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been able to get underway, they had detected vessels on the open ocean. Most of those vessels had been freighters or other cargo ships that were still under power. There were EPIRBs or Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons, from ships and quite possibly life rafts, further out to sea but, until New Orleans was cleared for deep water operations those beacons would have to wait to be investigated.
    “Sir, contact firming up now. It’s some kind of large vessel, unknown type, maybe a tanker or freighter, definitely under power and heading in the general direction of Bremerton. No EPIRB. The closer it gets to the coast, I should be able to pinpoint the actual destination,” the radar operator reported. “Computer’s assigning a code for it now.” The radar operator watched as the CIC computer assigned a tag to the vessel. The only way to tell that a tag had been assigned was when the contact flashed once and the newly minted designation appeared next to the contact.
    Bremerton basically was a navy town. There was a carrier based there along with several support vessels and the mothball fleet at anchorage in a sheltered inlet. No one knew where that carrier was now. Since the outbreak, Port Winthrop personnel had ventured to the naval base and stripped it of everything that they could use. The ships tied to the pier had been searched for survivors and then secured. The fences and gates had been reinforced and secured and the base left vacant. Over the months that had passed since then, Bremerton had been accessed only from the sea not from land. If the radar contact was a freighter, there was no reason for it to be heading to that destination. The Ports of Tacoma and Seattle and locations further north would make more sense. It could be that there was some kind of damage to the vessel’s directional computer. The Operations Officer stepped away from his position behind the radar operator and picked up the handset that would connect him to the bridge.
    “Bridge, Ops. We have an unknown contact, designated as Uniform-112, heading towards Bremerton. Is there anything available to send up and give us a look at what it is?”
    “Ops, wait one.” The phone was quiet for several long seconds.
    “Ops, this is the captain, what do you have?” Greerson asked.
    “Sir, we have Uniform-112 on a course for Bremerton.”
    “I see it up here, Ops,” Greerson said as he moved to the radar console on the bridge.
    “Sir, we have no Comms and no EPIRB. Could be a rogue with a navigational error,” the Operations officer said, not wanting to get his hopes up that the unknown could be another naval vessel.
    “I concur,” Greerson said. “We’ll get someone to take a look at it. Bridge out.” Greerson looked over at his flight officer.
    “Who do we have on ready alert?” he asked.
    “Sir, Werewolf-27 and Dragon-09 and 05.”
    Greerson knew that Werewolf-27 was a tilt rotor MV-22 Osprey and Dragon flight was comprised of two AH1-Z Viper gunships, heavily modified former Cobra helicopters. None of those aircraft had the legs to intercept Uniform-112 at this range. All he could do was launch them and hope for a better visual. Based on the size of the contact, the silhouette should be enough to identify what it was.
    “Inform Dagger-Six that he is to get as close to the unknown as possible and attempt to identify it,” Greerson said as he returned to his command seat, picked up the high powered binoculars and swept the flight deck before slowly scanning the horizon. With the hangar bay still under repair and only one of the flight deck elevators functioning, it had been decided that the aircraft would be flown out to the ship from Winthrop after it was determined that New Orleans could remain afloat. Greerson felt naked without his aircraft onboard but knew that safety was paramount. No reason to risk the small remainder of their air power needlessly. The Coast Guard cutter, Hampton was patrolling in a race track pattern