The airplane fought him at every turn, like she had a mind of her own. As soon as he thought he had the control glitch figured out, the jet bucked in the other direction. The world around him became a blur of gray sky and blue water, like a spinning globe that wouldn’t stop spinning. With eight thousand feet to play with — and nothing but his instinct to tell him how much altitude he still had — there was little room for error.

The powerful Pratt & Whitney engine suddenly flamed out, leaving the cramped cockpit oddly quiet but for the scream of buffeting wind and the clatter of his helmet against the headrest.

With his stomach in his throat and zero control, Skeet reached for the grab handles on his seat. Severely doubting any part of this airplane would work, he said the words no pilot ever wants to say: “Eject! Eject! Eject!”

* * *

Calliope left a copy of her code on Skeet’s onboard computer when she rode the weapons-data-link to the LRASM. This Calliope clone began to send opposing signals to the flight controls the moment the missile was away, causing the airplane to dive, then pitch violently upward. She searched weapons stores, flight controls, and every subdirectory in an attempt to locate the computerized ejection seat. Fortunately for the pilot, the ejection seat was manually activated. Seconds after he ejected, the F-35 Lightning hit the surface of the Pacific in a flat spin like a one-hundred-million-dollar skipping stone. It bounced three times, striking the water with such force that pieces of it had not yet fallen back into the water when Major Skeet Black’s parachute set him none too gently in the waves.

<p>68</p>

The executive officer stood across the bridge from Admiral Peck, handset to his ear. “PRIFLY advises no contact with either jet.”

PRIFLY was primary flight control — the ship’s equivalent of the air traffic control tower.

“No contact?”

“No radio contact, sir. No radar contact.”

“I recommend we get the Cobras over the last known locations,” the captain said.

“Preble and Halsey?” Peck asked, checking the status of the two destroyer escorts.

“Unable to reach them via radio, sir,” the XO said. “We’re trying the satellite phone now.”

Peck nodded, his stomach in knots. “Launch the MH-60s in case the pilots went into the drink. I want recovery in the air yesterday.”

The radar tech tracking the LRASM from the console on the bridge raised his hand. “The weapon is slowing, deviating east from target by… twenty… no, forty degrees.”

“Well, shit!” Peck said. “How slow?”

“Two hundred knots… one fifty… one hundred…” The radar P2 turned and looked at his captain, wide-eyed. “It’s heading toward that trawler… still slowing.” He turned back to his screen. “Sir! Contact fifty nautical miles southeast of the trawler.”

“And we are just now seeing it?” the admiral said. This was just getting better.

“There’s a small atoll there. We knew about it, but the vessel blended in when it was sitting there.”

The XO was still on the phone with PRIFLY. “One of the Cobras just spotted what looks like a Chinese vessel, moving toward the trawler. Looks to be a Shanghai-class gunboat.”

“Have the Cobra keep it in sight,” the admiral said.

The Shanghai-class vessels were small, about thirty-six meters, but they were relatively fast at twenty-five knots and decked out with weapons including depth charges for chasing subs.

“Status report on the missile,” Peck said.

“Still tracking directly for the trawler. One hundred knots. At present speed she’ll have contact in four and a half minutes.”

“Abort,” Peck said. “Destroy the missile.”

The captain, then the XO, repeated the order.

The XO put the line with PRIFLY on speaker while he listened to fire control on his headset. He looked up. “No go, sir. We have no control of the LRASM…”

PRIFLY spoke next over the speaker, patching through the Cobra pilot. “The trawler is deploying its arms with… looks like a net.”

“Sound general quarters,” the admiral said. “Someone has taken control of that missile and both our F-35s.”

“General quarters,” the captain repeated.

The XO looked up from the handset and shook his head. “Onboard communications, alarms, and intercoms are inoperable, sir.”

Music from Iron Man, the last movie the crew had watched on the big screen in the enlisted mess, began to pour out of the speakers over the entire ship.

Peck nodded to the captain. “You have the com.” He tapped the XO on the shoulder. “You, come with me.”

The two men burst from the bridge hatch, heading for the Ready 5 Ospreys and FAST Marines. With the intercoms down, none of the sailors on the ship were aware anything was amiss. They were startled to see the XO and the admiral running.

Peck hated to be an asshole with men and women who didn’t know any better, but he growled as he shoved them aside.

As the old Navy saying went: “Gangway or sickbay.”

* * *

Someone was piping Black Sabbath over the intercoms, which was odd, Captain Goodrich thought, but pretty great for morale.