He could see they were satisfied with the result, but only his men seemed to have responded like true combatants.

Even young Curtis, who’d probably never seen blood spilled outside a shaving nick, reacted with greater emotion than the woman whose submarine had just unleashed such destruction. The ensign was babbling on to Dan Black, pointing at the screen and asking the same question over and over. “Did you see that, Commander? Did you?”

Captain Willet, by way of contrast, appeared at the start of her little war movie to explain the events that had transpired. Spruance saw no sense of triumph or vindication, or even mild regret at having cut so many lives short on her say-so. For the second time in a week he found himself wondering what sort of a world produced women like that.

And then—how long before they’d try to remake this one in their own image?

He shook his head. This was ridiculous. These people had been at war for nearly two decades. It was only natural that they would be completely inured to its savageries by now, just as his countrymen would surely grow coarse and insensitive to the horrors that lay before them. And he couldn’t forget, either, that this wasn’t their war. It belonged to their history, and the men who had died since they arrived were to them already long dead anyway. Perhaps that explained it.

Spruance heard somebody behind him, a woman. “Well, that’s the end of that.”

But he understood it was just the beginning.

“Singapore strike is inbound,” another voice announced.

He turned back to the big screen. He wanted to see what happened next.

Chapter 39

39

HMAS MORETON BAY, 2132 HOURS, 20 JUNE 1942

A long swell, generated by a storm in the Bay of Bengal, rolled under the twin hulls of the Moreton Bay as Lieutenant Nguyen methodically checked and rechecked Metal Storm and her laser pods. She was glad to be back in her old seat on the fast troop carrier—converted to an evacuation ship for the raid on Singapore. They’d drawn supplies for the Close-In Weapons Systems from stocks salvaged off the Leyte Gulf.

She calibrated her senor arrays and tested the Cooperative Battle Link to HMS Trident, three nautical miles off the port bow. The Bay didn’t run to a full CIC, and her workstation was tucked away in a corner of the bridge. Most of the 2 Cav troopers who’d sailed for Timor with them had moved across to the littoral assault ship HMAS Ipswich, which was trailing two nautical miles to stern, although one company remained to provide security for the medical staff on board.