PROLOGUE

CHRISTMAS DAY 1942
HMAS HAVOC, 210 NAUTICAL MILES
SOUTH-SOUTHEAST OF THE KURIL ISLANDS

Captain Jane Willet came awake in an instant - even before the chime rang
at her cabin door. At least that's how it seemed.

It's probably just my mind getting bent of out shape.

Willet was groggy from a fortnight of broken sleep. Gone were the days
of dialing up a stim surge from her implants. Indeed, most of the things
she had taken for granted were long gone. Close friends and family
outside this boat. Six hundred channels of bad TV. Thai food. No-fuss
contraception.

The chime rang again.

'Enter,' she said, her voice cracking badly. She had to repeat herself,
after a cough. 'Come in, please.'

The door slid to the side, and a female sailor stuck her head into the
cabin. 'Begging your pardon, Captain, but the XO says we've picked 'em
up again. He said you'd want to be on the bridge.'

'Thank you, Bec.'

Willet sat up and ran her fingers through her hair, gathering the thick,
shoulder-length mass of tangles and split ends into a workable ponytail
that she tied off with an elastic band. The sailor stepped into the room
and over to the counter, then poured a mug of coffee - the last of the
boat's stock of premium-blend Illy. She handed it to the captain.

'Ah. Thanks again. Champion effort.' Willet took a sip, and it felt as
though the caffeine went straight to her cortex. Young Sparrow brewed a
very mean cup of coffee.

Jeez, I'm gonna miss this when it runs out, thought the submarine
commander. Wonder how long it'll be after the war before anyone imports
a decent Italian blend.

Aloud she said, 'Tell the XO to keep his finger off the trigger until
I've got some pants on. I'll join him in two minutes.'

'Aye, Captain.'

Her orderly disappeared, closing the door as she left. Willet took a
long slug of the coffee, brewed warm rather than hot so she wouldn't
scald herself. She set the mug down in a recess on the small table
beside her bunk. She grabbed a 'temp-made energy bar and peeled back the
waxed paper, then started chewing joylessly on her so-called breakfast
at the same time as she climbed into a pair of gray combat coveralls.
She checked her watch.

Zero four thirty-one hours, local.

She'd been asleep for less than two hours.

Washing down a mouthful of the bar with the last of her coffee, Willet
gathered up her flexipad and left behind the small personal space of her
cabin. Some novels, a few black-and-white photographs of the Sydney
Harbor Bridge, a picture of her sister, and a small watercolor of their
parents' beach house painted by her dad back up in twenty-one marked out
the room as her private territory. She was never far from work, however.

The cabin was located all of fifteen meters from the sub's Combat
Center, allowing her to arrive in a shade under the promised two minutes.

'Captain on deck!'

'As you were. Mr. Grey, I hear we've got them by the short and curlies
again.'

Lieutenant Commander Conrad Grey stepped aside from a bank of flat-panel
screens, a quick nod inviting her to take his place. She could see that
he was tense, like everyone present.

'The sea's calmed down a fair bit up there, skipper. We're getting clean
capture on the sensors now, the best we've had in three days. Their
cocks are on the chopping block, ma'am. Just waiting for the magic word.'

Willet took in the sensor feed with a glance. Once upon a time, they
would have made this kill from a much safer distance, but in such foul
weather, without satellite cover, they'd been forced to come within six
thousand meters just to use the boat's own sensor suite. Tracking
something as dangerous as a Sartre-class stealth destroyer was like
snuggling up to a nest of vipers.

At least it would have been under normal circumstances.

The Dessaix, however, wasn't under the command of its normal crew.
Mostly their fates were unknown, but it didn't take much to imagine what
had become of them. The Nazis had captured the ship while they were all
still comatose from the Transition, so there wouldn't have been a chance
to resist. If any still lived, they were probably hanging by their
thumbs in a Gestapo cell somewhere in Germany.

Willet leaned back into the gelform seat padding and peered intently
into the multipanel display. There was no video feed to examine, only
animations of the boat's electronic intelligence haul. The Havoc had
five small drones left, but they weren't robust enough to cope with the