Weapons of choice

"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 his 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.