Peter David - Battleship

Ord’s head whipped around as he stared with a look of pure betrayal at Hopper. “What?”

Hopper turned to Driscoll as the cylinders drew closer, closer. “You’re gonna die, too.” He pointed to Nagata. “And you. And even I’m gonna die. You hear me? We’re all going to die!” And then, with a fiery end almost upon them, he shouted, “But not today! Now hold on to something!”

And at that exact moment, the Missouri was suddenly yanked hard to port.

Andy watched with tremendous amusement as everyone on the deck but him was sent staggering, tumbling, falling all over one another. With his firm grip on the railing, he was secure, and he bellowed over the crew’s shouts and the roaring of the water, “He’s club-hauling! Old Barbary trick! It’s the Blackbeard slide, mateys, and a pirate’s life for me!”

Hopper knew that it was a maneuver not without risk. The ship could be swamped, even capsized. Worse, the ship’s very super-structure could be ruptured. The Missouri could wind up tearing herself apart and save the aliens the trouble. In short, club-hauling was a dangerous tactic that should only be used in cases of extreme emergency.

On the other hand, Hopper really couldn’t think of a situation that qualified as more of an emergency than this one.

The Missouri creaked and groaned but held together as she tossed up a massive tidal wave, whipping around in a jaw-dropping, ninety-degree turn. As it did so, the crew watched in astonishment as the death-laden cylinders sailed clear past them, missing them by almost literally a mile as they splashed down harmlessly into the water.

The unexpected turn brought the ship’s gun turrets perfectly into flanking position against the flagship, and the aliens in the flagship—having discharged their weapons and thus not having a second flight prepped—were caught flat-footed.

“Raikes, fire! Fire! Fire!” shouted Hopper.

The turrets erupted, blasting rounds the size of Volkswagens at what was essentially point-blank range. Huge chunks of the flagship were obliterated and the ship, for all its vastness, shuddered under the unexpected assault.

I was right! Hopper thought triumphantly. They didn’t have their shields up! They weren’t taking any defensive action because they thought we weren’t attacking them!

“Fire everything we’ve got! Don’t stop!”

The Missouri continued blasting away, firing freely, pounding relentlessly at the flagship as it endeavored to reacquire them in its sights.

“Incoming!” shouted Ord, and he was right. The alien flagship had managed to lock and load even under the Missouri ’s assault, and now a new barrage of the white cylinders were heading their way. And this time Hopper didn’t have a stunt maneuver to pull out of nowhere.

Nevertheless he said defiantly, “This girl’s lined with two feet of hardened steel. She can take it.”

“Brace! Brace!” shouted Ord.

Seconds later the cylinders impacted against the hull, sticking, turning red and exploding. The mighty vessel was rocked in the water by the explosions, pieces flying off the ship and tumbling into the water. On the deck, everyone scrambled, trying to get out of the way. All save old Andy, who stood there with a fist clenched while defiantly shouting, “Is that it, you bastards? Is that the best you can do? Bring it on!” Meanwhile her assault on the far larger vessel continued unabated.

Alex Hopper had been given a front-row seat at the Apocalypse. The Mighty Mo’s big guns, all twenty-nine of them, were now unloading, spitting flame and hurling massive metal shells into the belly of the flagship. It was fury incarnate as the flagship was struck, ripped, speared, torn apart by the violent onslaught. It was King Kong versus Godzilla in a final fight to the death.

“Forward guns beginning to run low, sir!” came Raikes’s voice, which was not what Hopper wanted to hear at that moment.

In quick succession the Missouri ’s guns took out one of the flagship’s missile turrets and then the other, but not before two final white cylinders had been fired and arced down—toward the Missouri —sticking to one of the ship’s 16-inch guns. The cylinder switched from white to red and a second later the turret blew up. Shards of metal fell everywhere on the foredeck. Huge chunks fell toward Andy and thudded into the deck to his immediate right and left. Nothing hit him. Slowly he raised a defiant middle finger to the alien flagship.

“Turret three’s been hit!” said Ord, rather unnecessarily since Hopper had a clear view of it.

Hopper wasn’t deterred. “We’ve neutralized their launchers! All weapons, target those upper panels!” To him they looked like some manner of broadcasting devices, and he had a hunch that they were responsible for whatever the hell was keeping the rest of the fleet at bay. There was nothing to be lost by annihilating them and seeing what happened.

Working together, the crew of the Missouri converged all fire on where Hopper had instructed. The flagship shuddered under the attack, began to crack, and Hopper howled defiantly, “You ain’t sinking this battleship!” as the targeted area erupted in a blast of light and fire.

And seconds later, the flagship erupted in a massive explosion. The heat from it was so intense that Hopper could feel his eyebrows and nostril hair crisping as it spread across the water, and he automatically shielded his eyes from it. Pieces of the flagship rained down around the crew, yet cheers rang out from all over the ship.

“I can’t believe that worked!” Nagata said. He wasn’t joining in the raucous celebration. Instead he said it almost analytically, as if with curious scientific detachment.

“Yeah, well, it did, Mr. Spock,” said Hopper. “ Art of War . ‘Fight the enemy where they aren’t.’ After all these years, it just finally clicked.”

“But that’s…” Nagata paused. “That’s not what it means.”

Hopper blinked. “Really?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Oh.” Hopper thought about it, wondered where he’d “remembered” that conclusion from, and then just shrugged and shook his head. “Whatever, man.”

“But you misinterpreted… we could have been…”

Nagata was having trouble finding the words, and Hopper didn’t really see the point of letting him find them. “Target destroyed. That’s all that matters. Let’s get her back on course to Saddle Ridge.”

Chavez practically exploded into Shane’s office as the admiral sat there trying to determine whether sending a letter of resignation to the Secretary of Defense was going to mean anything while the world was ending. “Admiral! You’re needed topside, right now!”

Shane didn’t even bother to ask what could have prompted Chavez to come flying in there in that manner. He got up from behind his desk so fast that he banged his knees on the underside. Swallowing the automatic moan of pain, he ran after Chavez, limping slightly, and minutes later was standing on the flying deck, looking at nothing.

Actual nothing.

Where the dome of water had been erected that had cut them off from their other three ships, there was now nothing.

“It’s like it just collapsed, sir!” Chavez said. “Like whatever was creating it was shut off—”

“Or destroyed,” said Shane, as hope swelled within him. Even as he ordered the communications officer to raise the Pentagon, he thought that maybe, just maybe, a Navy vessel had managed to rally and get the job done. And he was reasonably sure he knew who was responsible for it. “Good going, Stone,” he said under his breath, not realizing that he was addressing the wrong Hopper.