Rogue Justice by John R. Monteith

Author:John R. Monteith [Monteith, John R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Braveship Books
Published: 2017-08-30T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

Commander Levy balanced against the Crocodile’s rocking deck.

Having raised his radio antenna, he watched the icons on his tactical plot adjust to the updated data.

A vector line showed the damaged Revival slinking away towards Haifa. His blood pressure surging, he reached for a microphone.

“Revival, this is Crocodile. Where are you going?”

No response.

“Revival, this is Crocodile. Answer me, damn you. I am the leader of this task force. Where are you going?”

“Crocodile, this is Revival. The leader of this task force is Captain Cohen aboard the Spear.”

“That’s just a formality. Since when would you dare consider him superior to me?”

“Since you failed to sink the Specter.”

Levy heard a new voice.

“This is Captain Cohen, task force commander. Stand down, Commander Levy. I’ve taken command of the blockade task force and am giving the orders now. Check your data feed if you have any doubt.”

The concept of being supplanted had seemed impossible, but Levy scanned the new orders in a phone notification backlog he’d ignored.

“I acknowledge, sir,” he said.

“I would’ve taken command of the assets earlier, but you used back channels to pull that stunt of getting ships to support your attack on the Specter. Such games end now. This task force is now designed to protect the blockade from all interference, and it begins with you following my orders. Am I clear?”

Knowing he could submerge and claim a communications loss at his whim, Levy feigned compliance.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.”

“But there’s no need to send the Revival back to port when it can remain here as a weapons launcher, even if pinned to the surface with damage.”

“That is my decision. The Revival is returning to Haifa.”

“Can you explain why, sir?”

After a brief pause, Levy received his answer.

“Very well,” Cohen said. “The Revival took damage from the Wraith and surfaced before we could defend it with electronic jamming. Then the Goliath entered cannon range and landed rounds in the torpedo room. You should know that a surfaced submarine is too sluggish to maneuver around high-velocity rounds, and without jamming support, it was inevitable.”

“Damn it,” Levy said. “So it’s me, three corvettes, and a handful of missile boats against two submarines and the Goliath?”

“We’re not trying to win a slugfest. We’re protecting our boarding parties so they can enforce the blockade.”

Levy took a closer look at the noncombatant vessels on his display and made a quick count of thirty ships tagged as part of a blockade run.

“This is three times the size of any prior attempt,” he said. “Where did this liberal band of vandals find so many ships?”

“It’s obviously coordinated with the well-funded attack by the mercenary fleet. They all appear to have loaded their supplies in Turkish Cyprus. Why our intelligence community didn’t see this coming is a failure to be explained.”

“What’s the plan, then, sir?”

“Protect the boarding teams. You keep the Wraith away from them while the corvettes do the same against the Goliath.”

Levy unfurled a long mental list of flaws he analyzed in the plan, but he withheld his protest since he had the permission he wanted to attack a mercenary submarine.

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