The Z had sliced through the oddly still water of San Francisco Bay at just over ten knots, accompanied by seventeen other ships from the Ghost Fleet, most of them old transport and amphibious ships. They’d left in the foggy darkness. No sendoff with dignitaries and officials. Most of the tearful goodbyes had been wrapped up a day ago, and those who’d thought they could avoid difficult face-to-face conversations by saying goodbye online found themselves with no connection to the rest of the world. The ship was at full EMCON A, emission control, running dark, electronically speaking, without the connectivity that the U.S. military had taken for granted for decades. Even if Directorate satellites or spies had seen the ships leaving the Bay, they would have gleaned little information, as the fleet was not leaving a trail of data and information in its wake. The ships wouldn’t even form a local network connection. Mostly, as Admiral Murray insisted, they would use signal flags and lights, old-school nautical communications methods, to help conceal the fleet’s position and course.

The ships passed silently under the Golden Gate Bridge, lit only by the few cars on the road. The scaffolding, ostensibly put up for a construction project, prevented anybody from driving by and taking a close-up viz of the departing fleet. In an age of ubiquitous video capture and Directorate spy satellites, it was a desperate throwback to the early Cold War years.

Jamie watched as, off to port, the sea stacks of the Farallon Islands emerged from the water twenty miles off Point Reyes. Closer in were the remnants of a faint series of triangular wakes left by the three ships leading the way, the USS Mako and two sister ships. The stealthy unmanned surface vessels looked like they belonged in orbit, not on the ocean. But the tiny ships were predators, no question about it. With the fleet operating on radio silence, the fifty-seven-foot-long carbon-fiber Mako-class ships were in full autonomous mode, programmed to hunt and destroy anything made of metal that moved counter to the currents underwater. All the prewar concerns about setting robots loose on the battlefield didn’t seem to matter as much when you were on the losing side. Plus, there was no worry about collateral damage underwater, no civilian submarines that might accidentally get in the way. The worst the ships could do was torpedo a great white shark that had eaten too many license plates.

A flash of movement caught Jamie’s eye and he peered down into the bow wave. A pod of dolphins surfed along with the Zumwalt. Instead of watching them play, he focused on the map layout and saw that the Mako-class ships racing ahead had not detected any mines or signs of the Directorate’s quietest diesel-electric submarines.

“All clear ahead?” said Mike. Jamie turned his body slowly to acknowledge his father but kept looking at his screen.

“So far, so good,” said Jamie. “That won’t last, will it?”

“Probably not,” said Mike. “Look, I need to talk to you for a minute.”

Jamie turned off the glasses, not wanting this conversation recorded. “Let’s head over to the turret.”

In the lee of the rail-gun turret, well out of the wind, Mike spoke first. He braced his back against the rail-gun housing with the kind of effort that betrays exhaustion. His coverall seemed to flapped looser, Jamie thought, as if his father’d lost weight.

“We have to solve this,” said Mike. “We don’t have the time to work together, blow up, work together, and then blow up again. Two steps forward and all that.”

“Agreed,” said Jamie. “We can’t have an argument every time we spend more than a minute or two with each other. It’s got to stop. The ship can’t have that. Cortez has already brought it up, suggested you transfer to one of the other ships in the task force. But I kept you with this ship. You know why?”

“I would have stowed away anyway,” said Mike.

Jamie cracked a smile. “I don’t like having to keep the civilian techs onboard, but the ship needs Dr. Li,” said Jamie. “And she needs you.”

“What are you talking about?” said Mike.

“Dad, you can’t bullshit the captain on his own ship. You taught me that,” said Jamie.

“Vern’s less than half my age —” said Mike.

“It’s Vern now?” said Jamie.

“— and got twice the years in school.”

“Whatever you want to tell yourself. It’s your business, not mine. But I need you to keep her safe,” said Jamie.

“She’s doing it to show the rest of them that they can’t question her… well, her right to serve, I guess,” said Mike. “One of the guys got after her and —”

“I heard. Is your hand okay?” asked Jamie. “You should have just brought him to me; we could have replaced him.”

“That’s the thing — now he’s going to be the best behaved sailor on this cruise,” said Mike. “In my Navy, we handled things up front and got it over with. All this bullshit about diversity and the new Navy, and still Vern has to deal with this?”

“I know. And if anyone is going to protect her on this ship, it’s you,” said Jamie.

“You’ve already made your point. Would it be hard on you, me with Vern?” said Mike.

“Actually, this might be difficult for you to hear, but it wouldn’t be,” said Jamie.

“You still hate me,” said Mike. “When’s that going to stop? That officer’s uniform’s not going to fix things between us. Times like this I don’t fucking understand why you even went in.”

“So this is our chance to have it out? Okay, then. You left us, Mackenzie died, and it all ruined Mom. But that’s not even it. It made me a better man than you. And I prove it every single day.”

“Jesus, now we’re back to square one,” said Mike. “I’d tell you to quit being a martyr, but you’re not that wrong. I should have been there, and I live with it every single day too… And that anger to prove you’re better than me may have gotten you to this point. But you need to get it out of you. There is nothing personal about war. Purge it. Now. Before it poisons the captain you ought to be.”

Jamie paused and looked off into the distance and then back at his father. “I hear you… Chief,” said Jamie, still not able to address him by the name he swore he’d never use again the day his father left. “Let’s get back inside. I need to check in with the mission center to make sure we don’t run over one of the Makos.”

The two walked carefully along the starboard side of the ship, staying out of the wind and dodging the spray from the growing Pacific swell.

“You know I’m right on this, Jamie. And I know you’re trying. We can talk more when we get to Australia,” said Mike.

Jamie leaned in close to his dad’s ear, cupping it against a gust of wind.

“Going to be a long wait, then,” he said. “We’re going somewhere else.”

As his son walked away, the ship made a slow, lazy turn, and Mike noticed the faint hint of the rising sun peeking through the fog. Oddly, it was off to starboard. They were headed north.

Colonel Vladimir Markov looked across the room and winced as Lieutenant Jian yawned. The boy did not even try to conceal his fatigue, which to Markov was one of the many reminders of the young officer’s weakness, and just when he finally needed his aide/minder to actually do something.

“Is the model ready?” the Russian asked.

“I’m working on getting the last of the data to load,” said Jian. “Some of these weren’t meant to be put together, so the system is —”

“And that’s why we’re doing this,” said Markov. Being a hunter required more than guns. He’d learned that over two decades ago. He needed data. “If there’s one thing I am going to teach you, it’s to stop thinking that things can work only the way you’ve been told they’re supposed to. You can’t win a war that way. Nobody ever has.”