The bruise on her thigh was going to be a good couple of months fading completely, which ticked her off. Yeah, but what are you gonna do? Julia tied up her sweatpants and contemplated the painful gym session ahead of her. She was carrying a load of minor injuries and disfigurements from the job on Luzon.

They were of trivial significance, though, when measured against the material she'd gathered. This was going to be her first story for the "old" Times.

Word was out.

With the Singapore and Luzon task forces safely reunited and heading for Pearl, the Allied governments had finally released news of the Transition. For someone like Julia who'd grown up in a world of instant, global news access, it was unbelievably frustrating. She had no idea what sort of reaction had greeted the news at home.

At home?

Well, she figured she'd best get used to the idea. Grabbing her towel from where it lay at the end of her bunk, she hesitated. She couldn't help herself. A telegram lay in the jumble of clothes and field equipment on top of her unmade bed, and she picked it up to read for maybe the tenth time.

MISS DUFFY…

She'd stopped snorting at that on the fourth reading.

WELCOME. NYT OFFERS SENIOR STAFF POSITION. NEEDS 3000 WORDS ON 'TRANSITION,' 2000 WORDS ON POW RAID ASAP.

She'd said yes, of course, after they'd agreed to take Rosanna on, as well. Dan had been right. They were so desperate to sign her up, they'd cop to anything.

Dan.

A sharp pang of regret stabbed at her. She shouldn't have been such a jerk before Luzon. She'd been anxious and jonesing for her chillers and she'd ripped him up for no good reason. He was a good guy, a great fucking guy, and she just knew that she'd blown it with him.

Rosanna said Dan had watched the vid of her wasting that Jap in Manila over and over and over. It was really spooky, she'd said. In the end Rosanna had been too busy to get pissed and she'd ignored him as he compulsively replayed the footage. She hadn't even noticed when he'd finally drifted away.

Julia folded up the telegram, for once failing to marvel at the way it felt, with its crisp paper crunch. Like something out of a museum. Tightness clenched at her throat and she cursed herself for the weakness. Next fucking thing she'd be get all teary and…

"Hey."

Dan!

He stood there in the doorway, looking nervous and tentative. She didn't stop. She didn't think. She just spun around and flew into his arms with such force that they nearly tumbled into the corridor outside.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she said, unable to stop repeating herself. A flood of tears and nonsense burst from her as his arms stiffened then relaxed, and pulled her into his chest.

"So am I," said Black.

Damiri didn't understand at first. Kolhammer seemed to be leading a convoy of dozens of ships, many more than had been in the force off Timor, but a brief laser-linked message from the carrier explained the presence of so many contemporary vessels. It made no difference to his plans, he decided. He might just kill a few more unbelievers, and there was nothing wrong with that.

Smoke plumes from the older ships filled the sky as they drew closer. The beautiful, lilting prayers of his shipmates drifted up from below as they prepared to enter Paradise. The few Japanese on board had been banished below decks and he supposed they were making whatever arrangements their false god-emperor required of them. With so few of his former colleagues volunteering for this mission, the Japanese had been invaluable in keeping the ship running at a very basic level, and in coordinating arrangements with their own departed comrades on the three IJN vessels.

Out of respect for their help, Damiri had asked if any wished to surrender their will to Allah in the last hours of their life, but all had declined. He shrugged. There was no saving some people.

To still the drumbeat of his heart as the fatal moment drew closer, Damiri stepped out of the bridge into the fresh air and took inventory of the "damage" to the ship. Bullet holes, torn metal, scorch marks, shattered glass, broken masts and one particularly impressive shell burst had convincingly scarred the Sutanto. She looked like a veteran warship now-just the sort of thing to impress stupidly sentimental Westerners who, of course, could not know that Yamamoto's engineers had meticulously crafted every scratch and dent back at Hashirajima. Before packing the ship to the gunnels with high explosive.

He wondered how closely the Americans were reading the bogus ship's log he'd zapped over to them as soon as they drew into laser-link range. The answer came within a few minutes.

"Have you seen this, yet?" asked Commander Judge.

The lanky Texan was leafing through a printout of the Sutanto's log on the bridge of the supercarrier.

"Nope, not yet," Kolhammer said. "Something up?"

He watched on screen as the Sutanto passed the lead ship in the convoy, Halabi's stealth destroyer, HMS Trident. True to form, the Brits turned on a full salute. Just as typically, the Indonesians responded in a really half-assed manner, with almost nobody on deck to return the gesture. Although, given how badly shot up the boat looked, he could understand that.

"Ask the Sutanto to come around onto our heading," he said. "We don't need them threading their way through the convoy. They'll run into someone for certain."

As an ensign relayed the order, Judge walked over chewing his lip.

"It says here they only woke up five days ago, Admiral. Damiri has no idea how long they were out, but it couldn't have been that long, could it? They'd have died of starvation or thirst."

Kolhammer eased himself up out of a slight slouch. The Pacific stretched away forever under a diamond-hard sky. Not a single cloud floated over the dozens of ships beating their way back to Pearl.

"Well, what's the elapsed time on the ship's clock?"

Judge flipped over a couple of pages. He never looked happy dealing with hard copy.

"A hundred and thirty-three hours," he said. "Close enough to six days, which don't work for me, since we've been here for weeks now."

Admiral Spruance joined them from his perch by the lee helm.

"Is there a problem?"

Kolhammer chewed his lip.

"Ensign, why is the Sutanto still coming on? She should have changed her heading by now?"

"Sorry, sir, they have the orders."

Judge examined the printout as though he'd been handed a three-dollar note.

"I guess there could have been temporal as well spatial distortions," he conceded, without much enthusiasm. "If the Nuku ended up on top of that mountain, I guess these guys could have been thrown out of sync, you know, timewise."

"You don't sound confident, Commander," said Spruance. "Can I suggest we ask them to stop before they get even farther inside our lines?"

Kolhammer checked the screen again. The Indonesian ship was much closer than he'd expected.

"Have they increased speed?" he asked.

"Goddamn," spat Judge.

A small, perceptible jolt ran through everyone on the bridge who'd ever had to face a jihadi suicide run.

"What's happening?" asked Spruance, who couldn't help but notice the tension.

"Sound to general quarters," ordered Commander Judge. "We have a possible suicide run. All hands brace for impact."

"Comms," shouted Kolhammer, "patch me directly into the Sutanto right now."

Telltale static crackled over the loudspeakers as the Sutanto's obsolete communications net linked to the Clinton.

"Damiri, this is Admiral Kolhammer. Come to a full stop right now. Are you reading me? Come to a full stop right now or we will fire on you."

"Turn it off," said Damiri. "All ahead full. Allahu akbar!"