by Melissa Good
They kept walking, past the open doors of a large open room where a class in hand-to-hand was being taught, the hoarse yells and dull 104 Melissa Good splats of bodies hitting the floor distinctive in the air.
“Chief!” a male voice hollered from just in front of them. A young man with bright-red hair was leaning half out a doorway and gesturing to Dar’s reluctant guide. “That damn sim program’s down again!”
“Wait here,” the chief ordered, heading in that direction.
Dar ignored the order, following the sailor with a look of mild amusement.
Chief Daniel stopped and turned. “Don’t you ever do what you’re told, Ms. Roberts?”
“No.” Dar walked past her and ducked around the redheaded sailor. “One of the major reasons I never joined the Navy.” She evaded a hurrying tech carrying a piece of hardware and let a brief grin cross her face. “This place hasn’t changed.” Three men were gathered around a computer console, and as she watched, one reared back and slapped the side of it in frustration. She walked up behind them and peered over their shoulders as the chief hurried up on the other side. Lines of code were scrolling across the screen, and Dar studied them, head cocked just slightly to one side, blue eyes intent.
“What’s the problem?” The chief pushed one of the sailors out of the way and sat down, punching buttons rapidly. “Did you reset it?”
“Twice,” the displaced sailor told her. “Stupid thing keeps going out. Piece of crap.”
The chief managed to get the display to steady, and she started a reset of the equipment. “Is there anyone in this thing? I don’t want to cycle it if I’m gonna douse a furkin’ admiral or something.”
“No. It’s empty.” The sailor glanced over the equipment into the simulator through a one-way mirrored window. “We took the class out the second time it dumped and told ’em to dry off.”
“All right. Let me just...” the chief muttered.
“Hold it.” Dar’s voice cut through the crowd suddenly. She moved the sailor in front of her aside and leaned over the chief, ignoring the look of outrage. “Move.”
“Ma’am, now you just—”
Dar’s tone deepened and went cold, snapping with an authority they hadn’t heard from her yet. “I said move!”
Purely by instinct, the chief obeyed, sliding out of the chair as Dar dropped into it, her eyes on the screen as her fingers sped over the keys with practiced sureness.
“What are you doing?” the chief demanded.
Dar didn’t answer. She was too busy wracking her brain for codes and logic as she called up the simulator’s program and studied it, her brows knitting tightly as she searched the lines of green letters and symbols.
“Ms. Roberts, what are you doing!” the chief yelled, almost into Dar’s ear. “You do not have the authority to be touching this equipment.”
Red Sky At Morning 105
Dar called up another screen. “Someone’s altered the program.”
She moved the system into an editing mode and started to make changes. “Someone who didn’t have half a damn clue as to what the hell they were doing.”
The chief’s eyes almost came out of her head. “Hold it. I said, hold, ma’am. That is a state-of-the-art system and you can’t just—”
“Sure I can.” Dar’s hands moved in a blur. “State of the art? Gimme a break, Chief. Figures the Navy’d still be using a system prototype designed by a half-baked sixteen-year-old code jockey with an affinity for COBOL.” She made a last change, then saved and recompiled the program. “There.” She reset the system with a set of keystrokes and watched as it reinitialized. She was rewarded with a steady login screen and a slate of green lights, which flickered across the top of the machine with a set of satisfied clicks. “Hoo yah,” Dar muttered softly, for the first time in a very, very long time. She got startled looks from the sailors, but she ignored them as she stood up and relinquished the terminal. “All yours.”
“Ms. Roberts,” the chief’s voice was very cold, “a word with you over there, please.” She turned and walked into the nearest simulator and waited for Dar to follow her, then she shut the door and spun the wheel, locking them both inside.
IT WAS AN engine room, Dar realized as the door slammed shut and she felt the air compress around her. Her pulse jumped and she went still, grabbing hold of the sudden panic that gripped her guts.
“Was that necessary?”
The chief studied her intently for a moment. “Who in the hell do you think you are?” she barked, advancing on Dar and making the small space even smaller. “I thought I told you to keep your mouth shut in there!”
Dar felt her temper rising. “Back off, Chief,” she warned, edging away from the angry woman.
“I most certainly will not back off.” Daniel poked her sharply. “I’ve about had it up to here with you, Roberts, and I am not going to put up with one more minute of your kiss-my-ass attitude!” Her voice got louder, ringing off the metal floor and walls as she backed Dar against the wall.
The room closed in on Dar, and a wash of blood and energy swept over her, warming her skin with startling rapidity. “Back off!” she repeated, the pitch of her voice dropping.
“You listen to me! You either decide to keep your damn mouth shut,” Chief Daniel forged on, “or I’ll—”
She never really saw it coming. One moment her civilian victim was pressed against the wall, the next moment the chief was on the ground, her skull ringing with the contact against the grill floor, with Dar 106 Melissa Good Roberts’s forearm pressing against her chin and a pair of wild blue eyes boring into her like searchlights.
The chief was no coward, but she’d seen that look before, and she had the sense to realize the dangerous situation she’d initiated was rapidly getting beyond her control, so she did the only prudent thing left to her. She let her body go limp, secure in her own tough condition but not stupid enough to challenge the youth and strength she felt crouched over her.
“Back off,” Dar whispered, seeing red for the first time in a long time.
“All right,” Chief Daniel answered, just as quietly. “Easy.” Slowly, the pressure on Daniel’s throat lessened, and Dar eased back away from her, the taller woman’s body rising to a balanced stance, her hands balled lightly into fists that looked fully capable of doing some damage.
It was not the reaction she’d been expecting, having figured Dar for the loudmouthed type that turned into a puffball when blown on hard enough. Her angular features, now settled in darkly savage lines, struck a sudden chord of familiarity but the chief knew she didn’t have time to figure out where from. “Okay, just relax, all right?”
Dar leaned back against the console, the intense surge of adrenaline still making her heart race and causing faint twitches to shiver up and down her arms and legs. It was the closest she’d come to losing control in half a lifetime, and it scared her a little, to know just how easily the chief had triggered that. “That was a very stupid thing to do,” she told the sailor, who slowly sat up and was rubbing her head. “I’m not one of your recruits, and if you ever do that again, I’ll knock you right through that damn bulkhead, you got me?”
“Think you could?” the chief asked softly.
“Yes,” Dar answered with utter sureness. “When my daddy taught me to fight, he made sure of that.”
Daniel studied her for a long moment, then she sighed and got up, rubbing her elbow where it had slammed against the floor. She turned a console chair around and sat on it, resting her arms on the back and gazing at Dar. “All right.” She nodded slowly. “I thought we had an understanding that you wouldn’t spout off in front of my staff.”
Dar let her hands rest on her thighs, her heart finally slowing to its normal pace. “I said I wouldn’t give an opinion.” She skirted the issue.
“I didn’t.”
The chief snorted. “Saying a kid designed the sim wasn’t an opinion? Bullshit.”
“I was the kid,” Dar replied simply. Then
she got up and walked over to the hatch, taking a breath before she spun the wheel and released the catches, allowing it to swing inward. The air outside rushed in, and she stepped out of the simulator with a sense of relief to face round, wide eyes that rapidly found other objects to look at.
Then she realized they’d all been watching everything on the Red Sky At Morning 107
monitors. Without a word, she walked past them and into the hallway, desperate for a moment of peace and quiet and a cup of Navy coffee.
THE OPERATIONS MEETING had been underway for ten minutes or so before Kerry entered, giving everyone a brief, distracted nod before she took her seat at the head of the table and ran her eyes over a freshly printed agenda. The staff all started warbling at once.
“Kerry, that circuit you were escalating came in.”
“We’ve got six mainframes stuck in customs in Mexico. Midwest OPS wants to know if you can help.”
“The coffee machine just exploded.”
Kerry’s head jerked up at the last statement, and she peered across the table at Enid Petrofax, the MIS coordinator. “What?”
Enid scratched her jaw nervously. “Didn’t you hear the bang? The machine just exploded. We’ve got espresso grounds from the main door to the bathroom.”
Everyone was silent, exchanging startled glances. “Ah.” Kerry sat back. “Well, have we called the company? How in the hell could that thing explode? I realize it’s steam powered, but good grief!”
“Well.” Mark had entered and was now approaching the table, his entire shirt front covered in dark brown liquid and grounds. “I gotta tell ya, that was the stupidest thing I ever saw.” He held up a piece of round metal. “Damn hot chocolate top musta fallen in the espresso handle. It blocked the steam.”
“Ew.” Kerry winced.
“That wasn’t the stupid part.” Mark glared dourly around the table. “We need to find out what technognorp kept pressing the brew button when nothing was coming out.”
Kerry covered her eyes. “Oh, good grief.” She peeked between her fingers at the muddy-looking MIS chief. “Mark, go change. Enid, call Laurenzo Brothers if you haven’t already, and put a note out to the building to remind them we’re a technology company and should act like it.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Enid made a note on her pad. “María already called Laurenzo Brothers. She’s got a cousin that works there.”
“Unbelievable.” Kerry shook her head. “Okay, now...what was that about Mexico? Those aren’t the mainframes for the university project in Illinois, are they?”
John Byers, their Midwest operations manager, nodded glumly.
“Yeah. Next you’re going to ask me how they ended up in Mexico, right? I wish I knew. All I can get from IBM is that they were on one of our POs that had that as a freight address.” He paused and reviewed his notes. “I asked them to fax me a copy of it, but the bottom line is, they want a ton of money to release them out of customs and onto the plane to Chicago.”
108 Melissa Good Kerry leaned back, wishing she didn’t have the headache she did.
The weather, she suspected, was the root cause. “Okay.” She steepled her fingers and rested her lips against the tips of them, trying to figure out what Dar would do.
Something tricky, she was sure, because handing over thousands of dollars into government fingers wasn’t something Dar would have liked. Hmm. She was aware of everyone’s eyes on her, curious and intent, especially Clarice’s at the other end of the table.
What would Dar do?
“Okay. This is what you’re going to do.” Kerry took a breath.
“What’s the closest account we’ve got down there?”
“Tijuana International,” Stacia Brennon supplied, her voice curious. “Why?”
Kerry got up and paced, something she knew her partner loved to do. “Call up the delivery executive for that account. Tell him to take delivery of those mainframes.” She paused and turned, leaning her hands on the back of Mark’s empty chair. “Then write up an inter-divisional transfer between the South American SBU and the Educational, and have FedEx International pick them up on our inter-company account.”
“Ooh,” Stacia smiled, “I like it.”
John Byers chuckled. “Me, too. Stace, you want to call Pedro? I’ll get FedEx on the line.” His eyes twinkled as he glanced back at Kerry.
“Very slick, chief.”
Kerry smiled and walked back around to her seat, dropping into it and stretching her legs out under the table as she cradled her tea mug in both hands. She’d hoped the herbal stuff would settle her stomach, which had been in churning upset most of the morning, but so far it hadn’t, and Kerry hoped she wasn’t coming down with something. “I had a good teacher.”
Chuckles traveled around the table. “That’s what we hear.” Clarice smiled sweetly at her. “Looks like Dar picked a wonderful successor.”
Yeesh. Kerry smiled back at her. “Thank you. I like to think so.” She glanced up as Mark reentered the room, then reviewed the rest of the agenda. “Okay, what’s next? Mark, did we get all of the equipment requests in for first quarter?”
Clarice looked back down at her notes with a smirk, ignoring Mark as he circled around her and took his seat again.
Kerry’s nails drummed softly on her pad.
“HEY, KER, YOU up for lunch?” Mark caught up to her in the hallway on the way back to their offices. “They’ve got some decent-looking fried chicken down there today.”
Kerry winced and laid a hand over her stomach. “Ergh...I don’t think I’m up to that. I’ll go down and have a cup of soup with you, Red Sky At Morning 109
though.” She punched the elevator button. “My guts have been in knots since before the meeting.”
“Flu, maybe?” Mark hazarded. “Been going around, I hear.”
“Maybe,” Kerry agreed, as they entered the elevator and let the doors close. A thought occurred to her, and she shifted her portfolio under her left arm and removed her cell phone from its clip with her other hand. As they reached the bottom floor and exited out of the elevator into the huge lobby, she hit the auto dialer and held the phone to her ear.
It rang an unusual number of times before it was answered and she heard Dar’s voice, a slightly hoarse note in it that immediately worried her. “Hi.”
“Hey.” The note modulated and deepened, sounding relieved even through the cellular connection. “What’s up? Problems there?”
“Um.” Kerry wracked her brains for a reason to be calling.
“Well...ah...I just need to know...” She stopped and took a breath.
“Would you believe I just wanted to hear your voice?” She lowered her own and gave the two passing admins a smile. “Mark, can you grab a table?”
“Sure.” The MIS chief waved at her. “Say hi to the boss for me.” He disappeared into the cafeteria, leaving Kerry in relative isolation.
“Sorry.” Kerry returned her attention to the phone and moved toward the plate-glass wall. “Anyway, it was silly. How are you?”
A sigh came down the line. “Tough morning,” Dar said. “I think I went over the line for a few minutes.”
Uh-oh. Kerry found a bench and sat on it, ignoring the passing crowds on their way to lunch. “What happened? The petty person get to you? I knew I should have come down there and booted her in the behind.” Her guts started to ease up a little, and she took a deeper breath. “No wonder my insides are in knots.”
There was a little silence. “Are they?” Dar asked. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Kerry said. “Have been for a while. Between that and the headache I’ve got, I thought I was coming down with something. Are you all right?”
“Pretty much. I found a bottle of iced tea and a balcony. I’ve been standing out here for about ten minutes just watching it rain,” Dar answered. “I think I’ve got your headache’s twin sister. Damn, I haven’t lost it like that in years, Ker.”
“Did you yell at her?” Kerry returned the waved greeting
from Duks.
“No.” A sigh sounded. “She backed me into corner and started bawling me out. One poke too many, I guess. I took her down and nearly ripped her head off.”
Kerry stared at the phone in shocked silence. Apparently Dar realized it, because her next words were rushed, almost stammered.
“It just happened so fast... I don’t know what she thought she was 110 Melissa Good trying to do, but I—”
“Wait a minute,” Kerry interrupted. “Just hold it there.”
Dar fell silent.
“She poked you?” Kerry’s voice rose. “She laid a finger on you?
Who in the hell does she think she is? That’s bullshit, Dar!”
“Um...”
“Jesus! You should call that general buddy of yours and get her butt transferred to the bottom of Hoover Dam!” Kerry went on. “Son of a bitch!”
“Ker, take it easy.” Dar’s voice had calmed. “I took care of it. I pretty much think she won’t try that again.”
“Damn straight she won’t,” Kerry snorted. “Boy, wait ’til I see her.”
Dar laughed softly. “Oh, sweetheart, you just made my day,” she said. “Thank you.”
“I haven’t done anything yet,” Kerry muttered in protest.
“Dipwad.”
“Why don’t you get some warm milk and go lay down on the couch in my office for a little while?” Dar was still chuckling. “I’m figuring on taking off from here in couple of hours. There isn’t much I can do without the T1; and frankly, I think I’m going to find more when I get everything sucked down and into the analyzers.”
Kerry imagined the plush comfort of the couch upstairs and smiled.
“Actually, I feel better now,” she admitted. “But be careful, okay? I keep having nightmares of you being buried under the billowing clouds of testosterone out there.”