Nix crouched instinctively, barely glancing back at his shipmate as the machine-gun fire trailed away over his head. He took in the scene through powered combat goggles, shifting from the cool green of low-light amplification to infrared as he quickly scanned his own ship for damage. Intense heat, streaming in livid waves from the stern of the cruiser, marked the shellfire impact of just a few seconds ago. The mammoth bulk of the enemy ship filled his visual field. The barrels of the big gun turret glowed a dim, satanic red. The battery was tracking for another shot.

Nix quickly stripped out the ceramic rounds he had been issued, substituting a prohibited load of depleted uranium penetrators from a pouch in his black body armor. The sea surface heaved, throwing him to the deck as a twin fifty-cal on the other ship ripped another line of tracers through the space where he had just been standing. Ricochets and small chips of carbon-composite sheeting struck his body armor as he slammed painfully down on his butt. Lines of data from biochip inserts in his neck and torso filled a pop-up window in his combat goggles.

Nix switched off the feed with a tap to a button on the side of the goggles.

As he hefted the G4 to his shoulder and squeezed the grip, another set of schematics and numbers scrolled over his visual field: targeting data. He didn't need it though. He fixed his sights on the rear turret of the enemy warship and fired off the entire strip of penetrators. The gun's electronic systems dispatched all eighteen rounds before Nix even felt the recoil. He didn't hear them strike the steel plating a hundred meters away. But bright flares of impact heat and a shower of sparks from the disintegrating propellant casings marked the point of entry. The depleted uranium spikes carved through the angled plating to tear up the innards of the eight-inch mount.

The big gun froze dead for half a second, then his rounds set off the shells that had been ready to fire. The entire stern of the cruiser shuddered and flames erupted from an entry hatch on the side of the turret. Nix rolled back through the hatchway, grabbing his partner and hauling the deadweight away to relative safety. His goggles recorded the whole event, and now he had to get to Captain Anderson. She wasn't going to believe what he had just seen.

Peter Evans cursed and ducked back inside the Astoria's bridge, slipping and falling into an unspeakable pile of offal, bone splinters, and torn cloth. Shuddering and dry heaving with a deep revulsion, he attempted to regain his feet only to slip and fall again and again. He might have given in to despair and just lain there had he not been grabbed from behind and hauled out of the slaughterhouse.

When he finally could stand under his own power, he disentangled himself from the grip of a chief petty officer, a slab-sided former meat worker from New Jersey named Eddie Mohr.

"Thanks, Chief," he babbled, "I… I… I…"

Mohr patted him on the shoulder. He'd been wading through entrails all his adult life, but even he looked a little green around the gills, having caught a glimpse of the bridge.

"That's all right, sir. You done good, Commander, real good, sir. The thing is though. I can't let you sink that ship, sir. You see, we're stuck to it. Christ only knows how, but we are, and if it goes down, so do we. If you understand what I mean."

Mohr continued in his slow, thick, reassuring "New Joisey" inflection, leading the ship's surviving senior officer away from the bridge.

"… You think you can get down these stairs, Commander? They're pretty steep and all. Would you like a drink, sir? I know it ain't regular, but I always find myself that it's good for what ails you."

Mohr wiped away a small gobbet of meat and a smear of blood from around the officer's mouth before tilting a cool metal flask to his lips. The contraband liquor, which was quite good, went down smoothly, burning only when it reached Evans's stomach.

"Thanks, Chief," he gasped. "You're right. It helps."

"Aye, sir, it does. My first day on the killing floor, my old man he took me out that night, filled me so fulla beer I figured to burst. Sick as a fuckin' dog I was, sir, if you'll pardon my fuckin' French. But it did the trick."

A fit of coughing and gagging took Evans and bent him double, until he feared he might lose all the bourbon he'd just drunk. But he held on, pulling great shuddering lungfuls of air in through a sucking mess of snot and blood. Finally he regained what he could of his composure.

"Damage control, Chief," he gurgled. "I need to know-"

"Well, the thing is, that's a hell of a question, Commander. Some I can tell you, like the rear mount's shot to hell. And some I just gotta show you."

As Evans limped up the starboard corridor, still supported by CPO Mohr, he became aware of gunfire-small arms, rifles, and machine guns hammering away, the noise muted but reverberating through the confined spaces that lay belowdecks. The passageways became crowded, too, almost clogging with dozens, maybe hundreds of sailors, many of them carrying sidearms.

"What's going on, Chief?" Evans asked.

"Frankly, sir, I'm fucked if I know. It's like we been rammed, but not, if you know."

Evans nodded. He knew exactly what Mohr meant.

"But I can tell you we got a way in, sir. We got guys over there, we boarded them bastards and we're giving 'em hell, too. That's also why we can't be firing the big gun on 'em. We'll be killing our own if we don't look out."

Evans nodded without saying anything. Men were beginning to notice his presence, turning and gawking at the admittedly hellish spectacle he presented. Some looked impressed, others horrified or just scared shitless.

"Make way! Make way!" yelled Eddie Mohr. "Commander Evans coming through. Move aside, ladies. Some Japs gonna get their asses kicked now!"

Evans tried to live up to the chief's performance. With his good right hand he took a.45 pistol from a sailor who seemed only too glad to give it up. He did his best to ignore the ankle that threatened to collapse under him again. He felt hands slapping him on the shoulder and back. Heard men call out his name. Some even clapped and cheered. He had no idea why. It was mostly a daze. But a gut-level instinct told him his presence was needed.

So he painfully shouldered his way through the increasingly dense mass of crewmen, not really sure of where he was headed, carried along by some current in the seething tide of close-pressed humanity. He caught a confused glimpse of something ahead, an impossible wall blocking the corridor. Then the flux of rank-smelling bodies pushed him left and into a large bunkroom.

It was crowded. And dark. The electrical system must have failed. A few handheld lamps, hung from the top tier of hammocks, provided the only light. They swayed back and forth, sending macabre pools of shadow spilling over and through the heaving crowd of men in time to the swinging torches. This added to the atmosphere created by the tear in reality that stood across the room.

That's how Evans thought of it, a tear in the fabric of the real world. There was a gray steel wall running through the center of the bunkroom, in a place where it simply couldn't be. He could see that it was composed of the same material he'd seen so briefly out in the corridor. Perhaps it was even part of the same structure. It divided the room at an odd angle, and the more carefully he inspected the scene, the more unthinkable it became.

Off to one side, three hammocks emerged from the wall like solid ghosts. There was nothing holding them to the blank metal face. It was as if they had been extruded, somehow. Nearby, a circle of men was gathered around, pointing at something down at floor level. Evans and Mohr wrestled their way over to discover a boot and most of a leg below the knee, which looked as if it were disappearing into the barrier, like a man who had been frozen while stepping through a stage curtain.