The girl’s lower lip trembled and her eyes filled with tears. She shook her head. Margie, choking up, too, rubbed her cheek.

“But the thing is, darling, I know your mom and dad are happy now, because if they’re looking down from Heaven, they can see you’re safe here with us. And all they would ever want in the world is for you to grow up safe.”

Grace gathered her composure by means of three gulping breaths. When she could talk without crying she looked into Margie’s eyes. “When I grow up,” she said, “I want to be a United States Marine, just like you.”

Margie pursed her lips and nodded. She patted down Grace’s hair, kissed her forehead, and turned away.

“Excuse me for just a second, sweetie,” she said thickly.

She jumped up and hurried out into the corridor.

When the door to her cabin was closed, she sank to the floor and burst into tears.

The fierce heat reminded Kolhammer of the days they’d spent off Timor preparing for deployment. He was a universe away from that now. But home seemed as tangible as the salt in the air. Einstein had told him it really was that close; that his wife and home were closer to him than the shirt on his back. But Kolhammer peered through dark sunglasses at the huge straggling convoy of antique vessels, a scene that appeared nearly medieval to his eyes, and he knew that he would never see Marie again.

He kept one eye on the screen where an icon representing the Sutanto plowed toward them from the east. When they rendezvoused, the Indonesian would have to turn around and cover her tracks, but he couldn’t blame them for not wanting to spend another minute out there on their own. They’d had a hell of time of it, judging by the video the Raptors had brought back. The little tub had been comprehensively shot to hell. He had to admit that he might have been wrong about them, though, because they’d fought through.

“Thinking of home, Admiral?” asked Spruance.

Kolhammer had forgotten he was there, so quiet had Spruance been the last half hour. Like most of them, with the worst behind them, he seemed content to gaze into the heat shimmer that was obscuring the horizon. Choppers thudded between the modern ships, redistributing casualties, supplies, and medical personnel as needed. Combat air patrol roared off the Clinton and the Kandahar at regular intervals. But the threat bubble was clear. Apart from those tin cans chasing the Sutanto, they’d had only two passing contacts with the Japanese: a submarine that had been killed before it knew it was in danger, and a faint return off a large body of iron far away to the north.

Yamamoto was wisely keeping his distance.