“Buster, this is Eagle Flight, 200 miles out, bearing 353, we have an anomalous radar contact some 60 miles out in front of us. Please confirm.”

There was a pause for a few seconds, electrostatic discharges in the atmosphere were playing havoc with radio communications but the systems filtering programs quickly cleared the white noise from the channel. “Confirm contact Eagle Flight. Bearing 358, range from Buster is 66.6 nautical miles. Target speed 184 knots, course one-three-fiver. For your information, Crown and Scepter are tracking also. They have locks.” There was a pause, a series of crackles on the radio, then the message resumed. “If targets are hostile, you are cleared to engage.”

Wong translated the message in his head. ‘Buster’ was CVN-76 USS Ronald Reagan, ‘Crown’ was CG-70 USS Lake Erie, an AEGIS cruiser, while ‘Scepter’ was DDG-93 USS Chung-Hoon, one of the Arleigh Burke class destroyers that now dominated the fleet’s surface combatant force. Also AEGIS-equipped, that meant whatever the targets were, they were now being tracked by three of the most advanced radar systems in the U.S. Navy. The ‘lock’ part of the message was really interesting, that suggested the order to open fire was already being passed out.

That didn’t surprise Wong, human reaction to The Message had split neatly down religious lines. Those whose religion had demanded blind submission to the ‘Will of God’ had accepted it without a struggle and more or less laid down and died. They just weren’t around any more. The rest of the world’s population had followed the example set by Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown. His reply to The Message had been “Sod off, Baldrick,” followed by a reassuring message to the British people that he had a cunning plan to deal with the situation. The British had enjoyed the joke, whatever it was, and collectively told Satan to perform some highly improbable obscenities on himself.