Marvel: The Silver-Haired Hacker and Her Mecha Fleet Chapter 48 48: The Times Have Not Changed Just Yet

[Attention!]

[Bearing: 185. Distance: 22 nautical miles. Large surface targets detected! Peak radar cross-section exceeds 20,000 square ters. Speed: 30 knots. Heading: 035. Approaching rapidly!]

The shrill wail of the radar alarm shattered the oppressive silence of the USS Hornet's bridge. The Fire Control Officer's voice cracked with disbelief and panic as he shouted the teletry.

Nick Fury whipped around from the primary display. A fierce, cold light flashed in his lone eye. "Repeat your traffic! Are those paraters confird? Whose flag are they flying? Do we have an IFF handshake?"

"No response, sir! The IFF transponders are completely dark! I am confirming multiple radar pings. Three large surface combatants. The vanguard target has an RCS signature exceeding a ten-thousand-ton heavy cruiser. It does not match the radar profile of any active-duty warship on earth!"

The officer's hands blurred across his console. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead. "Director, the sea fog is crippling our visual optics. We cannot see them! We are only capturing the raw echoes via active fire control radar! They are sailing directly at our fleet!"

In modern naval warfare, twenty-two nautical miles is well within beyond-visual-range strike paraters.

Yet, this enemy formation utilized the unnatural fog to ghost to within twenty-two nautical miles without triggering a single early warning system. They were only detected because they had crossed into the extre firing range of traditional battleship main guns!

"Sound General Quarters! Level One combat deploynt!" Fury barked into the bridge comms, his voice carrying the absolute weight of command. "Deploy the Zumwalt to the vanguard! Push the Burkes into a flanking anti-air screen! Maximize the Aegis arrays! Paint those targets with fire control! I want to know where these damn ghost ships ca from imdiately!"

[Understood! Condition One set throughout the fleet!]

[Zumwalt is breaking formation! AN/SPY-3 phased array radar operating at maximum gain!]

[The three Arleigh Burke destroyers have established the anti-air periter! MK-41 VLS cells are preheated! Fire control has achieved target lock!]

The modern escort fleet instantly transitioned from alert patrol to lethal combat readiness.

The three Arleigh Burke-class destroyers accelerated, peeling off the Hornet's flanks to establish a standard Aegis defense grid. The hexagonal phased array panels on their superstructures pulsed with microwave energy, locking onto the three anomalous signatures hidden deep in the fog.

The Zumwalt pivoted sharply at the vanguard. The dual 155mm Advanced Gun Systems on its bow rotated toward the threat. The stealth hatches concealing its anti-ship missile silos hissed open.

On the flight deck of the USS Hornet, AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters and UH-60 Blackhawks spun up. The downdraft from their rotors cleared patches of fog, ready to launch reconnaissance and anti-ship sorties at a mont's notice.

Beside Fury, Natasha Romanoff already had her Glock unholstered. She pressed two fingers to her earpiece. "dical bay security detail, lock it down! Seal all bulkheads. Maintain Condition One. Captain Rogers is not to be disturbed."

She turned to Fury, her brow furrowed tight. "Director, this doesn't add up. NATO has absolute dominance in this sector. The Russian Baltic Fleet could not sneak three heavy-tonnage warships past the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap. And those radar signatures are absurd. No modern warship produces an RCS with those jagged peaks. It reads like..."

She paused, as if she couldn't believe what she was about to say. "It reads like World War II steel. Zero stealth geotry."

"World War II?" Fury scowled, preparing to dismiss the theory, when the Fire Control Officer scread again.

[Hostile fire control lock! The enemy has painted us!]

[USS Laboon requesting weapons free! MK-41 VLS prid! Twelve Tomahawk Block IV anti-ship missiles locked on coordinates!]

"Weapons free!" Fury roared without hesitation. "Preemptive strike! Sink them!"

The mont the order left his lips, the MK-41 vertical launch cells on the three Arleigh Burkedestroyers blew open.

Deafening roars shook the ocean. Twelve Tomahawk cruise missiles erupted from the silos atop pillars of blinding white exhaust. They executed sharp mid-air turns, leveled out, and scread into the fog, skimming just ten ters above the turbulent waves.

The subsonic Tomahawks would cross the twenty-two nautical miles and obliterate the targets in under three minutes.

Everyone on the bridge held their breath, their eyes glued to the radar scope as twelve green blips surged toward the massive hostile echoes. Even Natasha stood completely still.

They knew the math. Twelve Tomahawk anti-ship missiles represented an apocalyptic saturation strike. No conventional surface fleet could survive it. Not even a modern heavy cruiser could withstand that sheer tonnage of high explosives.

—Torpedo approaching port side—

Thousands of miles away in a Queens apartnt, Mira watched the twelve incoming missile blips on her projection screen. She let out a cold sneer.

She pushed the left thumbstick, micro-adjusting the Bismarck's heading. Her right thumb depressed the bumper button to open the fleet-wide comms channel.

"All fleet anti-aircraft batteries to maximum output! Deploy the close-in defense barrage! Shred those missiles to pieces!"

[Command confird! Fleet anti-air active! 105mm SK C/33 flak cannons and 20mm Flak 38 autocannons synced! Siren fire control has locked the incoming projectiles!]

The mont The Builder spoke, the anti-aircraft batteries across all three warships on the projection screen rotated in perfect, chanical unison.

The Bismarck's eight twin 105mm heavy flak mounts opened fire first. The dull, thunderous thud-thud-thud of heavy artillery echoed over the ocean. High-explosive shells equipped with advanced Siren proximity fuses whistled into the fog, detonating into a suffocating wall of black flak and shrapnel directly in the missiles' flight path.

Seconds later, dozens of 20mm Flak 38 autocannons across the Prinz Eugen and the Graf Zeppelin roared to life. Firing at an ultra-high rate of 450 rounds per minute, they wove an airtight grid of incandescent tracer fire that sealed the airspace.

This was not the archaic optical targeting of 1941. The Siren-enhanced fire control systems tracked the subsonic cruise missiles with mathematical perfection, guiding the overwhelming volu of World War II lead with the precision of a modern CIWS.

[Lead Tomahawk intercepted! Second intercepted! Third intercepted!]

[105mm proximity fuses have destroyed seven incoming hostiles! 20mm autocannon barrage has neutralized three! Two remaining missiles have bypassed the outer screen and are closing on the Bismarck!]

"Slippery little things," Mira smirked. Her thumbs danced across the controller, pivoting the Bismarck's secondary batteries. "Bismarck, secondary guns, lay down covering fire! Prinz Eugen, sweep the flank!"

The Bismarck's 150mm secondary batteries barked. Two high-explosive shells detonated perfectly in front of the surviving Tomahawks. The dense cloud of shrapnel shredded the missile chassis. Both warheads detonated prematurely, blossoming into massive fireballs that plunged into the freezing North Atlantic.

Twelve modern Tomahawk cruise missiles had been entirely wiped out in under ninety seconds.

Mira whistled. She gave her controller a celebratory shake. "Beautiful! Now it is our turn to bite back. Bismarck, load the primary batteries! Target the Zumwalt at the vanguard. Give a straddle shot!"

[Command confird! Bismarck four twin 380mm SK C/34 turrets locked! Fire control calculations complete! First salvo ready!]

Deep in the North Atlantic fog, the massive hull of the Bismarck shuddered. The four colossal main gun turrets elevated. The 380mm barrels leveled across the turbulent water, aiming blindly through the mist at the stealth destroyer twenty-two miles away.

A cataclysmic roar shattered the fog.

Eight 380mm armor-piercing capped shells erupted from the barrels at an initial velocity of 820 ters per second. They tore through the sky with a terrifying, demonic shriek, tracing eight perfect ballistic arcs high above the cloud deck toward their target.

Flight ti: forty-seven seconds.

Inside the USS Hornet bridge, an icy, suffocating silence reigned.

On the radar scope, the twelve blips representing the Tomahawk missiles had vanished one by one, extinguishing into the void.

"Intercepted... they were intercepted?" The Fire Control Officer stamred, his face bloodless. "All twelve Tomahawks? Shot down?! How is that possible? What CIWS did they use? We didn't register a single surface-to-air missile launch! The teletry only picked up the fire control signatures of... of conventional flak guns?!"

"Impossible! World War II anti-aircraft guns do not shoot down modern cruise missiles!" Fury's face turned black with fury. He had witnessed the impossible throughout his career, but this defied basic physics.

Before he could process the absurdity, the radar officer let out a gut-wrenching scream.

"Incoming artillery! High velocity! Eight large-caliber shells! Predicted impact: Zumwalt!"

The words barely left his mouth when the deafening, freight-train shriek of incoming artillery tore through the air directly above the Hornet's bridge.

Eight apocalyptic detonations erupted in the water surrounding the Zumwalt.

Massive geysers of white water shot into the sky, dwarfing the stealth destroyer's superstructure. Tons of freezing seawater crashed down onto the deck like a localized hurricane. The ten-thousand-ton vessel violently pitched under the sheer concussive shockwave of the near misses.

A straddle.

It was the most terrifying on in naval artillery combat—bracketing the target on the very first salvo. It ant the enemy's fire control had perfectly calculated the Zumwalt's course, velocity, wind shear, and the Coriolis effect. The next salvo was guaranteed to score a direct hit.

The bridge crew was paralyzed with shock.

A first-salvo straddle. With an eight-gun spread. From twenty-two nautical miles away.

It was an unfathomable feat. Even modern warships firing GPS-guided smart munitions struggled to achieve a first-round straddle at that extre distance.

"What the hell are we fighting?!" the Zumwalt's captain scread over the encrypted fleet channel. "What kind of fire control is that?! That is not World War II accuracy!"

Fury ground his teeth. His lone eye burned with shock and mounting dread. He finally understood that they were not facing a rogue nation or a terrorist cell. They were facing a nightmare that defied modern logic.

—Taking on water below the waterline—

"Prinz Eugen, hard to port! Full ahead! Cross their T!"

Back in Queens, Mira watched the perfect straddle bloom across the Zumwalt's hull. She slapped her thigh in delight, jamd the left stick forward, and triggered the next maneuver.

The heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen responded instantly. Its sleek hull carved a massive, sweeping arc through the water. Its four dual 203mm turrets rotated in unison as the ship surged toward the Arican flank at thirty-two knots.

Crossing the T.

It was the holy grail of surface naval combat. By sailing horizontally across the enemy's vertical column, the Prinz Eugen could bring all of its broadside batteries to bear, while the Arican ships could only return fire with their forward guns, drastically reducing their firepower density.

The Prinz Eugen slipped perfectly into the gap created by the Arican formation's defensive turn. In under two minutes, it secured the T-junction, aiming its heavy 203mm guns directly down the throat of the nearest Arleigh Burke destroyer.

[Prinz Eugen has successfully crossed the T! 203mm main batteries are loaded and hold firing clearance!]

[Graf Zeppelin airwing holds green status! -262 interceptors and Stuka dive bombers are clear for catapult launch!]

"Patience." Mira smiled, shaking her head. Her eyes drifted to the secondary screen displaying the intercepted HYDRA comms originating from the Zumwalt's weapon control center. Her malicious grin deepened. "Let the rats sweat a little longer. I want to see their faces when they realize exactly what is shooting at them."

—Shocking my mom—

Inside the Zumwalt's weapon control center, the HYDRA tactical officer tasked with staging the mutiny stood frozen in absolute terror.

He had just run the acoustic signatures of the incoming shells and the raw radar profiles of the enemy hulls through the ship's threat-identification supercomputer. The results made his blood run cold.

Three flawless 3D wirefra models rendered on his monitor, accompanied by a horrifying block of text:

[Target 1: KMS Bismarck. Bismarck-class battleship. Sunk in the North Atlantic, May 27, 1941.]

[Target 2: KMS Prinz Eugen. Admiral Hipper-class heavy cruiser. Sunk at Bikini Atoll, December 22, 1946.]

[Target 3: KMS Graf Zeppelin. Graf Zeppelin-class aircraft carrier. Scuttled in Szczecin, April 1945. Never commissioned.]

"No... impossible," the officer whispered. His hands shook violently. The stylus clattered to the steel deck. "The Bismarck... the Prinz Eugen... the Graf Zeppelin? This is a mistake! They sank seventy years ago! They can't be here!"

The other HYDRA sleeper agents crowded around the monitor. As they read the identification logs, the color drained from their faces. The air was sucked out of the room.

They had planned to use the fog to cripple the Hornet's bridge and extract Captain Arica for HYDRA. Instead, before they could even draw their weapons, they were ambushed in the North Atlantic by three dead Nazi warships that had crawled out of the history books.

Worse, the ghost ships had intercepted a modern cruise missile barrage and perfectly straddled a stealth destroyer with their first volley. It shattered their understanding of reality.

"What is the delay?! Why are you stalling?!" Jasper Sitwell's furious voice hissed over their earpieces from Washington. "Execute the mutiny! Secure Steve Rogers now!"

"Sir..." The tactical officer choked on the words. "We... we are engaged by the Bismarck... and the Prinz Eugen... and the Graf Zeppelin... World War II German warships... they are firing on us..."

"What kind of garbage are you spouting?!" Sitwell roared. "The Bismarck sank seventy years ago! Are you insane?!"

Sitwell's outrage was drowned out by the thunderous boom of the Bismarck's second salvo echoing across the Atlantic.

Eight 380mm armor-piercing shells shrieked through the fog, slamming directly toward the Zumwalt's hull.

Simultaneously, the Prinz Eugen unleashed a withering broadside of 203mm artillery directly into the Arleigh Burke on the flank.

On the Graf Zeppelin's flight deck, the steam catapults fired. -262 jet fighters and Stuka torpedo bombers scread into the sky, tearing through the cloud cover to dive-bomb the Arican formation.

Mira leaned deep into her beanbag chair. She squeezed her AI companion tight and slamd the salvo trigger on her gapad. Her smile was blinding.

"Welco to the North Atlantic, gentlen."

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