Piranha (Oregon Files 10)

“Max range is four and a half miles, but they could drop a torpedo at seven miles.”

“It’s unlikely they’d fire torpedoes in an active shipping lane, but let’s keep them at a respectful distance. Wepps, paint the target.”

Murph activated the targeting radar, which immediately locked onto the approaching helicopter. The chopper pilot would hear a high-pitched whine, indicating that a missile could be headed his way at any moment from the ship.

Juan didn’t want to engage, but blowing the helicopter out of the sky would be easy if it came to that. The Oregon concealed a formidable array of weaponry behind retractable plates in the hull. A 120mm tank cannon was hidden in the bow, while three radar-controlled 20mm Gatling guns could be activated for aerial self-defense and small-ship attacks. In addition to the water cannons, remote-controlled .50 caliber machine guns mounted inside fake oil barrels on the deck could be deployed to repel boarders.

The ship also featured hatches that could be blown away to fire Exocet antiship missiles and cruise missiles for land targets, and Russian-made torpedoes could be launched from tubes below the waterline. Surface-to-air missiles were at the ready in case the chopper pilot didn’t take the hint.

They hadn’t battle-tested their newest weapon system yet, a one-hundred-barrel multi-cannon based on a design by a company called Metal Storm. Unlike the Gatling gun’s six rotating barrels that fired a stream of rounds fed by a belt, the Metal Storm firing system was completely electronic, so there were no moving parts, making jams impossible. Rounds were loaded into the grid of barrels so that the projectiles lined up nose to tail. The electronic control allowed for a precise firing sequence that made the Gatling gun’s rate of three thousand rounds per minute seem pokey. With each barrel of the Metal Storm gun firing simultaneously at forty-five thousand rounds per minute, the entire weapon could pump out tungsten slugs at a staggering rate of four and a half million rounds per minute.

“The helicopter is turning around,” Hali said.

Juan wasn’t surprised. The latest shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile would seem like just the kind of weapon to be used by a spy ship with small arms and RPGs, so the pilot was wise to keep his distance. He would have no way of knowing that the Oregon’s missiles were orders of magnitude more potent.

“Let us know if he changes his mind, Mr. Kasim.”

The next twenty minutes passed without incident. The three islets they were heading toward curled around one another in two-mile-long angular ridges jutting from the sea. They lay directly across from a pair of uninhabited peninsulas. The islets were so close together that the spans of water between them were barely longer than the Oregon.

When Isla Caraca del Oeste was off their port bow, Hali called out, “Surface contact! Bearing one-six-eight at ten miles out. It’s the Mariscal Sucre. She must have her engines running flat out.”

With the Oregon in full view, the frigate’s next action was predictable, but even so, Hali’s next words got Juan’s attention.

“I have a missile launch!”

Juan leaned forward in his chair, his eyes on the map displayed on the front screen that showed a red blip racing toward the symbol for the Oregon. A video feed next to the map showed the image from one of the deck cameras. The missile wasn’t yet visible, but it would be soon.

“Wepps, time to impact?”

“Fifty-two seconds,” Murph said. The missile’s cruising velocity was just below the speed of sound.

“Ready the Metal Storm battery. Let’s see what it can do. But spool up the aft Gatling gun just in case.”

The Metal Storm multi-cannon rose into firing position from its hiding place behind the stern-most hold. The plate covering the Gatling gun flew open and the barrels spun up to firing speed.

“Both weapons have a radar lock on the missile,” Murph announced.

“Remember,” Juan said, “don’t fire until it’s only six hundred yards out.” That would only be two seconds before impact.

“Ready and waiting,” came Murph’s confident reply. “The system is programmed to fire automatically at that distance.”

On the front screen, a dot of fire bloomed in the night sky, growing brighter with each passing second as it skimmed low over the water. When the missile reached the six-hundred-yard mark, the Metal Storm battery fired without Murph having to lift his finger from the Gatling gun safety.

The Gatling would have taken ten seconds to fire five hundred rounds. The Metal Storm unleashed that many rounds in less than the blink of an eye. In fact, it was so fast that on the video feed it seemed to emit a single flash, accompanied by a sound like a jackhammer echoing through the ship.

The missile didn’t stand a chance. Murph had programmed the Metal Storm to fire the rounds so that they formed an impenetrable wall of tungsten in midair. The Otomat met the rounds three hundred yards from the Oregon’s stern and exploded in a fireball that temporarily overloaded the deck camera’s imaging system and blanked out the screen.

Despite the missile’s destruction, the Oregon didn’t come out unscathed. When the image of the outside deck returned, it showed a massive fire raging.

Admiral Dayana Ruiz smiled at the ship blazing on the horizon. The missile had done its job and the Dolos slowed to a crawl.

“Shall we finish them off, Admiral?” Captain Escobar asked. His face was bathed in red from the battle lights on the bridge of the Mariscal Sucre.

Ruiz lowered her binoculars. “No. I want to capture the ship intact. Well, as intact as it will be if they are able to extinguish the fire.”

“At our present speed, we will intercept them in fifteen minutes.”

“Hail them.”