Two others reported identical results over Croydon and Hornchurch.
It was frustrating that they couldn't duplicate the surveillance the British enjoyed thanks to the Trident. They would all have been much happier, seeing the results of the missile attack for themselves. But as the fuhrer rightly pointed out, what did it matter if the British had a perfect view of their doom as it came rushing at them? It was still their doom.
The Reichsfuhrer-SS had flown straight back to the Wolfschanze, having watched Skorzeny depart, and he had been quietly amazed to see how far and how rapidly the situation had developed.
Defeatists and cowards within the High Command had balked at Operation Sea Dragon, even questioning the fuhrer's judgment. But their craven attitude was no longer a consideration. There was a phrase from the future that Himmler quite liked, and which described them perfectly. Oxygen thieves. Well, they weren't stealing any of the fuhrer's oxygen now. The only pity was that they weren't alive to see how wrong they'd been.
The Operations Room was crowded with personnel. The large central table, inlaid with a huge map of western Europe, was covered with hundreds of small wooden markers. These were constantly being pushed toward their objective by junior staff members carrying long, thin poles.
A young female Oberleutnant moved several little wooden blocks, signifying the Tirpitz's battle group, a few miles farther down the Norwegian coastline. A Luftwaffe Hauptmann needed two long pointers to reposition all the airborne forces that were now winging their way toward the east coast of England. Dozens of markers showed Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS divisions converging on the embarkation ports, while dozens more denoted the thousands of Luftwaffe planes that engaged the Royal Air Force over the Channel, or bombed airfields in the southern counties. These measures protected the invasion fleet as it set out from France, and harassed the Royal Navy's squadrons as they moved to intervene.
"Savor this moment, gentlemen," the fuhrer declared as he slowly circled the Ops Room, followed by his entourage. "There has never been a greater force assembled in the history of human conflict. And there has never been a heavier blow landed on that little island. We are not just remaking history today. We are smashing it into a thousand pieces."
HMS TRIDENT, THE ENGLISH CHANNEL
"Good luck, Major Windsor."
"Thank you, Captain Halabi. Better luck next time, eh?"
The commander of the Trident and the SAS officer saluted each other. Harry's was the last group to be lifted off the destroyer. The observer group, for the most part, had been put ashore, with just two liaison officers remaining. Harry was lifting with his squad and their equipment for a fast, nap of the Earth flight to London, from where he was to link up with the regiment. Nobody yet knew where that might be. It would depend on the Germans to a large extent.
Weak gray sunlight poured in through the hangar roof. The sky was a shroud, the color of dirty washing water. It was a high ceiling, however, and it seemed as if hundreds of planes dueled beneath the clouds. Here and there, puffs of smoke and flame marked the end of the fight for somebody. Parachutes billowed occasionally, but not always, and once or twice he heard the crackle of laser fire burning the air around the ship as a Stuka or a Heinkel pressed home a suicidal attack.
No jets had as yet reappeared. Halabi had told him she expected they'd be back when her antiair stocks were demonstrably empty.
She didn't even wait for the elevator to lift them clear of the hangar, returning to her station as soon as they began the ascent. A couple of the Air Div crew waved him off, and Harry replied with a thumbs-up. But he felt a lot less jaunty than the gesture implied.
The Germans were attempting a multidimensional assault right out of the twenty-first-century playbook. Their coordination was hopeless, and a lot of the technology they needed simply did not exist yet. A couple of hastily built, poorly flown ME 262s just didn't count.
But having secured their eastern flank, they seemed to be bringing the entire weight of their continental war machine to bear on the south of England.
Every now and then, when the pounding of the five-inch guns and ack-ack mounts abated, he could hear the much deeper, more sonorous bass note rumble of ten thousand engines. Of twenty thousand guns, and high-explosive shells, and dumb iron bombs detonating for hundreds of miles around. It was the sound of two worlds grinding against each other, and even with his years of service, he'd never known anything like it.
St. Clair sat across from him, sphinxlike and withdrawn. His sergeant major was always like that, on the edge of battle.
The chopper's engines hummed into life as the elevator lifted them clear of the hangars and into the daylight. His six troopers reacted in character. Some simply adjusted their Bergens and checked their weapons. Some leaned forward in their seats to catch whatever glimpse they could of the world outside, a slate gray tableau of small, antique warships tossed on heaving seas.
One man, Gibbs, slept with his head cushioned by a life jacket.
"Sergeant Major, what's our current strength at Kinlochmoidart?"
"One hundred and twenty-five officers and other ranks, sir. Captain Fraser's already got them turned out and kitted up. They're waiting for movement orders."
"Very good."
The Eurocopter cycled up to full power as Harry felt the Trident come around. They began to dip and rise on the confused swell and crosscurrents where the waters of the Solent met those of the Channel. The rotor's down blast tugged at his battle dress and made it difficult to communicate without shouting. He signaled to St. Clair to engage tac net. Everyone who hadn't already done so fitted combat goggles and earbuds before powering up their helmets.
Over the years, Harry had trained his software to the point where it was virtually an extension of his own psyche. Without being instructed, it brought up eight separate windows, biofeedback from his men and himself. Instinctively he scanned the squad, looking for signs of combat fatigue, developing psychoses, exhaustion, or any of the myriad symptoms that stalked everyone who did this sort of work for too long.
They all checked out.
A link to the helicopter's on-board systems provided a V3D holomap of their flight plan, while an outside link to the Trident added relevant battlespace data. Harry hummed quietly as he took in the information. In truth, there was no safe route they could take to the drop-off. Hundreds of 109s and 110s infested the airspace around them. It was going to be like flying through a hailstorm, trying to avoid the stones.
They lifted off, and he acknowledged a couple of crew on the deck of the cruiser who paused to wave them away.
"Right, everyone, I'll keep this short."
Halabi's voice was broadcast throughout the vessel via shipnet, emerging from speakers and screens on all the decks, from bow to stern.
"The Admiralty have assigned us two objectives. First, a strategic strike on the Tirpitz group, which is now sortieing into the Channel to cover the invasion fleet. And second, battlespace management for sectors One through Four.
"We will need to move west to bring the Tirpitz within range. We shall be doing so without the company of our destroyer screen. They simply can't move as quickly as we can. Posh calculates that we have enough antiair stocks to return with a three percent reserve. The RAF will provide continuous cover during the run. We will need the reserve, given the new threat of missile strike from the continent. I don't want to overstate the danger. Even if a number of missiles have been removed from the Dessaix for use against us, the ship herself is not here and the enemy will thus be striking blind. Nonetheless we need to be aware of the risk and ready to respond."
The Trident's captain paused. The CIC crew watched her in person. The rest of her men and women craned upward to follow the speech on screen, or listened over shipnet speakers where no screens were available.
"While we are fighting to achieve our goals, the enemy will fight just as hard to destroy us. There are hundreds of pilots aloft now, with even more climbing into their cockpits. Their only g
oal today is to sink this ship. There are commanders of U-boats and torpedo boats, destroyers, cruisers, and even a few battleships who have probably been personally ordered by Adolf Hitler to ensure that we do not see out this day. Some of them are good men. Some are evil. They are almost all brave and well trained, and they will not hesitate to do whatever it takes to win this battle, and enslave our countrymen."
She paused again, to let her words sink in.
"That doesn't really matter," she continued, "Because we are going to kill them all."
At that, a rousing, full-throated cheer filled the Combat Information Center, and sounded more distantly throughout the rest of the ship.
Halabi looked over to the antisat station, where the two contemporary navy men had been corralled. They were cheering along with the rest, and every bit as enthusiastically.
"Thank you, I expect you will all do your best."
She switched off the shipnet and turned to her executive officer.
"Mr. McTeale, all ahead full. Engage the S-Cav system. Assign Autonomy Level One to the Combat Intelligence for defensive measures."
"Aye, ma'am."
"Comms, signal Stanmore that we are guns free and running west."
"Fighter Command report that Three-oh-three Squadron have scrambled and will rendezvous with us in six minutes."
"Excellent," said Halabi. "Let's test their VHF sets now."
The 303 was a Polish squadron, and she had specifically requested them for this operation. Certain pinheaded elements within Fighter Command at Stanmore were dismissive of the Polish pilots, ignoring the fact that pilot training had been extensive and advanced in that country before the war. And, of course, that the Poles had more experience than anyone in scrapping with the Luftwaffe.
Even though they hadn't joined the Battle of Britain until a few months after it started, 303 Squadron was responsible for downing more of Goring's precious aircraft than any other single squadron. Flying augmented Spitfires with the new VHF radio sets, they had been training for this operation since shortly after the Trident's arrival.
"Three-oh-three on line, Captain. Squadron Leader Zumbach sends his compliments."
"My greetings to Jan," she said. "Put them in holding, and slave them to air control. We'll vector them down as needed."
Halabi rolled her shoulders and settled into her command seat. She had never seen the battlespace display so densely filled with information. It was an almost impenetrable wall of data and imagery that was beyond the ability of one individual to fully comprehend. It wasn't beyond Posh, however. The ship's Combat Intelligence tracked every return from her Nemesis arrays and low-orbit drones, sorting the raw intelligence into a coherent narrative that her human controllers might have some hope of understanding.
"Helm, Captain. Course plotted. Supercavitating systems engaged."
As the trimaran's aquajets began to shoot out enormous volumes of seawater, pressurised to 60,000 psi, billions of microscopic pores in the nanotube-sheathing of her three hulls opened to vent a fine mist of compressed air bubbles into the surrounding water. With the drag on her keel reduced to a small percentage of its normal coefficient of viscosity, the ship began to accelerate to speeds that left her escorts standing still by comparison.
"CI has the helm, ma'am."
"Thank you," Halabi acknowledged.
With her speed leaping up to well over 140 knots, it wasn't feasible for a human being to steer the Trident through the labyrinth of hazards that lay ahead of her in the Channel. They were now in the hands of the Combat Intelligence they called Posh.
32
TOWNSVILLE, SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA
It didn't look like a weapon of mass destruction, but that's how Colonel J. "Lonesome" Jones thought of it. He hefted the gun, which was still slightly oily from the packing grease. It looked and felt pretty much as he remembered.
The AK-47, he thought. Killed more people than the atom bomb and the automobile put together.
They weren't calling it a Kalashnikov or an AK down here, though. In Australia it was known as a Lysaght submachine gun, after the firm that had the contract to turn them out. He knew that in the U.S. it had been designated the MK-1. And in Canada and the UK, the prototypes were called, rather unimaginatively, AW/GLs, for Automatic Weapon and Grenade Launching system.
Jones thought he'd stick with AK. It was like Coke or Pepsi. Why fuck around with the original?
"Thank you, soldier," he said, handing the weapon back to the quartermaster with very mixed feelings. He'd only been issued with his G4 on the eve of deployment to Timor, but he was getting ready to miss it like hell. It was a magnificent killing piece, but there was no point in even thinking about trying to build one here. They were going to be years just getting the electronics up to speed. Not to mention the ceramics, the alloys, all the materials science that was thus far beyond the abilities of a very primitive industrial base.
Hence the AK-47, preferred weapon of rag-headed punks from southern Thailand to Addis Abbaba.
It was a depressing thought.
The supply sergeant just saluted and disappeared out of the tent, into the harsh light and subtropical humidity of Townsville. This was another place Jones had thought himself familiar with. Up in the twenty-first, he'd transited the joint a couple of times a year on his way to and from Southeast Asia. The Marine Corps had leased a massive training range nearby, and from 2010 onward, an MEU had been rotated through the Townsville barracks every two years.
This Townsville had been a sleepy backwater, a cattle town and a minor port before the Japanese had taken it. Now it was just another burnt-out ruin. The airstrip and the docks had been repaired, though, and the Kandahar's battle group lay just a few miles offshore-although battle group was probably too dignified a phrase for the sorry collection of odds and ends gathered around the slab-sided assault ship and her tenders.
The Enterprise was out there, still sailing under Spruance, along with the old cruisers Pensacola and Salt Lake City, the Littoral Assault Ship Ipswich and a destroyer screen stitched together from surviving U.S., Free French, and British Commonwealth forces. Jones had known shower curtains that'd offer more protection. But if Hawaii was going to be retaken, those ships would have to be the ones to do it.
Their chances would be greatly improved when the Siranui arrived in twelve days.
He pulled his cap down over his eyes, wrapped a pair of sunglasses around his face, and tried not to think of what might happen on the islands over the course of twelve days. He also tried not to think about the news that his brother-in-law might have come through the Transition on the Dessaix. He'd only met Philippe Danton once, at the wedding, but he'd seemed a nice enough lad. He couldn't bear thinking about him getting caught up in this unholy mess. Was he still on the ship? Jones hadn't even known he'd been part of the Task Force until this morning. Was he helping the Japs? Or did he have a hand in the obvious sabotage of the Lavals? This bullshit was now a personal fucking nightmare as well as a professional one. The colonel pushed his doubts down to where they couldn't bother him anymore. It wouldn't do to waste time worrying about shit he couldn't change. If Danton had come through alive, chances were he was part of the reason the Dessaix's missile strike had aborted, at least in part. The Eighty-second's commander had more pressing issues to deal with. As he emerged from the supply tent, the two guards-both 'temps-snapped to attention.
Very few civilians remained in Townsville. A massive garrison was growing quickly on the ashes of the old town, however. Acres of tents breathed slowly in the hot, humid air, which smelled of diesel, sweat, and burnt offerings. A "Negro" battalion, the Ninety-first Engineers, was busily running up more permanent structures, adding the sound of their hammers and tools to the grunt of bulldozers clearing away rubble, deuce-and-a-halves delivering men and materiel, choppers thudding back and forth to the Task Force, and men and women cursing and laughing, shouting orders, and talking shit.
Jones returned the sharp salutes of a coup
le of privates from the Ninety-first as they passed by. He wasn't sure, but he suspected they'd gone out of their way to cross his path and get his attention. Behind the mirrored blades, his face was unmoved as he walked on, but he couldn't help the stirring beneath his breastbone. Those men were proud, and not just of their uniforms. His company clerk had to field hundreds of requests every day for transfer into the Eighty-second, from men like that. He was sorry that he couldn't take them, but they would need at least two years of retraining before they were ready to join a squad and carry a G4.
Or an AK-47.
Jones arrived at his Humvee, still shaking his head.
"Aerodrome, Colonel?" his driver asked.
"Thanks, Shauna. But we need to swing by Second Cav and pick up Colonel Toohey first. I'm giving him a lift to Brisbane."
Jones allowed the motion of the vehicle to lull him into a drowsy state as they motored over to the Australian camp. He'd been off the stim for a couple of days, but his sleep patterns would take another week to settle down. He'd almost dozed off when his flexipad began to ping at him. He nearly missed the call, as he started to half dream about a pinball game he used to play on his old Pentium as a teenager.
"Sir. Colonel Jones, sir. You've got a call coming in."
Jones was a little embarrassed to be caught out, and found himself uncharacteristically apologizing to the driver. He must have been really out of it.
He shook his head to clear the cobwebs and took the call, a live link from the Kandahar. It was Major Francois, the battalion surgeon.
"'S'up Margie?" he asked.
"We got him, Colonel. We got the fucker who killed Anderson and Miyazaki, back in Pearl."
Suddenly Jones was wide awake.
"I can't believe I missed this!" she said angrily. "I set this whole fucking system up just to scan for this one thing, this one fucking thing, and then when it works, I'm too fucking lazy to check back and see. Meantime this asshole's been living high on the hog. I just can't believe it."
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