It had been a tight contest, but Pravda had finally beaten us. There had been only four supership berths at Port of Oahu, but the girls from Pravda had managed to get it reserved before Ōarai did. I was just happy that we would have enough motor launches to get back and forth between ship and shore without a whole lot of waiting. Or so I thought.

Following the match we had fought against Selection University, we had all moved back aboard. Anzu and the rest of the student council had graduated with the Public Morals Committee and all six of them would be going on to Tokyo University. Since one of the advantages of living on a school ship was mobility, it was decided that we would head east to the Hawaiian Islands for a couple of weeks.

There was much more to Hawaii than just Honolulu, but the state capital seemed like a reasonable place to start. En route, we discovered that Pravda had the same idea and as I understand, there was a lot of good-natured teasing between the two of us.

Anyway, with the Russian wannabes hogging the last available dock, we were forced to break out the small boats to deliver us the three kilometers to shore. To my dismay, and four others, we wound up as dead last in the line to go ashore, and ironically, we were all involved in sensha-dō.

Riko Matsumoto, whom everyone called "Erwin," was the leader and radio operator for our StuG III.

Yukari Akiyama, a good friend of Erwin and I, served us well as our loader in the Panzer IV.

Shinobu Kawanishi had finished her first year at Ōarai and she was the driver for the Type 89 I-Go, and already a top volleyball player.

Tsuchiya Kitamura drove the Tiger tank for Leopon team and is also a member of the automotive club.

"It's going to take forever to get aboard, never mind ashore!" said Shinobu.

"Don't worry," I assured her. "We won't be under any curfew for the next three days. I'm more concerned about the weather right now." Shortly after dropping anchor, a line of thunderstorms had appeared on radar. The ship could ride it out and not notice it, but since the small craft were built for only eight of us, getting back and forth could be a problem.

After waiting for a full hour, we found ourselves alone on the loading dock with no small boats available; all of the others were speeding away merrily. Considering that it was a six kilometer round trip, this might be a long wait.

My phone rang. I sighed. Offices for the start of next year had not yet been announced, but I knew perfectly well that Anzu had been pushing me to take the job of Student Council President - a job I wanted as much as Mako wanted four hours of sleep a night. Not bothering to check who it was, I answered with a cautious "Hello?"

"Zdravstvuyte, Piroshki! Ya need a lift?"

"...Katyusha!" Sure enough, I looked over the side and saw the Pravda commander pulling alongside with Clara beside her. We quickly boarded and after she embraced all of us, Katyusha shoved the throttle forward.

"Where's Nonna?" asked Yukari.

Katyusha sighed sadly. "She went on to Moscow State University the day after graduation. She never explained why to Katyusha, she could have easily have gotten into Tokyo." Katyusha smiled wanly. "I guess every team is breaking up to some extent. Katyusha will go to college in Hokkaido. And according to that Finnish thief, Kay got into Stanford."

"No way!" That was me. I knew Kay was extremely personable and would fit into American society easiry - once she managed to get the "R's" and "L's" solted out - but she never struck me as the scholarly type.

"Da! That was a surprise to us too! Heh, you never know." Katyusha then looked to the sky with some mild trepidation. "We have just over a nautical mile to go, but those clouds look nearly black." She attempted to throttle forward, but it was already at full ahead.

"Is that what I think it is?" asked Erwin. She had pointed off to the left and I saw what appeared to be a funnel cloud dipping lower and lower.

"If you're thinking waterspout, I have to agree," answered Yukari. "Katyusha, do you want to head back?" The Pravda commander checked the GPS. "We're past the halfway point. We might as well keep heading to land."

A moment later the funnel cloud got close enough to the water to kick up a column of seawater and a loud whooshing howl filled our ears. The trepidation I was feeling deepened into fear as the waterspout didn't seem to move - but instead got broader and louder.

"Chyerte! Katyusha, vytashchi nas otsyuda!"*

"Proklyat'ye, Klara, govorit' na yaponskom yazyke! Ya ne govoryu po-russki!"*

I wasn't sure what they were saying, but it didn't seem very pleasant...or logical. It looked like the waterspout would maybe cross our path to the rear, but quartering headwinds and waves were hindering our forward progress.

"Gyaah!" The boat fell hard into a trough between the waves and Katyusha was thrown off the wheel. Tsuchiya helped her to her feet, but the loss of control was enough for the worst possibility to arise. I'll confess to screaming in terror once I felt the boat rising out of the water.

"Grab on to something!" ordered Erwin. Sea and fresh water stung our faces as the propeller screamed shrilly along with everyone else. Pale green lightning flashed about us and the smell of petrol and ozone filled my nostrils. This was no ordinary waterspout. The boat yawed and spun, and with no visible references, it was impossible to tell where we were going.

I heard nothing, but saw the ball of pale blue lightning come to rest on the bow - then flash with the brightness of a hundred suns. I saw Yukari's face, wild with terror, illuminated to the point I could clearly see her skull, and then blackness.

And then I felt a sensation of plummeting through the air, like an airliner in strong turbulence. Blind with terror and extreme illumination, we waited for the final impact - but we never felt it.

I wasn't dead; it wouldn't have been that painful. My bones and muscles ached like they never had before. The sun was shining, cooler than I remembered, but still warm, and it was either mid-morning or mid-afternoon, I had no way of telling.

And we appeared to be gradually sinking. I reached over to a more wild-haired than usual Yukari and woke her with a static electric shock to our mutual surprise.

"Miporin?"

"Hai! Get everyone up, we're sinking!" She bolted to her feet and groaned loudly. Erwin and Clara were both stirring. The last to awaken was Shinobu and after she retched and threw up, we made sure she lay back down right away. With everyone bailing, we cleaned out as much water as we could within ten minutes.

"I don't think we are sinking, moi druzhie," said Clara. However far we fell, it wasn't enough to damage the hull."

"We're in sight of land," I said. Can we get there?

"Is that Honolulu?"

"Who cares?"

"That might be pretty important," answered Katyusha. "The GPS isn't getting any signal."

"Do you have a pair of binoculars?" I asked.

Katyusha reached under the wheel and pulled out a pair of 10x50's with Cyrillic print on them. Looking at what I thought was Honolulu, I was a bit surprised at what I saw; the skyline seemed somewhat lower than before, and duller. But Diamondhead was right there, unmistakable.

"The skyline looks odd - but that's definitely Honolulu. I swallowed, worried. "I think the storm might have hit them real hard."

"And where the hell is our ship?"

I whirled back around in answer to Yukari, scanning behind us, desperate to see what I was looking for.

"Chikushō," I swore quietly. And no sign of the Pravda ship in the port, either.

"Katyusha sees no point in waiting around. Let's see if we can get there." Katyusha hit the ignition and after a few worrisome cranks, the engine finally turned over and started. She gingerly pushed the throttle forward, the boat sailed forward.

"Russian technology," joked Clara. "Not always pretty, but it can sure take a beating, yes?"

As we got closer to Honolulu, the odd skyline came more into focus. The skyline had changed, but the geography hadn't.

"I have a bad feeling about this," muttered Katyusha, as we drew closer and headed past Sand Island searching for the Pravda ship. The cars weren't the streamlined vehicles we were used to seeing, but they were still beautifully designed...like something out of the 1950's or earlier. At least the city didn't seem damaged.

"Are they having a vintage festival or something," asked Shinobu.

"The whole town? Get real," answered Erwin.

Pravda's ship was nowhere to be found, and none of the berths looked capable of handling a ship of that size anyway.

"Well, we have to go somewhere," said Katyusha. "There's nothing to eat, we don't have a roof over our heads anymore, and eventually we're going to run out of fuel." She broke out a chart of the area. Waikiki Yacht Club looked promising - but when we got to where it should have been - it wasn't there.

"Nantekotta i?"*

Eventually we wound up backtracking to Keehi Marina and docking. ALL of the boats were vintage models that looked more or less brand new.

"We are still in the twenty-first century, are we not?"

Truly, I was wondering that very thought.

We disembarked and continued to receive a number of odd looks from people who looked like they were out of the 1950's or earlier. We entered the harbormaster's office to register and pay for a few nights. The harbormaster, a trim middle-aged man with only slightly greying hair and a thin moustache, gave us a cheerful greeting. Since Yukari was nearly fluent in English we let her do the talking. It should be noted that even though I and the rest of my classmates took several classes in English as required by law, most of us weren't close to fluent.

"Good afternoon," Yukari said. "We have a six meter boat we would like to reserve a berth for, ah, three days?"

"Three days? I can give you a whole month for a dollar and fifty cents." Yukari smiled, she had more than enough for that. She took out her Ōarai Visa Card and handed it to him. The harbormaster looked at it questioningly. "This is very pretty, sweetheart - but what in the world is it?"

"That's a Visa credit card, of course."

"Do you mean a charge plate? Unfortunately, we don't accept those. Do you have cash?"

"Oh yes!" Yukari said eagerly. She pulled out a twenty dollar bill and handed it to the man. He took it frowning, looking at it very carefully. "Young lady, where did you get this?"

"Oh, the bank on our school ship! But my parents gave me an allowance of ten thousand yen every two weeks. I just exchanged it for dollars."

The man nodded. "You're all Japanese, I take it?"

"Yes, we're from Ōarai and Hokkaido - except Clara," Clara gave him a wave. "Clara is Russian, from Novosibirsk."

The man again looked down at the bill he'd been handed and took a deep breath. "And what was the date that you left from Japan?

Yukari paused. "I guess we headed east on June the ninth?"

"In the year 2009?"

Yukari cocked her head to the side. "In 2012..."

"Then I won't call the police," he said as he went to his desk and picked up a newspaper. I noticed his hands were trembling slightly as he handed it to Yukari and we gathered around her.

"HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IMPLEMENTS BAN ON STRIKES"

"Soviets continue to defend Moscow"

(Thursday, December 4th, 1941)

I had no words, just a deep fear. Erwin placed a hand on my shoulder. "Miporin, you remember when Kay said that this was sensha-dō, not war?"

"Yes?"

Wide-eyed and voice trembling, "It's war."

TRANSLATIONS

"Damn! Katyusha get us out of here!"

"Dammit, Clara, speak Japanese! I don't speak Russian!"

"What the hell?"