Ghost War (8 page)

Banking into a tight orbit directly over the battleship, the pilot braced himself.

Then he keyed his microphone.

“Commence firing….”

Instantly a sheet of flame erupted along the side of the C-5 as thousands of rounds of 30 mm shells poured out of the spitting barrels of the twenty-one Avengers and streaked down upon the battleship.

The first battle in what would be a very long war had begun.

The battleship’s crew, caught out in the open on their way to battle stations, seemed to scream in one, ear-piercing, bloodcurdling, not-of-this-earth cry of pure terror as the rain of mechanized lead poured down on them. Some died instantly. Some began to uncontrollably vomit. Others tried to run, only to slip on the blood-splattered deck. Some fell over those who had fallen prostrate. Others were crying hysterically, begging for forgiveness for all the inhuman crimes they had committed.

But as the massive airplane slowly circled the ship, its cannons raking it from forward to aft, across its beam, and then back again, any Cult sailor caught above deck was either chopped to pieces by the intense volume of gunfire, or cut down by the flying red hot chunks of steel torn from the ship’s structure. The cannon fire was so intense, it soon penetrated the battleship’s thick-steel deck, severing hundreds of cables, wires, and pipes. In a matter of seconds the power was cut off in the aft and midsections of the ship. The battleship was instantly plunged into darkness.

As the huge airplane continued to circle the stricken battleship, electrical fires quickly broke out below decks. The toxic fumes slowly began to spread throughout the bowels of the ship. Orders were given for the air and watertight hatches to be secured—but it was too late. The deadly fumes and suffocating smoke had already spread too fast. The gagging sailors below panicked in the inky darkness. They began to fight and claw their way topside, towards fresh air. They spilled out onto the deck—and into the gunsights of the Avengers. The frighteningly efficient 30 mm cannon fire simply tore them apart. While a few were able to throw themselves over the railing into the sea below, the majority were cut down in midstride. Soon the battleship’s decks were awash with blood.

And then, as suddenly as it began, the massive gunship stopped firing. Its engines still screaming but fading, it leveled off and turned toward the eastern horizon.

The sudden silence snapped Ensign Ueno out of his dazed stupor.

He had somehow managed to survive the nightmarish aerial attack. Through the heavy, oily smoke that now covered the ship, he was astonished to see the amount of damage that this one plane had so expertly inflicted on the once-mighty battleship. Though it seemed like forever, the entire attack had lasted less than a minute.

Ueno quickly grasped the grim accomplishment of the plane’s surgical strike. In the short time it took for its just five slow orbits, it had succeeded not only in killing most of the crew but also in completely knocking out all of the battleship’s major defense systems. Each of the ship’s gun directors—the high-tech, computer-enhanced radar systems that sequenced the targeting and firing of the ship’s guns—had also been obliterated. Most of the antiaircraft fire control systems were now out of commission. Whatever 20 mm cannons or five-inch guns that the ship was able to fire during the lightning attack had been fired blindly. Not one shell found its mark on the frightening enemy plane.

There was total panic aboard the ship now and insanity swirled all around Ueno. Sailors ran back and forth, some killing anyone who got in their way or any officer who tried to give an order. It was every man for himself. Gasping for breath, Ueno tried to stand but quickly collapsed in a heap. He realized for the first time that his left leg was horribly shattered. He never felt it happen, for the shock of being hit with a 30 mm cannon shell had numbed it completely. Unable to staunch the flow of blood, his leg trailing behind at an odd, twisted angle, he started to drag himself across the deck toward the bow, the only place that was not burning.

But just then a deep sense of foreboding overwhelmed him. He looked skyward to see the second enormous airplane now spiraling down on the ship just as the first one did. This one, though, was painted in bizarre orange, blue, and yellow colors. Ueno stopped moving altogether. He sensed the end was very near.

He was right.

Hunter wrestled with the control stick of the C-5
Bozo
, trying to bring her around. After seeing
Nozo
break off its attack, it was now time for him to deliver this immense airplane’s unique version of mechanized death to the severely damaged battleship blow.

Unlike its sister ship
Nozo
,
Bozo
was quite unbalanced, due to the wide array of weapons on board. The combination of Gatling guns, artillery pieces, grenade launchers and a huge rocket platform distributed unevenly through the hold made for guaranteed aerodynamic instability. But Hunter finally managed to slowly bring the C-5 into something that resembled a spiral. Struggling with all his might to keep the huge lumbering plane in a slowly descending attack attitude, he called back step-by-step instructions for the gun crews to prepare.

With each lopsided spiral, the airplane dropped nearer and nearer to the battleship. At the same time, the gun crew aboard went through the paces of loading and aiming their weapons. When the awkwardly loaded Galaxy reached the proscribed altitude of 350 feet, Hunter pulled hard back on his control column. He was barely able to bring the heavy C-5 out of its controlled fall. The instant it leveled off, he quickly banked it to the left then gave the command.

“Commence firing!”

That’s when all hell broke loose.

In a deafening
whirrr
, the six GE Gatling guns poured out rounds at a rate of seventy per second, sending severe vibrations throughout the monstrously clumsy gunship. The heavy thuds of the five Mk-19 automatic grenade launchers rocked the plane violently with each recoil, and when the AP/AV 700 three barrel multiple grenade launcher joined in next, the circus-scrolled Galaxy was further tossed about. Then the Solton 120-mm mobile field gun and the two Royal Ordnance 105-mm field pieces opened up, pumping shell after shell into the battleship, and shaking the C-5 even more crazily with their blasts. Though it seemed that the aerial behemoth would in short order shake itself into pieces, this particular C-5 always somehow defied logic, physics, and aerodynamic law. As before, it held together.

The situation inside the hold of
Bozo
was quite the opposite of its beautiful sister,
Nozo
, however. The shouts of the weapon’s officers directing their crews could barely be heard over the incredible roar of the crazy collection of weaponry all firing at once. But when the three Rheinmental 20-mm converted antiaircraft guns opened up, it was deafening.

The crewmen were covered with a grimy layer of soot and burnt gunpowder from the thick smoke building up quickly inside the plane, this despite the fact that a series of exhaust fans were cranking at full speed, turning the length of the massive gun hold into one long wind tunnel. On top of that, empty casings of every imaginable caliber were flying all over inside the hold as they were ejected from their weapons’ chambers. Soon a foot thick layer of brass casings and spent rocket charges rattled back and forth along the length and width of the deck. It was controlled chaos.

Down below, it was a second vision of hell.

Rockets, high-explosive shells, and cannon rounds were impacting along the port side of the battleship; the tremendous barrage of explosions was rocking the Cult gun wagon every which way. As Hunter banked the C-5 around to rake the ship’s starboard side, he saw the battleship leap forward in speed and turn right full rudder, trying to come around to meet him broadside. It would prove to be a vain attempt at a classic naval maneuver.

The battleship’s trio of heavily armored 16-inch gun turrets swung in the direction of the C-5. Reacting immediately, Hunter knew it was time to play his ace in the hole—the 17-ton LARS II 110 Multiple Rocket Launcher.

He banked the C-5 even steeper, maintaining 350 feet of altitude and bringing the airplane around so that barrels of the LARS II were perfectly angled towards the battleship’s two forward turrets. He counted down to five, then gave the order to fire.

During the next twenty seconds, thirty-six six-foot-long high-explosive rockets were loosed with a Vesuvius-like roar from the C-5, striking exactly on top the two heavily armored gun turrets. The plane was jolted so hard by the fusillade and the resulting concussions that Hunter had to fight to maintain stable flight. Nearly every gunner and ammo feeder back in the hold was tossed around and thrown to the deck. The LARS crew, scrambling back into position, quickly reloaded their awesome weapon as Hunter coaxed the great plane around towards the bow of the ship—and the third 16-inch gun turret.

“Fire!” he called back again, and another thirty-six rockets streaked down at the ship, once more throwing the crews around the hold of the plane. The second barrage struck on top and all around the battleship’s rear 10-inch thick armored turret. In what seemed like one long gigantic explosion, it simply disintegrated.

As the smoke cleared, Hunter grimly accessed the damage. These enormous enemy guns that had leveled island after defenseless island were now reduced to three smoldering craters of twisted steel and broken bodies.

At that moment,
Bozo’s
Soltam mobile field guns, which had managed to continually fire its 120-mm rounds, finally found their target—the twin rudders of the battleship. Now the great-battleship was locked in its turning degree, steaming at full speed in a tight circle, going nowhere and getting there fast.

That’s when the ship’s main boiler busted a seam and exploded. Hunter saw the enemy vessel shudder, then drunkenly lurch to the port side. He called back the order to cease fire.

Circling the smoking hulk three more times, the battered ship finally came to a stop in the water. There was no reason to expend any more ammunition; the battleship was dead.

Hunter banked the plane toward the southeast horizon, and gunned its engines.

Their mission was accomplished.

Thirty Minutes Later

Major Donn Kurjan—code-named “Lazarus”—was sitting directly behind the pilot of
Seahawk #1
, anxiously chewing on a wad of gum.

Combined with the two Seahawk choppers behind them, Kurjan was in command of forty-five shock troops of the elite Football City Special Forces Rangers, the men who had come in on
Football One.

Out on the horizon they could clearly see the shattered, burning hulk of the Cult battleship, a long plume of black smoke rising more than a mile in the sky above it.

“How much longer?” Kurjan yelled into the pilot’s ear, needing to be heard over the racket of the Seahawk’s engines.

The pilot made some quick calculations. “Two minutes,” he yelled back. “Maybe two and a half…”

Kurjan tapped him twice on the shoulder and then turned and signaled to his second-in-command riding back in the chopper’s overcrowded troop compartment. “
Two minutes
,” he yelled, holding up two fingers. “Get ready.”

He turned back to find the battleship getting closer by the second. There were more than a dozen fires burning out of control all over the devastated battlewagon, and every few seconds the ship would be wracked by yet another explosion.

Kurjan had to shake his head in admiration: the combined punch of
Nozo
and
Bozo
had reduced the huge vessel to little more than a floating hulk of burning metal and igniting ammunition. Trouble was, Kurjan had to lead his men on board that piece of hell.

His mission was to look for information—dispersement orders, sailing manifests, codebooks—anything that might give the United Americans some clue as to the strategy of the Asian Mercenary Cult’s frighteningly large battleship fleet.

“One minute out …” the chopper pilot yelled back to Kurjan. “We’ll be swinging around for a north-south approach in about ten seconds.”

Kurjan went about the business of checking his own gear when the copilot leaned over and tapped him on the leg.

“Just got a Mayday out of the target, sir,” he reported. “Sent out on the old long-range general aid frequency.”

Kurjan froze for a moment. He had been prepared to hear this news, all the while hoping he never had to. The transmission of the Mayday meant at least someone was still alive on the battleship; maybe many more. Having dealt with the Cult before, Kurjan knew it was an open question as to the tenacity of the soldiers they might meet. Sometimes the Cult troops were incredibly ferocious; other times they were quite timid. It all depended on how much liquor and drugs they’d ingested recently, and also how voracious their immediate commanders were.

“Do you have a good read on that Mayday?” he asked the copilot. The man replied with a solid nod.

“
Damn
,” Kurjan said, checking his ammo clips. “This’ll make it interesting.”

“We’re forty seconds out,” the pilot yelled to him. “Hang on …”

Kurjan did as the pilot suggested, grabbing the flight compartment frame support. The lead Seahawk went into a sharp left hand turn, momentarily putting the burning battleship out of his view. When it appeared again, the chopper was lined up on the ship’s bow, coming down in both altitude and speed.

“We’re twenty seconds away,” the pilot told him.

“Got another radio transit,” the copilot added. “It’s another Mayday…. sloppy, but clear.”

Kurjan studied the burning battleship as he fastened his crash helmet. If there was any kind of organized force aboard the Cult vessel it could get very hairy for him and his men.

“Five out,” the pilot yelled. “Do you want to do a flyby first?”

Kurjan quickly agreed. Time was of the essence in this landing operation—there was no telling what kind of Cult forces were in the area. But he had forty-five lives at stake here—fifty-two, counting himself and the chopper pilots. With the Mayday calls indicating someone was still breathing on the ship, he decided he could afford the luxury of quick recon before setting down.