Battleship

U.S.S. MISSOURI

“Permission to panic, sir,” said Ord as the gigantic flagship loomed before them. Under the circumstances, for Ord, that was a fairly restrained response. It was likely that he was trying to do the same thing Hopper was at that moment: fight down an overwhelming sense of despair.

“Denied.”

“Permission to ignore denial, sir.”

“Shut up, Ord. Stay focused.”

“With all respect, sir, I am focused, because there’s really nothing else to look at. Sir, we’ve got to turn around!”

“No time,” said Hopper curtly. “We have to get to the Ridge.”

Technically Nagata was the senior officer. He would have been within his rights to assume command of the situation, although considering it was a U.S. ship, it might have been debatable. As it was, the subject didn’t even present itself. Nagata simply turned to Hopper and said, “What are we going to do?”

“Their launchers are going hot!” Raikes informed him from the firing controls.

Sure enough, two massive launchers had clicked into position upon the alien flagship. Hopper could discern from the shape of them that they were packed to the gills with those same white cylinders that had both sank Nagata’s ship and utterly destroyed Stone’s.

The voices of his people were coming at Hopper fast and furious over the 1MC, so quickly that who was actually speaking seemed to blur together. “How do we respond, sir?” “We’re a sitting duck here, sir!” “We’re gonna be swimming in a minute!” “Sir!” “Hopper!”

Hopper felt as if he were outside his own body, watching the rest of the world telescope away until he was alone, isolated, focused. Time slowed down and the entirety of all his experiences—everything he’d learned, everything he’d read—was laid out right there in front of him like a pure white corridor of understanding, waiting for him to pluck out some strategy that would save them all, something that the aliens couldn’t possibly see coming, because they were rigid and binary in their way of thinking, while the human understanding of war was…

“Holy shit,” he whispered, and then practically shouted, “The Art of freakin’ War!”

“What?” Nagata was clearly bewildered. “What are you talking about?”

Hopper ignored the question. “Battle stations, people!”

As the klaxon sounded throughout the battleship, Ord turned to Nagata. “Did he say, ‘The Art of War’?”

“Hai. That scares me.”

“Why?”

“Because he doesn’t understand a word of it.”

Hopper, his eyes wild with the fire of inner vision, continued on his seemingly hopeless quest to get to Saddle Ridge, shouting orders as quickly as he could. “Beast, all engines ahead full! Ord, come to course one-two-zero.”

“That’s right at it, sir!” said Ord, suddenly recalling the berserk Hopper sending the John Paul Jones on a collision course with the stinger. “We’re engaging head-on?”

“We ain’t buying it flowers, Ord. Fire control, weapons status?”

Raikes’s voice filtered through. “All turrets up and ready to send some hell downrange, sir.”

“Hold your fire. We don’t have enough ammo. We can’t afford to waste a single shot.” Hopper paused a moment, considering, and then said, “Bring all three turrets to two-three-zero degrees.”

Raikes sounded puzzled. “The target’s at one-two-zero.”

“I know.”

“But sir,” she pressed, “that’s the wrong direction…”

“That’s an order, Raikes.”

On the deck below, the crewmen watched in complete shock as the primary offensive weapons of the ships—the three turret towers with the 16-inch guns—rotated to face away from the enemy. The flagship was looming like a vengeful steel god, and the Missouri was speeding toward it with its three 16-inch turrets pointed 180 degrees in the wrong direction. It was as if they were inviting the enemy to take a free shot. There were confused cries from the old salts:

“He’s gonna get us killed!”

“Has he lost his mind!”

Only Andy appeared sanguine. “Shut up, the lot of ya. We lived this long and every damned day’s a gift. Men like us ain’t born to die in our beds. ’Sides, I like the cut of that young man’s jib,” and he indicated Hopper, visible through the windows of the flight bridge. “He’s got a trick or two up his sleeve.”

“Hope you’re right,” said Grumby.

“’Course I’m right. My lips are movin’, ain’t they?”

On the bridge, Nagata grabbed Hopper by the shoulders and turned him so their eyes were locked. “Hopper… do you know what you’re doing?”

“God, I hope so,” said Hopper. Then he pulled away from Nagata and continued rattling off orders. “Hard left rudder! Port engine back full! Beast, squeeze those engines! I need everything you’ve got!”

“Hopper, what the hell—?” said Nagata.

“Watch,” said Hopper, and he pointed at the array of cylinders on the flagship that were bristling and ready to cut loose. “The aliens are all about predictability. About what’s known. They haven’t been fighting us. They’ve been putting us through our paces. Studying what we do now so they know what we’ll do next.”

“I still don’t see…”

“We’re cutting hard to port. Right now, whatever targeting systems they have, I’m betting they’re calculating the physics and predicting where we’re heading. I’m betting they’re about to turn clockwise in order to intercept where they think we’re about to be…”

“You keep saying you’re ‘betting.’ You realize our lives are the chips on—”

“There! There it goes!” Hopper pointed in excitement.

Sure enough, the flagship was turning, its missile launchers swiveling and adjusting not to where the Missouri was, but to where it anticipated the battleship’s current trajectory would take it.

And then, just when it seemed to his officers that Hopper knew what he was doing, he issued an order that convinced them he’d lost his mind all over again.

“Drop port anchor!”

“What?” said Nagata.

“Do it! Now!”

The old salts on the decks turned in astonishment at a loud splash, followed by a clanking sound that was wholly unanticipated. They ran to the port side to verify with their eyes what their ears were telling them was happening.

Sure enough, the ten-ton port anchor had dropped into the water and was now dragging the gargantuan chain behind it, each link weighing over two hundred pounds, like a gargantuan fishing line being dragged out. The sound of the anchor chain playing out over the gunwale was deafening, and confused and panicked looks went between almost all the old salts.

All but Andy. He calmly lit up a pipe and chuckled softly to himself, a high-pitched, nasal laugh.

Then he noticed that the sky was suddenly filled with white cylinders hurtling toward them gracefully. They were actually kind of pretty if you didn’t think of them as harbingers of doom.

Which Andy didn’t.

Instead he said under his breath, “Idjits. Wait and see.” And he gripped the rail tightly with both hands.

Ord watched with horror as the fusillade of white death angled toward them. “Oh my God… oh my God… we’re gonna die.”

“You’re right, Ord,” said Hopper. “You are gonna die.”

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.”