pilot banked the MDX and headed straight for the large bow of the ship.

“Jets two minutes out,” the co-pilot reported.

“Guardian Six, ETA? Over.” Turcotte asked over the radio as they closed on the tanker.

“Six minutes. Over.”

The pilot brought the nose of the helicopter up and they cleared the top of the bow by five feet, banked hard right to avoid hitting the bridge, then were over the large main deck.

“There,” the co-pilot was pointing toward an open cargo hatch. The pilot brought the MDX down above the deck of the moving ship, then descended, matching the ship’s speed, down through the open hatch in the hold.

They hovered in the darkness of the hole, the only light coming from the hatch overhead where they could see a few startled crewmen looking down. Turcotte checked his watch. “Time,” he told the pilot finally.

They were up, out of the hatch. Five thousand feet up they could see the Egyptian fighters circling. And closer, four Blackhawk helicopters with UN stenciled on the side.

The MDX darted to the east and the four Blackhawks surrounded it. Two above, two behind, preventing the Egyptians from getting to it without shooting them down first.

Kincaid leaned back in the seat and stared the computer screen in front of him. A sphere was rotating quickly, twenty-four red dots glowing along its surface. Stationary on the screen were three green dots representing Giza, Easter Island, and Qian-Ling. One of the red dots would align with Giza, then the sphere of red dots would spin rapidly, as the computer tried to line up another red dot with Easter Island. If there was a hit, the computer was programmed to try to align a third with Qian-Ling, but so far there had been no second hits.

As he watched the computer work in vain, several possibilities occurred to Kincaid, none of them good. One was that these grid points referred to a planet other than Earth — perhaps Mars. Another was that perhaps Che Lu’s mathematic assumptions were wrong. Or that using Giza as a fixed point was off base and none of those points referred to Giza.

Kincaid shook his head. None of those possibilities was useful. He’d learned early in the NASA program to make the impossible possible. To do that required looking at things with blinders on. If this was indeed an Airlia grid system of important points on Earth, perhaps they had done something very simple to make it hard to plot.

He heard commotion from the Cube, but Kincaid focused his attention on the problem at hand.

Major Quinn threw the door to the conference room open. “Turcotte has been picked up by an Israeli helicopter and will be landing at Hazerim in twenty minutes.”

Yakov looked up from the chess set between himself and Che Lu. “That is news worthy of a drink.” He pulled the bottle of vodka out from some hidden pocket inside his large, billowy shirt.

“The Grail?” Che Lu asked.

The enthusiasm dimmed on Quinn’s face. “Aspasia’s Shadow escaped with it — and Doctor Duncan. Turcotte thinks they’ve headed back to The Mission, wherever that is now. He said he’d update via SATCOM from the bouncer on the way back here,” Quinn said. “He was using an Israeli radio and frequency to tell me what I just told you.”

“Some good news, some bad news.” Yakov took a drink. “That seems to be the way it always is.”

“Anything from Mister Kincaid and his search?” Che Lu asked Quinn. “Nothing yet. The computer is still doing permutations.”

“Let us hope Turcotte has a plan,” Yakov said.

Major Turcotte had no plan other than getting off the Israeli helicopter without falling on his face. Beyond that, his mind and body were too exhausted and drained to go. He recognized Sherev and watched as the Mossad agent met Colonel Fassid with open arms. His greeting to Turcotte was less enthusiastic.

“Al-Iblis has the Ark” were his first words as Turcotte felt the heat from the tarmac rising like a hot blanket.

“And the Grail,” Turcotte added, squinting in the bright sun. “Do you know where he went?”

“Last radar image before the AWACS was destroyed indicated the two helicopters were heading east,” Sherev said as he led Turcotte toward the waiting bouncer. “For all we know the choppers had external fuel tanks, which means they could go anywhere in the Middle East. There they could land and cross-load to a plane if they wanted to go farther. One of our listening stations intercepted part of an FM broadcast between the two helicopters which indicated they were heading toward a place called The Mission, which no one seems to know the location of.”

Turcotte knew that intelligence agencies all over the world had been trying to find the new spot where The Mission had set up shop after being chased off of Devil’s Island in South America.

“Things are very unstable,” Sherev continued as they reached the bouncer. “The assassination of Hussein has led to saber rattling in both Iran and Iraq. The fools here thought cutting off the head would kill the beast, but it has just made things more dangerous. The enemy you know is always better than the enemy you don’t.

“Your own country is threatening Egypt over the loss of the AWACS. My country is contemplating mobilization of reserves because of what is happening.

“China is still sealed off from the rest of the world, although intelligence reports indicate their military is mobilizing. There’s fear that the Chinese might invade Taiwan. North Korea is also mobilizing. Both countries are hoping that your Navy in the Pacific is so preoccupied with Easter Island that they can act with impunity in the western Pacific.” Sherev shrugged his shoulders. “The world is getting even crazier than it usually is. And now we have the Ark of the Covenant and the Grail both surfacing after being myths for generations and now lie in the hands of a terrorist.

“I think that what is even more dangerous than the political maneuverings are the cracks in the foundations of the major religions. The various clergy are having a difficult time suddenly reconciling their dogma to the existence of these aliens.”

Turcotte didn’t want to get into the real identity of Al-Iblis with Sherev; he himself had a hard enough time understanding the creature and its ka and being reborn.

“I thank you for saving us.” He extended his hand.

Sherev gripped it. “I lost a good mole—” He nodded toward Fassid. “I hope you two were worth it.”

“We’ll try to be,” Turcotte said.

“Ah,” Sherev spit onto the hot runway. “Who knows what is worth what nowadays.” He slapped the side of the bouncer. “Alien spaceships, the Ark, the Grail, who knows what will happen next or who is who.”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out at Area 51,” Turcotte said. “Thank Fassid for me once more.”

“Ah, he gets a nice house, a monthly check from the government now. He is quite happy that he does not have to lead a double life. Have a safe journey.” Sherev stepped back.

Turcotte climbed up to the hatch and slid in, shutting it behind him. Within seconds they were airborne and heading west toward the United States.

Ts’ang used the spear he held to open one of the smaller containers in the large cavern. He removed a black sphere, about eight inches in diameter. Then he led Lexina, Coridan, and Elek back to the lowest chamber.

“I must follow the instructions I was given,” he said as they entered it and faced the black wall. “I was put in place to be the first to awaken. Artad is to be the last.”

“Who’s next?” Lexina asked.

“The Kortad. They must make sure all is secure before waking Artad.”

“There is not much time,” Lexina said.

“It is the way things must be done,” Ts’ang said. “Haste can be more dangerous than anything else.” He pressed down on the top of the black sphere. A series of hexagons appeared on the surface. He hit several in a rapid pattern.

The black wall moved swiftly back, revealing row after row of black tube. The chamber was far larger than Lexina had imagined. Over two hundred tubes were exposed before the black wall completely disappeared, revealing a large set of doors made of black metal.

“Artad rests behind those doors in a special vault,” Ts’ang said.

He tapped on the black sphere and the lids to all the tubes slid back. The metal foil peeled away, revealing the alien bodies inside. They were identical to the hologram that had appeared in the main tunnel. They were all just short of seven feet tall, with a disproportionally short torso and overly long arms and legs. The heads were half as big as a human’s, with bright red hair. The skin was white and unblemished.

Each one had either a spear like Ts’ang, or a sword lying next to their right hands. Lexina wondered about the archaic weapons, but she assumed they had another purpose just as the Spear of Destiny and Ts’ang’s spear had served as keys.

“They will be conscious and able to move in an hour,” Ts’ang said. “Until then, we wait.”

“We have waited for many generations,” Lexina said. “Another hour is bearable for us, but I hope it is not too late with regard to Aspasia’s Shadow’s forces.”

The thousands brought by the Jahre Viking had been assimilated by the nanovirus. Food on the relatively desolate island was a major problem at the moment, and the guardian solved that by “shutting down” a large number of the currently unneeded troops. The nanovirus put them into a coma, reducing their bodily functions to bare minimums.

The Viking floated offshore, its modifications complete. The massive bow doors slowly swung open, water flooding into the special front compartment built by the nano-techs. Once the water line inside equaled that outside, the submarine Springfield slowly made its way inside the huge tanker and was secured in metal brackets specifically designed for it. The doors swung shut, then the water was pumped out.

On board the Washington, the modified air wing was in place, and planes lined the deck, wingtip to wingtip.

All was ready. The huge tanker and the aircraft carrier began moving. From the deck of the Washington, a single, modified Hawkeye took off.

Captain Robinette stared at the imagery that had just been downloaded from the KH-14 spy satellite monitoring his area of operations. Two large ships had just appeared from under the protection of the Easter Island shield: the George Washington and the Jahre Viking. They were moving at flank speed, directly for his Task Force.

Robinette sat down in his command chair and accessed the com-link to the captains of all the ships in his battle group. “Gentlemen. We have contact with the enemy. Prepare your ships for battle. We will advance on the enemy at flank speed. I am launching aircraft for a emptive strike.”

He shut the com-link, then turned to his Commander Air Group. “CAG, I want you to start launching immediately. Everything we’ve got.”

If there was one lesson that had been beaten into Robinette from his first year at the Naval Academy, it is that in modern naval warfare the side that struck first held the advantage.

“What about our CAP?” the CAG asked, referring to s covering air patrol that guarded the Task Force.

“Keep minimum force above us. Everything else gets launched. I want those two ships sunk.”

“Sink the Washington, sir?”

“Yes. I want you to lead the strike force personally.”

“Yes, sir.”

As soon as CAG left, one of the radar operators called out a report. “Sir, there’s been an aircraft launched from the Washington.”

“Identification?”

“A Hawkeye.”

That made sense, Robinette knew. The Hawkeye was a surveillance aircraft. “Keep an eye on it.”

“Yes, sir.”

The body was ready. It had been grown with the utmost care and now floated in a vat of green fluid, a black hose running air into the mouth. The top of the shaved head was covered with a skullcap from which several dozen wires ran to a main line that came out of the tube and snaked over to the command console.

The eyes were open but stared blankly, no spark of intelligence behind them. It was in one of the lowermost chambers of The Mission, surrounded by a bank of alien machinery, the most prominent piece a long black tube built of b’ja, the alien metal.

Aspasia’s Shadow coughed, pain shooting through lungs riddled with cancer. This was a very bad time to pass on. There was so much that needed to be done, and Duncan still lay in the room next to the Grail, twitching in agony.

But he didn’t want to cut it too close. If this body died, he would lose all he had experienced in the past several days and then even more time would be lost trying to catch up. It was a disorienting feeling, awakening in a new body and having lost time that one had in reality lived.

Aspasia’s Shadow went to the control console, hands over the lit hexagonal display. He tapped out a sequence, just as he had done hundreds of times in the past. The lid to the black tube swung up easily, revealing a contoured interior designed to fit his body.

He removed the ka from around his neck and slid it, arms forward, into the two small holes on the right side of the console. It fit snugly, and a small six-sided section next to it glowed orange, indicating it was in place.

Aspasia’s Shadow went to the black tube. He stripped off the priest’s garments and crown, carefully laying them on the small stand next to it, and lay inside. The lid lowered onto him, trapping him in utter darkness.

Nano-probes slid out of the lining into his brain, tapping into the needed sections. The pain was intense, but there wasn’t time to go through the normal preparations which would have alleviated that. His memories and experiences since the last download were quickly tapped and transferred to the ka. Aspasia’s Shadow took a shallow breath, never prepared for what came next, because he didn’t know what it was going to be like.

Out of small pockets in the lining of the tube, black particles, the size of grains of sand, were expelled onto his naked skin.

He screamed helplessly into the darkness of the tube as the particles dissolved his flesh, muscle, and bone from the outside inward, triggering every pain response the body had. The only positive aspect was that it lasted for barely five seconds before the body was gone.

The console hummed as the data in the ka was integrated with the basic profile of Aspasia, then shunted to the figure in the glass tube through the line, into the wires into its brain. The imprinting lasted over a minute.

The eyes blinked, awareness filling them with cunning and malice. The green fluid drained, leaving the figure kneeling in the tube’s floor, trying to get oriented. The tube slid up and the figure tentatively stepped out. It wiped itself with a towel, then slid on the garments that had been left.

Aspasia’s Shadow, the latest version, turned to leave the room, but paused. It went over to the black tube and lifted the lid. Inside there was nothing. A line furrowed the unmarked brow of the cloned body, as if struggling to remember something.

Aspasia’s Shadow felt the pressure of time and left the regeneration room.

He went deep in the base, to the lowermost room. A large multifaceted crystal, about four feet high, was in the center of the chamber. He walked up to it and laid his hand on the top, ring facing down.

The crystal glowed brightly from an inner light. In a complex maneuver that even Aspasia’s Shadow couldn’t follow, the outside of the crystal folded on itself in tiny portions along the top, revealing an opening. He reached in. His hand came out holding a sword.

CAG flew above and slightly behind the strike force. Spread out below was an impressive sight — twelve F-14s, twenty-four F-18s, an EA-2C Early Warning plane, and four EA-6B Prowler electronic attack jets leading the way. More than enough firepower to take out both ships. The issue, of course, was who was crewing the ships. CAG could hear the chatter on the inter-flight net as his pilots discussed this. He keyed his radio.

“Men. Listen up. You will press home against the Washington. I want no one backing off. You’ve seen the video showing what happened to those people on the rafts heading in toward Easter Island off that trawler. The SEAL team sent in to do a recon hasn’t been heard from. If our people are on board the Washington, they’re not our people anymore. Those ships are carrying a virus deadly to all of mankind. You will press home the attack.”

The Washington began launching more aircraft as the Hawkeye picked up the incoming flight. There was movement on the deck as some of those who had come on the Viking came onto the deck.

The Viking was slowing down and the bow doors slowly came open. The modified Springfield slipped out. But instead of heading toward Task Force 79, it took a different heading. Where the Springfield had been, the nanovirus began construction on a replica of the Springfield, which it had spent the last several hours studying.

“We’ve got bogeys,” the EA-2C reported. “How many?” CAG asked.

“Twenty-four.”

“Signature?”

“Looks like F-18, but—”

“But?”

“Something’s different.”

“What?”

“I don’t know, CAG. Just different.”

“Great.” CAG considered the situation. The bogies were most likely a defensive force sent up to stop the attack. “Checkmate Six,” he called for the leader of one of his flights of F-18s.

“Roger. This is Checkmate Six. Over.”

“CAG to Checkmate. You’ve got the bogies. Clear our way in. Over.”

“Roger.”

CAG watched as one of his squadrons of F-18s accelerated, firing their afterburners.

“Where’s that Hawkeye from the Washington?” CAG called back to the Stennis. “We have it west of your flight at high altitude, closing on our position,” the carrier reported.

A new voice cut in — Captain Robinette. “Concentrate on your attack, CAG. I’m sending one of the CAP F-18s to take out that Hawkeye.”

The pilot of the F-18 detailed to destroy the Hawkeye was flying with afterburners on toward the slower-moving plane headed directly toward the fleet. He wasn’t worried about the confrontation, since the Hawkeye was unarmed. He flipped the switch turning on his 20mm Gatling gun and slowed as he neared the other plane.

The Hawkeye made no attempt to maneuver, coming straight on. At one mile, closing rapidly, the pilot pressed the trigger and held it for two seconds before breaking right. As he passed he could see the tracers race toward the Hawkeye and hit. Chunks of the plane blew off as the 20mm rounds ripped through.

“What the hell?” the pilot muttered as he noticed the rotodome on top separate from the body of the plane and continue flying on its own as the plane nosed over and headed for the ocean. He turned hard, circling around. The rotodome was slowly disintegrating, changing from a solid into what appeared to be a black cloud that was spreading out.

The pilot keyed his radio, but there was nothing but static. He changed frequencies with the same result.

“We’ve lost all communications with Pearl.”

Robinette spun his chair around. “Say again?”

“We’ve lost all communications, sir. SATCOM. High frequency. Everything.”

Robinette turned back. There was a clear Plexiglas screen on one side. A sailor stood behind it, updating the position of the strike force and the enemy flight. The two were closing on each other at rapid speeds. A tremor of unease passed through the captain.

The leader of the forward F-18 squadron blinked as the incoming flight disappeared from his radar screen. “Anyone have a lock on bogeys? Over.”

“Negative. They’re gone. My radar is down!”

Without their radars, the F-18s from the Stennis were forced to find their targets visually. This was difficult flying at twelve hundred miles an hour, especially when their targets were approaching head-on at the same speed.

“There!” the squadron commander yelled as he fired his 20mm cannon at a blur he spotted coming at him.

The bogeys were past, F-18s passing each other at a combined speed of over two thousand miles an hour. The startled commander of the Checkmates whipped his head left and right, barely catching a glimpse of the enemy aircraft. They weren’t up to intercept. The path to the Washington was clear for the strike force.

Robinette pounded the arm of his chair in frustration. He was blind and cut off from both his strike force and his protective CAP. He could only hope his men’s training held true and both did their jobs.

CAG had taken over lead of the flight. Without communication among the planes, it boiled down to a simple tactic — everyone was to follow him and do as he did. He spotted two massive silhouettes on the horizon and knew he had the targets in sight. He armed his bombs as he searched the sky for a protective air cover, but the sky seemed to be clear.

In their abbreviated mission briefing before takeoff, CAG had divided the two targets among his planes. He pointed his nose toward the Washington and was relieved to see the planes designated for the Jahre Viking break left and head toward their target. Without his aiming radar, and not having to worry about air cover, CAG decided the best plan was to come in low and slow and drop his bomb when he was right on top of the target. He would use the plastic sight bolted to the front of the cockpit reserved for when the radar didn’t work.

He extended flaps and reduced throttle. He could make out more details about the Washington as he got closer. Planes lined the deck. Some adjustments had been made to the ship, particularly in the radar array and bridge island. Then he saw the people. Hundreds covering the forward part of the flight deck. Men, women, and children. Most of the adults were dressed in Navy uniforms.

CAG hesitated, and that was all it took for him to fly by the carrier, the rest of his strike force following without a single bomb being dropped. The same happened with the force at the Jahre Viking.

“Damn it!” CAG cursed as he banked and circled wide, coming around for another run. He steeled himself for what had to be done. With his squadrons right behind him, CAG came in for a second run. He lined up his sight on the center of the flight deck. Then he released the bomb. He banked hard and up, looking over his shoulder as the bomb arced toward the carrier.

Two hundred meters above the flight deck the bomb exploded. CAG cursed as he watched the rest of his planes drop their loads with the same result.

Inside the Washington’s cavernous hangar deck, a shield generator, similar but smaller than the ones inside Easter Island and Qian-Ling, spun, projecting a field completely around the carrier. Aboard the Jahre Viking was a twin generator, also protecting it.

Alarms clanged and Captain Robinette ran to the wing of his bridge, looking up in the sky. A group of small dots had appeared in the southern sky. He watched helplessly as his CAP reacted, going to intercept.

Unable to use their targeting radars, the F-18s flying CAP had to rely on their Gatling guns. Given that they were moving faster than Mach I, and the incoming bogeys were flying close to one thousand miles an hour, it was like being in a car going full speed and threading a needle held by someone on the side of the road. They had one pass as the bogeys came in, firing long bursts in the hope of hitting something.

Miraculously, one bogey F-18 was struck in the wing, huge holes torn out of it, but the damage was immediately repaired by nanotechs.

The other eleven bogeys nosed over and picked up even more speed as they branched out, five heading toward the Stennis and one each toward each of the accompanying ships in the battle group.

The Stennis had only four 20mm Vulcan Phalanx guns for close-in protection. The escort ships were more heavily armed, and as they were on the outside, they began firing first. Unfortunately, they had the same problem as the jets — the Phalanxes were normally radar aimed and automatically fired. In this emergency, they were being manually fired and aimed by eye.

The cruiser Champlain scored a direct hit on one of the F-18s heading toward the Stennis, the round smashing into the cockpit, killing the human pilot. The plane spiraled down toward the ocean out of control.

From his bridge, Robinette watched events unfold, and before the first explosion he realized what the enemy’s plan was. The Champlain was the first to be hit, an F-18 flying straight into its bridge, killing the entire command group.

“Kamikazes!” Robinette exclaimed as more F-18s hit his escort ships. He saw one coming in low over the water, directly for his bridge. He could see the line of tracers as one of the Phalanxes tried to hit it. A second later, just before the F-18 reached the bridge, the fuel canister slung below each wing popped open, a fog of black spreading out from each. Then the F-18 slammed into the bridge.

It took the air wing forty minutes to return to the task force. CAG circled overhead surveying the ships. He could see damage on some of them, but they were all afloat. He tried to contact the Stennis, but the radios were still out. He did a fly-by, low over the deck, and was startled to see no one moving about. There was no signal officer to wave him in for landing. It was as if the ship were deserted. He could also see the damage to the bridge. He circled once more, the rest of the air wing waiting overhead, fuel levels dropping.

“The hell with it,” CAG muttered. He didn’t need a signal officer to land. He’d done hundreds of carrier landings and he could see that the wires were ready. He leveled off, reduced throttle, and came in for a perfect landing as his tailhook caught the first wire. He was slammed forward against the restraints as the F-18 came to an abrupt halt.

He cursed as he slid back the canopy and saw no crew members rushing to his plane to clear it for the next jet to land. He unbuckled and climbed out of the cockpit, down to the flight deck. It was unnerving to be standing there with no one else about when the flight deck was normally a bustle of activity.

Then he noticed that the damage on the bridge island was changing, appearing as if it were slowly repairing itself. A sailor appeared in a hatchway, staggering toward CAG, arms held out. There were others behind him, their eyes vacant and dull.

CAG turned and ran down the flight deck toward the rear of the ship. His second in command was coming in low and level, doing a fly-by to see what was happening. CAG swung his arms, the classic wave-off signal.