by Dan Moren
Elias ignored the reference to Lacus Doloris. He laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back in his chair, as if they were only talking about where to go for lunch. “Space-schmace. It’s just another unforgiving environment, think of it like the dunk tank. You can’t tell which way is up, only, it’s all the time.”
“You’re not exactly selling it,” Oliver stifled a smile.
“Yeah, well. The old man doesn’t want you for space stuff. He wants you to teach.” Elias leaned forward again.
“To teach what? I’ve been doing boarding actions all my life.”
“That’s what he wants you to teach.”
“You want me to teach water-surface boardings to lunar SAR operators? What is wrong with you?”
Ho cleared his throat so softly it would have gone missed had it been anyone else. “In all fairness, ma’am,” he said, “you could teach fish to walk.”
“Thank you, Commander Kiss-Ass.” Oliver slapped her palms on the desk and turned to glare at him. Ho tugged his forelock, inclined his head and smiled.
“Here’s the thing,” Elias said. “Navy is making a big push to remove us from lunar operations. They want the Coast Guard earthbound, for space to be declared ‘universal high seas.’”
Oliver sucked in her breath as she thought of the Navy small boats torquing into position over Lacus Doloris. She thought of their flat-gray, gun-studded hulls. She thought of the way the miners surged to the attack at the sight of them. “What? That’s a terrible idea. We need less militarization of space, not more. The Navy’s the wrong tool for the job.”
“That’s what they’re saying about us, and the President is listening. Jane, I can’t stress this enough, we’re on the brink of war here. The Commandant has met with the Secretary of the Navy three times in the past month, and he can’t convince him. You don’t need me to tell you how bad this is. We’re not going to bring peace to the Moon if the American and Chinese navies are skirmishing every time a quarantine-runner strays into the Chinese Exclusive Economic Zone.”
“So what do you want me to do about it from Mons Pico? Shouldn’t you make me Navy Liaison Officer or something?”
“That’s not how the Commandant wants to handle it. Look, we’ve pretty much lost the argument that this is a law enforcement or customs issue. The government is sold that it’s a military one. If the Coast Guard wants to take the helm here, we can’t keep showing the President that we’re the right SAR element to keep space safe, we have to show him we’re the right military element to beat the Chinese.”
Oliver felt the first touch of a headache behind her eyes. None of this made any sense. “Sean. We’re the Coast Guard. We’re not the right military element to beat anybody.”
Elias laughed. “Well, you’ve got me there. Fortunately, politicians are easily impressed.”
“What do you want me to teach these guys to do?”
“We need you to get them in shape for this year’s Boarding Action. Commandant thinks if we win, it’ll give us the hand we need. It’s a major media event, watched by millions of Americans. If we win it, that’ll give us the leverage we need to stay on, and if we stay on, we can keep the Navy from turning quarantine-runners into a pretext for war. SPACETACLET came close last year…”
Oliver blinked. “We’re going to stop a war… by winning a game show?”
Elias smiled. “I know it sounds odd, Jane…”
“You’re goddamn right it sounds odd!”
Elias passed over his phone. “Here, let me show you something.”
“Look, I like baby pictures as much as the next gal, but if you’re hoping to soften me up, you’re going to have to…”
Elias laughed. “My daughter is a junior in high school and my son starts college this year. I’ve queued up two videos for you in my camera roll.”
Oliver arched a skeptical eyebrow. “Should I be careful scrolling here? I don’t want to accidentally run into…”
Elias waved a hand. “Jane, please. Humor me here.”
Oliver thumbed through and played the first video. It was well familiar to anyone from hundreds of social media ads. Vice Admiral Augusta Donahugh, commanding officer of the Navy’s 11th Fleet – in charge of the service’s operations on the 16th Watch. The vice admiral was a small woman, lean and healthy looking, her defiantly undyed hair and the wrinkles around her eyes the only hints that she was either north of sixty, or very close to it. She leaned into the camera, her eyes burning with passion for her mission, her solid gold shoulder boards bunching toward her neck. The video must have been shot in front of a green screen, washed out now and replaced with 11th Fleet’s flagship – the USS Obama, its thousand-foot length stretching past the borders of the screen, toroidal chambers slowly rotating to bring spin-gravity to its sickbays and ops center. The film’s producers had highlighted the ship’s batteries, lightening them to make them stand out to the audience – ball turrets projecting autocannon barrels, missile pods with gleaming orange piezo-electric fuses. Navy small boats swarmed around it like a cloud of gnats, guns run out, a few flying American flags from their antennae mastheads.
“As a little girl, I dreamed of visiting the Moon,” Donahugh said. “I never imagined the day would come when I’d stand at the helm of the one force that is making life there possible. The United States Navy has led the way to new frontiers for the entirety of our nation’s history, projecting American power into the farthest reaches of our oceans, a truly global force for good. And now we’re the tip of the spear, bringing justice and peace to that same Moon I dreamed of visiting when I was growing up. You don’t need me to tell you how important this is. As the main source of Helium-3, the Moon is the future of clean energy for the entire world. It’s imperative that the United States remain at the forefront of the fight to secure this critical resource.”
Oliver had seen this video so many times that she knew the next bit by heart. The screen cut away from Donahugh to a scene of last year’s winners of Boarding Action, the US Marine Forces Special Operations Command – 16th Watch team, moving and covering as they breached and cleared a large range tanker held by the second-place finishers, the State Department’s Diplomatic Security team. The MARSOC16 team moved like they were flying, gliding through the micro-gravity like they were born in it, making the incredibly skilled DIPSEC operators look like kindergartners. The cameras cut to the studio audience for the show, cheering themselves hoarse as the show’s announcers blinked in disbelief at the speed and skill with which MARSOC16 swept the opposition. “11th Fleet is proud of our marines, who’ve won Boarding Action for the third year running, a testament to the dedication and skill our people bring to the fight. The Navy is the right tool for this job, because we’re the best there is. We train harder, work harder, and fight harder than anyone on Earth, or beyond it.”
The camera cut back to Donahugh, standing now, surrounded by flint-eyed sailors and marines, all in their hardshells, helmets held under their arms. The American flag waved in the background, translucent, the surface of the Moon shining through it. “The 16th Watch is America’s most important fight. And we can’t win it without your help. Join us.”
The video ended with the Navy’s recruitment hotline number, email address, and chat handle, flashing yellow across the bottom of the screen.
Oliver looked up, met Elias’ expectant gaze. “Sean, I’ve seen this a hundred times already. Everybody has. It’s good.”
“It’s better than good,” Elias said. “Navy is over 400 percent past their recruitment quota thanks to that, with the majority of the applicants pushing for contracts guaranteeing them tours on the 16th Watch.”
“So? We’re a smaller service. We don’t run ads because we don’t have to.”
“Yeah, but nobody signing on with us wants to go to the Moon, and that’s part of the why. Folks see it as a military matter. Well, that and they don’t want to piss into a vacuum tube for a four-year stretch. Anyway, my point is that the Navy is winning the messaging
war here. They are convincing the public that the Moon is a war zone already. This video is part of that.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a little bit dramatic, Sean? It’s just dick-measuring bullshit. Their target audience is boys about to graduate high school. Of course they’re pumping the rah-rah it’s a war stuff.”
Elias shook his head. “It’s worse than that. Watch the next video.”
This video was wasn’t familiar – a group of serious-faced men and women in sober suits sat around a horseshoe-shaped panel table of rich, golden wood. Oliver noted the regal, overblown red leather and green felt upholstery, the somber classical tones in the columns behind them. “Is… this the capitol?”
“Yup,” Elias said. “That’s the Armed Services Committee.”
She’d have figured it out in another instant, anyway. The camera pulled back to show the service chiefs in their dress uniforms around a smaller table. Donahugh was standing beside Admiral Perea, the Chief of Naval Operations. Perea was seated, a look of performative concentration on his face as Donahugh gestured to the same recruiting video Oliver had just watched, finishing its last few seconds on a flat-screen monitor wheeled into the chamber.
Admiral Zhukov, the Coast Guard Commandant, was shaking his head. “That is a recruiting video. Senators, I will caution you against making decisions based on marketing materials.”
“Admiral Zhukov is absolutely right,” Donahugh said, “and it is equally important that this committee keep in mind that these marketing materials are built on facts. Nothing I say in that video deviates from the strictest truth. The Navy is leading the fight on the Moon, and it’s imperative we continue to do so.”
Oliver tried to read the expressions of the senators, but they were studiously game-faced, wearing the same gravitas-laden performative looks.
“This presumes that this is a fight at all,” Zhukov countered. “It currently isn’t, and it doesn’t have to be. This is a customs and border control matter, and the issue at hand is quarantine and evasion of vessel-inspections. That is something that the Coast Guard is uniquely equipped to do, and the reason this service was chartered.”
“I’m not certain the families of those sailors killed at Lacus Doloris would agree with you, admiral,” Donahugh countered.
“Jesus,” Oliver whispered. “That fucking bitch.”
“Yup,” Elias agreed.
If Zhukov was rattled by the comment, he didn’t show it. “The Chinese can tell the difference between a light-armed law enforcement vessel and a warship. They are well familiar with the difference between the Coast Guard and the Navy’s authorities here. I grieve for the lives lost at Lacus Doloris as much as the rest of you, but that was nothing like a full-scale war. If we want to avoid the potential for that degree of conflict, we need to be showing good faith efforts to deescalate the situation. It has to be the Coast Guard.”
“And if we were talking about the waters off Baja California or Miami, I’d agree,” Donahugh said, “but China isn’t Mexico or Haiti, and the stakes on the Moon are worlds higher. The national security implications of losing ground in our ability to exploit Helium-3 are several orders of magnitude more grave than our ability to keep recreational boaters from harming manatees.”
“It’s official,” Oliver said, “I fucking hate this woman.”
“So long as you respect her hustle,” Elias said. “Because she’s currently cleaning our clocks.”
Now Zhukov appeared rattled. “That’s a gross mischaracterization of the Coast Guard’s mission. And it only distracts from the fact that I am not the one laying out the lanes in the road here. They are clearly expressed by the titles 10 and 14 of the United States Code. This is our job!”
“The US Code,” Donahugh said, “has always been interpreted. US law is governed by precedent, admiral. And with the stakes so high, our interpretation here is critical. Let me ask you, do you agree with the position that noncooperative dockings, boardings, are the key to enforcement of customs controls on the 16th Watch?”
“Don’t do it,” Oliver said to the video. “Don’t walk right into it.” She looked up at Elias. “Tell me he doesn’t walk right into it.”
Elias sighed. “Watch.”
“Of course they are,” Zhukov said. “They’re the main tool in our arsenal right now, at least until we can establish a culture of compliance. But that takes time.”
“It does,” Donahugh agreed. “It’s impossible to say for sure, but the Naval Innovation Advisory Council is currently estimating at least a five-year horizon to turn the current culture of quarantine evasion around. Five years is a long time, admiral.”
“We can do it much faster than that,” Zhukov said. “We’re making headway every day, and I don’t see what this has to do with…”
“Oh man,” Oliver said. “This is bad.”
“The worst,” Elias agreed.
Donahugh had already turned to the monitor, clicked the remote, replaying the last section again – showing the MARSOC16 team’s almost superhuman performance, the DIPSEC operators going down hard, the cheering crowd. “The Navy has proven, for four years running now, in the highest-pressure and most public forum available, that we are the best equipped, the best trained, the overall best at boarding actions on the 16th Watch.”
Zhukov sputtered, his military bearing slipping. “You can’t be serious. That’s a game show!”
Donahugh looked at the senators now, still speaking to Zhukov. “If it’s just a game show, admiral, why can’t you win?”
Oliver stopped the video, unwittingly repeated the Commandant’s words. “You can’t be serious.”
“As a heart attack,” Elias said. “Ask me if that video has leaked to the public.”
“I refuse.”
“It’s been trending on three social media platforms for a week, Jane. That’s what we call a coup.”
“Sean, this is reality TV! The SASC can’t possibly…”
“This is the reality TV generation, Jane. The SASC is composed of senators, and senators care about getting reelected. This just became a platform issue. And the presidential election is right behind it. So, guess which way he’s leaning?”
“Fuck.”
“We have to win this thing, Jane. We have to prove the Navy wrong.”
“And you think SAR-1 is how we win it?”
“With you pushing them, yes.”
“Sean, they came in fifth last year. Behind the Mare Anguis Police Department.”
“That’s top ten. We need you to bump them up the other four slots.”
Oliver’s head spun with the inanity of the request. “Have you looked at my file? I don’t know anything about non-cooperative dockings in space!”
Sean’s face went serious. “I have, in fact, looked at your file. Hell, I’ve memorized it. You’ve done over two thousand contested boardings in your career.”
“Those were on Earth! On the water!”
Elias was unfazed. “Every one of them is the equivalent of a non-cooperative docking in space, Rear Admiral Select.”
“Stop calling me that!”
“Over 2,300, actually,” Ho said.
Oliver turned to him slowly. She blinked, trying to make sense of his sudden interjection. “What?”
“Contested boardings, ma’am,” her XO was smiling, “you’ve done over 2,300 in your career. I can double check the Personnel Records System if you want, but I’m pretty sure I’ve got the number right.”
“Whose side are you on!?” Oliver slapped the desk again.
Ho shrugged.
“The issue isn’t technical knowledge,” Elias went on. “The acting commander out there says it’s… morale holding them back.”
Oliver’s stomach turned over. “Morale how?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.
“They blame themselves for Tom,” Elias said, “and for Kariawasm and Flecha. They feel like they failed you.”
It can’t be their fault. Because it’s mine. She c
ursed herself for what seemed like the thousandth time. If only she hadn’t insisted on going on the boat personally. If only she’d… No. That way lies madness. She had replayed what happened on that day over and over again ceaselessly for years now. There was nothing to be gained from it. Her thoughts were poisonous loops. They held no answers, only whispers that all pointed to her as the culprit for everything that had gone wrong.
But she hadn’t been able to spare the emotional energy to think that the same toxic lines would be repeating in Elgin and McGrath’s minds. “Oh, come on, Sean,” she tried to sound nonchalant, but her voice broke. “I don’t blame them for what happened. I know they did the best they could. I wrote to Chief and told him as mu–”
“No, Jane,” Elias said. “You know that’s bullshit. It’s one thing to hear that you forgive them. It’s another to believe it.”
The grief rose so suddenly and she only barely choked back the tears in time. “Sean, why are you doing this? Bench ’em. Get another team.”
“You’re not reading me, Jane,” Elias’ voice went hard. “They’re the best we’ve got. There is no other team.”
It took Oliver a full thirty seconds to gather herself. She sighed, cradled her head in her hands. “And you think that if I work with them…”
Elias finished for her, “That you might be able to help them figure it out, yes.”
“Sean,” and she let herself cry now, not caring if they saw. “I don’t know that I’ve figured it out.”
A hand squeezed her shoulder, but with her eyes closed, she couldn’t tell if it was Ho’s or Elias’.
But it was Elias who spoke, his voice soft now. “Well, of course you don’t. The good ones never do. But, you have, Jane. Ask anyone in this school. Ask anyone who works with you.”