Chapter 6 Enemy action.
Fatiha Mejjati stood on the long half wrecked wooden dock that was the dominant feature in this stinking harbor. She might have been the one to get this mission going and order its launch, but she would not be the one to lead this attack on the infidels. A woman could not lead “true” men into battle, at least not within the confines of her religion. She had to smile as twenty gunboats left the port in more or less a line of battle. Each of those cabin cruisers and fishing boats were armed with all of the heavy weapons that they could lay their hands on in such short notice. In the privacy of her own mind, she would have been impressed with the number of heavy weapons that most places this size could have claimed.
All of the boats had at least a 12.7mm or 14.5mm heavy machine gun mounted somewhere on the thinly built vessels. One of the boats even had an old BMP-1 turret mounted on the bow of one of the largest boats. They had only 15 rounds for the 73mm cannon and only two of the 9m14 ATGMs that the rail launcher could fire. It was “escorted” by a like sized boat fitted with a twin turret fitted with 23mm anti-aircraft cannons and a homemade twin RPG launcher device that the owners had come up with all on their own. This island was a hot bed of pirates, one that was supplied with fresh bodies when they run short of food, or a group of young men wanted some action.
One of the vessels in this fleet was carrying her handpicked leader for this attack on the Great Shaitan. He even knew that his attack was not the “real” attack in her plans, but they were to kill as many of the enemy as possible. He was only to do as much damage as they could before he was sent to receive his reward of 72 virgins that were due to a martyr of the profit. She looked over to one side of the dock and a sudden increase in the sea breeze blew her Berka into her eyes, this blocked her view for a few seconds. When the black cloth dropped back away from her eyes, Fatiha could see the true attack moving out of the harbor. The vessel had been used to give infidel tourist day long diving trips on this part of Africa before the war. No one had remembered how the boat and its equipment had ended up in this port on the back end of a dog and she did not care. It was Allah’s will that it was here, and she was going to use this gift from the profit to kill the infidels.
It took longer to get all of the local alcohol stills up and making more fuel, than to find the useable boats. It had been up to her to find people that could use the found equipment on that boat at least somewhat effectively. Then she had to manage what could be gathered over the last three days to fight the Americans. All of that was now done, and all Fatiha could now do was wait for the fleet she had launched to return and make plans if they didn’t return. She was both tired and invigorated at the same time.
She had been very careful not to let the locals know how many fighters were “attached” to her group, so that she would have one more card to play in the future. She still had to “help” with the manning of this combat unit, and six of her priceless fighters were going on this mission to keep the locals inline. Officially they were there to thicken the skills of the locals, but really, they were to make sure that this fleet attacked the right people. The last thing she wanted was for them to just move over to a different cove and wait until night fall before returning to this port. The rest of her men were hiding in the hills overlooking this village in case the locals decided that it would be better to kill her for whatever reason they could come up with. After all it was something that she would have planned to do if she was in their place.
If things worked out the way she wanted and the way that she thought Allah wanted. She was sure to gain some of the local fighters to fall under her flag for her revenge against the Saudi’s when this was over. They just needed someone to lead them that knew what they were doing and to show them what victory looked like. She also expected that most of any new additions would be on the younger side. That was normal for the fighters of Mohammad.
But if the attack that she had forced these people to both man and launch happen to fail? She would pull out with the help of her remaining fighters. She knew that it would necessitate the killing of anyone that had ill will for her and her holy mission. Then again, if the attack failed badly enough? She would be able to use her hiding fighters to take over this village that now was very short on manpower that even vaguely knew how to use weapons higher tech than bow and arrows. Under her vail like black cover, she smiled, and more than a little crazy fire burned in her eyes as the boats were lost into the cool night air.
While Fatiha Mejjati was sending her fleet to attack, she had been sure to have sent a trusted man to watch the American fleet with the large cargo ships in an hour or so. She would be the first to know what happened in the coming battle also thanks to that spotter and the hard to find long range radio mounted in his little truck on the back side of a nearby hill.
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Karl was so tired that he could have fallen asleep on his feet at any second. Well, he could have fallen asleep on his feet, if he was not still over 100 feet below the waves of the ocean. Oh, and if it was not almost the time for the mob of huge Bull Sharks to come by this area of the ocean looking for something handy to eat. The only thing that was keeping Karl’s mind active was the thought of dozens of Bull sharks coming out of the gloom and trying to eat him alive. At least by now he didn’t freeze up or lose control of his bowels when those sharks came around the dive site. Then again, one had not tried to eat his head after that first dive.
Maybe it was because of these fears, that he was the only one on the stopped underwater elevator that heard the sound moving through the water column around them. The elevator had only stopped to help the divers equalize their internal body pressures, in the effort to help fight off an attack of the bends that working this deep made a near certainty. Karl could not see anything in the gloom of the water around them, but something was making an odd buzzing sound that was being transmitted through the surrounding water. Sound under the water travels both further and faster than it does in the air. And Karl knew this at a very deep level.
“Diver 1 to Top side. Are there any active boats in the area? I’m hearing motors down here and I think there is a lot of them.” Karl was almost spinning as he looked around the water column to try to back track where the sound might be coming from.
The dive master had also been about to fall asleep in his beat-up office chair the ship’s crew had put here for him to use. They all had been putting in some long days that they had while supporting this recovery mission. When they were not pulling up cargo from the wreck’s holds. They were cutting up the sunken ship up to be pulled out by one of the empty cranes on the surface. About the only good thing, was that the Savior was now “only” the diver support vessel for the operations and not the whole mission flagship.
He had no idea what Karl was talking about, but they were in a war zone, and this was called World War III for the last few years in the press for a very good reason. “Dive master to bridge. Diver One reports engine and prop sounds under the water. Is there a patrol going on? Be aware that he is currently just under a thermocline.”
He didn’t get an immediate reply from the bridge, but 75 seconds later over on the LST a hard thud was felt all the way across the water. That was when an 81mm Illumination round went off over the little fleet of ships. As the now exposed small sun slowly headed towards the water like a glowing ball suspended under a small parachute, the area was bathed in bright light. The Dive Master was still trying to get his foggy brain to work out what was going on when the line of tracers started to criss/crossed the night. In a few seconds he knew that he was now in a navy battle at night. One part of his brain told him that this was not something that he signed up for. Then he started to react like the combat veteran he was.
“Topside to all divers!!! We are under attack! Stay down and be prepared to go on back up air!! Deep team!! We will pull you up when we can, but you might have to jump out of the bucket and make it to the dive line for emergency air!!” The Dive Master dropped out of his chair and was focused on the dials that pushed air to the deep team while he tried to stay under some kind of cover from the incoming weapons fire.
The Dive Master didn’t have time to add any more information to the divers as something exploded off to one side of the huge ammunition and supply ship that was between him and whoever was attacking. Not for the first time, he was thankful for the reinforced short walls that had been refitted on this ship when it had been traded to the US Navy. He kicked himself again for doubting the captain ordering those modifications not long after the US Navy had started picking up the maintenance tab for this ship on the sly. He had the understanding that the salvage diving and recovery business was getting more dangerous, but he had not been shot at before or even close to this sound of battle after he started diving for a living. He was sooo not enjoying his first exposure to it surrounded by all of things that had flame and explosive warning signs taped to them.
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Deep below the water, Karl looked up and saw the sudden flash of light that was oddly tented by the water between him and the wave tops. He felt the “thud” deep in his chest as something exploded and there was another but briefer flash of bright light over his head. This type of situation had been thought about before that one attack on the much smaller fleet had taken place. All Karl could do was wonder how those flashing lights might attract more sharks to this part of the ocean. He didn’t know what could be worse, a battle over his head or sharks coming to see if all that sound was the dinner bell being rung.
Karl patted his SPP-1 pistol on his hip for comfort, and he then pulled it out to check the action before putting it back in the holster. He didn’t snap the holster back closed, but the weapon was not in danger of being lost if it fell out of the special holster that had been made to hold it. Just like every diver going back decades, every tool was tied to the body with what was referred to as a dummy cord. Now Karl was slowly scanning in a circle as he moved over the small holes that perforated the metal square bottom of the lifting cage. Everyone on the lift had heard the alert sent down by the dive master and seen the actions made by Diver number one or lead diver.
Maybe it was his phobia of sharks that kept Karl looking around and not up at the lights flashing over the copper covered heads of the other divers. Soon Karl saw something moving towards them in the water column. Karl hit the shoulder of the diver standing next to him in the metal elevator, and he pointed toward the maybe sharks coming to eat a German that was a long way from home. With the sun slowly rising in the clear sky, it made for more and more light going deeper into the water column with each passing second.
It took a few minutes for Karl to see that it was not a shark coming towards them, but a man and then men were coming towards them in the water column. At first Karl thought that it was some of the shallow water divers coming toward them for cover, then in a flash that was not connected to the battle over their heads went through his mind. There were too many of the men coming towards them, and they all had spear guns in their hands. That was something that only deep divers on this mission had in case of shark attacks. None of the shallow water divers had felt that the weapons were needed. Then Karl noticed that they were moving faster through the water than they should be. At the head of each line of “new” divers was a short and fat torpedo. That torpedo was dragging the line of divers behind them like an underwater tugboat. That was a device that was not found in all of Mombasa much less released for this mission to use.
In a voice that sounded strange to Karl’s ear. “Top Side!!! We have divers in the water. We have enemy Divers in the water!!” This went out on the open channel to all of the deep divers and maybe even to the shallow water workers as well. Even as Karl was yelling into his radio, he pulled out his four-barrel pistol one more time.
Half the approaching divers started to angle towards the outnumbered deep divers in the white painted dive cage hanging below the diving support ship. The other half of the enemy divers had started searching for the brightly painted balloons that should be somewhere around here according to their briefing. One by one the rest of the approaching divers being towed by little electric torpedoes got closer to the small group of seemingly helpless deep-water divers sitting still in the water column.
Karl had taken a long time to think about what he would do in this type of situation, so all he had to do was wait and stay calm. He knew at this depth that the range of his weapon was “only’ 17 meters for his pistol, and he took careful aim with it. That should keep him out of the range of the spear guns the enemy divers were packing. That is unless someone on the other side had a weapon like his, and in this day and age that was not something you could count on. Because what were the odds that a German diver would have a Soviet made weapon while diving in the southern Indian ocean.
Karl had only four rounds that he could fire, one in each of the pistol’s barrels and then he would have to reload the blasted thing in the low light. Karl had practiced the act of reloading that weapon during his many times underwater, and he had an idea of about how long it would take to do so. It was going to take more time to reload than it would take the average diver to cross that distance he was going to have left.
There was a slight thump and a rush of bubbles as the 4.5mm dart went out the smooth bore that was a surprise to Karl. The metal dart hit low on the nose of the nearest underwater towing device. The hard and fast-moving high carbon metal dart had no problem punching through the thin outer shell of plastic on the civilian made diving device. The metal dart only stopped its motion threw the short fat torpedo when it hit the battery power supply. At first the metal rod “only” shorted out the rechargeable battery before the sea water could reach it. That shorting out saved the nearest divers from an explosive reaction of the battery and sea water mixture.
The other divers might not have known what had happened to the towing mini torpedo, but they knew they had to kill the infidel divers. They fired there sling spears at the divers in the half cage, but they had no idea that the range was to long by almost twice that of what a skill spear fishermen could hit a target. Then again, they would have been hunting smaller fish than a human for all of their years. So, they should be able to hit a larger target at a longer range…right?
Karl had no idea that the spears had lost most of their energy, but they looked like real sized torpedoes coming towards him. Karl fired off the next three rounds without hitting anything of importance. He could not drop deeper in the cage to get out of the line of fire and reload his pistol in something like safety. The rest of the team had beat him to ducking while he had been expending his four rounds at the attackers. He broke open the breach of the weapon and a clip of four more rounds fell into place faster than any time while he had been training.
Karl took a few seconds, and he looked around the rest of the divers as they were clutching their own spear guns when the breach of his weapon locked back into place. He was mildly surprised that they didn’t look that scared at the situation. The other divers looked like they were only waiting until they could join in the fight, and with a calming breath Karl lined up and fired again. This time he hit the nearest diver with a metal dart. The first of his reloaded 4.5mm sharp and hard bullet/dart hits low on the swimming form. The dart cut into the dark suit and impacted just below the ribs going down towards the toes of the enemy diver. The hard metal dart stops its transit through the body deep in the pelvis of the attacking diver. One part of Karl’s mind realized that this was not like shooting at a range. The bodies were smaller and narrower than any range target Karl had ever seen, but it also meant that if he hit something it would transfer more energy into the target.
The enemy divers now “saw” the gun in one of the diver’s hands, but they had enough experience to know that a firearm was almost useless under water. The attacking divers had no idea that they had lost two more scuba divers as they approached the lone mad man standing over four cowering divers. As it turns out, those other divers were not hiding, and they came up as one and fired their hidden spear guns right into the teeth of the island-based divers in one volley of short metal arrows. Four long silver spears came shooting out to greet the on-rushing divers that they had not been expecting. And where the attackers were using normal spear tips used in fishing, the divers out of Mombasa were using arrow tips more normally used to hunt wild boar.
The attacking divers had not taken the time to reload their own spear guns, but they pulled out their knives to handle these trespassers to this island’s waters. By the time that the island divers reached the cage, their numbers were more evenly matched than at the start of the battle. Eight local divers were floating in the water column at their natural buoyancy points when they closed into hand-to-hand combat with the divers under the American flag. It was a knife fight in a phone booth with air hoses in the way and in slow motion.
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Karl had a hand full of a dark wet suit covered arm, and his other hand was blocking a wickedly looking knife. He was facemask to helm looking right into the eyes of the man that was trying his best to kill one diver called Karl. All Karl could think about was trying to stay alive and not have his air lines cut by these locals. When his attacker started to pull away Karl fought to hold on, so that the other diver could not get freed and take another swipe at the air hose over Karl’s head. That had been how they had come locked in this hand-to-hand fight, when that first swipe had failed to cut the lines over Karl’s head.
Karl was still looking into that face, and then the other diver’s eyes went huge as dinner plates. Almost between eye blinks a huge amount of air gushed out from the other man’s regulator. Now Karl could not hold on as the enemy diver was now vigorously yanked from his grip by something with the strength of what felt like a tow truck. It was almost like it was in slow motion to the human eyes, as the enemy diver was pulled away from the cage and started to be vigorously shaken from side to side. With the distance now opened between the enemy diver and the lifting cage. Karl could now see that a huge shark had taken ahold of the other man from behind. From Karl’s point of view the shark looked to want to take the whole diver into its massive tooth filled maul all at once. The bad part was that it looked like it was going to succeed in doing so right in front of Karl.
Karl recoiled to the back of the lifting cage with a shot of vigor, and now he could see what looked like every shark in the sea was attacking the free-swimming scuba divers around his men. “Mien Got!!!!”
Karl reached over and pulled one of “his” divers back into the lifting cage after an attacker had mostly pulled him out of the metal protection of the elevator. It seemed like forever that Karl watched the grey predators attack the free-swimming enemy divers around the diving support elevator. Karl had no idea that all of the Bull Sharks had been drawn to the blood and thrashing of the fight happening 100 feet below the waves.
All the sharks knew was that the flashing light and the thrashing sounds could mean food, and the bull sharks were always hungry and always angry very angry. The swarm of sharks had first attacked or fed on the dead and dying bodies floating at the edge of the battle, and then they had gone after the more active food. It had only been by luck that the enemy divers had been the ones picked by the huge swarm of Bull Sharks to try to eat…first. Bull Sharks are going to bull shark.
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Karl looked around for his gun and he found it hanging down by his knees on the dummy cord attached to the grip. Like everything on his diving rig, it was attached to his belt by green cords. The last thing you wanted to do was drop your work light or cutting bar and have it fall a few hundred or a few thousand feet to the sea floor below your feet never to be seen or used again. He worked the action of his pistol one more time with shaking fingers and he put the last four round box in the weapon’s breach before making it ready to fire one more time. Karl knew that the attacking divers might have the attention of the sharks, but it would not last.
When he started to aim the weapon at a shark that still had a part of a bloody shoulder socket hanging out of its jaws and trying to swallow it. One of the other divers put his hand on Karl’s arm out to stop him from using the projectile weapon. Karl almost drops the breathing regulator out of his mouth as he saw the other man reach out and just push the shark away, all the while keeping Karl’s eyes locked onto the subject of his worst nightmare.
Karl took a few seconds to get his breathing back under some kind of control. It was only thanks to his many years of training that he only needed a few minutes to get his heart and breathing back down close to normal levels before using his built-in radio. “Top Side, we need to be brought up please. Many sharks are down here, and they are still hungry from the snack they just had. I do not want to need another new helmet….. bitta.”
No one replied from top side, and Karl was about to say something when the hip high walled cage started to slowly move toward the surface of the water. Karl hoped that there was someone still up there that could help him clean out his diving suit…again. He knew from the warmth going down his legs that he had at least peed himself.
“This is so much worse than dealing with that soviet made malfunctioning nuclear warhead.” Karl had no idea that he had just transmitted that statement to both topside and to the other divers. He was only lucky that it was all in German so that most of them didn’t understand him….right away. It would be a few days later that they would find out what he had said… the bad part was that more than a few of them would have agreed with him.
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Aisha Omondi slapped the gear above the handle that he needed to use to get the metal turret around him to move. The boat he was on had started out as a fishing boat that was mainly used to catch crabs or other bottom fish using box like traps. But its cabin was mounted almost over the aft mounted outboard engines. That left the front half of the deck open for use as a large flat working area. This late in the conflict this vessel was no longer a fishing boat. On one of the runs to the mainland, it had been taken in hand by a group of tax collectors to be given a new mission.
First a metal tube frame was fitted to the working area of the newest tax collection vessel in that port. Then this open framed box was fitted with a repaired turret from a BMP-1 that had been hit with some kind of flame weapon. That flame weapon had caused the whole vehicle to be almost burned down to scrap. The only thing that had been saved besides the turret that had been blown off was the hull cut up to be used as outer armor on the sides of local gun trucks. It had been rumored that the turret had needed months of work to get kind of repaired before being fitted to this new “warship”.
That 73mm low pressure cannon had already been proven to be very useful in pirate attacks. It was a big gun, which had a big boom when it was fired. That combination tended to make it so that there were not any issues for the pirates to have to deal with. The armor was only covering the old turret with only some thin sheet and tin metal covering the box holding the turret. The thickest armor was 33mm on the gun mantel that protected the 2A28 “Grom”. So far that had been more than enough to stop any of those that were too foolish and had decided to return fire.
The turret looked good, but it was missing some key parts, like the INP22M2 sight and the 7.62 PKT machinegun mounted to one side of the cannon. But it still had the launch rail for the 9m14 or as NATO called it the AT-3 Saggar A. This vessel even had two of the missiles and a half a dozen rounds of HE-Frag OG-15V for the 73mm cannon to fire. They almost had a dozen reloads that were all bang and smoke for the cannon, but not really real shells. Those had been left behind at the port. This was going to be a battle, and not just scaring some tramp freighter or fishermen into paying the pirates. Errr I mean paying the rightful government of the local area its due taxes.
Aisha Omondi was all smiles and teeth as he looked out a special device fitted to “his” cannon. The commander and some crazy woman had said that they were to use all they had in this attack. So much to Aisha surprise one of the only two anti-tank missiles was loaded on to the rail attached to the long cannon before they had even left port. Aisha was finally going to be able to fire one of the rare missiles for real. How hard could it be, all he had to do was keep a target in the cross hairs after he launched the missiles and hold it there until it hit the target.
The attack on the Americans was coming just before dawn. The attack planners thought that all of the Americans would be lazy and still asleep at that time. The downside was that it was hard to pick up the targets in the night, but the gunner had faith that his god would show him the targets for his weapons. Just then there was a flash of something towards his front. He had to jerk away from the weapons site when there was a huge flash over his head of a massive flare that made it almost daylight bright around him.
After the shock of there being suddenly a small sun over his head. Aisha was okay with the massive flare, because he now could see a target. He had only fired an ATGM one time in his life and that had been an American made ground launcher and at a tank that had bogged down in attacking his peoples support base. That experience gave the gunner high confidence in hitting something that was a lot larger than a tank. He was so wrong, that he was more wrong than he was right.
Aisha Omondi took his time and fired at the nearest rust-stained grey vessel of the infidel and then pulled the trigger with a huge grin on his face. The AT-3 Sagger A left the launching rail like a bat out of hell. Then the missile nosed dived 100 meters in front of his boat, slamming across some of the wave tops. Aisha cursed and fought to regain control of the antitank weapon for all he was worth. He was still fighting for control of the missile when the normally 3km ranged weapon ran out of fuel. With a fizzle of the solid rocket fuel the missile finally crashed into the ocean without even detonating its warhead, even when it sank to the ocean floor.
What Aisha had not known was that the AT-3 Sager A or as the Soviets called it a 9m14 was well known to be difficult to aim, even at a still target at normal ranges. Much less dealing with the long range and catenary that was normal for using the weapon on the open ocean. That last issue was that both the target and the launching boat were moving up and down as well as side to side in the waves. At least after the first miss, Aisha didn’t try to load the second and last ATGM they had on this modified fishing boat.
The ex-BMP turret didn’t have an auto loader, but at least the 73mm rounds were on the light side and the Grom would have been easy to load by a single person. But only if the boat had not been rocking in all three dimensions at ones. Aisha fired his loaded cannon round with little results but a waterspout, and he slowly got off three more shots with the cannon but without scoring a hit. The 73mm cannon was called a low velocity weapon for a very good reason. What did that mean in English? This made scoring a hit very hard against a target that didn’t want to be hit. He would have been better to have used the Co-aux Mg. It was just too bad that the PKT had been removed.
Aisha jerked his head up from the weapons sites that seem to be miss aligned. In his mind, that had to be the reason that he was missing with all of his shots. He was confused at the pinging sound coming from the metal wall of the turret near his head. He just happened to be looking at the right area when rust and paint flew off and now, he could clearly see some silver bumps in the metal. Aisha was still looking at the dimples in the 20mm of armor plate when the next raking fire of American 50caliber projectiles hit. The range had now can close enough that the 12.7mm AP round cut through the armor, and between the spalling of his own armor and the enemy weapons fire the gunner would not get a chance to improve his aim.
The gunner was spilling his life blood onto the deck of the old fishing boat as he slides out from under the high mounted turret. He was just still hanging onto life when a 40mm grenade from a MK19 on one of the American vessels scored a hit on the turret’s thin top armor. Between that hit and three other 40mm rounds coming down at a steep angle, the vessel started losing its air-filled compartments. The thin deck of the fishing vessel was just strong enough to cause the round to detonate and the fire ball and shrapnel went deeper into the vessel and out the sides. This let the air out and water into the converted fishing boat. With this vessel on fire and sinking, it took one of the major firepower providing enemy vessels out of play. After that it was only a matter of time before the attackers could only flee or at least all they could do was try to run away.
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