Pirate Alley: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

copilot was answering the controller just now, giving him a range and how many minutes they were from the ship under attack, the Stella Maris. Ten miles to go. A little less than five minutes.
    Now he was listening to the panicky voice of the ship’s radio operator. Apparently the captain was busy conning the ship.
    “They are shooting at the bridge.” The words were in English, although heavily accented. Idly, Louceck wondered about the speaker’s nationality.
    “Now they are approaching again.” While he held the microphone open, Louceck could hear a beating sound that he took to be automatic gunfire. “Three boats. Maybe ten men in each boat.”
    Louceck could see the ship materialize out of the haze, which seemed thicker the higher one got. By now he had the helicopter in a descent, accelerating.
    “About three minutes, capitaine, ” the copilot said, quite unnecessarily.
    Automatically Louceck checked his fuel. He had enough to stay over the cruise ship for perhaps twenty minutes, then he would have to fly back to the Toulon, his ship.
    “Call the ship,” he told the copilot. “Get them heading this way.” If the ship could close the distance, that would save a few gallons, give him another minute or two over the cruise ship.
    As the copilot made the call, Louceck turned the safety sleeve on the master armament switch and lifted it, arming the Giat 20 mm cannon carried in the external pod. Just in case. He could see the boats now. He lowered the nose still more, intending to make a low pass.
    The pirates knew the game. His orders did not permit him to open fire on the pirates unless they fired at him, which of course they would not do. They knew his orders as well as he did. Still, if he could intimidate them, make them turn away …
    “I’m taking photos.” That was the crewman in back.
    “They are alongside.” The voice was high-pitched, the words nearly impossible to understand. “I leave microphone open and move away from radio.”
    The copilot, Pigot, fidgeted in his seat.
    Sure enough, now continuous cacophony sounded in the helicopter crewmen’s ears.
    A burst of gunfire came over the radio, then the transmission ceased abruptly.
    Lieutenant Louceck was at fifty feet, making 180 knots, coming down the port side of the cruise ship. One pirate boat was against the side.
    People, all over the ship, running, some leaning over the rail, trying to see. Like ants on a corpse!
    Louceck roared right over the pirate boat, then threw the chopper into a hard turn while he pulled up on the cyclic. The chopper quickly lost speed, slowing dramatically as it came around in the turn.
    The captain of Stella Maris was holding his ship steady on course. Why didn’t he turn into the pirate boat, force them away from the ship?
    While Louceck was wondering, a hole appeared in the Plexiglas to his left. Then another.
    “They’re shooting,” Pigot roared into the ICS. His voice drowned out the cacophony coming over the radio.
    Automatically Leucock dumped his nose and began accelerating. Fortunately he was pointed right at the pirate boat. His finger found the trigger on the stick and he squeezed off a burst. A handful of 20 mm shells struck the water right beside the pirate boat, then Louceck was overhead and saw a man shooting at him with a rifle, then he was going away, his tail rotor pointing at the danger as the massive slab sides of the ship slid by the cockpit on his left.
    She looked like a floating hotel, with rows of balconies and white faces and people waving their arms at him. At him!
    Louceck checked the engine instruments and hydraulic gauges. All seemed okay … for now. Here he was, over hostile pirates, a hundred miles from the Toulon. If this machine stopped flying, he was going into the sea.
    “Any damage back there?” Louceck asked the crewman.
    “Don’t see any.” The kid’s voice was none too steady. Well, neither was Louceck’s or Pigot’s.
    Louceck climbed and turned again and