Weapons of Choice — Axis Of Time Book I

by John Birmingham

  “That you, Evans?” the woman asked, her voice at normal volume now. She seemed to be speaking directly to him. But how did she know where he was in all this blackness?

  “Yeah,” he croaked. “It’s me.”

  “I’m going to break a glo-stick,” she said. “You’ll hear a sort of snap and a green tube will appear just in front of you. It’ll glow bright enough for you to make us out a little easier.”

  Evans, Mohr, and Molloy heard a crunch, like someone stepping on glass. A faint green line began to glow on the far side of the gap. Within seconds it threw off enough light to illuminate the figures who had approached them. Evans was aware of Molloy, stiffening beside him and adjusting his grip on the old Springfield.

  “Sailor,” he said softly. “I want you to crawl over there, get behind that door, and see if you can get a hold of that lamp or whatever it is. We may need some more light in here.”

  Moose seemed about to question the logic of this order, but a cold glare from CPO Mohr cut him off and sent him away, muttering under his breath. Evans was too tired, too befuddled, and in way too much pain to bother with the mild insubordination. He let go a long shuddering breath as he regarded the fantastic creatures who stood just a few feet away now.

  He figured the older man to be the chief petty officer. He looked the type. Stocky and assured. The woman, sure enough, was a Negro. A big one by the way she was crouched. She seemed to be wearing a life jacket of some sort and had a pair of goggles pushed up on her head. She and her chief were both toting shotguns, so perhaps it was one of them had done for Stolz. That was of marginal interest, however, next to the flood of questions raised by the third man.

  Nix, was it?

  Even in the strange green glow of the light stick the trooper seemed on the verge of disappearing into the visual clutter. It was almost as though he was drinking up the light, without throwing any of it back. Evans thought he was dressed in black, but he couldn’t tell for sure. When Nix moved, he flowed like a ghost from one flickering shadow to the next. His eyes seemed huge and almost insectlike until Evans realized he, too, was wearing goggles. Unlike the Negro woman he hadn’t removed his, and he seemed to be constantly scanning their surroundings. His weapon, some weird Buck Rogers–looking thing, seemed to float by his side, and Peter Evans had the unnerving sensation that it could swing up and target the small patch of skin between his eyes before he could even blink in surprise. He felt sure it was the same man he’d seen earlier, on the deck of the other ship.

  “That’s a fucking German storm trooper!” Mohr hissed in his ear. “Look at the helmet, Commander. And dressed in black like that. He’s gotta be a Kraut.”

  “Seaman Nix hails from Fort Worth, Texas,” said the black woman. “I’m not sure of his politics.”

  “Unreconstructed southern Democrat, ma’am,” Nix said in a broad, recognizably Texan drawl.

  “Well, we won’t hold that against him. But I can assure you he is not an SS officer.”

  “Well, what the hell is he then?” snapped Evans, suddenly finding himself thoroughly exasperated by the conversational tone she maintained in the face of this relentless insanity.

  Despite his outburst, the “captain”—what had she called herself?—replied calmly, “Nix is one of my boarding/counterboarding specialists, Commander Evans. I’ll have him fall back if you’d prefer. Regardless, you and I need to talk. And fast. I don’t know how long the structural integrity of our ships can hold out. But at the very least I’d suggest we stop trying to shoot each other and dial back our speed. We’re tearing each other apart.”

  “What did you say your name was?” asked Evans.

  “Anderson. Captain Daytona Anderson of the USS Leyte Gulf.”

  “And I’m supposed to believe that, am I? You must think I came down in that last shower, lady.”

  “Look, Commander. I don’t expect you to believe anything I say. I don’t know how much of what I’ve seen the last few minutes I can believe, but I’m playing the cards I’ve been dealt. You said your ship is the Astoria? Would you by any chance be sailing on Midway, to confront a Japanese invasion fleet?”

  Evans almost laughed.

  “You gotta be kidding me. Do you really think I’m going to tell you anything?”

  “No,” she sighed, “not if you’re any good at your job. Okay. Let me try this. If you are heading for Midway, you’re part of Task Group Seventeen-Two with the cruiser Portland, under the command of Rear Admiral William Smith, which in turn is part of Task Force Seventeen under Frank Fletcher on the Yorktown. Task Force Sixteen, built around the carriers Enterprise and Hornet, is steaming with you, and was supposed to be under Bull Halsey, but he’s got a case of the hives and is stuck back in Pearl. So Ray Spruance, a cruiser driver like you, has taken over. You think the Japs would know that? The Japanese think Yorktown was sunk in the Coral Sea. They have no idea she was repaired in three days at Pearl. They wouldn’t believe it possible.

  “And do you think, even if they knew any of this, they’d be dumb enough to send me, a black woman, to claim to be a U.S. Navy captain, and to negotiate with you? You think they’d have the ability to screw around with your ship like this?”

  Evans felt as though his stomach was going to do a full forward roll. He and Mohr stared at each other, exhausted, incredulous. His mind seemed to have locked up completely, refusing to process any more information.

  “Commander Evans?” she prompted.

  Moose Molloy interrupted before he could reply.

  “Commander. This is pretty wacky, sir. I think you’d better see this.”

  At that a light, even stronger than the green rod in Anderson’s hand, pushed back the gloom. Molloy was struggling around the door wedged into the desktop, and he was carrying another glowing object. It was the size of a small book, but it threw out a powerful light, reminding him of the moment in a movie theater when the dark screen suddenly lit up.

  “What the hell is that?” asked Eddie Mohr.

  “It’s a flexipad,” the Anderson woman answered from the far side of the gap.

  A single shot rang out, somewhere in the distance. Before Evans could shout Mohr had cut him off, yelling at a full roar, “Knock it off, you blockheads! Cease fire! I’ll personally clobber the first man who does that again.”

  “Thank you, Chief,” said Captain Anderson.

  Mohr said nothing in return, just glared. Moose finally popped out of the constricted space and tumbled to the deck. He carried the “flexipad” over to Evans like it was a live shell. His CO took the object, smearing sticky half-dried blood over the screen.

  The rubberized casing felt odd, like nothing he’d ever touched before. The thing seemed light, but solid and kind of dense, too. He and Mohr stared at the screen, which showed something that looked like a weather map. But it was in motion, like a short movie, repeating again and again. As strange as it was, Evans could tell that it covered a thousand square miles of the Wetar Strait off Timor.

  It was every bit as baffling as anything else they’d seen so far.

  He couldn’t shake the idea that he was staring through a small window hundreds of miles high, directly down onto the earth’s surface. Overlaying the picture was a mass of thin red lines. The image shifted rapidly, like a movie spooling too quickly through a projector, allowing Evans to watch clouds moving through the strait.

  Anderson’s voice broke the spell.

  “You need medical attention, Commander Evans. I can see that from here. We have a sixteen-bed hospital on the Leyte Gulf. It hasn’t been compromised. The sort of injuries some of your men are carrying, it’d go a hell of a lot better for them to get treatment from us.”

  “You inflicted those injuries, Captain.”

  It was the first time Evans had addressed her properly.

  “Yes, we did, Commander Evans. We’ve probably killed more than thirty of your men by direct fire belowdecks. I don’t know how many have died elsewhere. Our defensive systems went offline, but
Nix tells me some of them functioned independently anyway. Your casualties will be heavy, I’m afraid.”

  “You killed everybody on the bridge,” he said, unwilling to mask his bitterness. “Shot the hell out of them. They were friends of mine.”

  Anderson let it pass. She ripped open a flap holding her vest in place and lay down her shotgun before stepping right up to the thin sliver of clear space through which they were forced to communicate.

  “I’m sorry Commander. But you’ve killed an unknown number of my people, as well.”

  “Just fucking niggers and . . . ,” Seaman Molloy muttered, before a backhanded slap from Chief Mohr silenced him. Captain Anderson let that one slide, too.

  “Who are you people?” Evans asked, his voice nearly cracking.

  “I told you. We’re Americans,” Anderson replied. “Just like you.”

  8

  USS HILLARY CLINTON, 2312HOURS, 2 JUNE 1942

  “This is Spruance! Who the hell are you? What’s the idea ofbreaking in on my transmission. By God, you’d better have a good explanation,or you’ll hang for this.”

  The voice filled the flag bridge of the USS Hillary Clinton,of a man long dead when Phillip Kolhammer had finished the last brush stroke onhis model dive-bomber. Kolhammer listened in dread and wonder. In a way, thatvoice was more awful than the firestorm raging down on the flight deck.

  He took a long breath before speaking.

  “This is Admiral Phillip Kolhammer, United States Navy. Actingcommander of the USS Hillary Clinton and task force commander ofUNPROFLEET, operating under the mandate of United Nations Security CouncilResolution Three Three One Two. I request that you cease fire, Admiral Spruance.There’s been a terrible mistake. You are engaged with friendly forces. I sayagain, cease fire. We are American and Allied ships.”

  A stream of invective poured out of the bridge speakers. Kolhammerwaited until it abated and repeated himself as calmly as he could. The forwardlaser pods destroyed another five-inch shell as he spoke, emphasizing his lackof success in getting through to Spruance. He watched a medic pull someone fromthe sea of flames that covered almost a third of the flight deck behind the opstower. A dark, oily smear marked the passage of the body.

  “Admiral Spruance,” he repeated, “you are firing on anAmerican-led force. We have ceased offensive fire. I request you do the same.”

  USS ENTERPRISE, 2314HOURS, 2 JUNE 1942

  In the cramped, fetid flag radio room of the Enterprise,Ray Spruance clamped his hand over the mike and spoke to the operator.

  “Have you had any luck raising Pearl yet, sailor?”

  “Sorry, sir. This Kolhammer guy is all over us. He’s blockedout every frequency. We can’t even talk ship-to-ship. All anyone is getting isthis transmission.”

  “How is that possible?” Spruance asked angrily. “No, forgetit. That’s not important. The fact is, he’s doing it.

  “Who is he?” he continued, scanning the room. “Does anyonehere know of an Admiral Kolhammer? And that ship, what the hell is hetalking about? Hillary Clinton my ass!”

  The four staff officers who had crammed into the shack withSpruance exchanged blank looks and shook their heads.

  “Admiral,” said Lieutenant Commander Black. “Thesesons-a-bitches have destroyed the Yorktown and the Hornet.They’ve sunk our cruisers and most of the destroyer screen. Even making theworst kind of mistake, no American force would do that. It’s gotta be a loadof horseshit.”

  Spruance went quiet for a few seconds, a pause that seemedinterminable. Finally, he brought the mike back to his lips.

  “This is Spruance. There is no ship or admiral by the names youhave given us, anywhere in the U.S. Navy. Identify yourself truthfully and ceasefiring on us. I’ve only got to walk a few paces and stick my head out a hatchto know you’re lying about that. I can see your goddamn fire all over the sky.”

  Kolhammer’s voice crackled out of the speakers. “That fire isnot directed at you. I know it sounds ludicrous . . . but it’s directed at theshells you’ve been firing on us.”

  Curtis allowed himself a satisfied, if fleeting glance atBeanland, whose furious glare wiped any trace of satisfaction from the ensign’sface. Spruance and Black exchanged a look that revealed their doubts about thisKolhammer’s sanity, but before either could speak, he continued. As the wordsspilled out, Spruance’s expression turned from shock to dark, impacted rage.

  “Admiral,” said Kolhammer, “we know you’re heading forMidway to intercept a Japanese fleet under the control of Admiral Yamamoto. Wealso know that you are ignoring as a diversion a Japanese thrust toward theAleutians by the Second Carrier Striking Force under Rear Admiral Kakuta. Weknow that your Pacific Fleet Combat Intelligence Unit, under CommandersRochefort and Safford, have broken the Japanese naval code JN-two-five, and soyou have advance warning of the plan to seize Midway, including the entireJapanese order of battle. I know you won’t be happy that I’m announcing allof this over the air, but I can assure you it is irrelevant now.

  “I am instructing all the ships under my command to switch ontheir running lights, and any abovedeck illumination, in thirty seconds.”

  Kolhammer signaled to Judge, who set the order in motionthroughout the Multinational Force.

  “I know you’ll have trouble trusting me,” he continued, “butI can only ask for that trust. We will not fire on you again. We will reveal ourpositions. I would request permission to come aboard the Enterprise toexplain what has happened. I can guarantee both your safety and that of Midway.”

  As Kolhammer spoke, trying for the sort of reassuring tone herecalled from interminable post-trauma briefings he’d been forced to undergoas an active fighter pilot, Mike Judge passed him a handwritten note. The exechad taken the initiative and asked the acting commander of the Siranuito lower his ensign and park himself behind the Kandahar, out of theline of sight for the Enterprise. Kolhammer gave him a silent thumbs-upas he continued.

  “I understand you’ve taken heavy casualties, but so have we.It was a terrible mistake. We will do everything we can to make good yourlosses, and we will stand down any threat to American or Allied interests inthis theater, but I implore you to cease fire immediately, so we can sort outthis mess.”

  Lights came on all across Kolhammer’s fleet. Blazing likecarnival rides, their sleek, radical lines occasioned almost as much surpriseamong the men of Task Forces Sixteen and Seventeen as had their initial arrival.A sailor thrust his head into the radio shack.

  “Admiral Spruance, sir? I think you’d better come and seethis.”

  Spruance handed the heavy microphone back to the radio operatorwithout bothering to sign off. He and his staff threaded through to flag plotand out onto a walkway. The sea around them was alight with dying ships, theirown, but also with visions of craft from another world. Somebody handed Spruancea large pair of binoculars, which he raised to his eyes with a slight tremor ofthe hands. The carrier’s plunging progress made it difficult to get a steadylook, but the first ship that came into view stole his breath. The triple-hulledwarship was flying her largest ensign from a telescoping staff atop the bridge.The flag was British. No other structure ruined the smooth surface of her deck.

  Spruance dropped the glasses, fixed another alien vessel in hissight, and raised the binoculars again. It boasted an equally exotic appearance,but this was a monohulled ship. The Stars and Stripes fluttered from atelescopic mast at the top of the raked-back fin that spoiled her otherwiseempty decks.

  The admiral shifted his focus again and again, taking in aslab-sided carrier that at least resembled the Enterprise in form andsize, and then Kolhammer’s own ship, the Clinton, still burning fromthe bomb strike. Even at a distance Spruance could tell she was a monster,certainly dwarfing the Lexington. The ships were all heading away fromhim, seemingly toward the burning giant on the horizon. The volume of fire haddropped away, and no more of those garish rocket flares were rising from thedecks of any foreign vessel.

  It was almost peaceful.

/>   Spruance sighed and turned to Dan Black. He was calmer, but hishands still trembled.

  “I think we’d better talk to this Kolhammer again.”

  PART TWO

  * * * * *

  DÉTENTE

  9

  USS ENTERPRISE, 2322 HOURS, 2 JUNE 1942

  “What the hell is that?” muttered Lieutenant Commander Black.

  “Search me,” someone replied from behind him.

  “You know,” said the chaplain, “it reminds me of something I saw in Rome, before the war. I was on sabbatical and was lucky enough to be given a tour of the da Vinci archives. I believe he once drew a machine a bit like that, with a propeller on top. He invented the parachute, too, you know.”

  “It’s a Hiller-Copter,” said Ensign Curtis. Curtis was known as a bit of an aircraft nut. Less-than-perfect eyesight had barred him from flight school, crimping off a lifelong dream and shunting him into the entirely unglamorous position of assistant bookkeeper in the ship’s pay office. His enormous, black-rimmed glasses might have been standard issue, so well did they suit him in his job. Most often, however, he had them buried in a copy of Janes Fighting Aircraft, or Aviator Monthly.

  As Curtis spoke, the strange craft drew closer, riding atop radiant shafts of light.

  “A what?” shouted Black, over the growing roar.

  The ferocious downblast of the rotors forced the spectators to turn away, toward Curtis, who had screwed up his eyes, determined not to miss a moment.

  “It’s a Hiller-Copter, or something like it,” he shouted, his normally anxious nature gone for now. He sounded completely sure of himself, an unheard-of phenomenon. They were all clustered outside the pilothouse for a view of the approaching aircraft. Rumors were already flying around the big ship: that these were experimental planes, or maybe motorized blimps, pulled out of the lab and rushed forward to Midway for the showdown with the Japs. Some said it was Yamamoto himself, come to negotiate a surrender. There was even wild talk, coming from the Astoria’s radio operators, of space coons and women from Mars.