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He looked at the screen from the drone feed and saw the ship in the distance silhouetted by the moonlight glinting off the calm sea.
“Keep an eye on that ship,” he told the drone operator. “If it comes any closer, I want to know.” Then he called on the radio to the Magellan Sun.
“Captain, do you have the intruders on board your ship in custody?” he demanded.
There was a hesitation before a strained voice responded, “No, sir. They got away, using our lifeboat.”
“What! How?”
“They went out the window, using a rope, and landed on top of the boat. I’m readying our guns now. Or do you still want them alive?”
“It’s too late for that. Blow them out of the water. Then get ready to load the rest of the shipment onto the supply ship.”
“Yes, sir.”
The line went dead. Tagaan turned to one of the guards.
“Get the two Kuyogs ready to deploy. I don’t trust that captain to finish the job.”
“Aren’t we using them on the supply ship?”
“It will be a useful test, one way or the other.”
“Yes, comrade.”
Then something the captain said made Tagaan stop the guard.
“Did you check the roofs of the trucks?” he asked
“The roofs?” the guard repeated, confused.
“So you didn’t. You idiot, recheck all the trucks again. Now! This time, from top to bottom. And expand your search to the jungle.”
The guard nodded and ran off, shouting to the rest of the men.
A flash lit up the Magellan Sun. Seconds later, the first shot from its guns echoed across the bay.
37
In the Oregon’s op center, Max leaned forward in the Kirk Chair as he watched the dual drone feeds on the big screen at the front of the room. On the left, he saw Juan and Linc lying flat on top of the truck as Tagaan’s men continued searching the area, with some of them venturing into the jungle. On the right was the bright orange lifeboat, dodging and weaving as the first shot from the four-inch gun splashed into the water only fifty feet off its port stern. One or two more shots and they’d have the targeting solution for a kill shot.
There wasn’t much he could do to help Juan and Linc, but he wasn’t going to let the Magellan Sun blast Eddie, MacD, and Murph from the water right in front of him.
Using the helm controls embedded in the arm of the chair, Max pushed the Oregon to full speed on an intercept course.
“What’s our range to that ship?” he asked Eric, who sat at Murph’s weapons station.
“Five miles and closing fast,” he replied.
At this distance, their own bow-mounted 120mm cannon with its two-mile range was useless, and a torpedo wouldn’t reach the ship before it got off a dozen more shots.
“Ready an Exocet,” he said. Guided by its own active radar, the powerful French-made antiship missile was designed to skim only six feet above the water at seven hundred miles per hour.
“Aye, sir,” Eric said, falling back on his Navy training as he smoothly activated the weapons system. “Missile armed and ready.”
“Fire.”
The Oregon’s hull reverberated with the thump of the Exocet blasting from its launch tube.
