entire aircraft came apart on him.
He reached behind his head and groped for the looped shape of the eject handle. His fingers locked on it.
The second 114mm shell wasn’t aimed at his aircraft either. It punched through the thin skin of the EF- 2000S’s fuselage just aft of his seat, about sixteen centimeters left of centerline. The explosion rolled through the tight little cockpit, simultaneously shredding Hulbert’s body and flash-cooking it to cinders. Unable to contain the expanding pressure wave, the aircraft ruptured like an overripe fruit, spilling fire and twisted metal into the night sky.
Oberleutnant Hulbert’s AS-34B flew two meters above the wave tops.
In route to its target, it encountered two fat radar contacts, both of which it discarded as too large. The missile’s target selection algorithm evaluated the third radar contact it detected and decided that the new candidate was of a size and shape appropriate for a valid target. Twice, the missile made mid-course corrections to improve its angle of attack, unaware that the second of these course changes snatched it out of the way of a burst of 20mm rounds from the destroyer’s Phalanx Close-In Weapon System.
The missile kicked into terminal homing mode and accelerated to mach 0.9 for the attack.
The starboard Phalanx mount had expended the last of its ammunition.
It continued to track the incoming missile with unerring accuracy, its six Gatling gun — style barrels spinning impotently.
The missile struck the destroyer starboard side midships, just above the waterline, blowing a huge hole through the old ship’s steel hull. The fireball and shock wave ripped through Engine Room Number One, buckling decks, collapsing bulkheads, shattering pipes, and severing electrical cables. Anything that was even remotely flammable was instantly incinerated — from the insulated lagging that lined the bulkheads, to the six crew members closest to the blast.
The sound wave that accompanied the explosion ruptured the eardrums of the three engineering personnel who survived the initial detonation.
Though the point of impact had been a half-meter or so above the waterline, the hole created by the explosion extended well below the waterline. The sea poured through the ragged hole in a sledgehammer torrent that drove an apprentice engineer to the deck.
Unable to fight the relentless deluge, the young man was swept across the space by the wave front. Deafened by the explosion and half-blinded by the seawater, he flailed about helplessly under the driving cascade as water forced its way up his nose and past his shattered eardrums. He opened his mouth to scream, but the water forced itself down his throat, pumping his lungs full of liquid fire. Still tumbling, his head slammed into a pump housing hard enough to crack his skull. The in-rushing sea tossed him about like a rag doll until it had driven the final spark of life from his limp body.
Electrical power to the compartment failed immediately, plunging the huge space into darkness. Battery- powered emergency lanterns kicked on, casting spheres of light into the roiling black floodwaters. Scalding tendrils of steam drifted through the semidarkness, the inevitable result of contact between cold seawater and super- heated metal.
A ruptured pipe spewed fuel onto the rising water. The volatile liquid floated on the surface, forming a slick that widened steadily.
Bleeding from their shattered ears and dazed by the concussive force of the explosion, the two remaining engineers managed to scramble up the steep ladder to the engine room’s upper level. By the time they were through the watertight door at the top of the ladder and had dogged it behind themselves, the water level was halfway up the sides of the acoustic isolation modules for the gas turbine engines.
The larger of the turbines, a 50,000 horsepower Olympus TM3B, ran on — oblivious to the water swirling around its airtight isolation module.
Its air supply and exhaust were routed through ventilation ducts that were still well above the water level. Closer to the blast, the isolation module for the smaller boost-turbine had been penetrated by shrapnel. Seawater poured in through several holes, quickly drowning the engine.
The ship began to slow.
Rising water reached an electrical junction box and shorted it out in a shower of sparks, igniting the fuel slick, and instantly converting the huge compartment into an inferno.
The ship’s firefighting systems were more than adequate to handle the blaze. Fifteen cylinders of compressed halon gas stood ready to suppress the flames with a combustion-inhibiting chemical reaction. An extensive network of piping and sprinkler nozzles stood ready to spray hundreds of liters of firefighting foam throughout the massive engineering compartment, blanketing the fuel slick with a layer of chemical bubbles that would smother the flames and form a vapor barrier against reflash.
Neither system was activated, because neither system was automatic.
Both systems required manual activation, either from control panels located inside the engine room or from duplicate control panels in the passageway outside the main entrance. Bloodied and dazed by the explosion, neither of the escaping engineers had thought to activate the fire suppression systems.
Fed by the still-gushing fuel pipe, the fire grew larger, stronger, and hotter.
On the bridge, the captain shouted, “Hard right rudder! Get us around so the port Phalanx can cover us!”
“Helm, aye! Sir, my rudder is right thirty degrees, no new course given!”
A dazzling ball of flame lit up the sky as a Sea Dart missile swatted a German fighter jet out of the air. Kensington’s heart jumped in his chest.
His pulse was racing, and every explosion brought another involuntary flinch. Some primal part of his brain was screaming at him to run, to get away from this place. To escape this worthless stretch of water that the God of death had staked out as a playground. But there wasn’t anywhere to run to …
“Kensington!” the captain said. “Find out where we were hit!”
The young sub lieutenant stared out the window. In the distance, he could see that the aft superstructure of their escort, HMS
“Goddamn it, Kensington!” the captain yelled. “Don’t make me repeat every order!”
Kensington flinched again. “Yes, sir!” He leaned over the comm box and punched up the damage control circuit. “Damage Control — Bridge. I need a damage report.”
There was no answer. Kensington tried again. He paused to wait for a reply, and that’s when he saw them: two streaks of fire boring through the night. Coming right toward him. He had just enough time to scream before the first one slammed into the ship one level below the bridge. A millisecond later, the deck under his feet erupted into a volcano of fire and molten steel.
Through the lens of the Zeiss-Eltro Optronic 19 attack scope, Kapitan Groeler watched the British destroyer surrender to the sea. Clouds of steam rolled skyward as fire and melted steel drowned themselves in the dark waves. Oily smoke mingled with the steam, creating billowing black columns against the white vapor. After a few moments, the waves closed over the old ship, leaving only a burning oil slick and a handful of floating debris to mark the destroyer’s grave.
Groeler’s hands tightened on the grips of the attack scope. What were the fools doing? The fighters were supposed to keep the British ships occupied, not attack them! Some
The plan called for keeping the British out of the conflict. Groeler felt his jaw tighten.
He swung the scope ten degrees to the right and centered the other ship in his crosshairs. The frigate had a
