"Fire," said Halabi.

The weapons boss punched two buttons. Halabi felt and heard the autocannon cycle through a brief burst of shell fire. It sounded like a very short, frenzied drumbeat, less than a second.

"That's it?" asked Murray, somewhat incredulous. "You're sure you got them."

The Trident's commander pointed to the flatscreen in front of them. "Quickly, Sir Leslie, or you'll miss it."

The Royal Navy liaison officer turned back to the video coverage. At that instant both planes disintegrated in a sudden and silent eruption of fire and light. The long, heavy-looking hulls detonated into a dozen pieces before dropping away as the wings folded up like a book snapping shut, and the last of the debris dropped out of shot on the screen.

"You were asking if I was certain," said Halabi.

"My mistake," said Murray, who had been subdued by the spectacle.

"Signals, what did they get off?" Halabi called across the CIC.

"Just a brief transmission, Captain. Less than two seconds."

She gestured to the technician to play it on the CIC speaker system. A hiss of static flared and dropped away as a Japanese voice said a few calm words before being cut off in midsentence.

AIR STATION TWENTY-THREE, SUMATRA, 2155 HOURS, 20 JUNE 1942

The Japanese squadron had trained exclusively for night fighting since 1937. Ironically, and much to the men's disgust, their special skills had kept them out of the most important battles of the war so far. There had been no call for them because the American and British fliers couldn't take their pathetic oxcarts into the air at night, so there was no enemy to oppose. Squadron Leader Murata had insisted on training at the same fever pitch, however, even after it became obvious to them that they would most likely never fire a shot in combat.

As he sat in the cockpit of his Zero, the engine growling, a line of firepots stretching out in front of him down the crude runway of pressed dirt, Captain Murata's heart raced. Not with fear, but with the fierce joy of a samurai who has spent his life preparing for combat. None of his men was quite sure what was steaming down the strait, and their airplanes were not, strictly speaking, designed for attacking surface ships. But he was sure they'd still give a good account of themselves with their 20mm cannon.

He'd order the ammunition changed, to include a heavier load of incendiary tracers. If you pumped enough of them into a tanker it would go up like a giant bomb. At least so they hoped. This, too, was a theory that had never been tested.

His ground crew chief banged on the canopy, and Murata pulled it shut over his head, only slightly muting the engine's howl. He examined his instruments with the aid of a small flashlight fitted with a red bulb that wouldn't degrade his night vision. Everything was as it should be. He pushed the throttle forward. The chocks came out from under his wheels, and he immediately began to bump up and down in the padded seat as he rolled along the slightly corrugated runway.

He gripped the stick, increased his speed, and dropped the flaps as the firepots blurred into one long yellow streak in the darkness outside the cockpit. Acceleration pushed him back into the seat.

He flicked a switch to turn on the blinking red lights at his wingtips. The rest of the squadron would follow these lights up into the sky. The tiny strip of light that was their airfield fell away below. The other planes strung out behind him, small snorts of blue flame coughing occasionally from the engine cowlings. Only moments after takeoff Murata spotted the three Imperial Japanese Navy destroyers, far ahead of them in the strait. If he could spot three relatively small vessels like that so quickly, there was little doubt he would find this mystery convoy before long.

Murata hoped the air controllers had done their job. It wouldn't do to be shot down by his own navy as he flew over them. But he needn't have worried. His Majesty's Imperial Japanese Navy was the finest in the world. Murata's squadron roared over them without incident.

He took a moment to appreciate the scenery in this, his last few minutes as an unblooded warrior. The world was a patchwork of shadows and deeper darkness. The island of Sumatra was a black void to his left, a line of mountains discernible only where the stars disappeared, cut off by the highest ridges. The waters of strait unfurled below like a great, wide ribbon of lesser blackness, shot through with diamonds as small waves threw back shards of light from the half-moon, hanging like an ancient blade in the night sky.

It took them less than an hour to reach their objective.

Murata waggled his wings, signaling to the other Zero pilots that they should form up on him and prepare for a strafing run. Below them, in the strait, the spreading wakes of the big, slow-moving ships taunted him. They weren't taking evasive action. They weren't firing at him. They must be asleep, he decided.

He smiled.

They simply could not be allowed to proceed as if they cared nothing for the might of imperial Japan. Murata took a deep breath, centering himself in his hara. The Zero became more than just a machine. It was a divine blade, an embodiment of the emperor's will. Descended from gods, destined to take dominion over the lesser peoples of the world, the spirit of the blessed Emperor Hirohito rode with him in this plane. Murata could actually feel the presence of divinity as he plunged down on the prey.

Then an explosion rocked him.

Ah, awake at last, white man.

For one brief shining moment, he knew the rapture of the samurai. Nothing could deflect him, the emperor's sword, from slashing into the enemy. Not high-explosive shells, nor twisting lines of tracer. Not 20mm Oerlikon cannon, or Bofors mounts, or even the bark and cough of five-inch guns on the enemy destroyers.

He almost laughed with glee, and then…

Murata gasped.

The explosions weren't flak bursts. They were the planes of his comrades, disintegrating in dirty, orange balls of flame. Within seconds the sky was empty, save for the burning wreckage tumbling toward the sea. Murata's eyes bulged at the sight. Wings sheathed in flame fluttered downward like cherry blossoms. Strangely beautiful cascades of fire rained down as aviation gas ignited. He was certain he saw the nose of a Zero, the propeller still turning. It flew past him like a blazing comet.

He had time to wonder why his own plane was suddenly so hot.

And then he was consumed in a fiery maelstrom.

The focus of activity in the Trident's CIC shifted from the antiair division to antisurface. Halabi brushed past Sir Leslie, jostling him slightly on her way over the small group of workstations. The Royal Navy's representative to Hawaii said nothing. He'd been silenced by the brutal efficiency with which Halabi and her crew had wiped out the Japanese squadron. The Zero had achieved a mythical status every bit as powerful as the RAF's own Spitfire. To see them swatted away like flies was a rather confrontational experience for the rear admiral.

"Excuse me," Halabi said as she brushed past him again.

"Yes, of course, Captain," he muttered in a distracted fashion. He watched, fascinated, as Halabi clasped her hands behind her back and considered the feed from the drone they had hovering above the three Japanese ships a few hundred kilometers ahead. The screen was split into two panels displaying low light and infrared. The enemy ships were steaming toward her at what must be their top speed. White water boiled at their sterns in the pale opalescent green of the low-light video, while hot smoke poured from the glowing stacks amidships of each vessel on the infrared window. Murray had trouble believing the God's-eye view of battle on the huge screen in front of him.