Death Orbit (27 page)

However, one of the other
Elixo
boats did take notice. Their squadron commander’s boat was apparently leaving the field of battle and they wanted to know why. Plagued with the same noise problem as all the other attack boats, this particular vessel took off in pursuit of
Elixo
2. If the lead ship was hightailing it out of there, then the last thing they wanted was to be left behind.

Watching from the JAWS chopper, Snyder knew this added a complication to what was already a tenuous plan. The second boat had to be dealt with. Using hand signals, he conveyed this to the other JAWS chopper and together they swooped down on the unsuspecting Sparvee.

For the crew of this boat, the end came quickly. The lead JAWS chopper came up behind it, turned slightly to the left, and with as many troopers as could fit in the open doorway, laid a barrage of automatic weapons fire onto the boat’s pair of reserve fuel tanks left so woefully unprotected on the bow. Meanwhile, Snyder’s copter blindsided the boat from the left, mimicking the other JAWS aircraft and sending a fusillade into the control house. The combined aerial assault paid off at almost the exact same moment. The bridge house went up with a great
whopp!
just as the fuel tanks at the rear of the vessel exploded. The pair of attacking helicopters got out of the way before the remaining Styx missiles blew up, spraying thousands of deadly exploding bomblets all over the area.

There was one great explosion now as everything flammable and combustible aboard the small ship erupted at once. When the smoke finally cleared, nothing was left but an oil spot and a few pieces of charred and burning flotsam.

In the meantime,
Elixo
2 was three miles from its last position, the JAWS troopers on board demanding that the swift little boat’s engines be locked on full throttle. If anyone else still involved in the battle took notice, they didn’t act upon it. The pair of remaining Sparvees continued launching Styx missiles into the KSC and the third and final flight of Beagles was about halfway through their bombing run. All that remained now was for the six Cult battleships to begin moving in for the anticipated landing and the carnage that would undoubtedly follow.

But there was a glitch in this plan: It was the newly commandeered
Elixo
2.

The Cult battleship
Miajappe
was serving as the command ship for this operation.

On-board was a clique of Cult naval officers known as The Far-Away Boys, warriors who specialized in military campaigns far from the Japanese Home Islands, which served as home base for the Asian Mercenary Cult. These men were regarded as much for their brutality as for their far-flung military adventures. Their reputation was so bad, they were feared even at home in Japan, which was why the Cult hierarchy allowed them to sail to all parts of the world killing, terrorizing, and otherwise satiating their bloodlust as far away from their own shores as possible.

This, their attack on the East Coast of America, was their crowning achievement—more so, as their every move had been transmitted back to Japan and was being followed by the millions of Cult followers on the Home Islands. A successful completion of this campaign could mean only good things for the Far-Away Boys. They would be further lionized in the eyes of their people, further feared in the eyes of their enemies, and further ingratiated into the good graces of Viktor II, the person they wanted to please most of all.

To ensure success, the Far-Away Boys had sailed from Japan with a division of “specialty troops” in the holds of their vast battleships. These soldiers, all of them veterans of earlier Cult terror campaigns, had been selected not so much for their skill and combat experience as for their demonstrated killing capacities, their absolute lack of human feelings, and their willingness to inflict pain on anyone at any time for any purpose.

The bloodlust of these troops was at such a high level that during the six-week voyage to the Atlantic, the ships had been forced to stop at several spots in the Indian Ocean, near the tip of Africa, and in Dominica. At each stop, special landing parties had gone ashore and rounded up several dozen local residents, mostly girls and young women, but also some mature men and boys. These poor souls were then literally fed to the Cult specialty troops below decks, none of whom had seen the light of day, or any light at all, for a month and a half. These human sacrifices were torn apart as if they’d been thrown to a pack of wild dogs. In some cases, their bodies were eaten, in others, mutilated to the point of being unrecognizable. All this was done to keep the “specialty troops” in the right frame of mind for their eventual landing on the Florida coast.

Now it appeared like this perverted dream was about to come true. In the hold of the
Miajappe,
the specialty troops had been given their combat gear and had been issued rifles, ammunition, a liquor ration, a dozen pep pills, and two machetes apiece. Even over the growl of the battleship’s massive engines, haunting war chants, along with yelps, shrieks, and screams, could be heard coming from deep below. From all appearances, the battle to soften up the KSC was going well, especially as it was being viewed from the bridge of the
Miajappe.
The dozens of columns of smoke alone seemed to prove that the hired Beagle bombers had done their selective job adequately, as had the Sparvee missile boats. The Far-Away Boys planned to slaughter everyone left alive in these two mercenary groups—but that wouldn’t be until the victory party. What would come first was the landing of their bloodthirsty troops and the orgasmic slaughter of the Americans inside the space center.

Because this was such a special moment, all six of the Far-Away Boys had gathered on the bridge of the
Miajappe.
The honor of giving the formal order for the six battleships to move into shore was presented to the oldest member of their group, Admiral Kurasawa Kiamoto. With great fanfare, the admiral growled an order into the ship’s intercom, commanding the engine room to increase speed by two thirds and bring the great ship into the bay. Behind the
Miajappe,
the five other battle wagons would follow suit. The landings would begin within 15 minutes.

Watching from the bridge of their command ship, the Far-Away Boys decided it was time to pose for a photo. After all, this was an historic occasion. The ship’s photographer was called for, and once it was set up, he had the six officers stand side by side on the bow of the ship, just below the Imperial War Flag.

“Tojerki!”
the photographer called out, asking the six men for the Cult version of a smile. The men complied and the photographer snapped his one and only picture.

Had it been developed, this photo would have revealed the six smiling officers, their uniforms rippling slightly, their pants bulging in anticipation of the savagery to come.

But in the upper left-hand corner, the photo would have shown something else: an incoming Styx missile, its warhead filled with 500 pounds of high explosive, heading right for the bridge of the battleship
Miajappe.

Clancy Miller saw the Styx missile strike the deck of the huge battleship even as he was trying to keep his balance and prevent himself from falling out of the Sea Stallion helicopter.

The JAWS officer was part of a human chain that was attempting to lower a rope ladder down to the JAWS commandos still on the Sparvee fast-attack boat and lift them to safety.

It was apparent from the get-go, however, that this would be a difficult thing to do. The missile boat’s engines was locked into full throttle when the Styx finally fired at the
Miajappe,
but the resulting backfire seared the control cables to the engines below. Thus the power plants were stuck open and could not be slowed down.

This meant that the hovering JAWS helicopters would have to attempt to pluck the dozen or so JAWS troopers still aboard the fast-attack boat from its decks even as it was traveling along the surface at speeds upward of 50 knots.

Still, Miller found himself looking up at the battleship as the huge missile struck it square on the bridge. The warhead exploded just a split second later, long enough, though, for the missile to drive itself down three decks and hit the ship’s auxiliary magazine. There was a second, even bigger explosion just moments after the first as tons of cannon shells and incendiary bombs began blowing up.

Not five seconds later came an enormous third explosion. This one was so powerful, it lifted the huge battleship right out of the water, breaking it in two and sending it back to the surface, where the two halves quickly sank between the waves. Debris from the explosion carried to nearly a half mile away, much of it slamming into the forecastle and rear turret of the next-in-line battleship, the older, slightly smaller
Nomisti.
This caused one of the ship’s rear guns to discharge, sending a mammoth one-ton shell right into the hull of the third-in-line battleship, the newer, stainless steel
Argohrra.
Two more secondary explosions occurred as the shell hit the main boiler room. In seconds, this battleship’s midsection was ablaze.

Mouth agape, not quite believing what he was seeing, Clancy Miller managed to let out a long, low whistle. All of this happened in less than 15 seconds, an incredible chain of events that sank one large battleship and set two others aflame.

The JAWS team wanted to do something dramatic, and on this count, at least, they’d fulfilled that desire.

“What would have happened,” Miller wondered aloud, “if we’d fired two missiles?”

Miller was snapped back to the reality of the moment, the attempt to retrieve the JAWS troopers still stuck on the out-of-control attack boat.

Two men had been able to clasp the hand of the man who was hanging onto the feet of the man Clancy himself was hanging onto. How these two soldiers were able to scramble up and into the helicopter to safety he would never know.

But there were still 10 men on the attack boat and the vessel itself was smoking badly from the rear, its engines were pitched so high. No one on-board either chopper had to be told what would happen to the Sparvee if a heat source reached the two unprotected fuel tanks on its bow. Just like the
Miajappe
battleship they’d just greased, there’d be nothing left but an oil slick.

There was an added peril. The three remaining battleships, the captains obviously catching on to what was happening in the bay, were steaming right toward the runaway Sparvee, their big guns turning to register on the speeding attack craft. Even worse, two Beagles had apparently been ordered back to the battle scene and were now circling angrily overhead. Though the jet bombers had unleashed all of their underwing weapons, they were still armed with lethal cannons in the nose and tail.

Clancy Miller was taking all of this in, even as a third JAWS trooper managed to scramble up the human ladder to the safety of the helicopter. But this would be the last soldier they’d be able to rescue this way. For at that very moment, a Beagle was peeling off and heading down the gullet at them, its nose guns blazing away.

Miller imagined seeing the Sea Stallion disintegrate around him, and then having himself fall into the sea. The Beagle was moving too fast and its dive had been too shallow to get an accurate burst anywhere near the Sea Stallion. The two-engine aircraft streaked overhead, its tail gunner firing randomly down on the chopper, an action that was answered with some valiant but equally off-the-mark firing from the soldiers in both Sea Stallions.

The Beagle’s pass forced the choppers to move away from the speeding attack boat. Now the Sparvee was heading right into the flames left behind by the
Miajappe’s
sinking. Somehow, someone on the boat was able at least to get control of the steering column. As the rest of the JAWS team watched in a mixture of hope and horror, the boat skimmed up and over the worst of the fire and managed to go around the largest pieces of floating wreckage.

But this action caused it to come under the guns of the fourth battleship, the enormous
Itibiti.
In a flash, the ship let loose with a massive barrage from the trio of 16-inch guns on its front turret. The three gigantic shells streaked across the bay and over the runaway attack boat by a margin of 40 feet or more. When they hit the water, it was like three watery volcanoes had suddenly erupted. The spray alone nearly swamped the speeding attack boat.

By this time, the second Beagle had swooped down and was now heading for Clancy’s chopper. It was going much slower than its predecessor and had begun its firing run further out in order to be more accurate. Clancy was still hanging out of the open cargo door; he’d finally pulled in the last man in the human chain. Now he was living a moment of frightening déjà vu: a Beagle bomber, its nose aglow with cannon fire, was bearing right down on him.

This time he knew there would be no errors in speed or aiming. He could already see the cannon shells streaking overhead, just a few feet from the helicopter’s twirling rotors. In that moment Clancy saw part of his life pass before his eyes. He was a kid again, cramming for some big exam in high school, not having the time or the right materials with which to study. To flunk meant summer school or repeating a grade. He remembered turning on his radio and by mistake, passing by a 24-hour-a-day religious station. The preacher, screaming at the top of his lungs, was bellowing, “Expect a miracle, you heathen lamb!” Clancy took the advice to heart and the next day went to school to learn his teacher had been arrested the night before for pandering and the test was indefinitely postponed.

But what kind of miracle could get him out of this one? he wondered desperately, as his mind flashed back to the present and the reality of the Beagle’s front guns carving into him at any moment.

He got his answer a moment later.

As he would recall it, the Beagle was about 200 feet out, its guns still blazing, when suddenly it was gone. No smoke. No fire. Just gone.

The plane hadn’t simply vanished—though in these particular times and in this particular area, that wouldn’t have been an impossibility. This miracle had a more earthly basis to it. The bomber had been blown out of the sky, shot to pieces so completely that it broke up and fell into the ocean so quickly as to give the appearance to someone looking down its gun barrels that it had vaporized.