PAYBACK

By 4pm the USS Little Rock (LCS-21) was almost 140 miles northeast of Port Louis, capital of the island nation of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean about 700 miles east of Madagascar. The Little Rock was heading at 12 knots for the U.S. Naval Base at Diego Garcia. She still had about 1,160 miles to go when a fight broke out in the galley among the cooks beginning to prepare the evening meal.

A few minutes later, LCDR John Samuel heard about it over the intercom. Samuel was the ship's executive officer and was officer of the watch as of 4pm. Samuel, pushed the button on the intercom to hail Chief Petty Officer Andy Maguire, the only Master-at-Arms on board, and at 6'5" – 260 lbs – Samuel thought, the ship's enforcer – not that they had ever really needed one. He told Maguire to check out, and take care of, the problem in the galley.

Ten minutes later Maguire and Ensign Peter Hartley appeared on the bridge. Their uniforms were spattered in blood.

"What the hell...." Was all Samuel could get out of his mouth before Hartley hit him in the face with a broken metal rod. Maguire grabbed Samuel's arms and pinned them behind his back while Hartley impaled Samuel with the broken end of the rod. Samuel coughed up a mass of blood and went limp in Maguire's arms. The helmsman standing next to Samuel was Petty Officer Third Class Marie Ricchio, who stared wide-eyed and stunned at the scene in front of her. Maguire grabbed her arms and Hartley impaled her too.

"The Captain." Was all Maguire said as he and Ensign Hartley started for the Captain's cabin.

CMDR Paul Hale was Captain of the Little Rock, and was sleeping. He had been tired all day. Up at 4am to square the ship away for its 6am departure, he hadn't slept well because – he thought – of that damn third glass of wine.

The President of Mauritius had hosted the Captain and his officers at a reception the night before at Fort Adelaide on Citadel Hill in Port Louis, where all official functions were held. Hale didn't like receptions to begin with. Then there was that obnoxious Admiral from the 500-man Mauritian National Coast Guard. "Admiral!" Hale had thought. Hell, the entire Mauritian coast guard consisted of about 6 PT Boat-sized vessels. In the US Navy, that "admiral" would barely be a lieutenant. Hale had to listen politely while this idiot explained to him that his LCS – Littoral Combat Ship – was really just a mini version of a frigate. Then Hale had his second glass of wine.

After the "admiral" came the second obnoxious asshole – that Arab professor who taught at some German university. He was the one who caused glass #3 of wine.

What the hell was this Arab Professor doing there at the reception anyway? What was an Arab doing teaching Latin and Greek literature? In Germany? And, if he was really a Classics Professor, why did he have so many technical questions about the Little Rock's weapons systems? Hale wasn't a drinker, so that third glass of wine gave him a headache all day.

CMDR Hale did not hear Ensign Hartley open his cabin door. He opened his eyes to see Hartley's face inches from his own. Someone was pinning down both his hands and feet. Hartley was pushing a metal rod against Hale's throat. Hartley's face was the last thing Hale saw.

When Maguire felt the Captain's hands and feet go limp. He reached up and put his arm around Hartley's neck and with one quick jerk broke it. He left Hartley's body on top of the Captain's and went to tour the ship.

He counted seven dead officers and the bodies of 28 dead enlisted men. That was everybody. That was the entire crew. All dead but him. Then he walked to the edge of the fantail at the back of the ship. The Little Rock was still at cruising speed making 12 knots although there was no one at the controls.

Maguire looked into the water. He knew that the nearest land was over 150 miles away. But it didn't matter to him. He jumped into the Indian Ocean.

* * *

As his plane taxied up to its gate at the Dubai Airport, Professor Mustafa al-Khalid switched on his phone, looked at the screen, and smiled broadly. The text message on the screen said: "Enjoy your flight to Munich." It was code. It meant that both drones had worked, especially the one that sent the electronic signal to the Little Rock activating the Calypso Virus. By now, Mustafa knew, the entire crew were dead.

As he rubbed the scar tissue along his hairline he remembered the evening when the U.S. Navy sent a drone with a Hellfire missile to his engagement party killing his fiancée and his whole family. "How perfect!" He thought.

Mustafa al-Khalid was very pleased with himself. He had paid for all of the research that went into the virus. He called it the Calypso Virus. Kalupto was the Greek verb to "hide" or "conceal". "Calypso" was the Greek nymph who kept Odysseus on her island for seven years "hiding" from him all means of escape. Mustafa called his virus the Calypso Virus because it had no detectable symptoms. Under normal circumstances the symptoms were all hidden. Only when a specific electronic signal hit the virus did its symptoms – hysteria and rage – appear.

Mustafa's other two toys had worked well too. First, the drone. Only four feet in size. It had overflown the Little Rock several times while it was in Port Louis – completely undetected because it was so small. During these overflights the drone copied an electronic signature of the Little Rock so it could easily recognize it hundreds of miles at sea.

And, Mustafa thought, the "Leech" had worked perfectly too. The Leech was an undersea robot that affixed itself to the water intake on the underside of the Little Rock's hull and introduced the virus into the water that would be desalinated for the ship's crew to drink and bathe in. That is how the crew would be infected.

And so, with the crew infecting themselves with every drink of water or shower they took, and when the Little Rock was so far from any port that...