Designated Targets

She wouldn’t normally stray into a place like this, but Curtis was on a short leash, and had to get back to his office. He had a new job writing training manuals for ’temps who were posted to twenty-first units. It bored him witless, and he was just marking time until his request for a transfer to the Zone came through. He’d passed the prelims for flight training and was hell-bent to fly jets when they came online. In fact, it was all he could talk about. Rosanna’s eyes glazed over as he squirreled on about the new F-86.

“. . . . and they’re building them with ejector seats and drop tanks. They even reckon they’ll have heat seekers ready by the time the first squadrons are . . .”

Rosanna just said, “Uh-hm,” and gazed out over the sea. The best thing about this skanky bar was the view. It went on for about a thousand miles, and on a clear day you’d think you could see China if you stood on your chair and squinted. Nodding and smiling and throwing in the occasional comment—Oh wow, really? That’s amazing!—just to show that she was still actively listening. Really, though, she was just breathing in the fresh air and trying not to let the sun make her too drowsy.

She had a couple of hours of video from Julia to edit that afternoon, for telerecording onto film. They’d cut a deal with Movietone for a one-hour newsreel on MacArthur’s Brisbane Line. Rosanna had been worried that they’d end up having to make some tragic fucking forties period piece, complete with a patronizing voice-over and racist stereotyping. But the Movietone guys had been surprisingly cool.

They’d—

She was probably the first one in the bar to see it coming. Her Mambo sunblades completely nixed the glare of the day. A micron-thin layer of polychromatic film in the lens gave her sharper vision than a healthy eagle. First she saw the shock wave blasting across the calm bowl of the ocean, out near the horizon.

“Shit!” she cried out, jumping off her stool and knocking it to the floor. “Get down! Everyone get the fuck down now! Incoming!”

She dropped to the floor, pulling Curtis down with her, yelling at him to breathe out, close his eyes, and plug his ears.

“But why—”

“Just do it!”

At Mach 5, the pressure wave generated by the Laval swarm could have demolished the palm-frond-and-bamboo-trunk structure, and killed everyone inside. But the missiles flashed on past, crossing the coast a few miles away as they headed inland. The sonic boom was still severe enough to shred the eardrums of everyone who hadn’t taken her advice, and even she could hardly hear the screams of the other patrons thanks to the ringing in her ears.

Once she was sure the missiles were gone, she grabbed Curtis by the collar of his shirt and dragged him to his feet. “Come on!” she shouted. “We’ve got to get going.”

Curtis was moving his jaw and slowly squeezing his eyes open and shut. He had no idea what had just happened. “Did we get bombed again? Did they come back?”

“Not exactly, Curtis. But you’re a lucky guy. I’ll bet those missiles are heading for Pearl.”

Then the ground shook with the force of a volcanic event. The sound rolled over them, like that of a planet cracking open.

“I’ve got to get back to the base,” Curtis cried out.

“Don’t bother,” said Rosanna. “It’s not there anymore.”

PACIFIC THEATER OF OPERATIONS

“Hurry up, faster—schnell, schnell.”

Hidaka had no idea whether the helmsman, the sole surviving Frenchman on board, understood him or knew what he was doing. The giant barbarian had sworn up a storm when he’d rushed into the CIC.

Three Indonesians and a German lieutenant commander followed on his heels, all of them pulling up sharply at the sight of the killing room. The Nazi spoke a little English. Just enough to infuriate Hidaka as he tried to explain that he wanted to slow down the movies from the missiles.

They’d pushed the helmsman into Danton’s old seat and the German, whose name tag identified him as Bremmer, relayed instruction in French. It might have been laughable, if the fate of the world weren’t hanging in the balance.

The two Europeans bickered and sniped at each other. More of the screens blinked over to white noise as the missiles detonated. And still Hidaka couldn’t tell whether Danton had interfered with the attack before attempting to murder them all.

The helmsman directed a spray of unintelligible abuse at Bremmer before waving his arms at the main display. Hidaka’s mood went through a swooping series of dives and loops as he saw that the replays were running much more slowly, and that some of the missiles seemed to do exactly as they ought. But others appeared to drive themselves into the sides of mountains or open fields.

“Again, again,” he demanded.

Bremmer relayed the instructions, and the movie was rewound—no, replayed, as he corrected himself.