Mazdai looked out the periscope, watching the supertanker on fire. The Second Captain displays showed the view out of the periscope, the flames rising miles into the sky, the supertanker sinking, breaking in half, the bow vanishing from view, the aft section going down by the forward section, the superstructure, when it was visible, tilting upward as the ship drove into the sea. More of the hull vanished underwater, until all that was visible was a part of the superstructure and the stern, the huge screw and rudder pointing to the sky, the structure lit by the light of the fires from the oil. Soon that was gone too, the ship sinking and taking with it most of the flames, the remaining oil slick still naming but at a fraction of the brightness of the supertanker.

It had taken ten minutes for the supertanker to explode and disappear.

“It’s over for us,” Mazdai said as the ship went deep again, the order given to avoid fouling the periscope optics on the oil slick. “They sank a supertanker—”

“Don’t panic, Mr. First,” Tanaka said, his voice flat.

“There are still the Russian airlifts to resupply us. It may not be enough to keep us prosperous, but with the airlifts Japan will survive.”

NARITA AIRPORT

TOKYO, JAPAN

The first missile hit the Firestar fighter escorting the Russian Ilyushin transport on final approach to Narita International Airport. The transport was the first of the planes to be flown from Russian Republic airfields in support of the Japanese. The pilot of the transport. Col. Ushi Valenka, saw the runway ahead by only a halfmile, the lights of it guiding him down. He saw the missile from the Americans hit the Firestar escort. The moron flying that fighter had taken Valenka’s missile.

Valenka looked over at the port wing, where the second Firestar fighter was escorting the flight into Narita Airport.

As he watched, a flame trail slammed into the FireStar, which exploded in a spectacular fireball a single wingspan away, pieces of the Firestar falling into the fields below.

Valenka concentrated on the runway ahead. He was almost there. If he could get the airplane on the ground, could he fly out, or would the Americans try to blow up the airplane when it was empty and leaving Japan? The lights of the runway threshold came toward him. He throttled up, his altitude too low, trying to keep his mind on the landing gear that would soon hit the runway, trying to keep the airplane in the center of the concrete strip.

The missile hit the Ilyushin below the tail, blowing it off. The airplane dived for the deck, the runway coming up swiftly and smashing into the windshield. The cockpit blew apart, and Valenka’s brief luck gave out as well.

The fuel in the wings exploded in a fireball that rained down on the runway, the missile explosion still spending itself. Nothing was left of the Iluyshin or of Valenka but smoking metal parts lying in flames on the runway.

JDA headquarters tokyo, japan

“So may I assume we are in agreement?” Prime Minister Hosaka Kurita asked.

Adm. Akagi Tanaka sadly realized he had no real argument to offer Kurita. History and destiny had once again led Japan to this threshold of war. Tragic, but how could he suggest they not fight? The die had been cast.

All he could do was fight honorably and pray that his son, Toshumi, survived.

SEA OF JAPAN

SS-810 WINGED SERPENT

Tanaka had kept the American submarine under surveillance since the sinking of the supertanker. He had been called to mast-broach depth by an emergency transmission on the extremely low-frequency radio, the set able to receive radio signals even though the antenna was deep, the radio waves generated by a powerful set of huge antennae on Japan’s northern coastline. The ELF radio waves, since they were such low frequency, took a long time to send a signal, one alphanumeric symbol taking three minutes to be received. The two-number signal was received into the Second Captain, which called Tanaka in his stateroom.

Tanaka walked into the control room and ordered Mazdai to bring the ship to mast-broach depth. He waited until the ship’s UHF antenna in the periscope received the emergency transmission from the director of the JDA.

Unrestricted warfare against the Americans. Tanaka would start with the sub that sank the supertanker.

“Battlestations, Mr. First.”

SEA OF JAPAN

USS CHEYENNE

“Secure battlestations, XO. Station normal underway watches. I want a section-tracking team stationed in control at all times, though, for the rest of the time we’re in the Oparea.”

“Aye, sir.”

Keebes returned to his stateroom, shut the door behind him and dropped the portable sink behind the door.

He ran water in the basin and splashed it on his face.

He thought he would throw up.