As the ship leapt forward he braced himself, imagining the eruption of white water at her stern. He was surprised to find himself a little scared, but he took solace in the confusion and fear that would now be gripping the Americans.

The Clinton rushed closer with every second. He smiled, at the wallowing buckets of iron around him. They seemed to groan at the seams as they poured on steam to escape.

“Look, my sheik, look!”

A wide, beaming smile spread over Damiri’s face as he saw two ships collide about a thousand meters away. The sound of the impact reached him as a terrible grinding of steel against steel and he fancied he could even make out the screams and cries of the infidels as they reeled in fear. He smirked.

Shock and awe, indeed.

A missile roared overhead and he ducked without thinking, even though the gesture was pointless. The nearest ship, some sort of passenger liner, he thought, blew apart with a bone-shaking explosion.

“Allahu akbar. Allahu akbar!”

He heard the ghostly, whispering crack of hypervelocity caseless ammunition as it passed harmlessly through the air above the tip of the ship’s broken mast.

“They cannot depress their guns far enough, my brothers. Praise God we shall all be in Paradise soon,” cried Damiri.

Kolhammer’s mouth was a thin, white line chiseled into the granite face of a cold mountain. Alarms sounded throughout the ship and every sailor in the bridge was bracing for the detonation while trying to perform half a dozen emergency drills at the same time. He could feel the deck of the giant ship tilting as she poured on the revolutions and tried to accelerate away from the suicide boat.

He did a quick calculation on just how much explosive material you could pack into a vessel of that size, wondering whether the armor sheath could withstand the blast. Probably not, if Damiri rammed them.

The sea around him was a maelstrom with dozens of ships heading in all directions. Reports of collisions and near collisions flashed up on screens and sounded through the loudspeakers every few seconds. Judge shouted orders to the bridge crew. Spruance had quietly wandered over to the strip window with his hands clasped behind his back while the crew called out updates in the strained tones of men and women trained to die at their stations.

“Trident coming around, sir. No missile lock yet.”

“Kandahar is blocked, Admiral.”

“Kennebunkport does not have a clear field of fire.”

“CAP is sixteen kilometers out, no target lock.”

“Comanche lifting off the Kandahar.”

A dark shape flashed with a vicious buzz. Kolhammer was about to ask what the hell it was when Spruance called out over the din.

“It’s a Wildcat! Off the Enterprise.”