“My name is Admiral Phillip Kolhammer,” he said directly to Spruance, but loud enough to carry to the listening crowd. “I was born in the year nineteen sixty-nine. The same year, incidentally, in which you passed away, Admiral. I command a Multinational Force comprising American and Allied units, which was tasked with forcing a passage through the Indonesian Archipelago, what you would know as the Dutch East Indies, and putting an end to the mass murder of ethnic Chinese Indonesian citizens. Until an hour ago we were readying for that deployment in January twenty twenty-one. In transiting from Pearl Harbor, American elements of the Multinational Force were also providing security for a research vessel, the Nagoya, which was undertaking sea trials of a new weapons system. I can’t confirm it yet, but I suspect something has gone wrong with those trials . . . and that we are here as the result of some malfunction of that system.”

With that, he stopped speaking. Spruance stared at him, as he had expected, blinking only once, slowly. The color had drained from his face, leaving a waxy sheen and two points of high color on his temples.

“Do you really expect me to believe that?” he asked very quietly.

“No sir, I do not,” Kolhammer replied. “In your position, I wouldn’t either. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and all I can offer you is our presence. Here we are. Myself. The colonel. Captain Halabi. Our flight crew and helicopters. You ever seen a helicopter before, Admiral? No? I didn’t think so. The ships of our task force are some twelve thousand meters to the southwest—that’s about six nautical miles. As alien as the helicopters might appear to you, those ships will be even stranger. You’re free to inspect any of them. To ask any questions you might care to ask. But every minute you waste doing that, more of your men die in the water. You can see with your own two eyes, right now, that we don’t belong here, this is not our place—”

“You’re damn right about that,” Spruance said. “Go on.”

“I’d suggest that you come back with us. The Seahawk ride, and a few minutes aboard the Clinton, and you’ll . . .”

Spruance actually laughed at him, a short flat bark that left no doubt what he thought of that suggestion.

“All right,” Kolhammer persisted. “You could send someone in your place. Someone you trust, but can afford to lose, to put it bluntly.”

Spruance worked his jaw, staring past the strange interlopers at the even stranger aircraft in which they had arrived. Before he could respond, a deep voice spoke up from behind him.

“We’ll go, sir,” said a Lieutenant Commander Black.