R. A. Heinlein

by totallynotabrony

Rating: teen
Tags: Comedy, Cutie Mark Crusaders, Other, Adventure, Human, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe
Length: 45949

Caught in the middle of a Korean conflict turned hot is a pony named Sail Canvas, his fiancé, and a rag-tag crew of humans. They have a ship named after a science fiction author and a letter of marque. The North Koreans won't know what

Caught in the middle of a Korean conflict turned hot is a pony named Sail Canvas, his fiancé, and a rag-tag crew of humans.

They have a ship named after a science fiction author and a letter of marque. The North Koreans won't know what hit them.

Published 2013-02-05 12:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2013-02-05 12:50:01 UTC

Chapter 1

R.A. Heinlein
Fourth in the Sail Canvas Quadrilogy

Calls in the middle of the night are never good news, especially if they reach you through a secure communication link out to sea. I heard the portable radio on the bedside table in my stateroom buzz and picked it up. There was a moment’s pause as the feed was linked through various places. Then, I found myself speaking to Carl Hanley of the Central Intelligence Agency.

“What’s up?” I asked.

Based on his tone, I probably infuriated him with my casual attitude. “What’s up? The North Koreans decided to kick off a full-scale war by detonating nuclear weapons!”

I jerked upright. There was a lot I could have said, but managed to contain my inner smartass. “What do you need me to do?”

“Get headed in that direction. I’ll get you further details when I can.” His signal was terminated, but the line was still active.

Andy Newhart, the operator who had passed the call from the communications center to my radio, came on. “Sail, what are we going to do?”

“You know the drill. What the CIA says goes.”

Andy said he would get things taken care of. Within a few seconds, I heard the ship’s engines pick up a few RPM.

I lay back, listening to the waves slide along the hull. A set of fingers slid along my mane and touched my feathers. I turned my head to see Nika Ivanova looking at me with a concerned expression. “That sounded serious.”

Her voice carried a slight Russian accent. I had met her almost a year previously, in the early summer of 2016. It was a very unconventional relationship we had, woman and stallion, but out here on the ship there was very little public to please.

“Well, I imagine a Korean War—with nukes—is pretty serious.” I had seen some very serious things in my time working freelance for the CIA, the U.S. Navy, and occasionally even Equestria.

“Did Hanley say how they were used?” Nika had just as much experience as I, even in the brief time we’d been running this crazy spec ops business.

“No. I imagine we’ll hear soon.” I got out of bed, somewhat reluctant to leave her touch, but decided I should go assess the situation. I flew down the passageway because it was little faster than walking. My trip ended in the Combat Information Center, located near the center of the ship. Andy was there.

He was an old friend of mine, one of the first human friends I had. Growing up on Earth is a little difficult when you’re one of the only kids in school with hooves. We’d gone our separate ways later in life, Andy spending time as a college language professor before joining us on the ship.

My parents had started a shipbuilding company on the Earth side of the dimensional doorways. I was born in Virginia, and therefore automatically a US citizen. I inherited the company after they passed away. Then the CIA got involved and things got nuts in a hurry.

Andy looked up as I came in and pointed to a few of the various computer displays that were arranged around the room. “This might be more serious than we thought.”

I looked at the information on display, my mouth hardening into a thin line. This was worse than I could have imagined.

Within a few hours, the whole world knew what had happened. Two nuclear devices had been detonated. One was in the harbor of Yokosuka, Japan. The United States Navy’s Seventh Fleet had been in port at the time. A few smaller ships were capsized, and nearly all sustained some kind of damage. It would take a while to get an accurate death toll.

The other bomb had gone off west of Hawaii as an aircraft carrier battle group was clearing port. The damage was surprisingly light, but repairs would still be required before the ships were fully operational again.

Now, the nearest naval force was a carrier battle group that was currently deployed in the Middle East and whatever ships could be hastily put to sea from the west coast of the United States.

There was not yet any definitive proof as to the owners of the nukes, but since North Korea had launched a massive land attack on the South almost simultaneously with the detonations, certain assumptions were made. Without the US Navy to provide support and firepower, the ground troops helping out the South Koreans would have a much more difficult time of it. Worse, with two nuclear weapons already set off, it was hard not to wonder how many more the North might have.

The governments of the United States and the rest of NATO and the UN were scrambling to decide how to react. Some countries were firmly against any kind of involvement. Most of NATO was ready to help out, however. Unfortunately, nearly all of their forces were on the other side of the world.

We had been positioned in the Philippines, a relatively short jaunt from Korea. Later, when Hanley got back to us, I was called to the CIC for a video conference.

Hawker Hurricane was on deck when I arrived. She was British, a former porn actress, and married to Andy. She was also a whiz at electronics, and covered the CIC when he wasn’t there.

While she was setting up the conference, a pegasus mare named Penny came in. We’d picked her up the previous year, partly because she was an orphan, but also because she was a heck of a sailor. Her cutie mark designated a special talent with finances, which we unfortunately didn't find much use for on the ocean.

She stood by while Hawker turned on the video chat. I sat down in front of the camera. On the screen, I was surprised to see Carl Hanley with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. CJCS was the top military position in the country. The two of them looked at me. I glanced quickly at the small check monitor to make sure I was presentable. Yes, silver mane straight. Sea-green feathers aligned.

“We’ve never put you in an active combat role before,” began Hanley. I knew instantly I wasn’t going to like what he had to say.

“I’m sure you’ve heard that the Navy has taken a major hit,” he went on.

The Chairman broke in. “We don’t have time for this. Mr. Canvas, you’ve got a warship; we’d like to hire you.”

“What, one ship versus the entire North Korean Navy?” I asked.

“Canvas,” said Hanley, “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about you it’s that you show a remarkable proficiency for saving your own skin. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“All right,” I said. I thought for a moment. “Isn’t it traditional to issue a privateer a Letter of Marque?”

Hanley and the Chairman looked at each other. The current Chairman was not a Navy man, and it took him a moment to get the reference. He shrugged. “Under these special circumstances, I think I can get Congress and the President to approve it.”

“Great,” I said. “Now let’s discuss payment.”

“What do you mean?” asked Hanley.

“Since you’re coming to me instead of the other way around, there should be some conditions set. In this day and age, it’s impossible to run a ship without a steady flow of money. I can’t perform my duty to the United States if I can’t keep my vessel going.”

“What kind of money are you asking for?” said Hanley warily.

“How about this,” suggested Penny, breaking in. “Operating expenses, plus a bonus of a dollar per pound.”

“A dollar per pound?” said the Chairman.

“Right. For every pound of North Korean property we destroy, you pay us one dollar. A five thousand pound truck is worth five thousand dollars. A five hundred ton ship is worth a million.”

“Are you trying to screw with us?” shouted Hanley, finally losing his patience. The Chairman grabbed his arm.

“Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s cheaper than the military could do it,” he said. “I’ll get the plans drawn up and talk to the Secretary of Defence. Is there anything else we can do for you?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Get me some weapons.”

The South Korean port we pulled into was far from the DMZ, but it was still a madhouse. There was activity all over, and everything they were doing seemed to play at least some part in fighting a war.

Technically, the two Koreas had been at war since 1950, having only been under a cease-fire until recently. The civilian South Koreans might not be fighting for their lives just yet, but it was plain to see that they were thinking about it.

There was a small ship maintenance facility approved by the Navy to carry out modifications to our vessel. Missiles provided to us came in the form of a pair of Armored Box Launchers that had been hastily stripped off the USS Missouri battleship museum in Pearl Harbor and flown to South Korea. They had been placed inside open-top shipping containers and covered with tarps.

Each launcher opened like a clamshell to reveal four Tomahawk missiles. They had been designed for attacking land or ship targets, and could carry a thousand pound warhead or submunitions for more than a thousand miles. I was very glad to get them.

The launchers were old, but had been reasonably maintained by the museum. A control interface system for the missiles had been found somewhere and set up in our CIC. I hated to let the shipyard drill holes in my ship, but the wiring had to be run.

That was not to say the ship didn’t have plenty of weapons to begin with. My legitimate business that I hid my special activities behind was a military shipbuilding company. Between that and money from various government sources, the vessel we based our work aboard was much more than met the eye.

It was named R.A. Heinlein, after a man who really hated Communists. It was previously named Traveler, because we periodically liked to change things up to keep bad guys guessing. It was an even 470 feet long and 50 feet wide. Despite looking like a cargo ship, the dimensions had a little narrower length/width ratio than many cargo ships. The superstructure was positioned aft of midships, with one cargo hold behind it and three ahead. The bow and stern were somewhat more tapered than a usual cargo vessel, which decreased the drag of going through the water but reduced the space for carrying goods. There was a crane on the stern that could service the aft cargo hold or swing out over the stern of the ship. Ahead of the superstructure, a gantry crane was mounted on rails so it could move and take care of all three forward holds. They were numbered one through four, fore to aft.

All in all, it looked like a regular cargo ship that had grandparents consisting of a research vessel and a speedboat. I had had a fake company website set up to extol all the drawbacks as actual virtues, so anyone who thought the ship looked strange would just chalk it up to an eccentric business model.

While not published to the false company website, the propulsion system was also unusual. It was powered by four turbine generators positioned around the ship to aid in balance and damage control. They sent electrical power anywhere it was needed, mainly to two azimuth thrusters mounted beneath the stern. They used propellers to move the ship, and they could swivel in a 360 degree circle to direct thrust however it was needed. It increased the ship’s agility and acceleration by a lot.

All strangeness aside, what really counted was hidden. The holds all had domed covers, and concealed within the number one and number four holds were weapons that would shame a frigate.

Each hold contained one 5”/54 naval gun. Number four also had a Rolling Airframe Missile launcher and a set of Harpoon missile launchers, while number one used a Mk 29 box launcher. All the weapons were mounted on platforms at the top of the hold to position them at the level of the deck, leaving the bottom of the hold occupied with the guns’ magazines and whatever we could fit.

The containers with the ABLs inside them were placed against the front side of the bridge. When we stripped off the tarps and elevated the launchers to firing position, they would point the missiles to either side of the ship. If firing four missiles in one direction wasn’t enough, we could turn the ship around and fire the other four.

Tomahawk missiles had already been loaded inside the launchers when they arrived. That was against all kinds of safety regulations, but a few rules could be broken during war.

A Navy Commander who was in charge of the work approached me as the fitting of the ABLs neared completion.

“Mr. Canvas, I have a few things for you. One, here is your Letter of Marque.” He handed me an envelope. Inside was a plain sheet of paper, authorizing Heinlein to be used in attacks on North Korean property. It was signed by the President of the United States.

“As I understand it,” he said, “this is the first such letter the United States has issued since 1815. You’ll notice, however, that this does not grant you the full privileges of a privateer.” He smiled faintly. “That would technically be a war crime according to the Paris Declaration of 1856.”

The Commander turned more serious and his voice dropped a level. “I also need to tell you that you will be carrying nuclear weapons.”

Surprised, I demanded, “What are you talking about?”

“The number two and number three tubes on the port side launcher that was just installed contain Tomahawks that are equipped with nuclear warheads. Just in case.”

“I’m flattered that you trust me with things like that, but I’d rather have regular ones. This is stupid.”

He shrugged. “Orders from the top. I suppose the North Koreans using them made people nervous. Don't worry, you won't be able to fire them without special permission anyway. Just be careful with those things.”

Surprised and not at all pleased, I watched as the technicians finished all of the major installation and left the boat. There were a few loose ends to tie up and some bolts to tighten, but we could do those underway. I wanted to get out to sea as soon as possible. If we had to fight a war, we might as well get it started in order to get it over with.

Since we were about to embark on our first war patrol, I decided to have a crew meeting. Shep and Jeff, our helicopter pilot and mechanic respectively, were there, as well as Jones, our resident CIA agent.

The eight of us made up a relatively small crew with an extreme variety of backgrounds. Jones, for example, had dropped out of medical school to be a secret agent. She was reasonably good at either job, really. Most of her CIA duty was keeping an eye on us, but she wasn’t above taking kickbacks for the jobs we did.

Shep was the old man of the crew, and had a skilled touch on the controls on his aircraft. Jeff had worked with him before they joined up with us, and both were former Navy.

“All right everyone,” I said, “this is fundamentally different from anything we’ve ever done before. We’re going to have to be as alert as possible because there are people out there who are actively trying to kill us.”

“How is that any different than normal?” asked Jones. There were a few laughs. I was glad to see we hadn’t fallen into a doom and gloom outlook just yet.

“We’re really not that suited to continued 24/7 operations. We don’t have enough crew. That also means that we don’t have the manpower necessary for real damage control, so we can’t afford to take unnecessary risks. Just remember, we’re getting paid either way.”

“The Navy could give us some people,” offered Shep.

“Not a bad idea, but I don’t know if they can spare any at the moment. Might be worth following up on.”

“Mr. Hanley sent me the CIA dossier on the North Korean navy,” Hawker said, holding up a thick folder. “This would probably be a good thing to study.”

“Other things that could happen,” I said, checking off on my hooves, “Attacks from shore guns and missiles, attacks from the air, mechanical failures, illness, and accidents. Those last three are preventable, so maintain stuff, wash your hands, and be careful.”

I looked around. “Anything else?”

Nobody said anything, so I figured the meeting was over. It was just as well. I’m terrible at motivational speeches.

We headed out to sea. When you’re one ship versus a fleet, the ocean can seem very lonely.

Chapter 2

Before leaving South Korea, we grabbed Shep’s helicopter and stowed it aboard. The number two hold had a platform similar to numbers one and four, except it was outfitted as a hangar rather than a weapons station. The domed hold cover kept the helo concealed and out of the weather.

The North Korean Navy was largely composed of aging Soviet and Chinese ships. None could match our level of technology, but that didn’t make them any less dangerous.

I tried to form a battle plan in my mind. Should we give them a chance to surrender first? They probably wouldn’t take it. I wouldn’t if I were in their shoes.

The opposite end of that spectrum was a surprise attack from maximum range. Given how far our weapons could travel, we would need a lot of verification to confirm it was actually a North Korean ship before firing.

We might be able to create a lot of chaos by attacking shore targets. Unfortunately, we only had the six Tomahawks that we could actually fire. We could use the guns, but that required us to be much, much closer to land. That exposed us to return fire and limited our maneuvering ability.

As we cleared port, a call came in on the radio from a South Korean frigate that had discovered a submarine not more than two miles from our position. It was a bit of a wakeup call, as no one had suspected that the North Koreans would be able to slip a sub so close to a major shipping port so early in the conflict.

Luckily, the submarine was unable to put up much of a fight once pinned down and we were able to get by without incident. The South Korean ship reported killing the sub a short while later.

I went up to the bow to place the jack flag. It was the historical design with horizontal red and white stripes and a picture of a rattlesnake. While a jack was really only supposed to be used while in port, it looked too badass to waste. I thought that the caption, “Don’t tread on me” was exactly the image we wanted to project.

The stern of the ship flew the stars and stripes. We had various registrations and flags aboard, but the rules of war dictated that couldn’t use that kind of subversion.

We headed up the west side of the Korean Peninsula. The coastline wasn’t very uniform. If we tried to hug the beach, we'd be constantly swerving back and forth. We decided instead to hang out to sea and observe. We were running without radar so it would be harder to pick us up. The downside was that we couldn’t see what lay beyond the horizon and would have to rely on information supplied to us.

Andy was trying to get a deal set up with the Naval Reconnaissance Office to get us real-time satellite support. That would allow seeing the ocean around us without using the radar. It was high-demand technology, but it’s not like any other ships were around at the moment to use it.

The CIC had two workstations that controlled the radar, weapons, navigation, damage control, and our unfortunately primitive sonar. It was also internet-connected so Andy and Hawker use it for gaming. Now that we were running low-profile, all emissions off the ship, including internet, had been temporarily shut down.

The rest of the ship hadn’t suffered any due to the electronic blackout. Well, maybe the wireless internet in the crew cabins, but that was about it.

Below decks, Jeff had his four turbines to operate although they were so new and smooth-running they probably didn’t need supervision. The ship’s electrical system could automatically switch power between the generators and whatever needed the electricity they produced.

Shep’s helicopter was an old Huey that had been owned personally by him before he was hired to the company. It was mostly for utility airlift work, but we’d gotten our hands on a pair of M240 machine guns that could be mounted to it. When we had no reason for him to fly, he filled in as a regular crew member.

Jones spent most of her time in the CIC waiting for something to happen. There were a few secure communications radios that would from time to time bring us some news. We didn’t transmit back, because even if it was encrypted and the message couldn’t be deciphered the signal might still be noticed and used to find us.

To keep everyone alert, we had begun standing four-hour watches. Four hours on, four hours off. This left us with only half the crew on duty at any given time, but it was the closest thing to sustainable shifts we could do.

The night after the submarine incident, it started to rain. Some kind of weather system was moving across the East China Sea and picking up strength. It couldn’t reach the full potential of a mid-ocean storm, but the weather report said it was going to be big.

The weather was a two-edged sword. It would help us stay hidden, but it would also hurt our own ability to spot enemies. Luckily, we knew where they would all be.

We had received a tip about a North Korean convoy that was massing up to resupply their fighting units. They would be using a coastal road. Andy had managed to get the satellite link set, and we would be able to tap into it. The only problem was, we didn’t know a good place to catch them, or exactly when they would be there.

Going over some of the data supplied to us, I picked a spot that appeared to have low population. There was a radar site a short ways down the coast that for some reason wasn’t operating. Either it had been hit early on or had simply been turned off, I didn’t know.

The satellite that had been loaned to us was in a longitudinal orbit. This traced a vertical track between the poles. At the moment, it was on the other side of the Earth, but it should be in position by the time we needed it.

We slid up to the coast. Fifteen miles out, I ordered the number one and number four hold covers opened to unmask the weapons. The rain continued hard enough that I couldn’t actually see if they were open. The indicator lights on the controls were all I had to go by.

At the moment, we were proceeding by dead-reckoning and inertial guidance. GPS used signals broadcast to satellites, and we couldn’t afford to be detected by anything at the moment. Our passive electronic sensors did pick up the beams of a coastal radar further up the shore, but it was too far away to concern us.

Running around without radar in the middle of a storm was a sure recipe for a collision. There might be a small boat out there that we couldn’t see. I’d pulled Jeff from below decks to help us scan the outside. Even with night vision and thermal sensors, the rain limited the distance we could see.

Andy got on the intercom. “We’re four miles out,” he said. “The satellite is coming up now.” That was much closer to shore than I was comfortable, but the terrible weather would help hide us. We’d already decided to use guns for this and save the Tomahawks for another time. One missile was preprogrammed with the coordinates of the quiet radar site, just in case.

Far above the Earth, the recon satellite had passed the north pole and was starting on its way back towards the south. It wasn’t directly overhead of Korea, instead looking down from a low angle. The picture would get better until it was directly overhead and then it would fade again until the satellite disappeared around the other side of the world.

Andy shouted, “We’re going to be late! They’re already here!”

The supply convoy had started sooner than expected and by the time the satellite had appeared, we had nearly missed our window. At the helm, I shoved the speed control up to full.

Another reason for getting so close was that we didn’t have confidence in our aim. The guns had not been designed for what we were trying to do, and other than a few practice shots here and there they hadn’t been perfectly calibrated.

We drove towards the coast at a forty five degree angle to maximize closing speed and also try to keep us ahead of the convoy. From the satellite feed that Andy beamed to the screen on the bridge, it looked like a dozen or so trucks.

The fore gun fired at three miles. The shell was packed with high explosive and it slammed into the beach, short of the road by a quarter of a mile.

The aft gun fired, sending the next shell two hundred yards past the road and just behind the convoy. By now, the North Koreans knew they were being shot at and the vehicles sped up, driving erratically.

The muzzle flash of the guns was not bad at all considering their size. Through the storm, it probably could not even be seen from shore.

The sixth shot finally found the range and bit off the last three trucks in the convoy. It appeared to land directly on one of them, and the resulting fireball consumed the next two before they could stop.

“Oh yeah!” shouted Andy, loud enough to hear even without the intercom.

The rest of the convoy had to be taken care of quickly. Each gun only carried twenty shells in its magazine, and it needed a crew to keep it loaded for continuous operation, once again something we couldn’t do with our present manpower.

The next two shots were misses, and then one slammed down on the road in front of the convoy. The lead truck skidded and fell into the crater. The rest stopped and tried to turn around.

Just then, the dormant coastal radar kicked on and it was so close that there was no way they didn’t have a return off of us. I had no idea if it was connected to weapons or not, but we were lit up like a Christmas tree for anyone to observe.

I threw the wheel hard over than the ship rotated, pointing back out to sea. “Kill that thing,” I shouted at Andy. “Port side, Tomahawk.” We hadn’t completed our turn yet, and the radar was closest to that side. Demonstrating his ability to multitask, Andy kept the aft gun firing as the ship swung around.

Without hesitating, I transferred control to Jeff and made for the stairs. He grabbed my shoulder.

“Hearing protection,” he said, giving me a pair of earmuffs. Despite still hearing steady gunfire, I had forgotten all about it. Out on the deck it would be deafening.

I went down the stairs from the bridge to the deck and dashed out into the rain. I had no doubt that the box launcher could stillopen with the covering tarp in place and I didn’t think scraps of tarp would affect the missile, but better safe than sorry.

I had just gotten the tarp peeled back when the launcher began to open. There was going to be a lot of smoke and fire, so I flew back inside and went up to the bridge. The seal on the missile tube broke open and the Tomahawk shot out on a column of fire. The booster burned out and the missile’s turbofan engine activated.

The radar operators must have seen the missile launch because they shut down. The Tomahawk was GPS guided and didn’t care. It had enough fuel to go quite a distance, but the radar site was only about eleven miles away. When the missile impacted, all the unburned fuel added to the conflagration.

We ran hard to the west for close to an hour. Other radar sites in the area were turning on, but most had only faint signals. I was still soaking wet, but helped reload the guns because there was a chance we might need them again soon.

Everyone who had been sleeping had awakened by the gunfire. We all gathered to watch the replay of the satellite footage. Every single truck in the convoy had been disabled, and fires still burned among the wreckage of the radar site. Our first raid had been a solid success.

We didn’t immediately get the chance to press our advantage. The Navy asked us to move south for escort duty. I didn’t mind a bit, because it seemed less dangerous than actively looking for trouble, and because I got them to agree to pay us a daily rate.

There was a problem, though. We had to get to friendly waters. On the west coast of the Korean Peninsula, there are several islands that were considered South Korean property, despite lying above the 38th parallel. We’d ducked inside North Korean waters for our attack and now were heading south as close to the islands as possible. There hadn’t yet been a North Korean offensive to land troops there yet, but it seemed like they would try soon. This was not lost on the South, and we passed more than a few warships.

We kept to the shallows trying to stay in places where submarines couldn’t go. Subs were probably our biggest threat. According to the information that we had, worse case would be a Sang-O class loaded with Russian-made 53-65 torpedoes. The Sang-Os themselves weren’t very impressive, but they were small enough to slip into fairly shallow water, and the weapons they carried were very difficult to fool.

Back in reasonably safe territory we rendezvoused with USNS Observation Island. It was a naval auxiliary ship operated jointly by the Air Force, Navy and various intelligence agencies to track missile tests, both ours and other countries’. It was not a great ship to take into battle. It had been built in the 1950s and was painted bright white with a blue and gold band around the funnel that denoted that it belonged to the Naval Reserve. I had once read that on a dollar per ton basis, it was the most expensive non-combat vessel operated by the Naval Auxiliary. It didn’t carry any defensive weapons, but it had something we needed.

On the aft deck sat the enormous AN/SPQ-11 “Cobra Judy” radar array. It was twenty two feet in diameter and mounted on a turret so that it could be turned to point in any direction. It was the only one that had ever been built, and it was worth close to a billion dollars.

While Observation Island had been due for replacement a few years ago, for some reason she had been kept around. The crew and technicians aboard seemed skeptical of our capabilities. I couldn’t really blame them. I would have liked to have been escorted by a whole fleet too, but that wasn’t going to happen. We had been promised the help of one South Korean corvette, but it wouldn’t arrive until the next day. There might be some other friendly units out there, but we hadn't gotten clearance to break radio silence to contact them. Until then, we would just have to make it work.

We ventured north again, leading the radar ship. It couldn’t make the same headway as Heinlein, and we had to slow down. On deck, I noticed a camera crew that didn’t appear to be wearing the standard uniform. I wondered if they were civilians and why they were there.

Night was falling before we got near our destination. It had taken a little time to put together a strike plan for getting directly at the capital of North Korea, Pyongyang, but now it was ready. We would screen Observation Island while the powerful radar did its thing. Its purpose that night was to create a distraction so a wing of Air Force strike fighters could hit Pyongyang.

The exact details on Cobra Judy were classified, but it was reasonable to assume that it produced several million watts of power. Its big brother, Cobra Dane, located at a ground facility in the Aleutians, was said to be able to detect a basketball at distance of two thousand miles.

If we could get reasonably close to the large bay at the mouth of the Taedong River, we would be less than fifty miles from Pyongyang. The blast of radio waves would get the attention of every radar and signals installation in the area. There was even a chance of damaging some of the delicate components by overloading them with input. At the very least, it would occupy so much bandwidth to effectively jam most of their systems. Cobra Judy had a high-powered surprise for the North Koreans.

It was here that we received word of backup. Help was on the way, and we watched expectantly. Out of the night came a sleek grey warship. I thought for a moment that it might be an old Spruance-class destroyer, but suddenly realized its true identity. It was TMS Ponyville, the Earth-based cruiser of the Equestrian Navy.

"Sorry we aren't authorized to stay long," came the Commanding Officer's voice over the radio. "We were told that there was an Equestrian citizen somewhere around here and that she needed protection."

I glanced at Penny, who looked somewhat bewildered. While I had heard that Princess Celestia was reluctant to engage in the Korean conflict, citing political unpopularity in her country, a protection mission was perfectly fine. Granted, one citizen of Equestria purposely going with a mixed-nationality crew into a hostile zone just barely qualified, but Celestia was good enough at the chess game of politics to pull it off. I was glad.

Ponyville formed up with us to escort the radar ship. The costal radars around the mouth of the river were not operating. They must have been easier targets than Pyongyang. We stealthily slipped into the bay, and it seemed that our luck was going to hold. No lights showed on shore, and there were no enemy ships.

The operation was coordinated by the clock. At a certain time, the radar would come on, and a flight of F-16 fighters would pass overhead on their way to the target. I waited, counting down the seconds.

Heinlein and Ponyville were positioned to seaward of Observation Island so we weren’t getting blasted with the radar. As the time approached, the deck crews went indoors because when Cobra Judy finally came to life, the air almost shimmered with the pure power radiating from the antenna.

The radar used a phased array system that allowed operators to “steer” the beams in order to focus and aim them wherever they wanted. This allowed the beam to remain tight and low to the ground in order to disturb the North Koreans while not interfering with the Air Force planes.

It didn’t take very long before we started getting some resistance. Due to the focused beam, there was an area on either side of us that wasn’t getting saturated. Communications started to pick up.

Suddenly, a few new radars that hadn’t been there before lit up. They must have been portable sets mounted on trucks or something. They had the profile of an attack guidance radar.

Without much choice, we lit up our own tracking radar. The North Koreans had some nasty anti-ship missiles to worry about. We were less than ten miles from shore. I swung the wheel over to expose the RAM launcher. The hold covers had been open since we’d entered North Korean waters earlier.

If we’d had a satellite to use at the moment, the hostile radar and whatever it was attached to would have already been toast. As it was, we were going to have to hunt and guess with some long range gunfire.

On the low power radio link to the other two ships, I stated my intentions. There was a decent chance Cobra Judy might interfere with our defensive missile shots, but we couldn’t shut it down in the middle of the operation and back out on the strike planes.

And then—incoming. A launcher on our side of the shore had fired at us. It was probably a Soviet “Termit” missile or its Chinese derivative “Silkworm.” We could expect a high subsonic closing speed and an incredible amount of damage if it hit us.

The RAM launcher swiveled on its mount and fired. Seconds passed and there was a puff of flame several miles away. The radar showed no more enemy missile.

Just then, the guns began firing. At about the same time, a second missile was launched. RAM fired again and got another kill.

Ponyville hammered away with its own artillery. I saw a couple of flashes and rising smoke trails as Tomahawks were ripple-fired.

Seconds ticked by, feeling like ages. I was poised for another North Korean missile, but all of a sudden all the radars had gone dark and we were out of targets.

I hit the intercom button. “Shep, Jeff, get to the fore gun and begin reloading.” I turned to Nika, who was standing with me on the bridge. “You have the conn.”

She nodded. “I have the conn.” I went below decks to help reload. The missile sites had come out of nowhere, and taking them out had required a dozen or so shells from each gun. We couldn’t afford to get caught with empty magazines.

The shells were stored in an armored room below the gun. We had to manually load them into the magazine so the gun could use them. In a few minutes, we were finished with the fore gun and made our way aft to deal with the other one.

When I came back to the bridge, I saw Observation Island beginning to move. “Mission complete,” came the voice of the combat controller who had choreographed the operation from his position aboard. “Stand by to receive casualties,” he added dryly.

Nika was technically still in charge since I hadn’t relived her when I came back. She swung the wheel to maneuver Heinlein into a position better suited to the task.

Thirty two fighters had gone in. Twenty nine came back. Really not too bad considering that North Korean airspace had some of the densest air defenses on the planet. Without a complete analysis of the operation, it was hard to know what went wrong and what could have gone better, but it seemed safe to say that Cobra Judy had earned the rest of the night off.

One of the fighters had been damaged and wouldn’t make it home. I heard the pilot talking to the combat controller and planning his ditch. They selected a spot and the pilot ejected. A couple of pegasi from the embarked air unit aboard Ponyville picked him up and brought him over to us. His leg was wrenched in the ejection, but he was conscious. The pilot seemed surprised at pony rescuers, but certainly wasn’t complaining.

We got him back to the ship. When the medical team from Observation Island was ready they transferred over in a small boat.

We had a medical room aboard, and in the current situation, it seemed better not to move the pilot to the other ship. His name was Major Brinell. Jones was no doctor, but she had gone to medical school for a couple of years before joining the CIA, so she was most qualified.

I had gone down to the medical bay to meet the man. I asked him if he wanted something for the pain.

“Sure,” he replied.

“Pills or liquor?”

He seemed surprised that he had an option. Before he could answer, the Navy doctors from Observation Island started to come in. I slipped away.

There was a news team with our visitors, a camera man and a female reporter. It took me a moment to recognize them as who I’d seen on the deck of Observation Island earlier.

I stepped out into the passage before they spotted me. Andy was there.

“What’s with the camera crew?” I asked.

“They came over with the medics. I meant to stop them from going below decks, but that woman is pushy.” He shrugged. “I don’t think they’ve seen anything secret yet.”

“Well, pushy or no, they’re leaving ASAP. The last thing we need is to be on TV.”

Before the sun came up and made it easier to tie Ponyville to what had happened that night, they had to leave. The cruiser navigated close to us. Standing on the bridge wing, Penny and I raised our hooves, a gesture the equine sailors returned in a long distance hoof-bump. The ship peeled off and dissapeared into the dawn.

I went back downstairs and narrowly avoided the news crew. While they were aboard, I figured that I would have to keep a low profile. Whether or not they knew who Sail Canvas was, a pegasus with a sailboat for a cutie mark was kind of distinctive. Luckily, I had a disguise.

Through coordination with Princess Celestia of Equestria, questionable use of magic, and a promise to keep the spells secret, I had received a rather unassuming necklace that could change the wearer’s species. It was possibly a crime against nature, but it had made my relationship with Nika a lot more interesting. Better, nobody knew who “Sean Carter” was. That was the name I gave when delivering Major Brinell’s painkillers later.

“Your voice sounds familiar,” he said.

I shrugged, subtly adjusting the clothes that I was unused to wearing. I saw the news crew coming in to talk to him since the doctors had cleared out and quickly departed. We would have to get them off the ship as soon as possible.

Chapter 3

We met up with South Korean corvette ROKS Namwon the next morning. I was pleased to learn that it was equipped for anti-submarine duty. The ship fell in with our convoy heading south. If we now had a fleet, I guess that meant that I was the Commodore.

I knew how military news traveled, so we allowed Major Brinell to send an e-mail on burst transmission to his wife to head off any bad news she was about to get.

The TV crew hung around, seemingly frustrated that no one was willing to speak with them. Other than a basic interview, everyone was bound by operational security not to talk about what was going on. Other than “an electronic warfare operation,” they hadn’t even been told what Observation Island was doing while they were aboard.

I learned that the reporter’s name was Sally Townsend. She worked for CNN, which apparently had one of the best relationships with North Korea that a news network could have. She was apparently a fairly well known war correspondent, having covered Afghanistan in the past few years. She called the camera man Todd.

When we reached relatively secure waters, Observation Island changed course for safe port. Namwon and Heinlein turned around for another patrol up north.

The medical crew and Major Brinell weren’t in any particular hurry to leave, as the atmosphere was decidedly more relaxed than on the other ship. Before Shep took them back to Observation Island, I rolled a fifth of Jack Daniels up in Brinell’s flight suit to send back with him covertly.

I was on the phone to Washington when Shep departed. The Joint Chiefs were rather pleased with me, and I wanted to take full advantage. After the conversation was over, I went down to the galley to get something to eat. Todd was there, drinking coffee and reading a copy of the Navy Times.

I hadn’t been expecting him, and it was lucky I was still walking around on two legs. “Why weren’t you on the helicopter? I asked.

“Sally told me to stay put because she had a story.” He looked bored.

“Where is she?”

He shrugged. “Didn’t say. When she wants a camera, she’ll come back.”

I walked over to the intercom panel. “Ms. Townsend to the galley please.”

We waited. Todd went back to his newspaper. After five minutes, she didn’t show. Annoyed, I went to find Nika and explained that we had an unescorted civilian wandering around the ship.

She grabbed her assault rifle. A shootout was not something we needed in the passageways of our own ship, and I didn’t think it would be necessary. The chances of Sally Townsend being a saboteur were remote. I wouldn’t mind seeing Nika club her with the rifle, though.

After a few minutes, we found her inspecting the ammunition handling room below the fore gun.

She looked at me accusingly. “I thought this was a cargo ship.”

“It is.”

“What’s this?” She gestured to the loading mechanism.

“A sophisticated system that helps you mind your own business. Come on.” Nika and I began herding her back towards where we wanted her.

“Where is the cannon that’s attached to that?” Her eyes lit up in realization. “Oh! It must be under one of those domed things on deck. That’s also how you hide the helicopter.”

She may have been hard headed, but she wasn’t stupid. “You realize that all of this is a wartime secret?” I tried.

“Well, with what happened last night, they probably know you have weapons anyway.” She thought of something. “Did those missiles come from this ship?”

I said nothing, and she smiled to herself. “So is this some kind of wolf in sheep’s clothing? This would be a great story. Good for morale and public image.”

I stopped walking and fixed her with my stare to make sure she understood me. “If you try to tell anyone what you know about this ship, we’ll kill you.” I didn’t usually intend to carry through on threats like that, but I was decent at bluffing.

“Don’t give me that,” she said. “I’ve gotten threats before and I know the government doesn’t do things like that to people like me.”

Nika spoke, throwing a little crazy Russian accent into her voice for emphasis. “We are not from the government, and we don’t follow their rules.”

It took Ms. Townsend a few seconds to answer. “Fine,” she said, sounding exasperated.

We led her back to the galley. Todd was still there. I said, “As soon as the helicopter gets back, you will be leaving.”

“By the time the helicopter gets back,” Sally said, “the other ship will probably be too far away to make another trip.”

I realized that she was right. Neither our schedule or Observation Island’s allowed us to make changes to our respective routes. She was stuck with us.

I shrugged. “All right. When the helicopter gets back, I’ll have you taken over to Namwon and put in the brig. Until then, you’re going to stay here.” I opened the door to the pantry and gestured inside.

“Are you kidding me?” said Sally. Nika pulled the rifle off her back and pointed it at the reporter. After another moment, she rolled her eyes and walked in. I looked at Todd. He drained his coffee cup and walked after her. I shut the door and positioned a chair under the knob.

“That was mean,” said Nika quietly, so it couldn’t be heard through the door.

I sighed. “I know. Maybe the stress of fighting a war is getting to me.”

She kissed me on the cheek. “I understand.”

When I saw Andy later, I discussed with him the idea of setting up cameras in the passageways. Having another unauthorized person wandering around seemed unlikely, but we could also use the cameras to get a better idea of the problem if we ever took battle damage.

I also told him that we had prisoners locked up. “Hawker did a few BDSM shots. She knows her knots if you need restraints,” he said helpfully.

Hopefully that wouldn’t be necessary, but we agreed that it would be entertaining. I left him in the CIC and went up to the bridge. Penny was there. She had also been keeping a low profile, using the magical artifact the same way I did.

Having been raised on Earth and around people, I was proably a little more comfortable pretending to be one. Since joining up with us, however, Penny had learned the value of deception and went along with it.

I picked up a pair of binoculars and used them to scan the horizon while I told her what I had told Andy. Being on constant lookout was especially important since we were once again running blacked out with no radar. Ahead of us, Namwon scouted for submarines, sweeping side to side to cover a larger area while we held steady at a constant pace.

If it came down to a fight, the South Koreans on the little corvette could hold their own. Our guns were bigger, but the maximum range was similar to theirs. They, too, had Harpoon missiles, although not as many. Namwon did have the advantage of a secondary battery of 40mm guns with torpedoes and depth charges on board, plus the ship was a lot smaller target than Heinlein. We had decent missile defenses, and they could protect us from submarines.

I wasn’t clear yet why we were going north this time. I had barely heard from Hanley since the Joint Chiefs had gotten a hold of me, but they believed in need-to-know as much as the CIA.

We would eventually have to think about letting the news crew out to eat and use the restroom, but for the moment that could wait. I began getting things ready for the night shift, which is to say, I took a nap.

Shortly after midnight, I was awakened by the battle stations alarm. As I got out of my rack, I heard a rocket motor light up on the aft deck. I figured it was a Harpoon because it sounded a lot bigger than a RAM.

I ran to the CIC. Hawker was there.

“Unknown contact that we blundered into,” she said. “They fired first.” Andy showed up a second later. I left for the bridge.

Jeff was at the helm, face looking tense, but businesslike. “Small size contact running without radar,” he told me. “It’s making fifteen knots. The fired guns at us, and we responded with a Harpoon.” As if to punctuate his words, there was an explosion out in the darkness.

I nodded. “Very well.” Glancing over at the radar screen, I saw the contact was about nine miles away. “Keep guns trained on them and cautiously approach. Have we heard from Namwon?

“They’re fine. They’re going to sweep the area and make sure our target is alone.”

We advanced to the burning wreck by a slightly roundabout route, making sure we could keep both guns trained on them at all times. The missile had hit the hull directly in the center. It hadn’t broken the ship in half, but a lot of the superstructure was wrecked and burning fuel spread out on top of the water. I consulted my recognition charts. In the light of the flames, it looked like it might have been a Sariwon-class corvette. It displaced 650 tons, supposedly. It seemed a shame to waste a missile on it from such sort range, but we had to be careful.

It would have been nice to pack enough weapons to run the radar and full communications with impunity, but unfortunately we didn’t have that luxury. We couldn’t afford to stop and pick up the survivors from the wrecked ship, either. I didn’t know if the North Koreans packed life rafts or not, but that was their tough luck. We had neither the room nor the manpower to hold prisoners. Well, not any more than we already had, anyway.

Thinking of that, I went back to the CIC and got Andy. He brought along a shotgun, and we let Sally Townsend and Todd out to use the restroom and to eat. Namwon had refused to take the pair, which I couldn’t really blame them for. I’d talked to Hanley about it, and he’d dodged the issue by telling me that he would leave it to my judgment.

“What was that noise I heard earlier?” asked Sally.

“Business.”

“When are you going to let us go?”

“Whenever we can. It’s hard to get a taxi to send you away in the middle of a war zone. Until then, your choices are either confinement or walk the plank.”

"Are you going to tell me your name?"

"No." I made sure to give her a look that conveyed what an idiot I'd be if I did.

She didn’t say much after that.

I was just about to go back to sleep when Namwon pounced on a submarine. I went back to the bridge and helped guide us clear so the corvette could play with it.

It was apparently some kind of midget sub. It wasn’t very fast, and carried only two torpedoes. That didn’t make it any less dangerous, but it gave the ship quite a bit of advantage. As long as they could guess where the submarine was pointed, the South Koreans could keep it at arm’s length before going in for the kill.

It took a while, but they finally maneuvered the ship on a straight run over the sub and dropped a depth charge. It seemed a shame to waste a whole torpedo on such a small submarine, and depth charges were also a lot cheaper.

We cleared the area and continued north. Before I knew it, it was my turn to be back on duty, despite me already being there. It wasn’t morning yet, but it felt like it was going to be a long day.

Our first indication that things were going to be an uphill battle came when Namwon hit a mine. That sucked for them, but it meant that we might also be in a minefield. I set the controls to pump out the ballast tanks to lift the ship out of the water as much as possible. I also made sure whoever was on the bridge knew not to try and move the ship until it was light enough to spot mines.

Between the azimuth thrusters and the bow thruster, we were able to keep the ship on station despite the wind and waves. It was a delicate operation that required a deft touch on the helm controls and a direct readout of GPS coordinates.

After a few minutes, Namwon reported that they would probably be able to keep themselves afloat. We came alongside and tied up so that we could help keep them from drifting into another mine.

There we sat for two hours. I took a short nap and went to the CIC to monitor the electronic conditions.

There were several radars operating out there, none of them looking friendly. A few appeared southwest of our location, perhaps searching for the ship and submarine we’d sunk. A couple of times, I thought that they might be getting close to detection values, but the North Koreans either didn’t spot us or ignored us because they weren’t expecting a stationary contact.

Someone eventually did get curious, though, and turned their ship towards our location. We could attack, but that would mark our position. Once they knew where we were, we would be sitting ducks.

Abruptly, the closest radar went offline. Others began turning towards it. Had the ship had some kind of problem and its friends were coming to rescue it? I didn’t have long to wait for an answer.

Two more radars disappeared from our receiver screen. The rest appeared to be turning around. It looked like we had a friend out there.

A while passed. We received a low power radio transmission that the direction finder said came from our west. “Stationary vessel, please identify.”

I couldn’t see anything out there, but I picked up the microphone. “This is privateer R.A. Heinlein. Who am I talking to?”

“This is USS Oklahoma City. We have you on our starboard bow. Do you require assistance?” A US submarine was just what we needed. I couldn’t believe our good luck. It was one of the older Los Angeles-class, but it packed Tomahawk and Harpoon missiles, plus a whole lot of torpedoes. Even for a sub it was probably better armed than we were.

“Do not approach closer,” I said to the radio. “We are sitting in the middle of a mine field. Repeat, we are in a mine field. We have the ability to remain stationary, but we have to stay here until we have daylight to navigate. We’re tied up to a South Korean Navy ship that hit a mine and are holding it steady.”

“We have mine sonar and can clear you a path. Stand by.”

This just got better and better. I went to the CIC and plugged some headphones into our passive sonar array. It wasn’t the best system, but it allowed me to catch faint sounds coming from the sub. It nosed around for a while before getting back on the radio.

“Heinlein, proceeding due west should take you out of the mines.”

“Thank you. The South Koreans are sending a ship after this damaged one. We’re going to stay in the area until they get here.”

“Sounds good. We’ll be here if you need us.”

Having a submarine on our side was a tremendous help. Not only could it better attack enemy subs, but it could remain undetected from ships and aircraft.

Despite finding a new friend, it still seemed like the night was going to last forever. There was still all kinds of North Korean electronic activity going on, and I felt sure something was going to happen before too long.

Towards dawn, the eastern horizon began to get lighter. Oklahoma City had gone off to the north to investigate a possible contact. We had taken Namwon under tow to get out of the mine field, and now were sailing in circles with just enough speed to keep the tow cable tight.

We had advised the military of our situation. Their response was to send a ship to take care of Namwon, and to shift an E-3 Sentry AWACS surveilance plane a bit north to give us a little radar coverage.

The AWACS was primarily an air-to-air radar system, but it made us feel better. The airplane itself was actually well over the horizon and could only just barely see the airspace above us. It wasn’t much, but they picked up a faint contact that faded in and out.

I had a tough call to make. Stay quiet and hope it went away, or turn on the radar to track it, thus guaranteeing that everyone in the area knew we were here. It would take a while for an enemy ship to get close to us, and we could probably handle any new threats from the air. Plus we had the submarine to help us. I didn’t know what the South Koreans were sending after Namwon, but they’d be stupid to bring it up here without weapons of its own. I decided to take a chance.

Flipping on the radar, I immediately regretted my decision. It was a large, slow moving aerial contact that wasn’t very near us. It also appeared not to have any radar sensors, and kept flying as if we weren’t there. Unfortunately, every other North Korean in the area suddenly noticed us.

We still had the advantage that it was dark, and it would take time for any of them to get within range. I queried the AWACS about the origin of the flying contact. They traced back through their logs and found that it had definitely come from somewhere inside North Korea. That was good enough for me. I activated the ESSM system.

The Evolved Sea Sparrow missiles were a derivative of a system that had been around since the 1960s. It was reliable and accurate. With the commands entered into the control system, the box launcher on the foredeck swiveled to the target and fired.

The distance to the airplane was pushing the limit of ESSM range, but the Mach 4 speed of the missile quickly converged with the target.

The radar contact wobbled and the display cluttered slightly as pieces fell off the airplane. It began a slow turn back towards land but never made it. Something major broke, and the airplane tumbled out of the sky.

I reflected for a moment what the sonar operator aboard Oklahoma City must have thought about the sound of an airplane crash, but didn’t have time to dwell on it. The other contacts on radar were getting too close for comfort.

I talked to the captain of Namwon to explain the situation, although I didn’t mention how I regretted getting into it. Now, as I looked back through the predawn gloom, I saw work going on to get the ship ready. It seemed likely that we might sustain some damage this time, and it was best to be prepared.

I didn’t have any way of contacting the US submarine. It was on the other side of us from the incoming North Koreans and was likely out of sonar contact with them.

I didn’t think that it was a good idea to start launching Harpoons indiscriminately, but I wanted to keep the North Koreans as far away as possible. Depending on the exact model, they could be carrying anti-ship missiles with longer ranges than the missiles we had.

As nice as over-the-horizon warfare could be, it had an entirely different kind of anxiety associated with it. You had to wait and watch the sensors. At least with close in fighting, you could actually see the enemy.

The first incoming missile was launched at almost eighty miles. We had perhaps eight or ten minutes before it would reach us. It was very hard to do, but we were forced to sit and wait for the North Korean ships to come closer.

As the range closed, I set up the ESSM to run in its programmed automatic mode. It would fire when it was ready. Sure enough, a missile leaped out of the box launcher on its own and streaked towards the incoming enemy weapon a short time later.

Being tied to the other ship like we were made maneuvering difficult. We couldn’t reach our top speed and couldn’t stop suddenly or it would run into us. All we could do was put our faith in Raytheon, who had made both the ESSM and RAM, although as a defense contractor myself, I was slightly conflicted that a competitor’s product had to be counted on to save my life.

The ESSM found its target and destroyed the incoming missile. Meanwhile, the ship that had fired it was just barely inside the Harpoon range. I pressed the firing button. We would have to wait another eight minutes or so for our missile to reach them. That would give them all kinds of time to return fire.

And sure enough, they did. With three more missiles. Feeling the beginnings of panic, I activated the RAM and set it to automatic. It was an agonizing few minutes watching the radar blips creep closer.

The ESSM and the RAM both fired twice. Either one of our missiles missed or the systems just wanted to be sure of a kill. The last incoming missile was destroyed uncomfortably close. I didn’t see it, as I had dropped flat on the deck of the bridge, but I distinctly heard a few fragments of metal tinkle against the polycarbonate bridge windows.

I got to my feet. The ship wasn’t damaged, we were still towing Namwon in circles, and our missile was on track. The enemy ship was still on course, perhaps trying to figure out if we were damaged and wanting to get closer to finish the job. At first, I had thought that it was a small missile boat that had expended its weapons. It might be more than that.

The Harpoon had just enough fuel to reach the target, and from what I could tell from the radar screen, it scored a solid hit. The ship, incredibly, didn’t stop. I waited for a minute to see if it was in its death throes, but it appeared unwavering. Well, we could fix that.

Another two Harpoons leaped out of the tubes. I was trying to think what kind of ship it might be. The only thing that carried four anti ship missiles and might be able to stand more than one Harpoon hit would probably be their lone Soho-class frigate. At 1640 tons, it was one of the largest ships in North Korea’s navy.

When our missiles struck it, the ship did finally stop speeding towards us. Over the course of a few minutes, it disappeared from radar.

Personally, I was a little angry that the Harpoons appeared so ineffective with their 300-pound warheads. The Soviet-engineered weapons that North Korea seemed fond of tended to carry much more punch.

The rest of the radar contacts milled about for a while out of range. Then, a new radar lit up to the south and appeared to be heading directly for the enemy ships. They turned tail again and headed north. I hoped they would run into the submarine.

The newcomer turned out to be ROKS Sejong the Great, a South Korean destroyer of a type comparable to the United States’ Arleigh Burke class. It could hold its own with just about any threat from under, on, or above the waves. With it was an ocean tug.

As the sun came up, the tug prepared to take Namwon under tow. We exchanged pleasantries with Sejong the Great. It was unfortunate that they couldn’t stay, because we could really have used the kind of firepower they were carrying. They did agree to let the news crew come aboard.

I gave them back their cameras but threw the memory cards overboard. I apologized somewhat sincerely for having to keep them in captivity.

Sally Townsend fixed me with a glare. “I’m going to find out what it is that you do aboard this ship. It’s just a matter of time.” She walked away to the small boat that was waiting to ferry her and Todd over to the destroyer.

I was a little wary. I had done my best my whole life to keep a low profile, and part of that involved avoiding reporters. I didn’t know what one war correspondent could do, but it might help to protect myself.

I called my lawyer and all around go-to guy David Goldstein and explained the situation to him. He said that he would look into it. Then, uncharacteristically for him, he asked how I was doing.

“Well…it’s war, you know? I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my life, but luckily we’re fighting an enemy with crap for a navy.” Talking to him about personal matters reminded me that I needed to call my psychiatrist.

Chapter 4

I had to keep the call to my psychiatrist a little shorter than usual because we were heading north again and I wanted to black out communications as soon as possible. I gave her a rundown on our activities so far.

“War can be a very stressful thing,” said Dr. Games. I could picture her, an elderly unicorn mare with a brain for a cutie mark, sitting in her office and primly talking to me. “Are you thinking about people who may have died as a result of you actions?”

“I hadn’t thought about it.” After a moment, I said, “Thanks, now I’m thinking about it.”

We talked about something else for a while. While I didn’t really think I had that many mental hang-ups, it was nice to talk on occasion. I had been seeing and talking to Dr. Games for a few years.

I promised to call again when it was time for another appointment. Hopefully we wouldn’t be in the heat of battle. After I ended the call, I went to bed. I had been on duty for almost four shifts in a row, all of it action packed.

I was just about to fall asleep when I thought again about the people who had probably been killed by things I’d done. Screw you, Dr. Games.

The message about the airplane we shot down had been processed by the CIA, and they ordered us to shift our operations back to that area. I was not very pleased by this, but money was money.

Oklahoma City met up with us and was able to hang around for a while. Unfortunately, they had a specific combat area to stay within, but they escorted us as far as they could. The Navy did give us further help, though. An old P-3 Orion patrol airplane showed up and flew a lazy pattern around us.

There was nothing particularly wrong with the large propeller plane. It carried weapons, could transmit communications for us, and remain on station for quite a while. It was just that, well, fighter jets would have been nicer.

On our way, we tuned in to the news radio. The ground campaign seemed to be going well for us. There was fierce resistance around Pyongyang, but South Korean and US troops had pushed across the Demilitarized Zone and were making headway.

North Korea had quite a bit of air defense equipment, but bombing runs were still going through most of the time. Their air force had been mostly unseen. North Korea had only a few dozen fighters that were worth anything, and they were keeping them away from the front lines where they were more likely to be destroyed.

The Japanese navy had been active on the east coast. After that bomb went off in one of their harbors, they had reason to be in the fight. Other NATO forces were beginning to show up. An Australian ship or two was already in the area. In a few days, US forces from the mainland would arrive, and it would be the beginning of the end for North Korea. Everyone was still worried about another nuclear explosion, but there was nothing to do but be vigilant and push hard.

Jones and the CIA worked with Andy to schedule a satellite during a good time to check out some suspicious activity in China. Somehow, it was tied up in all this. Being able to plan our operations thoroughly for a change was nice. There was some kind of concrete structure built in our interest area of China, and some kind of work going on underground. Trucks would occasionally come and go. It was hard to tell from the overhead satellite shots, but someone at the CIA was convinced that a few people in North Korean military uniforms had visited the place, and that was enough to warrant a closer look.

“A closer look” meant that we needed to get boots on the ground. Or rather, hooves. In my short time in the special operations field, I had learned that amphibious operations were always a pain in the ass. Still, landing in China was probably safer than North Korea. The CIA might or might not deny my existence if I was caught, but if it came to that I’d rather be in a country we weren’t at war with.

Before it had to return to base, our escort P-3 Orion went up north to check for submarines. It was a lot of area to try to check thoroughly, but I appreciated the effort. After that, we were on our own again.

I held the ship further from the North Korean coast than I had been. We were going on what should be a simple recon mission, and I didn’t want to make it more difficult than it had to be.

There weren’t any signals coming from that patch of coastline. We held far enough out that we couldn’t be seen, but not so far as to stray into shipping lanes.

We’d timed it just right to get there at dusk. The satellite was up and operating, showing us great details about the area.

One problem arose immediately. The beach was flat and exposed. There wasn’t a lot of traffic there, but we couldn’t pull up a boat and hide it. It seemed that the only option was to swim or fly in. That created another problem, though, because we couldn’t bring the ship in close enough to make it an easy trip.

“Well, we have two lifeboats,” suggested Shep.

I saw what he meant. “Right, but you’ll have to come in to fly us back.”

With no better options, we agreed to take one of the boats on a one-way trip. The CIA had smuggled us some waterproof plastic explosive that would work well to sink it.

The CIA wanted Jones to go. I could understand that, since she worked directly for them. It was a little outside her expertise, though.

Talking with everyone else, I realized that I had the most experience with infiltrating unfriendly beaches. Which is to say, not much for a Marine but still quite a lot for a civilian.

We decided to pack light. There was no way we could fight with how we would be outnumbered. Communications might be monitored, so we would have to be careful and radio silent. We had no idea how long we’d have to stay there.

We divided gear into two waterproof bags. Into them, we put a satellite radio, two pairs of binoculars, a spare AK-47 we had aboard, and food for three days.

Hopefully, we could use the radio freely, but it would be treated as a last resort just in case. The rifle was another just in case, because there was no way we would be able to fight any significant force even if the two of us had the latest hardware. All the food was prepackaged and required no heat.

It was dark by the time Jones and I climbed into the boat. There was cheap scuba diving equipment with us, since we were planning to get rid of that, too. Before the winches lowered the boat into the water, Nika gave me a kiss.

I was in my human disguise. Not only would it be easier to hide myself, but my pony face was too well known. We’d done operations close to China before.

Jones and I motored towards shore, neither of us saying much. We’d agreed to scuttle the boat a half mile offshore and swim the rest of the way. At the beach, we would ditch the scuba gear. Hopefully it would be weighted enough so it wouldn’t wash up and be found.

The small lump of explosive was something special that the spooks had cooked up. It had a small electronic timer, and it would stick to things when a special glue that had been included was used. It was all very James Bond.

We got our gear on and tied the waterproof bags to us. I squirted the glue on the explosives and rolled into the water to stick it to the bottom of the boat. The timer was set for a minute once activated. I pressed the button and we swam away.

The explosion was loud to us, but it was underwater and probably wouldn’t have been very audible from the beach. I eased my head above water for a moment to make sure the boat was sinking.

Upon reaching the shore, we did a careful survey to make sure that it was as deserted as we expected. After sinking our scuba and diving equipment, we came ashore and headed for the target.

The beach dissolved into low grassy hills. They didn’t look heavily traveled, although there were roads in the area.

We set up on the rim of a hill was probably half a mile from the site. We each had a pair of twenty-power binoculars mounted on a small tripod. When dealing with optics that large, it’s best to have somewhere to mount them or the minor tremors from your hands will completely throw the view off.

We also had a radio scanner, although neither of us spoke Chinese. It was on, tuned to low volume. The rest of the gear was placed behind the crest of the hill to keep it out of sight. The binoculars were the most visible of our equipment. To make them stick out less we wrapped them in a few pieces of camouflage ghillie cloth. We’d talked about cammo face paint, but decided against it. We weren’t close enough to be in danger of being spotted, and it would be uncomfortable to wear for several days in a row.

After that, we began waiting and watching. At night, lying in the damp grass, it was a little chilly. When the sun came up, it would probably be hot. The job had barely started and I could already tell that it was going to suck.

During the afternoon, Jones woke me up. We were taking turns. I edged up a little to put my eyes to the binoculars. She scooted backwards off the crest of the hill and dug into the gear for something to eat. She pulled out an MRE of maple sausage, made a face, but decided to eat it anyway.

There was nothing much interesting going on at the complex. There was a large low concrete building that looked like a bunker. There were a few guards outside, but nothing particularly interesting. A few vehicles had driven through the area, but no one had come close to our position.

Despite the mind numbing task of watching nothing, I decided that it wasn’t too bad. We could actually see anyone else in the area, and they weren’t actively looking for us. In a way, it was almost better than being on the ship. Then Jones bumped my shoulder and offered me an MRE to eat, reminding me that we had no hot water or other facilities.

Pony digestion really didn’t agree with MRE’s even if they were vegetarian. When posing as human, I liked to try a variety of different foods. MRE’s still sucked.

By that night, we’d seen only a little movement at the site. The highlight of the day had been when a large steel door on the side of the bunker had opened once to let a truck in, and then opened again a few minutes later to let it out.

Seeing the doorway gave me a rough approximation of the construction of the place. The walls might be up to two feet thick. It didn’t look very big, either, so I figured it must be mostly underground.

We didn’t need any night vision equipment, luckily. A half moon was out and there were no clouds. Adding to that, there were a few security lights at the bunker that lit it up.

We’d now been off the boat for close to twenty four hours. We’d gotten no indications that they had run into trouble, and that was good. I thought about Nika for a while. The four hour watches had disrupted our time together, but that was still more time than I was getting now.

I took over from Jones in the early morning and she fell asleep. Shortly after the sun came up, a truck different from the ones we’d seen before rolled up. A man departed from the passenger seat. He wore a North Korean army uniform.

“Jones,” I said. She was awake instantly. I gestured towards the bunker and she peered into her binoculars.

“That’s interesting,” she commented after a moment. We watched the man go inside the bunker. A few minutes later, the large door opened and he came out, accompanied by a forklift that was carrying a large wooden crate. A few Chinese military personnel gathered around. The North Korean got a box from the truck and went back to the crate. There appeared be a wire connected to the box, with something on the end of it.

“Is that a Geiger counter?” I asked, praying that it wasn’t. The man swept the sensor over the crate, checking it from a couple of angles. Satisfied, he ordered the crate loaded into the truck.

Jones had the radio out, training the directional antenna skyward. Hopefully it would prevent anyone from intercepting our signal. She got through to a CIA field communications center and spent a minute connecting from there to someone more important in Washington. “We have observed a North Korean military officer in China. He appears to be taking delivery of nuclear material from the Chinese.”

Whoever was on the other end of the radio was surprised and displeased, to put it mildly. We were ordered to find out more.

After she ended the conference, I said, “How are we supposed to learn more? We probably got lucky seeing this truck here now. It’s about to leave, and there’s no way we can get close.”

She said nothing. I went on. “Give me the radio. I’m going to call in a missile strike.”

“You can’t do that to a neutral country.”

“We’ve just seen with our own eyes that the Chinese are in on this. They might be declared neutral, but supplying the North Koreans throws that out the window. Besides, they gave us those Tomahawks for a reason.” She looked like she didn’t agree, but didn’t try to stop me from picking up the radio.

I selected the right frequency and said the code word. A moment later, Andy answered the radio.

“I don’t have time to explain,” I said. “We need three Tomahawks on that bunker as soon as possible.” We didn’t have satellite help any more, but I knew that Andy had copies of the pictures that had been taken and could easily match them to GPS coordinates.

“Wha…three?” said Andy.

“Right. We need to make sure it’s destroyed. Then, send the helicopter in to pick us up. Try to time it so it gets here at the same time the missiles do to maximize the distraction.”

“I’ll get it done,” he said. Jones and I began stuffing our gear in the bags we’d brought it in. It wasn’t very valuable, but if it was left behind it might tell the Chinese a little about who had been there.

I calculated how long it might take the helicopter to get there. If the ship was ten miles away, it would probably be at least five minutes or so between liftoff from the ship and touchdown on the hill. Not to mention the time it would take to find Shep and get the helicopter started. Even rushing safety procedures, I doubted that Jones and I would be picked up in less than fifteen minutes. By then, the North Korean truck would be long gone with its radioactive cargo.

The Huey soon appeared in the distance. Shep stayed low, keeping the hills between himself and the bunker. The truck had left, and all the Chinese seemed to have gotten back to whatever they were doing before.

East of us, three low flying missiles appeared and skimmed over the hills. They slammed one after another into the bunker. Once again, it had been a short range shot, and the unburned fuel exploded upward in a massive fireball. Three thousand pounds of explosive with extra jet fuel created quite a spectacular show.

Shep topped the hill and we climbed in with our gear. Nika was aboard, manning one of the machine guns that had been mounted for the occasion. I checked my watch and was surprised to see that only thirteen minutes had elapsed. I would have to give everyone a bonus.

I put a flight helmet on and plugged the internal microphone into the intercom. “We’ve got a problem. The North Korean truck escaped. There’s no way to tell what it was carrying, but we can’t let it get away.” I may have spoken a little more loudly than necessary, as the explosions had muffled my own hearing a little.

“Tell me where to go,” said Shep, lifting off from the hill. I guided him using what I could remember from the map. I clipped into the safety harness and grabbed the mounted gun on the other side of the helicopter, standing back to back with Nika. Jones strapped herself to a seat and worked on getting the gear secured.

In the confusion of the explosions, I knew that we were less likely to be noticed and attacked, but we had to hurry. Shortly, the truck came into view. The driver had the pedal to the metal, as expected from someone who had just missed being blown up by minutes.

Shep brought the helo around and I lined up the machine gun on the front of the truck. The 7.62 rounds ripped up the engine compartment and cab, and the truck swerved sideways and came to rest stuck in a shallow ditch.

“Put us down!” I said. When the helicopter got close to the ground, I went to jump out but slipped on the spent casings on the floor and fell. I hit the ground, but jumped straight back up, the adrenalin keeping me from feeling pain.

I ran over to the truck. The driver and the man I’d seen inspect the crate were dead. The bloodshed didn’t look pleasant. I went around to the back of the truck, which was covered by metal poles that supported a canvas tarp. The crate didn’t look like it had suffered any when the truck stopped suddenly.

I ran back to the helicopter and grabbed the load sling. What I had in mind was crazy, and maybe even stupid, but I wanted to take the crate with us. Somebody would probably be interested to see what was inside.

Shep carefully hovered the helicopter over the truck while I pulled the tarp back. The scraps of canvas ripped and blew away in the downdraft from the rotor. Above me, I heard one of the guns begin to fire.

I got the straps wrapped through the pallet the crate rested on and gave the signal to take the helicopter up. Nika was firing at something that I didn’t have time to look at.

Shep eased the helicopter up until the load straps went tight. I wished he’d hurry, but I knew this was something that couldn’t be rushed. There was no way for me to climb into the helicopter, nor any way to shorten the straps so I could reach. I was going to have to hang onto the crate.

As we lifted off, I took a look around. A couple of brass casings fell on me from Nika’s gun. I saw a few soldiers moving far away, but the gunfire kept their heads down. As far as I could see, there was no return fire.

As the helicopter swung out over the sea, I discovered that my wrist was sprained, probably from when I’d fallen out of the helicopter. Having only one good hand to grip the straps was difficult, but I managed not to fall off, even with the wind from the helo’s speed.

As we reached the ship, Shep set the crate gently down on the aft deck. Jeff was waiting and helped me take the straps off. Shep went to land the helicopter in its hangar.

Jeff had a crowbar, and set to work opening the crate. By the time the helicopter’s engines had spooled down and the hangar cover was closing, he’d gotten the lid off. In a few minutes, everyone who wasn’t driving the ship came to see what was inside the crate.

It was a bomb.

Nuclear tipped Tomahawks were one thing. A clandestine third-world weapon was another. I wanted it off my ship. It may have been valuable military intelligence down the drain, but as soon as some pictures were taken of the exterior, we picked up the crate with the aft crane and scuttled it.

I changed back to pony form. A sprained fetlock was a little easier to deal with than a wrist.

Our after action report and the photographs were sent promptly to the CIA. I wondered whether they would try and keep things a secret from the public and to patch things up with China, or if it was going public. Both plans had their advantages and disadvantages.

In the meantime, we headed south. We were by no means running short on supplies, but it would be nice to refill our stocks of food and fuel.

A few hours later, I was back on station. I had just spent a day and a half in the bush, but watch standing waited on no one. I adjusted the radar a little and looked for irregularities. It took me a while to notice a faint surface contact off to the west. We had seen such things before, and if I was a betting stallion, I would put money on it being a stealthy Chinese ship coming after us.

Chapter 5

We ran with the radar on. It helped the Chinese ship track us, but at the same time we couldn’t afford to dismiss the possibility of an air attack. It seemed only a matter of time before they would figure out what had happened and send someone after us.

Heinlein had her ballast tanks pumped dry and was headed south at maximum velocity. I hated to display our speed to the stealth ship observing us, but I thought that it was more important to leave the area as quickly as possible.

I realized that it was time for my appointment with Dr. Games. Since the Chinese already knew where we were, a little radio communication wouldn’t hurt, so I went to pick up the phone. As I turned from the wheel, I caught a glimpse of a wake. It was a torpedo moving a straight line, heading directly for us.

I threw the throttle into back full. The ship responded more quickly than a vessel its size had any right to, shuddering to a stop. The torpedo curved, but couldn’t catch up and overshot the bow of the ship. I jammed the throttle to ahead full.

The torpedo must not have been using passive sonar, because once we were behind it, it set off in a straight line again, looking for another target. We kept going. I checked the sea in front of us with a fixation. I was not open to the idea of losing a ship to a submarine attack.

I wished we could get some help. It would make my day to have someone, anyone watching our back. I made a couple of calls, and all I managed to get was a promise of one over flight by an Australian patrol plane.

I had even tried calling Hanley to get some help. He wasn’t pleased that we had pitched the weapon of mass destruction overboard, but he talked to me anyway.

“Well, how’s the war looking overall?” I asked him.

“Not too bad. Better than the first time we were fighting in Korea. You don’t listen to Pyongyang Pattie, do you?”

“Who? Is that some kind of propaganda radio station?”

“Right. According to her, the North Koreans will push the capitalist barbarians out any day now.”

“Yeah, I’m sure Tokyo Rose said the same thing.” Changing subjects, I asked, “Do you have any idea what I’m going to be doing next?”

“No, but odds are that it will involve China. Return to base and rest up. We’ll call you when we need you.”

It was a fairly uneventful run back down to South Korean waters. They made room for us at the cargo wharf were we’d left from. The same Navy man came to see me as we arrived.

“Bad news,” he said. “We’ve got fuel, food, and shells for you, but no missile reloads.”

“How is that possible? It’s not like the Navy is using them.”

He shrugged. “I’m not in the supply department.”

I got the chance to call Dr. Games and apologize for missing my appointment. We talked a little about what I had been up to. I left out the part about the bomb.

It seemed like not very long before we were on our way again. Like Hanley had said, the war seemed to be going pretty well, and jobs for us were running out. There were a couple of things, left, though.

As usual, we weren’t told what was going on until it happened. Partway up the coast, orders came out of the blue to fire a Tomahawk at a target somewhere deep in North Korea. We set the missile to the coordinates provided and let it go. That meant our ABLs had only one conventional missile left.

Further up the coast, we got an emergency message from the Navy. A SEAL team had gone ashore from a submarine and had gotten pinned down by a much larger force of North Koreans. Their position was good, but soon they would run short on supplies and ammunition.

We located and rendezvoused with the submarine, USS Michigan. It was a converted ballistic missile submarine that now carried more than one hundred Tomahawks and a crowd of SEALs. It had the ability to launch UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles, for surveillance, and possessed enough communications equipment to act as a mobile command post.

As soon as we were speaking on the underwater telephone, I asked the obvious question. “Why haven’t you used missiles to keep the North Koreans off the guys on the ground?”

“They’re dug in too well and too close to guarantee that our boys wouldn’t get caught in the explosion of a thousand-pound warhead.”

Fair enough, I thought. “So gunfire is what you’re looking for. How many are there?”

“Twelve men. At last count, three were wounded. It’s going to be difficult to transport them from the shore back to the sub.”

A thought struck me. It was definitely stupid this time, not just crazy. “The ship has a shallower draft. We can get in closer than you can.”

“That’s stupid," the man confirmed. "They have a few coastal defense guns.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll get your boys out. Back us up with a UAV and be prepared to launch missiles.”

With the right information, Andy was able to hook up a video feed from the surveillance craft to our CIC. The UAV was a small remote controlled airplane that was flown from inside the submarine. Andy had to tell the pilot what to do, but it wasn’t bad for hacked together cooperation.

Jeff and Shep volunteered to go in our remaining lifeboat. It would be a little cramped with twelve passengers, but it should work.

The guys on the submarine were hastily communicating the new plan to the SEALs. I heard a little bit of it over the radio. They didn’t sound pleased, but it was better than staying where they were.

We fired a Tomahawk at what looked like a command structure near the beach. As soon as we got close enough, the fore and aft guns began working on the coastal artillery that we could see. Having the UAV to give us instant feedback on how to adjust our shots was great.

In a simultaneous move, we began dropping shells on the North Korean positions at the same time the SEALs made a break for it. They escaped cleanly, although as I watched the UAV feed, it seemed like more than just three were wounded.

As near as I could tell, there wasn’t much shooting going on at the beach. At any rate, Jeff and Shep didn’t look too nervous. They shoved off and came speeding back.

“There was a splash in the water ahead of us,” warned Nika from the bridge. “There are more coastal guns out there.”

The problem was, the UAV could only cover so much ground. It was like trying to read something on a low resolution computer screen. Everything looked big, but you couldn’t see very much of it at once. A nuclear missile or two would sanitize the area nicely, but even I wasn’t willing to start an international incident that large. Besides, everyone in the boat leaving the beach was too close.

“They’re clear,” I radioed to Michigan. “Light up the beach with everything you’ve got.”

Further out to sea, a Tomahawk fired out of the water vertically. It had come from one of the missile tubes mounted on Michigan’s aft deck. It was followed three seconds later by another. Five more popped out of the water in fewer than twenty seconds.

The missiles didn’t get there in time, though. As I turned back to watch the feed from the UAV, there was an explosion on the port side, slightly ahead of midships. The lights flickered.

“We took a hit,” said Andy instantly. He told the UAV pilot to swing the camera to point at the ship. There was a smoking hole in the hull just above the waterline. Andy poked some buttons on his computers and brought up a damage report.

“The number two turbine is offline. Electrical power successfully shifted.”

“I’ll go check it out,” I said. “In the meantime, get everyone aboard and—”

“—get out of here,” Andy finished. I nodded and flew off to check how bad the damage was. I could hear the ballast pumps turning on to lift the ship out of the water to make the hole less likely to leak.

Other than confirming that the power generation turbine had been destroyed, there was little I could do. When the incoming shell had hit, it had punched through the hull and either exploded or struck the turbine. Running at high RPM, the sudden unbalance had probably made it shake itself apart in milliseconds and fragment into pieces.

The compartment was filled with smoke and there was a small fire from spilled fuel. I knew that the automatic shutoff valve had worked because the fuel lines weren’t still squirting. I went back out into the passageway to find a fire extinguisher and get a breath of air. A ship is one of the most dangerous places to have a fire. Sure there’s a lot of water around, but you can’t get away from the flames.

I held my breath and worked quickly on the fire. It went out without too much trouble. I grabbed another fire extinguisher and stood watch, making sure there were no reflashes.

Topside, we got everyone aboard and the casualties were taken to the medial room. Jones was going to have her hands full.

Heinlein was hurt, but we weren’t going to sink. Even with only three quarters of our normal electrical generation capability, we were able to move away from the coast at a reasonable clip.

Jeff took the boat over to meet Michigan as the submarine’s sail broke the surface to transfer the medical personnel that were on board. They came back and took over from Jones.

Between the SEALs, there were five gunshots, a couple of burns and shrapnel wounds and miscellaneous minor injuries. A couple of them were in critical condition, but it looked like they would all pull through.

The way back south was almost unbelievably uneventful. North Korea’s capitol city had fallen, and while the top leaders had not been found yet, a number of military commanders had surrendered. Pyongyang Pattie was still on air, but now she seemed more like a joke than anything else.

Michigan took aboard the uninjured SEALs and returned to station just in case they or the Tomahawks were needed again. We agreed to transport the wounded back to a real hospital.

We were met and escorted by USS Lake Erie, a guided missile cruiser that had been one of the first US ships to finally make it to Korean waters. I knew that Lake Erie had participated in several weapons tests in the past using her Aegis Combat System, and had successfully shot down ballistic missiles and even a few satellites. Having a proven air defense ship along with us was welcome.

Heinlein slipped quietly into port and tied up. The SEALs had been taken away by helicopter before we reached shore. The damage to the hull pissed me off, but it was fixable. The Navy had even agreed to cover the bill. All in all, it hadn’t been a bad war.

We left South Korea when the Joint Chiefs said it was okay. Or maybe it was now just Korea. The UN was still trying to decide whether North Korea should continue to exist or not.

We had to be careful in heavy seas with the hole in the side of the hull, but as long as the affected compartment was kept sealed, it shouldn’t cause too many problems.

I had asked about dropping off the weapons we carried, but whoever was in charge had misfiled the paperwork or something. Eventually, the Chief of Naval Operations told me to transport the munitions back to the United States with us and return them there. I figured that someone had probably forgotten to tell him that we had nuclear Tomahawks aboard, because if he knew I doubted he would let us hang on to them.

Since we had the missiles, we stayed on high alert all the way back across the ocean. Not that we were expecting trouble, since besides us only a few people in the Navy knew we had them, but you don’t ever relax when there are nukes on your ship.

The dry dock was waiting for us when we finally got back to Norfolk. We brought the ship in under the cover of darkness to minimize the number of people who saw the damage.

We would need a new turbine and a lot of hull plates. I had also drawn up a few modifications that could be made while the ship was dry docked.

It would take a while to get everything done. In the meantime I had to go see Dr. Games. I had mentioned that I was on my way back to Norfolk, so she wasn’t surprised to see me when I walked into her office. I laid down on the couch and told her all about the war.

“Do you think that you have any symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?” she asked.

“Not that I’ve noticed. I mostly just put any bad thoughts out of my head and I’m fine.”

“Why did you do this again? You aren’t part of the military.”

“Covert special operations contractor. They hire me to do things.”

“Does it bother you that you get paid to kill people?”

“That’s not really it. If someone shoots at me, I won’t think twice about defending myself. If the enemy happens to be around when the target is getting destroyed, that’s his tough luck. I’m not doing straight-up assassination jobs, here.”

“Would you if someone offered you enough money?”

Stupid hard questions. “I don’t know.”

“The way you described your payment method—a dollar per pound, was it?—it sounds like you received quite a generous sum for your work.”

“I guess.”

“What are you planning to do with it?”

“Upgrade the ship.” Everyone aboard was already getting a percentage of the profit, and no one had ever complained about it. Jones said it was against her morals to take a payment outside of her official job, but she cashed the checks anyway.

“Have you ever considered donating to charity?”

“I’ve done it on occasion.” After a moment, I admitted, “Usually for tax purposes.”

“You seem to have enough disposable income that you could do some real good for the community.”

She was trying to guilt trip me. I suddenly had an idea.

“You know, maybe I could start my own charity.”

“That could be a good idea.”

“It would let me dump excess profits to keep my taxes reasonable. I can probably have my lawyer draw up plans later today.”

Dr. Games shook her head.

All of us of the crew had committed to living aboard a ship, and didn’t have anywhere to stay while ashore. Andy’s parents lived in the area, but that was about it. With the money everyone had made, though, living arrangements wouldn’t be difficult until it was time to depart again.

Nika and I booked a long term hotel room in the Oceanfront Hilton in Virginia Beach. The thought of having so much free time ahead of me was a little overwhelming. We decided to take it one day at a time.

The second day back in the Hampton Roads area, I got a phone call from Admiral Benjamin Nevis. He and I were old acquaintances-not necessarily friends-and had contracted for business between my company and the Navy in the past. No, not all of it was completly legal.

“Sail, I’m in trouble," he said.

“I’m a little flattered that you called me.”

“If you don’t help me, you’re next. The other day, a man from NCIS came by to ask me a few questions. He didn’t come out and say it, but it was obvious that they know something.”

“I should hope so. You wouldn’t want criminal investigators to be idiots.”

“I don’t have time for this. Somebody discovered the things that you and I have been doing.”

That took me completely by surprise. I had no idea. If Nevis hadn’t called me, I probably would have been surprised when NCIS showed up at my door.

I wanted to ask Nevis what I should do. He had helped me get into this mess, or maybe I had helped him. But then, I had another thought. Why was he warning me to begin with? Couldn’t he just give me up to the investigators in order to save his own skin? Maybe that’s what he was trying to do.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.

“What do you mean? Listen—”

“No, right now I’m on vacation with my girlfriend. I don’t know what your problem is, but if you want to talk business come see me in person when I’m back at work.” I hung up.

If NCIS had been listening in, that should confuse them for a while. I needed to move quickly, though. I told Nika I would be gone for a bit and went down to get a taxi.

David Goldstein had not been expecting to see me, but he listened carefully as I explained that a business friend of mine seemed to be under investigation. I wanted to talk to him in person because this wasn’t the kind of thing I would trust to an unsecured phone line.

I asked him if there was anything about my own records that might cause the same thing to happen to me. I was always careful when I talked to David. Plausible deniability kept things running smoothly.

“I’ll check into it,” he said. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

“What if you do find something?”

“Get back on your boat. It’s harder to try someone in absentee.”

“I would think it would be easier.”

He shrugged. “I’m a good enough lawyer to make things difficult.” That I agreed on.

I went back to the hotel feeling like I had accomplished something. As I got out of the cab, I notice a man and a woman who wore suits sitting in an unmarked sedan. They looked at me and had a quick conversation between the two of them.

Deciding I’d rather have more people around than less, I walked into the hotel, pretending not to notice them. Something about the pair made me think they were feds, rather than police.

I made it to the elevator before they caught up. I figured that whatever they wanted from me, Nika should know about it and having them follow me to our room was easy.

I had just gotten the door to the room opened when the man called my name. I opened the door a little wider. “Yes?”

The two of them walked up. “Sorry to bother you,” said the woman. “I’m Agent Malvern and this is Agent Hudson.”

“We’re from the United States Department of Agriculture,” said Hudson. “We need to talk to you.”

What in the world did the USDA want with me? Nika, hearing voices, appeared at the door.

“Sure,” I said. “Come in.”

“We’ve been trying to reach you for some time now,” said Malvern. “This is a sensitive issue that we felt needed your personal attention.”

“I’ve been out of the country. Nobody at the company would tell you how to get a hold of me?”

“It’s sensitive,” said Hudson. “Unfortunately, we needed to come talk to you without much forewarning,”

I didn’t like where this was going. It’s never good when people of authority want to surprise you.

“It’s about your land in Texas.”

“What about it?” I asked.

“Do you have any plans for improving it? At the moment, it’s zoned for agriculture.”

Zoning was how land was appraised and taxed. Even though it was untouched, the government wanted to know. It was just a barren piece of land, or that’s how I pictured it anyway. I had never been there. I had set up the purchase myself, because it was something that nobody else at Canvas Shipbuilding needed to know about. I realized that I had forgotten to have it rezoned when I bought it, and it would look suspicious to have a piece of farmland.

“I was going to have it rezoned for research,” I said. “It looked like a good spot to build a test facility.” I didn’t tell them that the Navy thought the facility was already up and running.

“Until you do, it falls under our jurisdiction,” explained Malvern. “The reason we needed to talk to you about it is because there’s been a significant amount of cross-border smuggling going on lately, and we were working on a tip that lead us to believe that someone in your company was facilitating it. That’s why we couldn’t risk talking to anyone but you.”

That wasn’t what I was expecting, but it was better than a whole lot of alternatives.

“That’s disturbing,” I said. I thought for a moment. “How do you know that I’m not the one behind it?”

“You’re the only person we’ve talked to. If anything changes, we’ll suspect that you’re responsible,” said Hudson.

“I don’t know how to feel about that.”

“Don’t worry, we have agents investigating closely and following every lead.”

I worried. What if they grabbed the wrong thread and it lead to something incriminating?

“I’ll help you any way I can,” I said. If they let me work closely with them, maybe I could steer them away from the things I didn’t want them to see.

Hudson and Malvern gave me a card with contact information and I showed them out. After I closed the door, Nika said, “It sounds like we have a problem.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Want to go to Texas?”

Chapter 6

I didn’t have the slightest idea what I was going to do about the smuggling problem on my land, but I felt that I should be doing something. I had meant to leave everyone be while the ship was in dry dock, but I decided to call and see if anyone was interested in additional work. Penny and Hawker were in.

I had taken some of the money we’d made from the Korean job and set it aside for a new helicopter. Shep had decided on a Sikorsky S-70, and was learning to fly it. We agreed that was probably a more important thing for him to be doing.

Andy said that he’d gotten enough material from our travels to begin work on a new novel to fuel his writing habit, and he wanted to get a good start on it. It kept him busy.

Jeff wanted to supervise the installation of the new turbine, but decided that he’d rather take a trip with us.

Jones was in Oklahoma visiting family, and we didn’t talk to her. The CIA knew that we did shady things, but despite working alongside us, there was a lot Jones didn’t need to know. How ironic that I was trying to keep secrets about my legitimate business.

We rented a large SUV when we arrived through the doorways to El Paso and bought camping supplies. We had brought along some electronic surveillance equipment.

We got Penny and I converted to human for the trip. All us people went to a gun show going on in the next county over. Everything is bigger in Texas, especially the political divisions, and it was quite a drive to get there. The nice thing about gun shows is that as long as you buy used, you can get just about anything you want for cash.

There were plenty of guns for each of us to pick from, and plenty of ammunition. After loading our purchases in the vehicle, we headed south.

We reached the property around dusk. There was nothing to indicate that we were “there,” but the portable GPS said the coordinates were right.

We had bought a couple of tents to stay in that night. The weather was good, and it was nice to sleep in the great outdoors without the pressures of someone trying to kill you.

The next day, we drove the perimeter of the property and placed security lights with motion detectors that charged their batteries during the day with solar panels. It took a little while to calibrate the detectors to pick up something man-sized but not plants moving in the wind or small animals.

The piece of land was rectangular and didn’t contain much in the way of lush vegetation. Mostly it was sagebrush and scrub. There were no trees. It may have been a decent place to actually test weapons. I had David working on getting the zoning permit changed. It might be a good idea to build the facility after all.

I called Agents Hudson and Malvern to tell them that security was marginally tighter. I wished I could tell them that no one in the company could possibly be involved because I was the only one who knew about the land, but revealing that would make them wonder why and bring greater scrutiny.

The security light wouldn’t do anything to actually prevent someone from trespassing, but the fact that they were there would make whoever was doing it realize that someone cared about this particular piece of ground and made them think twice.

We stayed one more night. It seemed a little wasteful to buy all the camping supplies and only use them for two nights. Also, none of the firearms had been touched. Maybe the local charity would take them. It was Texas, after all.

When we got back to El Paso, it was too late to catch a portal out, and we all needed a shower anyway. There are always places to stay near doorway-ports, and sure enough we found a motel. I had let my satellite phone battery run down, and plugged it in to charge. Shortly, it started ringing.

It was Hanley. “Where are you? You haven’t answered your phone.”

“I’m on personal business in Texas.”

Hanley paused, as if wanting to ask, but decided he had more important things to say. “Divers have just recovered that weapon you dumped.”

We had tossed the bomb out, but I had the presence of mind to mark the GPS coordinates. “Why did you think I should know?”

“After the two nuclear devices were detonated to begin the conflict, we naturally assumed that China was giving to North Korea a third one. What we recovered was actually a biological weapon.”

That was bad. Nukes were a weapon of mass destruction, but one that everyone had become accustomed to. They might be considered more humane than biological weapons which killed slowly. More importantly, China was a country that had signed the Biological Weapons Convention, agreeing not to use the things.

“What kind of bio-agent was it loaded with?” I asked.

“I don’t know yet, but does it matter? Anything would be bad.”

“True. This information hasn’t been made public, has it?”

“No. It’s unlikely that we’ll ever confront the Chinese publicly about it. Depending on how the press spun it, the citizens of the United States would be calling for blood. There are a lot of things I’d like to do to China, but all-out war isn’t one of them.”

China had been getting a lot of high-tech stuff lately, but they still fell behind the United States. China had four times as many people, though. A war would be bad for both countries. Not only would a lot of people die, but the United States depended on China for cheap goods, and China depended on the United States’ money.

“So you’re thinking covert action,” I said.

“You read my mind.”

“I’ll let you know when the ship is ready to go.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

“Who was that?” asked Nika, coming in.

“Hanley. It looks like we’ve got work lined up after the repair is finished on the ship.” I told her about the recovered weapon.

“It’s unusual that they have actual biological weapons,” she said. Nika had some experience in foreign relations, so I trusted her words. “Many countries probably maintain small quantities of biological agents for secret testing, but the expense and liability of creating a real weapon is prohibitive.”

“And then they were just giving it away to North Korea,” I said. “Maybe that means they have more?”

“It is possible. I agree that we should do something.”

I got on the phone and ordered gear to protect against biological weapons. The marshmallow suits and the whole deal. After that, I called Andy and Shep to advise them on the situation. I figured Jones already knew.

“Really?” said Andy. “That was just the plot twist I was looking for.” I heard computer keys clicking the in background.

“But to be honest,” he said, “it sounds like serious business.”

That it did. Until the nuclear Tomahawks had come aboard, I had never considered using any kind of mass destruction weapon myself. Even with the missiles at hand, I couldn’t think of a situation where I would be willing to fire one. And the Navy still hadn't taken them back.

The next day, we returned to Norfolk. It would still be a couple of weeks before the ship was ready to go, but we could use the time to plan. I miserably realized that I couldn’t even take a working vacation without it getting interrupted by work.

Getting everything sorted out and repaired on a damaged ship is difficult. It’s not like every wire and pipe is labeled at intervals along their entire length. Some of them didn’t take too well to patching, and required total replacement.

Adding to that, you can’t just pop the hood on a ship. Generally, an engine change involves a lot of cutting torch work. In our case, it seemed easier to just make the hole where the shell had struck larger and take it out through the side. The new turbine wasn’t in pieces and was harder to fit back in.

There was other work going on, too. A crew was modifying the funnel to better integrate it into the superstructure. Not only would this reduce the heat signature a little, but it made the ship look slightly different. Another crew was repainting the hull oxide red and modifying the fake company logo on the superstructure. Odds were good that Heinlein was now a marked ship and needed as much disguise as she could get.

Meanwhile, Shep was still working on the new helicopter. The S-70 was the civilian version of the Black Hawk used by the military. In addition to being larger and more powerful than the old helicopter, the cockpit was completely electronic. Even an experienced pilot like him needed practice when going to a new aircraft.

Jones had showed up in the area again, and was working at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. She was well regarded there, and having a direct involvement in the Korean conflict probably impressed the other spooks even more. Knowing Jones, she would get tired of the attention soon and come hang out on the ship again.

Andy had taken my suggestion of a system of cameras aboard the ship and was supervising the installation. The required controls for that, and some new hardware that had just come out, inspired him to revamp the equipment in the CIC.

The rest of us worked on whatever needed to be done. It was nice to be ashore once in a while, but I think we all subconsciously wanted to be back out at sea. If I’d been interested in philosophical discussion, there might have been something to that.

I went up to Langley one day. Hanley wanted to talk. We got a private room somewhere deep in the CIA headquarters building.

“Did you hear what happened to Nevis?” he asked.

“I haven’t heard from him in a week or two.”

“He’s being investigated for mishandling the Navy’s money, or something like that.”

“Yeah, the last time he had me on the phone it sounded like he was in some kind of trouble. He seemed to think I was in on it.”

“There was even a news report on it. Sally Townsend, from CNN, did it. Wasn’t that the same reporter that you—”

“Yeah.” Jones had evidentially told him what we did to the reporter.

“Small world.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I think you should know what you’re dealing with before you go playing with bio weapons.”

He gave me a list of things to read and then discussed them. Most of it was basic, such as suspected locations for the Chinese biological weapon production facility. Since they weren’t supposed to have them at all, all the information was spotty at best.

Hanley also told me safety precautions to take when handling biological weapons. Most of which I already knew or were just plain common sense.

“So what exactly do you want me to do?” I asked.

“I hate to give someone like you such an unspecific assignment, but for now, I just want you to either destroy the Chinese biological weapons program, or get them to shut it down. If I think of something more specific, I’ll let you know.”

That was almost like handing me a blank check. I was now actually looking forward to going back. I said goodbye to Hanley and went back to the shipyard to spread the news.

A week later, we were almost ready to set sail. Heinlein was refloated and left the dry dock. Other than a few welding seams that were hard to see, no evidence remained of the damage done.

We’d made a few changes to the interior. A second coffee maker had been placed in the bridge, next to the helm seat, which had been replaced with a more comfortable chair. Below, an unused cabin had had the doorknob changed so that it was lockable from the outside, just in case we ever needed to hold someone captive again.

I visited Dr. Games. I explained that I was about to leave again and said that I hoped whatever I did didn’t end up on the news. She told me to carefully consider my actions. I said that I would try.

I also made sure to see David before leaving. We hadn’t heard back from the Department of Agriculture agents. In the case of the government, no news is good news. He told me that my records were audit-proof, which hopefully translated into NCIS-proof. Hey, they had a TV show with a similar title, that probably meant they were good at their jobs.

Before departing the area, we stopped at the bulk freight terminal and filled the empty third hold with grain. It was the only one on the ship that actually functioned to carry cargo. Someone might remember Heinlein as a warship in disguise, but actually carrying some goods might help throw the trail off.

Of course, there was no way we would make money off of the tiny load, but the CIA was paying expenses on this one, so that was irrelevant.

It was a couple of weeks later, after transiting the Panama Canal and the Pacific Ocean again that we arrived in Taiwan. That had given us time to prepare and make plans.

Taiwan sat about one hundred miles from China. It would be a decent place to stage our operations from. Unfortunately, the longer we had to stay that close to China increased the likelihood that someone would figure out who we were.

It had taken a lot of thinking to come up with a plan. The first issue was locating the facility, or at least the place where the weapons were being stored. It would be difficult for someone who was Chinese to locate a secret biological weapons facility. For Caucasians or ponies, particularly those who don’t speak the language, it would be impossible.

That didn’t leave many options for us. We could simply wait and watch, but that would probably take a while, and the CIA was better equipped for intelligence gathering anyway. It looked like the best option would be to do something to force a reaction.

The easiest way to track the weapons would be to spot them while they were being moved somewhere else. The Chinese might move them if they thought that the weapons weren’t safe where they were.

So the real challenge became how to convince someone that the weapons were vulnerable. Since we didn’t actually know where they were, we were going to have to rely on bluffing and hope it worked.

Hawker volunteered for the job. We concocted a story that she’d slept with a CIA officer and he had told her that something big was happening. When pressed for details, he revealed that the CIA knew about the biological weapons and was planning a raid. She had come to China in the hopes of selling the information.

Now, we only had to hope that they believed her and didn’t hold her as a spy. From her image, it seemed plausible enough that she would have a one-night hookup. It also seemed unlikely that she would be working for an intelligence agency.

That just left the problem of getting in contact with the right people. We had gotten her a ticket to Beijing; after that was up to her. I trusted Hawker to pull it off. Despite the image of adult films, it did take a little bit of acting talent and brains to get to the level of success that she’d had before retiring from that industry to work with us.

I talked to Hanley about the plan. He didn’t like the idea of telling the Chinese that the CIA knew about the weapons, but agreed that it probably had the best chance of forcing something to happen. He said he would do what he could to help.

After that, it was just a matter of waiting. We sent Hawker out, and she spent two days in China. She looked none the worse for wear upon her return.

“I talked to the police, and when they learned what I wanted they managed to get me an audience with a man from the Ministry of State Security. I don’t know whether he believed the story or not, but he gave me a thousand pounds sterling and told me to come back if I learned anything else.”

Well, at least they were receptive to the idea. Now we just had to wait and watch.

In the next few days, we loaded up the number three hold with small electronics and hauled them to Japan. It would make us a little less suspicious than being tied to the pier only a hundred miles from China.

I heard from Nevis again. It was about the same call as before, only he sounded a little more desperate this time. I made sure to give him the same reaction. I also added that I was in the Far East, and was not in a position to do much even if I could.

We had just slipped the lines to depart from Japan when Hanley got back to us with good news. The Chinese had indeed done some scrambling after Hawker’s visit. Unfortunately, it had been to pull a few ballistic missiles from storage.

He sent us a package of information. They were DF-4 intercontinental ballistic missiles. DF apparently stood for Dong Feng, which was Chinese for “east wind.” Some of the missiles were in horizontal storage, in tunnels bored into a mountain. For usual launch, they would be rolled out and elevated to vertical before firing. They had enough range to cover the top part of the world, from Alaska to Europe. Other than the fact that some of them were missing from their storage, Hanley couldn’t tell us anything more.

“How do we know that this has anything to do with biological weapons?” I asked.

“The ballistic missile is just the delivery system,” Shep reminded me. “The payload could be anything.”

“We have some questions to answer. What are they planning to shoot at? Why do they want to use a biological weapon?”

No one had an answer. All we could do was grasp at every straw we could find. The CIA analysts were working on it too, but there was only so much satellite footage to go on.

We got our first break when a container of unusual size and shape was brought to the port in Guangzhou. At this point, it seemed probable that it was a missile loaded with a biological warhead, but it wasn’t certain.

The container was taken below decks of a cargo ship and put out of sight. Surprisingly, security seemed light. Perhaps the Chinese didn’t want to attract undue attention.

By the time we found out about the ship, we had made it to Vietnam. While we waited for news, we had been doing some regional cargo ferrying. We hunted around for cargo going to Guangzhou and found a small load of textiles so we would have a reason to be there.

With a practically unguarded ship, it almost seemed like our obligation to have a look at the mysterious container. As the most experienced diver, I was automatically in. Jeff volunteered to go along.

It looked as if the ship was making ready to sail, perhaps the next morning, so we had to get the operation done quickly. It was too bad that the night was bright and clear, but it would have to do.

It was a little over a mile from our berth to the ship. We had learned that it was called Haiyang. We would travel underwater, of course, but the hard part was getting into and out of the water without being seen. We couldn’t really plan on that. A bridge to cross when we got there.

It wasn’t a good idea to fall into the water from a height while wearing diving equipment. The impact of the water could screw things up. I couldn’t just flutter down, either. Once again, I decided to do this operation as a person for disguise purposes.

Jeff and I rode the boat winch down. It was slower and a somewhat greater risk of being seen, but safer. We both had motorized scooters to pull us over to the ship. It was a little far for a round trip swim. Over the noise of various activities happening in the port, the buzz of the electric motors shouldn’t be noticed. We wore rebreathers to give us more time and to limit bubbles.

The water, like most industrial ports, was filthy. Oil and other pollutants I really didn’t want to think about. A shower and scrubdown afterwards were mandatory.

We could have had diving communicators, but with just the two of us getting the point across wasn’t much of a problem. To make the trip easier, we’d left the gear that wasn’t essential.

Upon reaching the ship, I eased my head above water to make sure it was the right one. The two of us slowly circled around it, looking for a way to get aboard. Unfortunately, most ships don’t have a conveniently placed ladder or rope. We hadn’t brought a grappling gun, either.

It looked like the only way aboard was to climb up onto the wharf and walk up the gangway. Someone would almost certainly see us, though. Even cargo ships usually have at least one person who keeps watch at night.

We both surfaced under the curve of the ship’s stern and talked quietly. It was not a great plan that we came up with, but the best we could do under the circumstances. Jeff would go to the other side of the ship and make some noise. Hopefully this would cause any guards to go investigate. Meanwhile, I would sneak up the gangway and find some way to get into the cargo hold.

I left my rebreather and dive fins with him. Once I was aboard, they would just get in the way. Jeff gave me time to get into position and then began banging on the hull and shouting.

I waited a few seconds and then sprinted up the gangway, keeping low. I got to the top and hid behind a ventilator. Jeff carried on for a short while and then disappeared underwater. Hopefully the Chinese would be more concerned with locating him than me.

I didn’t appear to be in any danger, so I found a hatch that led downwards. It went to the lower level of the cargo hold. I risked turning on my small flashlight and found the container. It was sealed on one end with what I judged to be explosive bolts, based on the fact that they had wiring leading from them. I guessed that when the missile was to be fired, the bolts would blow off and pop the cover off the container.

There were a couple of small access doors along the side. These I took to be for servicing parts of the missile. I opened one near the end where the warhead should be and…nothing. The container was empty.

Despite how pissed I was, I closed the door quietly and made for the stairs to go back up to the deck. I was almost there when I heard several sets of footsteps coming down. I turned the flashlight off and flattened myself against the bulkhead.

Four men with rifles and weapon lights came into the hold, luckily missing me. They looked like soldiers, not cargo ship guards. I slipped behind them and went quietly up the stairs while they searched the hold.

Why would heavily armed men quickly respond to a one-person break in on an otherwise unguarded ship with an empty missile container aboard? The obvious answer was that it was a planned trap and I had fallen right into it. This must be payback for baiting them.

At the top of the stairs, I heard voices and I edged around the corner to see several more soldiers. I tried to go back down, but at that moment the soldiers who had gone below started to climb the stairs. I was caught between the two groups with nowhere to go.

I put my hands up.

Chapter 7

One of the soldiers handcuffed me behind my back. They took my camera and everything attached to my belt.

I ran through a quick mental inventory and decided that nothing on my person could positively identify where I was from. The camera was German. Nika had gotten me to try a Russian-made dive knife. The dive computer had been made in China.

One of them asked me who I was in English. I responded in Russian. That seemed to confuse him. After a short debate amongst themselves, the soldiers brought me up to the deck.

They took me towards the gangway. It angled down to the wharf, bridging a gap that was a couple of feet wide. As we got near the railing, I twisted hard in the grip of the men who held me, managing to get free enough to bend myself over the railing.

The gap between the ship and the shore looked very narrow and far away. As I went over the side, the hands holding me were pulled loose. I tumbled a couple of dozen feet and smacked the water.

I kicked to the surface and grabbed a breath before ducking under again to avoid the automatic weapons firing at me. I took a moment to bring my cuffed hands under my feet to get them ahead of me and then took off swimming. Between the darkness and the dirty salt water I couldn’t really see, but I had the curve of the hull to guide by.

Jeff had evidently heard the shooting and actually swam towards it. He flashed his dive light so I could find him. There wasn’t time to get my gear properly functioning again, so he shoved an emergency breather at me and helped me use my scooter with cuffs on. I was still basically blind, and had to be led.

I heard a splash behind us and a hand grabbed my ankle. Without a fin on my foot, there wasn’t much water resistance to keep me from kicking violently. My heel collided with something hard and flat about where I thought my attacker’s head would be. I figured I had kicked a diving facemask. That was important to know, because if it was just one of the soldiers who had jumped in after us, he would have limited breath. I was going to have to fight this guy, rather than just hold him until he passed out.

I grabbed for my dive knife before remembering that it had been taken when I was caught. I grabbed at my attacker’s throat and tried to wrap the handcuff chain around it. He could see and I couldn’t, and was able to deflect the attack. He knocked the emergency air mouthpiece out of my lips.

I kicked hard towards the surface, both trying to get a breath and also trying to get loose. I managed to haul the man up with me, and we broke the surface nearly together. The soldiers above didn’t fire, afraid of hitting one of their comrades.

I saw Jeff surface behind the man and use his own knife to cut his air lines. He pulled him off and grabbed my arm, yanking me down. He’d held on to his scooter, and we kicked along behind it, trying to go as fast as possible. We swapped the mouthpiece of his air supply back and forth.

We didn’t see or hear anything else on the way back. I counted the minutes, hoping we would get there before the authorities did. I figured we had two options. We could either leave the port as fast as possible and look suspicious, or we could stay and try to bluff. If we stayed and managed to look suspicious anyway, we would probably not be able to shoot our way out of the crowded port.

We made it back and rode the winch up. “How did it go?” asked Jones, who was standing there.

“It was a trap,” I said curtly. “We were probably lucky to only loose half our gear.”

Before I even took a shower, I called a meeting and explained the situation. We’d been spotted infiltrating Chinese property. We could legitimately be charged as spies if they realized who we were. They couldn’t definitively prove that the two of us that they had encountered at the site of the ambush were from the United States, but they did probably know that the CIA was interested in their biological weapons, and they might come looking for U.S. flagged ships that were in the area.

The CIA might come to the rescue of Jones, but probably not the rest of us because we were private contractors. It was the old, “Spy who? Uh, no, we’ve never heard of them.”

“So what do we want to do?” I asked.

We had a discussion, and decided to stay until the morning, when we could get a quantity of consumer goods bound for South Korea. That would probably take the suspicion off when we left, and maybe they would never notice us at all.

Somehow, that plan seemed to work out pretty well, and soon we were back on the open sea. I was getting the feeling that we were pressing our luck every time we returned to China.

While we were on our way to Korea, I tried once again to get the Navy to take some missiles off my hands. The problem was, the orders to give them to me were classified under the highest levels of secrecy, and getting orders to give them back would have to be filed similarly. I couldn’t talk to just anyone about it, and didn’t know who to call to make things happen. The Chief of Naval Operations, one of the Joint Chiefs, seemed like a good candidate, but I certainly didn’t have his number. The Joint Chiefs had only called me, it didn’t work the other way around.

I did consider jettisoning the nukes. As much as I would have liked to, they were no third-world crap, and I would feel a little bad if the paperwork eventually went through and the Navy asked for them.

We docked in South Korea and began waiting again. USS Pueblo went by under tow. It had been detained in North Korea since 1968. Some of the first U.S. troops to set foot in Pyongyang had gone to the Pueblo, where it was currently being used as a North Korean museum, and raised the stars and stripes. In the following weeks, it had been made seaworthy and was now being taken back to the states.

It was a couple of days before the CIA picked up any more leads. There was a small Chinese scientific station set up in the south Atlantic where some unusual things had recently been observed. There had been extra people aboard the station, and more supply ships than usual had been visiting it.

The southern part of the Atlantic Ocean was a long way from where we were, but it was all we had to go on. We had to be careful picking out way down through the heavy shipping traffic of Asia and Oceana, but once we had sailed into the Indian Ocean, we were able to open the throttles and make some speed.

I talked to Nevis on the way. He said that some reporter, by which I assumed he meant Sally Townsend, had been sniffing around for any secret Navy projects. She’d managed to come up with a few things Nevis had been doing that I actually hadn’t been involved in. Evidentially, he didn’t cover his tracks as well as I did.

Nevis had called me from his personal phone. I guessed that was an indication that he was either a civilian now, or close to being turned into one. At least he didn’t call me to complain.

“So do you need any crew?” he asked. I couldn’t tell if he was serious. “Sail, I could really use whatever help you can give me.”

I was a little taken aback by his straightforwardness. I doubted Nevis was hurting for money, but he might be facing criminal action. If he was headed to jail, there was no point in even making an effort to assist him.

“Let me get back to you on that,” I said. I wanted to do some checking first. I hadn’t been keeping up with the news well enough to know exactly what kind of trouble he was in.

Sensing my unwillingness, he said, “I hope you’ll take into account the long years we’ve had together and the pile of paperwork I’ve accumulated about you.”

It was a rather thinly veiled threat, and also a rather desperate one. I suspected that if such documents actually existed, he would have mentioned them before now. Also, if the Navy ever got a hold of them, I would be screwed whether I helped him or not.

“I’ll get back to you.”

After rocketing across the Indian Ocean, we had to stop for fuel in South Africa. Since the tank capacity of a ship is much larger than that of a car, it generally takes hours to fill up. That was why we were still sitting at the dock when Sally Townsend and Todd showed up.

I was up in the bridge and saw them approaching along the pier. “Prepare to repel boarders,” I muttered. I flew down to the CIC to have Andy alert everyone that we had visitors. Then I sent him down to deal with them.

He carried a portable radio that had the transmit button stuck on so we could hear the conversation. To my amusement, he channeled a little bit of my smartassness. “To what do we owe this visit?”

“I’ve come to see if you’re ready to talk,” Sally said. “There’s something very fishy about this ship, and I intend to get to the bottom of it. Is Sail Canvas around? I understand that he owns this ship.”

Andy turned to look at the rest of the ship in mock surprise. “Fishy? No ma’am, we only carry bulk material goods.”

A trace of annoyance showed on her face. “It’s all going to come out eventually. You might as well make it easier on yourself.”

“We’ve never been ones to take the easy way. Now let’s see…” He held up his hands and ticked fingers off. “It’s obviously no coincidence that you’re here at the same time we are, so you have a source that informed you.”

Most likely Nevis, I thought. He might have told her about me in an attempt to get her to off his back. Andy went on. “You don’t have the full story, or you wouldn’t be here talking to us.” That appeared to annoy Sally even more. “Lastly, how do you know we’re even up to something worth reporting about? We could be secret government mailmen.”

“Talking with my sources, I’ve discovered a lot of inconsistencies surrounding Mr. Canvas, this ship, and your business in general.”

Andy said, “I’ve heard that ‘black’ operations often involve deception and unexplained money transfers. Not that we’re masterminds of such ventures. Honestly, I bet if you ever do discover anything interesting, the government would probably block publication on the grounds of national security.” That last sentence came out sounding a little cockier than he probably intended.

“The CIA isn’t as daring and invincible as it once was. I’ll take that bet,” Sally retorted. I had a small moment of panic hearing that she knew who we worked for. She still hadn’t shown that she actually knew anything, though.

Andy shrugged and turned to go.

“What are you doing in South Africa?” Sally called.

“Just hunting for some Chinese biological weapons of mass destruction that mysteriously disappeared after that conflict with North Korea.”

She snorted, sounding unladylike. “If you’re going to lie, at least make it convincing.”

The south Atlantic Ocean is not heavily traveled. Most of the traffic is either going to or coming from the Antarctic. Speaking of the Antarctic, the weather was turning cold. Not only because we were sailing so close to the South Pole, but because we were simply in the Southern Hemisphere, and the climate was flipped from what all of us were used to.

There was some cold weather gear aboard, but not the specialized things we’d need for sustained operations outdoors. I hoped that wouldn’t become necessary. In that part of the world, temperatures usually hovered right around freezing, not to mention the ocean wind.

I’d rarely traveled south of the equator, and never this far south. There wasn’t a whole lot of land, especially inhabited land, down there. The scientific platform that we suspected of being a launch site was west of Bouvet Island, which itself was known as the most remote place on earth. It was a thousand miles of cold ocean to reach Antarctica, and fifteen hundred or so to South Africa. For some reason, Bouvet Island was owned by Norway.

Not only was it a forbidding place to sail into, but the navigation was all wrong. We had to use the southern point on the compass. The stars at the bottom of the world were different than at the top. There was no North Star, but there was a Southern Cross, which was about as useful.

We had no satellite coverage, which made sense. The United States cared little for this section of ocean. Hanley said that he would see what could be done about getting us some support. I appreciated it. Such a remote area of the world was not a good place to be alone.

Because of its remoteness, some strange things had happened in this part of the ocean and gone uninvestigated. Things like the South Atlantic Anomaly and the Vela Incident. Most had names that sounded very science fiction-y like that. Robert Heinlein would be interested.

There was an accurate GPS fix at least, so we weren’t exactly lost. There wasn’t a whole lot out there to hit, so we were able to comfortably run without radar. The seas were calm, which was great, because waves coming over the bow could have frozen down as ice, potentially making it difficult or impossible to get the hold covers open if we needed to.

Near dusk, we began picking up signals from a ship radar somewhere to our west. It appeared to be heading northeast. We ducked to the south to avoid being detected.

“Sail,” called Andy from the CIC, “there’s a high likelihood that they’re departing from the platform.”

I had had that thought, too. “Keep them under surveillance as long as possible.”

When we came to one hundred miles from the platform, I got Shep to fire up the helicopter. We were going to take an initial look and see what was going on. Depending on what we found, then a decision would be made to proceed from there.

I decided that it was best to be prepared. Nika wanted to go. She grabbed one of the machine guns and put it in the back of the helo. We all grabbed night vision headsets.

We didn’t mount the machine gun on the pintle near the side door, because it was too cold to open the door. The outside temperature was about thirty degrees, and the wind chill and rotor wash made it worse.

I leaned in to the cockpit to look out the windsheild as we approached the platform. All the instruments on the dashboard were turned down to low illumination to compensate for the night vision equipment Shep was wearing.

The scientific platform was anchored by long cables to the seafloor. It floated on large pontoons. Overall, it was about the size and shape of an oil rig. There was a tall central tower that reminded me of the derrick on a drilling platform. Around the base were enclosed spaces that were probably living and working areas. On the entire platform, there was not a single light turned on.

There was a convenient helicopter pad on one side, but I told Shep to stand off and let me fly in. I slid the door open jumped out. Nika braved the cold and covered me with the gun.

I swept the perimeter of the platform. Other than the helicopter pad, a couple of fuel tanks, and miscellaneous deck equipment, there was nothing of interest. My wings felt cold and cloud of my breath kept obstructing the night vision.

I opened the door to the rest of the platform. Everything inside was clean, because it looked like most of the things that had been there were gone. At least it was warm. The platform hadn’t been abandoned very long ago, probably only a few hours at most. The indication that the ship we’d encountered was fleeing the place now seemed stronger.

In the living quarters, I found four bodies. They were Asian, and they had been shot. None of them looked like solider types. Scientists, if anything. It looked like an execution to me. Maybe they knew too much.

Stepping around them, I continued searching. I came to a room that contained some high-tech-looking equipment. Despite all the labels being in Chinese, it didn’t look like science stuff. This was also the only place on the entire platform where I found some activity. A few lights glowed softly.

Stepping back into the passageway, I headed towards two very heavy doors that were built into the bulkhead. I figured that I was near the center tower of the platform, and the doors probably led inside.

Since I hadn’t seen any sign of life on the platform, I figured it was okay to have a go at the doors. They both had a central locking wheel and appeared to weigh much more than me. I yanked on the wheel of one and got it to turn. When the bolts were pulled out, I swung the door open.

I was looking at a weapon. I took a step forward and looked up at the towering intercontinental ballistic missile, probably one of those that had been hurriedly moved from China. Even with the night vision I couldn’t see the warhead very well, but it was probably shrouded inside the missile’s nosecone anyway. Regardless, even if it wasn’t a bio weapon, it was a little frightening to have the Chinese covertly deploying missiles.

I stepped back out the door and tried the other one. It was an identical missile. I checked around and didn’t see anything else that might indicate the presence of more. If these were the DF-4 missiles that we had been told about, they had a range of perhaps 4500 miles. The good news was that it wasn’t enough to reach the United States.

I went back out into the cold and checked the fuel tanks. By the smell, I could tell that one held diesel. It was nearly full. The other was empty, and smelled like rotten ammonia. I had no idea what it was, but I knew that the DF-4 used liquid fuel. If the rocket fuel tank was empty, that must mean that the missiles were filled up and ready to go.

I dashed back outside and made for the helo. Climbing in, I grabbed a headset. “Back to the ship as fast as you can.”

I got the radio set up and called Andy. “There are two ballistic missiles aboard that platform. There’s no one there, and the missiles are ready to fire. They might be on a timer.”

“What should we do?”

“There’s no way to know when those things could be set to launch. We have to take out the platform. Patch me through to Hanley.” The helicopter’s radio couldn’t reach Washington, but it could be linked to the ship to achieve the same effect.

Hanley was not pleased to hear what I had to say. “You’ve got to disarm them.”

“Who do you think I am, James Bond? We have no way of knowing when they’re going to fire, and trying to disable one is probably more likely to be fatal than a bullet to the head.”

“You’ve got to do something. People are going to die if you don’t.”

“I know, I know.” I thought for a moment. While the helicopter had visited the platform, Heinlein had closed to within seventy miles of it. It would take probably another two hours to get within gun range, and the only other surface to surface weapon we had aboard were the Tomahawks…

“We’ve got the cruise missiles,” I said to Hanley.

“Which ones?”

“A pair of nuclear tipped Tomahawks the Navy gave us ‘just in case’ for Korea, but we never used.”

“You still have those?” shouted Hanley. “No. I forbid you—”

“Sorry,” I said. “You said we had to do something.” I ended the conversation.

“Did you get that?” I asked Andy.

“Yeah.” He was quiet. “Are you sure we can do this?”

“That Chinese ship left the platform a couple of hours ago. If the ballistic missiles are set to go off on a timer, every second brings us closer to launch. This also will ensure that any weapons that they’re carrying are destroyed.”

“Right,” said Andy reluctantly. “I have the coordinates of the platform. Uploading them now.”

Shep dipped the nose of the helo even further to increase the speed forward. “I’d really like to get tied down to the deck before we do anything crazy,” he explained.

It was not to be, however, and I was glad Andy hadn’t waited. There was a streak of fire on the horizon. That would be the booster for a Tomahawk launch from the ship. I nervously checked behind us, making sure neither of the missiles on the platform had fired yet.

The nuclear Tomahawk passed invisibly beneath us in the darkness. Shep flared the helicopter to bleed off speed and put us down on the pad located in the fake number two hold. Nika and I helped Jeff quickly tie the helicopter to the deck while Shep got everything shut down. The hold cover was already sliding closed.

I went to the bridge. Penny was there, looking anxious. The radar display showed the platform as the lone surface contact, while our missile tracked towards it. It was amazing how a cruise missile traveling 550 miles per hour could seem so slow when you were in a hurry.

The missile hadn’t reached the target yet when the platform’s radar return appeared to flare and a new contact appeared, leaving the platform.

I immediately launched an ESSM. We were at the bare edge of the range for the anti-air missile, but I had to try. I watched the radar in desperation, knowing it would likely fall short.

The Tomahawk continued to creep closer to the target. The display flared again as the second missile was launched—

—and disappeared in a nuclear flash. I glanced up, out through the bridge windows and immediately regretted it. Even at seventy miles away, it was the brightest thing I had ever seen. The light faded away, leaving me night-blind. Unable to see anything outside, I turned back to the radar.

The second missile had been destroyed, but the first was already accelerating past Mach 5 and still climbing. The ESSM fell far behind and ran out of fuel.

I ran down to the CIC. “Where’s it headed?” I asked.

“Looks like north or northeast,” said Andy.

“Where would you say it’s going to land?”

“If it goes to its maximum range, central Africa, maybe.”

I tried to figure out why the Chinese wanted to do that. If we were still assuming a biological weapon, it could kill a lot of people there before the rest of the world could get in to help. That is, if the rest of the world cared about central Africa.

Something happened to the radar just then. “Looks like interference,” Andy muttered, as he set about trying to fix it. He dialed some controls and appeared to reach a sort of balance. He looked at it and appeared to recognize something.

“What is it?” I asked.

He broke into a grin. “Cobra Judy’s out there.”

Chapter 8

I got back on the phone with Hanley. I don’t think I’d ever heard him so pissed at me. I figured one missile incoming was better than two, and that was probably worth a nuclear detonation.

“I knew this would go badly,” he said. “You’re damn lucky there’s a second line of defense.”

I had already surmised that Observation Island with its high powered radar was on station, but I knew there were no weapons aboard. “What defense is that?”

“The Navy realized how dangerous the situation was, and diverted a cruiser that was on its way back from Korea. I think you’ve worked with them before: Lake Erie.”

That made me feel a lot better. Most of the Navy’s Aegis equipped ships could engage ballistic missiles, and that particular ship and her crew had practiced it before. Combine that with the tracking radar of Observation Island, and this situation suddenly became a whole lot less tense.

“I’m going to go after the ship that left the platform a few hours ago,” I said. “We should be able to catch up.”

“No! You’ve had enough cowboying for one day!”

“Relax. I’m just going to trail them and find out where they’re going back to. Remember, you did tell me to either destroy the Chinese biological weapons program, or get them to shut it down. You never said how.”

“Fine,” he fumed. “Follow them, but do not engage.”

I ordered course corrections that would take us after the Chinese ship. Having nothing better to do, I went through the paperwork of the W80 nuclear warheads that had been attached to our Tomahawks. They were variable yield devices and could be set for anything from five kilotons to 150. For reference, the Fat Man device used in World War Two yielded 21 kilotons.

Our W80s had both been set to eight kilotons by the Navy. It was not something that could be changed unless you went inside the missile and altered it. That was a heck of a punch for taking out a scientific platform, but still small on the nuclear scale. Other information included suggested that the mushroom cloud from the detonation might reach 15,000 feet in height. We did what we had to do.

Unlike a warship, we had no spray system to wash down the decks in the case of nuclear fallout. We did have a fire hose, though, so if it became necessary we could make do.

Mostly, I just concentrated on getting us away from the area. Distance was the best plan.

Lake Erie shot down the ballistic missile on the first try and almost made it look nonchalant. Keeping with the casual theme, I realized it was Tuesday and called Dr. Games.

“I’m having some moral issues,” I said. “This time it’s about the environment.”

“What happened?”

“Well…I probably shouldn’t say, but I’m sure you’ll hear about it. I’m in the south Atlantic right now.”

“So, the environment?”

“I’m sure there were quite a few fish killed. The air quality probably took a hit.”

“Is there anything you can do now?”

“Not really.”

“Do you regret it?”

If I’d known that an Aegis cruiser was standing ready downrange, I probably would have just stepped back and let it take care of the missiles. I regretted that part of it. Still, if the Navy hadn’t been there, the nuclear Tomahawk would have at least taken out half the weapons before they reached their targets and maybe saved some lives.

“I think the ends justified the means,” I said. “I just wish I’d had more options for means.”

“So it’s not entirely your fault.”

“Thanks, I feel better now.”

“So what are you planning next?”

“Hunting.”

She paused for a moment. “I’m not going to ask.”

Tracking the Chinese ship proved to be fairly simple. It only took us a few hours of speed running to catch up to a safe following distance. Guiding on their radar emissions was simple, and while we couldn’t be sure of our exact following distance, we were able to take some guesses and stay on course. I just hoped the Chinese didn’t have any spy satellites in the area.

We went back across the Indian Ocean and picked our way through the islands of Oceana. The ship turned north back towards China. It had never deviated from intended course or speed, and seemed either oblivious that we were there, or trying to stay steady and make us a target.

When we could, we used CIA satellite passes to check our own tail. As we got closer to China, the infernal stealth ship appeared, following us at about the same distance that we followed the other ship. They were not using radar, and couldn’t be following our radar because it was off. Obviously, they had satellites on us.

We were interrupted from the stalking by a phone call from David. The Department of Agriculture agents wanted to meet again and couldn’t find me, so they’d contacted him. I said that I’d be available in a few days.

“Hasn’t the application for rezoning gone through yet?” I asked him.

“You know the government. Most paperwork takes ages. It’ll come when it comes.”

With no particular orders to keep up contact with the Chinese, we broke away from the tracking and headed for Japan. Nika and I went through the doorways back to the U.S.

The USDA headquarters was located in a couple of interconnected buildings on Independence Avenue near the National Mall in Washington D.C. It was a conglomeration of different construction materials, with a couple of foot bridges spanning the road to link the various sub-buildings.

Agents Hudson and Malvern met us. They had good news and bad news. The good news was, it wasn’t drug dealers that were doing suspicious things on my property. The bad news was that it was the military.

“What do you mean? Which branch of the military?”

“It’s the Navy. There have been several investigators surveying your property,” said Hudson. “Frankly, we’re baffled. Do you know anything about this? Why would the Navy be interested in a piece of property in west Texas?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “Do they know that you know? Do they mind you telling me?”

“We haven’t talked to them,” replied Malvern.

“Have you considered that maybe I’ve been under investigation by the Navy and that you’ve just tipped me off to it?”

The two of them traded glances, alarmed. “You need to tell us everything you know right now,” directed Hudson.

“I’m a defense contractor. I do a lot of work for the Navy on the east coast. I’ve got no idea why they’re interested in some junk land out west.” I wondered why the investigators bothered. Nevis must have given them more than I expected. I made a mental note to burn him when I got the chance.

“Sorry to bring you here and then only have a short conversation,” said Malvern. “We really need to talk to the Navy and get this straightened out.” Nika and I were shown out.

“I should probably go talk to my lawyer,” I said to her.

After speaking to David about the conversation that I had had with the USDA agents, I went to see Hanley. I didn’t get to face-to-face with him often, and I figured it might be good to mend relations damaged by the whole nuclear issue. Nika was forced to wait outside, because nobody at the CIA wanted to let a former Russian intelligence agent in.

“There’s some talk going around about giving you an award,” he said.

“I’m flattered, but can I have a get out of jail free card instead?”

Hanley looked at me for a moment. “Why?”

“Just a question.”

“What are you up to this time?”

“Have you heard what Nevis is going through? The Navy thinks I’m involved.”

“Are you?”

“No comment. The point is, I’d like some protection.”

He grinned. I didn’t like how that made him look. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you ask for help so directly before.”

“I’m doing it for you. If I run into trouble, it could keep me from doing my duties for the CIA.”

“We’ll get someone else to replace you.”

“Really? How long will that take? You’d have to find someone else with the skills and deniability. You’d have to find a new ship because mine would probably be scuttled under mysterious circumstances. Wouldn’t it be easier to just get me off the hook?”

“Canvas, I can’t bail you out every time you screw up.”

“It wasn’t me,” I said. “Nevis was the one who got caught. If it wasn’t for him getting weapons for me, my ship would be as toothless as a garden snake and wouldn’t be nearly as effective for your operations. I think you should throw him a bone, too.”

“Why do I even keep listening to you?” said Hanley. “You’re like a kid who never grew up and learned to accept the consequences of his own actions.”

“You sound like my therapist.”

“Get out!”

Honestly, I thought that it was almost worth threatening national security just to see Hanley pissed off.

It was hard to say how long it would be before Agents Hudson and Malvern would get back to us. I figured it would be more than a day or two, but I saw no reason Nika and I couldn’t hang around for a little while. We checked in to a place in D.C.

After we got to the hotel, Andy called. “The Air Force wants someone to look for a missing plane. I assume the reason they asked us was because they wanted it kept covert.”

“Where is it?”

“East of Korea. They’re willing to give us an underwater remote operated vehicle to look at the crash site.”

“Can we keep the ROV afterwards?”

“They didn’t say. Maybe.”

“Well, if the money’s good, take the offer. If it’s a peacetime mission, I’m sure you can get along without Nika and I.”

“All right, we’ll get it done.”

There wasn’t much business to take care of in the next few days. I was kept updated about the hunt for the missing plane, but other than that Nika and I didn’t have much to do.

On the second day, I got a phone call from a man who identified himself as an aide to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“The Joint Chiefs would like to meet with you,” he said. “How soon can that be arranged?”

“I’m actually in Washington right now.” I told him where. He said a car would be sent for me.

When it showed up, the driver took me to the Pentagon. I’d been there a couple of times before, usually for serious business. On the phone, the aide said I would be meeting with the Joint Chiefs, but it was still a little surreal to see them all waiting for me.

“Gentlemen,” I said.

“Mr. Canvas, we’ve called you here today to present you with a Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction.” The Chairman read from a small card. “For civilian service above the call of duty to preserve the security of the United States of America during the recent Korean conflict.”

The aide presented me with a velvet case with the medal and accoutrements, which consisted of a couple of ribbons and pins. The case was heavier than it looked.

The Chairman continued. “As this is a secret award, the President was not able to be here to present it himself.”

“Uh, thanks," I said awkwardly. "This is about the last thing I was expecting when I came down here today.”

“Hell of an acceptance speech,” said the Chief of Naval Operations, slapping me on the back.

“While you’re here,” I said to him quietly, “we should talk about the nukes.”

“What nukes?”

“The Tomahawks that were loaded aboard my ship as a ‘just in case’ at the beginning of the conflict.”

“What about them?”

“I keep trying to get someone to sort out the paperwork to take the remaining one off my hands.”

“Wait, remaining one?” said the Chairman, breaking in.

“Yeah, I got rid of one of the two.”

“Got rid of it? Where?”

“The south Atlantic.”

The Chief of Staff of the Air Force broke in. “A Constant Phoenix bird picked up positive traces of a nuclear detonation in that part of the world not too long ago.”

The Chairman ordered everyone except myself and the Chief of Naval Operations out of the room. When we were alone, he said, “Explain. Now.”

I told how the missiles had come aboard and my difficulty in getting them off again. After skipping to the end of the fighting, I described the event in the south Atlantic. I felt bad for putting the Chief of Naval Operations on the spot, so I made sure to include how Lake Erie and Observation Island had basically saved the day.

The news had reported a mysterious climatological event in the south Atlantic, but other than that, the public didn’t know. It would be in everyone’s best interests to keep it that way. I was told to keep it to myself, and promised that I would. They didn’t even try to take my medal back.

Once out of the Pentagon, I turned my cell phone back on. There was a message from David. He said that someone from the Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General had come by to talk with him.

DoD OIG investigated fraud, misuse, waste, and mismanagement in the Department of Defense. This was a step up from just NCIS working on Nevis. Now they were looking directly at me, and had other agencies working in cooperation. I decided that it would be best to get out of the country as quickly as possible.

Nika and I arrived in South Korea and Shep came with the helicopter to ferry us back to the ship. The Navy had not yet contacted us about repossessing the last Tomahawk. Even going directly to the Chief of Naval Operations had little effect, because he had to work his way down to people who could get it accomplished but still had the security clearance to be allowed in the loop.

I put it out of my mind for the moment, because we had work to do. The airplane the Air Force was interested in was a North Korean transport that had departed during the conflict headed to parts unknown. It was unusual enough that someone had paid attention to it and watched the radar as it disappeared. After the fighting, the Navy’s undersea salvage ships had bigger problems to take care of than some cargo plane, and the people in charge didn’t want to bring just any civilians into a military matter.

We found ourselves with a remote operated vehicle and a mission. Basically, it involved us trolling back and forth on the area where the plane went down looking for the wreckage. Once we found something that looked promising on sonar, we would send the ROV down to check it out.

The sonar aboard Heinlein was not advanced enough to give us a high resolution picture of the sea bottom, and we had a couple of false reads. Piloting the undersea robot was relatively simple for gamers like Andy or Hawker, and we had the aft crane to lower it in to the water. The thing that we had detected would usually turn out to be something like junk or just a bottom geographical feature.

The Air Force had provided us with a rough outline of where the plane had gone down. Not only was it just a passing blip on the radar, but it could well have continued flying for a while below radar coverage before crashing. In other words, it was hard to prove that an airplane had actually crashed at all.

We were looking in the East Korea Bay, an area of relatively shallow waters in the western Sea of Japan. The sonar showed another hit, and we sent the ROV down again. I stood on the fantail, making sure the winch cable didn’t get tangled as it passed over the crane and dropped into the ocean. The ROV used an “umbilical cord” to transmit data between it and the base station. The cable ran back into the ship and traced a route through the passageways to the CIC.

I went back inside to have a look. Andy was sitting at the controls, “flying” the ROV. It had taken a few minutes to drop into position. The lights of the robot picked up a few bits of metal, which was promising. As it glided over the seafloor, more and more man-made material became visible, and finally, a jet engine.

There’s something mesmerizing about looking at stuff undersea. Now I know how Robert Ballard feels. For a few minutes, several of us in the CIC watched the feed from the ROV camera. Finally, we came upon the main fuselage.

Based on what we knew of the North Korean Air Force, and what we could tell from the wreckage of the plane, it was probably an Ilyushin IL-76.

I was just about to order the ROV back up when something shiny appeared on the screen. Andy saw it too and moved over to it. It was a gold brick.

“Oh my God,” said Andy. He positioned the camera so it could look inside of a hole in the fuselage. Inside, more gold gleamed in the ROV’s powerful lights.

Robert Ballard or not, that discovery was probably the most impressive thing I had ever seen underwater. The Air Force had acted like they didn’t know what was aboard the plane, which sounded like a perfect opportunity to help ourselves.

The hardest part of recovery was the depth. The ROV recorded it at three hundred six feet. There was basically no natural light down there, and it was much colder than the surface. Some ROVs had mechanical arms, but ours did not. Diving was the only way.

I was the only one aboard who had experience with technical diving. Still, it would be the deepest I had ever attempted. It may have been stupid, but the lure of gold does funny things to all of us.

I got a rebreather set up with the proper mixture of gasses. The oxygen requirements were different for deep diving, and the other normal elements found in air would cause funny things to happen. We didn’t have real mixes of exotic diving gasses aboard, so I had to improvise. I was well aware that I was taking my life in my hooves.

Speaking of hooves, this was a job for a pegasus, with better cold resistance and higher tolerance to low oxygen levels. I put on a dry suit and extra insulation hoping I would be warm enough. We didn’t have gear that was truly intended for this. With the rebreather, I had about eight hours of down time, and I might need all of it. The deeper you go, the dive length increases exponentially.

When I was ready to go, I walked to the fantail. The ROV had been strapped down to a pallet and they would be lowered together to keep them from getting tangled in each other. I stepped onto the pallet and grabbed the cable. Andy was at the controls of the crane and lowered it gently over the stern.

I rode the pallet all the way down. When it got dark, I switched on my dive light and shone it downward to make sure I wasn’t dropping too rapidly. When the bottom appeared, the pallet settled softly onto it. I looked around and saw the main section of the airplane lying about twenty yards away, not too far considering the situation.

I released the ROV, and whoever was driving it moved it to get it out of my way. I picked up one end of the pallet and awkwardly dragged it towards the plane. The ROV hovered nearby, lighting my way.

I found about half a dozen bricks that had spilled out of the plane. After picking them up and placing them on the pallet, I moved on. Hunting around, I found the place where the fuselage of the plane had broken in half. There was no sign of the tail section, so I assumed that it had sunk separately.

Inside the plane, there was some miscellaneous cargo, and a body or two. The crash had not been kind to these people, and the fish had been worse. I pretended not to notice them, and proceeded further into the plane. To avoid tangling its cable, the ROV was unable to follow me very far.

The gold was on a loading flat covered with a cargo net. It had shifted when the plane crashed, and a few bricks had escaped through the holes in the net. I picked one up. Even underwater it was heavy.

I began carrying the bricks one at a time out to the pallet. It was slow work. I couldn’t easily swim inside the plane, and with the gold weighing me down I couldn’t have anyway.

I guessed that there were maybe a hundred bricks in the plane. I had shifted maybe a quarter of them out to the pallet when my dive computer began to flash. It was a warning that I had reached the end of my bottom time and had better begin my assent.

I looked at the ROV and gave the “just a minute” signal to the camera. I went back in as quickly as I could and grabbed two last bricks, trying my best to balance them in my hooves. It was slow going, and my muscles were tired from carrying the others. As I stepped out of the fuselage, I dropped one.

I put the one I still had on the pallet and turned back to get the last one. The ROV bumped my shoulder as if to tell me what an idiot I was going back for it. I grabbed the brick and started back to the pallet. I stacked it neatly with the rest, and climbed aboard. After helping to get the ROV back to where it would sit, I strapped it down. The cable on the pallet slowly began to go taut.

I checked my dive computer. I was ten minutes behind schedule. Error and reserve had been built into the dive timetable, but if I had miscalculated too much, I wasn’t going to have enough air to make it back to the surface.

The ride stopped periodically to let me get acclimated to a lower pressure. If I didn’t take my time getting to the surface, I could get the bends, a condition where the dissolved gasses in blood begin to bubble out.

Looking at the dive computer and the gauges on my rebreather, I began to get nervous. I was more than a little relieved to see Nika wearing scuba gear meeting me at one hundred feet. She had a spare tank that I could use if the rebreather ran out.

Luckily, I had just enough air to make it all the way. Nika rode with me and helped me maintain my balance as the pallet came out of the water.

Gold isn’t a very reactive metal, and doesn’t tarnish or rust. It was just as shiny as the day it had been cast into ingots. The crane swung over and deposited everything, including Nika and I, onto the aft deck.

Even after shedding the heavy dive gear, I felt weak. I sometimes got that way after long dives, but this was the worst I’d ever experienced. I had a few issues with balance and felt a little sick. I swore to never dive that deep again.

I’d collected twenty nine of the gold bricks. Each one was an ingot about eight inches long, three inches wide and an inch and half thick. There was a serial number stamped on each. When we weighed one, it came out to be about twenty seven pounds. That was close to the 400 troy ounce standard weight for internationally traded gold. At current market prices, even with the Equestrian supply affecting the economy, the load we’d picked up was worth several million dollars.

I was convinced that there was at least twice much that still on the sea floor, but I was disinclined to make another trip down there. Besides, if the Air Force actually was expecting gold to be aboard the plane but hadn’t told us, we couldn’t very well collect all of it.

The bricks were hidden in the bilge until we could find some way to get rid of them. In the meantime, we called the Air Force and told them we’d found the plane and it was full of gold. It was such a Clive Cussler-esque story that some Airman couldn’t help but leak it to the press.

“I can’t write this in one of my books,” said Andy. “Nobody would believe it.”

Chapter 9

With the news of the gold, the Navy salvage crews suddenly didn’t have anything more important to do. Whoever was in charge of the Air Force’s end of the operation had been nice enough to avoid exposing us to the media immediately, instead giving us the option of talking to the reporters.

“Heck no,” I said.

Unfortunately, word somehow leaked out, and Sally Townsend was waiting for us in Japan. She’d managed to get our berthing number and everything and was standing on the pier when the ship pulled up and began docking procedures. I didn’t see the camera man.

I weighed the pros and cons of going down to meet with her. On the one hand, I felt confident that I could keep her from learning anything, on the other I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of a conversation. In the end I decided that if I talked to her she might go away.

“Mr. Canvas, I heard that you were in the area when the North Korean executive plane loaded with gold was discovered.”

The news had said that the plane was flying out of the country with Dear Leader’s bullion stockpile.

“No comment,” I replied.

“I’ve also heard that you were in Washington last week attending a secret meeting with military officials.”

Just how had she found out about that? “No comment.”

“A source also told me that you’re being investigated by the FBI.”

“Okay, I’ll give you a comment about that. Up until you told me two seconds ago, I was unaware of such an investigation.” I had a good idea why, but I truly hadn’t known they were involved. Thanks Sally.

“What about the Inspector General of the DoD?”

“Yeah, they’ve been talking to my lawyer.”

“About what?”

“No comment.”

Her mouth twitched. She wasn’t yet as angry as she’d been after our last conversation, I had at least confirmed that her sources were accurate.

Changing tones, she said, “Mr. Canvas, I have yet to figure out what it is that you do. I can’t tell if you’re a war hero, a mercenary, or a common thief.”

I grinned. “No comment.”

“I’ve been authorized to offer you a contract for an exclusive story. How does five hundred thousand dollars sound?”

I snorted. “It sounds like watching grass grow.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It might be interesting to some, but not to me.”

She bit her lip, as if considering her options. “I can probably get the producers to agree to five million.”

I turned and walked away without another word. It would be nice money, but there were other people on the ship who might value their privacy more than that. Besides, if my face was on the news all around the world, the CIA would probably never hire me again. I wasn’t quite ready to take the money and retire just yet.

After we left port, I called Hanley. It concerning that Sally Townsend was able to learn so much about me. Also, I wanted to ask him about FBI involvement. Maybe that would provoke a reaction from him. The “Alphabet Soup” agencies are notorious for being competitive with each other.

Hanley wasn’t able to tell me much, other than he had only just heard about the FBI coming down on me. That meant that Sally had gotten her information not too long ago. He said there would be an investigation launched into her sources to determine if they were a threat to national security. He also mentioned that the Navy Inspector General was also after Nevis.

We had no immediate jobs, and probably would have stayed in Japan if we hadn’t encountered the reporter. Besides, at sea there were fewer people looking for you.

I reflected on the problems I had. Nevis had the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Navy Inspector General after him. I had to worry about the Department of Agriculture, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Defense’s Office of the Inspector General. That was not to mention the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Chiefs of Staff who were upset with me.

Wow, that was NCIS, NIG, USDA, FBI, DoD OIG, CIA, JCS—this was getting ridiculous. At least we weren’t a public company, or the Better Business Bureau (BBB) might be all over us.

It felt like the whole world was piling on my back. Well, I guess that wasn’t technically true. It was just the United States coming down on me. Selling out and becoming a hermit somewhere was definitely looking like a more attractive option. I decided that I to begin working on a plan to get everything figured out.

We cruised at low speed, requiring only one turbine to be running. If we didn’t have anywhere to go, we might as well save fuel. Our heading pointed us back towards Korea. We had plenty of time to do maintenance and fish off the side of the ship. Andy and Hawker, of course, were occupied with internet games.

It was perhaps the slowest trip across the Sea of Japan since motorized ships were invented. I was beginning to wish the CIA would find us a new job soon. It was not our longest drought between operations, but it was getting close. I was almost bored enough to call Princess Celestia to see if she had anything for us.

After a couple of days, we arrived in Korea. It seemed that many members of the media had begun to refer to it without a “South” attached. North Korea still technically existed, but it was hard to say what would happen when the UN finally got things figured out.

Speaking of the media, Sally Townsend was waiting for us. Hawker and Andy were on the bridge with me as we were pulling in.

“Somebody get rid of her,” I muttered.

Hawker grabbed up a megaphone that was kept in the gear locker and stepped out onto the bridge wing.

“Attention Sally Townsend,” I heard her amplified voice say. “Go eat a dick.”

We stayed tied up to the pier for two days. We had enough food aboard and had no need to leave the ship. We didn’t even drop a gangway.

Nika made a breakthrough with her old arms dealer contacts so we packed up and sailed to Russia. Through the magic of numbered Swiss bank accounts and careful paperwork, we received payment for the gold. It was taken off our hands by a couple of men who came out to meet us with an old fishing boat. Sometimes, a disguise wasn’t good enough and you needed an actual run-down vessel to be inconspicuous. They were not interested in where the bricks came from, nor were we interested in telling them.

The actual payment had been a little less than market value due to the cost of hiding the origins of that many numbered bricks. It was still a tidy profit, even split eight ways. All that remained was to divide it into our respective bank accounts. Once again, Jones protested the whole operation, but allowed the money to be deposited in her account.

We were still counting our digital spoils when David called me with problems. It sounded like at least a few members of the alphabet soup organizations were ready to do something substantial to me.

“Nearly all of them have operations all around the world,” he reminded me. “If you don’t come to them, they’ll come to you.”

“All right. I’ll see you in a couple of days.”

It may have been stupid of me, but I still held the opinion that I could beat whatever was brought against me. It may not have been exactly noble, or even remotely legal, but I was going to be a free stallion, or, well…get arrested trying.

Agents Hudson and Malvern were very nice to me. They hadn’t yet discovered any wrongdoing on my part, and I used my appointment with them to shrug off an appointment with an FBI interrogation team.

“The Navy tells us that their exploration of your property is part of an ongoing investigation and that we aren’t privy to the details,” explained Hudson. He sounded bitter.

“What, nobody respects the USDA?” I asked.

Malvern shrugged. “The Secretary of Agriculture is a member of the President’s cabinet. We’ve got investigators just like they do. We’ve even got armed agents like they do.”

“That seems unfair.”

“Tell me about it,” said Hudson. “Well Mr. Canvas, we just wanted to update you on the current situation with your property.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re very welcome. Have good day.”

Outside, there was an unmarked car with two men inside waiting for me.

“Sail Canvas?”

“That’s me.”

“I’m Agent Delton of the FBI. This is Agent Hawkins. We’d like to speak to you.”

“You could have made an appointment,” I said.

“Get in the car,” directed Delton. I opened the door to the back seat and slid in. The two agents got in the front and the car pulled away from the curb.

“What’s your business with the Department of Agriculture?” Delton asked.

“They didn’t tell you?”

“They’re being very stubborn about this. You must be someone important.”

“What, the Department of Agriculture standing up to the FBI?” I laughed. Neither agent replied.

They drove me a couple of blocks away to the J. Edgar Hoover Building and escorted me inside. I assumed the interrogation would now become more intense.

It was a very informal interview. It was a standard interrogation room with one way glass and the whole bit, but the procedures were relaxed and no recording equipment was used, or at least none that I could see.

Delton started the questioning. “Do you know Benjamin Nevis?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I’m a defense contractor and I do a lot of business with the Navy.”

“Are you aware that he’s currently being investigated on charges of misuse of military funds?”

“I heard something about that.” I saw an opportunity to trip the agents up and took it. “News has been slow to get to me, though. Lately I’ve been working internationally with the Central Intelligence Agency.”

Delton and Hawkins traded alarmed looks. The thought that they may have accidentally stepped in something bigger than they could handle was frightening.

“What do you do for the CIA?” asked Delton cautiously.

“Things that are classified beyond your wildest dreams.” I dropped the bemused expression I’d been wearing and fixed them with as serious of a look as I could muster. “Do you have any more questions?”

“No, I think that will do it for today.”

They drove me back to my hotel. When I was alone, I called Hanley to tell him what I knew in the hopes that it would be of some usefulness.

“So let me get this straight,” he said, “you’re playing all these agencies off each other in the hopes that it’ll get so confusing that nobody will know who has the authority to arrest you.”

“Either that, or the process will take so long that the statute of limitations will have run out.”

“Canvas, I can never figure out whether you’re a genius or an idiot.”

“I might stay on the line and try to convince you one way or the other, but I have other things to do.”

I got off the phone with him and dialed another number. It was Tuesday, and I would have preferred to meet with Dr. Games in person, but Norfolk was a four hour drive away. With the two meetings I’d had that morning, I was cutting the time a little close, but I managed to make the appointment over the phone.

I told her a little bit about my morning and my situation in general.

“Why are all these government agencies after you?” she asked.

“Truthfully, I’m not sure all of them know. I haven’t been arrested or charged with anything. I haven’t even had any official questioning that I could even have the opportunity to incriminate myself.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we have doctor-patient confidentially,” she said.

“Yeah, you’re probably more in the loop than any other civilian in the country. It’s good to know that I can trust you.” The thought can I really? popped into my mind for half a second, but I discarded it. Dr. Games hadn’t turned me in yet, so I doubted that she was ever going to.

In the next few days, I had several more meetings with what seemed like every government agency on the books, and perhaps a couple that weren’t. Many seemed frustrated that I appeared to be up to something, but what that might be wasn’t entirely clear. One of the Navy IG investigators probably put it best when she said, “The fact that we can’t find anything is what looks most suspicious.”

I told her what I told the rest of them. “It’s the CIA’s fault.”

Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for Sally Townsend to track me down, and that line didn’t work on her.

I did invite her into my hotel room to talk, because I had an idea that I wanted to try. “It’s pretty obvious that you can’t come up with enough money to interest me. I was hoping you might be able to do something else.”

She looked interested. “Go on.”

“I’m sure you’ve heard that I’m under a massive investigation by just about every government organization that exists.”

She laughed. “When I began to realize just how much scrutiny you were under, I didn’t believe it at first.”

“If there’s anything you can do to help, I promise to consider that exclusive interview that you wanted.” I hated to feel like I was giving up on the fight, but all the bureaucracy I was tied up in almost made me want to be retired.

She thought for a moment, perhaps wondering why I was changing my mind. “All right. I’ll gather some resources and get back to you.”

She got up to go. “Ms. Townsend?” I said. She turned.

“I’m really sorry for having you locked up.”

She seemed flustered. “Well, I’m not forgiving Mr. Carter for what he did, but I suppose I can see how the situation turned out that way." She left.

Pleased that she hadn't realized that I was Sean Carter, I called the ship to explain my plan. Andy, who had studied a little bit of psychology, commented on Sally’s attitude turnaround.

“It’s not classic Stockholm Syndrome,” he said, “but reporters are usually open to new ideas, and that makes them easy to manipulate.”

“Really?” I said, “and I thought I was just good with women.”

He laughed. “Good luck with the investigation, Sail.”

I learned the next day that Nevis was officially being brought up on charges of mishandling the Navy’s money. I hadn’t managed to come up with anything that might get him off the hook, so I decided to just sit back and let him roast. It would mean that I needed a new contact in the Navy, but that was probably not a big deal.

In the middle of all of this, Hanley found a job for me. “We’re sending you back to China, but for a little bit different reason.”

“I’m all ears.”

“We’ve managed to locate some Chinese biological assets and are in the process of investigating them now. Your ship will be acting as a staging base of operations. You’ll need to bring aboard some new equipment and personnel.”

“Great, when can we begin?” I said, only a little sarcastically.

“As soon as possible. You might as well get out of here before anyone starts asking any really difficult questions.”

Heinlein was standing ready in the Chesapeake Bay just south of Washington. The rest of the crew had sailed the ship around the continent and into position in case I needed to make a quick getaway.

As it happened, I wanted to be as quick in getting away as possible, even if nobody was actively chasing me. Having half the law enforcement organizations in the country investigating you tends to do that.

We docked in Baltimore and waited for the technicians from Fort Detrick to arrive. It was the Army’s main medical research facility.

It had been decided to convert the number three hold into a biological weapons testing facility. Materials were brought aboard for the transformation and we took off again.

The lab was slowly constructed inside hold three while we sailed. The small group of men were able to put it together by themselves and we didn’t disturb them.

The bioweapons people were an odd bunch. They had their own food and places to sleep, and wore the creepy white suits associated with scientific research. Luckily, they kept to themselves and didn’t bother us.

The inside of the hold was lined with plastic sheeting and a combination ventilation and climate control system was installed. From the outside, it was disguised as a cooling system for a refrigerated hold.

I had no idea what kind of things the Army and the CIA wanted to do when we got back over to China, but I hoped it wouldn’t take long so we could get the bio lab off the ship soon. Every one of the crew seemed to feel the same way.

We once again hooked down through Panama and plotted a course across the Pacific. When Hanley got around to contacting me, I asked him what the plan was.

“SAD is going to do a snatch and grab on the Chinese bio weapons.” SAD was the CIA Special Activities Division. They were universally known as hard core badasses, who recruited from SEALS and Delta Force.

“So we’re going to bring them aboard and then what? Use the lab to test them and then dump them overboard?”

“That sounds about right.”

“How are they getting from shore to ship?”

“That depends on Chinese shore defenses. How good is your helicopter pilot?”

Shep was not pleased when we told him the plan. “I’ve been shot at more times in the past few months with this crew than I have in my entire life before.” Still, he never showed any inclination of not wanting to do the flying for this mission.

We plotted our approach carefully. Once again, we were basing out of Korea. It would be a quick hop across the East China Sea under cover of darkness and radio silence. The helicopter would launch and cross over the coastline. The biological weapons facility was located about five miles inland. Once there, we would rendezvous with the SAD team and pull them out. They would attempt to pull out as many weapons as they could and torch the rest.

There was an army depot about eight miles south of the facility. There was all manner of nasty conventional weapons there that we didn’t need being used on us, so stealth was the number one priority.

We had to tie up for three days in Korea until a window of opportunity became available. We left the piers and hung out to sea to give the impression that we were leaving the area in case there were any spies that were keeping an eye on the ship. We waited stationary in the East China Sea until the night of the operation came. We had four hours when there wouldn’t be a Chinese satellite overhead. Unfortunately, it came during a time when we wouldn’t have a friendly satellite, either. You have to take the good with the bad.

We had detailed maps and photos of the area, which were nice but not as nice as real time surveillance would have been. All of us had a couple of days to memorize them.

On the night of the operation, we debated on the best strategy. Launching the helicopter from far away would reduce the likelihood that the ship would be detected so close to the coast. The problem was, that distance would reduce or eliminate any support if the helo ran into trouble. We decided that we had to chance the close approach.

Reducing the flight time also meant that the chopper didn’t need to be full of fuel. The reduction in weight would hopefully give us better maneuverability. Since I was technically running the mission, I decided to be part of the crew flying in. It would give me a little better picture for combat control duty.

Jeff rode in the copilot seat to help Shep deal with the controls and instruments, as well as provide another set of eyes to be on the lookout for trouble. Nika volunteered to go along and operate the other door gun alongside me.

Everything had been timed, and we had to be over the beach and ready to make the pickup at exactly the right moment. At that point, radio silence would be broken and we would be given instructions on landing.

Despite the three people in the helicopter with me, it felt very lonely leaving a relatively secure ship to invade a country that you’re not-officially-but-kind-of at war with. There was little indication what we would find once we were there. Hopefully a SAD team ready to leave with us. Hopefully not an ambush.

Shep took it easy, not pushing our time limit. It would put us over Chinese territory for a little while longer, but allowed us to be more flexible. We had a rough idea where the SAD team was, but we would have to wait until they identified the helicopter and called us in.

After starting a long, slow orbit over the target area, Shep tuned up the radio and waited. We were all patched into it, in addition to the intercom. Shep and Jeff wore night vision. Nika and I didn’t, because the muzzle flash of the machine guns would pretty much negate it.

On our second pass, the radio came to life, surprisingly with a female voice. “This is X-ray India. Authenticate, over.”

Shep said, “This is Charlie Hotel.”

“Look for the infrared,” came the reply. Whoever was on the radio turned on a beacon that could only be seen through the night vision goggles. Shep aimed for it.

The voice on the radio sounded familiar, but I didn’t dare call back any more than we had to. Shep brought the helo in to hover and slowly dropped into the landing zone.

When the wheels touched down, I found myself face to face with three women I didn’t recognize. This was definitely not any kind of SAD team I expected. Regardless, they began handing up metal canisters with some Chinese script on them.

About a dozen of the strange containers were loaded on board and wrapped up with a cargo net. The three women got aboard and strapped in.

When the helicopter was airborne, one of the women took out a small electronic control with a button and a safety switch. She flipped the safety off and pressed the button. A nearby industrial-looking building exploded, leveling it to the foundation. It was quite a bit more boom than I would have expected from the amount of explosives that three people would be able to carry inside.

Almost immediately afterwards, Shep called “We’ve got radar lighting up. They weren’t quite waiting for us, but they sure were ready.”

“Missile launch,” called Jeff. I felt the helicopter pitch over and duck close to the ground. Something whipped by overhead.

“Probably a mobile launcher,” said Shep. “We’re out of sight behind this ridge, but we’ve got a long way to go to get back to the ship. They might have time to drive to the top of the hill and fire down on us.”

“Are you getting this, Andy?” I asked. With a small crew, we were able to have the radios running in real time to make communications that much faster. As a result, Andy already knew what kind of trouble we were in.

“I hear you,” said Andy.

“Beacon coming on,” announced Shep. He’d turned on the helicopter’s GPS locater, which might tip the enemy off, but right now it was more important for Andy to know exactly where we were.

I let Jeff take over coordinating the gunfire. He’d seen the missile being fired, and knew where it had come from. Heinlein lay out to sea, ballast tanks flooded and hull-down to reduce observability. It also helped stabilize the ship in the shallow water. I saw the flashes as the guns began to fire. The distinctive sound of shells impacting began shortly after. Even if the launcher wasn’t taken out, it would certainly give them something to think about.

We flew on and left the coast behind. The gunfire stopped shortly before we arrived at the ship to keep from distracting Shep too much as he came in for a landing. As soon as the wheels touched, we were out strapping the helo down.

I didn’t have to give the order to pull out. By the time the helicopter had finished shutting down, the ballast pumps were already emptying the tanks and the ship was turning away from the coast.

As we relaxed a little bit, the three we’d picked up glanced at each other and then pulled off identical necklaces. Shocked, I found myself looking at Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo.

We’d encountered the three Equestrian agents before. What they were doing in China—disguised and working for the CIA—I had no clue.

“Yeah, it’s going to take a lot of explanation,” Apple Bloom assured me. I decided to put off that conversation for the moment.

We took the stolen canisters from the Chinese facility to the germ lab in hold three. The Army techs there seemed a little shaken up by the brief battle, which amused me a little.

I led the three mares to the galley where we could talk over coffee. Something told me this conversation was going to be good.

Chapter 10

“So Princess Celestia pulled some strings and set up a few contacts. Basically, what it all boils down to is that we moolight as CIA agents,” Scootaloo explained.

Sweetie Belle nodded. “That way, we have the benefit of both countries' intelligence, both countries benefit from our deeds, but no person is the wiser.”

"And remember, we're paying you not to tell the CIA,” added Apple Bloom.

I nodded. “Okay.” This sounded exactly like something Celestia, ever the Chessmistress, would pull.

After the hot extraction, I had given Andy the rest of the night off and was sitting in the CIC later after showing the three mares to a stateroom where they could rest. I felt tired from the energy-charged helicopter flight, but I felt Andy deserved the break more than I did for his help during our escape.

I thought that it would be more beneficial to run with the radar on rather than off. It seemed likely that the Chinese would pick us up even with it blacked out, so we might as well be able to see.

This gave us mostly static, as I turned up the gain to see as much as possible. It required a lot of attention to pick the details from the clutter, but after a few minutes I spotted what might be that damned stealth ship again. It was unnerving how they managed to show up at the most inconvenient times.

I went down to the number three hold to check how things were going. One of the hazmat-suited men told me to get out and let the experts take care of things. Beyond the plastic sheeting, I saw them working to carefully open the containers that had been brought aboard. Most seemed to contain a kind of fine powder. The containers were being handled inside sealed specimen hoods, but it was not a good feeling to be able to see something that could easily kill me up close. I wanted to be done with this operation more than ever.

Our stealth stalker seemed content to just sit back and watch. We kept expecting them to call in reinforcements if they themselves weren’t going to attack. That seemed to play out when about half an hour after leaving the scene of the operation, we received a radio call from an aircraft.

“This is People’s Republic of China airplane, calling unknown ship. Identify yourself.” The message was in reasonably clear English and didn’t sound very friendly.

We did a little tuning of the radar and picked up the airplane, holding steady at about sixty miles, and thirty thousand feet. Based on the return, it was probably a small fighter.

I debated what to do, eventually deciding not to reply. Perhaps we could lure it in closer, inside our weapons range.

The request came again, sounding more agitated. This time, it also carried a warning. “If you do not identify, you will be presumed hostile and fired upon.” I knew the Chinese had long range anti-ship missiles, and I didn’t doubt that they were pissed enough to use them.

I picked up the microphone, throwing a little bit of accent in my voice to aid my acting. “Jesus, don’t shoot! This is the cargo ship Minnow. We are U.S. flagged.”

Whoever was flying the fighter did not seem to be impressed. “Minnow, you are ordered to remain stationary and submit your ship for inspection.”

“Uh, with all due respect, we have a schedule to follow. We can’t stop for you.”

“Stop at once or you will be fired upon!”

A new voice joined the conversation. It was calm and spoke native English. “PRC aircraft, this is USS Lake Erie. Under what conditions is the cargo ship being stopped?”

There was a flare of electronic emissions on the horizon as the cruiser turned her radar on and lit up the airplane like a spotlight.

The fighter pilot replied, suddenly sounding unsure of himself. “This ship has violated China’s territorial waters and conducted suspicious operations.”

“We have no record of this. Regardless, if you engage a vessel of the United States, we will be forced to engage you.”

There was no reply from the Chinese plane.

We met up with the cruiser a short time later and had a quiet talk on the low powered radio. The Army had been a little worried about sending one of their best field bio weapons teams out with seemingly little protection and had pestered someone until the Navy provided some support. Since the crew of Lake Erie had already been cleared for missions involving us, it made sense to send them again. Once more, I was reminded how was nice it was to have some firepower behind you.

We mentioned to them the stealth ship we suspected of being in the area. The man on the radio was a little surprised, but said that there had been reports of such things.

We split up and headed slowly back to Korea. The cruiser remained behind, between us and the Chinese coast.

As samples were taken from the stolen biological substances, the rest of the container was taken topside and dumped. Each time they did this for a container, the technicians made sure to decontaminate the area where they were working, and I kept a watchful eye on them. I didn’t know the first thing about preventing a biological accident, but it wasn’t the kind of thing that you felt relaxed around. When they eventually got around to dismantling the lab in the number three hold, I was going to have someone clean it out with acid and/or fire.

I wondered how long we were going to stay in the area. The Chinese would be angry about the bio weapons facility, but would they build another one? Had they already done that? Were they still interested in depopulating Africa so they could move in?

A few hours later, we tracked a large slow moving contact on air search radar. Its course appeared to be from somewhere to the north, although we had no way of telling where exactly. It was set to pass just a couple of miles ahead of our course. It looked like a cargo plane or maybe an airliner cruising slowly. Being a possible Chinese aircraft so close to us, I was taking no chances.

Even at maximum gain on the radar, I just barely caught a discernible pattern in the air behind the airplane as it passed ahead of us. It was a small field of tiny specks that appeared to be descending rapidly.

I flipped on the intercom and cranked it to maximum volume. “Everyone to battle stations. Yes, you too, lab rats. We have incoming paratroops. Repeat, paratroops dropping in.”

I sent a quick message to the Navy. I didn’t know how long it would take for help to arrive, but I suspected that it would probably be too late.

Andy’s shotgun was handy in the CIC, but I couldn’t use it with hooves. I went up to the bridge. Andy was there. An AK-47 lay on the instrument panel in front of him. He had on night vision goggles and was checking the sky.

There was nobody in the CIC, but the radar picture was still being fed to the screen in the bridge. I saw it bloom as a few dozen parachutes were opened. This was not good.

I quickly took stock of defending forces. There were eight of us, the three Equestrians, and twelve Army germ people. We could count on the mares to put up a fight, the regular crew had at least experienced combat before, and the scientists were probably next to worthless. They were military, so they at least knew how to use weapons, but this was way outside their job description.

Sweetie Belle barged up the stairs, an assault rifle gripped with magic and a wild look in her eyes. Andy said that he was finally getting a visual on the incoming paratroopers. Sweetie took the night vision from him roughly and stormed back down the stairs.

“I’m going to make sure the bio idiots are getting ready,” I said and ducked down the stairway. I met the group of them coming out of the hold. Most were still dressed in their white suites. All carried M4 assault rifles.

“Get organized,” I said to the one who looked like he was in charge. “We don’t have very long.”

I flew back to the row of staterooms to make sure everyone who was sleeping had gotten up and was getting ready. I went past Apple Bloom, who carried a Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle modified for hooves. Nika had her AK-47. I debated what to do. I could change to human for the advantage of fingers, or quickly strap pistol in a hoof mount that I had devised. I picked the second option.

Hawker had the foresight to grab a whole bunch of wireless headsets that were tied in with the boat intercom. She passed them out. Jones put one on and took a few others to give to the Equestrian team if she ran across them as she went off to find a gun.

From the time I had first noticed the radar contacts to the point when I had a gun and was ready to go, maybe a minute had passed. I heard shooting on the foredeck. Hopefully someone was firing carefully aimed shots at descending soldiers before they could become a problem. I heard the louder punch of the sniper rifle.

Nika and I made it to the deck. She said she would cover the stern and call if she needed help. I gave her a quick kiss and flew towards the bow.

I saw a couple of parachutes settling into the water, but many more billowing away from the bow where they had been released after the soldiers had landed. I remembered that there had been no other radar contacts outside of the plane that had dropped them. That meant that the soldiers had no backup and also no way to retreat. They were committed to fighting to the end. I hoped I would be on the winning side.

All of the lights on deck were turned on. That made sense. There were not enough sets of night vision goggles to go around to all the good guys, so there was no point in letting the Chinese have the advantage if they’d brought night vision of their own.

I heard all kinds of shooting going on around the foredeck. Between the hold covers, the crane, and miscellaneous deck equipment, there was lots of cover and both sides were taking advantage.

I came to the corner of the shipping containers that were still stacked in front of the superstructure. The Armored Box Launchers were still inside, and were still loaded with the remaining nuclear Tomahawk. I felt slightly uncomfortable covering behind a nuclear missile, but reasoned that the sixty thousand pound bulk of the ABL should protect me. It even had “Armored” right in its name.

Apple Bloom slipped up beside me, carrying her outsized rifle. “They’ve got body armor with shock plates,” she said, shouting over the noise on deck. “Your little pistol might have trouble penetrating.”

Great.

She moved on, taking her .50 caliber rifle with her. I decided to follow, reasoning that while she was probably going towards the shooting, it would be safer than going by myself.

I heard shooting behind me, and felt a moment of panic as I looked back. I realized that it was Andy, firing wildly towards the bow from where he stood on the bridge wing.

I glanced forward again and saw Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo sprint forward using Andy’s fire for cover. As they hit the deck in front of a hail of bullets, I saw one of the invading solders step out from concealment and raise a rocket propelled grenade launcher.

Andy had seen it too and ducked for cover inside the bridge as the grenade leaped at the spot where he had just been. The bridge wing was ripped apart in the explosion and a lot of the bulletproof polycarbonate windows cracked.

Apple Bloom shot the man with the launcher and then moved forward. I considered for half a second going back to check on Andy and take over the helm if he wasn’t all right. I saw movement in the bridge and decided to go after the mare.

The team of Army scientists were moving up the other side of the ship, mostly unnoticed because of the fight that the Equestrians were putting up on the side that I was on. I slid in behind the number two hold cover with the three of them.

I touched the radio headset. “Andy, are you all right?”

“He’s alive but not good,” came Jones’s voice. “I’m with him.”

“Everyone else, status.”

“I’m at the stern,” said Nika. “Jeff is with me. There have been a couple of attempts to climb over the stern rail with grappling hooks.”

“Hawker and I are aft of the number three hold cover,” said Shep. “We’re watching for the same thing on the sides.”

“I’m in the CIC,” reported Penny.

One of the Army men said, “We’re about halfway up the bow, preparing to make a charge.”

The ponies didn’t answer my status request, as they were right beside me. Sweetie said to the radio, “Army, wait one. We’ll do a coordinated attack. Get ready.” She nodded to the other two to make sure they were set before counting down.

When the three of them left cover, so did I. I heard more shooting from behind, and hoped it would be enough cover fire to help us make it to the next hiding place.

The four of us slid in behind the number one hold cover. The Army troops were there, a couple of whom were bleeding. Apple Bloom shouted something in Chinese. She received a reply a moment later, and didn’t appear to like what she heard.

“What was that?” I asked.

“A surrender order.” she said. “They won’t.”

Just then, I caught sight of a grenade hurtling towards us. I shouted and dropped to the deck. I heard it bounce off the top of the number two hold cover and explode somewhere behind me. The thrower had misjudged the distance. We couldn’t expect to be that lucky every time.

I realized that we didn’t have any explosives of our own. That was a shame. We were going to have to do something soon or the enemy grenades would begin finding their mark.

“Fire the fore gun,” I shouted into the radio. The mares looked at me expectantly. I think they realized what my plan was.

Another grenade sailed in, looking like it would be fairly on target. Scootaloo batted at it like she was swatting a fly and it dropped around the corner of the hold cover. We all dived for cover.

The explosion nearly took what remained of my hearing away. The hold covers were all made of relatively thin steel and I worried that fragments may have penetrated. I got up and checked myself. I seemed to be unharmed. Well, apart from my ears. Sweetie Belle was shouting something directly at my face and it took effort to understand her.

“We’ve got to move up and finish this. If we stay here, we’ll get killed eventually, if not right now!”

Just then, the five inch gun located inside the hold cover we were sheltering behind fired. The cover wasn’t open, and the shell blasted right through it, just like I had intended.

“Come on!” I shouted, or at least I think I did. Now I was so deaf I couldn’t even hear my own voice. I charged out, weapon at the ready.

The scene on the other side of the hold cover was ugly. The muzzle blast of the gun had mushroomed the wall of the cover outwards, throwing shrapnel along with the shockwave. There were bodies and parts of bodies directly in front of the jagged hole.

Everyone else nearby had been blown off their feet. A few were still alive, but had obviously been subjected to a severe pressure shock. Some bled from the nose and ears.

The good guys secured the area and began stripping weapons and armor from the Chinese so they would pose less threat while under guard. For a few of them, it was unpleasantly discovered that the armor was the only thing holding their bodies together.

The pile of dead and wounded were left under care of the eight uninjured Army people. Of the other four, one was dead and two were badly injured. The last, who only had a gash on his forehead from a piece of shrapnel, helped the Equestrians and I carry the injured friendlies back to the medical room. I called ahead to have Jones waiting. I also ordered whoever could reach the main radio to call for help.

There was blood everywhere by the time we got the wounded men to the operating table. I was pretty sure none of it was mine, but I still had a lot soaking me. Liquids spread a lot, making it look like there was more spilled than there really was, but this was shockingly much. Jones looked a little overwhelmed, but went to work as quickly as she could.

I told Nika, Jeff, Hawker, and Andy to stay where they were to make sure we would have no more soldiers trying to come aboard. Each of the mares seemed to have some experience with combat medicine, so they stayed with Jones.

I went up to the bridge. Shep was at the helm and was on the radio. Lake Erie had come through for us again, and there was a Navy helicopter bringing in two corpsmen with their equipment. There was only room for one helicopter aboard, so they would have to rope down to the deck.

Andy had little pieces of metal and polycarbonate embedded in his skin and maybe some permanent hearing loss, but he would probably be fine. The bridge wing where the RPG had hit was a mass of twisted metal. There was a hole where the door leading to it used to be that would have to be fixed eventually.

I went down to the deck to direct the helicopter. The two men were winched down to the deck, bringing with them a bag full of pints of blood and other supplies.

“What happened here?” I thought one of them asked. I couldn’t tell because of the ringing in my ears and the sound of the helicopter. At any rate, he didn’t need to know the classified things we had been through, and there was no time to explain anyway. I showed the two of them to the medical room.

After that, I went back to the bow to check the situation there. I was pondering what to do with the survivors. With the arrival of the Navy Corpsmen, Sweetie Belle came out of the medical room and I asked her for a suggestion.

“Despite my job, I’m not one to execute people. Put them in a life raft. If they die of exposure, it’s almost like it isn’t our fault.”

That sounded reasonable enough to me. With the help of the Army team, I got all the bodies, living or dead, into the water and threw out a couple of inflatable boats. If there were any soldiers still out there that had parachuted into the water and missed the fight completely, they would probably come upon the scene shortly and help the rest. In the meantime, I made sure Shep had the throttles pinned to keep Heinlein moving away as fast as possible.

I almost didn’t realize that I was on the verge of collapse until the deck came rushing up to meet my face.

Chapter 11

It was probably the ringing in my ears that woke me up. I found myself in my own bed in my stateroom. Other than the constant white noise in my head, everything seemed calm.

There was something on my face that turned out to be a bandage. Most of my face hurt, my nose most of all.

I stood up from bed and stumbled a little. My head felt heavier than it should, and I put a hoof on the bulkhead to steady myself. After slowly making my way to the door, I stepped out into the passageway and headed for the CIC.

Hawker was there, looking tired. She turned to look at me and said something.

“What?” I replied. It felt like I shouted, but I couldn’t hear it.

She scribbled something on a piece of paper and showed it to me. It took a second to focus my eyes. You banged your nose when you passed out on deck.

Well, that explained what happened to my face. “How long was I out?”

She flipped the paper over and wrote some more. About twelve hours. You must have been exhausted.

That long? The porthole in my cabin had been covered, but I figured it should be daylight outside. I nodded to Hawker and made my way to the bridge.

Nika and Sweetie Belle were there. Both looked tired. Somehow, the bridge coffee maker had survived the battle, and Nika helped me get a cup. By talking directly to my ear, she was able to tell me that I had been found lying face down on deck apparently sleeping soundly with the exception of having my nose caved in. She said that it was no wonder, since I’d participated in the extraction of the Equestrians, the initial radar intercept of the paratroops, the most intense part of the fight, and the recovery operations afterwards.

Sweetie shrugged. “You did good,” it looked like her lips were saying.

I still felt unwell, but I didn’t think I could go back to sleep. My nose was starting to hurt, so I went down to the medical room to see if I could find some painkillers.

The Corpsmen had already gone, although some of their supplies had been left behind. The two injured Army men had apparently pulled through and both lay quietly. I was unable to find any anesthetics that didn’t require an IV, so I went looking for liquor.

It felt like some nice chilled vodka would do me some good, so I checked the walk-in freezer in the galley. I was only somewhat surprised to find a body wrapped in a blanket. It was perhaps the easiest way of keeping a cadaver at sea. I wondered if he had been vital to the bio lab in hold three, and whether operations would continue in the next few days.

We cruised back across the Pacific. This route was almost becoming a commute for us. Within a week of leaving Chinese waters, we had most of the containers of biological weapons samples tested and tossed overboard. The Army team stayed busy. Having experienced combat loss myself, I knew that work was a good way to cope.

Speaking of work, we had plenty to go around. There were several repairs that needed to be made. There was no way we could fix the blown apart bridge wing properly, so it was repainted and modified to appear to be damage other than the result of an explosion.

None of the small bullet holes had appeared in anything vital. It was a long process to locate them all. Patching them and repainting was comparatively simple.

The number one hold cover was probably damaged beyond repair. It wouldn’t slide open correctly now, and looked too much like battle damage. We fixed it so it stuck out less and covered it with a tarp. Penny apologized for blowing a hole in it, but her quick action in the CIC had probably saved us.

We were planning a significant period in dry dock upon our return to Norfolk. Heinlein had already been up on blocks more than most ships were in their entire lifetimes. Still, there was work to be done.

I was also committed to spending a long time in Washington. The uncomfortable truth was that I had a lot of explaining to do. I had a few ideas, but it felt like I was running out of maneuvering room.

After another trip through Panama, we headed through the Caribbean and up the east coast. The Army techs got their lab torn down and we unloaded everything back in Baltimore. After that, the ship went back to Norfolk, and I went to D.C.

I had a meeting with Sally Townsend, a meeting I’d called, in fact. Used carefully, very carefully, the media can work to your advantage. She was going to get the story of a lifetime, and hopefully I was going to get rid of my troubles and come out of it unscathed.

As of yet, no organization investigating me had the whole picture of what was going on. Hopefully, I could either keep them from getting that, or shut down the investigation before they could. The only way I could see to do that was to make things as complicated as possible and get protection. The CIA was where most of that came from, but I had to have more powerful friends than I already did. Nevis was out, and there were few others who could be named-dropped to make people take notice.

I called up a couple of Virginia’s Congressmen. Simply getting their numbers was probably the easiest part. Of course, the men didn’t answer their own phones and I had to convince the secretaries that I was interesting enough to write down my information so they could get back to me.

Norfolk, Virginia Beach, and the whole Hampton Roads area all relied heavily on the shipbuilding and naval industries. The Congressional districts in the area were in the middle of petitioning congress for federal funds. I called the Congressmen to offer my help as a local business owner.

If I did say so myself, I made a good case for why I should appear before Congress to plead the case for Hampton Roads. It was not often that someone willing offered themselves to testify to Congress, and I was invited in.

On the day I was set to appear, I wore a suit that I had had no need for on the high seas. It felt uncomfortable, but I reminded myself that it would only be a couple of hours. I also wore the small pin from the Presidential Medal of Freedom set. Any member of Congress would know what it was.

The questioning from the Congressional committee was mundane. I talked about the impact the nautical trade had on the local economy and how culturally significant it was. Finally, near the end of the session, I got the question I had been waiting on.

“Mr. Canvas, how did you earn that Presidential Medal of Freedom?”

“I’m afraid that’s classified, Mr. Representative. You’ll have to take that up with the President.”

My statement had the desired effect of giving the Congress something to talk about. I had Sally Townsend bring it up later in a press conference, alerting other reporters.

In return for doing what I asked, I was going to have to give Sally my story and do it for free. She drove a hard bargain, but I figured I could handle it.

I got her access to the dry dock and allowed her to take pictures of the ship from strategic angles to minimize the detail that could be seen. She began putting together the story, with editing from me to keep the really secret stuff hidden.

To be fair, I did tell Hanley about it before the story ran. He was even more angry than I expected, and I thought he might blow out an artery or something. I told him that he should begin preparing a statement from the CIA to respond to the inevitable reporter inquiry that took maximum advantage of the free publicity.

I also warned David to get ready. He would be handling all the news traffic coming to me. In preparation of the onslaught, I ditched all my old contact information and got a new phone, just in case someone had managed to get the number.

The story broke about like we expected it would. CIA and military hire young and handsome stallion to go in harm’s way for America! That’s not actually what the headlines said, but it was the most interesting thing to happen in the news for months. With all the attention, the President was forced to release the details of the Medal of Freedom, which only made it that much more interesting.

As part of the agreement, Sally Townsend got all the credit for discovering the story, and was the owner of the only known pictures of the ship. After that, our agreement was that I was free to do what I wanted as long as I didn’t divulge any details that I hadn’t told her. That was fine; I didn’t want to talk secrets either.

David submitted to me a list of media inquiries and their attached dollar values. I had TV interviews, book deals, and job offers.

Even with all the publicity flying around, there were still investigations being run. If anything, they had intensified. Sally Townsend did one more favor for me. She exposed the investigations and explained that the reason I looked so suspicious was because I had to be secretive about the covert work I did. With her face on TV, and the right words, public opinion came crashing down and stopped the investigations cold.

Nevis didn’t benefit, but he was a nobody to the public and no help came his way. The last I heard of him, he had taken a job with some fishing company.

Despite all that had happened, the rest of Traveler’s crew had remained anonymous and operations could continue. The ship spent a while in dry dock being modified.

The superstructure was changed up to alter its shape slightly. The bridge was expanded and armored. The distinctive aft crane was removed and a tower-type crane replaced it. The new crane was backed up against the superstructure and looked much different, but it was still capable of everything the old one had been.

The ABLs were moved from the fake shipping containers to the number three hold, which had been converted to another weapons platform. One of the quad Harpoon launchers was moved in from the number four hold. This allowed us a little better damage control, and also allowed the hold covers to be reshaped for a smaller profile and a different look.

Below the ABLs the empty space of the former number three hold was taken up by an area large enough to accommodate the Army bio lab again, if need be. The rest of the space was devoted to fuel, so we could increase our range.

The hull was given an ugly coat of pea green, and the decks were painted to make the hold covers less visible when viewed from above, such as in satellite photos.

Internally, not much was different. After some careful calculations, it was decided that the radar output power could be increased somewhat without burning any components out. That would give us stronger returns and maybe make stealth objects show up better.

As we prepared to pull out, I got a call from Hanley.

“Your reporter friend wants to accompany you on a job.”

“I told her no,” I said. Not that Sally hadn’t pleaded with me.

“Well, I told her yes. Think of her as a guest of the CIA.”

“In other words, you’re paying me.”

“Not that much of a guest.”

“Then what’s in it for me?”

“Fame. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

I realized there was nothing I could say that wouldn’t make me sound like a whiny colt. My plan had worked too well, and Hanley was first in line to make me pay for it.

Sally Townsend and Todd showed up at the shipyard and came aboard. Luckily, her entire attitude towards our secrecy had changed since being let aboard legitimately. We still had to go over some ground rules, but she was receptive.

During emissions blackouts, she wouldn’t be able to do anything to interact with the outside world. This was probably the most difficult thing for her to swallow, since as a journalist she thrived on communication. She would get to update regularly, as part of her assignment was an ongoing series that would keep people tuning in to her network.

Also, we couldn’t allow detailed pictures from inside the ship. A blank bulkhead was fine. The gun magazines were not. We also had to limit pictures of the exterior to prevent anyone from realizing what the ship now looked like. There were a few photos that hadn’t been published yet that I’d allowed her to take from before that showed the ship in its last incarnation. We could work those into the narrative and maybe pull off the illusion that the ship still looked that way.

She also had to take for granted that we knew what we were doing. When someone told her to duck, she had to instinctively do it rather than ask, “why?” She may have been in country during wars, but we were closer to the edge of combat than she had ever been before and any delay in following an order could get her killed.

We discussed all of this and more while we sailed from Norfolk back towards Asia. Todd shot clips for Sally, and they edited them together to make a recognizable story. They had a short interview with me and she talked about what little she could regarding the boat. We agreed that whenever someone from the crew who was not me appeared in video, they would be blurred.

The first video was sent out and seemed to be a popular thing to watch on TV in the U.S. It was rebroadcast on the internet and had all indications of going viral.

As usual, we didn’t know yet what the CIA wanted this time. I didn’t know how much more we could keep going over there and expect to keep finding things to blow up.

The second report by Sally Townsend was largely a rehash of the first, as nothing had happened, and there’s only so much you can talk about aboard a secret ship with a secret mission.

Unfortunately, a denizen of the internet carefully picked through the video and compared one of the shots to a file of porn he had. The woman seen fleetingly in the video had her face blocked, but it appeared to him that the body was the same as Hawker Hurricane.

It was really more of a lucky guess than anything. Hawker had only been doing her regular job in the video, and hadn’t worn anything more revealing than shorts during her time on the ship. At least nothing that I had seen. What she and Andy got up to in private was their business.

Lucky guess or not, it made for an interesting story. Within days, the internet was flying with accusations that the former pornographic actress Hawker Hurricane was now working as a mercenary for the CIA.

We had a discussion about it. Plausible deniability was on our side, and if we never showed her in another video and didn’t bring it up, they hype would probably pass. On the other hand, it was up to Hawker.

“Well,” she said, “these news reports that Ms. Townsend has been making have been lacking in some excitement. Honestly, I don’t think it would hurt our security much.”

“I’m sure you’ll get the same book deals and other offers that I did,” I said. “Probably more.”

The media of the United States and the United Kingdom went nuts when Hawker made herself known. Her regular income on royalties of her porn tripled. The same flood of inquiries and proposals came, but there were more of them. All of that just goes to show that sex sells.

Hawker’s celebrity seemed to be more popular than my own, and I was actually glad. I didn’t need the money that seems to get thrown at you when you’re popular, and I was happy to step aside and let her be the main focus of Sally’s news reports.

There were entire websites set up online devoted to trying to figure out who else was part of the crew. People had jumped to the conclusion that one porn star aboard surely meant that there had to be someone else interesting. To our relief, they never made any other significant accusations or discovered anyone else’s name.

That didn’t stop already established celebrities from trying to become involved. We laughed off their messages one after another. I actually did consider Paris Hilton’s request, if only because I might actually be able to fulfill every American’s fantasy of shooting her.

When we finally got orders, Sally was able to pull a whole new report out of rehashing information in a different tone of voice to indicate things had gotten more serious.

The objective this time was simply to conduct reconnaissance on the Chinese coast and make sure they didn’t attempt to do anything with the biological weapons. Since the production facility had been destroyed, nothing new would be produced, but that didn’t take into account the weapons that may have already been deployed.

We had no idea what kind of delivery methods they might use. Ballistic missiles we’d seen, as well as regular bombs. There might be something else that we hadn’t thought of, but hopefully any action on our part wouldn’t be necessary.

Sally got another report out of how we were now sitting on station and waiting. The missions often involved a lot of waiting, she explained.

It’s too bad that doesn’t make good TV. When the public realized that she was not really offering anything new with each report, the viewership began to fade. I was all right with that. Maybe it would finally get us some peace and quiet and get Sally and Todd sent home.

Sadly, things never stayed calm when we needed them to. The CIA ordered us to move out of the East China Sea and down towards Taiwan without explanation. I sensed that something was happening, but nobody would tell me what. Typical.

Chapter 12

Privacy was a valuable commodity aboard when Sally Townsend was there. She was only doing her job as a reporter, but I found new ways to hate her each day.

It didn’t help that I now had to consider my decisions with not only with how it would affect myself and my crew, but how the world would look at it. The constant scrutiny, even as viewers dropped, felt like no pressure I’d ever experienced.

We arrived in Taiwan, although without follow up orders. It looked like it was going to turn into another wait and watch situation.

I filmed a segment on diving. Mostly, it turned into a what-not-to-do. My methods and habits had evolved into the most efficient way. It was probably more dangerous than doing things by the book, but sometimes I was in situations where it would be more dangerous to me if I didn’t have unconventional ways. Sally got another report out of that, but she appeared dismayed that we were already scraping the bottom of the barrel. I remembered that maybe boring news would get her network to cancel the assignment.

Just when the possibility of actually getting the reports stopped early due to lack of news seemed imminent, we finally got something to do.

Political monitors working for the CIA seemed to have gotten the war with Korea figured out. I had previously never heard the term “political monitor” before. I assumed it was like a spy but boring.

One such person had been deployed to Dalian, and had apparently uncovered something big. It was by no means a center of Chinese politics, but it was close to the North Korean border and was a large shipping center. We knew that China was somehow involved in North Korea’s war effort, but the details were unclear. Other than the weapon we had personally witnessed being transported, there wasn’t much to go on.

We planned the operation with what data Hanley had given us. The monitor with the information would meet us and hand it off. The man was apparently in deep cover and had to move carefully.

It was decided that we would enter Dalian and go to a meeting from there, probably close to the docks. It was difficult to plan these things so far in advance, what with the whole covert aspect.

Sally got something fresh for once, even if it was only “We’re about to do something worth talking about, tune in next time to hear about it!” That seemed to keep her happy.

It took us a couple of days to get up to Dalian. That gave us lots of planning time. We decided to send Andy and Nika. Neither of them were famous, unlike some people. The two of them went over the information we had and talked among themselves about how things were going to work out.

Docking in Dalian made me nervous. Firstly, we had been arrested there once, last year. Secondly, there was no guarantee that an observant customs official wouldn’t see a similarity between our ship and one that may have been ordered to be on the lookout for. We’d modified it, but that wasn’t perfect. To maybe increase security a little, we temporarily changed the name of the ship to McCarthy, after another man who was strongly anti-Communist. Sally made a big deal of me hanging over the stern to do the painting myself. I guess it made me look good as a “hands on” captain.

Dalian hadn’t changed since we’d been there last. We tied up, Andy and Nika left, and we waited.

Andy had his cell phone with a Bluetooth earpiece so we could communicate with him continuously. There was some kind of small park in the city that he and Nika headed for. It shouldn’t be too hard for them to be identified by the monitor. Andy wore a backpack to carry the information in.

The rest of us waited. Sally Townsend had wanted to record the proceedings, but that idea was shot down quickly. Andy and Nika were in position a few minutes early. Andy had done some nerdy electrical things to the earpiece so it picked up all the nearby noise. It made for distracting sound, but it was more useful for our purposes. It sounded like they were in a crowded area, perhaps with some vehicle traffic. That would work for concealment if they kept their voices low.

They were approached by someone who spoke English and sounded like he had a bit of a Chinese accent. They exchanged code words to verify identities.

“You have something for us?” asked Nika.

“Yes I do.” There was a clicking noise that sounded like a briefcase opening. “This is a file that details much of China’s involvement with North Korea’s actions. I think you will find it very interesting.”

Andy had started to ask something when there was a burst of gunfire. The sounds coming over the phone got chaotic for the next several seconds between the screams of the crowd and Nika’s swearing in Russian.

“The monitor’s been shot,” Andy gasped.

“How is he?” I responded.

“Three holes in the chest.” Dead, he didn’t have to say.

“Do you have the file?”

“Yes.”

“Who’s doing the shooting?”

“No idea. It looked like a drive by from a car. By some miracle we didn’t get hit. We’re covering behind a fountain right now.”

I knew that neither of them had taken weapons with them. “Do what you have to do. We’ll pull out as soon as you get here.” Shep and Jeff stood up and went to go warm up the engines. Hawker went down to the CIC.

“What happened?” asked Sally.

I shrugged. “Just one of those things.” I went down to the deck to get into position to cast off the lines.

Most of the sounds coming from the phone involved Andy breathing hard and cursing. I could probably enable some kind of GPS tracking on his phone, but didn’t think it was worth the effort. They would either be back to the boat shortly or not at all.

Andy called out that they were within sight of the ship. I lifted a pair of binoculars I had with me and saw them running down the line of docks towards our berth. I also saw a Chinese-made sedan closing on them quickly with several men inside. Perhaps it was the same car that had done the drive by.

When the Equestrian team had departed, we had gladly accepted their weapons. They had been entering a civilian port and couldn’t take them. Penny was up on top of the bridge with Apple Bloom’s .50 caliber Barrett.

It was a semi automatic rifle that fired bullets with enough power to be able to hit pretty much anything in view. With a 10x scope, that was quite a lot.

As I watched the car chasing down the running Andy and Nika, I heard Penny fire. The bullet poked right through the front fender of the car and went straight into the engine block, disabling the car. The men riding in it bailed out and fled, knowing that they wouldn’t be safe behind the thin sheet metal of the car doors.

I cast off the lines just as Andy and Nika arrived. They jumped across the gap and the ship turned away from the dock. I was a little angry that the ship’s new cover that had been created while in dry dock had already been blown, but there wasn’t much we could do about that.

We cleared the harbor and I took Andy and Nika inside to figure out what the information was about. It was a few pages of documents in a folder.

Just as promised, the reading was interesting. China and the United States had a delicate balance of power in the economic market. The U.S. had the money, and China had the cheap goods. Neither could exist without the other, but the balance could be altered a little.

A plan had been hatched that would subtly give China a financial edge. They had been investing heavily in Africa recently. It was still a continent largely untapped for natural resources. Through whatever convoluted means, they had decided on biological weapons to get rid of the people who already lived there. Strange new illnesses were not uncommon to Africa. The Chinese would then occupy the areas they were interested in under the guise of humanitarian help for the mysterious disease.

There needed to be a distraction to get things moving. Since North Korea needed little provocation to attack South Korea anyway, it didn’t take much subtle pushing to get the idiot leadership to go for an all-out war. Other NATO countries were not affected by the nuclear surprise attack, and it didn’t keep the United States down for long. The explosives had been taken to the detonation sites by minisubs.

Truthfully, South Korea might have been able to take the North all by themselves, despite the Communist “strength in numbers” idea. The war served a double purpose of halting the production of many South Korean goods to export to the United States, leaving China to produce them instead. They also might be able to benefit from participating in the reconstruction of the North.

Truthfully, it wasn’t a bad plan and I almost wished that I had the kind of resources to start a war for my own profit. I could definitely spot some holes in it, but it probably would have worked beautifully if it weren’t for a crew of misfits sailing a ship named R.A. Heinlein. Yeah, I could see why they were so mad at us.

It was all very incriminating information, and the CIA would want to know. Our orders were to transport the file to South Korea where a courier would take it back to the United States.

It might have been easier to scan the pages and send them electronically, but right now, running from Dalian, we needed to be radio silent. Even with that precaution, it was going to be a stressful trip.

There didn’t seem to be much pursuit for the first few hours following our hasty departure. That was fine with me. Still, we decided to keep on constant alert and be ready for action.

I did a walkthrough of the vessel. Everyone was where they were supposed to be. Somehow, we’d gotten Sally Townsend to go to her cabin. I found Andy talking to Todd about small electronics in the CIC.

“How did you get that headset to perform like that?” Todd was asking. “I didn’t think that was possible.”

“Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do,” said Andy.

“Heinlein would be proud,” I said. Anything interesting happening?”

“I think we may have picked up the stealth ship again,” said Andy. “You might go talk to Hawker about it. I’ve kept the radar at less than full power so they don’t get suspicious.”

Despite turning up the possible output power of the radar, we had yet to use the additional punch.

“Probably a good idea.” I left to check around the rest of the ship. Everything and everyone appeared to be in order. That was shattered, though, when I got an urgent call over the intercom to come to the CIC.

Nika was waiting when I got there. She looked alarmed. “The Chinese have contacted us directly. They want to talk to you.”

Frankly, I was a little surprised that this hadn’t happened before. Establishing radio contact was a lot easier than tracking us down. I picked up the microphone.

“Heinlein here.”

“Mr. Canvas, you’ve caused us a lot of trouble.” The voice was male, and spoke perfect English with a neutral tone.

“Just doing my job.”

“We cannot allow you to continue. We have tried direct attacks, but it seems that we must deal with you in a different manner.”

“What, we’re too tough to beat so you want to make a deal?”

“Something like that. Here is the deal: if you and your crew come quietly, we will not kill a city in South Korea.”

The simple language almost made the threat sound more menacing. “What do you mean?”

“We have a few ships west of your location. One of them is fitted with a tactical ballistic missile. It has a very special kind of warhead. I’m sure you know what I mean. If you do not approach this group and surrender yourselves, we will fire the missile at a city. Many thousands, perhaps millions, will die.”

“What kind of sick minds do you people have?” This was pushing things, even by the standards I’d come to expect from China.

“Mr. Canvas, we expect to you not to have a sick mind yourself and sacrifice your operation to save all those people.”

“What stops me from letting you launch and just shooting the missile down?”

“The same thing that stopped you in the South Atlantic: distance and speed. We are approximately ninety miles from your location. By the time you were close enough to guarantee a successful intercept, our ships would be surrounding you. You would surely die in the attempt.”

“Are you sure about that? We took on the whole North Korean navy and kicked ass.”

“Mr. Canvas, don’t confuse us with those backwards idiots. We have modern equipment and more of it. The simple truth of the matter is, if you do not comply, bad things will happen. If you try to fire a long range missile to take out the launch ship, we will see it coming on radar and fire our weapons long before it reaches the ship. If you try to contact the military for outside help, we will hear your transmissions and launch. If you do anything at all besides coming to us peacefully many people will die.”

My mind was racing trying to figure out a way to overcome this. We hadn’t been left with many options.

“Do you accept or not?”

“I think…yes.”

“Turn off all your electronic devices. If we detect any radio emissions at all, we will launch. We are located directly west of your position. Arrive within four hours.”

The voice said nothing after that. I put the microphone down and pressed the intercom button. “Come around and proceed directly west.”

Jones, who was on the bridge, said, “Why?”

“Crew meeting. I’ll explain.”

Gathered in the galley, I told the grim news. Everyone showed varying degrees of shock, expect for Sally.

“How can we best film this?” she asked.

“You don’t get it,” I said. “They’re trying to keep this secret. If you’re there, you’ll probably end up as dead as the rest of us.”

For perhaps the first time since we’d met, she believed something I said. “Oh my God. What do we do?”

“First, you’re going to get off the ship,” I said.

We packed all of Sally and Todd’s gear into a lifeboat. I helped them to get in.

“So you’re just going to meet them?” said Sally.

“We don’t have any choice. Much as it sounds like a movie, if we don’t go, a lot of people are going to die.”

“It’s…it’s so brave of you.”

“We all do what we have to do.”

I handed her a file of paper sealed inside a waterproof plastic bag.

“These are the files that the CIA needs to know about. As much as you might be curious, you can’t open them.” I indicated to her a tape seal that would show if it was broken. “These must return to the United States. Don’t make our last mission a waste.”

I nodded to the pair of them and started the winch to lower the life boat over the side. When the boat hit the water, Todd started the motor and they took off towards Korea.

The paperwork I’d given her was fake. I had no confidence that she would refrain from having a look, and besides, if the Chinese caught them I wouldn’t want them to get their hands on the files. Earlier, I’d had Andy scan and send the real files electronically.

I went back inside. “All right, we’ve got four hours. How are we going to do this?”

We all agreed to go down fighting. The number one priority was to take out the Chinese weapons. After that, we would do whatever we could. Who knows, we might get lucky and actually survive.

Ultimately, though, we all discarded our bravado and faced the most likely possibility. The missile might get fired anyway, and we were all surely going to be dead one way or another. The falling night would provide darkness to help us, but that wasn’t going to be nearly enough.

“If we’re going to go out with a bang, I said quietly, “we might as well make it as big as possible.”

Everyone looked at me, and I knew that they understood what I was thinking.

“They said if we fired a missile, they’d see it coming,” said Shep.

“I’m thinking something else. My company doesn’t build cruise missiles, but I’ve seen enough of them to know how the warhead fits in. I doubt if the computer inside cares whether it’s a conventional explosive or nuclear. I think we could rig it to detonate by remote, so we could wait until just the right moment.”

Jeff stood up. “Time’s wasting.”

We used the forward crane to help slide the missile out of the ABL far enough to dismount the warhead. It was probably the most delicate work I’d ever done. Even if the warhead wasn’t a danger until it was armed, most nukes carry a smaller explosive powerful enough to destroy the weapon so it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. The crane set the nuke down of the deck of the number three hold and we got to work.

The wiring and associated circuitry was complicated and took a while to pick through. Everyone helped with the project. By the time we got it figured out and began to construct a detonator, two hours had passed.

We were getting close to getting everything wrapped up when Hawker called excitedly over the deck PA.

“We’ve just received underwater telephone contact from a U.S. submarine. The reporters ran into a Navy ship and passed the news along.”

Everyone cheered. I would have cheered along with them, except I was soldering wires on a freaking nuclear warhead. It was very, very delicate work even for fingers.

Suddenly, things were looking optimistic. I had an idea in mind, and I left the rest of the work to others as I went to talk about it with the Commanding Officer of the submarine. It was USS Ohio, a sister ship of Michigan and outfitted in the same way.

“We’re going to run our ship into the group of Chinese and blow it up, taking out their weapons in the process.”

“You want to start from the beginning?” he said. “I wasn’t briefed on this.”

“Just follow us and be ready to pick people out of the water.” I explained further just enough so that my plan would work.

We were shortly joined by two Chinese frigates. Each had their guns pointed at us. They formed up on either side of Heinlein and escorted us. They weren’t expecting company and were not looking for submarines. Ohio followed stealthily along behind.

Another ship approached. It was angular and painted with an unusual camouflage pattern. I recognized the shape from some satellite photos the Navy Reconnaissance Office had taken. This was the infamous stealth ship. It didn’t come very close, mostly just to show us that it was there, before heading off to the north to patrol.

In the distance, another ship came into view. It had a small tactical ballistic missile elevated and ready to go on deck. It was now time to put the plan into action.

We’d all grabbed an emergency air supply. I took one last look around the bridge and then pushed the throttles to the stops. We had previously removed all the safety devices from the power train, so the turbines and the electric motors were free to spin as fast as they wanted. I ran down to join the others.

In the night, we sprinted across the aft deck, keeping to cover as much as possible. Upon reaching the aft rail, none of us hesitated before jumping it and falling into the roiling propeller wash.

The aerated wake was a little softer to fall into than regular water, but also made me sink deeper than normal. That was fine. I slowly came back to topside, the detonator for the nuke in my hand. We’d wrapped it in plastic to waterproof it but still allow the signal to carry.

The two escorts apparently hadn’t seen us jump over the stern and were apparently confused as to why the ship was speeding up. Maybe that had been a mistake and had alerted them that something was wrong. Too late to worry about it now.

For the next couple of minutes, I watched the ship draw closer. It was only a matter of time until the Chinese grew suspicious enough to act. Just a little closer…

I saw a tiny flash of flame through the night. I assumed it was the rocket of the missile, so I pressed the button on the remote and dived.

The flash was bright enough and close enough that I saw it clearly through my closed eyelids and the water. I tried not to think about the fallout as I swam deeper.

A hand grabbed my arm and pulled me further downwards. I felt a steel hull under my fingers and I was led into an airlock.

After the water was drained out, the airlock was opened from the inside. Not only was I cold and soaking wet, I was responsible for a nearby nuclear detonation. I was the center of attention, basically.

The rest of the crew had been brought aboard by the SEAL divers. Still wet, I went to see the Commanding Officer.

“How much do you know about the situation?” I asked him.

“I was just told to give you any assistance I can.”

I nodded. “All right. Are there any contacts out there?”

The CO conferred with the sonar crew. “Well after that explosion, it’s hard to hear anything. There is one contact off to the north that is still making headway. We think it’s a small stealth ship.”

“Sink it.”

“Come again?”

“You heard me. After a nuke, nobody’s going to notice a torpedo.”

Grumbling, the man gave orders to have the stealth ship sunk. When the torpedo was away, he turned to me. “Anything else?”

“Give us a ride home, I suppose.”

All of us decided to lay low when we got back to shore. The media was not made privy to the details of the final battle. Sally Townsend believed us dead and had broken the news to the world, albeit a version edited by the CIA. That was too bad because as far as epitaphs go, “Sacrificed himself for the sake of people he never met in a nuclear blast of his own creation,” was a pretty good one.

Nika and I decided to vacation in the U.S. northwest. It rained all the time, and the cabin was tiny, but it was a remarkably good place to unwind and not think about sailing for a while. Still, I found myself missing it after not too long.

I stood at the window one night looking at the thunderstorm outside and thinking. There were a few scraps of paper on the kitchen table where I had been drawing new designs. The rain outside seemed to have meaning, whether literally washing things clear of nuclear fallout or metaphorically washing away the past to leave a bright future.

Either way, I had to get back to drawing up plans. I had a new ship to build.