Weapons of Choice — Axis Of Time Book I

by John Birmingham

  As he lingered over the last minutes of a short break in the officers’ mess of USS Kandahar, Jones watched an immensely satisfying flexipad vid of his beloved Bulls stomping the shit out of the hopelessly outclassed Knicks. These few minutes of real life he allowed himself each day were sacrosanct.

  So it was that two young marine officers who entered the mess made their way as quietly as possible to the far side of the room. There they placed an order with the steward for a round of burgers and fries. They filled mugs of standard-issue instant coffee from a quietly bubbling urn, lest the hissing of the espresso machine distract the old man and lead to an unwelcome round of ferocious ass-chewage. Second Lieutenants Henry Chen and Biff Hannon were keenly aware of the colonel’s reputation, both of them from firsthand experience.

  Consequently both men nibbled quietly at their burgers like communion wafers, all the while maintaining a very low profile.

  Jones was aware of them but didn’t attend to their presence until he had disposed of the sports downloads, the local Chicago news, and the global updates, in that order. When his free time was up he stood, stretched, and slipped into character.

  “Good morning gentlemen,” he purred, turning on his two officers and frowning at their fatty meals. “You’re training with the SAS again today?”

  They both nodded. “Sir.”

  “Well, I hope you’re not going to allow those sneaky bastards to kick your asses quite so badly this time.”

  Both men bristled.

  “We’ve worked up a few surprises, Colonel,” Chen quickly assured him.

  “Surprises? That’s good,” Jones said, deadpanning the pair. “Because I was very disappointed that anyone could get the better of one of my units, get close enough in fact to light up the farts of the officer in charge.”

  The color drained out of their faces as they regarded his fixed, humorless stare. Jones paused without speaking, knowing his silence would be infinitely more effective. Eventually, a blushing Lieutenant Hannon stammered something about not letting it happen again. Jones let his stone face rest on the young officer for a moment, then softened it some. Just a touch.

  “But it will, son,” he said. “It’ll happen again today. They’ll come upon you no matter what snares you lay in their path, and they’ll have their evil way with you. Do you know why?”

  Neither man spoke. They simply shook their heads.

  As Jones leaned in toward his young charges, the lights in the room dipped for a moment. Damn, almost like I staged it, he thought.

  “They’ll make you their bitches because they can,” he said softly. “I’ve served with some of those men. They’re older than you in ways you can’t even imagine. They’ve fought their whole lives. They’ve been making war while you have merely been preparing for war, pretending at war.”

  The lights surged up to full power again and he leaned back, rolling with the moment. “I don’t really expect you to win today, gentlemen,” he continued, outwardly somber. “You’d make your old man very happy if you did, of course. But I do expect you to improve. Dramatically. I expect you to learn from your training. And I expect that training to be carried out as though you are at war—and not just pretending. Because at war is where we may be, very soon.”

  “You think the Chinese will move in, sir?” Chen asked in a paper-thin attempt to deflect the old man’s attention.

  “I don’t know what the Chinese will do, Lieutenant. But I’ll prepare for the worst, and dare the good Lord to disappoint me,” he said.

  A fraction of a second later a pure, obsidian blackness swallowed them whole.

  HMAS HAVOC, 1235 HOURS, 15 JANUARY 2021

  Captain Harry Windsor was growing used to the relatively spacious surroundings of the submarine. She was a monster, stealthy and huge, kitted out to operate far from home, and for months at a time. Indeed, her clean fusion drive meant that were it not for the need to re-arm the torpedo bays and refill the galley, the Havoc could stay out indefinitely. The Aussies told him there had been even more room before a refit had crammed a bunch of cruise missiles into their video lounge.

  Oh well, he thought. Things have gone pear-shaped all over.

  He was just happy to have enough space to work through an abbreviated series of kata before a scrub-down and a feed. He could hear St. Clair rustling around behind him, making a god-awful racket, looking for Christ knows what.

  Temper, temper. He was beginning to sound more like his grandfather—a famously cranky old bugger, as he recalled fondly.

  Resettling his thoughts, he worked through a full suite of atemi waza, striking techniques from the Danzan jujitsu ryu. After a quarter hour during which the world contracted to the small circle in which he moved, he forced one last, great breath out from deep within his hara, bowed to the memory of his sensei and the spirits of the ryu, and cast around for Viv, who had disappeared.

  Harry squeezed himself into the cramped unisex shower, washed quickly, and changed into a T-shirt and sweats. It would be a few more hours before the night’s exercise began, and there was no point sitting around in his kit. He made his way through to the mess and found Sergeant St. Clair taunting an Australian submariner. They were discussing the chances of the locals rescuing the final cricket test of the 2021 series under the dome in Sydney. How sweet it is, thought Harry, to finally have a first eleven worth following after decades of humiliation. And that England’s cricket revival should actually come Downunder . . . well, that was the sweetest victory of all.

  “Guvnor, this idiot is offering two to one against our boys in Sydney,” cried St. Clair. “True, it’s only Australian money, but I think we’re morally bound to relieve him of it anyway.”

  The Australian, an engineer at the end of his watch, grinned at Windsor like a hungry shark. “If your lordship would care to back his loyal subjects?”

  God, but they do take the piss, Harry thought, as the lights dipped and the cook began cursing at his microwave oven. A short time later the lights returned to normal.

  “Right, then,” said Harry Windsor, old boy of Eton, captain of His Majesty’s Special Air Service Regiment, and third in line to the British throne. “Let’s see the color of your money, mate.”

  The engineer waved over a female petty officer to hold the bets. Carrying a mug of tea, she gave the young warrior prince twenty-five thousand watts of her smile as she bore down on him.

  But before she could witness the bet, or make a move on His Studliness, the infinite dark consumed them all.

  EAST TIMOR, ZONE TIME: 1238 HOURS, JANUARY 15, 2021

  “Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!”

  Adil hammered out the ancient phrase, part supplication and part plea for the mercy of Almighty God, as he lay prostrate in the dust.

  All around him the scrub was alive with screeching, panicking animals desperately attempting to flee the giant, swirling tsunami of light. It had filled the sky, perhaps the whole world, for just a second, but the afterimage would remain with Adil until he was old and wizened. Village children would gather at his feet decades from now, begging to be told the story of how Allah himself had cast the crusaders down into Hell.

  He fumbled for the canvas pack that held the laser transmitter, still imploring God’s mercy. His hands trembled so much he dropped the small device four times before regaining some measure of control over his actions.

  As his senses returned to him, he begged God not to punish His unworthy servant for ever doubting the wisdom of pegging him out on the side of a barren hill. What a foolish, pitiable creature he must have seemed, whining to himself about the injustice of his assignment, when all the time he was fated to bear witness to . . . to . . .

  What?

  Adil paused. What was that thing? A crusader weapon, perhaps?

  His heart lurched and he dropped the transmitter, scrabbling in the bag for his powered binoculars. He threw them up to his face so quickly he nearly broke his own nose. He held his breath for ten, fifteen, twenty seconds as he scour
ed the horizon. Strange, there was no heat haze now, to shroud the fleet. And his German-made field glasses were first class, with excellent G-shock dampeners that quickly compensated for the tremors that continued shaking his whole frame.

  The Americans, all of the infidels, were gone. Only one large, burning piece of wreckage remained. The bow of a ship by its appearance. The crusaders had been vanquished by a miracle! And he, a simple carpenter, had seen the very hand of God as it swept them into the seventh level of Hell. He let out his pent-up breath in a rush.

  He returned to his small pack and searched again for the transmitter to send word of his vision to Jakarta, when his training finally asserted itself. Down in the town of Dili, crusaders were spilling out on to the street like cockroaches. They, too, knew something cataclysmic had happened, and in the next few minutes they would fill the air with their electronic spiders. There was a good chance they would send armed men into the hills and fields, as well. They were thorough, the crusaders. He had to concede that about them.

  Drawing in a few long, deep breaths, pausing to collect his thoughts and further settle his nerves, Adil decided he had best wait for a safer moment. Only a fool would draw a nest of angry wasps upon himself. He had valuable information now, something the Caliph would certainly want to hear in person.

  Allah be praised, who would have imagined that he would find himself standing before the liberator of the Caliphate? Adil quickly gathered up the meager evidence of his stay and buried it all at the foot of the sandalwood tree where he had kept watch these last few days.

  There was another cache of equipment hidden near Los Palos. He would make his way there, resuming the demeanor of a starving refugee, walking the land and looking for food, shelter, and sanctuary from the Rising Jihad. He smiled at that last thought as he straightened up, stretched, and moved off down the slope, glancing back over his shoulder every now and then, to the place of the blessed miracle.

  2

  USS ENTERPRISE. TASK FORCE SIXTEEN. 210 NM, NNE MIDWAY ISLAND. 2239 HOURS, 2 JUNE 1942

  At least he didn’t have to drink the admiral’s terrible coffee.

  Admittedly, it wasn’t much fun stamping back and forth along the empty flight deck at night, either. For the first days of June, this was miserable weather in the northwest Pacific. With the fog so cold and dense and rain sleeting in sideways, it was enough to make Lieutenant Commander Daniel Black long for the South Pacific, where temperatures belowdecks could climb to well over a hundred and touching the exposed metal topside raised painful burn blisters. But Black could take a little exposure, as long as it meant he didn’t have to stomach another cup of that goddamn poison green java Admiral Raymond Spruance insisted on grinding for himself every morning.

  Black, a big rawboned copper miner in his former life, was Spruance’s assistant ops chief in this one. He jammed his hands deep into the pockets of his old leather flying coat and turned out of the wind as they reached the safety lights surrounding the first aircraft elevator. There had been a freak accident there just a few days ago, when Ensign Willie P. West and Lieutenant “Dusty” Kleiss were strolling the same path. Neither had heard the elevator warning signal, and West had stepped abruptly off into empty space. Kleiss found himself teetering on the edge of a gaping hole, and it took him a moment to regain his balance. Having done so, he peered over, expecting to find his friend lying in a crumpled heap.

  Instead he found West smiling and waving from thirty feet below. He had landed on the elevator just as it started its descent, and said the sensation was like “landing on a feather bed.”

  Commander Black didn’t feel like repeating the stunt and gave himself plenty of time to turn around. Admiral Spruance veered away, too, his black leather shoes squeaking on the wet deck. It was a small thing in a way, a pair of black shoes, not really worth noting. Except that they shouldn’t have been here on a flattop. William “Bull” Halsey, the man who would have been in charge of the Enterprise, if he wasn’t trapped in his sickbed back at Pearl, would have worn brown shoes, because he was a flier, not a cruiser jockey. And Halsey wouldn’t have needed to constantly pound the flight deck with his officers, picking their brains about flight operations and the basics of naval air power just days before they went into battle. Because Bull Halsey had been flying planes and driving carriers for years.

  The men revered him, and with good reason. When Ensign Eversole had gotten lost in fog on the way to attack Wake Island, Halsey had turned around the entire task force, searched for and found the downed torpedo plane, then resumed the attack a day later. Everyone agreed it was a damn pity the old man was stuck back in Pearl. It meant they were steaming into battle at Midway against a superior foe, under a man with no expertise in carrier operations at all.

  During a rare break in Spruance’s relentless cross-examination, Black brought up something else that had been nagging at him since they’d set out. “It’s a real shame about losing Don Lovelace.”

  The admiral, who was a quiet, self-contained man—so different from the booming, good-natured Halsey—took so long in replying that Commander Black wondered if he’d even been heard. The Enterprise was making nearly thirty knots, adding its speed to a light blustery crosswind, and it was possible a gust might have carried away his words. But, true to form, Spruance was just mulling over the statement before fashioning a reply.

  “It’s a blessing we’ve even got the Yorktown at all,” he said.

  That seemed harsh. Don Lovelace was the XO of Fighting 3, the Yorktown’s squadron of twenty-five portly but rugged F-4F Wildcats. Or he had been, till another pilot had screwed up his landing and jumped the barrier the first afternoon out of Pearl, crashing into the plane ahead and killing one of the most experienced pilots in the whole task force. The Yorktown’s VF3 was less a squadron than a pickup team, thrown together at the last moment before the big game. They’d never flown together, and for some this would be their first time on a carrier. Lovelace was supposed to have whipped them into shape.

  “It still would have been good having Lovelace.” Black shrugged. “Zeros are gonna eat those boys up. Chew us all up, given a chance.”

  “Jimmy Thach will knock them into shape,” Spruance said. “Or close enough anyway. We have to cut the cloth to suit our budget, Commander. Pearl performed miracles getting the Yorktown ready in three days. I know the pilots are green, and their planes are no match for the Japs, but that doesn’t matter. We have to beat them anyway.”

  Their return journey had brought them back to the ship’s island superstructure, which offered some shelter against the wind that was blowing across the deck. The rise and fall of the swell was also much less evident here. The time was coming up on 2245. They would blow tubes in a few minutes, and the working day would end for most of the crew. Black was already dead tired. He had eaten breakfast at 0350.

  In a few days, he knew, he’d just be dead. Or so exhausted as made no difference.

  He wondered how Spruance did it. How he kept running like a windup toy, seemingly capable of absorbing every piece of minutiae and fitting it into his grand battle scheme. They’d been discussing the relative merits of the Zero and the Wildcat, massaging the comparisons, the Zero’s greater range and maneuverability, the Wildcat’s higher ceiling, the Zero’s lack of armor, the Wildcat’s steel plating and self-sealing fuel tanks. The admiral turned to him now, a rare, soft smile playing across his thin, severe features.

  “Still worried that they might sucker punch us again at Pearl, Commander?”

  This time it was Black who was quiet for a few seconds. At a special briefing in Spruance’s cabin, earlier that day, he had asked the admiral what would happen if the Japs bypassed Midway and made straight for Hawaii, which lay open and defenseless. Spruance had stared at him for a full half minute before offering his reply—that he hoped they would not.

  Black had been startled by that reply—and more than a little disturbed. Unless Spruance knew something his subordinates did not, he was relying
heavily on faith—which Black considered a poor basis for strategic planning.

  Now the admiral seemed on the verge of saying something more when an earsplitting crack knocked them both to the deck and left them gasping for breath. Black felt as though he’d been nailed by a jab to the guts.

  The gusting wind that had been tugging at their clothes died down. It was curious, though—it didn’t just drop off. It stopped dead. It almost seemed to Black as if it was “different air.” That didn’t make sense, he knew, but he couldn’t shake the feeling. It smelled and tasted different, too; vaguely familiar in a way, earthier, heavier. Like air in the Tropics, which always seemed laden with the weight of rot and genesis.

  The night had been very dark, with low cloud cover, no starlight, and banks of dense fog. Even so, Black had the distinct impression of being wrapped, however briefly, in a denser, closer form of darkness. A rush of unsettling, half-formed, almost preconscious abstractions clawed at him. He had the sensation of being trapped in a tight, closed space, what he imagined it would feel like to be stuck in a downed plane as it sank in thousands of fathoms of black water.

  Then they both became aware of a rising clamor of shouts and cries, coming from above. Lookouts in the superstructure, up on Vulture’s Row, were screaming and gesturing wildly down to the sea on the starboard side.

  “I think somebody’s gone overboard,” coughed Black, still struggling for breath.

  “Come on,” Spruance said, with some difficulty.

  They hurried forward, around the base of the island and the antiaircraft mounts, only to be confronted by a sight that stopped them cold.

  “Holy shit,” said Black.

  There, less than a hundred yards away, lay a ship of some sort. A foreign vessel for sure, completely alien, its bow was angled away from the Enterprise, opening up a gap as they plowed through the foaming breakers. She was lit well enough that they could make out her strange lines. The decks of the vessel were mostly clear. There was an island of sorts, but it was located squarely in the center of what would have been the runway. It was raked back, like a shark’s fin, with no hard edges visible anywhere on its surface. Only one line of windows was visible, within which he could make out strange glowing colors and lights, but no people.