Perhaps if she had been a little less sanguine, she wouldn't have been so badly upset by what had happened next. Halabi was climbing the stairwell back up to King Charles Street. It was a long climb, the Cabinet War Rooms being buried so deeply underground. She was juggling her briefcase and flexipad, attempting to link back to the Trident for a situation report, when she suddenly made out her own name in the low burble of voices ahead of her on the stairwell.

Some part of her said, stop. She could just wait and let whoever it was get farther ahead of her. But her feet kept climbing, and she found herself unable to tune out the conversation.

"… unbelievable, really. That Winston would allow everything to turn on someone like that."

"Well, he's been hitting the bottle rather more enthusiastically of late."

"Well, who hasn't? It's no excuse. A bloody darky and a woman. It's a wonder the RAF lads haven't jacked up, the losses they've taken saving her arse time and again."

As she climbed the steps, Halabi was wrenched back to the tortures of her childhood. She suddenly felt, without having to distinctly recall each and every incident, the accumulated torment of a thousand cruel, unthinking petty insults. She felt the rising heat of free-floating shame and a prickle of panic sweat under her thick, hot clothing.

"I tell you what, if I had that ship of hers, old Raeder would know he'd been in a fight. There wouldn't even be a bloody Kriegsmarine to worry about beyond a few e-boats. But she just sits there on the Motherbank doing her bloody knitting."

"Wretched woman."

"Well, we'll see what happens when the real fighting starts, won't we."

Back on the Solent as the small boat swung around an old Halcyon-class minesweeper, her flexipad buzzed on her hip, jolting Halabi out of her reverie. She lifted the hem of her oilskin coat, unhooked the device, and powered up in one fluid movement, despite the rough conditions.

Her XO, a severe looking Scot named McTeale, appeared on screen. "We've got another big raid coming, Skipper," he said. "About a hundred and thirty. All for us again, by the look of things."

As McTeale spoke, she looked around and, sure enough, the ships of her antiair screen were coming to life. Thick smoke began pouring from the funnels, water churned as they maneuvered to best place themselves between the Luftwaffe's attack and their priceless charge, the Trident.

The irony had long since faded, of her futuristic supership being guarded by a pack of creaking antiques. Three 'temp destroyers had already gone to the bottom protecting her.

As the ships picked up the pace, positioning themselves to counter the approaching enemy aircraft, McTeale continued to bring her up to speed. "They won't be here for thirty-five minutes yet, ma'am. And two of Mallory's big wings have already scrambled to meet them. They'll be considerably thinned out even before they reach us."

As he finished, Halabi thanked him and signed off, slapping the lighter's helmsman on the back and shouting over the engine noise and brisk wind. "Get a move on, Bumpy. Company's calling. Tie up, and cross deck with me. You'll want to be out of the way if any of Goring's boys get through."

"Aye, ma'am," the sailor called back, opening up the throttles and making the ride even more challenging. Halabi scanned the gray, dismal skies, but she already knew she'd be unlikely to catch sight of the RAF as it headed out to do battle. Her own CIC would vector the Spitfires and Hurricanes onto the incoming raid well before it reached the Channel. The Trident's Nemesis arrays would provide a detailed picture of three-dimensional battlespace out to five hundred kilometers. It made the country's contemporary air defense radar network-which had done so well in the Battle of Britain-utterly formidable. By the time the stealth destroyer had deployed its small fleet of drones, the UK had real-time surveillance cover deep into Germany itself.

It still doesn't stop them coming, though, she thought.

The Luftwaffe was sending hundreds of German airmen to their deaths every day, attempting to destroy the RAF. And despite the losses, it was having an effect. The strain on the Royal Air Force was beginning to tell. If they cracked, invasion was inevitable.

It certainly appeared imminent. The buildup of Axis forces across the Channel had nearly reached critical mass, despite the best efforts of Bomber Command to disrupt Nazi preparations. Halabi's best guess was that they had another fortnight to prepare, although if any of the continuous Luftwaffe raids actually broke through and took out the Trident, the attack would begin almost immediately. Because even with all her ground-attack cruise missiles gone, and her antiair missiles too precious to launch against flying crates like Stukas and Heinkel 110s, she remained the keystone of Britain's defense.

Admiral Raeder couldn't be sure how many ship killers remained in her vertical launch tubes-in fact, there were six. But he could be certain that her sensors kept London aware of every move made by anything bigger than a kubelwagen on his side of the Channel. Meanwhile, the ship's combat intelligence and human sysops could coordinate Britain's defensive efforts in a way that was far more effective than pushing wooden blocks around on a big table.

Yet still they were coming.

As the lighter moved to within a hundred meters of the Trident, Halabi linked her flexipad to the ship's CIC and brought up a display of the dogfight that was unfolding to the south. The screen wasn't big enough to show a real-time video feed from the high-altitude drones on station above the Channel, but the CGI schematic showed her enough. The raid had formed out of three airfields near Lille, St. Lo, and Rouen. Fighter cover, which was just peeling away to engage the RAF defenders, accounted for thirty hostiles. The rest were the bombers.

She doubted many would get through. Radar-controlled triple-A on the Isle of Wight and the destroyer screen would most likely deal with any planes that evaded the interceptors.

Halabi felt her biochip implants link to the ship as the lighter bumped against the Trident's composite skin.

With a chime, McTeale reappeared on the pad's display. "CI has analyzed the attack profile, Captain. It's a new one. There's an eighty percent chance they'll come in low, to try and get under the guns we've got positioned on the island. The destroyer screen is moving into position, as recommended by Posh."

Halabi couldn't entirely suppress a smirk at that. Posh was an AI with the voice of an unborn pop star, and every time they got bossed around by the "glorified abacus," as they called her, the Royal Navy captains couldn't help getting their knickers in a twist.

Deck crew helped secure the lighter and get the 'temps on board as she compressed the formalities of her return into a quick salute and a brisk recommendation that everyone get below ASAP.

She moved quickly but without apparent haste. It just wasn't appropriate for one of His Majesty's stealth destroyer captains to be seen rushing about like a giddy schoolgirl, and she felt the keen responsibility of setting a good example.

"Chief Waddington, escort our guests to the mess for a cuppa. They'll be with us for the next little while."

Her senior enlisted man ushered them toward a hatch at the rear of the teardrop bridge as the Metal Storm pods deployed from their recessed containment cells with a whirr. "This way, Bumpy, Freddie," he said. "Keep out of the captain's way now. She's got Nazis to be killing."

The 'temps were obviously torn between fascination and the feeling that they were hopelessly out of place. They'd both been through a tour of the ship, but they'd never seen her in action before.

"Not, today, I think, Chief," Halabi said as she pushed past them on her way to the CIC. "I've got a pound says we don't fire a volley."