Battleship

“Possibly.”

Without any hesitation, Hopper got up and gestured sweepingly toward the captain’s chair. “Captain Nagata, my CIC is your CIC.”

The rest of the crew could not have been more stunned if Hopper had peeled off his face to reveal he was one of the aliens. The words “Who are you and what did you do with Alex Hopper?” certainly occurred to more than a few of them. Here he was turning his baby over to a stranger—no, not even a stranger, a guy he’d had a major punch-out with that might well have wound up scuttling his career.

Right now, though, his long-term career plans could not have been further from Hopper’s mind. All he cared about was finding the best man for whatever tasks were necessary to get his people out of this situation alive. As far as he was concerned, if that meant Nagata in the captain’s chair while they took on the aliens, so be it. He had neither the time for, nor the luxury of, pampering his ego.

Even Nagata was astounded, although his was not the reaction of wide eyes and gaping jaws as was seen from the rest of the sailors in the CIC. He merely arched a single eyebrow as he stared at Hopper. The unspoken question was easily discerned: Are you sure about this?

Hopper replied even though the question hadn’t been voiced. “It’s what my brother would have done,” he said with a small shrug, as if it was so obvious, it didn’t need to be spelled out.

Nagata’s arms were stiff at his sides as he bowed crisply from the hip, and he kept his eyes fixed on Hopper’s. Hopper bowed in response.

The Japanese officer wasted no more time as he sat down in the captain’s chair and began working on the John Paul Jones computer system. As he did so, he said softly, “Your brother was a good man.”

“Yes.”

“I heard his younger brother was an idiot.”

Hopper froze, scowling. Was this all some sort of joke to Nagata? Was he going to take the grand gesture that Hopper had just made, trusting his ship to him, simply so he could make a few more snide remarks at Hopper’s expense?

Then Nagata looked up. “But it appears I was misinformed. I will be sure to remember that in the future.” With that pronouncement, he went back to work.

Hopper smiled for the first time since the death of his brother.

He hoped he would have further opportunities.

It took Nagata about half an hour to thoroughly master the differences between the John Paul Jones’s computer system and that of his late, lamented vessel. There was tense silence during that time, only broken when Nagata had a question, which would quickly be answered by Hopper or one of his crew. While Nagata worked, everyone was braced for the possibility that maybe the aliens could, in fact, perceive them, and that any moment they might be fired upon.

Nothing happened, though, lending further credence to the notion that they were as invisible to the aliens as the aliens were to them. But after thirty minutes of working on the problem, Nagata had gone a long way to remove that differential.

The main computer screen was now alight with a massive grid that presented the locations of all the buoys floating in the ocean within miles of the area. It was more than they required, but there was no point in doing this in half measures. Besides, if more ships landed anywhere nearby, or even not that nearby, they wanted to be able to know immediately.

Hopper leaned in near Nagata, staring at the complex grid system of hundreds of buoys, all of them transmitting water displacement. “Now what?” he asked.

“We’re looking for patterns of water displacement,” said Nagata.

Hopper studied the grid for another few seconds. A buoy had been activated. He pointed and said with satisfaction, “There.”

“Maybe,” said Nagata noncommittally.

Another buoy grid two hundred yards south was activated. “It’s moving,” said Hopper.

“Maybe.”

A third buoy was activated. “That’s a ship,” Hopper said with growing excitement. A trajectory line was being established. That meant if they could determine a heading, then they could line up a shot and be one step ahead of the enemy.

“Looks that way.” Nagata didn’t sound especially enthusiastic, but he was obviously one to play things close to the vest. Plus he’d gotten his ship shot out from under him, so it was understandable he wouldn’t be too quick to celebrate.

“Good job.”

“Bad news is that it’s heading toward us,” said Nagata.

Hopper did a double take and he was pretty sure the blood was draining from his face. “Fantastic,” he muttered.

Beast and Hiroki, with the aid of some additional men, were busy tearing apart the starboard engine when the call came down from CIC.

The chief engineer knew Hopper as well as anybody and probably better than most. So he was able to tell from Hopper’s tone of voice that they were in deep trouble. Not that Hopper would be sharing that information over the radio. It wasn’t his style. He would focus on the problem at hand and leave everyone else to deal with their specific tasks.

“Beast,” Hopper’s voice filtered through the radio, “we need some power.” He said it casually, as if he’d suddenly realized they’d run out of booze and was asking Beast to make a beer run down to the local 7- Eleven.

Beast didn’t bother to ask why there was a sudden need for propulsion. He suspected that the answer wouldn’t be anything good. “Working on it,” he said into the radio.

“Work faster,” the admonition came back.

“Roger, working faster.” He clicked off the radio, returned to work, and looked at Hiroki. “Your boss like that? Always want it faster, quicker? Done yesterday?”

Hiroki stared at him, peering owlishly over the tops of his round glasses. It was fairly clear that he had no clue what Beast was talking about. Beast actually knew he was wasting his time. Thus far he’d communicated with the Japanese engineer entirely through emphatic pointing and gestures; clearly the smaller man spoke no English. Beast was talking to himself as much as he was talking to Hiroki. Instead, as he did his best to stitch his beleaguered engine back together, Beast kept a running commentary going. “It’s never fast enough. No matter how quick you turn it around, it’s always ‘Fix it faster. Faster faster faster.’” He snorted. “Like to see them fix up their gear after a two-fifty-pound Hippo Robot goes full berserk in their department.”

Beast looked up in surprise as, out of nowhere, Hiroki asked, “Your mother named you ‘Beast’?”

Everything stopped, the other sailors pausing in their endeavors and looking with barely restrained amusement at the way Beast was staring at the smaller man.

“Don’t worry about my mother,” Beast said curtly, and got back to work.

* * *

Nagata had been absolutely correct. There was a clear track on the monitor of one of the alien vessels—a stinger, most likely—heading straight at them.

Raikes, observing their approach from her station, said, “So they can outgun us, outmaneuver us, and more or less fly… and the one thing we have in our favor is that they don’t know we know they’re coming.” Hopper nodded. Raikes forced a smile and said heartily, “I love this plan. I’m thrilled to be a part of it.”

“That means a lot, Raikes.” He spoke into his walkie-talkie. “Spotters on deck?”

“Spotters ready, sir,” Ord’s voice crackled over the walkie-talkie. Ord would be at the port observation deck, since the other one had been blown to hell by the aliens. Other young men were scattered around the deck, armed with binoculars.

Are they terrified? A bunch of kids, many fresh out of the Academy, keeping a lookout for alien