Melillo looked down at his shipmate. “Hey, Carl? Are you okay?” His words sounded strange, partly because his ears were still ringing from the blast, and partly because he couldn’t breathe through his nose, which was already beginning to swell.
Dreyfus lay on the deck without speaking.
Melillo tried to lean over his buddy, and instantly regretted the move, as a rush of nauseous pain surged through his head and nose. He staggered again, but didn’t fall.
He nudged Dreyfus with the toe of one steel toed boot. “Carl, are you alright?”
Dreyfus looked up at him, blinking slowly. He seemed to be recovering his senses. “Yeah,” he said finally. “I … I think so.” He extended his hand. It trembled at first, but steadied down as Dreyfus began to regain control of his stunned muscles.
Melillo grasped the outstretched hand, and helped his friend climb painfully to his feet.
There was another rumble of launching missiles. Melillo could smell something burning, and people were shouting somewhere at the far end of the passageway.
A voice came over the 1-MC speakers. “This is the Damage Control Assistant, from CCS. All available personnel report to the nearest repair locker.” The announcement was immediately repeated.
Melillo looked at his buddy. They were both pretty beat up. But their ship was in trouble, and he knew that some of his shipmates were probably in much worse shape.
“Let’s go, dude,” he said. “They’re playing our song.”
In the semi-darkness of Combat Information Center, Ann Roark was doing her best to tune out the battle. She swallowed, and took a deep breath.
After a few minutes, she had honed that last sentence down to a mantra.
She knew from the reports bouncing around that some of the crew members were dead, and at least part of the ship was on fire. She wondered where Sheldon was. She had to fight the urge to jump up and go looking for him. Not that she thought she had a chance of finding him in this metal maze. Her brain just wanted her to be up and moving, probably because that was as close as she could manage to running away.
Another report came through the overhead speakers. “TAO — Air, splash Bogie Number Three. All Bogies are down. All Vipers are down.”
There was no cheering this time. The helicopters had been destroyed, and the inbound missiles were all gone. But the ship was wounded and there were MiGs out there somewhere.
A hand touched her shoulder, and Ann nearly screamed.
It was Sheldon, looking rumpled and tired, but otherwise intact. “How are you holding up, Princess Leia?”
Ann tried to smile. “I haven’t thrown up yet.”
“Me either,” Sheldon said. “But that’s not really a problem for me. When the missiles start flying, I’m more worried about peeing my pants.”
Ann nodded. “I’ve been thinking about doing that, myself. I’m trying to figure out if it’s an acceptable alternative to yakking all over CIC. I mean, it
“We can always
“
Sheldon nodded absently. “We’re running out of missiles,” he said softly.
Ann could tell instantly from the expression on his face that he hadn’t meant to say that out loud. She sat up. “What?”
Sheldon blinked, but didn’t say anything.
Ann lowered her voice. “We’re running out of missiles?”
“Yeah,” Sheldon said. “The ship was doing training work-ups when they got tapped for this mission. The
He raised an eyebrow. “Between the fight with those MiGs yesterday, and the helicopters tonight, we’re running out of missiles. And the 5-inch gun was wiped out by that rocket hit.”
Ann felt her jaw muscles tighten. “Why are you telling me this? I was already scared out of my wits. Now you’ve got to dump all this on me?”
“I’m sorry,” Sheldon said. “I thought you’d want to know the truth.”
“Not when I’m trying to decide whether to pee my pants of throw up,” Ann said. “I don’t want the truth right now. I want to hear that everything is fine, and we’re all going to make it home alive.”
“We’re going to be okay,” Sheldon said.
Ann cocked an eyebrow. “It’s too late for that now, asshole.”
“Just take care of Mouse,” Sheldon said.
“That’s what I was trying to do when you came flitting in like the freaking Bad News Fairy,” Ann said. “I was trying to keep my mind on the job. Take care of my little robot.”
Sheldon shook his head. “No. I mean
Ann turned her head. Mouse’s little green triangle was blinking. The data in the block to the left of the icon was updating every few seconds.
Ann examined the readout carefully. “Go tell Chief McPherson that Mouse is tracking her submarine.”
Chief McPherson stood near the Computerized Dead-Reckoning Tracer, and looked down at the horizontally-mounted flat-screen digital display that formed the CDRT’s entire upper surface. Five feet wide and almost six feet long, it was essentially an electronic map table, with a viewing area nearly as large as the big Aegis display screens. But unlike the Aegis screens, which could tap into feeds from any sensor or weapons system, the CDRT was optimized for Undersea Warfare. It had been designed specifically for hunting and killing submarines.
Near the center of the display was the circular green symbol that signified USS
A voice crackled in the left ear of the chief’s headset. “USWE — Tracker, testing Net One One.”
The chief was currently the ship’s
Because the sensor in question was an underwater robot, Mooney had tried to talk his chief into designating the new watch station as
She keyed her mike. “Tracker — USWE. Read you Lima Charlie. How me?” (Lima Charlie was net-speak for Loud and Clear.)
