Angel Seven by Mike Lunnon-Wood

Author:Mike Lunnon-Wood [Lunnon-Wood, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0006499791
Publisher: Silvertail Books
Published: 2018-09-19T23:00:00+00:00

USS Mississippi

‘He’s comin’ down fast,’ Dooley almost shouted over Kowowski’s shoulder.

‘Shit, what’s this fucker on?’

‘What?’ A voice from behind them. The chief.

‘Don’t like this, chief. That’s maximum rate descent. He wouldn’t do that with freight or people on board,’ Kowowski said, thinking aloud.

The height transmitter from the aircraft changed every few seconds bright on the screen.

‘Dooley,’ the chief said, his eyes narrowing, ‘get the Morgan James on the line, see if they are watching this. Then get the OOD down here, he’s up in the wardroom …’

‘He won’t like a cold breakfast, man,’ Dooley said cautiously, ‘but if you think it’s …’

‘JUST FUCKING DO IT! NOW!’ the chief snapped not looking back, his eyes riveted to Kowowski’s screen.

‘Aye aye.’ Dooley snatched up the handset. ‘OOD to the ops room,’ booming out over the main broadcast system.

Kowowski watched the figures flick over, his brain working the mental arithmetic, Jesus, that’s 6,000 feet a minute, this guy has a problem or he is illegal. There is no way this is another Airbus. If he had a problem he would have called up, he would have radio traffic pouring out. He silently thanked his previous request to comms to have the air traffic channel patched through and he listened to the terse instructions. He crossed channels to Bahrain radar and listened for a few seconds, realizing that they had not yet noticed the problem, and pulling the headset clear he dropped it on the console and rubbed his eyes. Come on, come, where are you? He looked up at the door, willing the OOD to burst through, but it remained darkly empty. He looked back at the screen, realizing all his fears at once. The contact had made a hard left turn that would bring it right over the Mississippi.

‘Oh fuck!’ he muttered, and stood up. The chief did it. In the years Kowowski had been in the navy he had never heard general quarters sounded except in a drill. It was the call to battle stations and took precedence over everything else in the ship. It would bring the admiral at a run, have half a thousand men falling from their beds, jumping into flash gear, running to their stations, food thrown down drains as stoves were secured, medics breaking open dressing stations and the specialists, weapons operators and combat control people racing to the vitals of the warship.

The chief pressed the intercom button and on the bridge a high-pitched beep set open the speakers over the command station.

‘Bridge, ops room. Sound general quarters, strike inbound. Unidentified aircraft bearing zero nine four,’ he said slowly and clearly into the handset. Half a second later to the command of the young officer on the bridge with the two lookouts the GQ klaxon began to blare. A second later the duty officer burst into the ops centre as a voice burst through the speakers. ‘General quarters, general quarters, this is not a drill repeat this is not a drill.’

‘Speak!’ the officer barked looking at the screen.

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