Fiction Friday: A Slice of Mike

I love to write about a place that doesn't exist. Well sort of. You see, 1985 did exist, but not as I write about it. Not as the year that birthed the Third World War. Here's a little something that just came to mind. By the way, I served on the USS Lawrence.

One

“Vampires! Vampires!”

The words jerked Lieutenant Junior Grade Andrew Little’s attention to the phone talker seated in front of the AN/SPS-39 air search radar display.  His shoulders were hunched over the glowing green scope, the back of his white t-shirt turned rosy by the night lighting in the combat information center of the USS Lawrence DDG-4.  Vampires were serious shit, Lieutenant Little knew that. These were not the bloodsuckers rumored to be running amuck in Europe, but something much faster, much more deadly. Vampire was U.S. Naval terminology for hostile cruise missiles

“I have multiple vampires bearing zero-one-zero, range four-zero miles, estimated time to impact three minutes.”

Another phone talker marked the vampires on the transparent Plexiglas that ran from deck to overhead in the guided missile destroyer’s combat information center. The other operations specialists, or OS, ratings manning continued with their job—plotting the ships track on the maneuvering board, monitoring the AN/SPS-10 surface search radar, manning the sound-powered phones connected to the bridge, and the myriad of other tasks

associated with running a modern guided missile destroyer’s combat information center in Condition Three, or wartime steaming. There was no trace of panic, or alarm, months ago, despite their training, that might have been the case, but the USS Lawrence, Lieutenant Little, and its crew were fours months into the war to end all wars, and two months past the supposed nuclear apocalypse. Little reached over his head and depressed the flipper on the grey squawk box mounted on the bulkhead over his head.

“Bridge, CIC. Multiple Vampires inbound. Bearing zero-one-zero. Recommend Condition One.”  

Little knew the Captain, a slight man with a big heart, Commander David Brown, sat in his chair on the bridge. He wouldn’t question Little’s judgment. There wasn’t the time for that. He would merely order the Officer of the Deck to make it so. And so he did.

“Lieutenant, we have a lock on the closest vampire,” Gunner’s Mate Perkins reported, an edge of excitement in his voice. “Request permission to engage.”

Gong. Gong. Gong. The alarm echoed as the as the 21 MC, the ship’s announcement system, cracked to life. “General quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations. Set condition zebra throughout the ship.” Little heard the muffled thudding of feet, the slamming of hatches that singled the setting of zebra, or the compartmentalization of the ship to protect against flooding, and then the Captain entered CIC.

“What have we got, Drew?”

In peace time the first sailor to see Commander Brown would have alerted the CIC team with the words, “Captain’s in Combat,” but the Captain had long ago nixed that formality.

He stood beside Little now, looking over the AN/SPS-39 operator at the scope. “Multiple vampires, bearing zero-one-zero, sir. Fire control has a lock on the first two, requesting permission to engage.” Without hesitation the Captain replied.

“Take them out, Andy.”

Simultaneously, the two officers turned to face Petty Officer Perkins. “Perkins, designate and engage targets sequentially, closest first. “

‘The Petty Officer nodded, responding “Aye, Sir,” without turning from his scope. He muttered into the mouthpiece of his sound-powered phones, there was a two-second delay, and then the ship shuddered, twice, as the first pair of SM-1 anti-missile missiles shot from the Mark 11 launcher’s rails.

Two

Sergeant Mike Hudson threw himself to the concrete, expecting the worse. You didn’t live through the first four months of the third war to end all wars without expecting the worse, and you don’t last five minutes of the war to end all wars without forming a close, personal relationship with concrete, mud, asphalt and any other substance you find beneath your boots.

The explosions echoed loudly across the piers of Port Palm Beach. It wasn’t a large port, never meant to accommodate a fleet of troopships. On the other hand, it wasn’t a large fleet. Two concrete piers jutted from the bustle of port buildings into a wide-mouthed harbor, beyond the harbor the ocean glistened in the afternoon sun. Two warships rode that glistening.  

Around Hudson lay the men of his decimated platoon, each of them hugging their own piece pier. Hudson waited a second, maybe two, and when his personal piece of concrete didn’t disintegrate, he lifted his head.

Boom. Boom. Two more explosions, but this time Hudson could tell they came from the ocean. He looked. A second pair of missiles shot away from the warship with 4 painted on its bow. Higher up white contrails streaked across the pale blue Florida sky, headed south.  The sailors on the transport had told him the number 4 was the USS Lawrence. Another destroyer, he thought it was the one called Spruance, fired and its missiles lifted into the pale blue sky. 

Hudson didn’t know what the destroyers were shooting at, but he knew it couldn’t be good news. Jumping to his feet, he yelled at the questioning faces on the concrete. “Get up! Get off your ass. Follow me.”

They didn’t hesitate; they had seen hesitation kill.

Hudson checked to make sure his men were up and running, waving them by. Along the pier, other NCOs did the same thing. Hudson could tell by the questioning look in their faces that none of them knew what was happening, but they knew that they were vulnerable. The two large troop ships that flanked the pier, the same ships that had brought them from Bremerhaven to Port Palm Beach, would afford little protection, but at the pier’s foot were buildings and those buildings might just shield his men. Gongs sounded on the flanking troop ships. On their decks sailor’s scurried. The ocean breeze, light on his skin, reeked of diesel oil and rotting fish.

The last soldier sprinted by and Hudson followed, his combat boots crunching against the sand on the pier. Ahead of him were the backs of a crowd of soldiers, most carrying their M-16s at port arms, one tall muscular man jogged with an M60 machine gun on his shoulder, ammo can in the other hand, beside him a skinny kid struggled with a another pair of ammo cans.

Hudson pulled alongside, and looked over at the thin soldier. Hudson held out his hand. “Give me one.”

The boy nodded his thanks and handed one of the heavy cans to Hudson. They cleared the side of the troop ship, almost at the foot of the pier, and Hudson had a better view of the ocean. Officers and NCOs shouted at the men, to get into the warehouse at the end of the pier. Hudson waited, not sure, but feeling the danger didn’t concern the troops running to the warehouse, and he was right.

The first pair of contrails, he knew they were missiles now, dove toward the ocean as he watched, and then he saw the contrails' tip. Missiles. Tree-sized missiles screaming in low on the water. He counted eight, skimming the waves, propelled by jets of flame toward the two Navy destroyers that had been the troop transports escorts on the voyage across the Atlantic.

Strange how a memory works. The briefing by the ship’s intelligence officer, a chubby ensign with acne problems, popped into Hudson’s brain. He remembered the missiles fired by the two U.S. Navy destroyers were SM-1s, short for Standard Missiles, and he also remembered the officer repeating that the major threat the ships would face from the tiny Cuban Navy were SS-N-2 Styx surface to surface missiles. He had no idea that he would witness the two types of missiles in action.

The first two Standard Missiles dove on the pack of Styx, both Standards detonating in a bright, yet surprisingly small, flashes, destroying two of the deadly Styx, their remnants churning the ocean as the impacted the glassy sea at well over 600 miles per hour. That left four streaking toward the destroyers. The Spruance’s first missiles hit, one destroying a Styx, the other, unable to pick out its target so close to the water, dove harmlessly into the sea. The next two, this would be the second set from the Lawrence, Hudson guessed, fared the same, leaving four of the deadly cruise missiles bearing down on the gray destroyers. Close now. It was difficult to judge range. They were moving so fast. Perhaps no more than a mile? Seconds from impact. A final pair of missiles spiraled into the sea with no result. Hudson glanced at the warehouse behind him. A few other stragglers had stopped to watch, aware now that they were not the missile’s target.

A throaty ripping howl, not unlike tearing paper, magnified many times over, emanated from the Spruance. A wisp of smoke rose from the R2D2-like close in weapons system. Other Styx crashed into the ocean.

“Come on, man,” Hudson, whispered as if his words could help the ship.

Chaff mortars boomed from the rear of both ships, R2D2 spoke again, claiming another Styx, and then the destroyers were out of time. The chaff did no good and first one, and then the other, Styx burrowed into the side of the Spruance. First came the billowing orange cloud, and then a second later the twin explosions. As bright as the sun, blinding Hudson as they birthed a second sun.

Mark H. Walker served 23 years in the United States Navy, most of them as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal diver. He is the owner of Flying Pig Games, the designer of the aliens-invade-Earth game Night of Man, the author of Desert Moon, an exciting mecha, military science fiction novel with a twist, with plenty of damn science fiction in it despite what any reviewer says, as well as World at War: Revelation, a creepy, military action, with a love story, alternate history, World War Three novel thing, Everyone Dies in the End, and numerous short stories. All the books and stories are available from Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing right here. Give them a try. I mean, what the hell? The games? Well that's Flying Pig Games. Retribution will release in the summer of 2015.