“Well, not exactly this,” said Snyder, pointing his M4 rifle at the next tank in line, which was pushing the damaged tank off the road. Through his tactical glasses, he could see the Directorate tank designated with a bright green halo. With the road cleared, the tank began to advance toward them again. Another Javelin missile was fired off, but it was deflected by the tank’s active protection defenses, which shot down the incoming missile with a small rocket that detonated the threat fifty meters away.

When the tank finally reached the small stream, Snyder did just what the lieutenant had instructed him to do. Normally, he knew to ignore what lieutenants said, but the general beside him had nodded his approval.

He toggled the glasses menu with a controller mounted on the forward rail of his M4. The connection relayed back to the young lieutenant’s transmission out to sea, and after a few seconds, the system began to push data to Snyder’s glasses, detailing the incoming fire’s expected blast radius.

“Damn. You should see this, Vetter,” said Snyder. He panned his head left and then right. Hundreds of meters out from the projected impact point on the tank, his glasses showed all red, with a warning signal overlaid in bold: Danger Close.

“Whatever they’re firing, it isn’t in the system. Figured it would be a five-incher, but it’s something else.”

“Bigger than a five-incher? You promise?” said Vetter.

“You know, your dirty mouth is going to ruin our Hawaiian honeymoon,” said Snyder. He yelled to the rest of their platoon strung out along the road: “Incoming fire, danger close. Get your asses down!”

“Probably just can’t shoot straight. Typical Navy,” said Vetter. The two of them lay prone in a muddy ditch.

“Yeah, well, you know who the colonel is going to blame when this kills us all? Me,” said Snyder.

He’d barely finished speaking when the roadway before them vaporized in a bloom of orange and white flame. The blast wave lifted Snyder and Vetter a few inches off the ground and then dropped them back into the ditch. Their ears ringing so loud they couldn’t hear anything, they edged back up to the lip. The roadway was now a massive crater where the two lead tanks had been. Even tanks farther away in the column had been flipped onto their backs like turtles.

A second wave of rail-gun fire came in, lifting Snyder and Vetter up again. The effect on the roadway was like scattering hot coals with a sledgehammer. A few seconds later, another two rounds landed in the traffic circle just to the west; now both roads into town were blocked.

Vetter was saying something, but Snyder couldn’t hear her over the ringing in his ears. He scanned across the scene of destruction with his eyewear, tagging each smoldering crater and piece of smoking wreckage with a red circle. The message to the Zumwalt’s ATHENA system was simple: Targets destroyed.

The battle had settled into a rhythm, a steady monotone patter of queries and replies as the ship and its crew carried out fire-support missions onshore. The only physical indicator that they were at war was the sound of the room’s cooling fans, which seemed to be working extra-hard.

The holograph map now showed the Z joined by the rest of the task force, an arc of escort ships surrounding a convoy of transport vessels, all moving closer to shore. A blue bubble overhead extending almost a hundred and ten miles out indicated the air-defense range provided by the USS Port Royal, the Aegis cruiser accompanying the task force. Beyond it, small moving icons indicated the Mako ships sweeping for underwater threats and a small combat air patrol of six F-35Bs overhead. They were from the USS America, the amphibious assault ship at the center of the task force. The America also served as Admiral Murray’s flagship and so was marked by a bolder icon.

The America lacked an aircraft catapult launch and arrestment recovery equipment, which meant it could carry only those aircraft that could take off and land vertically, like F-35Bs, helicopters, and Ospreys. But for all other purposes, it was essentially a forty-five-thousand-ton aircraft carrier that could also load twenty-five hundred Marines, and, most important, it ran on non-nuclear engines. The mission planners had swapped out its normal heavy helicopter complement for the bulk of the first Osprey wave, which were joined by other Ospreys that had flown off the accompanying San Antonio— and Austin-class landing ships brought out of retirement in the Ghost Fleet. The arrival of so many of the big, slow, non-stealthy ships meant Task Force Longboard’s presence would now be much more evident to any Directorate sensors, but being surrounded by other ships felt comforting to all in the Z.

“Captain, we have an incoming drone from the north,” a sailor announced. “Its squawking code says point of origin is Shemya?”

Cortez started to read off his glasses. “Shemya… Aleutian Islands. There’s an old Air Force weather station there that has an emergency-landing airfield. Not so great for that; says the wind never drops below sixty miles per hour and there’s a ten-foot visibility fog three hundred days of the year. That explains it; robots don’t mind the weather. Op plan has it used as a relay station for secure drone comms. A Pony Express — style handover.”

“Allow download. It is about time we finally get some news on what’s happening up north,” said the captain.

Within a minute, Cortez appeared at Simmons’s side with a tablet screen. It showed an animated map of the current and projected locations of the U.S. forces making their way through the Arctic passage. Noticeably absent was the Directorate battle fleet that was supposed to have been drawn north.

“Shit,” said Simmons.

Cortez nodded, and he winced slightly as he read the message aloud.

“ ‘No contact Directorate battle fleet. Undetected from searches in Bering and off Aleutians. In absence of further information, must assume strong substantial attack force proceeding towards your area of operations. In carrying out the task assigned in operation plan twenty-nine — forty-two, you will be governed by the principle of calculated risk, which you shall interpret to mean the avoidance of exposure of your force to attack by superior enemy forces without good prospect of inflicting greater damage to the enemy. Given communications link delays and uncertainty, decision authority is now with task force commander. COMPACOM will support. But priority is to protect the fleet in being.’ ”

“Sir, we have Admiral Murray on the localized net for you,” Cortez said. The video link opened, and the admiral appeared.

“You’ve seen the message?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Then you know what it means?” she asked.

“Yes. PACOM is not going to say it, but they’re giving us the option to withdraw if the situation turns too hairy,” he responded. “Which would hang the Marines onshore out to dry.”

“That is indeed what it means, Captain,” she said. “That’s the tradeoff. Instead of being puppeted from afar like in the last war, we get the kind of command freedom our predecessors dreamed of. But it also means the hard calls get piled on our shoulders.”

Simmons’s eyes flashed up to the monitor bank showing the array of system updates and videos of Marine combat footage. How many hours had it been since he’d seen the sea? It should have been easy to follow a cold-hearted, calculated order like this because he was devoid of any physical contact with the war and was essentially playing a video game in this floating box. It wasn’t.

“We will proceed as planned,” said Murray. “But be aware of the option if needed. I’ll give General Adams the bad news myself.”

No more than ten minutes after she had signed off, another urgent transmission came in.