Peter David - Battleship

The Land Commander cries out a trill of alarm. He ignores the humans in the vehicle—they will be dealt with soon enough. Instead he struggles to repair the ripped cables. If he does not…

…the alternative is simply too horrible to contemplate .

“Permission to panic, sir,” said Ord as the gigantic flagship loomed before them. Under the circumstances, for Ord, that was a fairly restrained response. It was likely that he was trying to do the same thing Hopper was at that moment: fight down an overwhelming sense of despair.

“Denied.”

“Permission to ignore denial, sir.”

“Shut up, Ord. Stay focused.”

“With all respect, sir, I am focused, because there’s really nothing else to look at. Sir, we’ve got to turn around!”

“No time,” said Hopper curtly. “We have to get to the Ridge.”

Technically Nagata was the senior officer. He would have been within his rights to assume command of the situation, although considering it was a U.S. ship, it might have been debatable. As it was, the subject didn’t even present itself. Nagata simply turned to Hopper and said, “What are we going to do?”

“Their launchers are going hot!” Raikes informed him from the firing controls.

Sure enough, two massive launchers had clicked into position upon the alien flagship. Hopper could discern from the shape of them that they were packed to the gills with those same white cylinders that had both sank Nagata’s ship and utterly destroyed Stone’s.

The voices of his people were coming at Hopper fast and furious over the 1MC, so quickly that who was actually speaking seemed to blur together. “How do we respond, sir?” “We’re a sitting duck here, sir!” “We’re gonna be swimming in a minute!” “Sir!” “Hopper!”

Hopper felt as if he were outside his own body, watching the rest of the world telescope away until he was alone, isolated, focused. Time slowed down and the entirety of all his experiences—everything he’d learned, everything he’d read—was laid out right there in front of him like a pure white corridor of understanding, waiting for him to pluck out some strategy that would save them all, something that the aliens couldn’t possibly see coming, because they were rigid and binary in their way of thinking, while the human understanding of war was…

“Holy shit,” he whispered, and then practically shouted, “The Art of freakin’ War!”

“What?” Nagata was clearly bewildered. “What are you talking about?”

Hopper ignored the question. “Battle stations, people!”

As the klaxon sounded throughout the battleship, Ord turned to Nagata. “Did he say, ‘The Art of War’ ?”

“ Hai . That scares me.”

“Why?”

“Because he doesn’t understand a word of it.”

Hopper, his eyes wild with the fire of inner vision, continued on his seemingly hopeless quest to get to Saddle Ridge, shouting orders as quickly as he could. “Beast, all engines ahead full! Ord, come to course one-two-zero.”

“That’s right at it, sir!” said Ord, suddenly recalling the berserk Hopper sending the John Paul Jones on a collision course with the stinger. “We’re engaging head-on?”

“We ain’t buying it flowers, Ord. Fire control, weapons status?”

Raikes’s voice filtered through. “All turrets up and ready to send some hell downrange, sir.”

“Hold your fire. We don’t have enough ammo. We can’t afford to waste a single shot.” Hopper paused a moment, considering, and then said, “Bring all three turrets to two-three-zero degrees.”

Raikes sounded puzzled. “The target’s at one-two -zero.”

“I know.”

“But sir,” she pressed, “that’s the wrong direction…”

“That’s an order, Raikes.”

On the deck below, the crewmen watched in complete shock as the primary offensive weapons of the ships—the three turret towers with the 16-inch guns—rotated to face away from the enemy. The flagship was looming like a vengeful steel god, and the Missouri was speeding toward it with its three 16-inch turrets pointed 180 degrees in the wrong direction. It was as if they were inviting the enemy to take a free shot. There were confused cries from the old salts:

“He’s gonna get us killed!”

“Has he lost his mind!”

Only Andy appeared sanguine. “Shut up, the lot of ya. We lived this long and every damned day’s a gift. Men like us ain’t born to die in our beds. ’Sides, I like the cut of that young man’s jib,” and he indicated Hopper, visible through the windows of the flight bridge. “He’s got a trick or two up his sleeve.”

“Hope you’re right,” said Grumby.

“’Course I’m right. My lips are movin’, ain’t they?”

On the bridge, Nagata grabbed Hopper by the shoulders and turned him so their eyes were locked. “Hopper… do you know what you’re doing?”

“God, I hope so,” said Hopper. Then he pulled away from Nagata and continued rattling off orders. “Hard left rudder! Port engine back full! Beast, squeeze those engines! I need everything you’ve got!”

“Hopper, what the hell—?” said Nagata.

“Watch,” said Hopper, and he pointed at the array of cylinders on the flagship that were bristling and ready to cut loose. “The aliens are all about predictability. About what’s known. They haven’t been fighting us. They’ve been putting us through our paces. Studying what we do now so they know what we’ll do next.”

“I still don’t see…”

“We’re cutting hard to port. Right now, whatever targeting systems they have, I’m betting they’re calculating the physics and predicting where we’re heading. I’m betting they’re about to turn clockwise in order to intercept where they think we’re about to be…”

“You keep saying you’re ‘betting.’ You realize our lives are the chips on—”

“There! There it goes!” Hopper pointed in excitement.

Sure enough, the flagship was turning, its missile launchers swiveling and adjusting not to where the Missouri was, but to where it anticipated the battleship’s current trajectory would take it.

And then, just when it seemed to his officers that Hopper knew what he was doing, he issued an order that convinced them he’d lost his mind all over again.

“Drop port anchor!”

“What?” said Nagata.

“ Do it! Now!”

The old salts on the decks turned in astonishment at a loud splash, followed by a clanking sound that was wholly unanticipated. They ran to the port side to verify with their eyes what their ears were telling them was happening.

Sure enough, the ten-ton port anchor had dropped into the water and was now dragging the gargantuan chain behind it, each link weighing over two hundred pounds, like a gargantuan fishing line being dragged out. The sound of the anchor chain playing out over the gunwale was deafening, and confused and panicked looks went between almost all the old salts.

All but Andy. He calmly lit up a pipe and chuckled softly to himself, a high-pitched, nasal laugh.

Then he noticed that the sky was suddenly filled with white cylinders hurtling toward them gracefully. They were actually kind of pretty if you didn’t think of them as harbingers of doom.

Which Andy didn’t.

Instead he said under his breath, “Idjits. Wait and see.” And he gripped the rail tightly with both hands.

Ord watched with horror as the fusillade of white death angled toward them. “Oh my God… oh my God… we’re gonna die.”

“You’re right, Ord,” said Hopper. “You are gonna die.”