Weapons of Choice

by John Birmingham

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The young man saluted and hurried away.

  “Captain?”

  Francois turned toward the deep bass of Colonel Jones’s voice, acknowledging him with a tired salute.

  “You need anything down here, Doc?” he asked.

  “Some answers would be good,” she said a touch bitterly. “Failing that, more burn gel and vat tissue. We’re going to need plenty of both.”

  Jones rubbed his shaved head in frustration. “How many of our people are down?” he asked, meaning the battalion.

  “Sixty-two dead,” she replied without hesitating. “Another fifty-three wounded. Mostly from blast effects, but a few were just unlucky. Happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “At the Transition point?”

  “If that’s what we’re calling it, yeah.”

  A man lying in a bed nearby suddenly howled like a wounded animal. Francois hurried over, reaching him before anyone else. His uniform had been stripped so there was no way of telling to whom he belonged by just looking at him. A quick scan with a sensor wand told her he had no inserts, which meant he almost certainly came off an old ship. A transmitter node on the bed beamed his data to her flexipad: Leading Seaman Murray Belknap, one broken hip, seven broken ribs, a ruptured spleen and second-degree burns to 15 percent of his body. A trauma team arrived as she finished reading his slate.

  “We got him, Captain,” one of them shouted.

  Jones took Francois by the arm and steered her away.

  “Let them work, Margie. You’ve trained them well. Give them some room. You can’t lay hands on everybody who comes in. You got the bigger picture to keep you up nights.”

  “I know,” she admitted. “You just get into the groove, that’s all.”

  “I understand. How many of the locals do you have with you here?”

  “Nearly three hundred here, just a shade under two thousand spread out through the rest of the fleet. We’re at capacity now. We’ve starting taking over the sleeping quarters.”

  Jones nodded. “And how many are we going to lose? For certain?”

  Francois took a few seconds to think it over. She consulted her flexipad for a minute after that before answering. “My best guess at this stage, we’ll lose about eight percent.”

  “Okay, better than I’d expected.”

  Jones didn’t insult her with any platitudes about trying harder. He knew her well. She’d give it everything she had.

  Francois just hoped it would be enough.

  14

  HIJMS YAMATO, 0146 HOURS, 3 JUNE 1942

  Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was incandescent with rage. A lesser man might have howled like a dog and hammered at the bare bulkhead until his fists were mashed into a bloody pulp. He had not wanted this war! He had not wanted the glorious baubles and empty honors that had poured on his head after the victory at Pearl Harbor. He had not wanted them, because he suspected they would lead to utter ruin.

  The United States of America was a colossus that he had little chance of besting in a fair fight. He knew in his heart that the only hope was one decisive engagement, the Kessen Kantai, which would leave the Americans so stunned, naked, and bleeding that they would have to sue for peace.

  But it was a tremendous gamble. The life of a nation bet on the turn of a card. And now this oaf, this fool, this butcher’s bastard son Kakuta had lost his mind and upturned the entire card table.

  He examined the lengthy radio transcript. The radio! He cursed volubly and at great length. Eavesdroppers be damned! How many times had he stressed the importance of maintaining absolute radio silence, lest the Americans unravel his plot before it ensnared them. His thick, calloused hands, the left one missing two fingers, were shaking with fury as he reread the message.

  Kakuta had turned the entire Second Carrier Striking Force around and was heading back toward the Home Islands. Admiral Hosogaya’s Northern Force was following, in great confusion. Kakuta was demanding—demanding!—that Yamamoto order his own Main Force and Nagumo’s First Carrier Striking Force to turn tail and make for Hashirajima with all dispatch. And he was flying—flying!—back to the battleship Yamato to personally brief the commander of the Combined Fleet on some supposedly momentous development that had necessitated all of this.

  The only momentous development Yamamoto could see in Admiral Kakuta’s future was his inescapable beheading when they fished him from the sea beside the Yamato. Or had he forgotten, in his derangement, that the Yamato was a battleship, not an aircraft carrier.

  Yamamoto crushed the paper in his good right hand. He had read it so many times now that he could probably recite its litany of delirium from memory. Kakuta said the Americans had broken the JN25 code and were waiting in ambush for Nagumo’s flattops. An unsettling development, if true, but then the whole reason for their being out here in this hellish weather was to engage the Americans in decisive battle and sweep away the last remnants of their fleet. So what did it matter if they were waiting? He had assembled the greatest naval force since Jutland. Its sheer mass would crush them, even without the benefit of surprise.

  Perhaps the answer lay there. The U.S. Navy would surely know they were coming, now that Kakuta had blurted his plans to the heavens. But he had gained the Ryujo and the Junyo to augment Nagumo’s force. How could they hope to resist six fleet carriers and dozens of heavy battleships and cruisers with the few tin toys they had left? Perhaps another gamble might bring even greater rewards, against greater odds.

  He drew a deep, cleansing breath, focused on finding his center, his hara. He would need to move quickly. Plans would have to be remade on the run. There was so little time that he might not even be able to spare a minute to watch Kakuta’s execution.

  IN FLIGHT, 0212 HOURS, 3 JUNE 1942

  The Eurocopter Panther 2E hammered through the fog about two hundred meters off the surface of the ocean. Kakuta and Hidaka were strapped into seats in the bay, where they could look forward to the cockpit. The old admiral found himself continually craning around to gawk at the multiplicity of illuminated displays, wondering how the pilots managed to keep on top of them all. The Indonesian, Moertopo, who seemed more and more subdued as the distance from his own ship grew, repeatedly assured him that they would not lose themselves in the vastness of the northern Pacific. He conceded that the “GPS” was gone, whatever that meant, but said that he had faith in something called “SINS” to bring them within a short distance of Yamamoto’s Main Force.

  Moertopo also assured them that the helicopter’s “radar” would have no trouble finding a body of iron as substantial as that, even though it lay many miles away. Furthermore, he said, they were far enough from their erstwhile colleagues at Midway that any “radar leakage” would not be detected.

  Kakuta’s heart lurched every time he imagined having to explain all this to Admiral Yamamoto. He felt like a bug that had nipped the toe of a giant. There was a chance that the admiral would be so incensed by his actions that he would shoot them out of the sky. For his part, he had assured the Indonesians that he could forestall such precipitate action, but privately he had his doubts.

  Hidaka seemed more sanguine. He had the heart of a true samurai, and Kakuta hoped that whatever came of this, no dishonor would attach itself to his favored protégé.

  Lieutenant Moertopo pressed a hand to one ear.

  “The pilot reports that we are one hundred and sixty kilometers out, Admiral. We should be able to establish a secure tightbeam contact at this distance.”

  The sound of Hidaka’s translation came through beautifully clear on the lightweight headset they had provided him. Another small piece of evidence in favor of this whole crazed scenario.

  “And so I am to just speak into this little twig?” he asked, tapping the slim metal rod that reached around to the corner of his mouth.

  Moertopo held up his hand until the copilot gave him the sign that they had broken into the Yamato’s frequency. He pointed a finger at
Kakuta and nodded.

  “Yamato. Yamato. This is Admiral Kakuta. Commander of the Second Carrier Striking Fleet. This is Admiral Kakuta of the Second Carrier Striking Fleet. We are flying inbound on a heading of two-four-three relative to your position. Please acknowledge this transmission.”

  “This is Chief Signals Officer Wada,” came the startlingly clear reply. “Stand by.”

  The men in the helicopter waited as a full minute dragged by. They were all tense, even though they still sat well outside the range of the fleet’s antiair defenses. Moertopo had explained that they might not have sufficient fuel for a round trip to the Yamato and back. The Panther bucked violently on turbulence, adding to the stress. Admiral Kakuta was about to repeat his message when a cold, angry voice filled his headset. It was like having the commander in chief growl into his face from just a few inches away.

  “So, Kakuta,” rumbled Isoroku Yamamoto. “You have broken radio silence again.”

  “Yes, Admiral . . .”

  At this point, Kakuta’s nerve failed him. He groped for the right words to carry them through the next few minutes, and nothing came. The roar of the Panther’s engine filled the warm, close space. He was acutely aware of the vibration of the airframe and the eyes of the men around him, boring in, urging him to speak. But what could he say that would not mark him as a lunatic? The right form of words. That was all he needed. Their refusal to take shape in his mind was absolutely maddening. He might never . . .

  “Admiral Yamamoto.”

  It was Hidaka.

  “Who is this?” Yamamoto demanded.

  “Lieutenant Commander Jisaku Hidaka, of the Ryujo, sir. I am accompanying Admiral Kakuta on this mission. It was on my initiative that we undertook it.”

  “No!” mouthed Kakuta as his subordinate bared his neck to the blade. The dishonor of allowing one’s inferior to accept blame for such a perilous scheme—he might never live it down.

  “So,” snarled Yamamoto. “Another mutineer. Or are you just a maniac, Commander?”

  “You will think us both maniacs, initially, Admiral. But we have come as saviors. If we speak falsely, let the spirits of our ancestors bear the shame.”

  “Oh, they shall bear a heavy burden of shame, believe me, Hidaka.”

  “I believe not, Admiral. You were steaming toward defeat and catastrophe. We can avert that, if you will just hear us out.”

  “I am listening. No doubt the Americans are listening, as well. The whole world is waiting on you, Lieutenant Commander Hidaka.”

  “Here we are now, entertain us,” Moertopo sung under his breath.

  Hidaka shot him a withering look. The reference meant nothing to him, but the potentially disastrous effect of that one line of English did not bear thinking about.

  “Admiral Yamamoto, begging your pardon, but we shall not even attempt to explain ourselves over the radio. It would be futile. We shall be over your position in approximately twenty minutes. We shall maneuver to land in front of your forward eighteen-inch turrets. I am informed it will be a very dangerous approach. The pilot requests that you adjust your heading in order to place the wind across your decks.”

  “It will be more than dangerous,” exclaimed Yamamoto. “It will be fatal. You cannot land a seaplane on a battleship. I am warning you. I will have you shot down if you approach the Yamato.”

  “We are not in a seaplane, and we can land without damaging the Yamato. Please do not shoot us down. You will soon understand. Hidaka out.”

  He drew his fingers across his throat, motioning Moertopo to sever the link.

  The commander in chief was cut off mid-rant.

  Admiral Kakuta stared at him as though he had just lost his mind. Nobody spoke to Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto like that.

  Hidaka gestured helplessly.

  “From what I have heard, the Admiral is a gambler. So am I.”

  Yamamoto’s mouth opened and closed. Opened and closed. But no sound emerged.

  Perhaps they could land on the Yamato after all. That thing, that giant insect in which Kakuta had so quickly navigated across fifteen hundred kilometers of fog-shrouded sea—and at night!—it seemed to hang in the air as if suspended from a thread. No. No it didn’t seem to hang in the air. It simply did hang there.

  The seas were running at two and a half meters. The bulk of the Yamato would pass through a single wave as though it were composed of nothing more than smoke. But over the long haul from Hashirajima the ceaseless roll of the northern Pacific had imparted a long and rhythmic plunging motion to the sixty-five-thousand-tonne battleship. Yamamoto, who had quietly ordered the ship brought around when he had finally laid eyes on Kakuta’s mysterious “seaplane,” stood transfixed in the freezing night air as the pilot hovered over the forecastle. The aircraft dipped when the bow dipped. Rose when it rose. It was almost as though the pilot were dancing with the hulking behemoth beneath his wheels.

  Admiral Yamamoto, Captain Takayanagi, all of the officers who had assembled on the high walkway were mesmerized, watching to see if the strange wingless plane would falter, to be slapped from the sky by a rogue surge of the deck. How the pilot could see through the darkness and the typhoon of spray thrown up by that huge propeller was anyone’s guess.

  But clearly, he could. With one last skillful dip, the craft settled onto the deck and the roar died away as the pilot cut power to the engine. As if by sorcery, giant propeller blades materialized above the cockpit, revealing how this miraculous device stayed aloft. A dozen sailors ran forward with ropes to lash the thing to the deck.

  KRI SUTANTO, 0237 HOURS, 3 JUNE 1942

  “Ensign Tomonagi, come quickly, the captain is stirring.”

  Tomonagi followed the crewman back into the wardroom of the Sutanto, where the man whom Moertopo had identified as the ship’s commanding officer was indeed throwing off his coma-like unconsciousness.

  Tomonagi’s stomach heaved, and a thin, greasy film of sweat quickly lacquered his forehead. But Commander Hidaka’s instruction has been quite explicit.

  “You two, quickly!” he barked at a couple of his own sailors. “Grab him and follow me.”

  A handful of Indonesian ratings who tried to help with their skipper were roughly forced back by armed guards.

  “We shall take care of him,” Tomonagi declared. “Go back to your duties.”

  None of them understood a word he said, but the tone was unmistakable. Reluctantly they stood by as their captain was carried from the room, his body convulsing in the arms of the sailors who bore him away.

  Tomonagi led the small party out into the fresh air and over to the plasteel safety rail. He looked around for witnesses but apart from another Japanese sentry, there were none. He nodded at the sailors, who heaved Captain Djuanda over the side. They heard the impact very clearly as his body hit the icy waters. There was no scream.

  HIJMS YAMATO, 0328 HOURS, 3 JUNE 1942

  Lieutenant Ali Moertopo didn’t know enough about Admiral Yamamoto to be awed. His flagship, the battleship Yamato—now, that was awesome. But the man himself just looked like another pissed-off sushi chef. He’d come to recognize the type. It appeared as if they were all over this ocean.

  Moertopo stood beside and slightly behind Commander Hidaka in the planning room of the Yamato, a huge space to the eyes of somebody who had been confined to a comparatively tiny ship like the Sutanto. Before them lay a large table with a map of the Pacific covered in little wooden boats and flags, symbolizing the disposition of hundreds of Japanese naval vessels, surging across the empty wastes of the northern Pacific. Now, apparently, they were in disarray, and the men responsible were facing a solid wall of dark uniforms and darker faces.

  Overhead, lights glinted off Yamamoto’s shaven head as he listened to Kakuta and Hidaka attempt to explain themselves. The grand admiral’s face remained utterly impassive, but the men around him glowered with increasing degrees of incredulity and umbrage. When Kakuta finally fell silent, a terrible, ticking stillness blanketed the g
athering.

  “And you, Lieutenant Moertopo. What say you of all this?” asked Yamamoto at last in thickly accented, but otherwise flawless English.

  Moertopo, who had quickly downloaded everything he could find on Yamamoto and Midway from the Sutanto’s Fleetnet storage banks, wasn’t surprised by the man’s grasp of the language. He now knew that Yamamoto had studied at Harvard, and later worked in Washington. But he was nevertheless shocked at being spoken to directly by the supreme commander of the Combined Fleet. He had been rather looking forward to keeping his opinions to himself. Hidaka prodded him forward.

  “What do you want me to say . . . sir?”

  “Do you really expect me to believe that you are from the future?”

  “No.”

  “Then why waste my time with this fiddle-faddle?”

  Moertopo thought he understood the slant of the question, even though it had been phrased so oddly.

  “I do not expect you to believe it. But it is true. I was born in nineteen ninety-seven.”

  “I see.”

  The room again fell into uncomfortable silence.

  “And how did you come to be here?” asked Yamamoto after a short interlude.

  “I do not know,” Moertopo answered truthfully. “But here I am.”

  “And here your friends are, too, the Americans,” Yamamoto stated flatly.

  “You believe that?”

  “Our radio intelligence has detected a very large volume of traffic from the Midway area. A battle has been fought there. But not by us.”

  Moertopo quickly scanned the faces behind Yamamoto, hoping for some sign of how to play this. All he found, however, was a wall of anger and suspicion.

  “We picked up those signals ourselves,” said Moertopo. “It appears that the Americans have hurt each other very badly.”

  Again, his answers brought no measurable response from Yamamoto or his staff. Moertopo had been hoping that they might tip a couple of flexipads onto the table, maybe a history book or two and couple of pirate video sticks—he’d even managed to locate a copy of Tora Tora Tora—after which the locals would offer him a nice warm sake and couple of horny geisha girls to welcome their new best friend to the original axis of evil.