He stood there in the doorway, looking nervous and tentative. She didn’t stop. She didn’t think. She just spun around and flew into his arms with such force that they nearly tumbled into the corridor outside.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she said, unable to stop repeating herself. A flood of tears and nonsense burst from her as his arms stiffened then relaxed, and pulled her into his chest.

“So am I,” said Black.

Damiri didn’t understand at first. Kolhammer seemed to be leading a convoy of dozens of ships, many more than had been in the force off Timor, but a brief laser-linked message from the carrier explained the presence of so many contemporary vessels. It made no difference to his plans, he decided. He might just kill a few more unbelievers, and there was nothing wrong with that.

Smoke plumes from the older ships filled the sky as they drew closer. The beautiful, lilting prayers of his shipmates drifted up from below as they prepared to enter Paradise. The few Japanese on board had been banished below decks and he supposed they were making whatever arrangements their false god-emperor required of them. With so few of his former colleagues volunteering for this mission, the Japanese had been invaluable in keeping the ship running at a very basic level, and in coordinating arrangements with their own departed comrades on the three IJN vessels.

Out of respect for their help, Damiri had asked if any wished to surrender their will to Allah in the last hours of their life, but all had declined. He shrugged. There was no saving some people.

To still the drumbeat of his heart as the fatal moment drew closer, Damiri stepped out of the bridge into the fresh air and took inventory of the “damage” to the ship. Bullet holes, torn metal, scorch marks, shattered glass, broken masts and one particularly impressive shell burst had convincingly scarred the Sutanto. She looked like a veteran warship now—just the sort of thing to impress stupidly sentimental Westerners who, of course, could not know that Yamamoto’s engineers had meticulously crafted every scratch and dent back at Hashirajima. Before packing the ship to the gunnels with high explosive.

He wondered how closely the Americans were reading the bogus ship’s log he’d zapped over to them as soon as they drew into laser-link range. The answer came within a few minutes.

“Have you seen this, yet?” asked Commander Judge.

The lanky Texan was leafing through a printout of the Sutanto’s log on the bridge of the supercarrier.

“Nope, not yet,” Kolhammer said. “Something up?”