Battleship

USS JOHN PAUL JONES

In the destroyer’s CIC, radar officer Benjamin Rush was watching his radar screen carefully. They’d only just managed to bring it back online, and it kept flickering in and out while the system’s big brains continued to make corrections and adjustments. Around him a row of other young officers, wearing headphones, were monitoring large, complex screens and struggling to operate the elaborate consoles of the AEGIS weapons system that was, at that moment, extremely hit or miss.

Abruptly an incoming blip lit up his screen, cutting across the monitor with a trajectory that was taking it directly toward the ship. “Incoming track, zero-seven-three-six,” he called out.

Over the intraship radio, Mullenaro’s voice came back: “Acquire incoming. Kill with guns. Light ’em up, son.”

The order was instantly relayed, and two seconds later the Phalanx CIWS, consisting of two anti-missile Gatling guns on the foredeck, sprang to life. The CIWS functioned exactly as it was supposed to, as the guns sprayed so many bullets that it created a virtual wall of metal. Before anyone even could get a clear look at it, the cylinder disintegrated against the ship’s firepower.

In the John Paul Jones CIC, a moment of relief and triumph rippled through the officers, pleased that good, old-fashioned American technology had triumphed over whatever the hell it had been that this interloper was attempting to throw at them.

That sense of good feeling lasted right up until radar officer Rush suddenly called out, “Incoming tracks! Coordinating zero-niner-seven-three.” He stopped for a moment, overwhelmed by what he was seeing, a harsh reality crashing down on him. “There’s too many of them.”

He was right. There were at least ten of the cylinders, maybe more, hurtling through the air, zeroing in on the destroyer with lethal accuracy.

The CIWS was employed yet again as the Gatling guns cut loose in a wide spread. One by one the cylinders were blown out of the sky as the big guns continued to cut a swath through the assault that was coming straight at them.

They almost managed to take out all of the cylinders. But they fell short of their goal by one.

A single cylinder landed on the deck not ten feet in front of the starboard observation deck. Brownley and Mullenaro were both there, and they stared down at it in utter bewilderment.

The narrow white cylinder, which had landed surprisingly noiselessly on the deck, was still quivering slightly from the impact. Rather than at an angle, as one would have expected from the trajectory, it was upright. It looked to Brownley to be about four feet tall and less than a foot in diameter. Other than presenting a threat that someone might trip over it, the cylinder appeared utterly harmless. It might well have been made of plastic.

Mullenaro was no less confused, but he was also more outwardly irritated. “What kind of jack wagon crap—is this somebody’s idea of a game?”

Suddenly the cylinder transformed, within an eye-blink, from white to red.

Then it detonated. In an explosive flash, Brownley, Mullenaro and the entire starboard observation deck vaporized.