Suddenly a bluish beam struck the rim of one of the portholes, and the hot twist of metal it had blasted away ricocheted off the control panel and buried itself in his shoulder harness. Instinctively he dropped the firing pickle and clawed the chip out with his right hand. The stink of burning plastic assailed his nostrils. He looked down: his prosthetic right hand was smoldering.
Warning lights flashed all over the control panel. The capacitors were overloading. Where was the damned pickle? Unless he discharged the Elbows-and quickly-the Texas would blow.
Forte groped for the pickle in the swirling smoke that was beginning to drift into the bridge from the ship, afire now in a dozen places. He finally found it dangling from the module jack, and pressed it frantically as his eyes found the Rykov bearing down on his ship.
The clangor of falling metal, the screech of the Elbows and the PGs, the whistle of severed rigging flailing the air like scimitars, were deafening. And the Rykov was looming larger every second. Nothing Forte had hit it with so far had stopped it. It was no more than four hundred yards away now, coming in on a collision course at some twenty knots, as fast as a man can run. At that speed, it would shear off the Texas’s bow and sink her like a stone.
Forte had been shooting at the PG batteries. Now, with sudden inspiration, he shifted his eyes to the prow of the missile cruiser. The Russian jack staff disappeared in a puff of smoke, along with the Red fleet jack that had proudly streamed there an instant before. The tremendous heat of the concentrated Elbows fire began to melt the steel stem. Liquid metal ran down the side plates where they met to form the bow. Loosened plates flaked off, like chips of old paint, from both sides. As the electron beams descended to water level, the two sides of the bow, with nothing to join them together, peeled back as though cleaved with a meat ax. The ship was transformed by the Elbows into a huge funnel, scooping up the unrushing water and pouring it into the bowels of the ship. It stopped as if it had run into a wall.
It was less than the length of a football field distant now. In an instant thousands of tons of water had been swallowed by the gaping bow. The weight of the water on the forward part of the ship tilted the bow below the surface. The ship’s stern rose into the air, its screws spinning futilely. As though sliding down a greased ramp, the Rykov plunged toward bottom and was seen no more.
Forte wiped his sweating neck. He was numb with fatigue and strain. His left hand was wrapped around the firing pickle with a deathlike grip, and the bolts of man-made lightning streaked from the Texas in an unceasing stream, churning up the water even after the Rykov vanished.
Any moment now the Karl Marx would appear through that veil of mist and steam, Forte was certain, determined to ram and sink the Texas. Where its PG weapons had failed, its superior bulk would prevail. With its 76,000 tons hurtling along at more than twenty-five knots, it would run the Texas down like a truck squashing a jack rabbit.
But when the Rykov came to a sudden stop, the Karl Marx, only five hundred meters astern, had to swing wide to avoid ramming the doomed ship. As it emerged beyond the curtain of mist churned by the Texas’s batteries, for the first time it was exposed to the undivided fury of the old battlewagon, which heretofore had given the Russian flagship only intermittent attention.
Observing the enemy from less than half a kilometer away as he came abreast, Grell was astounded that so concentrated and deadly a fire could come from such a battered hulk. The Texas no longer had the appearance of a man-of-war, but of a barge-load of scrap metal, chewed up and spit out by the dogs of war. He wondered how the old ship stayed afloat, holed as it was in a million places from foretop to water line. Small fires had broken out the length and breadth of the ship, sending up clouds of smoke that blackened the immaculate paintwork. The mainmast had crumpled. The fourteen-inch guns, sheared off from three of the five turrets, were jagged stumps. Sheet metal, rigging, antennas, splinter shield, boat cranes, large sections of the bridge, aircraft catapult-all were piled amidships in an indiscriminate smoking mass. The foretop dangled drunkenly from one of the three tripod masts still intact. And yet the ship’s electron-weapon fire continued unabated.
Grell’s practiced eye noted anomalies in the picture of devastation. Certain areas of the Texas seemed relatively unaffected by the Russian fire. The navigation bridge was shot to pieces, yet the flag bridge above it was intact. And there were islands of seeming inde-
structability at regular intervals along the weather deck, and from these islands came the deadly fire that had destroyed his ships. A sailor’s combative instincts ordered him to close in and engage the enemy, but an admiral’s experience countermanded the order, and he instructed the quartermaster to come up on the helm and head down-channel at full speed.
As increasing distance attenuated the Texas’s fire, Admiral Grell pondered the significance of his observations. Foremost, it was apparent that the Texas had fire power superior to his own. In a battle of broadsides, the Karl Marx would be bested, despite the ruined condition of his adversary. That the Texas was still afloat, its weapons delivering a withering barrage, indicated that its batteries were somehow protected, which his own were not. Apparently, too, the Texas’s propulsion system had been knocked out. Its superiority in fire power was offset by its lack of mobility. In fact, now that the Karl Marx was some three kilometers beyond the American ship, well beyond the range of its particle weapons, nothing opposed its escape down the channel to the safety of the Gulf and open sea- nothing but Admiral Vladimir Grell’s pride, and his anger and frustration at having been humiliated by this museum piece of a battleship and American cunning.
He wouldn’t flee. He would fight. But on his own terms, and to win.
“Damage report,” he said to his first lieutenant.
The first lieutenant began reciting what promised to be a lengthy bill of particulars. Admiral Grell cut him off.
“Just the condition of our missile launchers.”
“Five are back in operation, sir. Another can be repaired within four hours. The others-”
“Crews?”
“Shifted to the PG mounts, sir. After the second salvo, the admiral so ordered.”
True. Time had been short, and so was crew. Loading missiles into the launchers was a complicated process. With only remnants of the ship’s company having survived the onslaught of the first tsunami, he had been obliged to divert the missile loading crews to the PGs. But now . . .
“All missile crews to their posts,” he commanded. “Load all launchers and report readiness.”
Admiral Grell raised his binoculars. The Texas, still firing steadily-why was he wasting his power?-in the direction of the Russian flagship, had not moved. Its stern was toward him and the ship seemed, as it had from the first, completely deserted.
But even as he watched, the Texas very slowly rotated ninety degrees and again came to rest, its starboard side, the least damaged, now facing him downstream. As it turned, it seemed to Grell that the particle weapons’ fire power diminished markedly, and picked up again when the ship was again dead in the water. He conveyed his observation to the flag secretary, who agreed.
“Check with Fire Control Plot.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said the flag secretary.
Moments later he confirmed that instrument readings showed a sharp drop in the strength of the enemy weapons during the Texas’s turn to starboard.
Grell nodded. This was consistent with the theory that was forming in his mind that, while the ship had power, and power to spare, its propulsion machinery was inoperative. Had it not been so, the Texas would certainly have pursued the out-gunned Karl Marx. Whoever was conning the American ship had done the next best thing to pursuit: turned its intact weapons broadside to the Karl Marx. The move was intelligent but futile: deprived of mobility, nothing in the world could save the Texas now . . .
On the flag bridge of the Texas, Gwillam Forte saw the Karl Marx steam out of range of his Elbows. Was the Russian ship seeking safe haven in the Gulf of Mexico? Forte doubted it. Admiral of the Fleet Vladimir Grell had been the architect of the new Soviet Navy, and until today he had never fought a major naval engagement at sea. But he was known to be proud and tough, and if he ran, it was from tactical considerations, not fear. A man like Grell would fear very little-not the death that would now await him for allowing the High Seas Fleet to be destroyed by a decrepit old American museum piece, not death at the hands of the enemy. He would fear disgrace and the laughter of history for running from battle. No, Grell would be back.