A stray round pinged off a nearby rock. Both men instinctively sank lower.
“I was thinking the same thing. By now, these guys must know they’ve got us outnumbered. If the visibility goes to shit, that’d be their chance to make a move.”
“That’s what I’d do,” Ding agreed.
“We’ve got one man down. How much damage you think we’ve done in return?”
“I’ve got three kills,” Ding said with a sniper’s confidence. “Their cover isn’t much better than ours. I’d guess the others have taken out at least half a dozen.”
“Two probables for me,” Clark said. “Good news is, it’s a level gunfight. If these bastards had heavier guns or RPGs, they would have used them by now.”
“Still leaves us outmanned.”
“Maybe we can—”
Clark’s phone vibrated with a new message. He read it through once. Then he read it again. “What the hell?”
“What’s up?” Ding asked.
“Ever hear of something called Hyperion?”
“Nope. What is it?”
“I have no idea…but we’re about to find out.”
Clark looked at Ding and focused on the camo ball cap he was wearing—snipers had their quirks, and this was a new one of Ding’s. There was also a bandana around his throat, no doubt a precaution for the impending storm—the swirling dust from a haboob could be debilitating.
“Take that ball cap off,” Clark said. “And pass the word, no bandanas and NODs stay high.”
“What?Why?”
Clark gave him a hardHow the hell should I knowstare. He then shielded the screen of his phone and turned it so Ding could read the message.
“Remove all face coverings? That’s kinda spooky, boss.”
“Yeah, it is. Which means we should probably comply.”
Ding flipped up his NODs, then removed his ball cap and bandana. He scurried back to his shooting position as gunfire clattered through the night.
Red Sea
Slicing sharply through moonlit waters of the western Red Sea, the USSZumwaltlooked very much like the killer she was. Her bow was knife-edged, her stealthy hull sleek and angular. There were none of the usual appendages found on most warships,no obvious blisters or antenna sprouting from her superstructure, and her lethal armament was concealed below deck. Her overall profile was more reflective of a surfaced submarine than a classic destroyer.
Unlike theFord, which was perpetually surrounded by a supporting cast, theZumwaltoperated as a lone wolf. This was a product of her uneven history. She was the first of a projected new class of destroyers, yet the program stalled when development of the primary gun system hit technical roadblocks. Congress canceled further buys in the class; however it was decided that the three completed ships could be reconfigured with a new suite of weaponry—weapons that reflected the cutting edge of naval warfare.
TheZumwalthad returned to dry-dock at the Huntington Ingalls Pascagoula shipyard, and there underwent a major retrofit. One of her Advanced Gun Systems was removed, and in its place four large missile tubes were installed. Each tube was capable of launching three of the Navy’s newest and most fearsome missiles: Conventional Prompt Strike.
The design objective of CPS was revolutionary: to provide a conventional strike capability anywhere in the world within one hour. The delivery vehicle was an intermediate-range hypersonic missile that could be launched from either a surface ship or a submarine. TheZumwaltwas the operational test bed.
Technology, however, never stands still. Following the initial deployment of CPS on theZumwalt—missiles with conventional high-explosive warheads—a new variant was conceptualized. The payload was developed in utmost secrecy by none other than DARPA, the DoD’s miracle workers when it came to pushing the bounds of weaponry. It tackled a requirement that had gone lacking for decades: a fast-reaction, high-speed suite of sensors thatcould provide both critical intelligence and precision strike on high-value targets.
And thus, Hyperion was born.
It all happened in a flash. A torrent of fire erupted from one of the recently installed eighty-seven-inch missile tubes on theZumwalt’s foredeck. Night turned to day as a massive rocket motor propelled Hyperion skyward, theZumwalthighlighted in its flickering wake.
The missile accelerated in a near-vertical climb, its smoke trail highlighted by a waning half-moon. It shot through ten thousand feet in mere seconds, at which point its trajectory began to flatten. Still accelerating, Hyperion passed Mach 2, then Mach 3. Nearing sixty thousand feet, far above all air traffic, Hyperion reached the apex of its profile and continued to build speed, eventually eclipsing Mach 5.
The onboard navigation remained tight as it zeroed in on a tiny airfield in eastern Libya. Soaring over Egypt like a scalded Isis, the missile body endured a temperature of over two thousand degrees Fahrenheit. With two hundred miles to go, and running low on fuel, the motor began its shutdown sequence. Ever so slowly, the nose began to lower. Traveling downhill at five times the speed of sound, even unpowered, Hyperion screamed earthward with all the kinetic energy of a freight train. This was the exponential kill mechanism of most hypersonic weapons—the destructive force of their conventional warheads were amplified by extreme velocity.
