Foley knew that luck would play an important role in what was about to take place. Because with all the boats rushing toward each other at combined speeds of seventy-five to one hundred knots, it would be very difficult for the gunners to aim. The best they could do was fire a lot of shells and hope that the enemy collided with some of them.
Then the time for thinking was over as the blips on the nav screen came together and the guns began to fire. The incoming tracers were red. And because the guns that fired them were in motion, they curved into the darkness like beads on a string. Except that these beads were lethal. Shells hammered the starboard side of the boat’s superstructure. Some of them hit the gun tub located there, blew a window out, and sent splinters flying. A piece of trim speared the helmsman. He stumbled away, hands to his throat, as Prosser stepped in to replace him.
Then the moment of violence was over as the Interceptor passed between her adversaries and began a wide turn. Foley felt the deck tilt as he freed himself from his harness and went to help the wounded helmsman. But it was too late. The crew member had bled out by then, and there was nothing Foley could do but struggle to remain upright on the blood-slicked deck as the Interceptor completed the turn and began to accelerate. The engine noise increased, and Prosser had to shout in order to be heard. “They’re after the drone! Should we sink it?”
“I need it,” Foley replied tightly. “I need it tonight.”
“Roger that,” Prosser replied. “Check the starboard fifty… We’re going to need it.”
Foley grabbed a handrail, followed it over to the starboard door, and pushed it out of the way. The wind tore at his clothes, and safety glass crunched under his feet as he removed a small flashlight from a vest pocket and directed the beam into the tub. The gunner was slumped to one side, and the fifty was pointed at the sky.
A headset and mike clattered to the deck as Foley climbed into the tub and pulled the body free. Once the corpse was clear, he pulled the earphones on and spoke into the mike. “This is Foley. The gunner was killed. I took her place.”
“Roger that,” came the reply. “I don’t know if you have any experience-but the trick is to lead the target. We’re going up the middle again. All guns will fire as they bear.”
Flares soared up into the sky, went off, and began to drift down. Then, as the hydrofoil caught up with her adversaries, Foley got his first look at the pirates. He couldn’t see what was taking place to port, but the rigid inflatable boat on his side of the Interceptor was about thirty feet long and armed with heavy machine guns fore and aft. Both of which appeared to be aimed at him. As the muzzles flashed, he fired in return. The handles were sticky with the dead gunner’s blood, but he ignored that to concentrate on the advice Prosser had given him. Because, like most officers in the space navy, he knew very little about littoral combat.
His shells kicked up geysers of white water out in front of the RIB boat as it skipped from wave to wave. But then the assault craft ran into the tracers, and Foley was pleased to see the forward gunner blown away. The windscreen, cockpit, and overarching light bar went next. With no one at the wheel, the pirate boat slewed away.
All of it took place within seconds. Someone uttered a whoop of joy over the intercom. Foley had no way to know if it was in response to his achievement or someone else’s. The answer became clear as a burning boat appeared and was quickly left behind. “All hands prepare for the pickup,” Prosser ordered. “The bugs are scrambling aircraft by now. I’d like to be somewhere else when they arrive.”
The Interceptor slowed less than a minute later, came down off its foils, and began to wallow gracelessly as a boom swung out over the side, and two wet-suit-clad crew people dropped into the water. Connections were made, a winch whined, and it was only a matter of minutes before the thick, fifty-foot-long cylinder was hoisted up out of the oily-looking water. The divers rode it up and jumped to the deck as the glistening tube settled into its cradle.
Some of the crew strapped the drone down as others brought the boom back in. Once it was secured, Prosser advanced the throttles, and the Interceptor ’s hull came up out of the water. Moments later, the hydrofoil was flying toward the southwest. “The Ramanthians will expect us to head for the mainland,” Prosser said over the intercom. “So we’ll go to sea instead. We can shelter behind San Nicolas Island for a while. With any luck at all, the bugs will spend most of their time shooting at the pirate boats. Especially the one that’s on fire. Then we’ll sneak in, off-load our cargo, and return to sea. We lost some good people tonight. Don’t forget them.”
I won’t, Foley thought to himself. They will be avenged.
DEATH VALLEY, CALIFORNIA
For hundreds of years, the entrances to the Lucky Fool mine had been sealed off to prevent hikers from falling down a vertical shaft, losing themselves in a maze of passageways, or being crushed by a sudden cave-in. But after months of war, the old digs were the top secret location from which Operation Cockroach would be launched. Margaret Vanderveen knew that much but nothing more. Partly because those in charge of the Earth Liberation Brigade were doing everything in their power to keep “the roach,” as they referred to it, a secret-and partly because she was too busy working on her own project to pay much attention.
To call the gallery that Margaret and her team of doctors, microbiologists, and entomologists had taken over a “lab” was generous to say the least. Especially since the long, rectangular room had once been used to store timbers and other mining equipment. Harsh lights had been attached to the uncomfortably low ceiling, ancient pick marks were still visible on rock walls, and a pair of narrow-gauge tracks led from one end of the space to the other.
A workbench made out of raw lumber ran along one wall. It was divided into workstations, each having its own equipment according to the requirements of the person assigned to it. Power cables snaked this way and that, cots lined the other wall, and a crudely made conference table/lunch table/autopsy table occupied the center of the room. At the moment, it was occupied by a Ramanthian trooper. He lay belly-up on a blue tarp, eyes staring sightlessly at the lights above, while a couple of scientists argued over him.
One of them was a microbiologist named Dr. Howard Lothar. The other was a fiery entomologist named Dr. Catherine Woo. The subject of the heated discussion was whether the dead soldier was a victim of an Earth parasite called Ophiocordyceps unilateris or a microorganism that the invaders had brought along with them.
Though not a scientist herself, Margaret had been the first person to recognize the fact that some of the Ramanthians had the human equivalent of a skin disease. It was a malady she noticed while examining the body of a dead pilot. His chitin and, therefore, his exoskeleton had been very thin. And that was potentially important because, unlike humans, the insectoid Ramanthians had no internal skeletons. So if their outer shells were sufficiently weakened, they would literally fall apart. Which was exactly what the ex-society matron had in mind.
“Look,” Margaret said, as the two antagonists took deep breaths and prepared to attack each other all over again. “Fascinating though the question of causation is, let’s focus on the task at hand. Regardless of whether the Ramanthians unintentionally brought a parasite with them or were infected by an indigenous bug, our job is to use whatever it is against them. So please return to work. We have a war to win.”
Lothar had a head of thinning hair, a gaunt face, and a bad case of BO. He started to say something, evidently thought better of it, and turned away.
Woo was a tiny thing who had a tendency to wear too much makeup and cry when she thought the others were asleep. She looked at Margaret, and their eyes locked. There was not even a hint of compromise to be seen in Woo’s unflinching expression. “I’m right,” she said. And stalked away.
Margaret sighed and was about to return to the card table that served as her desk, when John appeared. He was a domestic android and had been part of the Vanderveen’s household staff for more than twenty years. So when Margaret decided to torch the three-story Tudor rather than leave it for looters, the robot and a couple of employees had accompanied her on a cross-country trek to the family’s ranch. There, after discovering the Ramanthian pilot, she had been able to hook up with the resistance. The android’s chiseled countenance was forever expressionless. “Yes, John?”
“Commander Foley has returned, madam. People are lined up outside his office.”
“Thank you, John. I’ll head over right away.”
So saying, Margaret stopped by her desk to grab her hand comp before following the rails back into the large cavern jokingly referred to as the grand ballroom. Banks of floodlights were angled to illuminate the chamber, welding torches flashed as slabs of steel were attached to ranks of waiting trucks, and, farther back, a scaffolding and curtain concealed still other preparations. “The roach?” Yes, probably.
