Rising Sun

CHAPTER 21

AMANDA LAY NAKED ON THE BED AND LOOKED UP AT THE ceiling and the bare light bulb that was, mercifully, off. The only light in the room was from a night light in the bathroom. She was covered with sweat and, for the first time in her young life, she was sexually satisfied, at least for the moment.

She was also married.

After their conversation in the park, they’d found a pliant justice of the peace who owed FBI Agent Harris a favor for something or other, and then got a county clerk friend of the JP to ram through a marriage license. They had the feeling that such goings-on weren’t all that rare with so many tens of thousands of servicemen and women in the San Diego area, and many in various stages of shipping out, coming back, or just plain wanting to live in the moment. She wondered if the justice thought she was pregnant and decided she didn’t give a damn what the silly little man thought.

The justice had married them the evening before. Maybe some navy regulations had been bent or broken, but Nimitz said he’d take care of them, and that Tim had little more than a day to get the hell back. Grace and Merchant had been maid of honor and best man. It had been pleasant and swift. As a girl growing up, Amanda, like all her friends, had dreamed of a big church wedding with her starring as a beautiful bride wearing a flowing white dress. A dozen bridesmaids in matching dresses would accompany her, and hundreds of her and her parents’ friends and relatives would dine at an elegantly catered reception that most people couldn’t afford while an expensive band played on. She’d even decided that Lester Lanin’s high society band would be just perfect. She would be appropriately thankful that her father was a well-to-do doctor and then go on a honeymoon to Europe with her Prince Charming.

Funny how war changes perspectives and values, she thought. She recalled a sermon in which the minister said something about “when I was a child I thought as a child, but now I am an adult so I think like an adult.” Fairy-tale weddings might have a time and a place, but now the world was at war and fairy-tale weddings were no longer that important. And who wanted to honeymoon in Europe with Hitler in charge?

Instead, it was far more important for both of them to pledge themselves to each other, and who cared whether it was in a small office in California or in a magnificent European cathedral? And who cared whether the honeymoon was on the French Riviera or one night in a small apartment in San Diego? She and Tim were married.

The apartment was Merchant’s. He was roughing it in Tim’s bachelor officer’s quarters for the duration. Amanda was certain that Grace would find some way to provide him with a level of solace, although probably in a parked car.

She giggled softly and Tim stirred. He’d been a very gentle lover. The first time they’d been tentative and a little awkward, but there had been no pain. The second time was much, much better as they learned so much about each other. The third was an explosion of exuberant passion that left them gasping, shocked and delighted. Neither was concerned about the possibility that she might get pregnant. Without quite saying it, both of them hoped it would happen. If something happened to Tim, at least there would be another Great Dane to carry on.

He was staring at her. “You are so beautiful, my dear Amanda.”

“And so are you, my dear Tim.” She followed up the statement by caressing his chest while his hands moved across her breasts and down to her still-moist thighs. She let her own hands travel downward and found that her new best friend was also awakening.

One more time, she thought a few moments later as he entered her. One more time and he’ll have to go back to the damn war. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and drew him deeper, deeper, deeper. Damn, damn, damn, she thought in tandem to his stroking inside her.

Steve Farris and Sandy had their meeting. From the beginning it was awkward. Sandy was pleased that Steve had not been maimed, and he said that she looked great, but it became clear that whatever spark there had been before he had gone to Alaska had been extinguished. There was nothing either one had done or said; rather, they simply realized that they had little in common. After a polite conversation, they parted. Sandy went back to work, while a slightly disconsolate Steve wondered what was going on.

Getting onto the naval base early the next morning was fairly easy. A man in uniform, even an army uniform, using a cane and with a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star on his chest, opened a lot of doors. He was just about to enter Tim’s office building when a woman’s voice hailed him.

“Lieutenant Farris, how are you?”

He turned in surprise. At first he didn’t recognize the slight young woman with the dark-rimmed glasses. Then he noticed the oriental shape of her eyes and smiled.

“Nancy Sullivan,” he said, quickly recalling the daughter of the store owner in Bridger. After Stecher had discovered Nancy and her mother at her father’s store, he had been reluctant to go the store on future occasions, which left Farris with the honors. On several occasions he’d struck up brief conversations with the slight young woman with the glasses. “I am fine, and what are you doing here?”

“Thanks to your uncle, I work here now. Apparently there cannot be enough people fluent in Japanese.”

“Speaking of my uncle, I’d like to see him.”

Her face clouded. “Ah, he’s not here. He and a number of others are, well, away.”

“I’ll bet that’s because there’s a war on, isn’t it?”

Nancy smiled. “Tell you what. Buy me a cup of coffee, and I’ll tell you what’s happened since you went to Alaska. Tim’s very proud of you, by the way.”

They had two cups each. Steve heard that Tim and Amanda were married, which delighted him, while Nancy was saddened by the death of Stecher. “There was so much hate in that man, but it seemed to be coming out.”

“Does it bother you that he died killing Japanese soldiers?”

She looked at him quizzically. “No more than it bothers me that you killed some of the enemy. You keep misunderstanding me and, for that matter, many American people of Japanese descent. I am an American, not Japanese. Japan is a strange and predatory land across a very large ocean, and, like all Americans, I cannot understand this perverse code of behavior called bushido. It is insane. Maybe someday I’ll go visit and look up my ancestors, just like my father would like to see his ancestors in Ireland, but not until my country, the United States, has defeated Japan.”

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly.

“Don’t worry.” She smiled widely, then reached across and patted his arm. He noticed that she had a number of light freckles across her cheeks. Not too many Japanese had freckles, he thought. It made her look very attractive.

Nancy stood. “Even though almost everybody’s gone from the office, I really should get to work.”

“Would you like to go to lunch with me?”

“I’d like that a lot,” she said, and Steve began to think that the day might not be a total loss after all.

At that moment, the sirens began to howl.

Harris yawned. Sitting in a car and looking at an apartment building in Mexico City was worse than dull. He had enough seniority to dump these jobs on more junior FBI agents, but no, his informant in the Mexican Army had been specific. He and he alone should be at the expensive-looking apartment building at eight o’clock in the morning on this date. He was told he might appreciate Mexican justice being served, and the thought indeed intrigued him.

A few minutes after eight, Juan Escobar, colonel in the Mexican Army and informant for the Nazis and Japanese, stepped through the door. He was in casual civilian clothes and seemed well satisfied with himself. Harris recalled that Escobar had a mistress, and it seemed logical that he’d spent the night with her. He clearly looked smug after getting laid and Harris envied him.

So what did that have to do with him and the FBI? Maybe he was going to watch Mexican police arrest Escobar for providing aid to the Germans and the Japanese? That was a pleasant enough thought, but why did they think it was necessary for him to be there to watch?

Escobar stood near the curb and looked around as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He was obviously waiting to be picked up by some junior officer. Harris stiffened as the colonel was approached by two men in equally casual clothing. His mind registered the sight of the pistols being drawn. They were jammed into Escobar’s gut while he began to protest, a look of terror on his face. The men fired rapidly and Escobar’s eyes widened and then glazed over.

As Escobar toppled to the ground, blood pouring from his chest, the men took his wallet and watch. One more shot to the chest to make certain he was dead, and the men ran down the street and around the corner. A few stunned people came out and slowly began to approach Escobar’s body. Harris quickly shook off the shock of the murder. He had been told that justice would be served and he couldn’t argue with the brutal fact. Also, he had to admit that faking the robbery might actually mask the fact that it had been an assassination by other members of the Mexican military.

He waited only a few seconds to gather his nerves and drove back to his office in the American Embassy. He didn’t want the Mexico City police wondering what an American FBI agent was doing so close to the killing of a respected Mexican Army colonel.

The somewhat grumpy woman assigned as his secretary had taken a message from someone who refused to give a name, only saying that Mexicans don’t like traitors either. Harris crumpled the paper and threw it in the wastebasket.

He thought he should talk to the ambassador before leaving to go back to the U.S., but just then someone loudly announced that the Japs were attacking California. The hell with the ambassador, Harris thought as he ran out of the embassy, he had to get a flight back to California as soon as possible.

Amanda had just arrived for her shift at the hospital when the sirens began to scream. Oh God, she thought. What should she do now? Patients were staring at her as if she knew what to do. Some could be moved, but many could not. But where to go? Was anyplace safe? Worse, there was an appalling lack of shelters.

The supervising nurse solved at least part of her problem. “Get as many as you can down to the basement and stay with them. I’ll take care of the ones who can’t move.”

Amanda and another nurse managed to get a good twenty men down from the second floor and to a room in the damp and claustrophobic basement. Another dozen wounded made it themselves, some even joking how Japanese bombs and shells motivated them to get their butts out of bed and made them forget their little aches and pains.

When everyone was pretty well settled on the floor of the basement, Amanda went back upstairs. The sirens were still wailing, but did that mean enemy shells or bombs? Or maybe—please—maybe it was a false alarm. She’d endured bombs, shells, and false alarms in Honolulu, what seemed an eternity ago. Just a couple of days earlier, she’d relished discovering so much about herself and Tim, and how much they enjoyed making love and thinking about the future. What the hell was happening to her little world? Tim was off to somewhere dangerous and she was under enemy fire in San Diego. Where was God in all this mess?

“Our ships are leaving,” someone yelled. She dashed to a window. Sure enough, the handful of American warships that had remained in San Diego Bay were steaming as rapidly as they could toward the open sea.

She asked a navy captain whether or not the departing ships were going to take on the Japanese, and got an answer that surprised her.

“Sure hope not. Two cruisers and half a dozen destroyers aren’t going to stop the Jap navy,” he said. “They’d get killed. The navy’s just trying to get those little ships out to safety. That is, if there is any place safe.”

Thunder boomed in the distance. “Our shore batteries,” the captain said. Amanda recalled that Tim had told her there were eight- and ten-inch guns in batteries on Point Lomas overlooking the entrance to the bay. More distant thunder told her that the Japs were within range. This was confirmed by giant splashes in the harbor, some frighteningly close to the fleeing warships.

“They must have spotter planes up,” the captain said.

“So why don’t we shoot them down?”

“Good question. I don’t know where the hell our planes are. It’s as if we don’t have any.”

A massive shell hit a destroyer. The explosion lifted it out of the water. It landed and capsized. Amanda watched in horror as men tumbled into the water. A new sound intruded. Planes, Jap planes. Antiaircraft guns began firing and adding to the din.

Amanda was no fool. Her place was with her patients, not where bombs and shells might be falling. She ran downstairs where most of them waited stolidly. She gave them all the information she had, which seemed to please them. Nobody liked to be kept in the dark.

“Thank you, Nurse Dane,” a sailor with his arm in a cast said, grinning. The announcement that she was married had caused great amusement. A couple said they were heartbroken and wondered why she’d dumped them, and she’d replied that she still loved them all.

Something exploded nearby, and the building shook. The lights went out, but they’d brought some flashlights. Another sailor laughed nervously. “This place wasn’t built on a low-bid contract, was it, ma’am?”

Another explosion and pieces of the false ceiling began to tumble down. “Get under something,” she hollered.

Half the men had done that already, but it did motivate the rest to take cover under anything they could find. Desks and tables were the favorites. She looked around for something to hide under.

She was already flying across the room when she realized that another explosion had occurred, and this one terribly close. She hit the wall with enough force to knock the wind from her. She gasped for breath and felt pain surging through her body. Debris was falling on her and she couldn’t move. As she felt consciousness ebb, she heard screams and realized at least one voice was hers. Then it became dusty and dark.

Farris and Nancy cowered in a long slit trench. It was filled with men and women, civilians and military, and even a few children. The Japanese were pounding the base. A shell landed nearby and showered them with dirt and debris. A child began to scream in stark terror.

Antiaircraft batteries nearby began to fire. Farris risked looking up and saw a pair of Japanese planes, the damned Zeroes, fly low overhead. It was obvious that Jap carriers as well as their warships were very close.

A Zero streaked across the bay, only a few feet above the water. The antiaircraft battery opened up with its twin 20mm guns. The plane flew through the shells and fired its machine guns, riddling the battery. Men staggered out and fell, some quivering.

“Where the hell are our planes?” a Marine sergeant asked. Then he saw Nancy. “Hey, she’s a fucking Jap.”

The enraged Marine threw a punch that Nancy ducked. Farris grabbed the man and pushed him against the wall of the trench. “Do that again and I’ll kill you.”

Nancy grabbed his arm and pointed to the destroyed antiaircraft guns. “Some of those men are still alive.”

Farris climbed out of the trench and ran to the ruined battery, with Nancy right behind him. While most of the gunners were shredded meat, two men were still alive. He grabbed one and she grabbed the other. The two men moaned at being roughly manhandled, but there wasn’t time to be gentle.

Farris pulled at his wounded man. He was too big to carry, so he dragged him. The pain to his damaged shoulder was excruciating, and he felt it pop. Incredulously, he saw Nancy managing to drag the other man the few dozen yards to safety. Halfway there, the Marine sergeant and another enlisted man arrived to help them with their burdens.

They managed to get the two wounded men into the trench. People moved away to give them room. “How’s your first aid?” Nancy asked. Farris and the Marine sergeant admitted theirs was okay but that was about it. Even in combat, Farris hadn’t had to treat wounds.

“Then my skills are better,” she said. “Living in a place like Bridger made us all very independent. Let’s get organized; start helping me.”

Steve’s left arm was again limp and useless. All he could do was watch while Nancy and another woman did what they could for the wounded men.

“Sorry about being such a jerk, sir,” the Marine sergeant said. “I didn’t realize she was an American.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I think your shoulder’s been dislocated.”

Farris agreed with the diagnosis. The Marine pushed him against the wall of the trench, grabbed his wrist, and jerked. The pain was excruciating and he nearly fainted, but the shoulder popped back in.

The Marine offered Steve a cigarette. “That woman is something else.”

“Yeah. She sure is.”

The explosions in and around the base represented both fear and an opportunity for Gunther Krause. For a while he had been having second thoughts as to whether the Americans would honor their agreement or, once he was no longer useful, discard it and him as well. Now, as the shells fell on the base and in the city, he knew the answer. The government would need a scapegoat for the burning mess that was the San Diego Naval Base and that person’s name would be Gunther Krause. The Americans would manage to blame him for the devastation and the slaughter.

When he agreed to help the Yanks lure the Japanese, he had no idea it would result in so much destruction to an American city. No, he thought ruefully, there would be no freedom for him. If he managed to escape the firing squad or noose, they would put him in a place where he’d never even see the light of day.

When the shelling started, his two guards had left the house and run to a slit trench, assuming that he would follow. If he was smart, that is where he would be. But if he was really smart, he thought, he would take advantage of the chaos and confusion. Maybe he didn’t like the idea of spending the rest of his life on the run, but it beat a firing squad by a lot. He quickly packed the suitcase they’d allowed him to bring with him and ran outside. He was dressed in civilian clothes. The American military didn’t want him defiling their uniforms and that suited him well this morning.

His two guards had left their jeep in the street. He got in and drove off. As he approached the gate to the base, he saw people in uniform running in and trying to get to their posts, while others, mainly civilians, streamed out. The guards weren’t in the least bit interested in who was leaving and only looked quickly at those entering. As long as you were white, in uniform, and not Japanese, you were okay. He parked the jeep and simply trotted out and into San Diego. Crowds were headed out of the city and he joined them.

Krause had only gone a few blocks when he saw that, incredibly, his bank was open. He entered and asked to open his safe deposit box. A Hispanic female clerk named Maria helped him. She explained, angrily, that their idiot of a manager wouldn’t let them close the place, not even for a Japanese bombardment. If she didn’t need the job so much, she’d walk out. She added that the pay was lousy and she was thinking about quitting and going to work in a nearby factory like her husband did. She said they’d lived in the town of Grover, a ways north of San Diego, and had been shelled out of their homes by the Japanese. It looked like it was going to happen again. Krause wanted to strangle her.

Finally alone in the booth, he emptied the contents of the box. He now had more than ten thousand dollars and three sets of identification. He also had a .32 Colt revolver. Krause happily departed the bank, found a car, hot-wired it, and drove off inland along with much of the population of San Diego. He was confident that the police would have too much on their hands to worry about a stolen car, especially when they would recover it shortly. He was uncertain as to exactly where he would go, but east would be the general direction and then he would take a Greyhound bus to somewhere. Kansas City sounded like a nice destination. He would be a German refugee who’d fled Hitler before the war. Yes, that would get him sympathy. Maybe, he thought, he would make it after all.

He laughed. The Third Reich was doomed to a slow death in the frozen steppes of Russia and would ultimately be trampled by the vengeful Soviets, but there was no reason for a similar fate to befall him.

Admiral Chester Nimitz clutched his chest and tried to hold back the tears that threatened to spill down his cheeks. In the background, his aides, his staff, were imploring him to go to a shelter. A couple had even tried to pull on his arm, but he had shaken them off. However horrible this was, it was something he had to see, especially since he had caused it.

Nimitz recalled an old phrase: “What hath God wrought?” No, this time it was: “What Hath Chester Nimitz wrought?” It was his decision to try to lure the Japanese fleet to California and now he had them. He laughed bitterly and recalled another saying: “Be careful what you wish for, it might come true.” He now had to accept the possibility that the name Chester Nimitz would go down amid the host of history’s fools. Custer and whoever had led the Charge of the Light Brigade and demanded the assault on the Somme would welcome him as a failed comrade-in-arms.

Through the window of his office, he could see small boats moving fearlessly through the attack, picking up survivors from the sunken destroyer. There were precious few sailors being pulled into the boats, and Nimitz assumed that many of them were dead already.

Another enemy salvo crashed onto the base, destroying a warehouse. Something in it exploded with a roar. The hospital had collapsed and he hoped the patients and medical personnel had gotten out. The shore batteries had already been silenced. Japanese ships and planes were shelling and bombing with impunity, and he had invited them in. Intelligence said that at least six and possibly eight enemy carriers were approaching the Baja, so where had the planes bombing and strafing the base come from? Either the Japs had more carriers than anyone thought, or they were using anything that would float and hold planes.

Regardless, the full fury of Imperial Japan was descending on San Diego and Los Angeles, which was also being bombed and shelled. The Rose Bowl stadium had been shelled and the “HOLLYWOOD” sign had been blown off the hill. The handful of fighters he’d held back to provide a token defense had been shot down.

Another explosion rocked the area. A bomb or shell had hit a fuel depot and resulted in billowing flames surging skyward.

“Admiral, let’s go.”

It was one of his aides. This one was brave enough to be insistent. Nimitz allowed himself to be led down the stairs to a place that was, theoretically at least, safe. If the enemy force approaching the Baja was not destroyed, or at least defeated, his name would be reviled.

Nimitz paused. He had a horrible thought. What if Yamamoto had seen through the trick and no Japanese fleet was actually going to the Baja? Perhaps they would turn around, or even head north, attacking and devastating other coastal cities as they went. Perhaps they’d seen through his clumsy ruse and knew that there were no carriers in the Baja. If the Japs made such a fool of him, the word “reviled” wouldn’t begin to describe the contempt he would endure.

Belowground, in his reinforced concrete bunker, his staff looked at him, relief evident on their faces that he’d finally joined them. He made a mental note never to scare them again. A second mental note was that whatever happened, he would endure it.

“What’s the latest?”

“The Jap surface fleets are turning back, sir. Either they’re out of ammo or out of targets.”

“Neither,” Nimitz said. “They’re trying to lure us out. They want us to send all our planes after them and we’re not going to do that. How many planes attacked here and Los Angeles?”

“Maybe thirty apiece,” another aide said. “We think they have a small carrier off each city. Allowing for typical pilot exaggeration, we shot down an estimated twenty of the enemy.”

“A heavy price for a decoy,” the admiral thought out loud.

Another aide looked at him eagerly. “Sir, radar on the hills overlooking the Baja report that the enemy carriers are within their range. They also report that the Japs are close enough to start launching large numbers of planes.”

Nimitz sat down in leather admiral’s chair. Despite his many doubts, the Japs were going to attack. Perhaps this wouldn’t be such a bad day after all.

Toki ran up to his friend and embraced him in a most unJapanese display of affection, a wide smile on his face. “Today is the day, my friend, go bravely and sink their ships.”

Masao slapped him on the back and laughed. It was a good day to be a Japanese warrior, a samurai. “Make up your mind. A while back you were certain we were doomed because the Americans were so powerful. Now you seem confident that we’ll defeat them. Which is it?”

“Of course I have doubts. Nothing is certain in life, except, of course, death.”

They were standing on the flight deck alongside Masao’s Zero. The deck was humming with pilots waiting to be given the word to take off, while mechanics performed whatever last-minute wizardry they did to make sure that the magnificent Japanese planes flew.

Finally, the order was given and pilots eagerly climbed into the cockpits of their planes. Along with Zeros, the Kaga was going to launch all of her Aichi D3A dive bombers with their five-hundred-fifty-pound bombs, and her Nakajima B5N torpedo bombers with their Type 91 torpedoes that had warheads containing more than five hundred pounds of explosives. Just about every plane from every carrier would be involved in the attack. Only a handful of Zeros would remain behind. Some had wondered about the wisdom of that decision, but the revered and infallible Yamamoto had said that fortune favors the bold. The Americans could not attack the Japanese fleet because they had no carriers at sea, although they would surely have some land-based planes guarding their ships. Ergo, there was no need to retain planes to fight off any American planes.

With a roar, Masao was airborne. The sight of the vast aerial armada took his breath away. A mighty host of planes was headed toward the American coast. He exulted. In a short while the two American carriers would be at the bottom of the Gulf of California.

As he and the others drew closer, they could see dots in the air. Yes, the Americans were rising to meet them. Good, Masao thought, victory would be even more complete when they were all shot down.

Soon he was both high enough and far enough along to see the distant shapes of the American ships. They appeared to be dead in the water. Something nagged at him. They didn’t look quite right. He dismissed the thought. After all, weren’t they in the Gulf for repairs? That must be why they looked strange.

He wiped any distractions from his mind. There was no time for daydreaming. First, he had to fight his way through a surprising number of American planes that were racing to meet him. The more of them to shoot down, he thought happily.

Lieutenant Harry Hogg had similar thoughts as he and his fellow pilots waited for the order to take off. It seemed like they were going to wait for the Japs to get real close before taking them on, which seemed like a dumb idea. He’d much rather get them as far out as possible.

When the order finally came, he and hundreds of others took off from dozens of hastily scratched-out fields and flew over the waters of the gulf. He laughed as he thought that his P38 probably cleared the end of the runway by a hair. Now where the hell were the Japs?

Radar directed them toward the Japanese air fleet. After a few minutes, they didn’t need radar. The sky was filled with enemy airplanes.

“Jesus, look at them all,” Harry announced. For many this was their first combat flight and radio discipline was lousy.

“Every fucking plane in the world,” someone said with awe in his voice.

“Shut up and remember your orders,” snarled the major. Yeah, Hogg thought, our orders.

There was no longer time to think, only react. Planes swirled and turned. Tracers streaked through the air as the two immense forces mingled in a giant lethal dance. A Japanese plane appeared for an instant in front of him and Hogg fired a short burst, missing. Damn it to hell, he raged. Another Zero appeared and it exploded, shot down by somebody else. A P47 spiraled downward, missing one of his wings by mere feet. He urged the pilot to bail out but saw nothing. He couldn’t watch. He had to take care of himself and follow his damned orders.

More planes exploded or tumbled to the sea. He shot at a Zero and it burst into flames. He yelled with happiness until the major again told him to shut up and remember his orders. Fuck the major, he thought. He had just shot down a Zero.

Suddenly, he was through the swarm. He looked about and saw that a number of other twin-tailed planes had also cleared the brawl. They formed up and headed west. They had their orders. Hogg wondered if other squadrons had similar orders.

Torelli and the Shark had lain low while the Japanese battleships and cruisers headed toward San Diego. Other than sending a quick burst of information describing what they’d seen—four battleships and eight cruisers, along with a dozen destroyers—they’d honored their orders and stayed submerged.

It annoyed Torelli that he hadn’t been able to tell fleet headquarters that the biggest, baddest battleship in the world had just roared over his sub as they hid below the waves. Like everyone, he’d heard rumors that the Japs had a monster ship with bigger guns than anyone else had, but hadn’t lent any credence to them. Now he knew that everyone’s nightmares were true.

He figured the enemy battleship at seventy to eighty thousand tons, far more than anything the U.S. Navy could throw against it. He dreaded the thought of what the shells from her mighty guns might do to San Diego and the naval base, much less what they could do to an American warship.

When the sound of ships’ engines faded and he thought it was safe, he ordered the sub to periscope depth and looked around. Nothing. He raised the radio antenna and immediately got a signal from Pacific Fleet. The gloves were off. Now any Jap ship was fair game. Los Angeles and San Diego were being bombarded.

“I wonder why we couldn’t attack before?” Crowley asked.

“Ours not to reason why and all that high command type bullshit,” Torelli answered with a smile.

“Any chance we’ll get a shot at that big one?”

“If we do, will our torpedoes work?”

Crowley grimaced. “We’ve done our damndest.”

Torelli patted his young executive officer on the shoulder. “Then get them loaded and ready to shoot.”