by Lars Teeney
“Fair enough, Mr. Wynham. I think that you may be truthful by naming Zhukov. My organization already had suspected him of double-dealing by an internal source. I will verify your claims and come back to you at a later time.” Rodrigo stood up and turned, walking toward the exit of the nondescript room. Before moving through the doorway at the far end of the room, he stopped abruptly, and faced Graham.
“However, there is an unresolved matter. I told you that you also needed to give me access to the encrypted partition on your neural implant. You didn’t, and must be punished.” With that the Inquisitor flipped the switch on the device in his hand and walked out of the room. The metal grate keeping the fire at bay was retracted a final time. The elements rushed out to meet exposed flesh and ragged clothing. Graham spasmed with horror and struggled violently. He tried to summon superhuman strength to break his bonds, but none came. The guttural moans and involuntary wails of his family being submitted to the all-consuming flame reverberated through the room. Skin and cloth ignited into open flame and the three figures were gradual enveloped by reddish-orange ensembles, fit for demons from the depths. The writhing, dancing, bright silhouettes were reflected in the anguish of Graham’s eyes. Graham passed out from the chaos of the scene, and the three hanging figures stirred no more. Graham’s body mirrored the motionlessness of the scene.
The ‘Database’ had skewed his perception of reality and his vow to not break had slipped away. Graham had thought that he had been robbed of his family that he had worked so hard to protect. All the work he had done was undone with but a flip of a switch.
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TURKEY SHOOT
The U.S.S. Iowa had been fighting through the Pacific theater for over a year. It had seen many actions and had been party to the bombardment of countless shores. Many of the opposition had fallen to its nine sixteen-inch, fifty-caliber guns. It had steamed all over the South Pacific, from nameless atolls to Saipan and Guam. The Iowa was now the flagship of Battle Division Seven, which was en route to the Mariana Islands. There had been a lull in engagements this week, and so the crew was getting some well deserved down time.
It was around mid-day, and the sky was clear, but the waters were choppy. The ships in the battle division left trails of black smoke and white wakes as they carved through the blue ocean. The odd seabird would fly overhead looking for scraps of food left on the weather decks. Lunch was served in the crew mess aboard the Iowa and hungry sailors formed queues for hot chow. Privates Burke and Jones had just finished receiving their rations slopped onto their trays and had snatched a small table by a porthole.
The chow consisted of a beef and kidney pie, in which the crust looked slightly burnt. Burke took a bite and noticed the bitterness of the kidney, he had to immediately wash it down with water. He decided that it was not his favorite dish, but he wasn’t going to starve. Private Jones, on the other hand, thought the pie delicious and practically inhaled his.
“Get this, I got a letter from my wife back in Chicago. She gave birth two weeks ago! I got a baby girl, man.” Jones looked slightly confused like he didn’t exactly know what was waiting for him when he got back to America.
“Hey, congratulations! Now you’ll have to make sure your sorry ass gets through this mess unscathed,” Burke joked, punching Jones in the shoulder.
“Yeah, that’s true. I’ll have a family. But, why couldn’t it have been a boy? I mean, I can’t play catch with a girl,” Jones complained. He shoveled another bite of kidney and crust into his mouth.
“You’ll figure it out.” Alexander Burke was desperate to change the subject. Burke didn’t want to hear Jones complain about what he had. After all Burke had nothing; no girl waiting for him. It got him thinking about Greta again. He wondered where she was stationed right now, and what she was up to. Burke wondered if she still thought of him. His thoughts turned to a darker shade. He hypothesized that Greta had probably met some handsome officer at the grill where they had their date. He couldn’t remember the name of the grill, then it came to him: The Ebbitt Grill. He hypothesized that Greta was swept off her feet, and married by now. She was supposed to have waited for him!
“You okay, Burke? You look all flushed,” Jones asked.
The question snapped Burke out of his day dream. He had eaten a little over half of his pie, but he couldn’t take it upon himself to finish.
“Remember when President Roosevelt was on the ship? Well, I heard they had installed a special bathtub because he’s crippled. Anyway, the Captain moved into those quarters. I bet he’s living it up in there.” Jones was a little jealous.
“Well, he is the president. I’d expect they’d give him special treatment,” Burke shrugged and pushed his tray away.
“I’m gonna be president one day. I’d kick all those pacifists and anarchist out of the country. You just watch.” Jones gloated, and crammed the last of the pie into his mouth.
“Welp, it is the land of opportunity. You can be whatever you want.” Burke thought Jones a bit of a moron, but a capable gunner. Burke tolerated Jones because he was less insufferable than most of the sailors on the Iowa, but he did at times, want to strangle Jones. The two had contributed to the operation of their gun turret through at least twelve engagements. The two worked very well together so they had grown close.
“Have you heard from that girl you used to talk about? What’s her name? Gina, Gale?” Jones tried to make conversation with Burke.
“Greta. Man, I told you, I have moved on.” He hadn’t. Burke thought about the women he had met during shore leave in the Pacific. The Japanese occupational forces had brutalized the populace wherever they had gone. In the Solomon Islands, the U.S.S. Iowa had made an extended port call. They had put in at the capital of Honiara, and the crew got several days shore leave. Burke had taken notice that the city center had a colonial English style to it. The American’s might have liberated the islands from their latest colonial masters, the Japanese, but Burke knew some history of the Solomon Islands. Previously they had been a British colony, so it seemed that the darker skinned inhabitants had been trading overlords for quite some time. Their faces corroborated this theory.
Burke had known something of the British history of the colony—how the British had found the Islands full of tribes that engaged in headhunting and cannibalism. Eventually, the private citizens had set up sugar cane plantations by the mid-Nineteenth century. They had employed a practice called “blackbirding”: where natives would be kidnaped and pressed into service on plantations. The natives had felt outraged by the practice, so there had been a series of massacres of plantation owners that had been carried out. To settle the disputes, the British government declared the islands a “protectorate” of the British crown, absorbing the Solomon Islands into the Empire, where they remained for fifty years until the Japanese invasion.
Burke had witnessed how families of the natives were desperate. They were presenting fourth teenage girls, for marriage to off-duty sailors. Many were taken advantage of by the sailors who had been cooped up around other men for months at a time. Families would get meager compensation for a few minutes of a sailor’s pleasure, and the girl, a lifetime of trauma. Burke had been lonely, and at a low point in Honiara. He had been very tempted to buy some time with one of these girls, but something had stopped him: an image of Greta’s face. Private Jones, on the other hand, had jumped right in.
“I’ll see ya Jones, I’m gonna get some fresh air.” Burke excused himself from the table.
“Do what ya gotta do,” Jones said nonchalantly.
Burke left the busy mess. He stepped out onto the weather deck and looked over the bulwark. The ocean water was being cut in two by the Iowa and reforming in its wake. Burke pulled a cigarette from a crumpled pack rolled in his sleeve and lit it. He took a quick drag and exhaled, releasing a trail of smoke. He peered off into the distance and could make out the profiles of other battleships, destroyers, and cruisers that made up the anti-aircraft screen for the
carriers in the battle division. All the vessels were steaming in a vast chevron formation.
Burke thought how this battle group was an overwhelming force. He remembered that just two years ago the US Navy was barely present in the Pacific and that they had nearly lost at Midway, but now it was a massive, seaborne colony. There was no stopping the machine. He almost felt guilty being part of such an unbeatable force. The numbers alone spoke the truth: the population of the U.S. was roughly one hundred and twenty-three million, whereas the population of Japan, at the most, was thirty-four million. There was no contest in numbers. Burke figured the American economy dwarfed that of Japan’s. In fact the more he thought about it the more he worried about lives of his enemy. Their cultural values made it nearly impossible for them to surrender. Burke had read about the travels of Commodore Perry in the mid-Nineteenth Century. He oversaw an American expedition to expand U.S. trade into Japan. At the time, Japan was closed off from the rest of the world and maintained a medieval, feudal system that had little changed in the last four hundred years. Japan had refused to let merchants from the West into their ports and they had cast out foreigners and Christians in previous centuries. America, during the early 1850s, was undergoing a period of rapid expansion—they were eager to play the imperial game against the great powers of Europe. New markets had been needed, but the world was quickly running out of new markets. Japan was an untapped market.
Commodore Perry had sailed his steam-powered battleships into Tokyo Bay and pointed his guns toward the capital, Edo. The Japanese Emperor refused access to the Americans and demanded that they leave. That was not in the Commodore’s plans. Perry demonstrated the destructive force of his battleships by ordering some structures near the waterfront shelled. His fleet opened up, reducing the buildings within minutes, with huge balls of fire. The Japanese were forced to capitulate. Ironically the opening of their ports, the destruction of the Samurai class, and the training and modernization of the Japanese military, would eventual lead to the creation of America’s greatest enemy to date, The Empire of Japan. Burke thought that things had come full circle.
Burke took the last drag from his cigarette, smashed it against the guardrail and threw it into the water below. He wondered why his country had been so surprised by Japanese aggression, after all, they were just doing what their western predecessors had been doing for centuries: carving out an empire for themselves using modern armies. Burke left the weather deck and headed toward the Mark Seven turret toward the bow of the ship. He strolled lazily along the ship, the air was warm and made him feel drowsy like he could take a nap on deck. Just as he was finished appreciating this moment, the emergency klaxon sounded. There was an announcement to report to action stations. The Japanese Central fleet had been spotted by scout planes and it was a matter of hours before the two forces clashed. Private Burke picked up the pace and ran toward his turret. He entered and performed his equipment checks. He primed the projectile rammer and waited for a briefing.
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The bridge of the U.S.S. Iowa was abuzz with activity. Ensigns shot radio communications in every direction to coordinate with ships in the anti-aircraft screen, officers from the various parts of the ship rushed to deliver progress reports and the new captain, Allan McCann, gazed upon the tactical situation table, which plotted the position of friendly and hostile forces. He mulled over the information that he had received from the scout planes. The situation did not look good. The battle division was brought in to support the U.S. Army and Marine’s amphibious assaults of the Mariana Islands. The Japanese Mobile fleet had been detected steaming through the San Bernardino Strait and pouring into the western Philippine Sea. Captain McCann could see that the enemy force was at a disadvantage with respect to the number of aircraft carriers, but island-based aircraft in the Mariana Islands airbases the Japanese had constructed previously supported them. The Captain anticipated that this engagement could swing either way.
Captain McCann received word that among the Japanese carrier defense screen was the Yamato class, super battleship, The Musashi. McCann surmised that if the U.S.S. Iowa came up against the Musashi that they would be destroyed. It would take a battle group alone to destroy it. He had hoped that he would get a chance to engage it in the coming battle. Captain McCann had read a profile on the Japanese captain of the Musashi, Toshihira Inoguchi. He knew that Inoguchi was a formidable seaman and that his actions on the Musashi had saved carriers on numerous occasions. McCann desired to go head to head with this worthy opponent.
“Ensign, can you confirm the number of carriers in the Japanese Mobile fleet? ” the Captain requested, supporting himself with his hands laid on the edges of the tactical situation table.
“Sir, The Japanese fleet contains three fleet carriers and four light carriers. They are Taihō, Shōkaku, and Zuikaku. We don’t currently have an identification yet on the four light carriers. We estimate their carrier aircraft strength at around four hundred, and at least that number at the surrounding island airbases,” the ensign reported.
“Thank you, ensign.” Captain McCann felt a sense of dread and elation at once. The time was fast approaching, and he would be in the thick of it.
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Captain Toshihira Inoguchi, raised a small lacquered cup filled with rice wine in a toast with his officers in the wardroom. They were aboard the Musashi, a Yamato class, super battleship. It was one of the three sister ships, the other two being the Yamato and Shinano. The Shinano was no longer a battleship; it had been converted to a carrier. The senior officers were toasting the Emperor of Japan, who was considered a living god. Inoguchi, of course, never really believed this. But, he understood the concept as a valuable political tool for absolute power. Without it, the ruling class could never have developed the most modern and strongest military in Asia. Inoguchi also knew that the Emperor and the government leadership were fools to think that they could prevail in this conflict with the United States if they continued to fight. Captain Inoguchi had a sinking feeling that this could be the engagement that would break his country’s capability to fight offensively. His force was being committed—all in—for one last gamble.
“Fellow officer’s of his Majesty, Emperor Tojo’s Navy, as the flagship of the Japanese Mobile fleet we have been tasked to spearhead the defense of our Marianas Islands bases. The Americans have assembled a massive invasion force and are poised to expel us from the islands unless our navy acts quickly and decisively. Now, I will not lie to you. Our forces are inferior, we are outnumbered in both aircraft and ships. Also, we are dwarfed in supplies compared to our American adversaries. Therefore, our actions here must be born of efficiency and creativity. Not only that, but they must also be executed perfectly—no room for error. The very existence of the Japanese state depends on your insistence upon perfection.
If each and every officer here pushes his men to make no mistakes and carry out the plan to the letter, then there is a possibility that we can defeat the Americans in this place, and force them to the negotiating table, especially if we can break through their screen and defeat their carriers. So, my officers, go forth and do your duty, and let’s deliver this victory over our foes for the glory of our Emperor and the preservation of our heritage!”
“Bonzai! Bonzai!” the officers cried while they downed their rice wine. The officers filed out of the wardroom and rushed towards their positions of command. The Musashi was the vanguard of a massive anti-aircraft screen. The Plan that Admiral Ozawa and Captain Inoguchi, who had been promoted to Rear Admiral, had devised would use the two super battleships, the Musashi, and Yamato, to smash through the inferior ships of the American picket line while the carrier and land-based Japanese aircraft would engage from the air. The Admirals were expecting the surface craft to make the break through and engage the American carriers. If this objective did not materialize then the battle would be lost.
Inoguchi composed himself and said a prayer to his Christian God. He then left t
he wardroom and met up with his personal detail that escorted him to the bridge. Inoguchi moved to the Conn and stood upright while taking stock of the bridge and crew. The intent faces of ensigns stared back, awaiting his order to proceed. Inoguchi cycled through their faces then gave the order, “Full and by.” The roar of numerous aircraft could be heard overhead as Mitsubishi Zeros swarmed by on aerial patrol duties. The picket line of battleships, destroyers, heavy cruisers and support craft groaned into action and struggled to carve a swathe through the textured waters. Steam and smoke swirled from the stacks of the ships. Millions of tons of mineral ore that had been torn out of the earth, molded and forged, assembled and welded into the culmination of a nation’s industrial effort to impose its will on a rival was present on the waves. In all of human history, there had never been such an undertaking as the rival fleets that had been assembled by the two dominant powers at this moment in time. Each ship present in the water supported the population of a village.
Earlier that day scout aircraft had been launched by Japanese forces to locate the American task force that had the mission of blocking the Japanese fleet from engaging the Marianas Island invasion force. And so, with the American’s position known, the only thing left was to close the distance and engage in the “Kantai Kessen”, or the decisive engagement. American scout craft and submarines had done the same and had also located the steaming Japanese fleet. So they had set course to meet them head on. All the pieces were set, and it was just a matter of time now.
“Steady as she goes,” Captain Inoguchi had guided. The waves were gentle on the massive battleship as it forged its way ahead. The Captain had observed that the day was ironically calm for the prelude to a Wagneresque battle. It did not provide an omen ill or favorable to him, it seemed all signs from the Lord were neutral on this day. Inoguchi consoled himself with this observation.