Weapons of choice aot-1

by John Birmingham

  Kakuta's anger, subdued by the arrival of the "helicopter," was bubbling over again.

  "And you, Ensign? What do you believe to be our correct course of action? To follow Admiral Yamamoto's direction, or that of Lieutenant Commander Hidaka?"

  Tomonagi didn't answer immediately. Despite the lethal cold on the exposed flight deck, a single trickle of sweat still ran down his face.

  "Admiral. I have seen inexplicable things on that ship. Certainly I am not able to explain them. But Commander Hidaka is convinced the course of the war will be changed by what we do here in the next few hours, not by what happens at Midway. And I am sorry, but he also wishes you to know that the Americans have broken our codes, and have known about Operation MI for weeks. They are lying in wait.

  "But he says that is now irrelevant, too."

  Tomonagi flinched as he spoke those last words.

  "What!" exploded Kakuta. "Why did you not tell me this immediately?"

  The young man apologized profusely, bowing as deeply as he could without actually banging his forehead to the flight deck.

  "If that is true, we must inform Nagumo and Yamamoto at once," cried the admiral.

  Captain Tadao Kato, the skipper of the Ryujo, stepped up from behind. "Begging your pardon, Admiral, but we have the strictest orders, already breached once, to maintain radio silence. And we have no confirmation of this wild tale. We could imperil the entire plan with one transmission."

  Kakuta felt trapped. The evidence of that outlandish aircraft, sitting just a few yards away, confirmed that Hidaka had discovered something of great import. But Kakuta's mission was of paramount consequence, too. The attack on Dutch Harbor was necessary to draw the remnants of the American fleet away from the center of the Pacific, leaving Midway open to attack. Without that feint, the entire gambit might simply collapse. He was already behind schedule, and now Hidaka wanted to drag them farther into the mire.

  Yet he trusted the man's judgment as he did his own. That was why he had assigned the investigation to him in the first place. And this thing in which Tomonagi had arrived! It was obviously an aircraft of great power and sophistication. Its very form threatened violence, and he had seen with his own eyes how it hovered in the air like a gigantic hummingbird.

  "I will go then!" he snapped, exasperated beyond measure. "But Captain, if you have not heard from me within one hour, forge on with the original plan. It will mean I have fallen into a trap, and must be abandoned along with Hidaka."

  "One hour," confirmed Kato.

  Twenty-five minutes later a small, booklike electric gadget Ensign Tomonagi had brought across from the Sutanto flared into life. It had been resting against a window of the Ryujo's bridge, continuously scrutinized by Tomonagi, who had remained with the Ryujo on Commander Hidaka's direct orders.

  "Captain! Captain Kato!" cried Tomonagi. "It is Admiral Kakuta."

  Kato looked over his shoulder at first, thinking his superior had somehow snuck back aboard the ship. But then his eye caught the glow of Tomonagi's electric book, and the captain found it difficult to suppress a gasp of surprise. Kakuta himself seemed to be floating within.

  "Captain Kato. It is I, Kakuta." He sounded tired now. "Please contact the fleet, and bring them around. You may use the low-frequency radio. The attack on Dutch Harbor is not to proceed. I repeat, the attack on Dutch Harbor is not to proceed. I shall inform Admiral Hosogaya myself… Just obey!" he added firmly, when he saw that Kato was preparing to argue.

  KRI SUTANTO, 0024 HOURS, 3 JUNE 1942

  "Amazing… simply amazing," muttered Kakuta as Lieutenant Moertopo cut the link that connected them with the flexipad on the Ryujo's bridge.

  "The admiral expresses his heartfelt amazement at this most sophisticated machine," Hidaka translated.

  "I suppose it must be a shock," said Moertopo, who had been confronted by a surprise much more profound than one's first exposure to a simple flexipad. The dermal patch on his neck held back the physical sensation of nausea, but he still felt sick in his mind.

  "Admiral, I suggest that we have some of the men go up on deck to ensure that Captain Kato has followed your orders," Hidaka said, translating again for the benefit of the Indonesian.

  "That won't be necessary, Admiral," Moertopo interjected. "I can do that from here." In a few seconds he linked to the Sutanto's sensors and handed the pad back to Kakuta, who was then able to watch a radar image of the entire fleet, slowing and turning for home. Hidaka explained the meaning of the image that filled the flexipad screen. At this point in history, Japan had not invested deeply in radar technology. Moertopo noted with a degree of satisfaction that neither man was able hide his admiration.

  "I can get you an image of any individual vessel you'd care to observe from the mast-mounted cameras," said Moertopo. "It doesn't matter that it's dark and foggy outside. The cameras can pick out your ships, anyway."

  He took the pad back, entered a few instructions, and, just as he had promised, the screen filled with a black-and-white image of the Ryujo herself, coming around on the new heading, leaning into the swell, throwing up a prodigious bow wave.

  "Again. I am astounded, Lieutenant," said Hidaka with real reverence in his tone.

  "I doubt you could be more astonished than I."

  They sat at the wardroom table, sipping fresh tea from the ship's finest china, last used when the Sutanto had spirited the Indonesian president and his family away from the Caliphate rebellion. In deference to the Indonesians, who were dressed for the tropics, the ship's climate control had been set to approximate a warm spring day in Bali. The Japanese had stripped off the outer layers of their arctic-weather gear but were still sweating in the heavy uniforms they wore underneath.

  The small room was much busier now, with nearly two dozen Indonesian sailors revived and attending to those comrades who were still unconscious, or cleaning up the unpleasant aftermath of their illness. The Japanese and Indonesian sailors remained wary of one another, but their officers had turned to the task of coping with the unprecedented situation.

  Lieutenant Ali Moertopo was trying hard to keep relations with the Japanese as friendly as possible. The bulk of his countrymen, including his own captain, were still unconscious and showing little sign of responding to stimulants, so he was well aware that the initiative lay with Kakuta. If circumstances had been more conducive, they might have just sunk the Japanese fleet and sailed off to Pearl Harbor, there to offer their services to the eventual winners of this war.

  Assuming, of course, that this insanity played out, and they actually had traveled back in time.

  He found he still couldn't accept that as a real possibility.

  For the moment, though, he was content to present a mask of civility and cooperation to his captors, for that's what they were, no matter how much buffalo shit they fed him about "rescue" parties. He'd gotten a good long look at the mouth of Hidaka's pistol when he came to, and he remembered only too well that conceited sneer. He noted that the Japanese sailors-or perhaps they were marines-hadn't put down their arms.

  Moertopo had offered Kakuta the chance to observe his fleet on the Sutanto's radar only because he needed to know what sort of enemy he was up against. There appeared to be four capital ships, probably consisting of two carriers and two cruisers-or maybe battleships-and another group of smaller escorts, probably destroyers and maybe a tender. He would endeavor to interest them in a lengthy demonstration of the mast-mounted cameras, and in doing so confirm that conclusion. Captain Djuanda would need every possible scrap of information when he recovered and took command.

  If he recovered.

  Moertopo willed the captain to revive, so that he might be relieved of the mind-bending responsibilities presented by this situation.

  "… Lieutenant, are you ill again? You look quite distressed."

  The Sutanto's exec pulled out of his reverie with a shake of his head. In fact, he still felt awful, and the physical effects of their arrival were compounded by the stress
of confronting the impossible.

  "I am sorry, Commander," he lied. "I was overcome by this sickness again. It's much worse than any nausea I have felt before, even in heavy weather."

  "Perhaps you have other treatments for it?" Hidaka suggested. "Medicines as powerful as your machines?"

  His captor was playing with him, he knew. Fishing for more information about their technology. Moertopo was convinced that if he didn't handle this exactly right, neither he nor any of his men would live to see the next dawn.

  "Perhaps," he agreed. "I shall have an orderly bring some syringes." With that, he dispatched a junior rating to the sick bay with instruction to bring back a supply of Promatil fixes.

  "While we are waiting," Kakuta purred in his native tongue, "you might enlighten us with some historical information. Commander Hidaka informs me that the Yorktown was not sunk in the Coral Sea engagement, and in fact it lies in wait for Nagumo, just off Midway?"

  Moertopo, who managed to catch the drift of the Japanese officer's question, waited for Hidaka's translation anyway. It gave him a few vital seconds to construct his reply. And when he spoke, it was slowly and carefully, as if he were concerned not to rush the fluent, English-speaking commander.

  "I am afraid," he said, "that in the time from which I came, your efforts at Midway were undone by a stroke of bad luck. As I recall, Admiral Nagumo beat off numerous attacks by American fliers in heavy bombers and torpedo planes, only to be caught by a flight of dive-bombers when his decks were cluttered with refueling and re-arming planes. I think three carriers were destroyed in just a few minutes. But I am sorry, I cannot remember which ones. I would have to consult our library."

  Hidaka looked around the wardroom, searching for the bookshelves. Moertopo easily divined his intention and smiled, holding up the flexipad.

  "Our library is in here," he explained.

  The two Japanese conferred rapidly in their own language. Lieutenant Moertopo used the opportunity to casually check the radar images again, confirming his earlier, rushed observation. He desperately wanted to see the familiar image of their sister ship out there. But he was completely surrounded by Kakuta's battle group. The Nuku was probably back with the Americans.

  He dropped the pad back on the table, as if it were of no concern at all to him.

  Then Hidaka spoke up again. "Thank you, Lieutenant. As you can imagine, we are most interested in anything that might help us avert this catastrophe. I am sure that you, too, would be only too happy to see the European powers driven from their colonies, your homeland."

  Ali Moertopo nearly laughed out loud, but that would have been fatal. Instead he restricted himself to a small, disingenuous smile. He knew only too well that, were these animals to take dominion over his homeland, they would construct a slave state rivaling the Caliphate's ugliest tyranny. Now was not the time, however, to deliver a critique of fascist Japan's risibly named "co-prosperity sphere."

  Now was the time for lying through his teeth. The long run would have to take care of itself.

  "Do not imagine," Moertopo said, "that just because my government found it convenient to enter into an alliance with the United States, we did so happily. The policies of the Americans reduced my country to ashes and bone, picked over by madmen and ignorant savages. Clearly any patriot would leap at any opportunity to avoid that outcome."

  Moertopo was surprised at how easily this rubbish spilled from his lips. Still, he had to convince Kakuta and Hidaka that they had found a powerful and trustworthy ally. One who wouldn't need to be kept under close and constant guard.

  Curiously, he had the impression that Hidaka was the one to convince. The older man seemed so overwhelmed by events that he was ready to dance with any devil. Behind his smile, however, Lieutenant Commander Hidaka regarded Moertopo with all the benevolence of a hungry shark.

  "If I understand you then, Lieutenant, you would propose an alliance?" Hidaka inquired.

  Ali arranged his features as credibly as possible. I would offer you my firstborn on a plate, he thought, if that's what it took to get your boot off my throat. Whether I deliver is another matter.

  When he spoke, however, it was to say, "I can offer nothing until I have consulted with Captain Djuanda. But I cannot imagine he would forgo such a unique opportunity to set history right." He grinned wolfishly. Or what he hoped was wolfishly.

  The admiral seemed satisfied. Hidaka, too, was appeased, but seemed to retain a certain reserve.

  Working the archipelago under an old pirate like Djuanda, Moertopo had developed a smuggler's sense for risk and opportunity. Both lay in front of him, but the risk seemed much greater. Best to give an impression of avarice, colored by a longing for vengeance and not a little stupidity. Nobody feared an idiot, after all.

  The midshipman reappeared with a box of one-use Promatil syringes. Moertopo jabbed himself, then ordered the middie to distribute them among the members of his crew.

  Kakuta spoke again, holding the flexipad as if it were a Ming vase.

  "Your library, Lieutenant? You implied you have information in here"-the idea of a library in a box evidently bewildered him-"that would help us avert a disaster. Time is of the essence. We need to know what to do."

  "I cannot tell you what to do," Moertopo replied through Hidaka. "That is not my place. I can only tell you what we know of the battle, through our archival files. Any decisions are yours to make."

  He didn't feel up to the task of explaining a distributed information system like the Web to a couple of rubes whose idea of a computer had stalled at the abacus. And he certainly didn't want to give them the keys to the kingdom. His knowledge of history was patchy. What details he knew of the battle at Midway came mostly from the Tom Cruise miniseries he'd watched on a pirated media stick. But he did understand the enormous power of the United States, even in this era. And he flattered himself that he understood their culture, too. Better than these two, at any rate.

  America could lose Midway, and even Pearl Harbor, and it would prolong the war, but not change the outcome. As a people the Americans were a strange mix of sophistication and barbarism. They wouldn't feel avenged until Japan had been burned to the ground. Within a few years they would detonate atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was inevitable that the Japanese would learn about that from the ship's files, or more likely from one of the crew.

  They might react by suing for peace. More likely they would engage in a race for the weapon themselves. And they would lose. Everybody lost when they fought the Americans, didn't they?

  He sighed and reached for the flexipad. But before he could bring up the data his hand was stayed by the sounds of a struggle and a scream just outside the wardroom.

  Besides Moertopo, only two men capable of working the Combat Information Center were conscious. One of them was a systems engineer named Damiri. Ten minutes after coming to, he opened a file containing stored radio intercepts, picked up by the Sutanto's passive arrays while he'd been unconscious. The CIC was immediately flooded with a graphic audio tableau of the hostilities near Midway.

  He lunged for the control panel. A Japanese marine took the sudden movement as a threat, shouting, and pulling Damiri back by the hair. The guard threw one arm around the Indonesian sailor's neck, attempting to drag him away from the console while still holding his rifle in the other hand.

  Damiri, with some basic training in the Indonesian martial art of Silat, reacted instantly, clamping one hand over the wrist and jerking it down, away from his windpipe. At the same time he gouged at a nerve bundle in the man's forearm. The guard grunted in pain and a little surprise, then slammed his rifle into the side of the engineer's head. White flares exploded behind Damiri's eyes, compounding the low-grade misery he'd suffered since awakening. He slumped, and the guard heaved him away from the console.

  A couple more rifle-toting Japanese guards quickly appeared and butt-swiped the Indonesian with their rifles. His screams brought Moertopo and the others running.

 
; Now, heavily bandaged, Damiri was back at the workstation, finessing the ship's antennae for maximum gain without alerting the Americans to his presence.

  Moertopo wasn't happy with the way things were shaping up. He briefly considered telling the young engineer to secretly ping the Multinational Force with an ID pulse and "duress" signal, but decided to hold. For one thing, Hidaka had made it clear to the Indonesians that any extended conversation in their native tongue of Bahasa would not be tolerated.

  When Damiri had located a block of intercepts indicating that the Clinton had exploded, Moertopo had suppressed a horrified grimace. He could have wrung Kolhammer's neck at that point. How could he allow himself to be knocked over by these pygmies? If these stupid Americans all killed each other down there, where on earth was he supposed to run to when he had the chance?

  For the first time since awakening with Hidaka's gun jammed in his face, he actually contemplated throwing his lot in with the Japanese. Trying to plot a course through the contrary waters of fate was turning out to be more difficult than he had imagined. Hidaka certainly gave no indication that he was ready to play out the leash even a fraction. Furtively scoping out the armed Japanese guards ringing his CIC, watching his every move, Moertopo began to doubt they would ever wriggle out of the yoke which now restrained them.

  "It's a Jap ship, a nip bastard for sure," cried an American flier over his radio. "I'm going in. I'm going to…"

  The speakers crackled for a second with the recorded sound of a dive-bomber disintegrating under the impact of a barrage.

  "What was that?" Hidaka demanded to know.

  "At a guess, Commander," Moertopo replied, "a defensive close-in weapons system known as Metal Storm. I doubt a bolt of lightning could sneak through. That pilot had no chance."

  "Fascinating," snapped Hidaka, "but that's not what I meant. He said he saw a Japanese ship. But you told us that Nagumo's force would be nowhere near the Americans yet."