Kolhammer shook his head. “No. Nobody’s sure which way they’re going to jump, or when. Only that they will, when they think they can. No. I’m just worried about the pace of the German buildup. I have our sigint and imaging people on them twenty-four–seven, and we all think it looks like the surge is coming very soon.”
Judge pursed his lips. “You really think they’ll try a crossing in autumn?”
“I doubt they’ll wait until next year. First of all, they’ve killed thousands of their best officers in the purges, post-Transition. The survivors are the sort of yes-men and buttheads who’ll tell Hitler what he wants to hear—that the Channel’s just a glorified river crossing.”
Kolhammer leaned back in his chair and ticked the next points off on his fingers.
“And of course, Hitler—fuckin’ nutjob or not—doesn’t think he can afford to wait. And he’s right. There’s already a shitload of ’temp forces training in the U.K., and more men and matériel flooding in by convoy every day. Young Harry’s set up his regimental HQ in Scotland, and the Brits are working hard to leapfrog some of their key technologies. Our new weapons system will start coming online early to mid next year, and of course, Groves is going to deliver the bomb a hell of a lot quicker than he would have before we arrived. So Hitler knows he has to go now or never.”
Judge nodded and shrugged fatalistically. “That’s why the Luftwaffe’s been hammering at the RAF and the
“Yeah,” said Kolhammer. “It’s really costing the Germans, but the attacks
Judge nodded. “You want me to fly some of our Triple-A stocks over ahead of us?” he asked. “Our laser packs are good, and Metal Storm’s at forty-eight percent. We can still spare some.”
Kolhammer thought it over. He didn’t want the most valuable ship in the world left defenseless. Even without her catapults and squadrons, the
“Hold off on that for now, Mike,” he said. “But when you get closer to home and I can cover you with shore-based CAP, we might rush a few pallets of MS reloads across to Halabi. She’s going to need them.”
A time hack in the corner of Kolhammer’s screen began a one-minute countdown, indicating the end of the comm-link. He let himself relax a little. “It’ll be good to have you folks back, Captain. Even if the old tub is down at San Diego, I could use a few more friendly faces out here.”
Judge took his lead from the senior officer. He dropped out of character, as well. “From what I understand, you’ve got too many new best friends there. Every longhair and hippie in America is making tracks for the Valley, if you believe the press.”
“This is nineteen forty-two, Mike. Hippies and long hair haven’t been invented yet. But you’re still right, after a fashion. American population’s about a hundred fifty million right now, and some days it feels as if about fifty million of them are moving here. They’ve all got their reasons, I guess. Some personal. Some political. But you know, we could do without it. I even had a delegation of African-American labor unions in here begging me to run for president after Roosevelt—”
Judge grunted. Knowledge of the president’s impending demise had sent the country into a tailspin until Roosevelt had promised to submit to an intensive course of therapy, supervised by Kolhammer’s senior medical officer, Major Margie Francois.
“I think they see me signing the new millennium into law on my first day in office,” Kolhammer grumbled.
Mike Judge smiled at the admiral’s obvious discomfort. “You gotta wonder how Ike and Harry S. feel about that,” he said. “Or Kennedy, speaking of which, there’s an intelligence package came through on the last relay from Brisbane. Young Jack features prominently. Jones wants to forward it to your intel people. I’ve got mine working it now. We didn’t have it long enough to brief you.”
“Understood. We’re about to lose the link. Take care, Mike.”
“Will do, sir.”
The picture dropped out instantly.
Of all the artifacts they’d left behind, instant global communications, and the feelings of omnipotence they engendered were perhaps the hardest to let go. He had a lot of technical and human capital devoted to reinventing them, even though it would be many years before they showed any real results.
