“By the stars!” Said softly a shaken Lori. “So many deaths in so short a time.”
“That is unfortunately the sad reality of war, miss.” Replied Bill. “Many more will die before…INGRID, CLIMB! CLIMB NOW!”
Ingrid reacted instinctively, trusting the experience of Bill Conway without discussion and making her scoutship jump up by a thousand meters before looking where Bill had been looking. A huge explosion under them then shook violently the scoutship, while a ball of searing flames accompanied by a shower of fragments expanded where the TEEN
TEAM had been.
“What the hell was that?” Grumbled Ingrid, more shaken than she wanted to show.
“It was the battleship YAMATO. I saw its eighteen-inch guns elevate and point at us and I then remembered a report I saw once about the battleships of that class being fitted with special anti-aircraft shells for their big guns.”
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“Damn! They really could have blown us to bits this time: I doubt that our shields would have withstood a direct hit from a ton and a half shell. All right, Tom, let’s change our target priorities temporarily and make it a quick kill: the YAMATO’s guns are too dangerous to play around with.”
“Got that!” Replied the teenage boy while concentrating already on his new target. Having served for two years in the Royal Navy as a ship’s boy, Tom knew where the sensitive parts of a battleship were. He thus directed the beam of his 200-megawatt laser on the armored roof of the forward eighteen-inch gun turret, aiming to eventually burn through all the way to its ammunition room. After three seconds of firing, the forward half of the battleship blew up in a titanic explosion, projecting debris over kilometers in all directions and severely shaking the scoutship by the blast wave. One of the giant gun turrets flew off high enough to make a glancing blow against the shields of the scoutship. Lori Kano was as pale as a bed sheet when Ingrid looked around to see if everyone was unhurt.
“Lori, are you okay?”
“I…I think so.” Answered the reporter weakly. Satisfied that her crew was safe and sound, Ingrid flew back to her original position above the KAGA. As Tom resumed his ship’s cutting work, Ingrid spoke to Jenny on the intercom.
“Jenny, select the outside speakers on your control panel and crank up the volume to the maximum. I want you to warn the crews of those ships to start evacuating now before we sink their ships. Advise also those three oil tankers that they will be next after we destroy the warships in the bay. Repeat your warning at least twice.”
“Understood,
Ingrid.”
Thanking mentally the young German for her sense of humanity, Jenny started broadcasting her warning in Japanese, fervently hoping that the Japanese sailors would heed it. Unfortunately, none of the warships’ crews evacuated their ships, leaving the crews of the three tankers alone to rush to their lifeboats. Jenny didn’t know if she had to feel happy or sad as Tom methodically sank every Japanese warship in the bay, using only the scoutship’s high power laser. As an American Navy officer she should have felt triumph at such a one-sided victory, but she could not help think about the plight of the common Japanese sailor as men died by the hundreds, manning their guns until it was too late for them to evacuate. The three tankers were destroyed last, a short laser burst being enough to turn each of them into a spectacular fireball. Lori Kano, like Jenny Kawena, was silent and downcast as she surveyed the chaos of burning debris and 705
broken ship hulls mixed in the water with hundreds of men swimming frantically to escape death. In contrast, Bill Conway felt only satisfaction as he wrote down the results of the battle on his notepad.
“Two carriers, one battleship, four cruisers, seven destroyers and three oil tankers sunk in less than forty minutes. I have never seen such a one-sided battle as this.”
“This is only the start, Bill. We will now target the military airfields around Tokyo before moving down the Japanese islands. With four other scoutships similarly busy around the Pacific tonight, there should be little to nothing left of Japanese air and sea power by the morning. If such a blow isn’t enough to make the Japanese leaders think about surrendering, then they will deserve a prize for stupidity.”
06:17 (Tokyo Time)
Tuesday, May 26, 1942 ‘B’
Scoutship TEEN TEAM
Kagoshima Bay, Kyushu Island
Japan
Ingrid and her crew, but especially Tom, were feeling dog-tired after flying over eight hours of non-stop combat operations. They were now leaving the area of the Kagoshima naval base, where they had just sunk the carriers SORYU and HIRYU, plus three battleships and a dozen lesser ships. The coming of the daylight had permitted for the first time the Japanese to launch fighters against the marauding scoutship. That had however been somewhat of an anti-climax, those fighters proving childishly easy to shoot down with short laser bursts. Everybody was looking forward to a good breakfast and some hours of sleep when a swarm of dots showed up on their sensors, coming straight towards the scoutship.
“I count easily over 140 aircraft coming from three directions.” Announced Tom, making Ingrid frown.
“Haven’t they learned their lesson yet? They should know that they stand no chance. Shooting them down would be little more than a senseless slaughter. Let’s go home, so that they can think about their surrender during the day.”
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“If you do that, Ingrid,” intervened Bill Conway, “they will think that they have scared you away and that will instead build up their morale. You will thus lose much of the psychological impact that you have been trying to cause all night.”
Ingrid exchanged a look with Tom, unsure at first what to do. She finally relented.
“Alright, we will engage them, but I am not going to play the coward and simply shoot them down from long range. Tom, be ready for a dogfight.”
“Yes! That will feel more like a fair fight this time.”
Bill Conway bit his tongue, having hoped for a somewhat different decision from Ingrid.
The German girl was however right: everything had been too easy up to now, making even Bill feel sorry for the Japanese. Jenny then spoke on the intercom, alarm in her voice.
“I have their air command net. These fighters have orders to shoot us down at any price. That could mean suicide ramming attacks.”
“How could any person go to such extreme?” Asked Lori, horrified by that very idea.
“That is an accepted Japanese tradition, Lori.” Answered Jenny. “Honor is more important than life itself.”
“Hang on, everybody, and make sure that your safety harnesses are tightly on.”
Shouted Ingrid as she accelerated towards the mass of Japanese fighter aircraft. The combined approach speed was terrifying, leaving very little time for the pilots on both sides to react. Tom shot his laser twice before they mingled, making two of the fighters directly to their front burst in flames. The pilot of one of those fighters, already starting to burn alive and screaming with pain, concentrated his last living seconds into lining his burning aircraft with the trajectory of the scoutship. Both the fighter and the scoutship collided head on, the fighter disintegrating on impact with the scoutship’s shields. The collision shook the crew of the TEEN TEAM to the bone, with Lori unable to keep in a scream of fear. The lights flickered inside the crew sphere for a fraction of a second.
Before anybody could say a word, a second fighter pilot following behind the first one deliberately flew his still intact aircraft straight into the speeding scoutship. The energy of that impact proved too much for the scoutship’s shield generator, which overloaded and burned out. Sparks flew out of circuit panels in the crew sphere as a loud alarm horn started blaring.
“FIRE IN THE MACHINERY COMPARTMENT!” Shouted Tom, still shaken by
the collision. “OUR SHIELDS ARE GONE!”
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“Activate the fire extinguishers!” Ordered Ingrid while assessing the damage to her wounded scoutship. A number of auxiliary systems were down, on top of the shield generator. The time distorter also appeared to be damaged. That would make any attempt at a spacetime jump dangerous at best. Tom spoke after a minute or so.
“The fire is out, Ingrid. The laser is off-line and my computerized fire control system is not responding. I can still however use our rail guns on purely manual pointing mode.”
“Then use that, Tom. We are not going to give up so easily.”
Ingrid then pulled up her scoutship into a tight half-loop that put her back towards the Japanese fighters.
“Ingrid, are you crazy?” Screamed a terrified Lori Kano. “We could get killed!”
“That is always a possibility in war, Lori.” Replied Ingrid through her clenched teeth. She started flying through the Japanese fighters, twisting, turning, diving and climbing in order to present manageable targets to Tom, who now had to calculate instinctively the lead he had to apply to his aim. That kind of shooting was however something the British teenage boy had mastered while serving as a machine gunner in the Royal Navy. Firing only short bursts from his forward 20mm Gatling rail gun, Tom managed to get on average two out of five bursts on target while Ingrid flew like a mad person. The Japanese were not taking it lying down either, firing their machineguns and cannons every time the scoutship zipped by them. The mere volume of their fire was enough to ensure that dozens of bullets and shells impacted on the scoutship. The thick titanium alloy hull of the TEEN TEAM was however tough enough to stop most of them.
Ingrid still had to contend with other suicide ramming attacks on top of everything else.
Only the adrenaline flowing through her body kept her going during the stressful fifteen minutes that followed. A Japanese fighter barely missed his ramming attack as Tom ran out of ammunition for his rail gun, the aircraft actually grazing the top of the scoutship’s hull and ripping off the hull plating along a good four meters. More red indicators lit up on Ingrid’s control panel as her scoutship started vibrating violently. She had no choice but to reduce speed to below the speed of sound in order to avoid additional structural damage from the relative wind rushing inside through the hull rip. Ingrid then turned her scoutship eastward and sped away from the surviving Japanese fighters.
“I think we did enough for today. What about you, guys?”
“I concur!” Replied quickly Tom, sighing with relief. “Hell, I was so stressed out concentrating on my firing that I lost count of how many I shot down this time.”
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“Make it 28 Japanese fighter aircraft, kid.” Said Bill Conway, sweat still covering his face. “I am the observer, after all, so I kept the count for you. That was some pretty fancy shooting, Tom. Your flying wasn’t shabby either, Ingrid.”
“Thanks, Bill! How are you, Jenny?”
“Uh, with all that twisting and turning, I’m afraid that I got sick over my control panel. Sorry!”
Ingrid laughed at that, which helped relieve some of the nervous tension she still felt.
“That’s no problem, Jenny: at the slow speed we have to fly now, you will have a good eight hours to clean that mess up.”
Ingrid then looked down and to her left at Lori. The GNN reporter was still frozen with terror and was hyperventilating. Ingrid gently shook her shoulder to bring her back to reality. It took two shakes before Lori snapped out of it, looking up at Ingrid with a livid expression.
“I swear that I was never this scared before in my life.”
“Are you okay, Lori?”
“I…I think so. I think I peed in my jumpsuit.” Lori said sheepishly. Ingrid knew better than laugh at her.
“Look, Tom will escort you and Jenny down to the crew cabins, where you will be able to clean up and change. Take a few hours of rest until we arrive back in Pearl Harbor.”
“Thanks, Ingrid. You are one fine girl.”
As Tom went down to the lower deck with Lori and Jenny, Ingrid looked down at Bill.
“You may as well go have some rest, Bill. I will start sending a situation report now to Hawaii.”
The American officer smiled at the German while holding out his notepad.
“That’s alright, Ingrid: I have my own mission report to do. It should be one hell of an exciting document.”
12:41 (Honolulu Time) / 06:41 (Tokyo Time)
Monday, May 25, 1942 ‘B’ / Tuesday, May 26, 1942 ‘B’
Operations Center, Pacific Fleet Headquarters
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
709
Both Admiral Nimitz and Michael Stone had to sit, sweat on their forehead, as the battle between the TEEN TEAM and the swarm of Japanese fighters concluded over Kagoshima. There was now a small crowd of staff officers and operators looking at the workstation set up by the Time Patrol in the fleet operations center.
“Damn!” Swore Stone, still worried about Ingrid and her scoutship. “That was a hell of a close call.”
“It was also the craziest dogfight I could have even imagined.” Added Nimitz.
“Your young scoutship crew makes a hell of a fighting team. Do you think that they will be able to make it back to Hickam Field?”
“I am not sure yet, Admiral. We are now receiving an electronic diagnostic from the TEEN TEAM. Mister Tolvek, what do you make of it?”
Maran Tolvek ‘B’, who was manning the workstation with young Cadet Lakshmi Saduranidrasekar ‘A’, looked carefully at the technical text now scrolling on one of the screens of the workstation linked to the TEEN TEAM.
“They have extensive damage to a number of secondary systems and to their shield generator. Their time distorter is also out of calibration and is unusable. Their main drive and stabilization systems are however apparently intact. They should make it back safely but it will then take at least a few days to repair all this damage. They were damn lucky…and brave.”
Admiral Nimitz was silent for a moment, looking at the image showing the inside of the crew sphere of the wounded scoutship, then looked up at Lieutenant Commander Bailey, who was holding a clipboard.
“Mister Bailey, what is your tally of ships sunk and aircraft destroyed by the scoutship TEEN TEAM?”
The naval intelligence officer shook his head as he read his notes.
“They accounted for the carriers AKAGI, KAGA, SORYU and HIRYU, the
battleships YAMATO, KIRISHIMA, HIEI and FUSO, eight cruisers, twelve destroyers, three submarines and four oil tankers. They also destroyed in the air 39 Japanese fighters, plus 284 other aircraft on the ground. Those last don’t include the aircraft lost with the four carriers, sir.”
“As impressive as that kill count sounds, for me it is not as impressive as the dogfight I have just seen. These youngsters should be commended. Mister Stone, does your Time Patrol have rules against accepting foreign medals?”
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“Not at all, Admiral. In fact, the four other scoutship pilots of our task force wear medals of either British, Soviet or German origin. I have my own medals from the American Navy of the 21st century, sir.”
“Good! Mister Bailey, what is left exactly of the Japanese air and sea power after this night massacre by the scoutships of the Time Patrol?”
“Damn little, if I may say so, Admiral. The Japanese have now only one small carrier left to them, the CHITOSE, while I estimate that less than thirty percent of all Japanese aircraft remain, those being mostly dispersed on small airfields around China and the north of Japan. As for sea power, the Japanese are now down to maybe five cruisers, a dozen destroyers and a motley collection of coastal patrol ships. Their only potent force left apart of the above is their submarine force, which will have to be flushed out from under the sea.”
Obviously delighted, Nimitz looked back at Michael Stone.
“That is indeed outstanding. What will be the next step in your plan, Mister Stone?”
“We will mostly let our crews rest during the day, Admiral, and give a chance to the Japanese to assess the damage, so that they could start thinking about surrendering. Then, tonight, we will concentrate our strikes on Japanese supply centers, oil storage sites, ammunition dumps and the like. The Japanese Army will then be mostly isolated and short on supplies, which should restrict greatly its operational options. We however expect the Japanese Army to be very stubborn and much harder to take out of the fight than their air force or navy. That is why we are hoping that common sense will prevail in Tokyo and that someone will push for surrender. If that does not happen, then your navy will be free to blockade the Japanese islands and starve them into submission.”
“That sounds like a good plan to me, mister. How are your people in Europe doing?”
“Very well indeed, Admiral. Now that we have taken care of a small domestic problem of our own in 3386, we have been concentrating in completing the elimination of the Nazi Party machine and of its instruments of repression. We will soon enter talks with the various high level German military commanders, to convince them to withdraw on their own out of all the territories they have occupied since the start of the war. In exchange for that and a partial German disarmament, we will guarantee that the original 711
German borders will be respected and that the Soviets will not be allowed to grab Eastern Europe.”
“That is quite a risky political program, mister. Can your Nancy Laplante really play that kind of hardball game?”
Michael Stone smiled at Nimitz’ question.
“Admiral, Nancy can play hardball with the best of them.”
20:54 (Honolulu time)
Scoutship TEEN TEAM
Hickam Field, Pearl Harbor
Hawaii
Ingrid’s bum felt like lead as she was finally able to leave her pilot seat: 22 hours sitting in it except for two toilet breaks and a quick snack was quite enough for anybody.
Bill Conway, who was already up, saw that and smiled.
“Need a rub, Ingrid?”
“Oh yes! I’m not going to refuse that now.”
Stepping down from her pilot’s station, she turned around and presented her back to the delighted American while leaning against the observer’s seat. Bill’s vigorous rubbing and massaging got moans of satisfaction from Ingrid and a sarcastic look from Lori Kano.
“You know, you could find an easier way to justify getting a massage, Ingrid.”
“Hey, any way to get a massage is justifiable in my mind.”
Tom, a faked look of jealousy on his face, rubbed his own bum.
“Gee, I also sat in that seat for long hours. What do I have to do to get a rub?”
“You just need to ask, my pretty boy.” Replied Lori before taking position behind him, gluing herself to his back and caressing his bum with both hands. Lori saw Jenny’s cheeks turn red and grinned to the Japanese-American.
“Don’t tell me that you never had a boy rub your bum, Jenny.”
“Uh, actually, no. My parents were quite traditional in their values. Besides, nobody would even approach me during my navy classes.”
The way her tone saddened while saying her last sentence made Ingrid and Tom look at her with genuine concern. Ingrid made Bill stop his rubbing and went to the small ensign, taking hold of her by the shoulders.
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“Jenny, you are a sweet girl who deserves better than to be shunned. If you want to, there will always be a place for you with us in the Time Patrol.”
“You are serious, Ingrid? You really would accept me after this war?”
“Hey, Nancy is my adoptive mother and I think that I know her well enough to say that she would take you any time.”
“That…that would be fantastic. Thanks for the words of encouragement, Ingrid.”
“My pleasure, Jenny. Now, let’s go see Chief Engineer Alan Turok to get a verdict on my poor scoutship.”
The moment they walked down the rear access ramp of the TEEN TEAM, Ingrid and her crew were greeted by cheers from the other scoutship crews and from crewmembers of the BABYLON. Michael Stone came to Ingrid and hugged her warmly.
“Ingrid, you really scared me this time, but you did great. So did your crew.”
“Thanks, Michael. What about my scoutship?”
“I’m afraid that it will take at least a couple of days of intensive repairs to return it to service. In the meantime, you can serve as a second crew for one of our four other scoutships.”
“You better return my WALKÜREN in once piece if I loan it to you, Ingrid.”
Shouted Hanna Reitsch jokingly, making Ingrid pull out her tongue at her. After a round of congratulations, the crew of TEEN TEAM then took a ride in a cargo platform loaned from the ground support crew and headed towards the Pacific Fleet Headquarters for their mission debriefing. The welcome they got there was even warmer than at Hickam Field.
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CHAPTER 18 – RAVENSBRÜCK
16:21 (GMT)
Tuesday, May 26, 1942 ‘B’
Tower ALPHA, RAF Air Station Northolt
England
Nancy was reading through the latest situation report from Warsaw when Thomas Fairbanks showed up at the door of her office with a sheet of paper in his hands. Her welcoming smile faded when she saw the concerned expression on the African-American’s face.
“What is it, Tom?”
“Something bad, Nancy. This is a message on the radio net of the SS Corps that we just intercepted and decoded. We think that it was made by Reinhardt Heidrich.”
Nancy frowned as Tom gave her the sheet of paper. Heidrich, now the top ranking SS
officer not dead or captured yet, had been evading her efforts to find him for over a day now. Reading quickly the message, Nancy suddenly got up from her chair, revolted by what was in it.
“Is that the whole list of addressees?”
“Yes, Nancy. This was sent basically to all the concentration camps that are still operating.”
“That Heidrich bastard! This will totally screw up our present operational plans.
Come with me, Tom: we are going to see Farah with this.”
Leaving her office with Tom on her heels, Nancy started chasing for Farah around the Tower ALPHA, finally finding her in the infirmary. Nancy handed her the message Tom had brought her.
“This is a message intercepted on the SS Corps radio net which was probably sent by Heidrich. In it, he orders all the SS units in and near German concentration camps to start erasing as rapidly as possible all the traces of the camps and to eliminate all witnesses. Basically, this means the massacre on the spot of all camp inmates, followed by the destruction of the camps. Hundreds of thousands of tortured souls are in immediate danger of death, Farah.”
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After a moment of stupor, Farah read the message, then threw it away in a rare fit of rage.
“How could anyone be this cruel?”
Rage was then replaced by grief and tears. Nancy hurried to her friend and hugged her, caressing her back.
“We will do everything humanely possible to prevent this monstrosity, Farah, I promise. If you agree to it, I will suspend temporarily all our other activities until this crisis is over.”
“Go ahead, Nancy.” Said Farah between sobs. “You have my authority to do as you please on this. Just save those poor people.”
“You can count on me, Farah. Tom, come with me!”
As the two of them left the infirmary, Nancy gave rapidly a few directives to the computer genius.
“I want you to extract from our data banks all the information we have on German concentration camps and organize it in target files. We will need the maps of the camps and their exact locations, the size of the German garrisons and the number of inmates to be expected, along with any personal info on key German personnel in those camps. If we don’t have good maps, then send out reconnaissance probes to take air photos of the camps. Do this as fast as you can and enlist the help of all the sensor operators you deem necessary.”
“I’m on it, Nancy.” Replied Tom before walking away. Running back to her office, Nancy called up on her computer screen the listing of available Time Patrol personnel and of their present tasks. She grimaced at seeing how few people she had to do the present job. At least, with their scoutship down for repairs, she could use Ingrid and Tom. She could also strip some personnel and robots from the Warsaw sector, which was relatively quiet at this time. The other big problem they would face was how they were going to feed and care for all these inmates once they were out of danger. Those people could not just be abandoned in the middle of Germany or Poland to fend for themselves. Thankfully, the field hospital deployed from Aldershot by the British Army was now about ready in Northolt, while good progress had been made by the British on setting up an adjoining refugee camp. Checking on the stockpiles of food acquired and stored away by Boran Kern, Nancy was pleased by what she saw: they had presently a bit over 1,800 tons of non-perishable food in storage. While this was a good start, it however represented only a few days of food at the most for the hundreds 715
of thousands of inmates presently held in German camps. They would need more, a lot more. This promised to be a logistical nightmare of the first magnitude. Her head nearly spinning from so many problems at once, Nancy started writing up a series of short operational