Final impact

There was one loose end left, however. The Nagano itself. While her crew remained unaware of the guardian angel that had shepherded them north, the ship could still not be allowed to return home. After-action analysis of her mission would reveal a very large question mark over how she’d have survived the hazardous, high-speed run to deliver her suicide planes.

“I suppose if I were Lord Nelson, I would just put a telescope to my blind eye and pretend I hadn’t seen anything,” said Willet.

“But you’re not, are you, ma’am?” said Flemming.

“Nope. Weapons, still got a target lock?”

“On six tubes, ma’am. Programmed for simultaneous impact.”

“Very good. Fire them all. Now.”

The weapons sysop swept his fingers across a touch screen, lighting up six icons, before thumbing a final command. The sub vibrated slightly as all the warshots left their tubes at the same time.

“Why do you think they lit Tokyo?” asked Flemming as they waited for the kill.

She shrugged. “Temporary madness. Show of strength. Vengeance for Okhotsk. Who knows with the Sovs? They’re a bunch of fucking Klingons, those guys.”

The ADCAP torpedoes closed the gap to their prey quickly. A drone at sixty-five hundred meters followed the Nagano in LLAMPS vision, and the ship’s Combat Intelligence provided a simulated display of the attack on another screen. Less than a minute after launch all six warheads simultaneously struck the refitted kamikaze transporter deep below the waterline, detonating with such force that the vessel completely disintegrated.

“Good shooting, everyone,” said Willet. “Now what do we have on the threat boards?”

“Nothing immediate,” her executive officer reported.

Willet sighed, feeling tired and hollow.

“Okay, that’s good. We’ll need to linger a little while and ensure there are no survivors.”

D-DAY + 44. 16 JUNE 1944. 0633 HOURS.

USS HILLARY CLINTON, PACIFIC AREA OF OPERATIONS.

The picture of his wife was real, not a quantum image on a thin-screen. Protected by a small sheet of glass, housed in a simple dark wooden frame, Marie Kolhammer smiled out at her husband from across the gulf of time. She was sitting at a garden table on the back deck of their house in Santa Monica, a light lunch of bread, cheese, and fruit laid out in front of her. A half-filled glass of white wine in her hand. He had taken the snap the last time he’d been home, just before leaving for the Timor deployment.

Admiral Phillip Kolhammer wondered where his wife was now. The idea of another world, of his world, remained strong with him. Shortly after he’d arrived here he’d spoken with Albert Einstein, who’d assured him that in a way his wife was closer to him than the shirt on his back. The idea kept him from going mad with grief.

Many of his colleagues had adapted to their new lives in the past. Some, like Mike Judge and Karen Halabi, had found companions from among the thousands of men and women who’d come through Manning Pope’s wormhole. Others had partnered up with locals, and as with all relationships some had worked and some hadn’t. That was just the way of things. He would be nothing like that, however. Kolhammer kissed the image of his wife before rubbing the impression of his lips off the glass with a shirt cuff and replacing the old-fashioned photograph on his desk. He and Marie had often discussed what would happen if one of them was lost to the other, and in all of their discussions it had been implicit that she would be the one left behind. They had joked about it gently. Him saying that he was too wrinkled and salty and goddamn rough-headed to attract another woman foolish enough to marry him. While Marie had always insisted there could not be a more “difficult” woman than her in any of the continental states. They had known that whatever happened, there could be no others for them.

A deep breath, held for too long, escaped him.

“Oh darlin’, I do miss you…,” he said softly.

His PA, Lieutenant Liao, appeared in the doorway, coughing discreetly. “General Jones is here, Admiral.”

“Thanks, Willy, send him through.”

The commander of the Eighty-second stepped past the lieutenant into Kolhammer’s day cabin, saluting and standing at attention. Kolhammer waved him in and bid him to sit down on the old brown couch across from his desk.

“Well, Lonesome, are you disappointed?”

Jones let the formality run out of his posture. They were old friends now. “Disappointed at what, Admiral? Not getting killed? Not getting my boys and girls killed? No. Of course not. Some of the youngsters are pissed as hell. But they’ll get over it. I’m already proud of them. And as we both know, there’ll be time and opportunity enough for getting killed in the future.”

“Oh yeah,” said Kolhammer. “There’ll be plenty of that.”

He stood up and made his way over to a side table. A small plate of cookies sat next to a gurgling coffeepot. A new one, just out of the States.