Weapons of choice aot-1

by John Birmingham

"That's why you're here as well, Major."

  "And us?" bristled Muller. "Are we to provide you with some sort of loyalty pledge?"

  The Italian, Prodi, threw up his hands. "Alora! You have no reason to be concerned with my feelings, Admiral. Have you visited Rome and seen the fascist architecture? It's an abomination! Profoundly antihuman and a total misreading of imperial design. That pig Mussolini deserved to hang by his heels!"

  Two seconds of confused and utter silence greeted the Italian's outburst.

  "Right, then," Kolhammer said when he recovered. "Thank you, Commander Prodi. To answer your question, Captain Muller, no, I'm not looking for loyalty pledges. But there are people here who will. And even if they get them, they'll still want to lock you up."

  "I expect Stalin shall try to put an icepick in my brain," said Ivanov without much emotion. "But we shall see how that works for him, da?"

  "Stalin isn't my concern," said Kolhammer. "J. Edgar Hoover might be."

  The blank looks he received told him they hadn't boned up on their American history before accepting their postings.

  "Look, I harbor no doubts about your dependability, but you can expect a lot of shit from the locals. Not so much you and your guys, Ivanov. But then, like you say, you'll have your own problems. We can sort this out properly when we have more time, but I want you to personally get around to your people and tell them to keep their heads down. Especially when we get to Pearl Harbor, or Brisbane, or the West Coast."

  "We don't know where we're going yet?" asked Ivanov.

  "We don't know much about anything," Kolhammer conceded. "Commander Judge has pulled together a list of the personnel you'll need to contact. Forget about your other duties until you've done this."

  Sub-Lieutenant Miyazaki coughed, and spoke in a halting voice. "And what am I to do, Admiral? How do we hide a Nemesis cruiser?"

  Kolhammer propped himself against his desk. The Europeans seemed almost as interested in his answer as the Japanese officer. He worked a kink out of his neck and sighed.

  "The next few days won't be easy, but as long as my command remains intact I am responsible for your welfare and security. I won't allow it to be compromised. Is there anything you need, by the way?' asked Kolhammer. "Medical supplies or personnel?"

  "I'm afraid our casualties were mostly killed in action," said Miyazaki. "Indeed, I have organized for our surplus medical supplies to be taken off for distribution to those vessels more in need. I understand the Kandahar is running low on burn gel and vat skin."

  "Thank you, Lieutenant. That's much appreciated. I'll see to it that your generosity is acknowledged."

  Miyazaki seemed truly affronted by the proposition, becoming animated for the first time in their encounter.

  "That will not be necessary," he insisted. "It is not a gesture!"

  "I understand that, Maseo," said Kolhammer, gently and deliberately choosing the informal, intimate form of address. "I also asked you about personnel. Being blunt about it, I had a reason. You've lost all of your senior officers. I've had significant casualties on the Leyte Gulf. We're going to lose that ship in the next few hours. It would help smooth things over with the locals if you accepted Captain Anderson and a small cadre of American officers as replacements for your casualties."

  Miyazaki was silent. Kolhammer could see the effort play out on the young man's face, as he wrestled with conflicting demands and desires.

  "I don't mean to be insulting, Lieutenant. But we don't have a lot of time. On the other hand we do have a shitload of resentment and fear and outright loathing to contend with. I'm going to have my hands full keeping your crew out of a prison camp."

  He could see that Miyazaki was about to leap to the defense of his men. Holding up one hand, he plowed on. "I know. It's not fair. But that's just tough shit. I know that you've slaved your CI to the Clinton. I've told Spruance that, but it means nothing to him. He won't rest easy until he sees an American in charge of that ship."

  "A black woman?" scoffed Miyazaki. "You think that will please him?"

  Kolhammer smiled weakly. "Well, he can't have everything his own way, can he."

  He felt real sympathy for the youngster. His behavior during the battle had been entirely proper and courageous. Under different circumstances it would have earned him a medal. Instead, he stood implicitly accused of being untrustworthy and dishonorable. Of lacking giri. There weren't many worse insults you could hand a Japanese fighting man, but Kolhammer had no choice. He remained motionless, perched on the arm of the couch, frantically searching for a way that Miyazaki might save face. He was thus a little startled that it was Captain Muller who was provoked into an outburst.

  The German, who looked like he was chewing on something sour, barked out, "This is a lot of bullshit for nothing, Herr Admiral."

  Miyazaki looked as if he was grateful for the distraction. Kolhammer chose to ignore the lack of deference.

  "No, it is not bullshit, Captain. We've killed a lot of men tonight. Widowed thousands of women. Taken fathers and sons and brothers from Christ only knows how many people. And we've done Yamamoto's work for him, destroying the American Pacific Fleet. We arrived in company with a Japanese warship, and we have dozens of enemy aliens serving on our own ships. It won't matter a damn that we lost a lot of good men and women, too. There's going to be some very powerful people demanding that we all be locked up. And you men are the first ones they'll come for."

  Ivanov smiled frostily. "And what will you do about this Hoover, some kind of secret policeman, yes? Will you turn him away when he comes?"

  Kolhammer put down his coffee and regarded all three of them with a level gaze.

  "You're part of my command and I won't have you treated with anything but respect. I do need to know, however, what sort of role you'll be comfortable with, should we have to stay here and fight."

  Captain Muller's lips were compressed into a thin white line. When he spoke, it was to spit each word like a bullet.

  "Admiral Kolhammer, my great-grandfather commanded a company in the Gross Deutschland Division. He was killed in Russia-but not by the Red Army or partisans," he said, nodding toward Ivanov. "He died after holding a river crossing for three days against waves of tanks and infantry. He held fast with the remnants of his company, about seventy men, while two thousand comrades escaped across the water. When he reached the other side, the last German to do so, he was arrested and shot for desertion in the face of the enemy.

  "His wife, my great-grandmother, was interned in a camp with her children, six of them. Only one survived, my grandfather. He carried the scars of the beatings by the camp guards all his life. He told me many times of his brothers and sisters. He retained a perfect memory of each and he wanted me to remember them to my children. His oldest brother Hans was beaten to death while protecting his younger brother Erwin from a homosexual rapist. Erwin was later shot for no apparent reason by a visiting SS officer. Their sister Lotti froze to death. Sister Ingrid, twelve years old, died of syphilis. And baby sister Greta was murdered by a guard, who crushed her head with the heel of his boot, when she refused to suck his penis.

  "You ask me how I feel, Admiral?" he said softly. "I feel sick with the possibilities."

  Nobody spoke when Muller had finished. Kolhammer himself felt ill. Miyazaki, he noted, was nodding quietly. The restrained violence of the German's delivery had done more to shake his incredulity in the face of the impossible than had the battle on arrival, or the visit to Spruance. He was about to reply when Judge's flexipad beeped. The Clinton's XO checked the message he'd just received.

  "Admiral," he said, with surprise in his voice. "Something's happened."

  Kolhammer was annoyed at himself. He should have been concentrating on the main screen in the CIC, but he couldn't shake his dissatisfaction at the way his meeting with Miyazaki and the others had gone. He didn't really feel as if they had resolved anything.

  More to the point, he was pissed at himself for not clearly understanding h
is own motivations. Was he really afraid the Siranui's crew might mutiny? That was preposterous. He had worked with that ship on a number of occasions. Okada was, if not a friend, then at least a trusted colleague. But of course, Okada was dead. And any fears he had that the surviving men might-what, steal the technology, and give it to Yamamoto? Well, it was ridiculous and insulting to the survivors. After all, he didn't expect the Germans to run back to the fuhrer.

  "Admiral Kolhammer? Sir?"

  Lieutenant Brooks had caught him when his mind was wandering.

  "I'm sorry Lieutenant. Fatigue. Give it to me again."

  Kirsty Brooks gave no hint that she'd been put off by his reverie. She repeated her last statement a little louder, as though he merely hadn't heard over the buzz in the room.

  "You can see for yourself, Admiral. Nagumo's battle group has definitely turned tail. And although Yamamoto and the other fleet elements are at the edge of our sensor range, they all appear to have altered course, as well. They're bugging out."

  The Clinton's CIC was a hive of activity, with all of the departments fully staffed and working hard to compensate for the vast inflows of national source intelligence that they had left behind in the twenty-first century. Antiair, antisubmarine, anti-surface-warfare centers all hummed ceaselessly. Only the antiorbital center seemed to be running at a moderately relaxed pace.

  "And this trace contact," said Kolhammer. "How long ago was that?"

  "Twelve minutes ago, sir," Brooks replied. "Could have been an echo effect, but it didn't read that way. Little Bill picked up the silhouette. He figured an eighty-four percent probability that it was the Garrett."

  "In the Antarctic?" Kolhammer said, doubtfully.

  "Near enough, Admiral."

  The CIC was bitingly cold. Kolhammer shivered.

  "ETA for Spruance?" he asked.

  Brooks checked on her main screen.

  "Should be touching down now, sir."

  USS GARRETT, SOUTHERN OCEAN, 0434 HOURS, 3 JUNE 1942

  Extreme low-pressure weather systems, whether they're called hurricanes, or typhoons, or cyclones, are memorable events for those caught up in them; so memorable, they're often given names whenever they cross paths with civilization. In the deep, circumpolar belt of ocean between fifty and sixty degrees south, however, dozens of giant storm cells are generated every year without being named, because there's nobody to witness them in the vast, empty swathes of the Southern Ocean.

  Very little landmass occupies that belt of water. With almost nothing to impede them, the great storms can pile up incredible amounts of water at their leading edge. The surges gather power as they travel around the world. Sailors who have witnessed such things say that nothing bears comparison with them: fast-moving, hundred-foot-high walls of black water. Even larger rogue waves can be caused by a combination of factors-a storm surge, a pressure convergence line, a subsurface feature such as the edge of a continental shelf, or the meshing of two or three single waves into one behemoth. Such monster waves rarely survive for long, and are even more rarely reported.

  Almost nobody who encounters them lives to tell the tale.

  So it was with the air-warfare destroyer USS Garrett. Thanks to the unstable, anomalous field generated by Pope's experiment, she emerged a great distance from the originating event.

  The crew of the Garrett was only 120 strong. None awoke immediately from the temporary coma of Transition Sickness. A small number, however, did perish quickly. Nine men and four women, who had been on deck when the wormhole inflated, were swept away by the enormous seas into which they emerged. A few more broke their necks and backs as their limp bodies were flung about belowdecks. Many suffered broken limbs and concussion.

  Eventually, after three hours, a handful of sailors did regain consciousness, but they were in no condition to control the ship. One, a petty officer, managed to crawl into the bridge, hoping to cede autonomy to the CI. But an eighteen-meter wave had smashed the blast windows and poured in, shorting out the equipment. Before she could exit the ruined post, the destroyer slipped over the ridge of a colossal wave and speared down the reverse side. The wave behind it rolled over the vessel. Thousands of liters of freezing seawater poured in and sucked the screaming woman back out again.

  The Garrett succumbed at 0435 hours when she ran headfirst into one of those massive, unstable, mountain ranges of water that stalk the wastes of the Southern Ocean. The warship climbed gamely up the face of the cliff, but it was simply too big to surmount. In her final moments she slewed around on the nearly vertical surface and rolled.

  The flickering echo of a distress call from her CI, which bounced off the troposphere and spattered weakly against the Nemesis arrays of the Siranui a few minutes later, was the last anyone heard of her.

  USS HILLARY CLINTON, 0488 HOURS, 3 JUNE 1942

  Spruance couldn't help but be impressed. The size of the Hillary Clinton was imposing to begin with. He imagined you could fit the Enterprise into her three times over, by volume.

  The flight deck was a wreck, littered with piles of scrap and ripped open like an old tin can down aft of the second finlike structure, which he assumed had to play the same role as the island on the Big E. Even wounded as badly as she was, however, the ship hummed with power. The admiral found himself deeply conflicted: proud that his men could dish out so much punishment to a vastly superior adversary; and deeply sorry that they had done so. He might have been able to win the war in a day with this floating brute.

  He'd heard his name whispered repeatedly as Commander Judge led him through the vessel. It was so very strange, these men and women, many of them looking like foreigners but speaking in accents he recognized from the corridors of his own ship; they seemed to look upon him as if he were some sort of movie star. As some pointed and others stared, he saw real awe and respect in their eyes. It wasn't altogether pleasing. He must have returned over a hundred salutes, all of them ripped out with parade-ground perfection as he made his way through the vessel. Dan Black had rejoined him, with that young ensign trailing along in their rear beside half a dozen officers from the Enterprise.

  They turned into a room dominated by the biggest movie screen Spruance had ever seen outside a theater. Kolhammer and a number of his officers, looking like a delegation from the League of Nations, were waiting. Spruance didn't waste any time.

  "So, the Japs are running are they? How do you know? They might be making a flanking maneuver for Pearl. They could pull it off if they wanted to."

  Kolhammer pointed a smooth black stick at the big movie screen. It filled up with some kind of radar image. But it looked like… Spruance searched for a metaphor, but all that came to mind were the cartoons you sometimes saw before a Saturday matinee. The images looked drawn. They most certainly weren't the fuzzy lights and blurred, sweeping arcs he associated with radar. He could see Nagumo's force neatly illustrated with little boats and name tags. Dozens of vessels surrounded four carriers. Most of them were identified, too.

  "What the hell is that?" asked Spruance, unsure whether to be impressed or pissed off.

  "It's a computerized representation of our intelligence take," said Kolhammer. "Just think of it as an illustration of what our radars can pick up. It's easier to show you this way."

  "Don't patronize me, Admiral. Just tell us what's happening."

  The briefing room wasn't large for the number of men and women it contained. They had clustered around their respective leaders, and the dozen or so gathered behind Kolhammer tensed at Spruance's outburst. In turn, the men off the Enterprise stiffened up and jutted their jaws out that little bit farther. Most of their aggression flowed toward three officers of Asian appearance who stood near Kolhammer.

  "They're running. I can't put it any more simply," said the Clinton's CO.

  "That's all well and good," said Spruance, "but do you have any idea why the Japs are running? If it's true."

  Kolhammer motioned to some seats. Spruance thought they looked very odd. They we
re misshapen and composed of some hard, unknown material. He indicated that he preferred to remain standing. Kolhammer shrugged.

  "It's true," he said. "But I don't know why they've turned tail. They almost certainly picked up the radio broadcast I made to you last night, followed of course by the traffic between your own ships and pilots during the battle. Nagumo was, or is, incredibly conservative. The exposure of his plan and your trap may have been enough to cause him to abort the operation."

  Neither Spruance nor his men looked at all convinced.

  "Are we supposed to just accept that?"

  "You'll have to accept that they're running," said Kolhammer, indicating the image behind his back. "Our radar confirms it."

  "With all due respect," Spruance said, leaving no doubt he had very little respect for his new, unwanted allies, "you only know these bastards from your books. We know them firsthand. They don't turn and run like that without a very good reason. And I don't see one. You wouldn't have had any other ships with you off the East Indies, would you? Something else that might have spooked Nagumo."

  Spruance could tell he'd hit a raw nerve with that question. Kolhammer seemed to be chewing over a very tough piece of gristle as he pondered his answer.

  "Well, there has been another development," he conceded. "We may have located a missing ship from our task force. A destroyer, the Garrett. She appears to have emerged in the Southern Ocean. We had a very faint distress signal from her. We've heard nothing since. Weather down there is pretty wretched at this time of year. If the crew were unconscious she may have foundered."

  Spruance felt a tingle run up his spine. It wasn't at all pleasant.

  "And how many other ships have you misplaced, Admiral?" he muttered, barely able to contain his growing rage.

  "First," said Kolhammer in a clipped tone indicating that he did not appreciate Spruance's insinuation, "we didn't misplace them. We're as much a victim of the accident that brought us here as you are. Second, I can't tell you with any certainty which ships are missing because I don't know which came through. But it's possible that others may have arrived. We're following up a ghost return from the southwest that might be a British destroyer, the Vanguard."