When the general staff had dispatched him to attack the Americans in their lair at Pearl Harbor, so long ago, he had considered it madness. There was no way to strike at the barbarians’ production centers, and he knew it would only be a matter of time before the weight of America’s industrial base was brought to bear against his country.

Even then he had underestimated his enemy’s ability to recover-and later, to exploit the windfall of the Emergence. Many of his colleagues still blamed the time travelers for all the evils that had befallen them since mid-1942.

But Yamamoto knew better. It wasn’t the Siranui or the Clinton or even that damnable submarine the Havoc that was to blame for the eclipse of Japan. The blame lay squarely with Japan herself. Where were her guided missile destroyers? Where were her antisubmarine helicopters?

Or jet fighters, or hovercraft? The Americans and their allies had responded to the Emergence with much greater speed and flexibility and even more ruthlessness than anybody in the empire or the Third Reich. This wasn’t merely a facet of their industrial capacity. There was something in the way they viewed the world, something about how they approached war itself, that made them infinitely more daunting an opponent than even he had suspected.

No, they were not weak and corrupt, as they had appeared to be all through the 1930s. When finally aroused, they had proven utterly formidable, and they made war without remorse or honor. Their bombers had burned half of Germany to ash and bones, and would soon do the same thing to Japan. Their soldiers, sailors, and airmen had fought just as valiantly as his own, and increasingly they did so with weapons he knew would be completely beyond the capability of his own countrymen to produce.

They were going to win, of that there could be no doubt. The admiral finished his tea and passed the cup to an orderly, who silently bore it away. He wished to sit quietly, for just a minute longer, admiring the vista of the fleet that stretched out around him. To watch the moon’s rays caressing the barrels of the Yamato’s guns. It was a fine and stirring sight. If only it could be an omen, of a bright future beyond war’s end.

For the end was close now.

Had there been another path he might have taken? Some decision made-or not made-that might have changed everything?

Perhaps. Perhaps not. Above all else, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was a warrior, and no matter what he would have prosecuted this conflict to the last, even if the cause was hopeless. But that did not free him of regrets. He no longer entertained the hope that Japan would survive this conflict in anything like her current form.

Too many mothers grieved, he knew. Too many fathers faced the end of their lives without a proper heir. Too many of his own had been committed to the deep. How many more, he wondered, had yet to die?

And to what end? Was his country fated to be enslaved by the godless Stalinists? Would it be better to surrender to the Americans, to throw themselves on the mercy of people they had attacked without warning, and fought without pity? Would Roosevelt and his allies even accept an unconditional surrender at this point? The Australian prime minister seemed interested in nothing less than the annihilation of the Japanese people, which was understandable, given the numbers of his own citizens who had been murdered by General Homma’s forces. And Roosevelt had pledged to levy the most terrible of punishments on Nippon for the actions of Hidaka and his men in Hawaii. Less temperate voices in the United States had even called for the entirety of the Home Islands to burn inside an atomic firestorm, leaving nothing but fused glass from the northernmost tip of Hokkaido to the southern shores of Kyushu.

It was the sort of thing he might expect of Adolf Hitler. Yamamoto scowled at the thought of the fьhrer, whom he had met twice, and whom he had regarded as little more than a sentient beast. He was convinced that even if they had triumphed over the Allies, it would only have been a precursor to yet another global war. There was madness in the hearts of the Nazis, and they would never be satisfied with a world that was not completely remade in their own image. Could there be any question that Hitler, or Himmler, or whoever came after them, would have turned on their erstwhile partners in the end?

None at all, in his mind.

Yamamoto realized with an irritated frown that his mood had soured even further at the thought of the hideous little German and his warlord cabal. It might be time to get on with the work of the day-another grinding series of planning meetings to shore up the defenses of the Home Islands against the coming storm. There would be no time now to return to the Marianas.

They would fall.

He levered himself to his feet just as a young sublieutenant called out. “We have an incoming air strike from Vladivostok at the edge of our radar field, Admiral. MiG-Fifteens.”

Yamamoto sighed inwardly. “Have the fleet withdraw beyond Kunashir, and prepare to receive the attack,” he replied. “Thus we will be at the very edge of their combat range when they arrive. Coordinate the air defense net from here, and launch the rest of our night fighters in twenty minutes at-” He checked the clock. “-twenty-three thirty hours.”

“Yes, sir,” the young officer barked.

If nothing else, the men’s morale was high, which was only to be expected. They had fought a great battle against a superior foe, and had comprehensively bested him. The situation on Hokkaido itself was not nearly so clear-cut, however. The Soviets still had significant forces intact, and although they were now cut off from reinforcement, they were going to be very difficult to defeat.

Already the defense of the Home Islands had been thrown into disarray by the Communists’ surprise attack. Yamamoto wasn’t supposed to be here. He was supposed to be protecting the Marianas. Some of the army divisions now fighting on Hokkaido were supposed to be preparing for the defense of Guam.

The wreckage of the Soviet Pacific Fleet was an apt metaphor for his own personal feelings, Yamamoto realized. As the Yamato made steam for the waters of the northwest Pacific, it left behind a sea of bobbing, burning flotsam. His men had achieved something akin to a miracle here, yet the grand admiral felt burned out and cast adrift. He wondered whether anyone would even remember the feats performed today by the Imperial Japanese Navy, in the Battle of Okhotsk.

Probably not, if the Bolsheviks prevailed.

Perhaps, if the Allies won.

A lieutenant appeared at his elbow with a folded piece of paper. “A message, sir. From Admiral Onishi.”

Yamamoto took the note and read it in silence. His face remained a stone mask, but inside, as he absorbed the information the communiquй contained, he felt as though he were in free fall. Tumbling end over end toward oblivion.

No, there would be no repeat of the success of the Ohka raid. Onishi had just sent word, coded via a onetime pad.

Spruance and Kolhammer had destroyed the hidden bases from which his special attack forces would have struck at them.

The Marianas lay open and defenseless.