Page 23 of Clive Cussler's Quantum Tempest
Captain Reginald Stokes leaned over the shoulder of a senior tech, his clear gray eyes fixed on the live drone camera feed high overhead of the battered South Korean cargo shipOcean Queen. The vessel wasn’t broadcasting an AIS signal—a clear sign it was engaged in unlawful activity. Of course, neither did theBaktun.
It didn’t matter. The Korean could have been a hospital ship on a mission of mercy. The outcome would be the same. TheOcean Queen’s luck had run out the moment it crossed into theBaktun’s security perimeter. The stubborn Korean captain signed his death warrant by refusing to change direction.
Stokes’s orders were clear. His ship was not to be detected byanyone, visually or electronically. A wide variety of technologies kept him hidden from electromagnetic detection. The Koreans couldn’t see him on their radar, but they were advancing directly toward his position. Within hours they would draw close enough to be able to lay eyes on his vessel.
Under normal conditions, the ex–Royal Navy surface warfare officer would have exercised the better part of valor, fired up his engines, and raced away. But the fusion reactor powering his vessel was diverted to its highest priority task for the foreseeable future. He had a wide variety of kinetic weapons at his disposal for dispatching the Korean ship, but using them would likely alert authorities.
His other options were decidedly unconventional—even theatrical, as far as he was concerned—but highly effective. The assault was tuned via artificial intelligence programming to the linguistic and cultural forms of the targeted vessel. Korean demons for Koreans, Chinese banshees for Chinese, and the like. Stokes was particularly impressed by the terror inflicted on even the most hardened sea captains when the monsters from their childhood imaginations called them out by name. Such was the quality of his ship’s research team.
An emergency radio transmission crackled overhead. The panicked voice was Korean, his English badly broken.
“Affirmative. A sailing vessel. Pirates—demon pirates. I can’t explain—”
“That’s enough. Jam the transmission,” Stokes ordered.
Another tech hit a virtual toggle. TheBaktun’s high-altitude drone blocked the radio signals. The Korean had baited and set the hook Stokes needed. The few survivors would later confirm what the radio operator had just reported. In this case, white-robed Koreangwisinhad suddenly appeared in the wires in their spectral forms, their hair-covered faces demanding an immediate course change.
Most ships eagerly complied with the terrifying commands. Sailors were notoriously superstitious. In the past two months, Stokes had only sunk two vessels; five others fled posthaste.
TheBaktunoperated in this location for its remoteness—most commercial vessels chose shorter routes to avoid this costly andtime-consuming expanse of ocean. National governments didn’t patrol it, either—not only was there little commercial traffic but it lay beyond their jurisdictions. What his employer hadn’t counted on was the fact that vessels engaged in illegal activity preferred this patch of ocean for precisely those reasons.
Captain Stokes turned to his first officer, a swarthy, barrel-chested Brazilian with a thick mustache.
“Are we still undetected?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And no other vessels or aircraft in the perimeter?”
“No, sir.”
Stokes turned to one of his weapons officers, a Russian.
“Spartak, do it.” He turned his attention back to the live display.
“Da, Captain.” The Russian manipulated his controllers.
Simultaneously, the holographic pirate ship fired its virtual cannons. Seconds later, the torpedo drone parked against theOcean Queenerupted, simulating a cannon attack.
The Korean’s rusted hull split open like a beer can hit by a blast of double-aught buckshot. Within moments the ship was half sunk, and the few survivors swam away as fast as they could to avoid being sucked down with the hulk.
Stokes had one last calculation. Leaving survivors meant the stories of demonic pirate ships would spread, and that fear would drive other vessels far from this location.
On the other hand, who knew what the Koreans actually saw today? What if one of them had managed to figure out his magic tricks?
Stokes barked an order to one of his drone techs standing in a specialized niche against the bulkhead. She wore a pair of wireless, oversized virtual reality goggles that gave the impression of a praying mantis and held wireless controllers in each hand.
“Amélie, finish the job. And put it on the main display.”
The French drone weapons officer mirrored her display onto the CIC’s large LED panel so everyone could watch. She locked red targeting reticles on each of the survivors bobbing in the sea. One by one, bomb-laden drones swooped onto their victims, each explosiondotting the azure-blue ocean with bloody chum. The CIC team cheered every gruesome death.
Stokes turned to the overhead drone display just as theOcean Queenslipped into the deep, leaving behind a trail of flotsam.
The hollow victory left a bitter taste in Stokes’s mouth, the destruction of the hapless vessel akin to a boxing match with a blind man. He hadn’t tasted real, peer-to-peer naval combat since his days as a “child” sublieutenant on Her Majesty’s frigateBroadswordin the Falkland Islands war. His name, indeed, had been “mentioned in dispatches” for his bravery under fire and he wore the jagged shrapnel scar on his cheek as a badge of honor.
But a dishonorable discharge from service had reduced him to decades of illegal but highly paid mercenary work on transport vessels. Years of faultless seamanship finally earned Stokes the command of theBaktun, a true if unconventional war-fighting vessel. He craved an opportunity to prove himself against a worthy opponent, not another rust bucket like theOcean Queen.
Deep in his bones he knew he would soon have that opportunity.
