No sooner had the metallic words died away than the engines rumbled to life under Sam's feet. Somebody down the table from him said, "Godalmighty-we're not wasting any time, are we?"

Commander Dan Cressy had been swearing under his breath. The officer's remark made him revert to straightforward English: "We've wasted more than three hours just by being here instead of in Honolulu. Now we get to find out how much that costs us."

"We have all the supplies we need, sir?" Sam asked.

"We have enough fuel to get us to Midway, and we have enough aviation gas to fly our airplanes," Cressy answered. "What more do we need past that?"

Carsten said the only thing he could: "Nothing, sir." If they had enough fuel to come home from Midway, the exec hadn't said a word about it. He hadn't said anything about food, either. They could get there, and they could fight once they did. Past that… well, they could worry about everything else afterwards.

Captain Stein came on the intercom a little later, urging men who weren't on duty to go out on the flight deck and keep an eye peeled for periscopes. "We have fancy new sound gear since the last war," the captain said, "but nothing is perfect. One of you may see something everybody else misses. It's worth a try."

Sam would have gone out anyway. If the Japs were attacking Midway, they might well have sent subs out ahead of their fleet to pick off American reinforcements rushing up from the main Sandwich Islands. The Remembrance's anchorage off Lahaina might actually have done the ship and its escorts some good. Submarines would be most likely to prowl the line between Pearl Harbor and Midway. The carrier and her flanking ships would take a different course.

Several sailors called out alarms. None of them came to anything-all they'd seen was an odd wave or a bird diving into the sea or, once, a spouting whale that had three or four men shouting at the same time.

Some sailors stayed on the flight deck even after the sun went down. That wasn't the worst gamble in the world; a periscope might leave a phosphorescent trail against dark water or might be spotted by moonlight. Sam went over to the wireless shack to see if he could find out what the Remembrance was liable to be walking into. But the yeomen didn't have a lot to say: Midway was under attack from the air, and had launched aircraft against the enemy. That much Sam already knew, and so did everyone else. The men with the earphones wouldn't tell him on which vector the U.S. airplanes had gone out from Midway. They did allow that no Japanese troops had landed on the low, flat island. That was good news, anyhow.

He decided to hit the sack early. Even at top speed, the Remembrance was a day and a half from Midway. When she got there, she'd be busy. Grabbing what rest he could seemed like a good idea. He had no idea how much that would be. An alert or a real attack might bounce him out of his bunk any old time.

Except for shoes and hat, he slept in his uniform. If he looked rumpled when he got up-well, so what? To his surprise, he got most of a full night. He woke at 0400, feeling refreshed and ready for whatever lay ahead. He went to the galley for food and coffee. As with sleep, no telling how soon he'd have a chance for more.

Commander Cressy sat there with a steaming mug in front of him. Sam's guess was that he'd had no sleep since the Remembrance set out. The exec nodded to him. "Midway thinks there are three Jap carriers out there," he said, as calmly as if he were talking about shoelaces.

"Three?" Sam made a face. "That's not so good, sir." He filled his plate with bacon and eggs-real ones, not the powdered kind-and hash browns. "Airplanes from the island do them any harm?"

"They say they did." By Cressy's sour smile, he didn't believe it. After a sip from the thick white mug, he explained why: "The incoming waves haven't stopped, and they aren't getting smaller, either. What does that tell you?"

Sam's smile was sour, too. "No damage to the Jap carriers, sir, or not much, anyway. Uh-where are they?"

"North of Midway, and a little west-about where you'd expect," the exec answered. "Maybe we can give them a surprise. Here's hoping." He raised the mug.

Sam grabbed a nap in the afternoon, and sacked out early in the evening. That proved wise-they went to general quarters about midnight. He ran to his post in his stocking feet and put on his shoes only when he got there. Then it was a long wait for anything to happen. The mess gang brought sandwiches and coffee down to the damage-control party. The men wolfed down the chow.

"Sunday morning," Lieutenant Commander Pottinger said. "I'd rather being going into Lahaina for liberty. I'd really rather be going into Honolulu for liberty."

"Three weeks till Christmas, too," Sam said. "Well, two and a half weeks, if you want to get fancy."

At just past six, airplanes started taking off from the Remembrance's flight deck. "Must be getting light," Pottinger said. Down where they were, day and night had no meaning. He added, "Here's hoping they've got good targets."

An hour and a half went by. The intercom came to life. "Y-ranging gear reports aircraft bound this way, about half an hour out. They are not believed to be friendly. All hands stand by for action."

Not believed to be friendly… They were Japs, for Christ's sake! Japan didn't have Y-ranging gear, or the USA didn't think she did. They'd probably spotted U.S. airplanes coming from the Remembrance or her escorting cruisers and flown along the reciprocal of their courses. That was how the U.S. aircraft from Midway had attacked the Japanese carriers. However they'd done it, they meant trouble.

Even in the bowels of the carrier, Sam heard the ships around the Remembrance start shooting. Then her guns started banging away, too. Her engines revved up to emergency full. She started twisting and dodging for all she was worth. How much was she worth, though? Compared to an airplane, she might have been nailed to the surface of the Pacific.

A bomb burst in the water nearby, and then another. Szczerbiakowicz worked a set of rosary beads. Sam wondered if he knew he was doing it. And then a bomb hit near the bow, and he stopped worrying about things that didn't matter. "Let's go!" He and Pottinger shouted it in the same breath.

Another bomb hit, also well forward, as the damage-control crew rushed to do what they could. The engines kept running, which meant they had power for hoses and pumps. "Gotta get the flight deck fixed," Pottinger panted while he ran. "If our aircraft can't land and take off, we're screwed."

Then a bomb hit near the stern, and all the fire alarms started going off. That was where they stored the aviation fuel. Ice ran through Carsten. They were liable to be screwed any which way.

When he got up on deck, he saw they were. The two hits at the bow were bad enough. The Remembrance didn't have enough steel plates to cover those gaping gaps. But the fierce flames leaping up through the hole in the stern were ten times worse. If they didn't get a handle on that fire right now, it would roar through the whole ship.

Sam grabbed a hose, careless of Japanese fighters whizzing by low overhead and spraying the flight deck with machine-gun bullets. "Come on!" he shouted to a couple of his men, and ran back toward the flames.

But even high-pressure seawater at a range close enough to blister his face wasn't enough to douse that inferno, or to slow its spread very much. "Back!" somebody shouted. Sam ignored him. Then a hand grabbed his arm. He shook it off. "Back, Lieutenant Carsten! That's an order!" He turned his head. There was Commander Cressy. Even as Sam started to yell a protest, the pressure in the hose went from high to zero. "You see?" the exec said grimly. "We aren't going to save her. The abandon-ship order went out five minutes ago."