Along the WATCHTOWER

On a Wing, a Prayer, a SHOESTRING, and a 70,000 ton Cargo Ship

Suite 601, SOCERFOR Administration Building A “Hagraven’s Roost”, Naval Activity Molokai

Molokai, County of Maui, Territory of Hawaii

Vice Admiral Kimberly J. Scott, USN (CERFOR)

Senior Officer, Certain Forces / Commander, United States First Fleet

0724 Local Time, 07 AUG 1942

“So when can we expect Zephyr?”

That question hung in the air for ten painful seconds. It was lost into the cold, smooth concrete of the Admiral’s office. The space was vast and it was empty, with towering windows of repurposed CIC dry-erase boards. They had not been able to furnish it properly, except for a few oversized pieces. There was the ornate Koa wood desk that had been gifted to her and a few nice chairs taken from Doris Miller’s flag suite tucked diagonally in one corner. Running the length of the opposite wall was a comically colossal—probably seventy feet long—single-slab red pine conference table that had been found in the hold of the Reagan. Scuttlebutt was that it had been commissioned by a Chaebol failson in the ROK Air Force, and then forgotten about along with the cool quarter trillion dollars worth of TDPs they found in an abandoned wing of the seabase. Someone, not even the Admiral knew who, had procured a Persian rug, which was looked minuscule in the middle of the office. This place wasn’t going to win any awards in Architectural Digest. However, styling was, at best, a tertiary concern. Not the least because it had been a very late night—or very early morning—for just about everyone present at this meeting. No one had gone to sleep. They had stayed up all night. They camped around an honest-to-god fax machine someone had dug up as it spat out intercepts direct from SOPAC. Every thing it gave them was garbled. Some totally unreadable. Every word was worse than the last.

They had expected that discontinuity would increase exponentially post-Departure, particularly after everything that went wrong with HEAVEN SENT. This was not just the falling dominoes catching up to them. They had been had. Again.

They had then waited for the heavy tilt-rotor to ferry the SEAL Clubbers from their at-sea Batcave to give an in-person brief. However, no one wanted to be the guy who told the CO of a Special Mission Unit there was no way he was getting his way. However, more importantly, Colonel DuSaint had been present for this miserable experience of the last two months. Scott had little interest in spending the time getting him and his to understand that the U.S. Government was closer to storming their island than listening to their advice. This was a meeting to get the mission within the mission rolling as fast as possible. A bid to cheat at a rigged game. Using someone who did not understand the rules.

They had to move fast and leave as little trail as possible, lest the Select Commission crucify them for trying to help. There was no chance that a secret like this could keep, particularly in a place as clausrtraphobic as Molokai. Scott had learned that lesson in the first week at Majuro back in ‘37. The rumors would fly. But not before they had sent their first, best, and last hope down range. They had been extremely patient. Now was the time to less than patient, but more than a little discerning.

“You’re not taking Zephyr, Laf.” Usually, the Admiral was an exemplar of professional stoicism, particularly in a joint-combined staff meeting put together at last minute. It was best practice, golden rule and all that. No one wants an asshole in a “quick calls” that turns into a 25-person Teams ambush. Everyone had been on the receiving end of unheeded inter-service cuntery. However, the preening MARSOC Princess needed to be occasionally remind him that he was a colonel, not Christ the Redeemer. He was, also, closer to family than the Admiral would care to admit, like an annoying cousin who had yet to be disinvited from the proverbial cookout. She would afford herself that little treat. She shook her head and grimaced ever so slightly, that practiced Midwest-contractor-looking-at-a-kitchen-like-it-owed-him-money grimace, that only-if-I-can-get-my-guys grimace. “I am not going to commit her until I have to. We are best served by her doing donuts in the Naoero Sea hoovering up SIGINT, and giving us options.” This was not an argument and she had no need or intention on using kid gloves with the Colonel. “I am also not disclosing her existence to the blowjob factory inspectors.” The Official Congressional Punt Squad were not particularly well liked, and with good reason. Scott had no reason to hide her absolute disdain. “Chuck Willoughby with POINT BLANK?” You could hear the muscles of the faces in the room grimace at the thought. Scott scoffed again and shook her head dismissively, “No way.”

“Plus—she doesn’t have a well-deck.” It was the practiced well-ackshually of her half-socialized chief logistician, the Magician, interjected. Scott kept her eyes leveled at the senior secret squirrels dotted in a sea of staff officers sitting awkwardly on cheap folding chairs that someone on the fleet staff had scrounged up from a (regimental) brigade CP’s cargo container without asking. That was the story behind most of the furnishings in the Fleet’s monolothic flashcrete headquarters.

She echoed the N4-cum-King Bee’s words matter of factly. “She doesn’t even have a well deck. She’s not actually built for cargo.” Scott clicked her tongue, “You’ll hitch a ride on an AKD.” She let her intonation hang on that article. Her tongue wrapped around it like a curse. The Fleet had an entire squadron of amphibious transport docks. Seven juggernauts sitting around doing nothing now that they had been disgorged of their stores and embarkees. Prisoners had little need for enough strategic sealift. Nimitz was willing to play ball. He had given his blessing for this move. But the Joint Chiefs? Congress? Swanky Franky Himself? These bitches are dying of thirst and I’ve got a dozen fountains of life anchored doing nothing but fuck-all.

Colonel DuSaint had stopped smiling. His Cheshire performance gone up in a poof of smoke, leaving only a furrowed brow and aging killer stroking his chin. “Can we at least get an at-sea transfer with Pacific Zephyr? And which Battle Mountain?”

“Yes and it’s the Cerritos,” the Admiral answered. USNS Cerritos (T-AKD-275), was Reserve-crewed, MSC-operated, and MARAD-owned. The machinations of path dependency often led to bizarre things, the black-n-white sealifters were exactly that. Would it have been easier to just commission them? Probably. But that wasn’t her concern anymore.

“That’s a big ship—and a lot of cargo.” The Colonel cocked his head as he clearly ran the numbers in his head. “My people aren’t stevedores. We’ll need folks off the high-side to help, unless you’d like us to larp our Beach Red on their Beach Red.” That was one of the numerous butterflies they had stomped so far. Though the existing J-Pubs for JLOTS (Joint Logistics Over the Shore) and JAMIC (Joint Amphibious Maneuver In Contact) had not been handed over as is to the Gennies. Scott had handed over a litany of cheat-sheets which they were fairly confident had been politely thrown in the trash. Nimitz had been more than willing to launder their Best Possible Advice into FRUPAC MAGIC. However, as the Fleet had been copy-editing someone had been line editing—or they had stepped more butterflies than they really understood. They did not have the firmest grasp of discontinuities that existed prior to the Departure. It was a goddamn mess.

The Swede, looming over the chart and document strewn conference table on the far side of the vast office space croaked with laughter. “We cannot larp what we live, Eversti.” He finished his observation with two clicks of his tongue. “And the purpose of this blessed misadventure is not you.” He looked the Colonel up and down without straightening his back, “You are but half a kiloton of a twenty kiloton gambit.” The hairs on Scott’s forearm stood up at the brevity of his statement. The Swede wasn’t one to stop at three sentences.

“We’re the stowaways…” The Colonel mused bitterly, not even turning to face the Swede as he spoke. He and his peopled had been smuggled off Pacific Zephyr for this task. They had in a bottle for the better part of three months, including before The Departure. DuSaint kept his eyes leveled at Scott. “I know this tune well, General.” His voice had already turned back to its usual clipped, professional clarity, “Who’s coming with us?”

Scott offered a glance and a gesture towards the major general, who answered for her. “Black Patch and myself have already taken the liberty.” The Swede flicked his head and his G3 produced a sheet of paper and handed it to the Colonel. “Aboard ship there will be a BPT, a reinforced motor company, and task organized company from 1st Distro. Lieutenant Colonel Marks will supervise this.” The general indicated towards a scruffy, harsh-faced white guy with sad eyes, a badly healed nose, dirty blond hair tucked behind his ears, and a bionic off his left elbow. The Admiral felt a twinge of something she did not immediately process as she realize she did not recognize his face. She knew he was the commanding officer of the MAF’s Distribution Battalion. She had met him several times at this point. Admiral Scott had long prided herself on remembering people, the big ones and the little. A bitter taste tickled the back of her throat. “They will depart with Cerritos. Captain Dierdorf will remain at her helm.” The Swede continued, indicating towards another officer who Scott did recognize. Yichen had run APDs in the Andersen Express, running into hell under the guns and cells of Scott’s Battle Force, before transferring to the black-n-whites as a kind of low-key retirement. What a sick joke that had been. “We have also… estimated your battalion’s requirements.” The Nilsen’s tongue wrapped around that pause like a coiled serpent. “The deployable element of your soc-lib,” choosing to pronounce SOCLB as an acronym, as was the style. “We understand that you might require other components from your command element. Communications, staff, enablers…” he said that last word with such visceral disdain, “…things of this nature…”

DuSaint was thinking, resting his right hand on his face with his thumb under his chin. “I want my entire Recon-Strike Battery. I’d also prefer to go in reinforced by CROSSGUARD and EL DORADO, my DAGRE and UDT elements.” Despite wearing an impressively impassive poker face, Scott knew his tells from years of losing to card shark that he was really running the numbers. “SWCCs are out of the question?”

“Indeed,” Nilsen answered. “Your force is likely to face significant attrition and we cannot guarantee either the timely transfer of the SWCC boats at sea or their facilities to sustain them in situ. Troop Two and CROSSGUARD will remain aboard Zephyr as a floating reserve. We believe that a small force would be better served by fires, a small element of armor—a RAMS platoon from 8th Tracks—and supported by a composite engineering company, from 4th Engineer, but with limited mechanization. Is this acceptable to you?”

“Two questions: Which platoon from Delta? And how ‘limited’ are we talking, Nils?”

“Second Platoon under First Lieutenant Ashford,” Nilsen answered. DuSaint turned around toward his company commanders sat in the third, outer-most row of seats. He got four thumbs ups and two wiggles of apathy. 8th Raider Amphibian Battalion was the USMC’s much maligned SOF qualified armored-formation equipped with bespoke Textron’s Cottonmouth Raider Amphibious Mobility Systems. “He does cheat at Magic and whist, I am told.” What kind of sicko plays whist and cheats at Magic? “As for the engineers, they will go without their combat engineering vehicles. They go with the bare minimum of handlers, dozers, lifts, and so forth.”

DuSaint did a quick inventory of his senior officers and enlisted. “We can work with it. We’ll need as much 120-millimeter mortar ammo as you can spare and we can fit. What will our resupply timeline look like?”

Nilsen left the conference table and found his seat along side Scott’s desk next to his ACG and Chief of Staff. He clicked his tongue again, “Bad.” DuSaint didn’t even ask a follow-up. “You will have to improvise. We have provided for 60 days of supplies and material, every square meter not otherwise used for OXC or the landing party will be used for supplies and materiel for 1st Marine Division. This includes a significant quantity of unpalletized break-bulk.” There was a groan from everyone in the room. Everyone, even the fucking bubbleheads and fighter-jocks, hated dealing with true break-bulk.

Scott knew this litany by heart. She had delivered it two days ago to CINCPAC and his staff personally. She had gotten an above table sign off for a cargo run to Guadalcanal and the conversion of a nuclear fleet tender to run crude oil and avgas to the South Pacific to free up the Gennie’s fast oilers. Nimitz had only given his assent to the OXC plan after the first reports from Savo Island. Savo had also gotten them King’s sign off of the above table plan. God knows what the Army was being told. Scott had been reading Marshall’s HF messages to MacArthur but they didn’t illuminate much. Just mention of a “very large steamer” making a run into Sealark Channel alone. Another task added to her checklist of dirty tricks—tapping the CONUS telegram lines. That thought drifted out of mind, her eye was stuck on the paper for a moment. It was all wrong. Nothing like programmable fiber optic sheaf, it was textured and a little rough at the edges. It felt old and out of time but Scott knew it was brand new. She had the exact same stuff in her desk. The text was a mix of inktank printer and honest-to-god typewriter.

The Colonel handed it off to the Major sitting to his right. “Not the first time we’ve stowed-away and nor the first time as part of a damned bet.” The Major corrected his subordinate. The hulking form of the ex-SF officer, current-NOX blue badge, was a farce smack-bang in the middle of a bunch of Navy staff, like a statue of Godzilla at one of those Vic/core/ian garden parties that was all the rage—would be all the rage? Scott couldn’t even remember what his formal title was. Mission Chief? Mission Director? Operational Supervisor? He made his folding chair seat look like something out of a child’s play set. He ran an index finger down the page with a subtly inhuman precision and decidedly unsettling speed. “What’s the probability that Gennie lights us up before we even drop anchor?”

Scott did not take a beat. “No worse than one in five.” One of DuSaint’s company commanders whistled in disbelief. There was a very real chance that the warning order from CINCPAC would get garbled or lost with South Pacific atmosphere’s less-than-ideal propensity to scramble HF transmissions. Relying on a relay coming in clutch from Nouméa would be a bank shot in that event too. Their own back-up HF commo could more reliably punch through the atmospheric interference but it was a hit or miss game that downtime receivers could interpret what they sent—digital to analog backwards compatibility was about a reliable as a drunken backflip. When she looked back at the NOX Cold Hand, his full synth eyes were leveled right back at her. Bolts of metal and ceramic, utterly inhuman despite all the wrinkles, crow’s feet, and scars that surrounded them it was like seeing an ultramodern kitchen placed inside of an otherwise Edwardian estate. Scott was left curious as to what his natural-born eyes had been like, were they kind or cruel?

“Not great. Not terrible,” the Major replied with a soft smile that seemed to answer that question. Scott was used to heavies—and borged out ones too; her husband’s friend circle was tragically repetitive. But the Major was something all together different. You didn’t get called The Major despite discharging at O-5—after an extremely storied career in SF—without a reason, usually a nasty one. The stories about this one were always a bit insane, but she wasn’t one to cavort that much with Snake Eaters to sort the wheat from chaff. You also didn’t sport hard shell optical implants capable of eating .30-06 AP and be normal either.

Scott did not trust him or his fellow traveler. Thankfully—for better and worse—she had cut the King Spook loose on Oahu. That removed one from the Fleet. Everything was counter-intelligence. Scott wasn’t going to let the Haole Aristocracy pull a fast, one without countermeasures. The rising calls for a special session of the legislature to “protect Hawaii” were more than just a little foreboding. They were scared. Local elites were dangerous enough on the best days, let alone when they were terrified of a phantom hiding under their bed.

“Regardless… we’re talking about cruising at what? Battles are IEPS so… nineteen knots, maybe twenty? DuSaint brought the meeting back on track. He was going to keep pushing. Scott knew. He was running the numbers, “We’re talking about a week? Assuming we, one, gun it straight through the Marshalls and Gilberts; and, two, we don’t step off the gas when transferring our kit off Zeph. And that’s pushing…”

“Are we—” he really hung on that collective noun “—willing to accept that timeline?” He tossed up his hands in frustration. “Give me Kamehameha, the APDs, a pair of escorts and we can shave off two days.” His voice was desperate, pleading before it went all blackroot bitter and molten. “Those Marines are on the knife’s edge. Worse. They are in it deeper than we think, than we were… taught.” The Navy had just bugged out of Ironbottom Sound after the worst defeat in U.S. naval history, but one that was almost completely unrecognizable.

Nothing had gone right in the last month. The last week had been particularly brutal. Nothing had been true to their history. It had a rhymed but with a malign dissonance. The Japanese had landed at Milne Bay before taking Kokoda. There had been two carrier actions in the past week. The Marines had faced serious opposition on Beach Red. The reports were still flooding in from Savo Island. The CTF’s budget-ass GMTI constellation barely had the field of view to cover SOPAC, what they had seen was awful. Scott was watching history melt on the pages. She looked down at her desk and saw the words, “CRUTCHLEY BELIEVES TIGER AND CANBERRA CAN BE SAVED. CHICAGO ABANDONED AT 0422. SUVIVORS PICKED UP BY BAGLEY.” Some of this was their doing—her doing. Most of it was not. That haunted her.

Dierdorf spoke up, voice tinged with Pennsylvania Dutch. “We’ll make twenty-one knots. Even overloaded at 73,000 tons. I’ve run the numbers. We’ll be stressing the hull, the motors, and the converters—and burning ship tons of fuel.” Yichen had never been one to even approach swearing, so that facsimile of a curse almost made Scott cock an eyebrow. “Six days.” The mariner’s voice was scratchy, nasally, and all together not particularly pleasant but it dripped with wrought-iron determination “…For the rendezvous with the Unmentionable—” Scott could not help but smile at the old term of art for a Ghost Fleet vessel “—‘rritos is prepped for simultaneous VERTREP and CONREP—two birds and four zips. I’ve spoken to the ‘LOCKJAW’ guys,” he added air quotes around the ATO Tasking’s codename for effect, “with the guys from Reagan’s VRM. They’re our VERTREP SMEs… We think they can pull it off. Sling loading to a moving ship isn’t in the usual covered air playbook…” His voice trailed off and stared down at the MARSOC Lord, “I have the best people in the sealift, Colonel. Second to none. We’ll get you there and on the shore as fast we can.”

“Lafayette—” Scott started. Colonel DuSaint twitched into manicured rigid upright posture instead his typical lax bravado. She rarely used his full given name. It showed. His name rang out across Scott’s concrete penthouse tomb of an office. It was liminal space, taking up almost a quarter of the floor yet they had not found enough to fill it. The MARSOC Chieftain relaxed back into his seat. His eyes danced across Scott’s mammoth Koa wood desk, a gift from Admiral Nimitz in recompense for saving his life. She did not elaborate. She had done all she could to lobby for a larger operation. She had gotten two ships. No—she had given two ships. She was trying to give her country an inconceivable advantage; and, it was—apparently inconceivable. Two ships. Two officially non-combat missions. One shot. She had but two more words to say. “Zero fail.”

---

01 Deck Starboard, USNS Cerritos (T-AKD-275)

Nauruan Plain, South Pacific Ocean

Colonel Lafayatte Lafayette Jean-Baptiste Deslondes Saint-Germain DuSaint, USMC (CERFOR)

Commanding Officer, Fleet Force Operational Examination Center / MARSOG, Detachment Three

0724 Local Time, 10 AUG 1942

One knot. Cerritos had been able to make twenty-two—instead of twenty-one—knots. Yet another goddamn butterfly. That had meant they had been four hours and forty-eight minutes early to their rendezvous with Pacific Zephyr. It had still been dark when they entered laslink range, and when they started the work of transferring materiel from the crown jewel of the Ghost Fleet to the black-n-white sealifter. The had not considered the possibility of running this UNREP at night. It was not a deal-breaker, but this particular gig wasn’t exactly following rote SOPs. Underway replenishment usually entailed fuel lines, personnel transfers, and slinging pallets. Colonel Dusaint watched as calls pierced above the work-din before an olive-drab tricon container slid—twitchy and gingerly—between the ships on Zephyr’s big nine-wire zip-line. No way in hell would they have stopped and waited for the sun.

They were now in the twilight of dawn. The red lights all over the two titanic vessels danced across inky waters slowly revealing their sapphire hues and danced with the first flickers of the luminous heralds of the sun. Cerritos dwarfed any dry cargo vessel of this era and was about comparable to the largest liners. Zephyr was even larger, out-displacing RMS Queen Elizabeth or SS Normandie by half.

Shouts, whistles, and then an explosion of boisterous laughter caught DuSaint’s attention. He craned and looked aft to see someone in an inflatable Hatsune Miku costume zip-lining from Zephyr to Cerritos. “These motherfuckin’ couyon,” rolled off his tongue with a scoff as a wry smirk swept across his face like an unsheathing dagger. He clicked tongue with a malicious playfulness. “Sergeant Major Craddock.” He let that phrase hang for a second to let his fellow onlookers marinate in it, knowing his senior NCO was in ear shot, “I believe it is best you go re-introduce those fine gentlemen to the basics of our standards for good conduct.”

The first thing he saw in his peripheral vision was a perfectly trimmed snow white moustache, then he saw the rest of the haggard, weathered granite-chinned face of Sergeant Major Ichobad Craddock. “Gladly, sir.” His voice was gravely yet smooth, it never made sense. DuSaint was half certain that it was an affectation. Craddock gave a polite nod before pushing off the rails and head back into the ship to get to the aft-most transfer point.

“Cin ‘n Dormane,” DuSaint called out to his Master Guns and India Company’s First Shirt. “Give the Old Man a hand. The usual, look intimidating and make sure he doesn’t kill anyone.” They voiced their acknowledgement and followed after the man most of the Det called “Old Saddlebags” most of the time—but only if they were sure he was out of earshot. Even Laf wouldn’t get caught with that word in his mouth when was around.

The relatively calm was then pierced by the whine and then roar of a turbine start up. One of LOCKJAW’s bone-white YH-79B HAVE SNAKE compound helicopter. Laf watched as the sling line went taught as the damn near four-story tall, twin-engined beast ascended into the sky and dragging a pallet packed to the brim and wrapped in cling-film along with itself. It drifted lazily over to the flight deck. The air ops had started as they had gotten within laslink range. They were not going to touch the RF spectrum unless they had to.

He looked across towards Zephyr. The faux-container ship that had served as his home-away-from-home on countless occasions. He almost died in every one of its four Level I operating room—the first time it was Qatari FPV, then a burst of gunfire from a very talented MSS heavy, next some super-heated frag from a CJ-1000, and finally a round from a boomerfied Type 79 SMG in the hands of some piss-scared yéye PAP conscript. Fun times. Many of his Marines had been borged out on those tables. More had died. Right now he was making eye-contact with an intruder in his house. An Uber Black of NOX bullshit. CATSPAW. A reminder that they had left unfinished business back in their time. That mess was now someone else’s problem—someone else’s suitcase sized nightmare. Now, he had to deal with these blacker-than-black heavies with very light fingers and it was giving him some oh so delicious ideas. All of them bad.

However, that would be a Future Lafayette problem. He was running through the manifest in head. Twenty five hundred tons of B and C rations. Five thousand M1 Garands yoinked from Fort Shafter’s armory, including eight-hundred-and-nineteen converted to a modified T20 standard (with a detachable box magazine). They had also procured two-hundred and forty-six M1941 Johnson Light Machine Guns, all had been converted by hand to a modified T48 (belt-feed) standard. They had set up a shop on Reagan with the most over-enthused gun-nuts DuSaint had ever seen and he’d take a truly attrocious ex-girlfriend to a Gwent Tournament run on the side of Rock Island Auction. They had even brought a pair of Mark VI 8-inch guns ripped straight out of Fort Hase to be used as a shore batteries. The guns had overlooked the CTF—loaded with live rounds—as they had sailed past onto Kāneʻohe Bay. They also had a battery of old Great War era M1918 155mm howitzers. Two-thousand 75mm shells. Five-hundred rounds for the 5-inch/51 shore batteries already on the islands, but they were not sure how many were operational; at worst, DuSaint would rig have the spare shells rig into IEDs. A thousand rounds for the 105s. Eight-million rounds of .30-06, a dull dragon’s hoard of fool’s gold. Eighteen M1 flamethrowers, modified to use a napalm mix. Forty drums of said napalm mix, the good stuff cooked up by Certs. Six large tractors. Three cranes. Four rollers. Five diggers. That was just the Gennie kit too. No one had come up with a solution how to land the million or so barrels of avgas they had aboard. They would probably go with the plan to put inflatable bladders placed inside of buried shipping containers as an improvised tank farm. The issue of what to do with the empty shipping containers was a whole other kettle of fish.

As the sun clawed its away across the horizon unleashing a torrent of burnt orange color. They finished their work. The lines went back aboard Zephyr. The RIMPAC phantom hoisted the banner of Detachment Three—a white eyeless skull crowned by three burnt crimson daggers set in a white diamond upon a sable field—along with bravo-zulu. DuSaint clambered up to the bridge as Zephyr accelerated and pushed out back on its eternal patrol.

“VENERATE NOT THE PIRATE. HANG HIM,” the fresh faced reservist rate read out the parting message from the Zeph. The boy seemed confused, as did most of the bridge crew.

“It’s a reference,” DuSaint explained.

“Ah,” the barely twenty-year-old replied, still blank-faced. “That’s cool…” he let that linger for a second too long “…sir.”

Though the idea of smacking the kid flashed through his mind, he just gave a modest but appropriate tier of death glare at both the kid and the Ship’s Master. Who sent a glare altogether far more violent towards the rate.

Thankfully someone rushing up from the depths broke the awkward silence. “Sir, we got some fresh intercepts, about ten minutes ago.” The MARSOC commo announced, “It automatically forwarded to Molokai, and the Old Lady gave us a WARNO.”

DuSaint chuckled, “Lead the way. Old Lady doesn’t like to wait.” He followed the 2631 down into the guts of the ship, into a the vehicle deck where there was an pair of open bicons, one with all the power and compute, and the other with four operator stations. The floor was awash in a mass of elegantly managed, but still prolific, cables. The Colonel stepped through the event horizon of Lovecraftian orgy into the layer of his beloved but deeply grating commo dweebs. He looked at the screen and sighed.

TO COM TASK FORCE ARCHER, COM POINT BLANK.

At 1731 ZULU low-resolution GMTI from SK01LIMA detected ORANGE troop concentration in excess of battalion strength at MUNDA POINT. Probable ORANGE regimental combat team minus. SIGINT indicates formation likely AOBA DETACHMENT (4th Infantry, 2d Division “SENDAI”). Correlation of forces for raid by 2nd Raider Battalion significantly degraded. POINT BLANK to provide long range fires in support of 2nd Raider Battalion, to commence immediately ahead of GENFOR landing.

SITUATION: a.Enemy Forces: “ORANGE,” Imperial Japanese Army; b.Weather and Light Data: Annex B; c.Terrain: See OPORD; d.Enemy Forces: Aoba Detachment (-); e.Civilians/Noncombatants: see ROE, Annex D; f.Friendly Forces: no change, see OPORD.

MISSION: On order, Task Force 11.6.3 POINT BLANK, is to launch long range strike in support of 2nd Raider Battalion’s raid against IJA airfield at MUNDA POINT. Targeting and timing data contained in Annex (E), prepared by N3/TF11.

ACKNOWLEDGE ON RECEIPT AND RELAY PROSCRIBED FIRE MISSION FOR APPROVAL UNDER OPORD 5-42 “PRESERVATION OF ADVANCED MUNITIONS.”

GOOD LUCK. V/R KILL SOMETHING.

---

Division Command Post, Lunga Perimeter

Lunga Point, Guadalcanal, Eastern Division, British Solomon Islands Protectorate

Major General Alexander A. Vandegrift, USMC (GENFOR)

General Commanding, 1st Marine Division

0902 Local Time, 14 AUG 1942

“Sir, you really ought to see this,” the runner announced with a nervous tick in his voice and on his face. “It’s here.”

The general sighed and up from his desk, tossing the report he was reading back onto the pile where the rest of it unread sisters roosted. Behind the stick-thin private, he caught a glimpse of the perpetual reminders of their tenuous situation. The broken hulk of the transport McCawley beached like a blackened whale carcass. Alongside the former flagship was the attack transport Betelgeuse which appeared to be intact, save the ragged gash torn across her port from two torpedo hits. McCawley had become the tomb for Rear Admiral Kelly Turner. Betelgeuse’s fate had permitted Vandegrift to pick her wreck clean of what material that would have otherwise departed after the Battle of Iron Bottom Sound like the rest of Task Force 62. But the blast had destroyed three of the six 5”/51 guns sorely needed to stave off a potential Japanese landing, and much more had been rendered useless by water damage. The foremast of George F. Elliot was poking out of the waves to the west of Lunga Point. Vandegrift was still counting his lucky stars that they had only lost three transports to Japanese fire. More had been damaged, but they would be repaired and returned to service.

He exhaled and stopped the grimace from bubbling across his face as he pushed forward and lifted the canvas flap of his tent. He should have been feeling relieved. His combat groups had brushed aside the two battalions on the island. One had flung itself at the beachhead only to be torn to shreds by the Navy’s guns and then smashed against the Lunga River in a counter-attack led by a company of light tanks. The airfield had been in almost working order when they seized it. Tojo was even kind enough to take deliver of new stores of petroleum, oil, and lubricants the day before they had landed. Their first resupply convoy, this Monday, had delivered even more—along with the ground crews needed to actually get the planes working. The flush-decker destroyer-transports had then ferried three battalions across the channel before taking Carlson Raiders out to sack the airfield on New Georgia. Carlson’s after-action report is what Vandegrift had been working his way through before he’d been interrupted. The finer details made for queer reading. The Navy had flown in two Marine squadrons from the small carrier Long Island on Wednesday. Their first sorties had been in support of Carlson’s withdrawal. The Army had flown in their first birds yesterday at the same time as the victorious Raiders returned. They had christened the field with its new name shortly after, after Major Henderson. COMSOPAC had just approved his request for the 7th Marines. His division would be back at full-strength soon. However, a regiment on the beach meant little if they didn’t have bullets—or food. So, today his prayers were supposed to answered, his concerns quashed in one fell swoop. How could he not be ill at ease? The cryptic message of support direct from CINCPAC made his skin crawl. A lone vessel was somehow supposed to do it all so that the rest of the intact transports brought in his reinforcements.

He barely made it two steps out of from his tent, the morning sun gleaming above him in a baby blue tropic sky. His first instinct was to think himself hallucinating. He felt physically ill. Was the Jap beer he may or may not have had with his breakfast laced with opium like their cigarettes were said to be? Sitting high in the cool waters off the beach was the largest cargo ship he had ever seen. It seemed to consume the horizon. It was alive with activity. Cranes were moving, deploying barges along side. He could see a causeway slowly assembling from a gigantic open bay at the rear of the ship, which was facing with its stern toward the beach. To be able to escape quickly? He squinted. His eyes widened as he took in all the barges. There were not any men on them. Where were the pilots? He did see an equally oversized landing craft come in towards the beach. It was thrice as large as the largest landing craft, the LCMs, that had brought his force ashore ten days ago. He felt as if he had gone insane.

The scattering of Marines from the 3rd Defense Battalion and 1st Special Weapons Battalion that had been manning their foxholes were standing up and cheering. Some men had stopped attending to their duties and were lurching towards the water’s edge. They kept their distance though, a nervous air just beneath the surface of their exaltation. He saw corrugated box-cars be carted off the side of the ship by the cranes and be hoisted down onto the waiting barges below.

Vandegrift could not contain his awe or his confusion. “Christ alive. Where was the Navy hiding these bastards?” Another cheer went out as Old Glory went up over the ship and caught the morning breeze. The battle ensign was the size of a New York City billboard ordered by a new cigarette company with more money than sense. It was gargantuan. It was a gallant and defiant sight in the morning light. Our flag is still here. Vandegrift caught himself smiling like the rest of his men.

His eyes wandered up the superstructure of the massive attack transport. He saw the Flag of California and another, normal sized, American flag up on the flagpole. He squinted at this second flag for a moment. His lips twitched in silent calculation as the sense of awe and the feeling of relief froze in his veins. The shock struck his heart and took his breath as a single ripple rolled across the 48-star battle ensign. He was at once certain that his command was in mortal peril. It almost would have been easier if an entire Japanese fleet was waiting off the shore instead of this titanic Trojan Horse. Major General Alexander Archer Vandegrift had stopped smiling. He swallowed down the anxieties that has flashed up from his stomach. He strode back into his tent and rifled through the papers on his desk to find the ominous dispatch from Pearl, along with his pistol, and his cap.

“Gerry!” Archer was barely able to conceal the tremor in his voice with rage. Colonel Gerald Thomas was about twenty paces away, standing in the threshold of his tent curled over a formerly Japanese bronze washbasin. He froze with his razor half in the water, his face half lathered in shaving cream. His eyes turned upwards at the general while his face remained fixed in place. “Assemble the staff. On the double.” Vandegrift turned towards the runner who had roused him from his canvas temple. “Go and fetch Lieutenant Colonel Williams and tell him, I want his best paras on the beach as soon as they can fetch their rifles.” He turned back to Gerry who had wiped his face and approached, utterly perplexed. His voice was stern but steady, “We need to be ready.”

“Ready for what, sir?” His acting chief of staff asked. Archer could not quite get the words out of his mouth. All he could see was the frozen expression of his prior chief of staff’s face after a Japanese sniper, tied up in a palm tree, put a bullet through his head. A face locked in shock and weeping blood pouring down from a shattered skull and powered with white sand.

The runner looked at him as if he had gone mad. Perhaps he had.

Lieutenant Colonel Frank Gottege, the D-2, traipsed up from the beach with a fool’s smile painted across his lips. “Amazing, isn’t it, sir?” The intel officer exclaimed before his countenance recoiled into concern like a broken field gun sheered out of its mount as he clocked the general’s disposition. “Sir, what’s wrong?”

The general sucked air through gritted teeth.

“Frank, that flag has too many fuckin’ stars.”