She keyed a control stick, and the wallscreen split into four sections.

"These are the best contemporary overheads we have at the moment, gentlemen. As we draw nearer, we'll have drone coverage to verify their accuracy, but the 'temps who've just been there vouch for the Singapore maps, and the images of Cabanatuan are drawn from official DoD archives, so we'll take them on faith until we have real-time vision."

She clicked the controller again, filling the entire screen with the prison camp in the Philippines.

"This camp is a former army base," she explained. "It's surrounded by flat open ground and lies eight kilometers from the village of Cabanatuan, which we can assume contains a heavy concentration of Japanese army units. It sits astride a major transport axis from Manila, and the camp itself is often used as transit base for Japanese army units.

"You can expect a strong garrison in the town, between three and five thousand strong with armor and artillery support. The Ranger unit that originally liberated the camp in nineteen forty-four moved from American-held territory on Luzon through the Japanese lines and deep into their rear areas. They had extensive help from local guerrilla forces, which we cannot assume even exist yet. And I guess I don't need to point out that there is no American-held territory in Luzon at the moment."

Nimitz and an aide climbed down the well of the submarine Havoc, to accept a somewhat casual salute from the Australian captain. Unlike some of the Multinational Force commanders, she hadn't bothered to change out of her gray combat coveralls.

"Welcome aboard, Admiral," she said. "And Lieutenant Fraser, right?"

The aide was unable to stop his eyes from drifting south to the captain's breasts. He made an effort to tear his gaze away, but it was all too obvious. Nimitz had no trouble hiding his thoughts behind a mask of restrained civility.

The admiral stepped forward to shake her hand. Were she of his own time, etiquette would have demanded that he kiss it. But Jane Willet didn't give off an inviting demeanor. Her grip was cool and firm.

Nimitz was taken aback by the size of the vessel. There was so much more room than he'd expected. And it was clean, too. The rank smell of confined humanity, a feature of every submarine in their own fleet, was noticeable mostly because of its absence. It added to the spacious effect. Even with the banks of instruments curving up the walls, there seemed to be enough room to dance a waltz in here.

"We'll do a quick tour of the Havoc, gentlemen," Willet said, "and then my divisional heads will join us in the wardroom, where they can answer any questions. You're standing in the belly of the beast now. This is my combat, communications, and nav center."

She guided them toward a freestanding block with a glowing glass top. They had expected to find maps and charts there. The positional hologram was a shock. A scaled-down representation of Pearl Harbor floated within the block. The rest of the task force and every contemporary naval vessel were also represented in there. As spectral miniatures, they floated on a blue sea surface a few inches above the Havoc.

"It's a wonder," breathed Fraser. "Like a movie I suppose, Commander, but in three dimensions."

"Effectively," she agreed. "The nav blocks have stored holomaps of every important ocean and littoral environment in the world. Our sensors simply place us into context on those maps. Of course, some of the most interesting holomaps are useless now because the harbors and ports in our records haven't been built yet-a pity really, since we may be visiting a few of them. We've already edited Pearl's map to correspond to local conditions."

The Havoc's captain brought up a cutaway hologram of the submarine itself. "This class of submarines replaced the old Collins-class boats, which came into service in the nineteen nineties," explained Willet. "They utilize the same teardrop hull shape and X rudder arrangement. They're much bigger, though. Eight and a half thousand tonnes. Ninety-five meters in length, with a twelve-meter diameter-that's about three hundred feet by forty feet to you."

As she spoke, the ghostlike submarine underwent a rapid series of inversions and optical modifications, its gray sharklike skin melting away from one end of the cigar-shaped hull to the other. Various decks and sections detached themselves and grew larger in a separate quadrant of the hologram field. Nimitz and Fraser watched, enthralled, as a chunk of the foredeck disengaged itself and twisted in space to reveal a forest of rockets.

Willet continued. "All the extra real estate accommodates a vertical launch missile system on the forward deck and eight torpedo tubes in the bow. The tubes can launch torpedoes, of course, antiship missiles, mines, or miniature submersible vehicles for special operations work. The vertical tubes carry a full suite of much heavier sea surface and land-attack munitions, all delivered by extended range cruise missile. All sensors and weapons are totally integrated via a Nemesis Two quantum array battlespace management system, so that each of those delivery options, eight tubes and a dozen missile silos, can independently engage a separate enemy in separate theaters."

"Do I understand you correctly, Commander Willet," he asked quietly. "Your submarine can attack multiple targets at sea and on land at the same time, over great distances?"

"It could, if we had satellite coverage. But we don't. Still, even with our reduced capacity, in this antique environment, we could sink every capital ship in the Japanese navy before they even realized their cocks were on the chopping block."

Nimitz frowned at the obscenity, but he let it pass without comment. He let his eyes drift over the bridge crew and their equipment. Each crewmember was stationed at a glowing screen, which they occasionally brushed with their fingertips, sometimes to no discernible effect and sometimes with obvious consequences. Nimitz watched as one young seaman danced his fingers over a screen that pulsed and flowed with different colors and shapes under the caress.

"At least I recognize that," he smiled, indicating the periscope.

"We still use it," said Willet, "but not much. We do most of our business via the bloc."

"And your business will be in Hashirajima," said Nimitz.

"If they're at home. We won't be going right in, so we won't be able to use the torpedoes. But we'll deploy a drone to light up the targets for us, then we'll slam them with hypersonic cruise missiles. They drive themselves into the body of the target vessel and then go supernova. It's quite a sight. Like a tiny sun has materialized inside the hull. Makes a hell of a mess. My weapons chief can brief you fully, if you wish. But all you really need to know is that one missile will kill a battleship or an aircraft carrier, or you get your money back. The Japs, they won't have clue what hit them. If they're real quick thinkers, they might just realize something's wrong, and then they'll be dead."

"And I take it you have this stealth business, too," said Fraser.

"We have a full range of stealth protocols and countermeasures. But most of them are redundant in this environment. The material coating our skin will simply absorb the primitive sonar available in this period. We could be sitting directly under a contemporary sub hunter, having a keg party, and they wouldn't have a clue. It's not fair, but then, you know, tough shit."

Nimitz was beginning to suspect that Bull Halsey would warm to this blunt female.

"You seem very motivated, Commander."

Willet's face didn't soften, but her posture did, just marginally.

"My great-grandfather was captured in Malaya, sir. He died on the Burma railway in 1943. The Japs caught him trying to escape, killed nine of his mates right there in front of him. Then they tied him to a tree and used him for bayonet practice. But right now, he's in Changi. I never knew him, of course. But I loved my granddad, and I remember him crying when he'd talk about his father. I'd like to give him back his old man."