John Birmingham: Weapons of choice

HMAS MORETON BAY, 1235 HOURS, 15 JANUARY 2021

"Some people," muttered Rachel Nguyen, "really get the shit end of the stick."

She was staring at a flexipad image showing a CNN report out of the Indonesian Exclusion Zone. A woman's yellowed eyes burned back at her from within a sunken, malnourished face, imploring her to do something, anything, to save her children from famine and disease. But she and they were almost certainly two years' dead by now.

Rachel thumbed the corner of the screen, shutting down the link and pushing the thin pad across the scarred mess table, out of reach and beyond temptation. The lights in the mess flickered briefly, then returned to normal a few moments later.

She couldn't justify putting off her thesis any longer. The boss had ordered her to catch some sleep but she just couldn't, not with a deadline coming. So she drained the last of her coffee and considered hassling the cook for one of the muffins she could smell baking in the galley.

No, that would probably cost her ten minutes in conversation, and definitely an extra quarter hour in the gym. Cooky had a wicked way with a mixing spoon. Glancing up, she nodded to a lone sergeant a few tables away, who caught her eye as he savaged an impossibly large plate of sausages. Rachel quickly ducked her head back to her notes, breaking eye contact, but she needn't have worried. The old soldier only had eyes for his food.

The mess lights guttered again. She had time to wonder why before the world turned black, and she disappeared forever.

USS KANDAHAR, 1235 HOURS, 15 JANUARY 2021

Colonel J. Lonesome Jones willingly gave in to temptation and enjoyed a leftover breakfast muffin with his espresso. At the age of forty-three, the boss hog of the Eighty-second MEU boasted a middleweight boxer's physique, a shaved head he could forge horseshoes on, and an air of casual menace he had learned to turn on and off at will-a skill he had perfected as a kid in the Chicago projects.

Yeah, he could have a goddamn muffin if he felt like one.

As he lingered over the last minutes of a short break in the officers' mess of USS Kandahar, Jones watched an immensely satisfying flexipad vid of his beloved Bulls stomping the shit out of the hopelessly outclassed Knicks. These few minutes of real life he allowed himself each day were sacrosanct.

So it was that two young marine officers who entered the mess made their way as quietly as possible to the far side of the room. There they placed an order with the steward for a round of burgers and fries. They filled mugs of standard-issue instant coffee from a quietly bubbling urn, lest the hissing of the espresso machine distract the old man and lead to an unwelcome round of ferocious ass-chewage. Second Lieutenants Henry Chen and Biff Hannon were keenly aware of the colonel's reputation, both of them from firsthand experience.

Consequently both men nibbled quietly at their burgers like communion wafers, all the while maintaining a very low profile.

Jones was aware of them but didn't attend to their presence until he had disposed of the sports downloads, the local Chicago news, and the global updates, in that order. When his free time was up he stood, stretched, and slipped into character.

"Good morning gentlemen," he purred, turning on his two officers and frowning at their fatty meals. "You're training with the SAS again today?"

They both nodded. "Sir."

"Well, I hope you're not going to allow those sneaky bastards to kick your asses quite so badly this time."

Both men bristled.

"We've worked up a few surprises, Colonel," Chen quickly assured him.

"Surprises? That's good," Jones said, deadpanning the pair. "Because I was very disappointed that anyone could get the better of one of my units, get close enough in fact to light up the farts of the officer in charge."

The color drained out of their faces as they regarded his fixed, humorless stare. Jones paused without speaking, knowing his silence would be infinitely more effective. Eventually, a blushing Lieutenant Hannon stammered something about not letting it happen again. Jones let his stone face rest on the young officer for a moment, then softened it some. Just a touch.

"But it will, son," he said. "It'll happen again today. They'll come upon you no matter what snares you lay in their path, and they'll have their evil way with you. Do you know why?"

Neither man spoke. They simply shook their heads.

As Jones leaned in toward his young charges, the lights in the room dipped for a moment. Damn, almost like I staged it, he thought.

"They'll make you their bitches because they can," he said softly. "I've served with some of those men. They're older than you in ways you can't even imagine. They've fought their whole lives. They've been making war while you have merely been preparing for war, pretending at war."

The lights surged up to full power again and he leaned back, rolling with the moment. "I don't really expect you to win today, gentlemen," he continued, outwardly somber. "You'd make your old man very happy if you did, of course. But I do expect you to improve. Dramatically. I expect you to learn from your training. And I expect that training to be carried out as though you are at war-and not just pretending. Because at war is where we may be, very soon."

"You think the Chinese will move in, sir?" Chen asked in a paper-thin attempt to deflect the old man's attention.

"I don't know what the Chinese will do, Lieutenant. But I'll prepare for the worst, and dare the good Lord to disappoint me," he said.

A fraction of a second later a pure, obsidian blackness swallowed them whole.

HMAS HAVOC, 1235 HOURS, 15 JANUARY 2021

Captain Harry Windsor was growing used to the relatively spacious surroundings of the submarine. She was a monster, stealthy and huge, kitted out to operate far from home, and for months at a time. Indeed, her clean fusion drive meant that were it not for the need to re-arm the torpedo bays and refill the galley, the Havoc could stay out indefinitely. The Aussies told him there had been even more room before a refit had crammed a bunch of cruise missiles into their video lounge.

Oh well, he thought. Things have gone pear-shaped all over.

He was just happy to have enough space to work through an abbreviated series of kata before a scrub-down and a feed. He could hear St. Clair rustling around behind him, making a god-awful racket, looking for Christ knows what.

Temper, temper. He was beginning to sound more like his grandfather-a famously cranky old bugger, as he recalled fondly.

Resettling his thoughts, he worked through a full suite of atemi waza, striking techniques from the Danzan jujitsu ryu. After a quarter hour during which the world contracted to the small circle in which he moved, he forced one last, great breath out from deep within his hara, bowed to the memory of his sensei and the spirits of the ryu, and cast around for Viv, who had disappeared.

Harry squeezed himself into the cramped unisex shower, washed quickly, and changed into a T-shirt and sweats. It would be a few more hours before the night's exercise began, and there was no point sitting around in his kit. He made his way through to the mess and found Sergeant St. Clair taunting an Australian submariner. They were discussing the chances of the locals rescuing the final cricket test of the 2021 series under the dome in Sydney. How sweet it is, thought Harry, to finally have a first eleven worth following after decades of humiliation. And that England's cricket revival should actually come Downunder… well, that was the sweetest victory of all.

"Guvnor, this idiot is offering two to one against our boys in Sydney," cried St. Clair. "True, it's only Australian money, but I think we're morally bound to relieve him of it anyway."