Chapter 78
Aboard the Baktun
“What is that madman up to?”
Stokes studied the radar screen, watching the Oregon plowing directly toward him from some distance away. Now that Fierro was dead, he had to protect Bose’s AGI at all costs, keeping it from both the Chinese and the Yanks.
A thundering roar erupted beyond the bulkheads.
“Fuzhou launching missile,” the Brazilian first officer said, calm as a clam.
“Chinese turbines spinning up,” the sonarman said. “She’s engaging the American.”
Stokes nodded, admiring the American captain. He now understood what he was doing. The American wasn’t charging at the Baktun—he was only closing the distance to the Fuzhou.
For a split second, Stokes considered the tempting option of firing his weapons at the distracted Chinese, their attention focused on the Americans.
But the Fuzhou was a stout ship, and close-quarters battle with a heavily armed gunboat was risky at best, and most likely fatal.
He also thought about joining the Fuzhou in combat against the Oregon. But it was too late to join the battle. The sudden launch of the Chinese hypersonic meant the Americans had less than twelve seconds to live.
His other course of action was clear, now that he had full access to the ship’s fusion reactor.
“Helm—pulse wave engine status?”
“One hundred percent.”
“Set a course for heading oh-one-oh. Flank speed.”
“Aye, sir. Engaging engines.”
“Comms, notify the crew to brace.”
The supercavitating zone created by his high-tech propulsion system would drive the Baktun to sixty knots, nearly double the Fuzhou’s top-rated speed. The Chinese could never catch him, and surely Peng had orders not to destroy the Baktun after the Americans were annihilated.
“Helm, why aren’t we underway? Engage!”
Stokes turned to his man, who was furiously punching switches on his board.
“Engines don’t respond.”
Stokes charged over. “What’s happening?”
“No idea. We’re dead in the water.”
★
Aboard the Fuzhou
The Chinese Eagle Strike hypersonic missile vaulted out of its vertical launch tube with a loud hiss of high-pressure nitrogen in a white cloud of condensed vapor.
Two seconds above the deck, the engines fired up and the missile began its fiery climb to space altitude, where it would transition to glide phase, then race back to its target at over Mach 10.
Its sophisticated guidance and maneuvering system ensured a fatal strike against the bulky American cargo ship despite the Oregon’s unbelievable rate of speed.
“Captain, Baktun weapons spinning up. Radar target lock!”
“Why are they attacking the Americans?” Zhao demanded.
“They’re not. They’re targeting us.”
★
Aboard the Baktun
Captain Stokes stood in the Baktun’s combat information center, his clear gray eyes fixed on the monitor. The Fuzhou filled his screen, its bridge and hull suddenly painted with dozens of targeting reticles. At only five hundred yards distance, the Chinese Type 055 destroyer was a sitting duck.
Suddenly, the entirety of the Baktun’s lethal arsenal unleashed with deafening fury.
The Baktun’s 30-millimeter GAU-8 Avenger Gatling gun opened up first, spitting fire and lead in a deafening roar, unleashing seventy armor-piercing rounds per second.
The storm of tungsten projectiles shredded the Fuzhou’s bridge instantly, obliterating radar antennas, sensors, and communication arrays, and tearing through armored glass and steel bulkheads like wet rice paper.
Simultaneously, the Baktun’s two big naval auto cannons joined the fury, smashing the Fuzhou’s thin-hulled superstructure in relentless, pinpoint volleys of explosive fragmentation shells.
★
Aboard the Fuzhou
Captain Zhao barely registered the Baktun’s first muzzle flashes before a blinding storm of destruction erupted around her. The bridge vanished instantly in an explosion of glass, fire, and twisted metal. Zhao and her crew were torn apart in the maelstrom before realizing the battle had even begun.
Belowdecks, sailors screamed in horror and confusion as explosive shells punched effortlessly through the hull, detonating deep within the vessel’s core.
Internal bulkheads collapsed under the blasts as fire surged through passageways, filling compartments with choking black smoke and suffocating darkness.
Miraculously, a dying weapons officer deep in the combat center managed to smash his mangled hand against a firing button. This single act of dying vengeance unleashed a short burst of 130-millimeter cannon blasts before he was torn apart by an explosive shell slicing through the armored bulkhead.
Below the waterline, the Fuzhou shuddered violently as dozens of swarming mini torpedoes found their marks.
Several simultaneous detonations ripped massive breaches through the ship’s hull, flooding the engine room and other critical compartments almost instantly.
The few surviving sailors scrambled for ladders and escape hatches as seawater surged into their dying ship.
Chaos reigned as the Baktun’s Gatling guns continued raking the upper decks, chainsawing bodies in their wake, slicking the steel beneath their feet in gore. Secondary explosions hurtled sailors against the bulkheads like rag dolls, splattering crimson brushstrokes on the buckling walls.
Within seconds, the Fuzhou’s comms, propulsion, and fire-control systems were completely obliterated.
★
Aboard the Oregon
“Looks like the Baktun’s in trouble,” Cabrillo said.
Like the rest of the op center team, Cabrillo was stunned at the near instantaneous destruction of the Fuzhou. But it appeared the Chinese had gotten a few shots off as well, punching holes in the Baktun just below the waterline underneath the bow.
If the Baktun sank, Cabrillo couldn’t capture the AGI Overholt so desperately wanted.
The Oregon was already running at full tilt, its massive engines pulsing astronomical power. Even at her current high rate of speed it would take his ship a full twenty-four minutes to get to the Baktun and board her to secure Project Q—if she stayed afloat that long.
But the Oregon might not survive the next few seconds. The Fuzhou’s deadly hypersonic missile was still streaking toward them at over Mach 10. There was no way to outrun it.
The Fuzhou’s “dead hand” missile strike was about to kill them all.
★
Aboard Peng’s helicopter
Hovering just twenty-five feet above the sea a half mile away, Peng watched in stomach-churning horror as the great Chinese warship suffered crushing blow after crushing blow.
The Fuzhou barely had a chance to respond.
Its single deck gun got off a few shots just seconds before succumbing to the Baktun’s relentless cannonades. It appeared to be sinking.
The pilot checked his fuel gauge. Only thirty minutes of flight time was left and there was no other Chinese ship or base anywhere near. It was only supposed to be a short flight to the Baktun, so he hadn’t ordered a refueling.
The pilot turned in his seat and glanced at the anxious Marines in back and saw their young faces ghosted white with terror.
“Will the Baktun let us land, comrade?” the pilot asked. “If not, we’ll all drown out here.”
Peng mopped away the flop sweat from his eyes.
“We’ll have to try. All they can do is kill us quicker.”