The Flight of the Aleister Crowley

            It would be nice to say that it all happened on a dark and stormy night, with the pirates' ship sailing into the bay on a moonless night, before unleashing its cut-throat crew upon the city's helpless civilians.  It would be nice to say that their ship fit all of those stale old pirate tropes, but...well, this was the modern era, not the 1600s.  Pirates these days were more likely to come up alongside you in a high-powered speed-boat, armed with a wide assortment of automatic weapons.  Not an actual pirate ship.  Oh, sure, there were a few ships that carried said speedboats, so as to make deep-sea interceptions possible.  And, okay, there were stories of some kind of weird pirate ship operating along (or perhaps out of) the Congo River...but neither of these were pirate ships.  Not really, anyway.  So any expectation that a pirate ship could simply sail up the Strait of Malacca, past fifteen batteries of shore-based anti-ship missiles, was ludicrous at best.  Alright, so maybe a wood ship wouldn't show up on radars as well as a metal ship...but that was nothing more than minor details.

            But the later stories were not totally without merit, for if the night was not dark and stormy, it was the night of a new moon, and the Captain did time his strike to begin at precisely 11:59:59 PM of March 31st.

            All of which just added yet another dimension of unreality to the already unbelievable attack of the AS Alistair Crowley.

Monday, March 5th

0115 Zulu

Somewhere off the east coast of India

            Jennifer Angstrom looked out from the side of the Huey at the massive container ship SS Jacques Clerque.  Given the ship's name, it still felt more than a little odd to see the vessel flying the Union Jack...but, by all reports, that was only one of the things about this vessel's owner that could rightfully be considered strange.  The ship's skipper stood looking up from the bow of the ship, watching his newest passenger approach his ship.  Normally, the Angstrom Merchant Convoy Foundation would have had nothing to do with escorting a ship over a thousand miles to the Strait of Malacca...but needs must, and the Jacques Clerque had a cargo tempting enough to be the target of any pirate ever born.

            Jennifer was quite sure that even Captain Gerrard Pierre "Chuck" Hawthorne, the same pirate who had proclaimed six months ago that no "real" pirate would be so ungallant so as to seize a ship carrying badly needed medical supplies to towns and villages that had just been the victim of a natural disaster...even he would be tempted by such a prize.

            Jennifer had to admit that Captain Chucks had returned the only such prize he'd ever captured.  Minus, of course, over five hundred pounds of natural male enhancements.  The intended recipients of those enhancements had attempted to claim that the captain had stolen badly needed medical supplies anyway...but Captain Chuck had posted the inventory as recorded by the pirates on the internet, and quickly turned the whole affair into a subject for late-night comedians only.

            Captain Jacques Clerque had never had occasion to make use of the services of the Armstrong Convoy Foundation before this, but, then again, he'd never had his ship hired to transport a half a billion dollars worth of food, medicines and medical supplies through one of the most dangerous areas of water on the planet.  Despite the immense amounts of money spent each year on making sure that the Strait of Malacca remained free of pirates, the pirates had just gotten worse over the past five years.

            The helicopter landed on the ship's deck, in the space that had been hastily cleared out for its arrival, and, before the engine had even been disengaged, one of the passengers had already jumped out, and begun headed for Captain Jacques in that peculiar, half-crouched stance that has been the traditional stance for disembarking from a helicopter ever since their invention.

            "Ms. Angstrom?  Good to see you," he yelled.  I've got everybody but the duty watch in the ward-room, ready to hear your briefing."

            "Good," she yelled back.  "If it's alright with you, I'll brief the off-duty crew first, then we can swap out for the ones who are on-duty.  We've already started getting intelligence that somebody's going to make a try for this ship and its cargo, so I'd expect the escorts are going to be meeting up with us well before we get to near the strait."  Even as she said this, both she and the captain were already moving towards the ship's hatch, straightening up as they walked beyond the sweep of the helicopter's rotors.  "I've brought Delmonte and Sid with me, so that should be enough to get us there safely."

            "Good Heavens.  Do you really think that we're in danger, all the way out here?"

            "Of course not, Captain Clerque.  But the Angstrom Foundation hasn't gotten to its current position by taking any chances.  And we're not about to go down on the six o'clock news as the group who lost the Jacques Clerque and her cargo."

            "Well, I'm still glad you're here.  Even if we're not expecting any trouble for the next few days, it's a big relief to know that we've got some kind of protection for this cargo."

            Jennifer just smiled.  "Of course, Captain.  Which way to the wardroom?"

            Over fifty miles away, the blue and gray-painted speed-boats cut through the waves like a fan of knives, bouncing from wave-top to wave-top at almost fifty knots.  Each of the five boats carried six men, five of whom carried sub-machine guns, and the other of whom actually steered the boat.

            Also stowed in each boat was a shoulder-launched Stinger missile.  Just in case the Angstrom Foundation had already sent its people to take the ship under their protection.  Their mother-ship, located almost a hundred miles back, carried even more missiles, together with enough pirates to crew not just one ship the size of the Clerque, but six.

            The pirates' leader had been grimly certain that he might well need all of them by the time this cargo had been delivered to port.  Still...with risks, came rewards.  And this was an awfully rich cargo.

            Most people didn't send this kind of cargo all in one ship.  They'd send it in half a dozen ships, spread out, so that no more than one of the ships would be taken.  The insurance people must be having fits about this...but time and the nature of the cargo both dictated against that.  Too much of the equipment aboard the ship was one-of-a-kind, or absolutely MUST have something else in the ship to function properly.  Such cargoes could not be split apart, no matter how dire the need, just to preserve the goods from pirates.

            And word had it that the Angstrom Foundation was moving early on this cargo.  The pilot for the lead boat spat over the side at the thought.  The Foundation's helicopter gunships had proved damnably efficient at intercepting the pirates before they could pounce, and losses were mounting.  So, that meant that it was time to go for the big score.  Either that, or get out of the business.  And none of the men on those boats were willing to get out of the business of piracy.

            Somehow, the pirates managed to close to within two miles of the ship without being detected.  Somehow, they managed to pick their target just when almost the entire crew was in the ward-room being briefed on safety tips for the trip through the Strait of Malacca.           Somehow...somehow they managed an impossible approach.  Managed it quite easily, in fact.  Too easily for the men Jennifer had brought with her to be able to stop them.

            The crew didn't put up much resistance.

Monday, March 5th

1000 Zulu

Angstrom Convoy Foundation headquarters

Charleston, South Carolina

            "What do you mean, no response?  There's got to be somebody there.  Whole ships don't just disappear from thin air!  Try again.  There's got to be somebody we can raise."  Mark Angstrom wasn't usually this unreasonable, but his daughter was aboard that ship.  His only daughter, and the only member of his family to have joined him in working at the Foundation.  All three of his sons had cried off the work as too risky

            "Sir, that's what I've been trying to tell you.  There's nothing.  No cell phones, no satellites, no radio, nothing.  Even their GPS has been turned off."

            "And the helicopter?"

            "All we got was that single burst-transmission from its black box.  After that, nothing.  I think, sir, that we're going to have to take it as a given that the Jacques Clerque has been taken by pirates."

            "I...see.  And Jennifer?"

            "Unknown, sir.  Last report had them landing on the ship, but there's no way to know if she managed to spot the pirates before they got in range, or if they managed to take her alive."

            "So--"

            Whatever Mark had been about to say was interrupted by his secretary's voice over the intercom,  "Sir.  Mr. Angstrom.  You've got a videophone call on Line 2.  I don't know the number, but the trace software says its originating from somebody in Indonesia."

            The sudden silence was almost painful, before Mark's shaking hand moved to hit the "accept" button.

            The face that appeared on the screen was familiar.  It should be.  It was his daughter's.  A bit battered, a bit bruised, but still...his daughter's.

            "Mr. Angstrom.  This is...you may call me Sinbad," and here there was a suppressed sound of laughter in the background as the caller said this, "and, as you can see, I am calling as regards to your daughter, who is now in our care."  The voice was surprisingly pleasant, and cultivated.  The speaker's English was letter-perfect, and had a faint British accent...which didn't make his message any less chilling.

            "I...I can see that."

            "Good.  By now, you have surely realized that we have taken the ship your daughter was visiting, as well as the girl herself.  We will, of course, be contacting others to dispose of the ship and its contents, but your daughter will remain in our care unless you are willing to pay to us the sum of fifty million dollars within the next forty-eight hours."

            There was silence in the office.

            "Well, Mr. Angstrom?"

            "That's...that's going to be a problem.  I don't have that kind of cash on hand."

            "Plunder the Foundation accounts, then, Mr. Angstrom.  I don't really care how you get it.  Just get us that money.  Oh yes, and--"

            "No, you don't understand," Mark broke in.  "The Foundation doesn't have that kind of cash on hand either.  Not that I can get to within forty-eight hours.  I can get you the money, but it's going to take me at least a week."

            There was a suspicious silence on the other end of the line.

            "Mr. Angstrom, I've seen in the papers about your ongoing battles with the US government about your excessive profits.  I know you've got the money."

            "Well, yes.  I do have the money.  But it's all tied up at the moment.  And because we're being investigated for profiteering, most of my operating accounts are operating under US government supervision.  I can't withdraw the money you're asking for.  If I'm going to get it for you, I'll have to take out a few loans, call some people, that sort of thing.  Maybe sell some bonds.  And I can't do that fast enough to meet your forty-eight hour deadline.  Government bureaucrats just don't work that quickly.  I'm sorry."

            There was another silence from the other end.

            "A week, then.  But the price just went up to a hundred twenty-five million.  One-fifty if you want her back with her virginity intact.  And if you mount any kind of rescue attempt, she dies as soon as we see your helicopters on the horizon."

            "Alright.  I can do that.  Where do you want the money."

            The voice replied, "We'll be getting back to you on that one, Mr. Angstrom.  For now, let us just leave you to imagine what will be happening to your daughter if you don't get us that money...."

            And with that, the call ended.

            "All right, where was that scum-ball calling me from?"  It was an hour and a half later, and the headquarters building for the Angstrom Foundation had transformed from its normal hive of activity to...well, okay, it was still a hive of activity, but now it was a directed hive, a hive straining towards one, and only one purpose.

             Mark Angstrom was not about to allow his daughter to remain in pirate hands one moment longer than necessary.

            "Medan, sir.  Little city on the coast of Sumatra.  I think this just confirmed our suspicions as to where the bigger pirate gangs have been operating from...and how."

            "Yeah...somebody in the Indonesian government has to have been paid off, for them to operate there."

            "Several somebodies.  The port's supposedly well-fortified."

            "How come nobody's noticed those ships there before?"

            "They're either being hidden, or camouflaged somehow, sir.  I couldn't tell you how, sir, but that's my best guess."

            "Fine.  Can we move the Java satellite into position to start giving us video feed on the port?"

            "Absolutely, sir.  It's going to take us about a half-hour, though.  And we're going to need permission from the satellite's other owners."

            "You let me worry about that.  I'll be on the phone with them as soon as we get done with this meeting, and we'll have real-time intelligence within four hours."

            "Four hours?"

            "Come on, Bill.  Have you ever known Amos Thompson to agree to anything in less than three hours?"

            "You've got a point, there, sir." 

            Half an hour later.  The calls have started, and Mark is just reaching down to push the numbers for yet another call when the phone rings in his hand.

            Hurriedly he pushed the "talk" button.  That thing was loud.  It didn't sound loud in his pocket, but next to his ear was a whole different story.

            "Angstrom Convoy Foundation, Mark Angstrom here."

            "Mr. Angstrom!  So good to speak with you at last!  Usually, I don't get any farther than your secretary!  I don't think that woman likes me, by the way."  Mark jerked in his seat at the strange voice in his ear.

            "Who is this?" he snarled back.  "And how did you get this number?"

            There was a slight pause on the other end.  "You know, Mr. Angstrom, I don't think I'm going to answer your second question.  To much chance for embarrassment on both sides.  I'm sure you understand.  As to your first...my name is Gerrard.  Well, Gerrard Pierre Hawthorne, to be precise.  Feel free to call me Chuck, though.  I never liked being called Gerry or Pierre."

            "Alright, Mr. Hawthorne.  I assume the self-proclaimed King of Pirates has something more to say to me than 'Hello.'  What say you tell me why you're calling, and then I can get to the part of this call that I'm really going to enjoy.  Hanging up."

            "Why, Mr. Angstrom.  Shame on you!  You're not supposed to tell your callers that the good-byes are your favorite part of the conversation!  It's not mannerly."

            "Spit it out, Gerrard.  Why are you calling me?"

            "I'm calling you because my computer systems just pinged me with a communication about the Jacques Clerque.  You know, that medical ship out in the Bay of Bengal."  Mark's hand slammed down onto his desk.

            "My daughter was aboard that ship, Gerrard.  You'd better have a real good reason to call me about this, other than to taunt me over the matter."

            "But of course, Mr. Angstrom.  You do remember, I take it, how I told the world six months ago that no true pirates would ever take a shipment of purely medical supplies?"

            "I do."

            "You thought I was boasting, then, didn't you?  Making just another foolishly idealistic and romantic statement about a profession that is not all that far separated in reality from that of the common footpad?"

            "I did.  Get to the point, Gerrard."

            "Very well, then.  My point is this:  you just lost one of the biggest shipments of your career.  And not only that, but you lost it while your people were on-board, and in such a way so that the pirates have hostages.  If you try to re-take that ship, some of those hostages--if not all of the hostages--are going to die.  That's what we like to call a bit of an embarrassment.  Possibly even a fatal blow to the Foundation's reputation."

            "Assuming anybody finds out before we can liberate the ship, yes.  What's your point?"

            "Mr. Angstrom, I like to call myself the King of the Pirates.  And I swore that no real pirate would attack shipments that the recipients needed for simple survival.  You may not have taken that statement seriously.  Clearly, the Java pirates didn't either.  But I was not joking then, Mr. Angstrom.  I was not joking then, and I am not joking now.  No real pirate would do such a thing.  And no King of Pirates would ever be willing to tolerate those who claimed to be pirates, but weren't.

            "So...what, you're calling to offer me moral support?"

            "No, Mr. Angstrom, I'm prepared to offer you one better.  I'm calling to offer you my help."

            Mark went very, very still.  He was starting feel like a statue, what with all this going still.

            "What, exactly, are you talking about, Mr. Hawthorne?"

            "I propose," and the grin was evident in Gerrard's voice, "I propose to launch an attack on the Java pirates, and retake the Jacques Clerque, along with all hostages, including your daughter.  As well as any other little trifles that I happen to be able to pick up.  You know, that just happen to be...unattended."

            "And, of course, the fact that you might happen to have previously...removed the owners from the picture has nothing to do with anything?"

            "Of course not, Mr. Angstrom.  As gentlemen of...no, as gentlemen and ladies of breeding, we would of course never resort to such raw, and brutal, thuggery.  Of course, I don't expect these so-called 'pirates' to recognize that, so I expect there might be a bit of gun-play involved, but I'm sure that won't have any effect on whether or not any trifles might be unattended."

            "And what would you get out of this, Mr. Hawthorne?  What are you going to charge me to give me my daughter back?"

            "Ah.  Yes.  That.  Well...as it happens, I have made a list, if you'd care to hear it."

            Mark thought for a moment.  "Sure, why not?  I could use a laugh today."

            "Very well.  I will want, in return for this service, thirty-eight thousand gallons of diesel, five intact and working diesel-electric locomotives, fifteen hundred rounds of 105mm recoil-less rifle ammunition, six hundred rounds of 155mm howitzer shells, and twenty-thousand rounds of 20mm.  Oh yes, and a silk bathrobe, and a set of silk bed-sheets."

            Mark blinked.  "What, is that all?"

            "That's it.  Most of the stuff you should be able to pick up at as military surplus.  Oh, I have been reminded that we will also need about a thousand rounds of specialty ammo for some shotguns.  I'll be e-mailing the list to you within the hour."

            "Really?  And that's enough to make a profit off this venture?"

            "Nope.  That's just going to cover my basic operating costs.  Well, except for the locomotives, and we just can't get those ourselves."

            "Then why...?"

            There was another smile on the other end.  "Mr. Angstrom, have you ever heard the saying that, with great power, comes great responsibility?"

            "Of course.  Everybody's heard that saying."

            "Ah, yes.  Well, I've always felt that saying to be untrue.  Well, at least deceptive.  You see, it's not that power brings responsibility.  The issue is, taking responsibility generally tends to confer power.  Which means that, with great responsibility comes great power.

            "I aim to be king of the pirates, Mr. Angstrom.  And for that to stick, I have to be able to take responsibility for the actions of pirates everywhere.

            "So you'll get your ship back, Mr. Angstrom.  And, if we can, your daughter too."

Monday, March 5th

1200 Zulu

Captain Chuck's Secret Lair

Somewhere in Zaire

            The captains had gathered in Gerrard's cabin for one final meeting.  On the ground below, the various crews dashed hither and yon in an effort to make sure that all four airships were fully loaded for the trip to come, but Gerrard wanted this one last effort to brief his captains on what to expect, and to resolve any doubts that they might have.

            "I'm sorry, captain, but I just don't understand.  That's all the way off in Indonesia.  What do we care what happens there?  This is Africa.  You know...six thousand miles away, and all that.  It's kind of the opposite side of the world, if you know what I'm saying.  Why on Earth would we want to go there?  Let alone attack fellow pirates?"

            "PR, Gregory, PR."

            "PR?  What's public relations got to do with this?"

            "Gregory, we're trying to build a legitimate revolution here, even in spite of the fact that the government in Kinshasa routinely stops everything that's headed for one of the disloyal provinces of Zaire.  It's how they're keeping the populace under control, right?"

            "Yeah.  Can't fight back if you can't get any weapons to fight back with."

            "Which is why we set up here, and not someplace else.  But...we're not just shooting for having supportive populace anymore, are we?"  Everyone else in the cabin shook their heads.  "Right.  We're shooting for a full-out revolt, now.  Cause this kind of crap's just not acceptable, right?"  Again, heads shook.

            "What's that got to do with Indonesia, boss?"

            "Cause, Gregory, if we're going to have a successful revolt, we need to demonstrate to the world that we're somebody to be taken seriously.  We need to prove that this isn't just a bandit insurrection, is what I'm saying.  Otherwise, nobody's going to take us seriously."
            "Plus," said Thomas, "we need the stuff we're going to find in that pirate den.  There's an awful lot stuff that we just can't get here, you know."

            "Oh, yeah.  That's true."  Gerrard just shook his head.  They'd follow him anywhere, he was sure, and follow any order he gave, but he didn't think a single one of them had any idea why he gave the orders he did.

            "Alright, folks, here's the plan.  We approach from the seaward side.  The defenses are supposed to be strongest there, but unless the Indonesian armed forces have really started to push for training and discipline, I really don't think that's going to be a problem.  Just to make sure, though, we're going to be sending in the two Tiger teams to deal with any shore-based defenses that might pose a threat.  Once that's done, we'll be moving into the port, and from there we're going to be splitting up.  Gregory, you'll be covering the northern third of the port...."

Wednesday, March 7th

1317 Zulu

AS Aleister Crowley

Somewhere over the Indian Ocean

            "Hey, Captain?  We got those reconnaissance photos you asked for.  Came with an email from the folks of Angstrom.  Got them as part of an email attachment.  They nailed it onto the back of an email with their agreement to your terms, and an update for the assets they had in the area."

            "Really?  No tricks?  Didn't expect that out of them."

            "Oh, they had a few tricks.  Rashid found a couple of tracking viruses in the attachment.  He's got them running around in a virtual system now.  You want I should tell him to get rid of them?"

            "Nah, not yet.  Let them play for a bit, and we'll see if we can't find someplace amusing to dump the viruses when we're done."

            "Alright, boss.  You want me to update the attack profiles, based on the data we got?"

            "Yeah, go ahead.  Oh, and see if there's anything in those photos that warrants any changes to the plan itself, while you're at it."

            "You got it boss.  I'll have the stuff for you to look at yourself on your desk by 2300 Zulu."

            "Thank you, Ali.  I'll take a look at it then."

Thursday, March 8th

0700 Zulu

SS Calamari

Roughly 100 miles off the coast of Sumatra

            The helicopter gunship carrier Calamari floated peacefully, her engines providing just enough power to let her keep her station despite both wind and currents.  In theory, she was just waiting for the rest of her convoy to gather.  Just like the other five Foundation-owned ships in the immediate area.  Only problem was...the Foundation had a grand total of six helicopter-carriers operating in the area of the Strait of Malacca, and the sixth was already bringing a convoy to this end of the strait.

            Mark Angstrom, it would appear, had gotten tired of the pirates.

            Less than five miles away, the closest of the four Indonesian Navy warships also floated.  In theory, they were providing additional security against pirates.  Since the Indonesian Navy had never bothered to provide this service before...well, you get the idea.  Technically, the Foundation ships weren't in Indonesian waters.  Technically, the IN vessels weren't really there to make sure they stayed out of Indonesian territorial waters. 

            Technicalities, while the soul of law, and the distress of civilians everywhere, are very rarely able to successfully hide the truth.

Friday, March 9th

1100 Zulu

AS Aleister Crowley

One hundred and fifty miles north of Medan...and five thousand feet above sea-level

            "Sir, helm reports that we are on position, and ready to begin our descent at your command."

            "Very well, Jason.  I shall be there in a few moments."

            "Yes, sir."  With this, Jason closed the door to Captain Gerrard's cabin, and withdrew.

            The captain, in turn, turned to the dusky...okay, more accurately, the ebony-skinned beauty sitting across the chess-board from him.

            "I do apologize, my dear," he said with a sigh, "but it appears our game has been interrupted for the time being.  Um...later, perhaps?"

            "Perhaps," the woman said, smiling.  "Or perhaps not.  We shall see, mon capitane.  It depends what kind of mood I'm in, doesn't it?"

            The captain just grinned.  "Yes, I suppose so."

            With that, he stood up, and reached for his clothes.  "It's such a shame this had to come right now.  And just when I was winning, too."

            The woman looked down at the chess-board, her dark eyes taking in the fifteen remaining pieces on her side of the board, and the five left on his, with a single speaking glance.

            "Yes, well, my dear, the advantage to playing strip chess is that one is bound to win regardless."  The woman simply burst into laughter.

            "Go on, get out of here," she said laughing.  "We'll see if things are worth playing for when you get back!"

            And, from its position, five thousand feet into the atmosphere, the airship's engines suddenly cut back to the bare minimum needed to maintain steerage.  More importantly, the heating elements within the dirigibles seven enormous gasbags also cut off, finally allowing the helium gas to begin to cool.  As the helium cooled, the gas-bag began to lose their buoyancy, and descend back towards sea-level.  The airships were not actually lighter than air, despite the fact that dirigibles are supposed to be lighter than air.  The reason for this was because lighter-than-air vessels can have serious problems when it comes to landing, particularly in a breeze.  So, instead, the amount of helium in the gasbags had been carefully calibrated to almost provide enough lift to let the four dirigibles lift off.

            The rest of the lift needed to pick up the vessels came from the effects of heating gasses.  Each gas bag had a set of heating elements inside, which heated the gasses inside to the proper temperature.  This gave the dirigibles a surprising amount of control over its altitude, as well as the traditional fuel efficiency of airships everywhere.  Plus...they were dirigibles.  They had all kinds of advantages for this kind of work that ordinary aircraft couldn't match.  Including the ability to mount heavy weapons.  Or, to be more accurate, heavy weapons that simple aircraft flat-out couldn't match.

            But...for now, it was time to descend.  So the heating elements in all twenty-eight gas-bags were shut off, and all four dirigibles began to descend.  It would take time, of course.  But the airships had time.  It was barely six o'clock, local time.  The attack wasn't set to start until mid-night.

            And, in the mean-time...there was plenty of time to do last-minute drills, and make sure that all the ships' systems were operating at full efficiency.  Which was important, because a few of the systems being used tonight were totally new.

Friday, March 9th

1200 Zulu

Medan, Indonesia

On board the Jacques Clerque

            Jennifer watched impassively as the two ships--the Jacques Clerque and the pirate mother-ship--slid by yet more of the harbor's rather impressive defenses.  This time, it was a battery of Surface-to-Surface anti-shipping missiles, to complement the two batteries of Surface-to-Air missiles she'd seen so far.

            "You know," said Jacques from beside her, "I think now we know why nobody's been able to convince the Indonesians to do something about these pirates."

            "Oh?" was Jennifer's brilliant response.  She'd been feeling depressed since Monday--depressed, and angry at herself, for having failed to take steps to protect the ships she'd been hired to safeguard.

            "If you look at those missiles' launch vehicles...you can see the flag on their doors."

            Jennifer looked up, and saw immediately what he meant.

            "Huh.  Yeah, that would explain why they've never been real interested in stopping the piracy, wouldn't it?"

            "Oh, they used to.  Not anymore, though."

            "Yeah.  How much you want to bet that Indonesia's air force is in on this whole thing too?"

            "No bet."

            A hundred miles out to sea, Mark Angstrom was quite sure that the Indonesian air force 's local territorial commander was in on the scheme.

            They had to be.  There was no other reason for those aircraft to be buzzing the Calamari with that kind of regularity.

            Still, there wasn't really all that much to see.  The ship was slowly gathering cargo vessels to its side, its twenty-seven Mi-24S Hind attack helicopters (all of which had been carefully modified for service at sea), and twelve remaining Huey transport choppers, maintaining several patrols, while the rest of the helicopters were undergoing routine maintenance.  And if there were rather fewer ships gathering in the convoy...well, fair's fair.  There were about two or three more convoys forming than was the normal practice.  Plus, all of the convoys being formed by the Angstrom Foundation's competitors.  Of which, there were also rather more than usual.

            Still, if the pattern held, the air-craft would break off once night fell.  Most air forces preferred not to operate at night.  It made things substantially harder for those pilots who didn't have the extensive training in night-time operations that characterized American pilots.

            Soon, whether Captain Gerrard came through or not, Angstrom would be mounting his own attack.  In another five and a half hours, Mark Angstrom planned to level the single largest concentration of pirate activity in the area, just as he had eventually been forced to do with the Somali pirates who had been raiding vessels in the Red Sea.

            The pirate raids in the Red Sea had decreased sharply after that lesson in fire-power. 

            Now, it was time to show these pirates that not even government protection could save them from the inevitable response of the civilians they thought to prey upon.

Friday, March 9th

1630 Zulu

AS Rasputin

Fifty-five miles north of Medan

            Captain Gregory stood looking down from the hanger-balcony, down upon the bustle of activity on the hanger-floor.  The glassed-in balcony, which also served as the air-ship's combat-control center, looked down on both of the airship's two hanger bays, and he could see the rush to clear the hanger floors, before the massive clam-shells that supported the feet of the various "ground crew" members who serviced the ancient F-5Es.  Which designation was also known as a Tiger II.

            The F-5 was primarily notable for two things.  First of all, it was an extremely light, very fast, highly maneuverable fighter, for which parts were extremely common, and easy to find.  The United States Navy still used F-5s in their Top Gun program, and over thirty other nations still relied upon them for their air force's mainline fighters.  The airframes were getting kind of old, so it was expected that a new version would be produced soon, with even better speed and maneuvering capabilities.

            The other thing the F-5 was notable for was that it was one of the modular and adaptable fighters ever created.  You could re-configure an F-5 for pretty much any role imaginable.

            This is part of why they had lasted so long.

            Finally, twenty-five minutes before H-hour, the floors were cleared.  One last check by the crew boss, and then the ground crews were flashing the all-clear sign.  The Combat Control technician acknowledged, and then hit the pre-launch button, which flashed the alert to the pilots' briefing room.

            The pilots, who had just finished their briefing, looked up, and they in turn went to the appropriate doors...each of which led to the hanger containing their air-craft.  Both pilots calmly walked across the floor, climbed into their aircraft, and closed the canopy.  Then, one after the other, they powered up their radios, and called in their readiness.

            The technician pressed another button, and the giant carriage hooks reached down, and grabbed the two aircrafts on the specially built connection points.  With that done, the two halves of the floor opened out from underneath the two fighters.

            Both fighters were lowed into the empty air beneath the Rasputin, , lit their engines, and then were dropped, in exact synchronization with the two fighters from the Marie Laveau.

            The first part of the attack upon the pirates of Medan…had begun.

Friday, March 9^th

1645 Zulu

SS Jacques Clerque

Moored in Medan Harbor

            It was almost mid-night, but Jennifer wasn’t letting that stop her.

            She had been expecting a rescue attempt for several days now.  Her father, she was quite sure, would not be prepared to pay anyone for killing their people.  And, unlike most individuals caught in this situation, her father had the means to do something about it.

            But...nothing had happened.  For five days, during which two of the pirates had accompanied her everywhere--even to the can--she had waited.  Now, she was done waiting.  If her father was unwilling to rescue her, she'd take care of it herself.

            She'd already dealt with the single guard the pirates had left aboard to "protect" her.  Now, with his pistol in one hand and his knife in the other, she was busily stalking one of the two guards left topside.

            The pirates had been sloppy, she thought to herself.  When they got to port, the first thing they'd done had been to simply tie everybody up, and then almost all of the guards had gone ashore.  Jennifer didn't know what they were doing...but she had some good guesses.

            She had almost managed to reach her quarry (well, her current quarry--there were five more after this one) when the missile hit.

            The High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile impacted the big Anti-Aircraft radar set in excess of twelve hundred miles an hour.  The missile battery never stood a chance--the launching aircraft popped up from the surface clutter, targeted the radar, launched missile, and got the kill within less than a quarter second.  The radar operator, even if he had been alert, and not, just for an example, looking at a girlie magazine, had neither the training, nor the technical expertise to react so quickly.  In the daylight, things would have been quite different.  In the daylight, there was always the risk that an officer would walk in unannounced.  But at night?  Forget it.

            Over the course of the next second, all three of the surviving radar sets were treated similarly.  Only one managed to get a missile off...without a target.

            Needless to say, the explosions drew the attention of everybody within hearing range...including the man whom Jennifer was stalking.  And including Jennifer herself.

            After a shocked second of staring, Jennifer realized where she was, and whipped her head back to her quarry.  Said quarry was just now returning his own, rather suddenly paranoid attention back to his immediate surroundings.  He never got the chance to finish--Jennifer simply shot him, twice, and moved on in search of her next victim.

            The four F-5 Tiger IIs had each brought a single HARM missile on their five hard-points.  They probably would have brought two...but they didn't have the space.

            The next hard-point to be used was one of the wing-points.  In addition to their more conventional load outs, each of the four fighters carried a singe, highly experimental EMP cluster bomb.  Two of the F-5s dropped these bombs over the jam-packed streets leading to the harbor, where the Electro-magnetic pulses promptly fried the ignition systems of ever motorized vehicle, be it car, truck, motorcycle, or bus, in the immediate vicinity.

            Almost immediately, this caused first fights, then traffic jams, and then gridlock.  And yes, the fights came first.  All of the drivers whose cars had suddenly stopped were already bad-tempered and suspicious.  And the fact that their fellow drivers' cars had also stopped didn't help matters--that just meant that the fellows were also suspicious. 

            The other two EMP bombs were dropped over the nearby Army base.  This didn't scramble the base computers, or anything like that--military computer hardware is invariably well-grounded, and well-shielded, against precisely such an attack--but it did knock out ever cell phone and hand radio in the area.  Which was exactly the intention.  Most of the troops were not on base, and would now have to be recalled manually.  And those who were on base, would now be going into battle in an uncoordinated, and largely uncontrolled manner.  With the main entrances to the port now jammed with unresponsive vehicles, that meant that any troops that were deployed were as likely to fight each other, as to fight the enemy, simply because they could not communicate with anybody else to determine the other side's identity.

           

            Next up came the regular, more conventional cluster bombs.  These, too, had specific targets for deployment--one pair of cluster bombs was to go to the military air-field, and one was to be used on the AA missile batteries.  Many Anti-Aircraft missiles had an alternate heat-seeking mode, after all.  And, ultimately, there is no point in destroying a missile's radar system, if you're going to allow the missiles to simply acquire you on IR scanners instead.

            The reconnaissance offered by the Angstrom Foundation, courtesy of the surveillance satellite the Foundation and most of its competitors used to keep watch on the Straits of Malacca, had yielded some very...interesting results.  Although there were four very new, and very modern missile batteries protecting Medan's airspace, only two were kept fully manned.  As to why the Indonesians should make this mistake, well, that was any-one's guess (although it probably had something to do with bad discipline).  But what it meant was that two of the batteries were only partly functional, and relied almost entirely upon their assigned radar sets...which now no longer existed.  The other two were, by now, slowly switching over to their IR seekers.  Two of them managed to switch over in time, too...but only one managed to launch, and even that missile was quickly decoyed by a dropped flare.

            And, within less than ten seconds of the initial attack, both of the fully functional AA batteries had been wiped off the face of the earth.

            The other two cluster bombs were destined for the nearby military air-field, and were equipped with delayed action proximity fuses.  The pilots had been given quite strict orders--the well-camouflaged airfield was not to be strafed under any circumstances.  Instead, they were to simply drop their cluster bombs, and leave.

            Leaving large portions of the airfield littered with what amounted to a very rapidly-deployed minefield.  The Indonesians might manage to get a plane or two air-borne, before they discovered those mines the hard way.  But after that...well, clearing a mine-field takes time.  Even when you use bulldozers, it takes time.  Without bulldozers, the airfield likely wouldn't be usable at all until morning.

            After that, the only things left on the F-5s' wings were the air-to-air missiles, retained in expectation of having to engage those few aircraft already in the air, or which managed to get aloft.  The whole engagement had lasted less than ten minutes, and then the four planes were streaking off to sea.

Friday, March 9th

1659 Zulu

AS Marie Laveau

Medan Harbor, Indonesia

            The airships were finally arriving in the air over Medan harbor.  After fifteen minutes of hard sailing, the harbor spread out before them like a golden necklace upon the water…a necklace whose jewels had just been stripped of all protection by the lighting raid of the F-5s fifteen minutes before.

            Now the rest would be up to the airships themselves.

            Captain Thomas looked up from the panorama to his communications officer.

            “Bob,” he said, “I think it’s time we sounded General Quarters, don’t you?”

            “Sounding General Quarters, sir.”

            And all through the airship’s five hundred meter length, crew members raced back from the lavatory, from the coolers, and from various last minute snacks to man their battle posts.  They didn’t need to, of course.  Even with a quarter-hour to organize themselves, the Indonesians’ responses were far too scrambled to be useful.  But the four airships under Captain Garrard hadn’t survived this long by taking chances…and they weren’t about to start now.

            All over the airship, guns were checked one final time, swivels were swiveled through one final inspection, and ammunition was moved to its secure locations, in preparation for the battle to come.

            In the bow, directly under the flag deck, this meant loading the massive twin 105mm semi-automatic that were the ship’s main guns with their four-round clips.  There would have been more rounds in the clip, or perhaps even a chain of such rounds…but 105 millimeters is about four inches…which means a four-round clip is sixteen inches tall, four inches across, and something like twenty-eight inches long.  Sometimes, belt-fed just won’t work.

            In the even larger AS Aleister Crowley, the four heavy guns had no such clips.  In the first place, they were too big…and in the second place, these guns were meant to be crew-served.  The105s built up enough heat that four-round clips were all that could be used safely.  Thinking about the amount of heat buildup in a semi-automatic 155mm howitzer was enough to scare any-one.

            On the Jacques Clerque, Jennifer had only one more guard left to go:  the guard who was...well, guarding the crew.

            Actually, if the others were anything to go by, guarding might have been too strong a word.  The others had been...less than attentive.  Well, to tell the truth, most of them had been too intent on drinking themselves stupid.  Jennifer had no objections to her enemies drinking themselves stupid.  It made her life a great deal easier.

            But it did sort of offend her sense of professionalism.

            Not that she was going to complain.  It just sort of...pained her ethics.

            Jennifer dove through the doorway to the crew quarters in a sort of half-crouched roll...and almost got shot by the captain for her troubles.

            Oops.

            Apparently, the crew hadn't needed any help.

            "Come on, let's move!"  she finally gasped.  "My father's mounted an attack to free us!"

            The captain and his crew just grinned at each other.  And, a few seconds later, Jennifer was sitting in the crew-quarters, wondering what just happened.

Friday, March 9th

1700 Zulu

Medan Harbor

Medan, Indonesia

            It was time.  The airships were in position, there was no opposition, and it seemed that no-one was even aware that they were there.

            Aboard the Aleister Crowley, Captain Gerrard nodded once, and then turned to his executive officer.

            "Very well, Jason.  If you would be so kind, please give the signal to commence."

            Ten seconds later, the already chaotic after-math of the Tiger IIs' attack was torn apart by the sound of the airships' guns.

            The Marie Laveau was the first to fire.  Admittedly, this was by only a few heartbeats, but first is first, and when you're boasting, little details are unimportant.

            The *boom* *boom* *boom* of her twin main guns' staggered fire rang through the night, as the Marie Laveau's guns began raining fire upon the southernmost AA battery.  It was here that the planning and careful maneuvering which had gone into the attack paid off.  Despite the limited traverse of the guns, the positioning of the Marie Laveau was such that she could quite easily bring the entire battery under her fire.  In seconds, the missiles and their launch vehicles were nothing more than so much burning wreckage, and it was time for the airship to turn to her next target:  a battery of SSM anti-shipping missiles.

            Along the airship's flanks, the various machine guns and 20mm cannons began to lick outward with their own tongues of fire, searching out those men who were foolish enough to try to stand and fight.  To the rear, the tail gunner opened fire on a pack of Indonesia patrol boats with his quad .50 machine guns, firing short, controlled bursts into a suddenly rapidly disintegrating pack of vessels.

            Captain Thomas gave a shark-like grin, as the flashes of gunfire from across the bay indicated that the Rasputin was by now similarly engaged.

            The targets assigned to the Rasputin, although just as well-planned, were actually significantly more difficult to take out.  This was not because of any difficulty in bringing the targets under fire...just in the fact that there were so many targets to attack.  That side of the harbor sported no less than five of the seven SSM batteries, plus three of the AA batteries (two of which had thankfully already been destroyed).

            More importantly, the soldiers who were supposed to be manning the northern-most AA battery were, in fact, relatively close by.  At the time of the F-5s' attack, they had in fact just finished suffering through an inspection by a thoroughly enraged commanding officer, who had felt that their prolonged absences from their posts meant that there was no way for them to tell if their equipment did, in fact, work.

            They had, less than half an hour before, managed to successfully prove that, given the right conditions, their equipment would work, despite the neglect.

            Their captain was not terribly impressed.

            Their record tonight would make up for a great deal of their previous short-comings.

            When the F-5s struck, they had known, from the reconnaissance photos, that the northern-most battery was never manned at night.  But tonight, of all nights, the soldiers who were supposed to man it were close by, and sober.  So when the attacks came, they were already on their way to their posts when they saw the battery directly to their south go up in an series of fire-balls.

            Which meant that all six launch vehicles, plus the close-in AA tanks, were fully manned, and seeking out any threat they could find.  This included the previously un-used reserve radar set, which had been provided to all batteries, but was only present at one.  The rest had mysteriously disappeared, at about the time that the commanding officers found themselves suddenly in need of some cash.

            That they missed the Rasputin (indeed, they missed all four airships) reflects no fault of their own.  Airships are, by nature, relatively stealthy.  They are quiet, they generate surprisingly little heat, and large parts of them are made not of metal, but of cloth.

            Captain Gerrard and his merry men had taken this one step farther, carefully shaping their dirigibles' supports, engines, gun mounts, and even the cabins down below, to scatter radar waves, and make them as close to invisible as possible.  Then, just to confuse things even further, they'd added a coat of radar-absorbent paint to everything.  Even the gas bags had been painted.

            So until the four F-5s were launched, there was literally no way that any of the air-ships could have been spotted.  This had saved them more than once against Zaire's admittedly fifth-rate air force.  And now it saved them once again, because the battery's missiles simply could not attain lock.

            So, they switched to infra-red...and they found something.  Four of the six launchers promptly lit off, without waiting for confirmation, or target lock.  All eight of the missiles thus launched went wildly off-course.  In the case of two of these missiles, the heat-seeking warheads locked onto the nearest major heat source, and targeted each other.  Two of the rest splashed harmlessly into the harbor, dousing their engines, and sinking to the bottom.  Another three overshot the harbor entirely, and two of them landed somewhere in the Straits themselves instead. The other landed atop a pig sty, fortunately missing the old boar sleeping inside, but giving him such a fright that he promptly smashed through the sturdy pen fence, and dove under the farmer's covers to shiver in fright.  Needless to say, this gave the farmer quite a scare the next morning.  The last missile found a target in one of the other missiles, lost lock, found another target, and homed in on a pickup truck that was just starting to get moving.  And, suddenly, there was no pickup truck.

            But, despite its lack of success, it was a sign that somebody was fighting back.

            So, naturally, it received a lot of attention.

            The Rasputin had been busily demolishing one of the SSM batteries, before making the fifteen-degree turn that would bring the AA battery under fire.  This plan was broken off, however, when the missiles launched, and the dirigible was hurriedly turned on its access to bring the battery under fire.  Seconds later, the twin 105s began banging out their refrain against the battery, and if they were less accurate at this range, their fire was no less terrifying.  One of the remaining launchers fired its missiles...and then a lucky shot from the 105s took off the commander's leg, and that was all she wrote.  The crews, without their leader to inspire them, took off...although it is indicative of the respect the poor captain had gained, that one of his men stopped, and dragged him to safety.

           

            The John Dee had no such spectacularly powerful weapons as her sisters.  Designed purely as a cargo-carrier and supply ship, her cavernous holds were meant to haul away the loot the airships captured, and to bring the supplies needed for extended missions.  Most of her interior was hollow, and she certainly had no need of the massively over-sized crew she normally carried.  All of which had next to no impact on the size of that crew.  Which was a good thing, because the John Dee was currently busy lowering a small crew of men onto the decks of the Jacques Clerque.

            Where the much of the regular crew was currently waiting for them.

            Fortunately, the pirates--or, rather, the new pirates--had been briefed on what the crew of the Jacques Clerque looked like.  That was all that saved them from rather a lot of embarrassment.

            The next ship on, however, had no such luck--her crew had already been sold off into slavery, and the pirates waited only on the ship's new owners to come pick it up.  Most of them, in fact, waited from the local bars and taverns, content in the knowledge that nothing could threaten them here.  So when fifteen men with shotguns descended the ropes dropped by the John Dee to land on her deck, the pirates had no-one to save them.

            Within twenty minutes, the ship had been cleared, and her new crew was firing up the boilers, and getting ready to take her out to sea.  By then, the John Dee had already dropped her prize crew off on two more of the three remaining ships the pirates had come to "liberate."

            In the skies above the harbor, Captain Gerrard looked down upon the chaos and confusion that was currently beginning to spread across the waterfront, and through the city once again.

            "What do you think, Jason?  Time to light her up?"

            "No, not...wait, wait just a minute.  Is that...is that a tank?"

            "Why yes...yes, I do believe it is."

            "Oh my.  They must have heard about our prize crews."

            "Either that, or they're just too pissed to care."

            "Well, yes, they might be too pissed to care.  Either way, sir, I'd say that it is now quite definitely time to light up."

            Captain Gerrard just grinned at his eager young lieutenant.

            "All right, Jason, let her rip."

            "Yes sir!"  And with this, Jason flipped the plastic cover marked "Loot" up and off the button in question, before jamming his thumb down on the big red button it protected.

           

            And on sides of the Aleister Crowley, along with each of her three fellows, the symbol of Captain Gerrard Pierre Hawthorne flashed into existence as hundreds of tiny lights suddenly turned on.  The horned skull and crossbones flared into existence on each side of the great airships, and, at the same time, the Crowley's stroboscopic searchlights suddenly sprang to life, spearing down through the chaos and the rising murk to illuminate the dark night below.

            And down into that chaos, the Crowley flew, swooping down like the largest owl in the world as she finally spied her prey.

            Silently.  And inevitably.

            Pound for pound, coffee is one of the most profitable substances known to man.  There are, of course, more valuable substances, and when you're not doing the actual growing of the coffee, that does, or should, weigh heavily on your decision of what to loot.

            On the other hand, coffee does make up the majority of the Medan area's economy.  So perhaps the decision to land the Crowley's raiding party on that particular roof was not actually as foolish as it looked.

            Actually, scratch that last comment.  There is no perhaps--that particular coffee warehouse happened to overlook a key intersection in the port, leading to a number of extremely important areas.  Areas the Crowley wanted to keep safe for just a little while longer...while the John Dee and her over-sized crew finished looting all the useful materials from within.

            Including, oddly enough, over seven hundred and twenty Playstation 5s, the newest and latest generation console.  Captain Gerrard had read that the USAF had been using Playstations to build off-the-shelf supercomputers on the cheap...and he wanted to try that himself.  He wasn’t really all that sure what he would actually do with a home-built super-computer.  He just knew that he wanted one.

            First Platoon of the Medan Regiment's Fifth Company was currently advancing toward the waterfront.  And since Sergeant Maraden Sutrisno led Delta Squad, that meant that Delta Squad was on point.  Things had been like this ever since that pissant Private Sukhartha had caught the sergeant in bed with his sister.  Who knew that the private's brother-in-law was the colonel's room-mate in college?

            For that matter, who knew a private's family had been that rich?

            Sergeant Maraden never knew what killed him.  To be fair, his squad-mates were pretty unclear on the matter themselves.  They'd never seen anything like it.  One minute everything was okay, and the next minute there was the boom of a shotgun.  And the sergeant just...exploded.

            Now, to be fair, there are shotgun shells that will accomplish this quite nicely.  But they are not, by and large, in widespread military use.  Which is a shame, because shotgun shells can be a lot of fun.  As witness the 12-guage "Exploder" shell, which smeared the insides of the unfortunate sergeant all over his squad.

            Needless to say, this didn't do much for his squad's over-all morale.

            The storm of fire that followed didn't help matters, either.  By the time the shooting died down, the squad had been virtually annihilated.

            In the skies above the waterfront, the Crowley cruised slowly along the docks, her searchlights stabbing through the darkness for targets for her mighty guns.  In the darkness below her, men and women fought and died for greed and for glory.  Occasionally, one found himself (or herself) fighting to defend his or her family...but few of those who lived in the warehouse district did so by choice.  Which meant that few had anything worth taking.  Most simply hid, and waited for the whole thing to blow over.

            To Jennifer, looking up at the ship from her position on the Jacques Clerque's deck (where she had been sent to cut the mooring lines), those lights spearing down through the rising fog (and smoke) combined with the dirigible's harsh, angular shape to give it a rather insect-like appearance.  Perhaps even a sinister appearance, if the truth be told.

            Which was no doubt exactly what its captain had intended.

            Suddenly, the ship began to throb below her feet.  With a start, Jennifer came back to herself, and remembered her reason for being above-decks.

            Quickly, she dashed to the last line of the remaining mooring ropes, severing it with two quick slashes of her serrated knife.  She was barely in time--the line had already begun to tighten as the ship's engines drew her backwards, away from the pier.

            "I sure hope those pirates knew what they were talking about," she murmured to herself.

            Either way, there was nothing she could do about it now.  Just watch...and pray.

Friday, March 9th

1725 Zulu

Medan Waterfront

Medan, Indonesia

            "Captain!  The John Dee is reporting increased gang activity by the electronics warehouse.  Her captain has informed us that her prize crews are being attacked with heavy weapons, and he does not expect to be able to complete the loading unless the attackers can be eliminated.  Should I instruct her to return fire?"

            "Negative.  Inform Captain Dickenson that we will be handling the problem within five minutes.  Helm, take us forward, and see if you can give us a firing position on that warehouse and its environs."

            "Aye aye sir.  Coming about fifteen degrees, forward two hundred feet.  All hands, prepare for change in altitude.  I repeat, all hands, prepare for change in altitude."

            "Thank you, Helm.  Jason, do we have any updates on additional Indie attempts to move heavy weapons platforms into the area?"

            "Negative, sir.  Lookouts report no sign of anything but light infantry units moving forward.  So far, the only serious weapons have been in the hands of pirate gangs and religious militias."

            "Right, let's keep it that way.  You see any kind of tank, armored car, anything, you light it up.  Don't even bother asking permission unless you think you're going to need the main guns."

            "Yes, Sir."

            "Sir, GPS reports that we are in position to begin firing on the warehouse area."

            "Right.  Guns, get on the horn with Captain Dickenson, and find out where those gangland militias are holed up."

            "Paging Captain Dickenson, aye aye sir."

            In the night below, none of the frantic activity aboard the Aleister Crowley was evident, however.  So far, the city had seen nothing more out of the air-ship than a single Bofors L60 40mm cannon on the starboard side taking an armored car under fire.

            Which meant that when the two 20mm Vulcan emplacements on the port side opened fire, it was a shock out of all proportion to its impact.

            Which impact was quite bad enough.

            The Broken Toe gang, which had long considered itself the ruler of the area around the Sony warehouse, had been able to gain access to an impressive store of heavy weapons over the years.  And one of their strong points was the four-story tenement apartment building, located directly across the street from the warehouse.  Over the years, the various legal entities hired to make sure Sony's goods got to and from said warehouse had learned that life was a lot easier when they just paid the Broken Toe off than trying to fight them.

            So when the various gang members been awakened by the explosions erupting through the harbor's defenses, their instinctive reaction had been to treat this like yet another  attempt to wrest control of the neighborhood's streets from their grasp.  And when they'd seen the John Dee's prize crews rappelling down from the huge airship, they hadn't thought for more than a moment before opening fire.

            The building, despite being indifferently maintained, was big, and sturdy.  It had to be, otherwise it would have collapsed.  The prize crews' light firearms hadn't been able to take the Broken Toe gunmen out from across the street, and they had not been able to load the cargo while they were being shot at.

            But if the prize crew was just packing small arms, the Aleister Crowley was not.

            Two 20mm Vulcan emplacements opened fire from the airship's port-side batteries.  Each emplacement had two of the six-barrel rotary cannons, capable of firing 4,000 rounds of 20mm ammunition per minute.  Simple 20mm slugs would have been bad enough--each 20mm round is nearly an inch wide, after all--but the Crowley wasn't interested in solid slugs.  Instead, they were firing Armor-Piercing High-Explosive rounds.  It was an old round, it was true...but it worked, and it almost never jammed, or had any kind of maintenance issues.

            Two guns, firing four thousand rounds per minute, from each of two emplacements, fires a grand total of 16,000 rounds per minute.  The Aleister Crowley's guns maintained fire for less than ten seconds, depositing a "mere" 1,600 rounds on target, but it was more than enough.  The building, never designed to withstand such abuse, simply...disintegrated.  As for the shooters inside, those who survived the actual shooting part of the engagement...well, being inside a four-story building when it collapses is never fun.  Being inside such a building when it collapses because somebody has just shredded every single structural support included within the building is probably even less fun.  Regardless, there were no survivors.

            "Sir!  Prize crews are reporting the pirate mother-ships appear to be starting their engines."

            "Hoping to intercept our prizes at sea again, I suppose.  Or just trying to escape.  Regardless, we can't have that.  Guns?  Are we in position to engage those ships?"

            "Yes, sir, we are.  On your order, I can release the two of the 155s to engage, and if we come about another fifteen degrees to port, I can make that three."

            "You heard the man, Helm.  Make it so."

            "Aye aye, sir.  Coming about fifteen degrees."

            The great airship heeled over once more as the rudders nosed the vessel to the side for the second time in the last five minutes.  Below, the decks began to vibrate as the first of the 155mm volleys was fired.

            "Alright, folks, we've got our shooting orders.  You see those three ships down there?  The ones marked with the red outlines?  We've been ordered to stop them from going to sea at all costs.  Even if that means sinking them with all hands.  So let's get this gun loaded and ready to fire!"

            The forward gun captain, charged with leading the crew for the forward pivot-mounted 155mm cannon, was probably among the least popular men on the ship.  The man was a fanatic, both when it came to rate of fire, and when it came to accuracy.  For almost two years now, he had been riding his gun crew, running them through countless simulations, frequent live fire practices, and relentless, unceasing drills.

            The result was a crew whose skill with their weapon was literally second to none...and a burning hatred of the gun captain by every single member of his gun crew.  In any other pirate band, this would have meant that he'd ended up dead within a week.  Even in Captain Gerrard's airships, several individuals had attempted to remove this obstreperous individual from their lives for good.  Somehow, he'd always lived.

            But now, as the heavy guns of the Aleister Crowley found a target worthy of their attention for the first time since the airship's career had begun, the man was suddenly a lot less hateful.  Nobody was going to be calling him a nice guy anytime soon...but he was a lot less hateful.

            Ships--any ships--are by nature tough targets with any weapons.  This is not a result of anything intentional, simply a side effect of the design specs.  Any vessel which has to be able to survive a hurricane at sea is going to be a little harder to destroy than your average car.

            All of which means that any small-arms are unlikely to damage a ship.

            A 155mm cannon, however, is another story entirely.  The explosive charge of such a weapon might be unlikely to sink an ocean-going ship with its first shot...but it won't take too many rounds before it does.

            The rear-mounted, and the port-mounted cannons had gun crews whose training had been much lighter than that of the forward mount.  Part of this was because the gun captains were just a little bit lazier, part of it was because the gun crews were just a little bit more successful at intimidating the gun captains, and part of it was simply because nobody really expected to need a 155mm gun firing from a dirigible.

            So there was a hint of stiffness to those gun crews' actions. Tiny mistakes were made, or minute actions weren't made, that might have made the gun crews that much faster, that much more accurate.   A slight wooden quality clung to their motions, one which might not have been noticed in comparison to, say, a civilian gun crew, but one which was definitely noticeable when put up against the smoothly oiled precision machine that was the crew of the forward-mounted 155mm cannon.

            So far, in the three minutes it had taken to bring the forward gun to bear, the other two guns had fired seven rounds apiece, only two of which had struck their target.  This is actually a decent rate of fire.  Not the best, but a very respectable, and sustainable, rate of fire.

            The forward gun crew, however, was having none of this non-sense of two shots in three minutes.

            Jennifer was still watching from the deck of the Jacques Clerque.  By now, she was watching not so much with a sense of concern, as with a sense of awe, as she witnessed the iron discipline, and the professionalism, that had made Captain Gerrard's men the terror of inland Africa, able to strike at will despite the best efforts of both armies and air forces throughout Africa.

            Above, she could see the flashes of the airships' guns, as one or another of the great dirigibles let loose upon yet another target that chose to make its intransigence known.  By now, the stacatto thunder of the twin-mounted 105s aboard the Rasputin and the Marie Laveau had fallen silent, as the last of the batteries of SSMs and SAMs had been finally destroyed.  No doubt, the two airship's heavy guns would be used again, quite soon.  But, for now, the heavy lifting was being carried by the lighter quad .50s, and the 20mm Vulcans.  The heaviest gun she'd seen in the last five minutes had been what looked like a 40mm Bofors rapid-fire cannon, firing from the airship above the waterfront.

            Oddly, though she would not have thought it, the retort from each weapon was...different.  The .50 mounts were heavy, slow, and serious-sounding; though still obviously machine guns, even four of the guns firing together still sounded like exactly what they were--a very good, very reliable weapon that had been deliberately designed to deal an awful lot of pain to its targets.  The 40mm, on the other hand, sounded more like somebody firing the world's largest pistol.  They sounded slow, deliberate, and almost as if somebody were taking the time to aim between each shot.  It was almost as if ammunition were precious, and nobody wanted to waste a single round if they didn't have to.

            The 20mm Vulcans, however, didn't even really sound like guns at all.  Instead, they sounded more like the world's largest zipper than anything else she could think of.  Nor did their fire really look like gunfire, either.  Instead, it looked almost like a single beam of light, and whatever that beam touched, died.

            And then, she saw something bigger, as the rear- and port-mounted 155s aboard the Aleister Crowley opened up.  They sounded like the guns of champions, and it took almost a full minute before she realized that they were shooting at something closer to her than to the shore.

            Which was when she noticed that the three pirate mother-ships had begun to move.

            The pirates aboard those ships weren't too happy themselves.  They'd thought they'd been safe, under the umbrella of the local Indonesian government.  Instead, they'd found that eternal verity crime--sooner or later, there's always going to be somebody who just doesn't care.

            It had been the virtual annihilation of the Broken Toe gang that had finally broken their spirits.  The Crowley's response to the gang's resistance had been both swift, and overwhelmingly lethal.  And, clearly, about as easy to stop as a rampaging elephant.

            These men were pirates.  Brave, yes.  Ruthless, of course.  Perhaps a bit foolish, or short-sighted...but certainly not incapable of reading the writing on the wall.  It was clearly time to take their assets, and get out.

            But Captain Gerrard wasn't having any of that.  After all, he'd come here to make a point--that even pirates operating on the other side of the world had better take his decrees seriously.  And he wanted it made abundantly clear what that meant.

            It meant that there would be codes of acceptable behavior in this field of human endeavor.  And these codes would be followed.  If not...if not, there would be a price to pay.  And if that price wasn't paid to the authorities, it would be paid to him.

            Of the first two 155 shells to be fired, only one hit.

            That one was bad enough, as its blast shredded two of the small boats lying upon the pirate ship's deck.  But there was little permanent damage.

            Both of the next two rounds missed altogether.  Firing a howitzer from the side of a dirigible is much more of an art than a science, and these two gun crews didn't have that art down pat just yet.  The same held true for the next two, and the next two.  The fifth volley scored another hit, again breaking some boats, but causing no real damage (this hit would have been more impressive had the gun crew actually been aiming at the ship they hit).  None of the next two volleys managed to do anything more than bracket their targets.

            Then, the firing paused, for roughly thirty seconds, as both of the already engaged gun crews paused to catch their breath, and let the airship's gunnery officer co-ordinate the various weapon systems.  And then, suddenly, all three of the Aleister Crowley's main guns which could be brought to bear, fired as one.

            As did every other gun in the airship's broadside.

            The din was incredible, here in the forward compartment.  Four Vulcan emplacements, two 40mm cannons, and three quad-mounted .50 weapons had all opened fire virtually simultaneously, and from his position at the auxiliary gunners' sight, the gun captain could see that these weapons were ravaging the small boats aboard the pirate ships.  The small boats, the hatches, the bridge...basically anything that could be smashed by smaller rounds than his big 155s was being destroyed under that hurricane of fire.  But it wouldn't be enough to sink those ships, oh no.  Despite all their power, none of these weapons could simply punch through the six-inch steel hulls the way his baby could.

            He glanced to the side, fighting his sense of fascinated awe, and saw that his crew had already nearly finished reloading the gun.  Hurriedly, he glanced over to the crew member responsible for aiming the gun, also known as the gunner, only to see that the man was glued to his aiming reticule.

            "Ready!" shouted one of the gunners over the earphone-mounted radio, and the gun captain nodded.

            "Aim!" shouted the gunner, pushing a button.  A laser level beam appeared on the side of the gun's carriage.  The crew heaved the rear of the gun up, until the stanchions came level to the laser beam.

            "And fire!" shouted the gun captain, jamming his finger down on the big red button marked "Do Not Push."  With a loud "bang," the gun's breach flew backwards.

            The gun crew was already moving, first jacking the breech handle to the side to open the breach and eject the spent shell, and then spraying a cooling film of water through the inside of the barrel, and another along the outside.  Finally, the new shell was loaded into the gun, and the lever pulled to allow the hydraulic systems to re-position the barrel.

            The entire process took less than fifteen seconds.  And the gun captain could already see the hole his crew's round had torn in the side of one of the pirate ships.  A hole that was dangerously close to the water-line...and about to get bigger.

            "Reduce elevation six degrees, and fire for effect!" he yelled, and the gunner obediently spun the little wheel on his mouse, and lowered the elevation another six degrees.

            "Fire!"

            The next round was dead on, and tore its hole almost exactly at the water-line.

Friday, March 9th

1735 Zulu

Medan Harbor

Medan, Indonesia

            The helicopters had found no opposition on the way in to the harbor.  Not that they expected much...but they'd found absolutely none.

            When they'd finally come into sight of the harbor, though, their crews suddenly understood exactly why that might be the case.

            The scene that was unfolding before them was that of absolute chaos.  Gunfire was lighting up the night all along the water-front, some of it being exchanged between Captain Gerrard's men and the locals, but more of it being exchanged by rival gangs, as one gang or another decided that now was the time to settle any grudges.  After all, on a night like tonight, who could say who had actually fired the rounds that might have killed somebody?

            Gunfire lit up the water-front, and, below, on the water itself, the helicopters could just see the captured cargo ships beginning to pull out of the harbor.  The Jacques Clerque was leading the procession, as its crew had already been familiar with their ship, and its layout...but the others were not far behind.  And above them all hung the ominous shapes of the Aleister Crowley and her cohorts, their sides lit by hundreds of tiny light bulbs arranged to form the shape of a horned skull and crossbones.

            All of this was fine with the almost one-hundred Mi-24S Sea Hind helicopters and their crews.  They were just there for a quick in-and-out mission anyway.  They'd come to rescue the crews of those captured ships.  If those crews were already aboard, great.  If not, well, the choppers had a pretty good idea where to find them.  The pirates had made no secret of that, after all.

            Perhaps they should have.

            The Angstrom Foundation had chosen the Mi-24, also more commonly known as the "Hind," as their helicopter of choice for convoy escort for a very specific reason.  To be perfectly blunt, the reason was that there were no other helicopters in existence which could serve as both an attack helicopter, capable of sinking pirates' small craft and providing a direct fire-support role, and transporting a small squadron of troops to an already captured ship, where said troops could be used to re-take the vessel.

            Initially, the pirates had tried to hold the crew-members hostage against any attempts to re-take the ship, an attempt which the Foundation had allowed.  But, unfortunately, it did appear that the Foundation had a very good memory...and anybody who tried to take a hostage would be later tracked down and destroyed, along with his or her entire family.  It had taken several very bloody lessons, but the hostage-taking had stopped.

            Either way, the Foundation's ships maintained twenty-seven Mi-24s each, and there were five ships in the area.  Each ship had sent twenty attack helicopters to retrieve the missing crew-members, and hopefully to re-take the ships.

            They encountered absolutely no difficulties in this objective.  The sheer amount of fire-power deployed against the pirate ships themselves meant that the huge dirigibles hovering overhead provided all the persuasion necessary.  And, just as a happy accident, of course, they had more than enough room to bring the captured crew members back with them.

            "Captain!  John Dee reports all cargo secure, and that they've recovered everybody they set ashore!"

            "Very well, Jason.  Pass my compliments along to the other captains, and inform them that the time has come to make ready to withdraw.  All ground forces are to be retrieved, and any final firing runs are to be made.

            "Helm--time to go get our boys."

            "Aye aye sir.  Coming one hundred and thirty-five degrees to port in ten seconds.  We should be in position for a pickup in less than five minutes."

Friday, March 9th

1750 Zulu

Straits of Malacca,

Indonesia

            The five vessels Mark Angstrom had brought had carried a total of one hundred thirty-five helicopters.  One hundred had been sent ashore to retrieve the crew members, and their ships, whom the pirates had recently taken.  Thirty-five had been retained, and equipped for air-to-air combat.  The foundation wasn't technically supposed to have that capability...but then again, it wasn't technically supposed to be able to mount raids on supposedly legal ports, either.

            Fortunately, neither ability would be revealed tonight.

            Captain Gerrard's had provided all the distraction that he needed.  Even now, the crews were being returned to their ships, which the pirate prize crews had assured his pilots would be turned over without fuss, provided they were allowed to return to their airships.

            Mark had instructed his pilots to agree.  There was no point in making things more complicated right now.

            As for the Indonesian Air Force's response, the good pirate captain's four Tiger IIs had proven more than sufficient to take care of the problem.  They were probably running low on jet fuel by now, of course...but Captain Gerrard had already assured him that there would be no problems in recovering all four jets.

            Mark Angstrom was a happy man--he had his daughter back, his Foundation would survive the night with its reputation intact, and his pilots had apparently managed to recover several hopefully ex-pirates who'd been more than happy to tell everything they knew about the Aleister Crowley and her cohorts.  All of which were clearly far more formidable foes than he had believed.

            Clearly, the convoys along Zaire coast-line were going to have to have their escorts beefed up.  And soon.

Author's Notes:

            Although airships have not been used for military purposes for some sixty years or more, at one point almost every major power on Earth made at least a few experiments on using lighter-than-air craft for military purposes.  The advantages they could provide were enormous, and frequently inarguable:  they were fuel-efficient enough to stay airborne for days at a time, they could carry enormous amounts of cargo (including airplanes!), and they were surprisingly tough.  This was especially true with dirigibles, whose multiple gas bags, and sturdy air frames made them particularly easy to armor, as well as offering a high degree of redundancy in terms of lift.

            Most famous of these dirigibles were the German zeppelins--enormous lighter-than-air ships of the sky, which the Germans used in World War I to allow the Germans to bomb London...repeatedly.  Unfortunately, the British soon found counter-measures, which let them shoot down the zeppelins with a fair degree of ease.  Chief among these counter-measures was the big anti-aircraft search lights (which were to be so common in World War II), which illuminated the zeppelins, so that British flak gunners and fighter pilots could see what they were aiming at.  Zeppelins were, unfortunately, rather large targets, and even multiply redundant gas bags were not enough to save them--particularly in light of the fact that the Germans, unable to procure large amounts of helium, were forced to use hydrogen for their air ships.  One of the first recorded uses of incendiary ammunition was, in fact, used by British fighters in World War I to ignite the hydrogen-filled gas bags of the zeppelins.  Since hydrogen can explode if exposed to oxygen and flame rapidly enough, the Germans were quickly forced to cancel their raids.

            However, this did not come about in time to prevent several raids from taking place, and in a few of those raids, the Germans made an attempt to mount fighter planes on their zeppelins, in an effort to provide some sort of early fighter escort.  The notion proved a failure, but it did foreshadow the fighter escorts provided to bomber fleets in the next war.  This was a notion, it should be mentioned, that the Germans were among the first to implement, as they had learned from their earlier experience that no bomber can hope to fight its way through fighters alone.

            Dirigibles were also, however, used by the American Navy, during the late 1940s, and into the 1950s.  As part of the effort to combat Russian submarines, dirigibles proved to be a surprisingly effective tool, and it was for this reason that the idea of anti-submarine helicopters met with so little resistance.  Helicopters had several advantages over dirigibles, which could not be over-come:  they were smaller, more capable of handling rough weather, and could land to re-supply their weapons much more easily than dirigibles, which were effectively air-going destroyer escorts.

            For all of these reasons, as well as simply because dirigibles require a LOT of space in the maintenance hanger, dirigibles were eventually scrapped from military usage.  They had already left civilian markets after the explosion of the Hindenburg, back in 1937.

            Despite all this, to the best of my knowledge, there has never been a dirigible, military or otherwise, that is anything like the Aleister Crowley.  Which seems rather a shame, when one thinks about it--dirigibles would, in any weather they could be used in, provide an excellent gunship platform.  Not only are they able to carry much heavier loads than any airplane or helicopter, but they are also much more stable platforms.  Indeed, they are often so stable, that passengers are unaware that they have either lifted off, or landed, and that stability was present all through the dirigible's flight.  When one combines that with the inherent stealthiness of a dirigible, which not only has surprisingly little metal, but also moves at about the same speed as your average bird, one has a craft which should, in theory, be able to provide a valuable support, particularly to special ops teams.

            While dirigibles have, as I mentioned earlier, been used as air-mobile carriers, they are not particularly good at this role.  Not only are aircraft simply too large to be carried in any useful numbers, but there is no really good way to launch or recover them.  This is particularly true of today's jets--in the story, I have their carriers simply drop them from about a thousand feet up--who need a considerable amount of air-speed to obtain sufficient lift.  If an airplane is launched from a dirigible, but if sufficient air-speed can't be generated immediately, this is liable to rather hard on the airplane.  It is for this reason that fighters are launched by way of a steam catapult off of air-craft carriers.

            And, if launching an airplane from a dirigible is difficult, recovering an aircraft is even more so.  Again, this is particularly true of today’s jets, but even in World War I, when aircraft were much slower, and much lighter than they are today, the process was delicate, and highly unforgiving of mistakes.

            For my own part, I should mention—the reason why diesel-electric locomotives were requested as part of Captain Gerrard’s payment is that, in my mind, these airships move by means of several sets of electrically driven propellers.  The electricity for these electric motors comes from a set of locomotive-style generators, hidden deep in the belly of the craft.  This accomplishes several things, all of which are important.  First of all, this system provides an abundance of electricity, which is necessary to operate the motors, but also to run the heating elements, which heat the helium to provide more lift.  Secondly, this means that the heat from the actual engines can be dispersed through myriad smaller exhaust ports, making the entire craft that much harder to spot via infra-red scanners.  Add this to a “stealthy” design, and perhaps a highly reflective skin and you’ve got an aircraft that is extremely difficult to spot on any kind of early-warning system.

            The helium-heaters are also important, because one of the down-sides to using helium for lift in such a vessel is that helium, while safer, is also more expensive to produce.  The original dirigibles could not use helium safely, because it was too expensive to vent…which meant that if the dirigible was not heavy enough to land in the conventional manner, it couldn’t land at all.  I have bypassed this, plus added better altitude control, by the simple means of making the dirigible slightly heavier than air in its normal state, and using the heated helium to expand the gas bags, and thus make the whole craft lighter.

              As far as I know, the real Indonesia in general, and the city of Medan in particular, share almost no points of resemblance to this story, with two exceptions: the city really is known for its coffee, which makes up the bulk of its local economy, and it really is located on the Straits of Malacca, which truly are the busiest body of water anywhere on the planet.

              Pirates tend to try to focus on certain areas, areas where they expect to find the most profitable prey, for the least amount of risk, and the nature of Indonesia's thousands of islands makes effectively policing the area almost impossible. While, unlike Somalia and the Red Sea (which is currently the area most famous for piracy), there is a government that is both functioning, and truly interested in reducing piracy to the greatest extent practical, it just isn't possible to patrol the entire area all the time. The thought of what might happen if a corrupt regional governor were to get in on the act, and to provide a group of pirates with semi-official diplomatic protection is something that one can only imagine with horror.