Battleship (Movie Tie-in Edition) (32 page)

It seemed to Hopper that the time for formality was long gone. “Alex. Please … call me Alex.”

“Children?”

“Not yet. But I’m going to. And I’ll tell you something, Captain Nagata.”

“Tell me what?”

“I can’t wait to put my arms around that little guy and give him the biggest hug that he’s ever gonna have in his life. Don’t think I’ll ever let go.” He sighed, his expression changing, and then patted the bulkhead. “Let’s just see how mighty she is.”

Minutes later, everyone on the ship was at their stations aboard the vessel that had the unenviable task of being the last, best hope of the human race. Hopper, standing up on the flying bridge, picked up the PA and clicked it on.

“I’m not good with words,” he said, his voice echoing
throughout the entirety of the ship. “So let me just give you a fact. World War II ended on this ship. The Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed on the very deck you stand on.” He paused, glancing at Nagata, who was standing next to him.
No offense
, he mouthed to Nagata.
None taken
, Nagata mouthed back.

Hopper continued: “I don’t think that’s a coincidence. This old girl ended one war. We do our jobs today, and she’ll see to it we end another … and just maybe save the world in the bargain. My …” He hesitated, trying not to choke up. “My brother always said the same words to his men before a mission. Since he’s not here, I’m saying them to you: Be safe out there. Look out for one another.
And let’s keep chargin’
.

“Mr. Ord … take us out.”

“Aye, Captain.”

There was a slight lurch, and a groan, and for a second Hopper was worried that someone had forgotten to clear the last of the moorings and the ship was going to rip out the dock in its departure. But then the Mighty Mo eased from its resting place like a coma patient waking after a decades-long slumber. She slid into the water, the propellers picking up power and speed, and a raucous series of cheers went up from all over the deck. Hopper even fancied that he could hear the cheering from deep within the bowels of the ship.

Nagata cleared his throat to get Hopper’s attention. Hopper turned to him, his face a question. With his customary calm, Nagata reached toward a switch, the purpose of which Hopper didn’t know, and flipped it once.

The song “Anchors Aweigh” blared through the speakers, not only setting off a rousing cheer, but also prompting many of the men to start singing along.

“Nice touch,” said Hopper. Nagata bowed slightly. Then Hopper noticed that a number of Nagata’s men were also singing the song, but in their native tongue.

“Man, you have
got to
teach me how to sing it in Japanese.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Why?”

“Because at some point in the future, you’ll attempt to sing it in front of one of my superiors. He will demand to know who is responsible for your butchering our language, and I will be obliged to commit ritual suicide.”

Hopper stared at him. “You’re kidding.”

“Do you want to take that chance?” he said solemnly.

After considering it, Hopper shook his head. “Wouldn’t be fair to your unborn son.”

“Hai,”
said Nagata gravely.

Driscoll was on the flying bridge with them, and he said, “If you don’t mind my asking, Skipper … what’s the plan?”

“Here’s the deal, Driscoll: the enemy doesn’t seem to register us as a threat so long as we don’t do anything threatening. With me so far?”

“Yessir.”

“Okay. So for all any of them knows, we’re just going on a nice little pleasure cruise to Saddle Ridge, which my …”

Girlfriend? That’s gonna sound good
.

“… my away team has informed me is Ground Zero for the aliens’ transmission tower. We blow it to hell and that way they won’t be able to get word to what we believe is the rest of their invasion party, waiting for the ‘go’ order.”

“I see. Got it.” Driscoll moved his chin around as if he were chewing on something, and then said, “And just out of curiosity, once we show we’re not just a heavily armed cruise ship out for a jaunt, what happens then?”

“Very likely all hell breaks loose. But we’ll have bought our planet valuable time. These creatures aren’t invulnerable, Driscoll. They can be hurt, they can be killed and
they can be blown the shit out of. I’m not sure what the hell is keeping the rest of our fleet at bay, but once the aliens are facing the combined armed might of Earth, nothing,” and Hopper, repeating it with pride, “
nothing
can stand in our way.”

“Captain, there’s something standing in our way.”

At first Hopper thought Ord was just trying to be funny, but then he saw where the sailor was pointing.

The alien structure that the stingers had been guarding was now blocking their path, as if it had anticipated what direction they were going. It looked the same as it did before: a strange, central body, jagged angles and industrial panels, weird shapes of unknown composition.

Hopper fought to keep his voice casual, as if he were observing some minor weather event that hadn’t been in the morning report. “I didn’t know that one moved.”

Ord said apprehensively, “I got a super-duper bad feeling about this.”

So did Hopper.

The Sea Commander activates the morphing circuits through the command ship. It begins to charge with energy, its surface pulsing, its five segments extending to reveal their full fierceness
.

Now the humans will experience the consequences of their actions. Now they will see the full power and potency of the Regents
.

And it will be the last thing they ever see
.

Everyone watched in shock as what was now clearly a vessel—probably the flagship of the alien fleet—began to rise upward, water cascading off ragged metal, splashing white as it poured out of armored sheathing, revealing itself in sections: teethed and buck-knifed with jagged segments that slowly unfolded into five identical pieces of
malevolent construction: twelve hundred feet of gritty, industrial danger.

There was deathly silence throughout the
Missouri
.

It was Ord who broke it as, in a very soft voice filled with barely controlled panic, he said, “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

The Land Commander is satisfied with the way in which matters are proceeding, even as he fights his frustration over the manner in which he must work
.

He surveys the readiness of the power cells, all of which appear to be running at full capacity. He nods in approval as he appraises the various displays and vertical satellites, the human technology that they have cannibalized for their own purposes. He supposes that there is a certain irony to utilizing the very equipment that summoned them in their campaign against the current residents of this ball of dirt and water
.

Yet it appalls him that it should be necessary
.

He cannot help but dwell on his meeting with the World Commander. That smug bastard, looking down at him with such arrogance, making decisions about how they were to proceed based upon his understanding of how such matters were
supposed to
proceed. All of it theoretical, none of it taken from actual firsthand experience. The World Commander, sitting there safe and sound in his so-called “strategic center” back home, sent in troops as if
Regents’ lives mean nothing to him. Let’s see
him
at the helm of a combat vessel being dispatched into a war zone and see how
he
likes it
.

And crippling their resources while he was at it? The unadulterated nerve of him. If the landing teams had had the redundancy equipment that they’d asked for, it wouldn’t have mattered that one of their arrays had been destroyed during the unfortunate mishap upon landing—there would have been backup resources. Instead the World Commander dares to talk of how the Regents are spread thin throughout the galaxy. He talks of how—rather than providing the landing troops with all that they could possibly require so as to enable the invasion to run smoothly and flawlessly—they are to take only what they need and make use of found materials upon the target world should there be problems. What sort of nonsense is that? How are they supposed to eradicate the humans with minimal difficulties if the World Commander hampers them? Who sends troops into a war situation without properly outfitting them? Even the humans likely wouldn’t do something so stupid, and they’re primitives
.

It prompts the Land Commander to wonder if politics are not being played here. If the World Commander doesn’t have priorities and agendas of his own that are being pursued. Once this operation is completed, it might well be worth the Land Commander’s time to join forces with his hatchling mate, the Sea Commander, and see about having done with the World Commander once and for all. A seemingly unthinkable notion, but still … worth considering
.

That is when the Land Commander hears an unexpected noise. It is a loud roaring; not living, but mechanical. His best guess is that it sounds like the sort of noise made by an engine propelling a primitive human vehicle
,
similar to those vehicles that they destroyed upon first making landfall. So it couldn’t be one of those …

Wait …

The Land Commander suddenly tries to recall. Did he wind up actually destroying all of those vehicles? Or did he leave one in working order because he got distracted with dismembering the humans, the first of the species he’d had a chance to inspect close up?

His answer arrives seconds later as one of the vehicles tears into view. The humans—two of them, sitting in the front—are shouting loudly, their words incoherent but their intentions clear
.

The vehicle’s wheels churn up dirt beneath them as it heads full bore straight at them. Its speed and solid construction are proving to be a formidable combination as the Land Commander’s troops are knocked aside by the vehicle’s velocity. Before the Land Commander can intercede, before he can even target them, the creatures hurtle directly between two power cells, ripping cables loose. The power cells go dark. The vehicle continues on its path of destruction, heading directly for the main dish array
.

If it had been constructed solely of solid Regents materials, it would be impervious. But thanks to the damned World Commander, it is a hodgepodge of Regents technology combined with more breakable Earth tech. That proves the sort of devastating problem that the Land Commander had anticipated, but had been unable to convince the World Commander to take precautions for
.

One of his warriors comes running out of nowhere, his helmet off, clearly having been in the midst of a salt stick break and not having had time to reattach it. He attempts to get in between, and then the vehicle crashes directly into him, pinning the soldier to the base of the makeshift tower. The impact crumbles the front end of the vehicle, beams and debris tumbling down upon it
.

The Regents-provided components of the antennae
,
deprived of power from the cells, begin to wilt. They slump forward and are now angled toward the ground, rather than the sky for which they are designed
.

The Land Commander cries out a trill of alarm. He ignores the humans in the vehicle—they will be dealt with soon enough. Instead he struggles to repair the ripped cables. If he does not …

… the alternative is simply too horrible to contemplate
.

“Permission to panic, sir,” said Ord as the gigantic flagship loomed before them. Under the circumstances, for Ord, that was a fairly restrained response. It was likely that he was trying to do the same thing Hopper was at that moment: fight down an overwhelming sense of despair.

“Denied.”

“Permission to ignore denial, sir.”

“Shut up, Ord. Stay focused.”

“With all respect, sir, I am focused, because there’s really nothing else to look at. Sir, we’ve got to turn around!”

“No time,” said Hopper curtly. “We have to get to the Ridge.”

Technically Nagata was the senior officer. He would have been within his rights to assume command of the situation, although considering it was a U.S. ship, it might
have been debatable. As it was, the subject didn’t even present itself. Nagata simply turned to Hopper and said, “What are we going to do?”

“Their launchers are going hot!” Raikes informed him from the firing controls.

Sure enough, two massive launchers had clicked into position upon the alien flagship. Hopper could discern from the shape of them that they were packed to the gills with those same white cylinders that had both sank Nagata’s ship and utterly destroyed Stone’s.

The voices of his people were coming at Hopper fast and furious over the 1MC, so quickly that who was actually speaking seemed to blur together. “How do we respond, sir?” “We’re a sitting duck here, sir!” “We’re gonna be swimming in a minute!” “Sir!” “Hopper!”

Hopper felt as if he were outside his own body, watching the rest of the world telescope away until he was alone, isolated, focused. Time slowed down and the entirety of all his experiences—everything he’d learned, everything he’d read—was laid out right there in front of him like a pure white corridor of understanding, waiting for him to pluck out some strategy that would save them all, something that the aliens couldn’t possibly see coming, because they were rigid and binary in their way of thinking, while the human understanding of war was …

“Holy shit,” he whispered, and then practically shouted,
“The Art of freakin’ War!”

“What?” Nagata was clearly bewildered. “What are you talking about?”

Hopper ignored the question.
“Battle stations, people!”

As the klaxon sounded throughout the battleship, Ord turned to Nagata. “Did he say,
‘The Art of War’
?”

“
Hai
. That scares me.”

“Why?”