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Four Exocets leaped froon, the others toward the Deepwater, which was nowaway from the Portland at top speed

The Oregon’s Gatling guns ean unleashing three thousand rounds per sten tracer shells homed in on the missiles Two of the Exocets were shot down halfway to their targets One slae fireball

Tate cursed because he knew there was nothing of value on the bridge It wasvisitors Juan and his command creere nestled deep within the ship in the op center, protected by the ship’s ar just like he was

The fourth ht take out the Deepwater before it could get away, but the Gatling gun on the opposite side of the Oregon blew it apart moments from impact

The Deepwater ed by the fog At the same time, the Abtao’s two sections went down in a swirl of white water and foan of survivors

Tate was furious Unlike Juan, whose own anti-ship ed to function, Tate could f

ire another spread of missiles That was a futile tactic They’d probably be shot down just like the last ones

“Prepare to launch torpedoes at the Oregon!” Tate shouted “I want that ship sunk!”

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In the Oregon’s op center, Juan couldn’t get comfortable in his coe andhis skin crawl, like he’d had sixteen cups of coffee, and everyone around hi crazy Murph and Julia’s hull vibration solution to partially neutralize the acoustic weapon see

For the last two days, they’d been traveling at maximuet, yet it wasn’t fast enough Juan had been planning to surprise the Portland as she ca to wait until he saw her bow pass by as he hid in a cove, slaon was anywhere near hi, which was exactly the point Juan would have been very happy to send the Portland to the botto a shot

The radio traffic they overheard between the Deepwater and the Abtao changed everything Juan recognized Durchenko’s voice from when he’d been held captive on the Portland He couldn’t let the NUMA ship be taken by Tate It would have changed everything Juan ordered the Oregon into the fog using the ship’s LiDAR systeh the narrow straits As soon as they had a lock on the missile boat, he fired

Unfortunately, so did Durchenko Three of the Harpoons on’s missile launcher It would take days to fix it even if it were in dry dock

The rest of the dae report wasn’t much better The same blast that took out the launcher also destroyed the controls for the torpedo countere in the superstructure was cosmetic only, the explosion froe-finding would have to be done manually Luckily, the LiDAR was still operational, so they could disappear back into the fog after they’d given cover for the Deepwater to escape

“Murph,” Juan said, “launch two torpedoes at the Portland”