“Give me firing solutions for the forward tubes focused on all non-task-force vessels. Do not, I repeat, do not arm the torpedoes. But full countermeasures are authorized.

“Comms?”

“Aye, Captain?”

“Reopen a link to the Trident. When they have a spare second, I need to confer with Captain Halabi. Keep hailing our own ships and fleet command. Intel?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Assets?”

“We have links intact fleetwide, Captain,” said Lieutenant Lohrey. “We’re streaming from the drones, mast mounts, and topside Nemesis arrays. We’ve lost some airborne feed, and all the satellites.”

“Start farming it out, Amanda. When you have a clue, get back to me.”

The intel boss raised a finger, just like a child in class. “Captain? The Nagoya is missing, as well. There’s no floating datum point, no debris of any kind. But fleetwide arrays logged signal deviance similar to the brownout incident, just prior to the neural event that seems to have taken out the surface elements.”

Willet clamped down on a flash of anger, “Well, that’s just excellent,” she said quietly. “Okay, good job, detail somebody down that rabbit hole. Captain Windsor, care to make yourself useful?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Harry.

“I’d like you to go with Chief Flemming, find yourselves a console somewhere quiet and call up the archives. See if you can figure out what that ship, the Astoria, is doing here.”

Flemming nodded at Harry, “After you, m’lord.”

“Stow it, Salty.”

“Captain!” cried Lieutenant Lohrey. “We have a situation just off the Clinton. Torpedoes in the water.”

The image in the holobloc re-formed. The Leyte Gulf and the Astoria disappeared, supplanted by the American flagship and one small, antique warship.

“Jeez, what a tin can,” someone said.

“That tin can’s about to slice open a fusion-powered supercarrier,” Flemming said.

“Weapons!” cried Captain Willet. “Can we intercept the torpedoes?”

“No, ma’am. They’re too far away.”

“Okay. Lock tubes three and four on the hostile. Arm the warheads. Fire on my mark.”

“Aye, ma’am.”

Harry couldn’t stop his mouth from opening, but he stayed an objection to the order. This wasn’t his ship. He wasn’t even a sailor. He pressed his lips closed.

Willet followed the track of the torpedoes as they moved toward the task force flagship. Harry felt genuine pity for her as she shook her head, and made her decision.

“Fire,” she said quietly but firmly.

Harry watched as the weapons sysop tapped two fingers on a touch screen. He wasn’t even sure he felt the shots as they left the tube.

“Torpedoes away, ma’am.”

“The Clinton’s responding to hail on channel twelve, Captain,” said the communications officer.

“Warn them they have incoming.”

As the submariners around Harry began to move faster and communicate in shorthand technical terms he only vaguely understood, he noticed another element as it entered the tableau of the holobloc.

“Is that a plane?” he asked.