Weapons of choice aot-1

by John Birmingham

  The officer swore and told his team to keep working. Then he headed for the door.

  Slim Jim resisted the urge to pocket another handful of the small, pencil-like objects they called data sticks. He was here to learn, and to establish his bona fides as a stand-up guy.

  "Come on," he said, swatting Moose on the back. "He's gonna need some help."

  "But he told us to stay here," a young female sailor protested. Quite a cutie, too, thought Davidson. These guys really knew how to fit out a ship.

  "Yeah, well he won't be telling nobody nothing when he gets his fucking teeth kicked in. Listen up, would you? That's a real fucking fight out there, toots. Come on, Moose."

  The sound of bedlam seemed to swell. There could be no doubt that a pitched brawl was under way. Slim Jim grabbed a small crowbar and dived out through the door, with Moose close behind on his heels. The three remaining sailors, all of them from the Leyte Gulf, hesitated for just a moment before following.

  Slim Jim and Moose joined a general rush toward the mess where the fight had broken out.

  "Watch my back," said Davidson. "But keep an eye out for that officer, too. We don't want him getting hurt."

  "Why not?" Moose asked.

  "Just fucking do it, okay."

  They had to step on it. The melee had spilled into the passageway, and Carver was already at the edge of the fighting. Davidson could see that he didn't have the first idea about mixing it up in a real street brawl. He was actually trying to haul a couple of guys off someone.

  "Oh, for fuck's sake," muttered Slim Jim.

  The confined space roared with a tribal savagery. Men and women from both ships were mixed in together, punching, biting, kicking, swinging wildly. Slim Jim saw a guy he recognized from the Astoria, one of the apes from the boiler room, turn and swing at Ensign Carver. The much smaller officer was knocked right off his feet, and slammed into a bulkhead. His attacker, a brute with arms like tree trunks, grinned and pushed him back into the wall.

  Maloney, that's his name, thought Slim Jim. Stupid fucking mick.

  Stoker Maloney grabbed hold of Carver's throat and pinned the ensign down. He cocked one giant fist back behind his ear, ready to drive it right through the man's head, just as Slim Jim reached him.

  "Hey, asshole," Davidson called out.

  Maloney smiled at Slim Jim, who raised the crowbar and whipped it down on the arm that restrained Carver. The smile disappeared as the man's bones broke with a sick, wet crack. His dark features turned gray, then white. A look of terrible confusion came into his eyes just before Slim Jim lashed him across the forehead with the heavy iron bar. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he started to slump to the floor. Moose grabbed hold of him and heaved the deadweight down the corridor. The three sailors who'd followed Davidson and Molloy out of the office nearly tripped over the body.

  "You all right, sir?" asked Slim Jim.

  Carver coughed twice and struggled to draw breath, finally settling on a quick nod.

  "Let's break 'em down, Moose," Davidson yelled, as he swung the crowbar at yet another of his own shipmates.

  Moose commenced laying in to the heaving mob with great, looping swings of his fists.

  "What the hell is going on here?"

  Slim Jim flinched and turned quickly at the sound of Chief Eddie Mohr's bellow.

  "I might have fucking known," he growled, as Slim Jim caught his eye.

  Mohr had arrived with Captain Anderson, her own chief-Conroy or Condon, or something-and a couple of those scary-looking bastards in SS outfits. They weren't toting those weird guns of theirs, but they had something just as worrying-long black sticks with a small metal prong at the end. Slim Jim's eyes bulged a little when he realized that there were sparks jumping between the prongs.

  Anderson's CPO calmly touched his baton to a tall, muscular sailor off the Astoria. He jerked rigidly, as though he'd been electrocuted, then dropped to the deck, unconscious before he hit. Or maybe even dead.

  The two black-clad storm troopers started zapping people at the edge of the fray. The result was the same every time. They'd go stiff as a board and then fall in a heap.

  "No, don't!" Slim Jim cried in genuine fear as Mohr advanced on him. Some idiot had given him one of those things. He was getting ready to cave in the chief's skull with the crowbar when Ensign Carver laid a restraining hand on Mohr's shoulder.

  "It's okay, Chief. He was helping me break up the fight."

  Mohr appeared to have real trouble overcoming his momentum. He really wanted to jab Slim Jim with that electric prod. But Captain Anderson laid another hand on his arm.

  "Knock it off, you jerks," she yelled. "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves."

  The combination of her voice and another two or three prods with the stun rods collapsed the brawl, which had been largely confined to an area around the doorway. Anderson pushed her way in among the rowdy combatants, roughly elbowing aside anyone who didn't give her space. She had her own sparking baton, but she didn't use it on anyone. The unruly squall tapered off into a bruised and sullen stillness.

  Slim Jim backed away from Mohr, who still had murder in his eyes, stepping on tiptoes so he could see Anderson.

  "Well, I'm waiting," said the captain.

  Lieutenant Commander Helen Wassman stepped forward over a number of fallen sailors. She was bleeding from the nose and had a real shiner rising on her left eye.

  "I'm afraid it was my fault, Captain," she said.

  "The hell it was!" cried a white man to her rear.

  "This racist asshole bitch-slapped the doc," somebody else called out.

  Chief Mohr forced his way past Slim Jim, drawing up beside Anderson and looking down at the prostrate form of Lieutenant Charles.

  "Oh, that'd be fuckin' right," he said darkly.

  16

  USS ENTERPRISE, 0409 HOURS, 3 JUNE 1942

  Karen Halabi was only too aware of the outlandish presence she introduced to the small space. The men around her had so far paid due deference to the respect Spruance seemed to accord her, but she could tell from the prickling of her skin and the occasional hostile glance that she was there under his sufferance.

  Spruance stared morosely out at the burning wreckage of his task force.

  Dawn was coming, and the extent of the carnage was no longer hidden by full darkness. A few hours from now, they all knew Japanese planes would be over Dutch Harbor on a diversionary strike. The American commander was fast approaching the point where he would have to contact Admiral Nimitz in Pearl and try to explain what had happened. Halabi didn't fancy changing places with him. Down below on the flight deck, a landing signals officer from the Clinton waved in a Seahawk with four survivors just plucked from the water.

  "Michaels," said Spruance, "have the Gwin and the Benham stand-by the Leyte Gulf for salvage and evacuation. They are to place their men under the direction of Captain Anderson on the Leyte Gulf. She'll command the operation."

  There wasn't so much as a murmur of dissent, but Halabi could feel the men bristle. Spruance remained silent, watching the lights of the helicopters as they hovered and swooped against the black curtain of the Pacific night. Karen would swear that her neck was burning with the intensity of the glares being directed at her by some of the bridge crew. But she clasped her hands behind her back and tried to take what small measure of consolation she could from the experience of riding atop one of history's greatest warships.

  She was startled out of her reverie when Spruance next spoke.

  "Your people are very professional, Captain. They've saved a lot of men tonight."

  He didn't add what a few men around him no doubt thought, that Halabi's people had killed even more.

  "Standards haven't slipped, Admiral."

  "How long have you been at war, Captain?" Spruance asked in a distracted voice.

  "Myself? Twelve years, sir. But it's a different kind of war. More complicated, I suppose."

  "I don't see how that could be," Spr
uance said.

  "Politics, religion, history." She shrugged. "It gets very complicated, believe me. Often we're not even fighting other states, just a state of mind. Ideas."

  Spruance turned completely around. Silhouetted against the glass, it was nearly impossible to see his face. "You can't fight ideas with rockets and guns."

  "On the contrary, that's exactly what you were doing out here, Admiral. You came here to kill men and sink ships. But it was ideas that sent you and the Japanese to war. And it's ideas about how men and women should live that have sent England to war with Germany. I know that all sounds far too abstract, what with so much blood being spilled. But even after Pearl Harbor, you don't understand the nature of the thing you're fighting."

  Karen watched as Spruance folded his arms in the dark space of the bridge.

  "You sound like you're running for Congress-sorry, Parliament."

  "It's just my MA showing. Conflict studies at Cambridge. You'll have to excuse my academic interest in your war. It happened a long time before I was born. But we studied it closely. Because of the immense scale of violence and cruelty this conflict unleashed, there persists in our culture a horror of war, a belief that it is an unmitigated evil, even though this is also recognized as a just war. One that could not be morally avoided."

  "Because of Pearl Harbor," said Spruance.

  "No. Because of Auschwitz."

  Spruance shook his head. "Sounds like a Kraut name, but I've never heard of it."

  "You will."

  USS HILLARY CLINTON, 0409 HOURS, 3 JUNE 1942

  One large wall-mounted flatscreen in Media Center displayed a stored high-res satellite image of the southern reaches of the Indonesian Archipelago. Dan Black knew that because Lieutenant Thieu had explained it when they arrived. He wasn't quite sure what the hell that all meant, though.

  Lieutenant Thieu looked a lot like a Jap to Lieutenant Commander Black's way of thinking. But he sounded as though he'd spent his whole life on the beaches of California.

  "Santa Monica," Thieu said, when Black asked. "My parents were deep green Earth First types. I surfed a lot to get out of the house. Then when they tried to get me to paddle my board out to hassle some longline tuna boats, I ran away and joined the navy. I don't think they'll ever forgive me."

  Black had no idea what he was talking about, but the mystery of Thieu was nothing compared to the two civilian women who were straining at the leash just behind him. Black figured them for civvies because of the complete lack of respect they brought to their dealings with the lieutenant.

  "And what's your job, Lieutenant?" asked Black.

  "Right now, I'm just looking after you until you can get back to the Enterprise. But officially, media relations."

  "And we're the media he's trying to have a relationship with," said one of the women.

  Thieu exhaled slowly. "Lieutenant Commander Black, Ensign Curtis, this is Julia Duffy, a feature writer for the New York Times, and Rosanna Natoli, a reporter for CNN. You don't have it yet. It's a bit like the Movietone newsreels, I guess."

  "So, what, we're supposed to talk to the press now?" asked Black, who was openly confused.

  He'd felt about as useful as tits on a bull up on the flag bridge, and had been happy enough to get out from under Kolhammer's feet as the search and rescue effort accelerated. With Curtis eager to try out a "computer," they'd been escorted down to this "Media Center"-although it looked like an aid station to Black, with maybe two dozen civilians laid out on cots.

  Thieu explained that they were reporters who'd been "embedded" with various elements of the Multinational Force, but that didn't make Black feel any more comfortable.

  "You don't have to talk to anyone if you don't want to," Thieu added quickly.

  "Oh, come now," said Natoli. "I'm sure these boys wouldn't be scared of talking to a couple of lady reporters. They were on their way to kick Yamamoto's butt. They'll be safe with us, Edgar."

  "And who are you going to file for?" asked Thieu. "Ms. Duffy still might be able to score a gig with the Times, but I don't know if Ted Turner's even been born yet. And if he has, he ain't hiring."

  "Well, first off," Natoli argued, "you don't know for sure that we're stuck here. We could all be back home selling our stories by this time tomorrow. None of us knows anything yet. Meanwhile, you have your job. We have ours."

  Black watched the exchange with growing curiosity. These women didn't defer to the officer at all. Their demeanor was challenging, bordering on ill mannered. He dismissed the idea that it was a function of Thieu's race. It was possible, he realized, that they just didn't like each other. If so, it might be useful to get to know them. They might have a different angle on what was happening. He wasn't sure he trusted Kolhammer's people yet.

  Behind the women, a whole wall was taken up with what Black thought of as movie screens, displaying scenes from all over both fleets. He could even see his own ship, the Enterprise, with two helicopters just setting down on her deck.

  The view seemed to be coming from on high, directly above the flight deck, and the commander assumed another helicopter was taking the photos. When he asked, though, Thieu explained that the feed was actually coming from a small, saucer-shaped "drone-cam" keeping station about three thousand five hundred meters-that meant twelve thousand feet, apparently-above the deck of the carrier. That almost made sense. Other panels on the big wall screen showed vision of a few surviving destroyers from his own group alongside sleek, flowing ships from the future, with a constant transfer of men between both.

  Men and women, he corrected himself.

  Nodding slowly to the Italian doll, he said, "I can't speak for Ensign Curtis, but I don't mind chatting with you while things get cleared up outside, miss. I can't do any interviews, though. You can't put me in your story, right?"

  Lieutenant Thieu closed his eyes and muttered something beneath his breath. But the two reporters smiled radiantly.

  "Fabbo," said Duffy.

  "What about you, Ensign Curtis?" Natoli asked. "You up for a little deep background?"

  Curtis blushed down to roots of his hair.

  Captain Jurgen Muller arrived directly from a SAR mission and was still wearing his flight suit. Commander Enrico Prodi made his way up from the Clinton's hangar deck. And Major Pavel Ivanov of the Russian army had crossed from the Kandahar, where he had been taking part in the SEALs' tutorial on the G4 assault rifle when Pope's wormhole had swallowed them all.

  The men picked at a tray of sandwiches in Kolhammer's private quarters while the admiral handed out mugs of coffee.

  "Where is Colonel Gogol?" asked Ivanov.

  "I'm afraid he didn't make it," said Mike Judge.

  The Spetsnaz officer took in the answer, processed it, and grunted.

  "Too bad."

  Ivanov didn't look like he needed much commiserating. Judge restricted himself to replying, "Yeah, too bad."

  A knock sounded at the door and Kolhammer called out, "Enter."

  The three visitors all turned to see Sub-Lieutenant Maseo Miyazaki, acting commander of the Siranui. One arm was encased in a bright green gel tube, and he stood with the aid of a stick.

  Despite his injuries, Miyazaki bowed deeply, every line in his body rigid. It was as if he had fiber-steel cable instead of muscle and bone. Kolhammer took his cue from the young officer and, rather than staring directly into his eyes, he averted his gaze, just slightly. He discreetly studied the stoic mask Miyazaki had drawn across his feelings. Grief and pain were obvious, but survivor guilt was there, as well, a gnawing sense of shame and remorse that one should live when better men had died.

  "I'm sorry, Lieutenant," he said, bowing his head. "I served with Captain Okada on a number of occasions. He was a fine warrior. A man of giri. I would appreciate it if you let your men know how deeply we feel his loss and the death of his comrades."

  The young officer carefully straightened his back.

  "Thank you, sir. I understand two of Admiral Spruance's sh
ips were destroyed by the Siranui," he said. "As the officer responsible, I now forward our most abject apologies to the admiral and place myself under arrest pending court-martial for the unauthorized killing of Allied naval personnel."

  Kolhammer was stunned. Nobody moved. The other three foreigners were obviously as taken aback as he was. They looked like props placed by a director. His stateroom, paneled in oak and furnished with a leather lounge and deep blue carpets, suddenly seemed strangely artificial to him, like a stage setting. As he recovered his wits, he put down his empty coffee mug and searched for a reassuring, but authoritative tone.

  "Please stand at ease, Lieutenant. In fact, sit down and take the weight off. Please, I mean it. The release of your combat mace was not unauthorized. I sanctioned an overriding autonomy for the fleet CIs, and the consequences of that decision are mine to bear, not yours. I'll be certain to forward your apologies to Admiral Spruance but I won't allow you to take the blame.

  "Unfortunately, I fear that won't satisfy the demands of the situation."

  Miyazaki entered the room with a small degree of difficulty. But he carefully lowered himself into a chair next to Ivanov and gratefully accepted a cup of green tea from Commander Judge.

  "Domo arrigato."

  "You're welcome," smiled Judge.

  Ivanov gave the young Japanese sailor a slap on the knee.

  "Good shooting," he deadpanned.

  Kolhammer grimaced inwardly. He had served with a lot of Russians. He was used to their gallows humor. "Gentlemen, I won't bullshit you. We have a problem," he said. "I doubt we're going home anytime soon. Maybe never. That leaves you men up fecal creek. We have twenty-one German, eighteen Italian, and fifteen Russian personnel serving on attachment throughout the task force. And, of course, we have the Siranui. You're the senior surviving officers of your national contingents. If we are indeed trapped here, your homelands are dictatorships, and in the case of Germany, Italy, and Japan, they're enemy states."

  Ivanov let out a short, humorless laugh. "I suspect that for me and my comrades, Admiral, the Soviet Union is an enemy state."