Chapter 9
The drone swarm overwhelmed the Oregon’s targeting screen.
“Must be three hundred of them,” Max said.
Cabrillo nodded. “Stay frosty people.”
The gun’s-eye radar screen suddenly crashed to black. Without it, the laser cannon couldn’t acquire targets.
“Nav radar out again,” Stoney reported.
“Comms out,” Kasim said. “We’re blind and deaf.”
“More electronic countermeasures.” Max grunted. “Feels like we’re playing rope-a-dope. Only we ain’t got no rope.”
“They’re learning. Pattern’s different this time,” Cabrillo said. “Two can play at that game. Wepps, reactivate the EMP cannons. High-divergent beams. And randomize EMP firing patterns. Hose ’em!”
“Roger that.” Murph tapped keys. The pulse cannons opened up.
The high-divergent beams unleashed wide, spherical bursts of electromagnetic energy shotgunning across the sky.
“Stoney, evasive maneuvers—flank speed. Everybody else—hold on!”
Eric grinned ear to ear as he shoved the throttles forward and yanked the joystick.
Like a giant Jet Ski, the Oregon’s massive, newly upgraded magnetohydrodynamic engines blasted monumental torrents of water through the improved thrust-vectoring venturi tubes beneath her hull.
The multidirectional thrusters meant Stoney could turn the five-hundred-ninety-foot vessel on the head of a pin.
He executed a well-practiced slalom maneuver he’d used in previous combat.
Throughout the ship, crew members clutched whatever they could reach against the turn.
The unsecured galley was a maelstrom of breaking plates and crashing pots.
“That’ll confuse ’em,” Max said with a chuckle as he clung white-knuckled to his console. “Or at least make ’em dizzy.”
“Either works.” Juan grunted, his body straining against the chair harness.
The targeting radar screen popped back on as more drones dropped from the sky.
“Laser firing,” Murphy reported.
“Cannons redlining,” Hanley warned, his eyes locked on the temperature gauges maxing out.
“Comms clear.”
“Nav clear.”
“Shut the cannons down,” Cabrillo ordered. They’d done their job.
Bang!
“Hit amidships, port side,” Max called out. “Hull breach above the waterline.”
“Casualties?” Cabrillo asked.
Bang!
“Crane number one hit,” Max said. “Good work, Stoney. That thing was heading for the bridge.”
“Wepps?”
“I count fifteen tangos still out there—Check that. Thirteen. They’re closing low and fast. Port and starboard.”
“Decoys?”
“Kamikazes.” Murph checked his console. “Laser down. Capacitors recharging.”
“Wepps, Phalanx systems. Now!”
Murph slammed his palms onto a pair of bright red buttons.
Instantly, six metal plates just below the Oregon’s main deck dropped like gun ports on a pirate ship revealing six M61 Vulcan Gatling guns, three on each side of the hull.
The multibarreled machine guns opened up in a hellish roar.
Each weapon unleashed precise bursts of AI-targeted 20-millimeter rounds at the rate of seventy-five per second.
Within moments, the last of the kamikaze drones had been splashed.
The op center erupted in wild cheers and applause.
“Comms, hail Nomad for me.”
“Aye, Chairman.”
Juan checked the screens again. No more threats. All clear. He leaned back in the Kirk Chair.
“Nomad on the overhead, Chairman.”
“Well played, Captain Ross,” Juan said.
Linda Ross’s high voice giggled in the speakers overhead.
“Almost got you, Chairman. Thought you didn’t want to use the kinetics?”
“I didn’t. But some traitorous member of my command decided she could run the table on me.”
Ross laughed again. “Blame the AI, not me.”
Linda Ross was Cabrillo’s third in command.
She was a former U.S. Navy intelligence officer, a priceless addition to a spy ship like the Oregon.
She quit the blue-water Navy once she hit her private glass ceiling.
Navy brass didn’t think anyone would take her seriously in a command position owing to her diminutive elfin stature and helium-squeaky voice, so they never offered Ross her own ship—the only thing she ever wanted.
But Cabrillo instantly recognized the fierce intelligence behind the impish green eyes and offered her the job.
She became an outstanding helmsman in her own right, and took command of the Oregon when Juan and Max were on mission.
She had also acquired superlative sub-driving skills.
It was only natural to assign her to one of the Oregon’s three submersibles for today’s combat-realistic exercise.
“I was hoping the laser and EMP cannons were enough,” Juan said. “Glad we added the Vulcans.”
Eric and Murph stole a look at each other and fought back a laugh. They were the Oregon’s biggest sci-fi nerds.
“Lasers are for rock concerts, not combat,” Max said. “I’m an analog guy all the way.”
“Next time we’ll put a trebuchet on the foredeck,” Cabrillo said.
“When do I get to take another run at you?” Ross asked.
“Come on back to the barn. I want to run over today’s digital recordings and do an after-action review. We’ll come up with a different game plan then.”
“Roger that.”
Cabrillo nodded at Hali to end the call. Ross would maneuver the Nomad underneath the Oregon so that it could be lifted up into its place in the boat garage next to the smaller Gator and the Oregon’s newest vessel, the Spook Fish, a deepwater submersible.
Overall, Cabrillo was pleased with the exercise. The Oregon had survived the drone attack, and his new drone system had proven frighteningly effective.
The hits to the Oregon were real enough, but the drones themselves were unarmed. Max’s damage reports were only computer-based estimates. Had Linda’s AI-piloted vehicles been carrying real payloads it might have been a very different story.
Still, it was a good learning experience, and all part of the retrofit he and Max had initiated after their mission against the Vendor.
Besides acquiring new offensive and defensive systems, significant improvements were made to the power plant, hull design, and several other departments. Everything was still in testing mode.
Cabrillo knew that combat technologies were always changing, but lately they seemed to be accelerating exponentially. He was determined to modify the Oregon to make her lighter, better armored, better defended, faster, and more lethal.
He ruefully knew the bad guys would be doing the same.
The Oregon’s AI-enhanced defenses had barely survived Ross’s AI-commanded drone assault. They were still fumbling in the dark, trying to master this new form of warfare, but the Island of Sorrows incident had made one thing crystal clear: drone technology was the future of combat.
Cabrillo’s fingers drummed against his armrest as he studied the after-action data scrolling across his displays. The future wasn’t coming—it was here. And they weren’t ready. Not yet.
In the distance, thunder rumbled across the Pacific like artillery—a warning of storms to come.