“Bridge, acknowledged. Wait one.”
“Bridge, Nav, two miles to next waypoint,” Richard Sessions’s voice sounded in both ears. “New course will be left turn onto zero-three-five, Captain.” Slightly north of northeast, rounding the sharp corner of the Virginia Peninsula, leaving the waterfront of the shipyard stretching behind.
“Nav, Bridge, aye.” Jeffrey jotted on the Plexiglas.
Dead ahead lay the I-664 crossing, near the mouth of the James River. Most of it was a causeway bridge, but part was a tunnel — so warships could pass with no fear that bridge debris would ever block the channel. At the north end of the bridge, U.S. Coast Guard buoy tenders and a cutter were at work. They had almost finished unrolling gigantic sheets of floating material, like a sports stadium ground cloth only much larger. The sheets were anchored to the riverbank and to the bridge, and were supported against wave action on their outer edges by buoys… and pulled into place against wind drag by the cutter.
In a few seconds Jeffrey’s left ear registered crackling voices with different call signs announcing vectors and ranges and air speeds, and giving orders to more and more units to open fire. Antiaircraft missiles began to ripple- fire from ships farther out in the bay, or from batteries on land. Launch flashes pulsated rhythmically, and missile after missile rose on white-hot rocket-motor points of light, gained speed and broke the sound barrier, and raced out to sea. Their smoke trails began to obscure the northeastern horizon. The roars and thuds and booms were closer now, and louder, and overlapped. The latest strobing flashes seemed to freeze, as halting snapshots, a group of rotating, waving, thrashing excavator arms.
“Helm, Bridge.” Jeffrey tested his new intercom setup.
“Bridge, Helm, aye,” sounded at once in his right ear.
At the same time, in Jeffrey’s left ear, another salvo of six Axis missiles was detected, and plotted, and tracked. The wind in Jeffrey’s face, the rolling of his ship on the surface — at its worst on top of the sail — and the ever-increasing danger gave Jeffrey a strong emotional high.
“Helm, ahead flank.”
Chapter 9
Jeffrey had a better view across the lower Chesapeake Bay, to the sea. A blinding flash erupted in the distance, and Jeffrey could see the low-lying Delmarva Peninsula in outline on the northeast horizon. There were cargo ships moored farther up the bay, lit for a moment as if by a flashbulb.
“Splash one!” someone shouted in Jeffrey’s left earcup. The defenses had hit an inbound missile.
“Bridge, Control,” Bell’s voice said in Jeffrey’s right ear. In the background, over Bell’s mike, Jeffrey heard people in the control room cheering.
“Control, Bridge. XO, quiet in Control. One down means at least eleven are flying.”
“Bridge, Control, aye.”
There was another blinding flash, then two more.
“Splash another three!” a different voice said on the air-defense grid. Sharp, harsh rumbles arrived seconds later through the air.
The bridge console computer display said the time was 2024.
“Radio Room, Bridge. Can you pick up the data link and feed me the air situation display?”
“Bridge, Radio, aye. Wait one, sir.”
Overlaid on Jeffrey’s navigational chart, there suddenly appeared icons for hostile inbound missiles. Outbound antimissile missiles showed too. Little lines from each icon plotted their courses and speeds. The Axis missiles were coming in Jeffrey’s general direction. The friendly defensive missiles were going the other way, moving much faster, converging on the enemy weapons.
Two icons appeared to merge.
There was another blinding flash. The deep, rumbling concussion arrived much sooner than before. Jeffrey saw flames rain onto the sea — burning missile fuel.
Then things became so hectic, the battle was hard to follow.
Antiaircraft guns on the Hampton shore joined those on the outer peninsula. Missile batteries near the Norfolk navy base commenced firing. The Axis missiles were caught in a pincers. Icons moved fast on the bridge console screen. The noise from all around in the distance was loud even through Jeffrey’s headphones. The flames and flashes were so constant he raised his night-vision goggles; he could see more easily without them.
A missile streaked overhead from Norfolk, its motor bright but with no sound. Then the sonic boom punched Jeffrey hard, followed by a tearing roar. To the left, over the bay, the missile detonated. An instant later there was a tremendous explosion in the air, and the radiant heat was searing — an inbound German missile destroyed by a defensive missile’s proximity fuse. Jeffrey ducked instinctively. Smoldering shrapnel and debris pelted
“Lookouts below!” Jeffrey ordered hoarsely. It was getting too dangerous up here.
The two men slid down off the roof of the sail, shimmied past Jeffrey and the phone talker, and descended the sail-trunk ladder. Jeffrey thought they looked disappointed. But they were much too exposed on the roof. At least the cockpit sides were armored.
Jeffrey turned to the phone talker. “Keep your head down!”
Jeffrey shut one half of the streamlining clamshells, which closed off the top of the cockpit whenever the ship was submerged. This gave the phone talker protection from above — Jeffrey had realized that his ship could be badly hurt as collateral damage, even if no inbound missiles scored direct hits.
There was an awful detonation behind Jeffrey, on the land. One from the first wave of missiles had gotten through, and been shot down or homed on something.
Jeffrey’s deepest regret was that civilians might die so his ship could escape. He looked back as flames rose higher and higher on the land. He gritted his teeth till his jaw hurt.
Jeffrey’s latest lesson in military necessity was no less painful than his many earlier ones had been. He hoped the diversion measures had lured the missiles to crash in parks and not on dwellings — but from the size of the spreading fires, and the countless secondary explosions, it didn’t look that way.
