The Americans will be sunk. But they will send more ships. We will return to port to get more torpedoes. One can only hope the Americans run out of ships before we run out of torpedoes. Our own ships will take losses, some of us will die. The American fleets will be hurt worse, but America has an air force too. Will they not fight back, bomb our country, maybe shoot their missiles at us, drop paratroopers onto our soil? How long can we fight? How long will we watch our children and women dying? Some, sir, say we were wrong to attack Greater Manchuria, that we should say so now. They say it is a new century, that it seems wrong to fight the same fight we did in the last.”
“Are you speaking for yourself or others?”
“Sir, I am an officer of the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force. I will do my duty to the day I die. I will follow my orders. I will shoot torpedoes at hospital ships if ordered. I will blow up this submarine before allowing it to be captured, if ordered. I am an officer, but I am also a man. The time for Samurai warriors is over. Our leaders have not realized that.”
“That’s quite a speech. First. I had no idea you felt this way. I order you to keep these opinions to yourself.
Failing that, I will shoot you myself. Now get out.”
Mazdai returned to his own stateroom. Tanaka stared at the door, amazed and angry. Did others in Japan really think this way? Mazdai’s argument had no attraction for him. Mazdai had not lost his mother, the one person who loved him on this earth, to the uncaring, incompetent and hurtful Americans. Mazdai had not spent his young years being spit at and taunted by Americans.
Mazdai had not been forced to live with them, with their disgusting food and arrogance about being the best country in the world, the one and only world power.
Mazdai had not had to suffer their vicious racist attitudes toward Japan, toward all people of color.
Toshumi Tanaka had, and even if his torpedoes didn’t make the world a more peaceful place for flower-loving Mazdai, they would at least even the balance sheet. The torpedoes were named Nagasakis for a reason. The cruise missiles were named Hiroshimas for a reason.
To hell with the Americans.
Comdr. Bruce Phillips scanned the horizon with his binoculars, searching for the lights of merchant ships, fishing boats or pleasure craft, although there was no way a yacht would be out tonight. The blizzard was the worst Phillips could remember since he was a child, back in the storms of ‘93. The snowflakes were the size of nickels and quarters, fogging his binoculars, getting inside the collar of his parka. He dropped the binoculars and stared out at the fog, cursing the slowness of their journey. Somehow, though, it seemed fitting that a trip under the polar icecap would begin with a blizzard. The fog obscured vision, the horizon coming in, then receding again. The fog and the snow and the late hour made the Sound dead quiet. The only sounds were the dull rumble of the tugboat’s diesel engines, the thudding roar of Piranha’s own emergency diesel generator and the wash of the wake against the hull. The Piranha was moving at little more than five knots, her diesel running to provide power to start the reactor. As soon as the Sound was deep enough, he would order the ship to cast off the line to the tug and he’d submerge the ship. It would be a hairy operation taking it down on battery power alone. “Control, Captain,” Phillips said into his boom microphone, “mark distance and time to the fifty-fathom curve.”
“Captain, Navigator,” Court’s voice replied in his single earpiece headset, “forty minutes to fifty-fathom curve, distance three point three nautical miles.”
“Present sounding?”
“Forty-one fathoms.”
“Very well.” Phillips looked at the officer of the deck, Lt. Peter Meritson.
“Well, Pete, what’s Deanna think of all this?”
“I told her it was no big deal.” Phillips looked over the lip of the sail to the port side, the Vortex missile canisters ruining the flow of water around the ship, the missiles half the length of the submarine. They were certainly ugly, he thought, wondering if the missiles would work. He looked back over at his sonar officer and officer of the deck. “Yeah, but what does she think?”
“She thinks I’ll be wearing a flag at the bottom of the Sea of Japan.” “She said that?” “No, Deanna actually said, ‘Be careful, honey, I’ll worry about you,’ but her tone of voice said ‘You’re not coming back.’ It’s a bit much for her to take.”
“What’s Deanna do again?”
“She’s a nurse. Takes her show on the road, makes rounds of older folks’ homes.”
“Tough job. Hope she’s not going out in this weather.”
“No, she’s at her mothers’.” Phillips sighed. “Let’s get this bucket of bolts ready to submerge, Pete. I’m laying below. Rig the bridge for dive and shift control to the control room.”
“Aye, sir. I’ll see you in fifteen.”
