Chapter 16 - The Voice on the Tactical Net
Inside The Pit at Miramar, twelve thousand miles away from the target, I was completely submerged in the operational envelope. The chaos of the room had vanished, replaced by an eerie, predatory focus that locked my entire consciousness onto the glowing satellite telemetry.
On the primary display, the thermal feed from an RQ-180 stealth reconnaissance drone operating at fifty thousand feet showed the scuttled tanker Al-Muntazir. The ship was burning amidships. Forty-two armed hostile fighters had breached the secondary deck, cutting off the four Marines huddled inside the reinforced navigation bridge.
Through my headset, the open tactical frequency from the tanker crackled with deafening gunfire, the sharp metallic ring of ricochets, and the frantic, ragged breathing of Captain Nathan Cross.
“Mayday, Mayday, this is Raider Actual!” Cross’s voice screamed through the static, fighting over the roar of an RPG exploding against the bulkhead. “We are black on 5.56! Miller is down with shrapnel to the femoral! Hostiles have the ladderwells! If you’re sending birds, send them now, or tell my wife I did my best! Over!”
Admiral Bradley leaned over my shoulder, his face pale with dread. “We don't have time to reposition an amphibious assault team. An MH-60 Jayhawk from the nearest destroyer is thirty minutes out. They’ll be slaughtered in five.”
I didn't blink. My fingers flew across the glass interface of the master control suite, inputting a sixteen-character alphanumeric override sequence that unlocked a covert, non-attributable squadron of MH-47G Chinooks operating out of an unacknowledged staging facility in the United Arab Emirates.
“Comms controller,” I ordered, my voice steady as ice. “Patch me directly into Raider Actual’s personal tactical headset. Frequency Bravo-Niner-Niner.”
“Link established, Director,” the comms specialist replied instantly.
I keyed the mic. “Raider Actual, this is FURY TEN. Acknowledge.”
On the other end of the world, amidst the deafening thunder of automatic weapons fire, the radio went dead silent for a fraction of a second.
“F-FURY TEN?” Cross choked out, his voice cracking with shock, disbelief, and sudden, miraculous hope. “Is that… Gunny Reed said you retired from the field!”
“I don't retire when Marines are bleeding, Captain,” I said, my tone clinical, calm, and soothing like a cold hand on a burning fever. “Listen to my voice, and only my voice. Disregard fleet instructions. I have tactical command of your airspace.”
“Ma’am, we have hostiles breaching the bridge doors in thirty seconds!” Cross yelled as a burst of automatic fire sprayed the microphone. “We have no angles left!”
“You have one,” I said smoothly, zooming the thermal drone feed onto the eastern bulkhead of the bridge. “The structural blueprints of the Al-Muntazir show an emergency scuttle chute three feet behind your communications console. It leads directly down to the lower ballasting intake, sixty feet below the waterline. It’s dry, but reinforced with four inches of cold-rolled steel.”
“Ma’am, that drops right into the ocean!” Cross shouted.
“Exactly,” I replied. “Pack Miller into the emergency litter. Blow the pressure seals on that hatch with your remaining thermite block. Drop into the intake in precisely forty-five seconds. Do not look back. Do not engage.”
“What about the gunboats circling outside?” Cross demanded desperately. “They’ll chew us to pieces the second we hit the water!”
May you like
I looked up at the auxiliary screen, where two hostile patrol boats were sweeping heavy spotlights across the dark waves below the tanker.
“The gunboats are no longer your concern, Captain,” I said softly, my finger hovering over the authorization key of a pair of loitering stealth strike drones orbiting silently in the stratosphere. “When FURY TEN is on the net, nobody touches my people. Mark your timer: thirty seconds to jump. Execute.”
