End Game

The Abner Read was a cutting edge ship, a next-generation “littoral combat vessel,” officially called a DD(L) for littoral destroyer. About the size of a corvette, it had the firepower of a destroyer but only a third of the complement. Supposedly, the officers and crew had been chosen as the most forward-thinking people in the service. Having come from Dreamland, Starship had a different perspective.

And used to the much more easygoing and fluid procedures of Dreamland, he chafed at the “fussy” discipline and strin-gent shipboard rules.

Starship had trained two sailors to fly the robot helicopter, but the ship’s captain insisted that he be at the stick during “prime time”—the hours between dusk and dawn when the pirates were most likely to strike. That meant duty from 1600 to 0700—or whatever stinking bells the Navy used to confuse landlubbers like himself. That might not have been so bad if he didn’t have to oversee the maintenance and ord-nance people assigned to the aircraft during the day. It wasn’t their fault that they were unfamiliar with the systems—but it wasn’t his fault, either, though the captain seemed to think it was.

END GAME

13

The image in the main screen in front of Starship sharpened. There were two large crates toward the stern; this was almost certainly a smuggler, bringing anything from ca

“Coming up on him,” Starship said. “Two crates. Uh, got, um, maybe a deckhand, only one person I see—smile for the camera, scuzzball.”

“We can do without the color commentary,” snapped Eyes.

Man, I am working with a bunch of old farts, Starship thought.

The Werewolf’s flight station, adapted from a control unit designed to be used by soldiers near the battlefield, had one large display screen and two smaller ones, all touch-screen panels. While they could be configured in a number of ways, Starship typically left the large screen as his main view screen, displaying either infrared or daylight video from the Werewolf’s nose. He usually put the system’s engineering panel in the top left-hand screen, toggling it with the weapons screen when appropriate. Below that he always put a God’s-eye-view map, generally referred to as a

“sitrep,” or situation report, map showing where he was and what was around him. The area the Werewolf flew over was rendered as a wire model, with green and red lines delineating the topography. The Werewolf was a stubby yellow double cross that, if you squinted just right, looked a little like the aircraft itself.

“Tac, we have a tanker out here,” said Starship, spotting a much larger vessel ten miles beyond the suspected smuggler. “Want me to check it out?”

“Negative, Werewolf. We have him on the sonar array.

One problem at a time.”

Starship reached for his cup of the crankcase oil the sailors claimed was coffee. As he did, the Werewolf’s flight control computer buzzed with a warning—the radar had caught sight of an aircraft approaching from the north. Before the pilot could react, the screen flashed a proximity warning—the air-

14

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

plane was heading at a high rate of speed on a direct vector toward him; he had thirty seconds to evade.

Starship pushed the Werewolf stick to the left, starting an easy circle away from the airplane’s flight path. The computer had been programmed to be overanxious so that the Navy newbies he was training didn’t fly into anything; he wasn’t really in any danger of a collision. But it was curious that the other plane was flying so low. As he banked parallel to its flight path, the radar caught sight of three other airplanes, all at very low altitude and obviously following the leader.

“Tac, I have something unusual here. Four aircraft very low to the water, no ru

“Hold tight, Werewolf.”

Old farts.

CAPTAIN HAROLD “STORM” GALE STARED AT THE HOLOgraphic display on the bridge of the Abner Read. The three-dimensional projection rose from a table behind the helmsman’s station and could be used for a variety of purposes. In this case, it was taking various sensor data to render a map of the area they were patrolling. The Abner Read, in green, sat at the right-hand corner. The smuggler the Werewolf had spotted—yellow—was toward the center, with the tanker another yellow block beyond it. There were no aircraft.

“I don’t see any airplanes,” Storm told Eyes. “You’re sure Airforce got it right?”

“He has them on his radar,” said Eyes.

Storm reached to the communication control on his belt, flipping into the Werewolf circuit. The wireless communications system allowed him to talk to all of the ship’s departments directly.

“Airforce, what are we looking at here?”

“Four unidentified aircraft, flying low and fast.”

“What types are they?”

END GAME

15

“Not sure. I haven’t seen—”

“Get closer.”

“Tac just told me—”

“Get closer!”

Storm flipped back to Eyes. “Have Airforce find out what the aircraft are.”

“What about the boat, Captain?”

“A single smuggler, no weapons visible?”

“Affirmative, Captain. He’s twenty minutes away, at our present course and speed.”

“Threat to the oil tanker?”

“Doesn’t appear so.”

“Have the Werewolf pursue the airplanes. We’ll set a course for the smuggler in the meantime.”

“Aye aye, Captain.”

THE COMPUTER ESTIMATED THE AIRCRAFT WERE MOVING AT

280 knots. The computer calculated the lead aircraft’s likely course based on the past observations—a straight line toward the eastern tip of Somalia.

“Werewolf, please close on the bandits and identify,”

said Eyes.

Gee, no kidding, thought Starship.

“Tac, be advised these aircraft are now out of my sensor range. It’d be helpful if you turned on your radar and gave me a hand.”

“Negative. We’re staying dark.”

“Do we have an Orion above?” asked Starship. As the words came out of his mouth, he realized the answer was going to be negative—the radar planes had been pulled off the gulf duty two days before, sent to Europe to help in the Kosovo mess.

“We’re on our own.”

“Yeah, roger that. OK, I’m maneuvering to follow.”

Starship arced behind the planes and revved his engines to max power.

More smugglers, probably, though the fact that there 16

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

were four of them was curious. He could guess that they weren’t combatants; the planes were too small and slow.

Five minutes later, with the aircraft still out of sight, Starship asked the computer to recompute his targets’ course and probable location. The computer declared that they should be five miles dead ahead. They weren’t, and when five more minutes passed and he didn’t fly through them, Starship told Tac the obvious.

“Looks like we lost them. They probably put the pedal to the metal as soon as they picked me up on radar.”

“Repeat?”

“I believe they accelerated away. My screen is clear.”

“You’re sure they’re gone?”

“Either that or I just flew through them.”

“Stand by, Werewolf,” said Eyes, his voice dripping with venom.

“It wasn’t my fault I lost them, Commander. They had a head start. If you’d allowed me to chase them when I wanted to—”

“Stand by,” snapped the other man.

Starship continued southward; he was about sixty miles from Tohen, a tiny village on the northeastern tip of Somalia. Port Somalia—an oil terminal port built by the Indians and not yet fully operational—was another ten miles to the southeast.

“Airforce—what’s your story?” barked Storm, coming onto the communications line.