“Send somebody to wake him up. He’ll be really pissed off if he sleeps through an attack on his ship. What the hell is that anyway?” asked Kolhammer. “One of those Caliphate tubs. Those pieces of crap the Indonesians bought off the East Germans?”

And Christ, how much do we miss those clowns, he thought to himself. Great days. Not like this clusterfuck.

“Can’t say yet, Admiral,” said Judge, his head lolling a little as he caressed a touch screen. “Link’s up to CIC, Admiral. And I’ve got a couple of medics heading for Captain Chandler now. Damage control reports we’re taking hits, but the armor sheath is holding up well. Some penetration on C deck. We have casualties there.”

Kolhammer glanced out the window, worried about Chandler, although he had no chance of seeing the ship’s captain a couple of hundred meters aft. The flight deck was littered with crew in different-colored vests, most of them laid out cold. The task force commander could just make out aircraft directors in blue and yellow, mixed in with handling officers wearing yellow on yellow. Some were completely motionless, others were stirring, and a few were even managing to rise to their knees. A landing signals officer in white lay prone in the center of the main runway.

Through the effects of his migraine he could see a burning vessel some kilometers distant. Searching for a clearer view, he turned to face a big flatscreen that was displaying four feeds, all from low-light TV mast-cams distributed throughout the fleet. One window was devoted to a Frisbee-cam that remained in a static hover six thousand meters above the flag bridge. That screen offered the broadest view of the situation.

By closing one eye and tilting his head, Kolhammer could see that the ships were moving erratically, none of them keeping station, their wakes carving and crossing through the warm tropical waters with no design or purpose that he could discern. The wreckage of a burning ship, a big one, was close to sinking. One of the British trimarans was circling the kill with obvious intent. And there, much closer, was their own would-be executioner. A squat, blocky-looking gray ship. Small, a destroyer, or maybe a frigate. And old, judging by the black smoke that was spewing from the funnel amidships. She was steaming erratically, too, but there seemed to be more design behind her movement. As much as a fifteen- or sixteen-hundred-tonne ship could move like a rat in a trap, that’s exactly what she looked like. Jinking hard to port for a minute, laying on speed for the Clinton, heaving to then veering away. Fire jetted constantly from her three gun turrets, two fore and one aft.