Ghost Fleet Read online

  As Worm accelerated away, the missile picked up the signal and pursued the fighter.

  Worm dove toward the palms of the Ulupau Crater in a bid to mask his plane from the missile’s radar. He grunted as the g-forces pushed him down into his seat, then he jinked hard. He should have been able to shake it. But whatever he did made no difference today; the missile followed his every move.

  In his last moments, Worm glanced down at the watch his fiancée had given him for his thirty-first birthday, a Breitling Aggressor digital chronograph. It was as much to think of her one last time as it was to, like a physician, mark the time of death.

  The missile rode the giveaway signal like a rail and slammed into the side of the F-35, splitting the jet into two pieces that tumbled into the Pacific.

  USS Coronado, Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam, Hawaii

  Simmons knew the outcome of the next few moments would be a binary choice: Win or lose. Live or die.

  As the Coronado pushed back from the pier, fresh air began flowing through blown-out windows and holes shot through the aluminum superstructure. Only Directorate helicopters and drones circled in the sky. One of the helicopters had just dive-bombed into the open side of the hangar deck of the USS Boxer. The amphibious assault ship, used by the Fifteenth Marine Expeditionary Unit, burst into flames, setting fire to the ship moored behind it, some kind of transport Simmons couldn’t identify.

  A chainsaw-like noise and then a line of yellow tracers arcing out from the ship snapped Simmons back into focus. The Coronado’s Mk 110 gun engaged one of the smaller surveillance drones that swooped inside its line of fire.

  Simmons couldn’t see any other U.S. ships moving from their moorings; that made the Coronado an even more conspicuous target.

  “All ahead full. Take it to twenty-five knots,” said Simmons. “When we pass the Arizona memorial, make it forty, and then once we’re clear in the channel, flank speed. No matter what, fast as the ship can make.”

  “Aye, Captain,” said Jefferson without hesitation. Good man. Normally, running a 418-foot ship at that reckless speed inside a harbor was a quick way to a brutal collision or grounding, not to mention a court-martial. But now all that mattered was escaping the harbor’s kill box.

  The Coronado jerked forward, and it felt for a moment as if the trimaran’s hull was moving at a different speed than the superstructure above. Simmons hoped the ship wouldn’t come apart. Between the rocket hits and the earlier impact of the REMUS, there was no telling how much damage had been done. The squat effect of the engines’ powering lifted the bow higher than the stern, like a kid doing a wheelie on a bike, but the ship evened out as it accelerated onto a plane past the smoldering hulks of the Pacific Fleet and then the old Arizona and Missouri memorials. The first ship had already been sunk, while the second didn’t seem to have a scratch on it. The Coronado had a clear shot at one of the Directorate freighters but Simmons didn’t bother. The LCS was fast, but another wrinkle of her design was that the main gun wobbled so badly at high speeds that it wasn’t even worth the shot.

  The Coronado was accelerating around the turn in the bay when the burning USS Lake Erie, a Ticonderoga-class Aegis cruiser, detonated its entire magazine. The shock wave pitched the Coronado, almost swamping the ship before the ride-control system automatically righted it. The water jets were picking up speed, though, and the ship exited the harbor at forty-eight knots, racing away as a final Directorate rocket-propelled grenade landed a hundred feet short.

  “ATHENA, damage? Crew status,” Simmons barked into his command headset.

  “Sys-fig ship tor ween loss,” the computer replied. “Par rew tactical ment offline ties.”

  “What the hell? Cortez, damage and crew status,” Simmons said, cupping his hands around his mouth against the wind rushing through the bridge.

  Lieutenant Horatio Cortez, the tactical action officer who was now the XO by default, looked over and nodded. Then the former Naval Academy water polo player seemed to stare right through his superior officer. It wasn’t fear or disrespect; he was focusing on the projections inside his Oakley tactical viz glasses. A bloody thumbprint smeared the left lens, but from the inside, he could see visuals of the ship’s data stream.

  “ATHENA’s still monitoring the ship, but something in its comms hardware has been damaged. Superstructure — well, you can see that, sir. One of the diesels is leaking coolant, so we’re going to need to bring our speed down soon. Bow section has a foot of water, but it’s under control. Main gun down to fifteen rounds, and fire control is iffy. Communications are still out,” said Cortez.

  “Casualties?” said Simmons, looking at the captain’s chair. The Coronado was already undercrewed by design; for the sake of efficiency, went the thinking. In peacetime, losing anyone out of the tight duty rotation was a headache. During war, it was potentially deadly to the ship and the entire crew.

  “ATHENA shows twelve KIA,” said Cortez. “Eleven wounded.”

  “Goddamn it,” muttered Simmons, then, realizing he’d left the headset microphone on transmit, he fumbled to shut it off.

  “Where to now, sir?” asked Jefferson. Simmons could see a dark wet spot on the top of Jefferson’s head, but he wasn’t sure if it was Jefferson’s blood or someone else’s.

  “Sir?” someone else quietly asked.

  What now? His father had said this was what command was like, a constant stream of questions. He wheeled sharply. It was the corpsman, Cote. Shit, how could he have forgotten about the captain? Then he saw Cote’s face and realized it didn’t matter anymore.

  “A moment, sir,” said Cote. “Take off your shirt.”

  Simmons looked at Cote with a mix of anger and incomprehension.

  “Not now,” said Simmons.

  “Sir, let me do my job,” said Cote.

  Simmons quickly pulled off his uniform top and felt a sharp sting behind his right shoulder blade, some kind of cut he hadn’t even realized was there.

  Cote removed a small silver aerosol bottle from a waist pack and sprayed it on the wound. In an instant, the pain was gone, and Simmons could feel his shoulder relax.

  “Okay, Cortez, when Cote is done, help him get Captain Riley’s body below. He doesn’t deserve this,” said Simmons. “Jefferson, let’s dip the towed-array sonar to see what’s out there. I’ll try to link with PACOM to find out what the hell they want us to do. Keep everyone at stations.”

  While Simmons was tucking his shirt in, Cote studied his new captain. Without a word, the corpsman detached a hard plastic case from his belt and examined the dozens of color-coded pills inside, reverently holding the case as if it were a small Bible.

  “Here, sir,” said Cote. “There’s a —”

  “Just give them to me,” Simmons said, and he downed three tabs. He knew what they were by the colors: a green modafinil for endurance and focus, an orange beta-blocker to steady his nerves, and a yellow desmopressin to boost his memory and keep him from having to leave the bridge to pee.

  Cote and Cortez were carrying the body toward the hatch when an alarm from the tactical display made them both stop. They left Riley’s body at the sill of the hatch and raced back to their stations.

  “Ah, shit, hydrophone effects,” said Jefferson as the sonar readings started to come in. “Torpedo in the water, sir. Bearing oh-four-five. It’s close, three thousand yards.”

  At that moment, Simmons realized that his first ship command would not be a long one. Of course the Directorate would leave nothing to chance. Some Type 93 sub was probably lurking at the entrance to sink any survivors who managed to make it out of Pearl Harbor. All he’d accomplished was taking the Coronado from one trap right into another.

  Simmons tried to stay calm. “Bring us back up to flank speed. If they want to get us, they’re going to have to race for it.”

  Part 3
/>   All warfare is based on deception.

  — Sun-Tzu, The Art of War

  Duke’s Bar, Waikiki Beach, Hawaii Special Administrative Zone

  She was a goddess.

  Xiao Zheng knew he would never have had a chance with a girl like this back home in Wuhan. When he was in elementary school, he’d thought being surrounded by so many boys and so few girls was a good thing. But at eighteen, Xiao realized that all it meant was that even the ugliest ducklings had their pick of the boys. And he was not the kind of boy they picked. He wore thick black bamboo-framed glasses because he was the only one in his unit whose eyes hadn’t responded well to the mandatory vision-enhancement surgery.

  The goddess wore a flowing blue skirt and a tight white tank top; she had a leather backpack-style purse slung across her shoulder.

  As she entered Duke’s, she adjusted her white-framed sunglasses on the bridge of her nose and let down her ebony hair. Xiao had to tell himself to start breathing again. He’d been deployed in Honolulu for three months now and he still had trouble working up the courage to speak to the female marines in his unit.

  As she crossed the room, a group of sailors shouted at her in broken English to come drink with them. She ignored them, and Xiao’s heart soared.

  The vision made her way through the crowded bar, smiling at the other girls scattered among the tables drinking vodka shots or white wine with the various Directorate soldiers. These were prostitutes, most of them flown in from back home. But this one was clearly something different. Xiao Zheng knew he was staring, but the young Directorate marine couldn’t help himself. She stopped at the bar and pushed her sunglasses up on the top of her head. The way she held herself made it clear she could not be bought. She had to be earned.

  For the next hour, he watched her. With someone so beautiful, he’d found that sometimes watching was enough.

  “Another round!” shouted Bo Dai from the barstool next to Xiao Zheng, elbowing Xiao in the ribs. A microphone on Bo’s digital dog tags around his neck transmitted the command to a small translator he wore on his belt. The card-deck-size device scratchily conveyed his bellowed command in tinny English a moment later. Bo was the senior enlisted marine in Xiao’s squad, and he usually looked out for him.

  Nine brimming shot glasses arrived quickly, as if the bartender had anticipated the order.

  “Drink, you pussy,” Bo shouted at the top of his lungs before putting Xiao in a gentle headlock. The translator device started to convey the bawdy order before Bo silenced it with a drunken slap.

  Xiao cringed and downed the shot. It was warm tequila, and he gagged as Bo whooped.

  “Okay, no more of this mooning over some local whore. I need to know my best assistant machine gunner is not afraid of girls, because if he is, then what’s he going to do when the Americans from California come for us with both barrels?” Bo mimed an enormous pair of breasts.

  The big sergeant dragged Xiao over to the goddess and set him down on the barstool next to her like an offering. Xiao stood. His knees trembled. He had to get out of there. Go anywhere but where he really wanted to be.

  Xiao’s legs were unsteady; he turned to go but knocked over the stool. A lithe and deeply tanned arm reached out to catch him by the shoulder before he fell too. “Easy there, sailor,” she said.

  She touched me! Xiao wanted to shout.

  What to say? What was the Hawaiian phrase for “hello” they had learned? O-la-ha? No — he wanted her to hear his own words, even if he didn’t know what they should be.

  But before he could say anything to the goddess, her sunglasses fell to the floor, and she slipped off her stool and bent down to pick them up, giving Xiao an unforgettable view.

  “I need to go wash these off. Then you can buy me a drink?” she asked.

  Xiao nodded silently and she smiled before disappearing into the back of the crowded bar. He fished in his pocket for some bills to pay the bartender for another wine for her so it would be waiting when she returned.

  “Shit!” he cursed out loud. He stumbled and rushed back to the table where he had been sitting earlier. His wallet had to be there.

  His squad mates registered the intense look on Xiao’s face as he dropped to all fours in front of everyone in the restaurant and began crawling under the table, looking for his wallet. There. Under a wrapper of soy chips lay his wallet, damp with beer. He stuffed it into his back pocket and stood up.

  The other marines were laughing at him. Some barked like small dogs.

  “Little friend, if you need a condom, I’ve got plenty,” Bo said.

  Xiao turned away from Bo’s crude hand gestures and pushed through the crowd to the back of the bar, stumbling over toes and slipping on a slime of spilled liquor and beer. He made it without falling and stood in the darkened entrance to the bathroom. Was this the right place to wait? It was quieter. He cast a look over his shoulder to make sure none of his squad were going to humiliate him again.

  All clear. When he turned around, there she was, standing close enough for him to kiss, if he had had the courage.

  “Did you forget my drink?” she said.

  Xiao flushed and looked down at his feet, again catching another eyeful of her breasts. She put a hand on his belt buckle and tugged slightly. He leaned back, and she tugged just a little bit harder.

  “That’s okay, we don’t need it. Come with me,” she said and led him away from the bathrooms. “Where it’s quieter.”

  “Yes, better,” he muttered, but not loud enough for the translator to pick up. He followed her down the humid stairway that led from the bar’s main room to a pitch-black storage area.

  As they reached the bottom of the stairs, he realized that she was taller than him. But as she drew his face into her breasts, he decided he was just the right size.

  Lavender and talc. It felt like all the blood that had rushed to his cheeks was now flowing to his groin. He felt a new courage rising up inside him. Bo was right! I should have gotten a condom when I had the chance.

  She sighed and held him closer, drawing the moment out.

  His body stiffened and then spasmed as the sharpened stem of the white sunglasses drove in just behind his jawbone, severing his internal carotid artery.

  University of Wisconsin, Madison

  When she saw the two men in matching gray suits enter the back of the lecture hall, Vernalise Li realized she should have listened to her mother’s warnings.

  But instead she’d told her mom that she needed to stop reading Wikipedia, that what had happened to the Japanese Americans in the 1940s wouldn’t happen in the twenty-first century. People were better than that now, or so she’d thought.

  She continued lecturing, unconsciously adopting a more Southern Californian accent with each word.

  “From here, you can see that a rack-mount power system has its limitations. What are they? Space, for sure,” she said.

  So what if she’d been born in Beijing? She had grown up in Santa Monica.

  “But the advantage? Density. By using a fluid-based energy-storage system that, with a conformable design, we can address industrial pulse-power applications where the current rack designs fall short.”

  She had played beach volleyball in high school. Varsity!

  “The switch today operates for four milliseconds, and we are working to increase power density. That goes back to the question of how to store the energy. It always comes back to density, and fluid is the answer.”

  She watched the two men take seats. The suits were evidently cheap, likely Dockers, but it didn’t matter. If they wanted to blend in, wearing suits and ties on campus any day but graduation wasn’t the way to go. Then she noticed they weren’t wearing viz glasses, so they weren’t even recording the lecture. Were they just checking in to make sure students were actually in class? It wouldn
’t be surprising; the whole campus knew conscription was coming.

  “The other element is addressing contamination in the switches, which always, always, always leads to shorter minority carrier lifespan. Plus, we’re maximizing peak power again, which makes contamination a major cause of degradation in these light-activated switch designs.”

  So what was their deal? No one attended a lecture on the mathematical dynamics of pulsed-power systems for fun.

  “Okay,” she said, wrapping up. “You know where to find me on the course sim later if you have any questions.”

  “I’d like to ask one, with your students’ permission, of course,” said Professor Leonowsky, who’d stopped by earlier and was sitting in the front row. He perched his viz glasses atop his bald head and smiled with the ease of someone for whom the pressure of the tenure clock was a distant memory.

  “Everyone, we’re not done yet. Have we all got a few more minutes? Of course we do,” said Leonowsky, as ever answering his own question.

  “Certainly,” said Vern, hiding her trembling hands behind her back. Why did believing you were about to be accused of an unnamed crime make you feel guilty, even when you knew you were innocent? She could barely speak Mandarin, at least not without a horrible American accent, as her mother never failed to remind her.

  “Let’s get to the practicalities. What can anyone really do with a fluid-based battery the size of a house with only short-term storage capabilities?” Leonowsky asked. “There’s no market for that that I can see. Can you?”

  He was on the tenure committee and would often drop in on junior professors’ lectures and ask pointed questions, just so no one would forget his role as a career gatekeeper.

  “We don’t know. Yet,” Vern said, fighting the stammer welling up inside her. “What I’m saying is, no one can anticipate what future needs might be. Maybe it’s bigger sims, or . . .”

  The men in the back of the room stared intently at her. They did not even blink.