Washing down a mouthful of the bar with the last of her coffee, Willet gathered up her flexipad and left behind the small personal space of her cabin. Some novels, a few black-and-white photographs of the Sydney Harbor Bridge, a picture of her sister, and a small watercolor of their parents’ beach house painted by her dad back up in twenty-one marked out the room as her private territory. She was never far from work, however.

The cabin was located all of fifteen meters from the sub’s Combat Center, allowing her to arrive in a shade under the promised two minutes.

“Captain on deck!”

“As you were. Mr. Grey, I hear we’ve got them by the short and curlies again.”

Lieutenant Commander Conrad Grey stepped aside from a bank of flat-panel screens, a quick nod inviting her to take his place. She could see that he was tense, like everyone present.

“The sea’s calmed down a fair bit up there, skipper. We’re getting clean capture on the sensors now, the best we’ve had in three days. Their cocks are on the chopping block, ma’am. Just waiting for the magic word.”

Willet took in the sensor feed with a glance. Once upon a time, they would have made this kill from a much safer distance, but in such foul weather, without satellite cover, they’d been forced to come within six thousand meters just to use the boat’s own sensor suite. Tracking something as dangerous as a Sartre-class stealth destroyer was like snuggling up to a nest of vipers.

At least it would have been under normal circumstances.

The Dessaix, however, wasn’t under the command of its normal crew. Mostly their fates were unknown, but it didn’t take much to imagine what had become of them. The Nazis had captured the ship while they were all still comatose from the Transition, so there wouldn’t have been a chance to resist. If any still lived, they were probably hanging by their thumbs in a Gestapo cell somewhere in Germany.

Willet leaned back into the gelform seat padding and peered intently into the multipanel display.