Gray Matter Splatter (A Deckard Novel Book 4) (20 page)

Deckard’s pirate ship was packed to the gills with
heavily armed mercenaries. In a stand-up fight, the enemy wouldn’t
last, but every single action they had taken thus far told Deckard
they had absolutely no intention of going man to man and gun for gun.
The numbers were ticking down, and before much longer, they would be
out of the strait and back into open water where the semi-submersible
would be able to outrun them again.

They were out of range of the enemy’s weapons systems,
but the enemy was also out of range of their own. Stand-off had been
achieved by both parties, but it only benefitted the enemy, as it
delayed Samruk, allowing them to make their escape deeper into the
Arctic.

“Keep us two kilometers off their ass end,” Deckard
said as he threw open the door and left the bridge. Scrambling down
the stairs, he ran into the billets where both platoons were
preparing their gear and standing by for orders.

“Ivan? Where the hell is Ivan?” he asked.

One of the Kazakh mercenaries came running up. In his
mid-thirties, Ivan was the nickname for one of the original soldiers
Deckard had hired out of the Kazakh military services. He’d had
extensive training on mortar systems during his military service, and
he had only become more technically and tactically proficient under
Mendez, an American who led Samruk’s mortar section—until he had
been killed during a previous mission. Much like Nikita, the Kazakhs
had stepped up to replace their foreign mentors after they had been
killed.

“Zakazy?” the Kazakh asked.

Deckard gave him some basic instructions to prepare the section’s
mortar tubes for action. Ivan and his six-man mortar team had been
sidelined in the Arctic until now. Once Deckard finished, Ivan darted
away to round up his men and get to work.

“Why are we backing off?” Fedorchenko asked as he stepped
forward to confront Deckard. “Let my men take them down.”

This was not the kind of conversation they should be having in
front of the men, but Deckard fully understood how frustrated the
platoon leader was.

“Did you see Nikita doing the clucking chicken? Serves that
dumbass right. We need to set the conditions before we take another
pass at them.”

It had taken Deckard a long time to adjust to his role, even
though he still slipped the leash at times. Not long ago, he had been
in Fedorchenko’s shoes, always gnawing at the bit. Their campaign
against a Mexican drug cartel had taught him to bide his time. The
Russians and Chinese nationals they were fighting knew the American
character well and were counting on him blundering into situations
unprepared.

“Use some tactical patience and I’ll get you on target,”
Deckard assured him.

Then he heard heavy footsteps coming up behind him and knew that
Cody had just entered.

“HEY!”

“Turn down the volume, Cody,” Deckard said as he turned to
the computer hacker.

“You guys are morons. The lasers are easy to defeat.”

“Why didn't you clue us in earlier, then?”

“I didn’t think about it, OK? Fuck.”

“Spit it out already.”

“Use your night vision and leave the daylight cap over the
lens. Then put a fucking pirate patch over your other eye since the
PVS-14 monocular goes over the other one.”

“Shit, why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because you are a fucking moron.”

Cody was the only one who got away with talking to Deckard and
many other people on the Carrickfergus like that. He was an
electronics whiz kid, but also a dirty civilian who never served in
uniform. They just had to put up with him and his autistic,
Tourette’s shit sometimes.

“The laser might burn out the tube if you take a direct hit,”
Cody warned.

“But it is still better than being blinded for the duration of
the battle,” Deckard finished. “Fedorchenko, let Shatayeva and
Ivan know. Bring extra batteries because they will freeze in ten or
fifteen minutes when you are exposed to the elements. I want all of
you ready to go for the next round.”

Taking a look from one of the windows, Deckard could see the fire
brigade wrapping up now that they had extinguished the flames.
Meanwhile, Ivan’s mortar section and a few other men were helping
him on the deck. They had pulled out some lumber, and one of them
already had a hammer and nails out and had begun banging away. A few
others were hauling up bags of rice they had to help ease the pain of
a steady MRE diet.

Deckard climbed up the stairs and back onto the bridge. The
ship’s captain was crouched down and steering the ship by looking
at one of several deck-mounted cameras. One had been taken out by
whatever ship-mounted laser the enemy was using, but the other was
thankfully still functional.

Nikita would be lucky to keep his job after that last stunt, but
with him out of the way, Deckard would be getting directly involved
in making sure the second attempt wasn’t a clusterfuck. Keeping his
head below the window, Deckard donned his kit, throwing on the body
armor that had already taken two direct hits from a Tavor assault
rifle. Then he pulled on his parka, chest rig, wool watch cap, and
gloves.

Finally, he pulled on an Ops-Core helmet and attached PVS-14
night vision goggles. Reaching up in front of him to feel around, he
made sure that the black rubber daylight cap was attached to the
front of the monocular. The 14s were designed to amplify existing
light, so during the day, when testing the NVGs for functionality,
the cap was left on to protect the sensitive lenses inside. In this
case, they would be using the goggles in broad daylight.

“Otter, when I give the word, I want you to start closing the
distance. Where are we now?”

“Two point two kilometers.”

“Keep us there for now.”

Pulling the edge of his watch cap down from under his helmet,
Deckard used it to cover his left eye while the night vision
monocular covered his right. Stepping out onto the upper deck, he
found Aslan hiding behind cover with the Barrett and Nikita’s
HK417. The blinded sniper had been taken below deck to see the medic.

“Give me the Barrett,” Deckard said in Russian. “Make
yourself look like me. Cover one eye and use night vision over the
other with the daylight cap.”

“Roger.”

Deckard reached into Nikita’s Drop Zone assault pack and
withdrew his PVS-22 universal night sight or UNS. Attaching it to the
Barrett's picatinny rails in front of the Night Force 10-power scope
would also protect his eyes if the enemy decided to laze them again.
Closing his eyes, he flipped up the PVS-14 on its pivot mount and
then stared through the green tint of the UNS and Night Force scope
combination.

The mercenary commander let out a deep breath as he snugged the
rifle stock into his shoulder. Although a school-trained sniper with
actual combat experience behind a long gun, precision marksmanship at
long distances was a perishable skill. Being able to effectively
place rounds at over a thousand meters required not just school house
training, but constant range time to maintain proficiency. Deckard
hadn’t worked as a sniper in a long time, and as much as he hated
to admit it, Nikita was now a better shot than him when it came to
long-range engagements. Much better.

But Nikita was flopping around the med bay right now, so it was
what it was. Now Deckard would make sure that their fire was
synchronized and massed for maximum effect.

Down below, the mortar section had finished framing out a
wooden box and was filling it in with the bags of rice while two of
the men prepared 82mm high-explosive rounds to drop down the tube.
Deckard glanced through the scope; the semi-submersible ship was
still cutting back and forth through the channel in the ice.

Ivan was yelling orders to his section as they dropped the
mortar base plate on top of the rice bags. Their improvised platform
would stand in for the dirt in which the base plate would normally be
set. With the plate in, they then slid the actual mortar tube onto it
by the pivot knob at the end and attached the bipod legs.

“Ivan, are you set?” Deckard asked over his comm link.

Below, he saw the mortar section leader speak into his radio.

“Roger.”

“Otter,” he radioed to the helm, “get us within one
kilometer. Close the distance.”

Aslan had his night vision goggles on and slid in next to Deckard
with his HK417.

“7.62mm is going to get batted around something fierce in this
wind,” Deckard said to Nikita’s spotter. “But you can spot for
the mortar section and make corrections.”

“Da,” the Kazakh answered, curt and to the point as always.

The Carrickfergus hummed as Otter throttled the engines, again
closing on the enemy. The ship swayed beneath them as he dodged
through the ice channel, making corrections as he sped them up. As
they got closer, SPG-9 rounds began raining down around the
Carrickfergus. They were out of maximum effective range, but the
enemy was going to try to put some suppressive fire down to keep the
pressure on the Samruk pirate ship.

“All stations on this net,” Deckard transmitted over
the assault net. “Everyone hold. Initiate on my fire. Acknowledge
my last, over.”

Ivan, Fedorchenko, and Shatayeva radioed in to confirm his order.

“Closing in on one kilometer, boss,” Otter crackled over the
comms.

Another 73mm round slammed into the ice off their port side,
creating another mini-volcano of water and ice. Deckard looked
through the green-tinted rifle sight and homed in on the recoilless
rifle crew. Unlike Nikita, he was going to take out the weapon system
itself, which in this case was more important than the humans crewing
it. They could actually be replaced.

“One point two kilometers,” Aslan reported, reading off the
red digital numbers in his rangefinder as he lazed the target.

Deckard winced as the Barrett’s sights bounced around with the
movement of the Carrickfergus. This was a shit show if he’d ever
seen one.

“One point one,” Aslan updated him.

Deckard tried to understand the pattern his rifle sights were
following as they rocked up and down with the ship. It would be damn
hard to get off more than one shot before his sights were off target
again. Thinking he had it more or less figured out, Deckard flicked
the safety off and breathed out. His finger tightened around the
trigger.

“One kilo—”

Aslan’s words were cut off as a .50 caliber round exploded in
the Barrett’s chamber, the sudden inflation of gas pushing the
thumb-sized bullet out of the barrel. Before his round had even
entered the terminal phase, Ivan’s men dropped an HE quick round
down the mortar tube.

A spray of silver sparks flew into the air as Deckard’s shot
rang the recoilless rifle tube. Deckard fired again and again, each
squeeze of the trigger sending the anti-material rifle bucking back
into his shoulder. It would leave a hell of a good bruise, but this
was a good kind of pain.

The first mortar round came down 50 meters behind and 50 meters
to the starboard side of the enemy vessel, exploding just before it
hit the water. Aslan began calling on corrections, the first shot not
bad at all. Like Deckard, Ivan had to compensate for the forward
travel of the enemy ship, intentionally overshooting it and hoping
that they would sail right into the burst by the time it landed.

Deckard dropped the empty magazine and reloaded.

“Not sure about the status of the SPG-9,” Aslan reported.
“But one of the crew is lying face-down on the deck. Another one is
missing, probably in the water somewhere. The third is standing back
up. Looks like some more movement, guys getting ready to come out of
the hatch.”

“Let’s see what we can do about that,” Deckard said as he
racked the Barrett’s bolt.

“Shot, out!” Ivan declared over the net.

“Shot, over,” Aslan responded as he watched for the impact.

The nose of the mortar rounds could be dialed to explode
on impact, on a slight delay for destroying dug-in enemy, and in this
case, set to quick, meaning they would explode slightly before
impact—great for hitting troops in the open. A puff of black and
white smoke appeared above the enemy ship, clearing off the deck of
remaining troops and toppling the SPG-9 over on its side as one of
the tripod legs was severed.

“Fire for effect!” Aslan told the mortar section. Ivan’s
men immediately began sliding round after round down the tube as fast
as it would fire.

Deckard trained his sights on the open hatch where they had
spotted movement and started dumping rounds at it whenever his
crosshairs drifted over it. Pausing for a moment, he fired a shot off
at the small radar dome, which exploded in a spray of black plastic.
Unfortunately, he was unable to spot the direct-energy platform that
had been dogging the Carrickfergus with its lasers.

82mm HE quick rained down in the vicinity of the ship,
puffing up a ring of a smoke all around it as the mortar section sent
a hail of hate their way. None of the rounds appeared to be quite as
direct a hit as the first, but mortars were an area weapon, not a
point one like a sniper rifle. This was hand grenades and horseshoes;
close was good enough.

Now the captain of the black ship threw caution to the wind and
floored the throttle. The ship rose out of the water like a black
needle shooting through the sea. The mouth of the strait was close,
and they knew that the pirates on their heels were just clearing the
decks in preparation for a ship boarding. It was now or never.

The ship powered away, another storm of HE quick exploding right
behind it. The ship’s captain was good, Deckard thought as he
watched them make a last-ditch effort to reach the open ocean. He
took them through the rest of the weaving channel, chipping away ice
at the sides on several occasions as he sped away.