“Yes, ma’am. It’s just that Tarot’s got a video he wants to ask you about.”
Emily frowned and turned away.
“It’s not bad, ma’am,” Tarot said. “I got it from a buddy at Pendleton. He says it’s all over the net.”
When she turned back, not knowing what to say, she expected the worst. But what she saw playing on the screen Tarot held out for her did not feature her stabbing Jiao Long through the neck, a red fountain blooming behind her – she’d seen enough of that video. Instead, the scene that had the Jarheads so worked up must have been taken that night in Roppongi. She smiled at the sight of Durant and Ishikawa singing duets in the street like Sonny and Cher.
“I thought…”
“You thought it was gonna be nasty?”
“Like when you took down that little guy from the Jietai,” Siegersen added. “The whole MEU’s already seen that one, too.”
Of course, to Siegersen, everyone must seem little, Emily thought.
“We were thinking of calling the sergeant Pavarotti,” Stallings added. “How do you think he’ll take it?”
“You’ll have to take that up with him,” she said, and started for the door.
“The guys want to call you Ninja,” Siegersen called after her.
Of course they do. Yet another reminder that she hadn’t escaped the violence she’d left in her wake. The thought reduced her to standing in the passageway, just out of their sight, head pressed against a bulkhead. Warfighters, they liked to call themselves, especially before a mission, though few of them had actually killed an enemy close up – she was grateful they’d been spared that – but they’d endured hardships and shivered in the expectation of death for purposes not entirely their own. Their fascination with her was based on the very thing she wished to forget about herself, since why else would they have anything but disdain for her, ‘a tiny slip of a girl’ in their midst. Sure, she could carry a fully loaded pack, and meet the rest of the infantry standards (barely), but no Marine would imagine having any use for her in combat judging solely from appearances.
“I gotta get some better sleep,” she grumbled, and pushed herself off the bulkhead. “Too late to run on the flight deck.”
“Watch it there, Lieutenant,” a familiar voice said, as she stepped back into a broad chest. “You okay, Em?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, turning to look up into Perry’s warm eyes. If only she could curl up in his arms. But proprieties had to be observed.
“Were those clowns giving you a hard time? Maybe I should sort ’em out.”
“Nah,” she said, pulling him back. “It’s just Tarot and Racket. They don’t mean any harm.”
“I have no idea why you put up with those muscleheads, Em.”
“They’re just big kids.” She withdrew her hand from his and hoped he wouldn’t fuss. “Anyway, I have to finish my workout.” Already halfway down the passageway, looking to find a clear space to run in, and to put some distance between herself and those unhappy reflections, she squeezed past a knot of sailors and squirted up a ladder to the first deck.
“Good,” Perry said, following after, but clearing a much wider path. “Because there’s something you’ll want to see in the hangar bay.”
Emily glowered back at him and turned up another ladder, and stood by the hatch nearest the port elevator.
* * *
The hangar bay of the Bonhomme Richard was not much smaller than a football field. It felt cavernous with the Harrier squadron out on exercises, and the SH-60 Seahawks on the flight deck, preparing for another practice anti-submarine sweep. More than a couple dozen Phrogs with rotors folded back crowded the area by the ramp leading down to the Lower V. When Emily saw the crowd gathered in a dense pack by the starboard elevator, she thought of running up the ramp to the flight deck. But Perry’s gentle hand turned her shoulder in the other direction.
“This is what Theo wanted you to see.”
“What? Another PT session? I think I’ve seen enough of those.”
“Not like this one, you haven’t,” Perry said.
On closer examination, the grunting and yelling came not from the crowd, but from the Chinese platoon, arranged in three lines, shirtless, taking turns swinging at each other’s midsections with what looked like 2x4s. Capt Diao observed from the side, nodding occasionally at his second-in-command, a stout, muscular man named Yan.
“Holy crap,” Emily said.
“I know. That’s gotta hurt.”
“Oh, I was just wondering where they got the lumber from. Do you think they brought it on board with them?”
“Man, these guys are tough,” Durant said, having sidled up next to her. His grin indicated something less than sincerity, now that it was easier to read, his nose finally having found its former dimensions, more or less.
“It’s just a lot of scar tissue,” she said.
“Maybe so,” Perry said. “But it teaches them that they can take a hit.”
“But think what their bodies will be like in twenty years.”
“If they live that long,” Durant snorted.
At a signal from Capt Diao, his men lined up for some sort of exercise, or maybe a demonstration, pulling pads on head and hands. By this time, Kano and his men had found their way up to the hangar bay. Tsukino stood off to one side, sneering at the proceedings, or perhaps at her.
Emily found much to admire in the style of wu shu the Chinese had made their study. Lt Yan seemed especially proficient. “It’s some form of the White Crane,” she whispered.
“Might as well call it the Blue Duck style,” Durant whispered.
Emily glowered at him. “Don’t you see? It’s an ancient precursor of the Shotokan you practice.” Perry nodded his agreement. “The elbow blocks are distinctive, like a signature.”
“And painful,” he said.
“And beautiful,” she said.
Just as their training involved more brutality than anyone watching had expected, the sparring competition that followed seemed more violent than could possibly be productive. Fierce, low leg-sweeps, striking the ankles and shins, coupled with quick feints to the face and neck, designed to provoke an attack and create an opening for elbow strikes.
Yan summoned one man after another to face him, dispatching each one in a few deft moves. The brevity of each match seemed a sort of blessing, since it prevented more serious injuries, though several men came away bruised and bent, and Emily winced to see it. Tsukino’s eye caught hers in a furtive, angry glance, as if expecting her to do something, to take up a challenge that had not been explicitly offered.
As fierce as Yan seemed, she knew that a greater ferocity had entered the ring when Diao himself stepped forward. Calm and placid as his face appeared, she felt nothing behind his eyes, even when he turned to look directly at her. Blank, impassive, almost indifferent to her presence… almost, but not quite. Did she detect a smoldering resentment there, the sort that can hide behind a smile, and a rage that dares not give itself away? Or was this merely her own recriminations, magnified perhaps in the vast echo chamber of a floating metal sarcophagus?
“Holy crap,” Durant blurted out, when Diao blocked a furious combination with the point of his elbow and a sharp blow to Yan’s ankle. “Does he really want to do that to his own men?” Before he even had a chance to stumble out of range, Diao had hit him with three paired strikes, the first two more like slaps than punches, snaked artfully over and under ineffective blocks, not forceful enough to disable, but sufficient to set up the haymakers that followed.
When Diao turned to find her eyes, Emily knew she should no longer provide an audience for this display of martial prowess, and began to work her way over to the forward elevator. A breeze ruffled her hair as it came in through the huge door, beyond which the lift platform opened on to the ocean, providing much of the light on the scene. She wanted to let herself drift across the panorama of the South China Sea, to skip across the white tops of waves, or plunge beneath th
em and let her lungs feel the weight of the water as the five sets of screws of the Amphibious Squadron twisted and churned the sea above her. If only the reverie would actually carry her away from this moment.
Leaning against a bulkhead by the elevator, she breathed in the fresh air and let it carry her down, sinking past the sylvan landscapes that usually occupied her meditations. Could she find her way to the bottom, and walk along valleys and mountains shrouded by the sea? Emily yearned for an escape, to feel the weight of so much water squeezing her, holding her together, protecting her from a premature dissolution. But the scene shifted before she quite found what she sought in the depths.
Back on the battlefield again, placing each foot with care, heel to toe, she watched dispassionately as soldiers charged careened towards an enemy dug in on the hillside. Emily paid no heed to the volley of arrows whistling through the air, though they found flesh in the men all around her. Many soldiers fell, but plenty more made it through, and crashed through the line of spears poised to pierce them as they ran.
Calm amid the mayhem, Emily breathed slowly and felt the grass crinkle between her toes. A red mist hovered in the already humid air, dissipated a moment later by a rising breeze. Dark clouds rolled over the mountain and swirled around her. She cast her head back and gazed overhead, the rain pelting her face… and she spied the little girl contemplating her from on high, serene as the moon itself. The girl reached down a tiny hand to still the wind, and with outstretched arm, Emily rose up on her toes to touch it. A spark lit up her fingers, and a crash like lightning echoed in her ears, almost like a cheer and a gasp.
She turned to look with newly focused eyes as Diao finished with Yan, and saw the awe and admiration in the faces watching from the edge of the mats. After Yan limped off, pairs of men now faced him, 2x4s in hand, and Emily found herself standing near a knot of the Jietai, including Dice, Moon and Kano.
“Do you think they have permission to win?” Dice asked.
“Even if they do, I doubt they’d really hit him with one of those things,” Kano said. “Would you?”
Emily watched as Diao waved in the last pair, and tried to ignore Dice’s carping. What were they watching? His form might not have been flawless, but his speed and intensity were extreme. Can’t they see it? She scanned the crowd and saw the same expression everywhere, on the Jietai, on the Marines – they seemed entranced by Diao’s skill, even cheered when he disarmed one man and threw the other out of the makeshift ring. He landed on the bare floor and struggled to pick himself up. All the while, Diao’s face remained impassive, even indifferent to his men, to the crowd, to everything but her, or so it seemed. She tried to avoid making eye contact with him.
“Can’t they see how horrible this is, how ugly he is? He’s a feral beast.” The thought echoed inside her, and triggered a second, more painful reflection: “Is that how I look to people? Am I that ugly?”
She shivered and turned to see Moon pushing Dice out of his way. Diao had finished with his own men, and now glowered a challenge at the crowd, and the movement must have caught her eye.
“Yame, Tsukino-san,” she cried out almost before she realized that sounds were coming out of her mouth, and Kano snarled at her. Moon merely scowled and stepped into the ring.
“This is none of your affair.” – Emily stepped back when Kano warded her off with a gesture – “You have no authority over my men. why do you even care?”
The question froze her. She did care – not just about another human being’s suffering, but Moon in particular. A glance around the hangar showed her the other faces she ought to care about more, Perry standing a few feet away surrounded by Marines whose attention was glued to Diao’s every move… even Tarot and Racket. She spied them, lingering in the back, even Tarot and Racket had found their way to the hangar deck. She spotted the gleam in their eyes, the puppyish admiration for a shiny, new sensation, and knew how easily it could place them in harm’s way. At first, they’d overestimate Diao’s abilities, but soon enough their own boyish exuberance would egg them on, until they’d want to try their luck against him… and that’s exactly what it would be, luck, bad luck.
“He has no chance. He’ll get hurt,” she said.
“Do not cheat him of the chance to regain his honor.”
Moon had already exchanged a few strikes and blocks with Diao, and with Dice cheering him on, his spirits were running high. His technique looked crisp by comparison when Diao slapped at his ankle with a low kick and swung a slow hook wide at his head. An easy arm-block allowed Moon to step through the kick and strike hard and fast at his chest and face. It looked like a decisive move…
But Emily saw something else. In a flash, all that had been impenetrable in Diao became transparent. She saw, as if she were looking through his eyes, Moon lunging forward, confident in his strength and skill. And she recognized that he was prey more than an opponent. The feral view through Diao’s eyes bathed everything and everyone in the hangar bay in a lurid yellow light, and she knew what that meant, what must be coming. Diao’s elbow block – fiercer than anything he’d done so far – would buckle Moon’s wrist. At that moment, she savored the pain that would scorch his face, anticipated the instant of his recoil, Diao’s hands – her hands – would seize the wrist, twisting and punching through the back of his elbow and kicking through the opposite knee. Moon would crumple, screaming, to the floor, broken, mangled and then she’d silence him for good with a sharp kick to the throat.
“Ii-ye,” Emily shrieked. “Yamete… kudasai.” But it was too late to stop him, and he stepped into the trap. A hard elbow block caught him on the knuckles – even through the glove, the pain buckled his wrist – and, before he could react, Diao had already struck him several times, in the face, the arms, chest and groin. He stumbled back and fell to his knees, and Diao loomed over him, ready to deliver a finishing blow.
“Enough,” Perry shouted, and inserted himself between the two men. Dice and Kano helped Moon up and pulled him away as Emily looked on. Diao tilted his head in her direction and smiled.
“You knew,” Kano said, a few moments later, while Dice and Perry tended to Moon. “Even before it happened.” Emily shook her head. “How did you know?”
She stared at him, without anger or resentment. “I only knew what I would have done.” It hurt more than she expected to make such an admission, especially when she glanced over at Tarot and Racket.
Chapter 8
A Question of Wardrooms
The grind of life on a warship tends to bring its own inertial motivation, a daily round of meetings, exercises and tasks, occasionally interrupted by a “live” mission. Three times, Emily’s bird had flown the teams out to islands at the southern end of the Philippine archipelago, and each time they’d come up empty, finding only the detritus of abandoned camps. All the while, the Amphibious Squadron steamed eastward, heading for the Marianas where another set of exercises had been scheduled. The Devil Dogs understood what it meant – “Operation Seabreeze” was as much about fostering cooperation as about catching actual terrorists.
Meanwhile, Emily frequented the “dirty shirt” wardroom, which catered to the aircrews. CJ and Zaki preferred to take their meals in the XO’s wardroom, but Emily didn’t care for the formality, and cafeteria-style service suited her mood better these days.
“Are you hiding down here?” Perry asked, as he swung a leg over the chair opposite and nudged his tray against hers to make room.
“Do I have to answer?”
“Aren’t you afraid the senior staff is gonna notice your absence?”
“Yeah, and I hear the ship’s company gets better food,” Emily replied without looking up.
“The CO has been hinting that he wants another translator at meals.” He looked for any sort of reaction, even annoyance at his suggestion, and when none was forthcoming, he added: “With you down here, Diao has everything his way with the conversation.”
“Hasn’t it occurred to you that he’s t
he reason I’m down here?”
“You’re not afraid of him, are you? That would be a first.” When she raised her eyes, he got a pretty good indication that he’d pushed her too far.
“Not of him,” she snarled, “…for everyone else.” Of course, she knew there was another opportunity here. She could go to the XO’s wardroom and push back against Diao, test his self-possession, find the limits of his ‘cool.’ But she didn’t care to work out a calculation of costs and benefits. Was it better to draw him out, perhaps expose him to the others, even if it meant allowing him to see into her heart?
“Well, as far as everyone else can tell, he’s witty and charming, even urbane.”
“I can see your vocabulary is growing merely by eating with him.”
“It’s not just me. Kano and your friend, Lt Otani, seem to have taken a liking to him. And that should tell you something, after what happened to Tsukino.”
Emily looked up, her eyes wide and brow furrowed. Was she leaving Kiku exposed… and why didn’t Kano see through Diao? Then she composed her face and said, “I hope Tsukino’s learned his lesson, at least.”
“What do you mean?”
“Moon got off easy this time around. If he tries that again with Diao…”
“Look, I get it. You saw something. But all anyone else in the hangar bay saw is that Diao got a little carried away. It didn’t look sinister… just high spirits.”
“I didn’t just see something. He let me see. He showed me what he would do, you know… when the moment comes.”
“Why would he do that? I mean, if he’s got some secret plan, why would he clue you in?”
“I don’t know, but what you think you saw wasn’t just high spirits. He was under control the whole time, toying with Tsukino like a cat with a mouse, and deciding whether to end him or not. He simply chose not to. You and Kano had nothing to do with it.”
“Even if you’re right, you still need to be in the black-shoe mess. It’s a hint from the CO right now, but pretty soon it’ll be a suggestion from the Admiral.”
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