Battleship

A sense of overwhelming dread was bearing down on Hopper like a freight train. Wild-eyed, desperate, he brought all his resources, all his analytical power to the forefront. He mentally dissected the stinger, breaking it down into what he perceived as its component parts. Weapons system, propulsion… it had to have a control center. A bridge of some sort. Even aliens had to—

They’re not aliens. They’re not freaking aliens. This structure did not come from outer space. It’s some kind of spy thing that crashed and now these ships are here to run interference while they do their… their spy thing.

“Chinese or North Korean prototype? What is it, Beast?” said Hopper.

“No idea.”

“Agreed,” said Hopper.

Raikes tracked it with her machine gun. She would not open fire unless Hopper ordered her to, but there was no reason she couldn’t be ready when the moment came. “It looks very angry,” she said, working to keep her voice even.

Then, through the sea spray, Hopper saw something moving in the upper section of the stinger. At first he couldn’t quite make out what it was… and then he saw it. A single figure.

It was wearing armor of some sort. It was blue and segmented but it wasn’t wearing a helmet.

Its face was round and squat, almost triangular. The skin was a sickly combination of blue and black, like a sky filled with pollution. It didn’t look vaguely human.

It wasn’t vaguely human.

Then there was another blast of ocean foam and the creature was gone.

“Did…” Hopper tried to find his voice. “Did you just…?”

He managed to tear his gaze away from where he’d been staring and looked to his crewmates, certain he’d been the only one who spotted it. Certain he was now going to have to try and convince them of what his own mind was telling him couldn’t possibly be.

He was incredibly relieved when he saw that their faces had gone ashen.

“What the…?” said Beast. He could scarcely form those words, much less any others.

“I know my eyes were lying,” said Raikes. Yet it was clear she didn’t know any such thing, but rather knew perfectly what it was that she had just seen.

Beast finally recovered his voice. He turned to Hopper and said, in an awe-filled whisper, “First contact.”

Raikes turned and punched him in the upper arm with such power that Beast yelped. “What the hell—?”

“We have three unknown vessels guarding some equally unknown structure,” said Raikes with barely contained anger. “We have two fleets about to square off, our boat is dead in the water, and you’re giving me Star Trek crap. Fix the damned engine!”

Beast looked speechlessly at Hopper. Hopper shrugged. “You heard her.”

Beast got back to work.

It had been a slow and frustrating process, but the Sampson had managed to reroute some of its main systems. She now had communications back online, as well as some basic systems, including tracking. Now it was just a matter of getting the weapons systems up and running. That had proven to be a slower and more frustrating process. Having established contact with the two destroyers flanking them, Stone said, “Status on WEPS?” asking for the latest report from the weapons officer.

“CIWS up, sir,” said Sinclair. “John Paul Jones five-inch is hot.”

Stone weighed the options and then said briskly, “All right. Let’s put a warning shot across their bow. Radio Brownley.”

Sinclair sent the message through to the John Paul Jones. He paused a moment and then said, “Brownley says they’ll have to use manual targeting.”

“If it was good enough for the original John Paul Jones, it’s good enough for them. Besides, we don’t want them to actually hit anything.”

“Roger that.” Sinclair reaffirmed the orders. Then he smiled grimly. “Now we’re gonna see something.”

It was obvious that Beast was laboring with the engine; the amount of profanity coming from him was increasing in volume and floridness.

At that moment, a puff of smoke emerged from the five-inch gun on the John Paul Jones. Seconds later, they heard the sound of the gun actually being fired, noise following visual much like a baseball player being watched from the grandstands, with the sound of the hit ball following an instant after contact has already been made.

“They’re attacking?” said Beast.

Raikes shook her head. “Warning shot. That’s SOP for…”

Beast looked skeptical. “For what? Alien invasion?”

The shell landed in an explosion of water and spray within range of the lead stinger. A clear message had been sent.

Hopper said grimly, “That’s gonna piss ’em off.”

Nothing happened for several seconds. During that time, Hopper briefly prayed that the aliens/creatures/beings would emerge from the ships, hands in the air, eagerly trying to explain that they were simply there by mishap and meant no harm to anyone on Earth.

Instead there was a quiet sound, like a whisper of a breeze, and a single cylindrical object was fired from the lead stinger, blasted out of what appeared to be some sort of launch array. It hurtled lazily through the air, heading straight toward the John Paul Jones.

Hopper watched with a sinking heart. That can’t be good.

USS JOHN PAUL JONES

In the destroyer’s CIC, radar officer Benjamin Rush was watching his radar screen carefully. They’d only just managed to bring it back online, and it kept flickering in and out while the system’s big brains continued to make corrections and adjustments. Around him a row of other young officers, wearing headphones, were monitoring large, complex screens and struggling to operate the elaborate consoles of the AEGIS weapons system that was, at that moment, extremely hit or miss.

Abruptly an incoming blip lit up his screen, cutting across the monitor with a trajectory that was taking it directly toward the ship. “Incoming track, zero-seven-three-six,” he called out.

Over the intraship radio, Mullenaro’s voice came back: “Acquire incoming. Kill with guns. Light ’em up, son.”

The order was instantly relayed, and two seconds later the Phalanx CIWS, consisting of two anti-missile Gatling guns on the foredeck, sprang to life. The CIWS functioned exactly as it was supposed to, as the guns sprayed so many bullets that it created a virtual wall of metal. Before anyone even could get a clear look at it, the cylinder disintegrated against the ship’s firepower.

In the John Paul Jones CIC, a moment of relief and triumph rippled through the officers, pleased that good, old-fashioned American technology had triumphed over whatever the hell it had been that this interloper was attempting to throw at them.

That sense of good feeling lasted right up until radar officer Rush suddenly called out, “Incoming tracks! Coordinating zero-niner-seven-three.” He stopped for a moment, overwhelmed by what he was seeing, a harsh reality crashing down on him. “There’s too many of them.”

He was right. There were at least ten of the cylinders, maybe more, hurtling through the air, zeroing in on the destroyer with lethal accuracy.

The CIWS was employed yet again as the Gatling guns cut loose in a wide spread. One by one the cylinders were blown out of the sky as the big guns continued to cut a swath through the assault that was coming straight at them.

They almost managed to take out all of the cylinders. But they fell short of their goal by one.