Piranha

“Piranha Buoy Two launched,” reported Ferris, immediately closing up the doors to clear the Megafortress’s sleek belly. Dog banked so close to the water, its right wingtip might have grazed a dolphin.

“They’re coming back, and they’re mad,” said Ferris. “Whipping around — rear-quarter shot.” He started laughing. “Suckers — Stinger on and firing.”

Their anger and fatigue took its toll. One of the Navy fliers was mauled; the other backed off — then declared a fuel-emergency and broke off.

“Four bandits still coming at us. In AMRAAM range,” warned Ferris.

“How we doing down there, Delaford?” asked Dog, cutting back north to stay near the buoy, though this meant closing the gap on the approaching F-14’s.

“Got it! Ten seconds to surface!”

Dog jinked back, hit chaff as one of the Tomcats launched from long range.

“Were did they get the Scorpion missiles codes?” asked Ferris. “They’re only supposed to use operational missiles.”

“Take them over,” said Dog.

“Huh?”

“Overrise their guidance. Use our circuits.”

“I don’t know if I can, Colonel. And even if I could, that would be cheating.”

“Weren’t you just complaining about them using missiles that aren’t in their armament lockers?” inquired Dog. “Issue the universal self-destruct. See what happens.”

The Scorpions — still some months from production — had been designed at Dreamland. The test missiles contained what the programmers called off-line paragraphs — telemetry code useful for testing but not intended for the final product. Among them were instructions allowing the testbed aircraft to override onboard guidance and detonate the missiles — useful in case one veered off course. Dog wasn’t sure the code had been included in the simulated version, but it was worth a try.

Ferris dutifully hit the commands, and got an extra bonus — not only did the two dummies “explode,” but so did the four simulated ones that hadn’t been launched yet.

Fortunately for the Naval aviators carrying them, the self-destruct merely killed the programming.

Ferris laughed so hard and loud he drowned out Delaford’s report that they were spitting at the carrier’s bridge.

“Almost,” said Delaford. “We’re twelve feet off their starboard side, bobbing up and down. I hope some of those sailors have cameras.”

“Gentlemen, and Miss English, job well done,” said Dog, who, despite his best effort to sound professional, was chuckling a bit as well. “Let’s go home.”

South China Sea

August 17, 1997, 1900 local (August 17, 0100 Hawaii)

Stoner steadied himself against the rail of his boat as he drifted toward the piece of torn gray fabric bulky piece of flotsam bobbed a few yards beyond it; Stoner suspected it was the tip of something large enough to damage his boat. But he wanted the fabric, and decided the approach was worth the risk. There were words on the cloth, or at least something that looked like words.

He reached out with his long pole, sticking it in the middle of the material. Like a jellyfish prodded from above, it slipped downward and drifted away. Stoner reached again, nearly losing his balance grabbing the cloth.

He pulled the stick up quickly. The characters were definitely chinese, though he couldn’t make them out. He’d have to use his digital camera to take a picture, then transmit the image back.

Enough to go on.

Stoner looked back at the water. The flotsam was only a few feet away. It was smaller than he though, and not connected to anything. Even so, he put his pole out, trying to fend it off.

It rolled upward, revealing a face and torso. There were no legs, and only half-stumps where the arms had been.

In his career, Stoner had seen many unpretty things. He went back over the rail and reached down to a fabric-covered pocket at the top of the hull. Opening the compartment, he took out his camera, examining it quickly to make sure the settings were correct before slipping the thick strap over his neck. He went back and photographed the dead man’s face, recording it in case it might prove useful in the future. Then he out the long stick in the body’s chest and pushed it away, leaving it for the sharks.

Back at the helm, Stoner took the engines out of neutral, and steered the boat eastward. As he started below, he heard the drone of an aircraft in the distance.

The transmission would have to wait. He continued forward past the paneled area to the compartment at the bow. He threw the camera and media card inside, then stepped back and slammed the hatch shut. He struggled with the three long bolts at either side of the wall until his fingers were raw, finally taking off his sneakers to push at the end of the last bolt. By then, the aircraft was overhead.

He waited until he heard it pass, then pushed his head up to look. He knew of course, that it would be a Chinese patrol plane, though there was always hope he’d be wrong.

He wasn’t. And now a pair of delta-shaped blurs approached from the west — Shenyang F-811Ms, long- distance attack jets.

While he knew enough about the Chinese military to identify the planes’ units and air bases if he cared to, Stoner was much too busy to do so. With an immense leap, he threw himself overboard and into the water, just as the aircraft began firing.

It took approximately ten minutes for Samsara to sink. It would have taken considerably longer had Stoner not began flooding it by removing the bolts. He spent much of the time well below the surface of the water; what he lacked in negative buoyancy, he more than made up for in motivation.

When the aircraft were gone, Stoner bobbed to the surface, floating with as little effort as possible. It was at least an hour before sunset; if he were to survive the night he had to conserve his energy. And of course he knew he would survive. It was his job. It was what he always did.

Samsara’s life raft had been shot to pieces by the attack. Nothing else came off the boat after it went down — a matter of design, not accident. And so it was inevitable that Stoner resorted to the wreckage of the Chinese freighter — or what he strongly suspected was a Chinese freighter — to stay afloat. It was inevitable that the half-man he had poked before would float toward him. Stoner wrapped his arm’s around the torso without emotion. He kicked slowly, just enough to stay afloat and awake: Despite the warm day, the water cramped his muscles with its cold, and maybe made his teeth chatter.

The sun turned the sky pink as it set. Stoner waited in the water with his dead companion. Night crept up with an immense, bright moon. In the distance, he thought he saw the shadow of a shark’s fin. The wreckage of the freighter was drifting closer; paper with Chinese characters drifted near his nose. He moved to grab it, but found his arms frozen in place. He let go of the man’s head and sunk down in the water, trying to shake his limbs back to flexibility. When he reached the surface, the paper was gone and so was the head.

For the next hour he treaded slowly, faceup in the brine, cold and salt sandpapering his lips and nose. Then, suddenly, the water began to churn. He felt it coming for him now, the shark, drawn by his fatigue like a radio beacon in the night. It broke water fifty yards to his right, a massive thing of blackness.

Stoner waited. He had no weapon.

There was a sound behind him, an eerie cry not unlike the death rattle of a man at the end.

“Here!” Stoner yelled. “Here!”

A Seachlight played across the surface of the water. Two SEALs in diving gear paddled a rubber boat toward him.

“Here!” he yelled again.

“Mr. Stoner?” said one of the men.

“You’re not expecting someone else, I hope,” said Stoner as the raft crept up. His muscles were so stiff he had to be helped into the boat. But he managed to climb onto the deck of the waiting submarine and go below without further assistance.

“Stoner, I’m Captain Waldum,” said the skipper. “Glad we found you. Your signal’s getting weak.”

“Yeah,” said Stoner. “Let’s retrieve the bow pod from my boat and get back. About a dozen people are trying