Satan's Tail

the late 1970s on—the Littoral Towed Array System, or LITAS, was built around a series of hydrophones that listened for different sounds in the water. These were then interpreted and translated into ship contacts.

In theory, LITAS could hear anything within a twelve-mile radius of the ship, even in littoral waters where sounds were plentiful and easily altered by the shallow floor of the ocean. But like much else aboard the Abner Read and its companion vessels, the new technology still needed some adjustments; five miles had proven the average effective range thus far on the voyage, and the presence of a very loud vessel such as the oil tanker tended to mask noises very close to it. The approaching storm would also limit the range.

The four-ship war group Storm headed was as much about testing new technology as she was about catching the pirates. And the Abner Read was the centerpiece of both the task group and the tests. Named for a World War II destroyer that fought bravely in the Pacific until being sunk by kamikazes, the new ship had all the spirit of her predecessor but looked nothing like her. In fact, though she was called a destroyer, she bore little resemblance to other destroyers in the U.S. Navy—or any other navy.

It had often been said that the U.S. Navy’s Arleigh Burke destroyers represented the culmination of nearly one hundred years of warship design. Truly, the Arleigh Burkes were the head of the class, in many ways as powerful as World War II battleships and as self-sufficient. The Abner Read showed what the next one hundred years would bring. Indeed, there were many who hadn’t wanted to call her a destroyer at all; proposals had ranged from “littoral warfare ship” to “coastal cruiser.” The Navy might be ready for a radical new weapon, but a new name seemed too much of a break with tradition, and so she was designated a “destroyer, littoral”—or DD(L)—the first and so far only member of her class.

At 110 meters, she was a good deal shorter than the Ar-

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leigh Burke class, closer in size to a frigate or even a corvette. Where the Arleigh Burkes had a bulky silhouette dominated by a massive radar bulkhead, a large mast, and thick stacks, the Abner Read looked like a pyramid on a jackknife. A pair of angled pillboxes sat on the forward section of the deck, which was so low to the water, the gun housings were generally wet. Her stern looked like a flat deck; the section over what would have held the rudder on another ship was open to the ocean, as if the sea wanted to keep a finger on her back. The ship didn’t have one rudder—it had several, located in strategic spots along the tumble-form hull. The rudder and hull design made the Abner Read extremely maneuverable at low and high speed. And while the exotically shaped underside and wet deck took a bit of getting used to, the Abner Read had remarkably good sea-keeping abilities for a small ship. It didn’t so much float across the waves as blow right through them. Stormy ocean crossings were almost comfortable, certainly more so than in a conventional ship of the same size, even though the vessel had been designed primarily for shallow coastal waters.

The screws that propelled the ship were located almost amidships, recessed in a faceted structure that helped reduce their sound. They were powered by gas turbines whose exhausts were cooled before being released through the baffled and radar-protected fu

The three smaller craft that had accompanied the AbnerRead to the Gulf of Aden looked a bit like miniature versions of her. Officially called Littoral Warfare Craft, or LWCs, they were designed from the keel up to work with the DD(L). Not only did their captains receive orders from a commander in the DD(L)’s tactical center, but the ship received sensor data as well—each had an integrated imaging system on her bridge identical to the one on the Abner Read.

The vessels were crewed by only fifteen men, and in fact 16

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could be taken into combat by as few as five, though the mission had shown that a somewhat larger complement would be more comfortable. About 40 meters long, they were roughly the size of a coastal patrol boat and needed only twelve feet of draft at full load displacement. The vessels had a 25mm gun on the forward deck, a pair of multipurpose missile launchers—loaded, in this case, with Harpoon antiship missiles—toward the stern, and below-waterline torpedo and mine dispensers. Smaller than the Abner Read, they had a correspondingly smaller radar signature. Their long, knifelike bows and finlike superstructures had led in-evitably to a warlike nickname: Shark Boats.

XP Group 1—better known as Xray Pop—was one of twelve proposed integrated littoral warfare combat groups that would eventually combine surface warfare ships with unma

Storm firmly believed littoral warfare was the Navy’s future. The teething pains he suffered on this maiden mission would help shape warfare for the next fifty years. He’d freed Xray Pop from the engineering spaces and Pentagon offices and dragged littoral warfare out into the real world, and he meant to show it would work.

Which meant sinking the bastards in the little boats.

“One of the unidentified patrol craft is heading in our direction,” said Eyes.

“Do they see us?”

“Not sure.”

Storm moved back to the window of the bridge. The UAVs designed to operate off the ship’s fantail were ru

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tended on operating completely without airborne cover—a pair of P-3 Orions from the Seventh Fleet had been moved up to Kuwait to provide reco

Not that he would have wanted them anyway. They were too big for the Abner Read’s low-slung hangar area, which had been designed for the UAVs. They’d have had to be lashed to the helipad.

“More contacts,” said Eyes. “Two more patrol boats. I think these are the Somalians, Captain.”

“They’re a bit far from home,” said Storm, feeling his heart begi

“We’re working on it.”

Storm could hear the voices of the others in the background, ringing out as more information flooded the sensors.

The Tactical Warfare Center was a Combat Information Center on steroids. A holographic display similar to the smaller one on the bridge dominated the compartment. Synthesized from all of the available sensor inputs on the ship, as well as external ones piped in over the shared Littoral Warfare Network, the display showed the commander everything in the battle area. It also could provide scenarios for confronting an enemy, which made it useful for pla

Tac also held the Abner Read’s radar, sonar, and weapons stations.

Two more contacts were made, then a third: Storm felt the adrenaline rising throughout the ship, the scent of blood filtering through the environmental system—the Abner Read was on the hunt.