Mirage

seconds.

“Time to head home,” Juan said over the link. “Reverse course. Eighteen.”

Eddie Seng clicked his radio in response and knew to turn back and expect to find the Oregon eighteen miles away.

Because he was no longer shadowing the slow stealth ship, Eddie would doubtlessly firewall the RHIB’s twin outboards so the two vessels would have a closing speed in excess of eighty knots. The Chairman called down to the boat garage to inform them that the RHIB was inbound and should be off their beam in less than fifteen minutes.

It actually was just ten, but because the Oregon had to come to an almost complete stop in order for the RHIB to enter the hull, it was seventeen minutes until Juan could give the order for full speed again. Only, this time, he took the Oregon on a wide arc around their target so when they finally approached, it would seem that they were coming from the east and not like they’d been trailing the rogue vessel.

Linda Ross finally sauntered into the op center, looking none the worse for her adventures.

“How are you doing?” Juan asked with genuine concern.

“Doc says I’m fine, and who am I to argue? Where do we stand?”

“Endgame’s coming,” Cabrillo said. “We’re flanking them now.”

“Anything on radar?”

“He doesn’t show at all,” Juan admitted. “But he hasn’t changed course or speed since fleeing the Sakir.”

As if on cue, Mark Murphy called out from the weapons station, “Contact bearing forty-seven degrees. Range twenty miles.” Cabrillo had already figured out the tactical positions before Murph added, “Directly in line with the stealth ship.”

“Rendezvous,” Cabrillo mouthed.

The situation had changed in an instant. Juan now had to get the Oregon between the stealth ship and this new contact before that vessel spotted them on radar. His ship had a much smaller radar cross section than she should thanks to signal-absorbing materials applied to her hull and upperworks, but she was far from invisible.

“Helm, make your course three-three degrees. All ahead flank.” Like a hunter, Cabrillo knew to lead his target so that the bullet — in this case, the Oregon herself — arrived where the target would be, not where it currently was. Like before, he had the angles and speeds worked out in his head. Eric Stone would double-check them with the ship’s navigation computer but as usual would find no error in the Chairman’s calculations.

“Wepps, prep the main gun. Once he figures out we’re coming, who knows what he’ll do.”

“Not missiles?” Murph questioned.

“If that ship can produce a magnetic field strong enough to capsize Dullah’s yacht, a missile won’t stand a chance. Load solid tungsten rounds. Field won’t affect them.”

Murph nodded at Cabrillo’s insight while mentally chastising himself for not coming to the same conclusion and set about readying the 120mm cannon secreted behind doors in the Oregon’s bow. The smooth-bore gun used the same sophisticated fire controls as an M1 Abrams main battle tank and could fire accurately no matter how the ship pitched or rolled.

“Curious, Juan,” Max said, fiddling with his pipe, “how are we going to hit it if it doesn’t show up on radar?”

“Easy. Launch a UAV.”

In minutes, the drone, little more than a large model airplane fitted with sophisticated cameras, was aloft and racing ahead of the Oregon at a hundred miles per hour. When it reached two thousand feet, its starlight camera picked up the stealth ship’s wake, a dazzling line of green phosphorescence that sliced across the ocean like an arc of electricity. Its terminus was the ship itself. The ungainly craft was fighting the seas but maintaining its steady pace. The rendezvous ship was too far to see, but they would tackle that after dispatching their primary target.

“I’ve got bearings,” Mark announced, “but we’re still a little out of range.”

“He’s going to see us soon,” Hanley cautioned.

Juan had to agree. He just didn’t know what would happen.

“Twenty seconds,” Mark said.

Come on, Cabrillo silently entreated.

“Ten.”

The image from the drone changed. The angular hull of the stealth ship began to shimmer, and a blue glow erupted from its center and spread outward. The ship blurred before vanishing altogether.

A second later, the feed from the drone turned to static as it was swatted from the sky by an expanding dome of electromagnetic pulses.

“In range!” Mark cried.

“Fire!” Juan shouted as the wall of invisible energy slammed into the Oregon.

He didn’t know if Murph got off the shot because a deafening blast of noise filled the ship as she began a rapid roll onto her port side, the red numbers on the digital inclinometer blurring to keep up with the list. Water was soon pouring across her decks and slamming into the superstructure. The combination of her speed and the pulse seemed to be driving her into the depths.

Then as suddenly as it started, the noise cut off like a switch had been flicked, and the ship began to right itself once again, albeit slowly as she had to shrug off hundreds of tons of seawater.

Cabrillo picked himself up off the floor, where he’d been unceremoniously dumped. Main power had tripped so the op center was bathed in emergency lights. All the computer monitors and controls were dead, and he became aware that he couldn’t hear the Oregon’s engines. “Is everyone all right?”

He received a slow roll call of muted responses. No one was hurt, but they were all rattled.

“Max, get me a damage report. Hali, get ahold of the Doc, I’m sure there are going to be injuries. Mark, get another UAV in the air as soon as you’re able. I want eyes on that ship. And for the record, I think you saved our lives.”

“Chairman?”

“You got the shot off, didn’t you?”

“Barely.”

“In this game, barely counts. Nice shooting.”

It took twenty minutes for the engineering staff to reboot the power system and get the computers back online. But they were forced to use battery backup because the magnetohydrodynamic system was still down. Dr. Huxley patched up one broken arm and diagnosed two concussions among the crew, and Mark Murphy utterly failed to get a drone into the air. As bad as the magnetic pulse was on the ship’s hardened electronics, it destroyed those not protected. Small devices like PDAs, electric shavers, and food processors had all been fried. The remaining UAVs were nothing more than toy gliders now. Cabrillo was forced to lead a team in a RHIB, and even that had to have its engines started manually with old-fashioned pull cords.

The going was tough as the storm intensified. Icy needles of rain pelted any exposed skin, though the sturdy craft rode the waves well. When they reached the spot where the stealth ship had been hit, they found a debris field encircled by a slick of diesel fuel that was rapidly breaking up. Cabrillo ran the RHIB to one of the largest pieces of flotsam, a section of composite material that looked as if it had been part of the ship’s pointed prow. He and Eddie Seng lifted the lightweight chunk of debris into the RHIB and lashed it to the deck so they could examine it back on the Oregon.

“What do you think?” Eddie asked.

“I think when that shell hit, the boat blew apart like a grenade. Whatever powered the magnetic pulse generator had to be very unstable.”

“You think when the field failed it cratered the ship?”

“That’s my guess. I’ll run the idea past Murph and Stone to get their opinion, but I think I’m right.”

“What about the rendezvous ship?”

Juan looked around the darkened sea. “Gone the instant they figured out what happened to their buddies