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missiles in the Med, and only ten remained. He had already engaged the enemy planes swooping in to attack Rodney , his Aster-15s wreaking havoc with the German formation. Now the battleships were in range, and he needed to weigh in.
    “The ship will ready for missile fire,” he said with as much calm as he could muster. “Ship-to-ship. Spin up three GB-7s, and be quick about it.”
    The warning claxon sounded. The target was noted and assigned. “Let’s get after that number two ship in the enemy formation out there. I make it to be their flag. Engage!”
    The missiles were up to greet the morning sun, their hot tails of fire pushing steel. The GB-7 was fast at Mach 3, and it would barely have the time to accelerate to its full speed before it had the target in its radar cross section, swooping down and then boring in at sea level to make the final run.
    MacRae smiled. The bar fight was on, and he was just about to break a beer bottle or two over someone’s head out there. They’ve gone and picked a fight with the wrong man, he thought, folding his arms. Now let’s see about it.
     

 
    Chapter 2
     
    Kurt Hoffman had been on the weather deck off the bridge of Scharnhorst , clenching his fist with those last hits on Rodney , and knowing they were finally going to get their pound of flesh against the Royal Navy. Then he was stunned to see the massive explosion on the sea, driven by the expanding gas bubble of Gromyko’s heavy nuclear torpedo. It erupted in a crest of dark surface water followed by the expanding ring of white “crack,” and then the huge spray dome, rising upwards into a column of seawater and steam.
    The plume would rise some 5000 feet, nearly a mile high in the sky, and out from its base a tsunami of water surged out in every direction, creating a circle around the blast that was over three miles wide. As it careened down into the sea, a series of smaller waves were generated, the first about 100 feet in height. Then a haze of mist expanded, some 1,800 feet high and forming the enormous dome, like some demonic behemoth that had emerged from the sea, its head suddenly crowned with the serrated bloom of the topmost edge of the detonation chimney.
    God was in his heaven, thought Hoffmann, but what was in the sea? It looked as though hell itself had risen from the depths in a massive volcanic eruption from an unseen seamount. That was all he could think of as any possible reason for the calamity on the horizon, for it never entered his head that such power could have been the result of anything made by the hand of man. Then he felt the heavy swell as the shock wave finally reached his ship, feeling Scharnhorst rising up as though lifted by some mighty giant.
    The wrath of Neptune was heavy on the sea, and the guns on every side were stilled, all eyes riveted at the scene on the horizon. The detonation had occurred some twenty miles off, far enough to spare the ships any real damage, but was spectacular in its sudden appearance, imposing a stunned hush on the scene. Then, if the madness of that moment were not enough, Hoffmann saw the sky clawed by three thin streaks, his heart leaping with the realization of what was now happening.
    The missiles came like spirits fleeing from the awful scene on the horizon, just as crews on each side had finally recovered, and the shouts of officers urged them to resume their own little war on the sea.
    The Germans returned to the heat of their action against Rodney , when Tirpitz fired again, and now Hoffman looked to see the British battleship was in serious trouble. He could clearly see the fires foreword, and heavy smoke, but the list caused by the damage it had sustained was more pronounced, as the ship had been rolled heavily by the shock wave of that terrible eruption, though it continued to fight on. Then the high watch above shouted out the alarm— Rockets!
    Hoffmann was already watching them, tense and guarded when he saw the telltale contrails coming at