Harry Turtledove - End of the Beginning

“If those Navy pukes can just get us to Hawaii this time, we’ll do the rest of the job,” Les said. “Put us on the beach, and we’ll take it from there.”

Nobody argued with him, either.

SAILBOARD UNDER HIS ARM, Oscar van der Kirk let himself back into his own apartment. He didn’t yell, “Honey, I’m home!” It was half past three in the afternoon; Susie would be at her secretarial job. The only question was whether she still lived here.

Oscar looked in the closet. Her clothes still hung there. He nodded to himself-that was good. But then he realized it wasn’t the only question after all. When she came back, would she bring anybody with her? She wouldn’t know he was here. That could prove… interesting.

“Hell with it,” Oscar said. If he’d been the sort to borrow trouble, he wouldn’t have spent most of his time since graduating from college as a beach bum. Whatever happened would happen, and he’d figure out what to do about it when it did, if it did.

Instead of borrowing trouble, he hopped in the shower. He had more salt on him than an order of cheap french fries. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d had an order of fries, cheap or not. They were growing potatoes-he knew that. Salt was not a problem-one of the few things that weren’t. But he didn’t want to think about what they might use for grease these days.

The water was cold. He didn’t care. He’d got used to that. It just meant he didn’t dawdle, the way he would have back when things were easy. He hopped in, sluiced himself off, and got out.

Putting on clothes he hadn’t worn too often lately felt good, too. He sat back on the edge of the bed to wait for Susie.

He didn’t remember going from sitting to lying. He didn’t hear her key in the lock. Next thing he knew, she was shaking him. “Hey,” she said. “Look what the cat dragged in. So you made it back, did you?”

“Yeah.” He yawned, then gave her a kiss. Her lips were red, and tasted of lipstick. Somehow, she kept getting her hands on the stuff.

“Did you and Charlie have a good time?” She sounded amused. She might have been a mother talking to an eight-year-old boy.

Oscar nodded anyway. After another yawn-he hadn’t realized how tired he was-he said, “Yeah,” again. This time, he added, “The best part was off the west coast, on the way back. We got to watch an American sub blow two Jap freighters to hell and gone.”

Susie’s eyes lit up. “That is good,” she said. “It didn’t make the papers here-why am I not surprised?” She wrinkled her nose and looked like a kid-a happy kid. “Hasn’t even made the rumor mill yet,” she went on, “and that’s a little more surprising.”

“How have you been?” Oscar asked. “It’s damn good to see you again.”

“I’m okay,” she answered. “I missed you.” She wrinkled her nose again, in a subtly different way this time, as if annoyed at herself. “I missed you more than I thought I would-and what kind of jerk am I for telling you something like that?”

“I missed you, too,” Oscar admitted. “Must be love.” He said the word lightly; he didn’t want to leave himself open for one of the snippy comebacks she was so good at. Lightly or not, it was the first time either one of them had said that word.

Susie looked. “Yeah,” she said softly. “Must be.” She leaned toward him. This time, the kiss went on and on.

Some time a good deal later, Oscar remarked, “This is how we said good-bye, and now it’s how we say hello. Good thing it doesn’t get boring.”

Susie poked him in the ribs. “It better not, Buster.” And, not too long after that, he showed her it hadn’t. EVEN THOUGH HAWAII WAS NOMINALLY an independent kingdom once more, General Tomoyuki Yamashita hadn’t given up his office in Iolani Palace. If King Stanley Laanui didn’t care for that-well, too bad. That was Yamashita’s attitude, anyhow.

The commanding general could not only outface the King of Hawaii, he could also summon a mere Navy commander like Minoru Genda whenever he pleased. Both the Hawaiian palace guards and their Japanese opposite numbers came to attention and saluted as Genda went up the front stairs and into the palace. He outranked them, anyhow.

General Yamashita was working in the Gold Room in the second floor. Not even he had had the crust to keep for himself either the library or the royal bedchambers once King Stanley and Queen Cynthia got settled into the palace. The Gold Room, which looked over the front entrance, had been the palace music room. Whatever instruments had been in there were long gone, replaced by utilitarian office furniture that seemed dreadfully out of place in such a splendid setting.

Yamashita’s scowl seemed out of place in that sunny room, too. As soon as Genda came in, the general growled, “Those stinking Yankee submarines are starting to pinch us. This time they cost us oil and rice. And what is the Navy doing about them? Not a stinking thing, not that I can see.”

“We are doing everything we can, sir,” Genda replied. “We are doing everything we know how to do. If hunting submarines were easy, they wouldn’t be such dangerous weapons.”

That only made Yamashita more unhappy still. “How are we supposed to defend those islands if we can’t supply them?” he exclaimed.

“Sir, the Americans aren’t doing exactly what we expected them to.” Genda didn’t sound happy, either.

“We looked for them to go after our principal warships. Instead, as you say, they’re trying to hurt us economically, the way the Germans are trying to strangle England.”

Yamashita had dark, heavy eyebrows that gave him a fearsome frown. “All right, that’s what they’re trying. How in blazes do you stop them?”

“I have some good news, sir,” replied Genda, who’d saved it as a miser saved gold.

“Oh? What’s that?” General Yamashita sounded deeply skeptical.

“One of our H8Ks on patrol northeast of the islands spotted a U.S. submarine cruising on the surface. The seaplane attacked with bombs and cannon and sank it. No possible doubt, the pilot reports.”

Yamashita grunted. “All right, there’s one,” he admitted. “Even one is good news-I won’t try to tell you any different. But how many submarines have the Americans got in these waters? How many more are they building? And how many have we sunk?”

Minoru Genda needed a distinct effort of will to hold his face steady. Those were all very good questions. He didn’t have precise answers for any of them. He knew what the approximate answers were, though: too many, too many, and not enough, respectively. “We are doing everything we can, sir,” he repeated. “Before long, we’ll have some of that fancy electronic rangefinding gear in the H8Ks. That should help our searches.”

“While the enemy is on the surface, maybe,” Yamashita said. “What about when he’s submerged? How will you find him then? That’s when he does his damage, neh ?”

“Hai,” Genda said. “But subs are slow while submerged, and have only limited range on their batteries. They do most of their traveling surfaced.”

“If the Americans come back here, how do we beat them back with no fuel for tanks or airplanes?” Yamashita demanded. “By the Emperor, how do we beat them back with no fuel for ships ? Answer me that.”

“Sir, we are making our best effort.” Genda said the only thing he could. “If we had not made our best effort here, we would be fighting the war now in the western Pacific, not between Hawaii and the American mainland.”

All that got him was another grunt from the general. “I suppose the Army had nothing to do with the conquest of Hawaii,” Yamashita said with heavy sarcasm.