Warshot (The Hunter Killer Series Book 6) by Don Keith (top ten ebook reader TXT) 📗

gonna light him up with active. Hopefully, we’ll scare him off. If not, I want a weapon ready to go as soon as he shows hostile intent.”

“Sonar, Conn, line up to go active on Sierra Five-Seven, sector search, max power.”

“Sonar, aye. Captain, we’ll be reverb limited if we use max power. High probability we won’t get a return inside all the noise.”

“Sonar, I understand. I want to ring his bell and advertise our presence.”

“Sonar, aye. Max power at this range will certainly do that. Ready to go active, max power, sector search.”

Walt Smith looked over at Bill Knox and gave him a nod. “Captain, ready when you are. Solution is set and the weapon is ready.”

Knox gave him a thumbs-up. He keyed the 21MC mike. “Sonar, go active on Sierra Five-Seven.”

The skipper could only imagine the looks on the Chinese crew’s faces.

“Sonar, Conn, positive active contact on Sierra Five-Seven, bearing two-nine-six, range four-three-hundred yards.”

A pause in the report.

Then, “Possible contact zig on Sierra Five-Seven. Looks like he turned away and is going deep.”

Knox looked over at Smith with a broad grin.

“Well, XO, I’d say he got the message.”

Ψ

Colonel Readly quickly assessed the situation. The Canberra was now essentially defenseless. Both the ship’s lone gun and its surface-to-surface missiles were destroyed. The SeaRAM launcher was now empty, but he had already set a team of sailors to work reloading it. Until it was readied, his Marine unit was the only firepower that the LCS could muster.

To make matters worse, the ship’s bridge was in shambles. Shrapnel from the exploding ordnance had shredded the ship’s thin aluminum skin and heavily damaged the highly computerized ship control systems. Several sailors were now struggling to get back at least some control of the vessel’s propulsion systems. Until they could do that, the Canberra would only sit there where she floated.

The Marine commander shook his head. He had read of so-called “Q-ships” back in World War II. They were enemy vessels disguised as merchant ships to try to lure surface warships and submarines into range. Then they would remove tarps or other coverings to reveal a deadly complement of guns and launch a surprise assault. Readly was convinced he had seen his first Q-ship that night.

He hurried below decks and found Louise Gadliano in her cabin. His corpsman was still bandaging a particularly nasty laceration across her forehead. He had already splinted her broken arm and treated a leg wound.

“Looks like you had a bad night at the skating rink. How you doing, Louise?” the Marine asked as he stepped into her small cabin.

“I’ve had better days,” the LCS’s skipper answered, still managing a smile. “Question is, how’s my ship?”

“Your crew is bringing her back best they can. The XO expects to have main propulsion back online in a couple of hours. Your weapons systems are out of commission. Your comms and electronic warfare systems all got shredded. We have limited comms back to the Portland on my team’s comms package. I asked your XO to give me a list of all the things he needs. We’ll see what they can fly out from Pago Pago in the morning.”

“Could have been worse,” she responded. “Casualties? Any update?”

“Could have been worse there, too. Several broken bones. They’ll be out of commission for a while. Lots of scrapes and cuts. But no KIA.”

Gadliano closed her eyes and let out a long sigh of relief.

Just then, Sergeant Major Ramirez stuck his head in the cabin door. “Excuse me, boss, but we got a problem. Those damn Tongan gunboats are getting uppity, screwing around out there a little too close for my comfort.”

Readly followed his sergeant out to the flight deck. He could easily see the three gunboats circling, as if they were taunting them. They had now moved their antics in to less than five hundred yards, clearly aware the littoral vessel was virtually toothless. As Readly watched, someone stepped out of the pilothouse of one of the boats. The man raised a loud hailer to his lips.

“On the American warship. Stand by to be boarded. You are in violation of Tongan sovereignty and are being placed under arrest. Your ship is being impounded.”

Readly cupped his hands in front of his mouth and was about to yell across the open water for the speaker to perform an anatomically impossible sexual act. One of the ship’s crew handed him a loud hailer. That gave the Marine an opportunity to reconsider what he was about to say.

“Go…to…hell!” was his significantly toned-down response.

Within five seconds, the patrol boat opened fire with its machine gun, spraying at the helo deck. Readly and Ramirez had already dived for cover. Within another few seconds, the other two boats also began shooting. That meant that the LCS was being attacked from three different vectors.

The Marines’ fifty caliber M2A1s quickly answered, concentrating fire at the closest boat. Several other members of Readly’s squad had sprawled on the deck and were firing with their M4 carbines.

Readly signaled his TOW crew and got their attention. He pointed at the lead patrol boat. Almost immediately, a missile jumped from the launch tube and lanced across the open water, pounding into the side of the patrol boat amidship. The resulting explosion left little more than a burning pile of debris. And that was quickly sinking below the surface.

The other two boats suddenly lost all interest in the fight or defending the sovereignty of their tiny nation. They spun about and headed for the horizon at full throttle.

Readly and Ramirez got to their feet and dusted themselves off as they watched the gunboats disappear into the night.

“So much for being defenseless,” Ramirez said. “We’d better get a couple of teams over on those other two ships before they get any more ideas. Would be nice if we had some more firepower, though.”

Readly nodded his agreement.

“Take a couple of RHIBs and head on over to that container ship. Take control of the son of a bitch. Arrest the