“Nope,” Turbo said. “They’re up north sweeping the home islands, as the Japanese buggers call them.”
“What about Highborn?” asked Omi.
Turbo shrugged as he adjusted his hat. He squinted at Marten to make up his mind.
“So we’re all killing each other for some worthless missiles?” asked Stick.
“Earth is on the run, don’t you know,” said Turbo. “But it’s gotten too easy for the High Command, so this time they’re not using as many Highborn. It’s an all-volunteer show.”
“The Earth on the run part is right,” Stick said. “An old-timer told me the Highborn move all their units like lightning, theirs and the volunteers. He said their staff work is amazing. If they’d ever tried this in the Old Army, said the old-timer, it would have been a balls-up from the get go.”
“In and call,” said Marten.
With a grin, Turbo spread his cards: three queens, ace high.
Stick threw down his hand with disgust. Marten quietly folded his and handed the cards to Omi. He slid out from the booth and stretched, staggering as the ship rolled. He bumped against the table as the ship swayed in the other direction.
“I’m going topside,” said Marten.
Omi grunted and slid out too. “Mind if I join you?”
Marten nodded.
As they left the rec-room Turbo yelled, “We need two more players.”
Marten and Omi slid along the corridor and crawled up the stairs. They donned rain gear, slick hats and staggered to the front deck railing, where they hung on. Huge gray waves rose and fell, while darkening clouds loomed threateningly in the sky. Only sailors moved here and there above deck, attaching lines or running to perform some unknown chore. Behind the lead hover followed the other twenty-nine transports. Overhead a chopper thumped somewhere, barely audible over the blistering wind.
Cold salt spray lashed the two men. They wiped their faces constantly.
“I’ve never been on the ocean before,” Marten shouted.
“Just one time for me when my mom and I visited Korea,” Omi said.
“You’ve been out of Sydney before?”
“A year before she was divorced and escorted into the slums. Thanks to my dear old dad.”
Marten rubbed salt out of his eyes, glancing at the grim-faced gunman.
Omi’s mouth twitched. “A drunk fell overboard that journey.”
“Yeah?”
“They stopped the ship and picked him up, but he’d broken his neck, probably from the fall.”
“Probably?”
Omi shrugged.
Marten was struck by Omi’s moodiness. Normally the man was the Rock, as some of the men had taken to calling him. “What really happened?” Marten asked.
“A thief pinched the drunk’s wallet. But the drunk wasn’t so drunk and whirled around, starting to holler for help. So the thief, he was a little guy, hardly even a teenager. He used a martial arts move. He snapped the drunk’s neck, and was pretty surprised it worked liked it was supposed to.”
“So the thief pitched the drunk overboard?”
“Yeah.”
Marten thought about that, finally asking, “So what’d he find in the wallet?”
Omi frowned sourly, taking his time answering. “Some plastic, a sheaf of porno pics, nothing much for all the work he’d gone to.”
Overhead a bomber zoomed low over the water. It seemed to be in a hurry somewhere. Marten and Omi watched. Thirty seconds later what seemed like small packages tumbled out of the bomber’s bottom.
“Depth charges?” asked Marten.
“Seems like.”
The packages plopped into the wild sea and disappeared.
They watched the spot. Suddenly, water sprayed upward, twin geysers. They kept watching, but nothing like oil or mangled bodies or anything else surfaced to show that an enemy sub had been hit.
“Turbo tells too many stories,” Omi said.
“You mean the ones about convoys that get hit before they ever reach Japan?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re right. He shouldn’t tell those.”
“I think they’re BS.
“Why is that?”
“The Highborn have the game sewn up,” Omi said. “Social Unity is on the run. No way is Social Unity going to train soldiers fast enough to face the Highborn before it’s all over.”
“Social Unity might get desperate.”
“So?”
“Desperate men do dangerous things.”
“I suppose…”
3.
One of those desperate men wiped sweat off his face. He was a little over thirty kilometers away, deep under the tossing waves. The captain of the
The captain closed his eyes. He was queasy. The enemy’s hunter/killers were too efficient. Too many fellow captains had already paid the ultimate price for this wild strategy. Yet he nodded. One must obey Enkov.
“Fire one and two,” he whispered.
The watch officer stared at him. Everyone else held his breath.
“Fire,” repeated the captain. “Tubes one and two.”
“Firing one and two, sir,” said the firing officer.
The
In the dark ocean depths, two nuclear-tipped missiles hurtled skyward. Enemy radar and sonar picked them up. Enemy officers roared orders. Planes turned to intercept. Counter missiles left circling bombers. Other bombers and choppers needed less than fifty seconds to rendezvous to the drop zone to let their ultra-powerful depth charges sink. None of them, however, were going to make it in time.
4.
Unaware of their fate, Marten and Omi continued to talk. Then, over twenty kilometers away, an amazingly bright flash lit up the dark clouds. A huge, ominous mushroom cloud arose. It towered higher and higher. Marten and Omi stared at it in shock, their mouths open.
Omi tried to speak, but failed.
Marten’s chest tightened with terror. He couldn’t believe what he saw. There had been rumors. Turbo had said—His chest unlocked and his numb mind started working from its momentary stoppage. “Get below!” he shouted, shoving Omi toward the nearest hatch.
They turned and ran, staggering and stumbling along the pitching deck. So did other men, babbling sailors who sprinted for the hatches. They jammed the nearest hatchway. Fists started flying, until a boatswain bellowed orders.
The hovers and ships of Convoy A22 acted amazingly fast. Perhaps the ships’ captains had been given secret instructions in case a nuclear bomb should explode in their vicinity. Not as smoothly and as in unison as some of
