Sixteenth Watch

by Myke Cole

  Fullweiler cocked an eyebrow. “Admiral Allen said this?”

  “If you don’t believe me, he told me you should give him a call.”

  Fullweiler’s eyes narrowed. “That’s exactly what I’ll do,” but he remained in the hatch, eyes locked with Oliver, until Ho appeared behind him, tapping him on the shoulder. “If you’ll excuse us, sir, I’m sure Rear Admiral Select Oliver would like to confer with me in private.”

  Fullweiler glanced at him, shook his head, and moved on down the passageway toward his office.

  “Jesus, that fucking guy,” Oliver said.

  “It’s not just him,” Ho said, “this whole station is a lit fuse. What the fuck is wrong with people?”

  “Have you ever heard of the Chinese deliberately ramming a Navy vessel? For any reason?”

  Ho shook his head. “No way, ma’am. That’s not a thing they do. It’s not a thing they’ve ever done.”

  “So this was accident.”

  “Of course it was. What the hell else could it be?”

  “Christ,” Oliver found herself echoing Allen’s words. “We’ve got to get control of this thing.”

  “Yes,” Ho nodded, shoulders slumping. “Yes, we do.”

  WARNORD CANX – ALL HANDS STAND DOWN SAY AGAIN ALL HANDS STAND DOWN scrolled across every monitor in the station roughly an hour later. Oliver sat beside Ho in the coffee mess when the message appeared, and both exhaled audibly. Ho let his head sink into his folded arms, tipping over his thankfully empty cup.

  Two marines were in the room with them, and both cursed just as audibly, got up and stormed out.

  “Who the hell,” Ho asked, “actually wants to get into a shooting war?”

  “People who’ve never been shot at,” Oliver sighed, the feeling of her longhorn spinning as the anti-materiel round struck it rising so clearly in her mind that she felt a brief touch of vertigo.

  “Thank God,” she added. “I guess Zhukov was able to talk sense into the Joint Chiefs.”

  “This time,” Ho said. “How long do you think we have until the next incident like this?”

  “Hopefully it’ll keep until after boarding action.” Oliver stood, feeling some of the tension seep out of the knotted muscles in her back, and headed over to the coffee packets. “I need a refresh.”

  “Gonna have to wait, boss,” Ho jerked his thumb at the monitor: WARNORD CANX RESUME SCHEDULE AT THIRD PERIOD ASSIGN. “Third period is back on. That’s our tacpro round. Here’s our chance to demonstrate that all the book learning stuck.”

  “It’s a full-on boarding?”

  “Yup,” Ho said. “No holds barred. Instructors acting as a hostile enemy in a non-cooperative docking. Everything real except for the bullets.”

  “Christ, I am not ready to do a boarding right now,” Oliver sighed.

  “Were you ever ready when you actually had to do them?” Ho stood and headed for the passageway.

  “No,” Oliver admitted, and followed.

  When Ho finally emerged from his stateroom to join her in heading toward the launch bay, Oliver had to stifle a chuckle. Her XO somehow managed to look more ridiculous in his hardshell’s undersuit than he did in his PT uniform. He handed her a bright yellow paint gun. It was built to simulate the size, feel, and weight of a hornet pistol, but fired a lower velocity paint packet. “You ready?”

  She holstered the pistol-sized weapon and picked up the pelican case that contained her hardshell. Fullweiler had offered to have it prepped for her in deference to her rank, but she’d come this far with the rest of the class. She’d walk into the launch bay, lugging the damn thing along with everyone else. Two weeks on OTRACEN had helped her to adjust to the spin-gravity, and she instinctively moved the case to her counter-spinward side.

  The two marines launching with them were waiting in the launch bay and already in their hardshells, patterned with the digital camouflage white and gray worn by all marines who might deploy to the Moon’s surface. The day-glow orange of Oliver and Ho’s suits seemed even more garish in comparison. They’d been assigned Gonzalez and Catrona, two marines that Oliver would have called “fresh-faced,” if she were being charitable.

  Gonzalez waved a clipboard as Catrona put his helmet on and sealed it. “Crew assignments, ma’am.” She could barely hear him through his faceplate.

  She glanced at the sheet, not surprised in the least. GONZALEZ – BOARDING TEAM MBR CATRONA – BOARDING TEAM MBR HO – COXSWAIN OLIVER – HELM. Fullweiler wanted her front and center for the action, as she’d known he would.

  “Looks like you’re driving, ma’am,” Gonzalez said, opening the rhino’s hatch and heading inside.

  “Color me shocked,” Oliver went in behind him.

  “Rank has its responsibilities, I guess,” Ho said, “and it’s certainly nice to have the shoe on the other foot for a change. The coxs’un calls the shots, and I know I can count on your prompt obedience to orders, ma’am.”

  “Absolutely,” Oliver said, “right after I’ve removed this butcher knife from your eye-socket.”

  Ho grinned at her as she locked his helmet in place and the seal indicator flashed green. He gestured to the helm chair. “Mush, doggie.”

  The exercise was run in a four-person launch – a stripped down version of the small boats, used almost exclusively as escape craft. It was half the length of the rhino, and without the capacity to pressurize.

  It had no hard points, and therefore no autocannons, a feature that made Oliver both concerned and pleased. Pleased because it meant this was strictly a SAR boat. Concerned because, well…

  Ho took in the lack of hard points and said what she was thinking. “I wonder if we’re going to regret not having guns.”

  The tiny launch felt cramped compared to a rhino, and groaned under their weight as they boarded. That groaning rose to an outright squeal as the crane lifted them, and Oliver could feel the rickety frame flexing. The onboard plotter lit up with the LMGRS coordinates of their “radio call,” the simulated incident they were supposed to be investigating.

  “That’s… the range isn’t it?” Oliver asked.

  “Think so,” Ho said, leaning in to look, “and us without a bow gun.”

  “They’re not using live rounds, are they, ma’am?” Gonzalez asked.

  “You think they intend to shoot at us. With live rounds. During a training exercise.” Oliver arched an eyebrow she knew Gonzalez couldn’t see through her hardshell helmet.

  “Roger that, ma’am. Sorry.”

  “No need to apologize,” Oliver said, “just trying to lower your temperature on this.”

  “Gonzalez could definitely stand lowering his temperature,” Catrona laughed.

  “As coxs’un, I ask that all members of my crew keep their temperatures low, thank you,” Ho solemnly intoned.

  “Well, if they do blow us up,” Oliver said, “at least I won’t have to put up with what you think passes for humor.”

  “My first order as your coxs’un,” Ho’s tone became even more formal, “is that you take us to the coordinates in such a manner that we do not get shot.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Oliver said as the crane let go.

  The launch shuddered like a tin can in a storm, but steadied as she engaged the thruster and the craft began to glide smoothly under its own power.

  The bow rose and OTRACEN loomed bright and blinking off their starboard beam as they pushed off toward the range. On her opposite side, the Moon glowed so brightly that she squinted.

  “Contact, two hundred yards, constant bearing, decreasing range,” Gonzalez said. Oliver could hear the question in his voice.

  “You’re the lookout spotting the contact, Gonzalez,” Oliver said, “advise your coxs’un.” She could certainly take over the mission by virtue of her rank, and that was surely what the young marine would have preferred, but he would never learn a thing that way.

  “Roger that, ma’am,” Gonzalez looked at the transponder data. “I’ve got them on AIS, now. US flagg
ed. Mining rig, six-pack. Scenario says they’re on the border of the Chinese EEZ. We need to push them back into US space.”

  Oliver squinted out the windscreen, and spotted their target vessel, roughly the same size as a rhino, patches welded over the hull where past boarding simulations had cut into her, all the glass removed and replaced with metal plate. It was built on the frame of a real American mining six-pack complete with pressurized cargo pods that would have been packed with liquid Helium-3 bound for markets planetside.

  “I guess we hail them?” Gonzalez asked.

  “Concur,” Ho agreed. “Ma’am, if you’d do the honors?”

  Oliver nodded, leaned down to check the transponder code, toggled the radio channel to reach them. “Mining vessel Marlin, mining vessel Marlin, this is the United States Coast Guard. You are on the border of the simulated Chinese EEZ. Bring your helm to two-seven-zero and make way at ten knots for two nautical miles. Acknowledge.”

  She held her breath as the silence stretched without a response. She was just about to take another one as the radio crackled into life, and a voice answered in a southern drawl so thick that she could barely understand the words. “Well, hello there, coast guard! Sure thing, we’ll turn her around right away. Our plotter’s using an old chart. That’s probably why we missed it. Sorry about that.”

  “Huh,” Ho said, as the six-pack fired its attitude thrusters and pointed its bow to the heading Oliver had specified, “that was easy.”

  “There’s no way in hell it’s that easy,” Oliver said, “stay frosty.”

  “Let’s light ’em up so they don’t forget we’re here, Gonzalez,” Ho said.

  Gonzalez looked up uncertainly. Marine small boats didn’t have blue lights.

  “It’s here,” Ho said, reaching up and toggling the rhino’s light bar, sending a cascade of blue dancing down bow as Oliver maneuvered them in. She felt goosebumps rising on the backs of her arms as the azure shimmer washed over her. She’d been lighting up on ops for nearly her entire adult life. It never got old.

  The six-pack cut its thrusters and let itself drift gently until Oliver could see inside the slit in one of the port-side plates, made out the helmets of the boat’s coxswain and helmsman, the white and gray digital patterns sweeping over the hardshell’s shoulders. She could see them flailing their arms, the articulated joints of the hardshells making them look like nothing so much as the Michelin Man doing a backstroke.

  Ho squinted past her. “What the hell are they doing?”

  Oliver puffed their port side attitude thrusters to keep their bow pointed at the slit. “I can’t… They’re messing with something…” At last the coxswain found what he was reaching for, and yanked a long polyester strap across his chest.

  “Shit! They’re strapping in!” Oliver realized too late that they were station keeping much too far from the six-pack to do anything now.

  The six-pack’s hull and aft thrusters fired at the same time, making the boat execute a neat somersault. Oliver was still fumbling for her own throttle when the aft thrusters lit up again, and the six-pack was rocketing away from them – into the fictional Chinese EEZ.

  “Shit!” Gonzalez nearly yelled into his radio.

  “Calm down, Gonzalez. I can’t fly if you make my ears bleed,” Oliver said, finally getting the launch burning.

  “Can they outrun us?”

  After a few seconds of burn, the six-pack grew in her vision, but only slightly. “No,” she said, “the launch is lighter, smaller. They’ve got more ass, but we’ve got more sass.”

  Ho chuckled. “How long until we can intercept?”

  Oliver glanced at the radar. “We should catch them sometime next week.”

  Ho’s radio crackled as he began to respond, then cut off abruptly as two gray dots detached themselves from the blue-white burn of the six-pack’s aft thrusters and drifted toward them. “What the heck is…” Catrona began.

  But Oliver was already yanking the helm, punching the starboard attitude thrusters, whipping the launch past the first of the dots, growing to a frightening size so quickly that it was if it had materialized in front of them – a light pod of compressed garbage, ejected from one of the six-pack’s cargo pods. She felt it streak past them, close enough to sweep a shadow over the starboard side.

  “Jesus,” Oliver said. “These fuckers are not kidding.”

  “Well, they did say that quarantine runners will frequently launch garbage to slow pursuit,” Ho said.

  “When did they say that?” Oliver asked on a private channel.

  “Somebody hasn’t been paying attention in intercept tactics class,” Ho said.

  The six-pack shrank in their vision again, until Oliver had to squint as it swept over the gray-white expanse of OTRACEN.

  “Damnit, we’ll never catch them now,” Gonzalez said.

  “No, they’re slowing,” Oliver said, as the blue-white dot of the six-pack began to grow into a broader circle of gray. “I guess they burned all their propellant.”

  “Or enough of it, anyway. We can’t get out in front of them. They’re much too bigger than we are, they’d blow right through us.”

  “We don’t need do,” Oliver said to Ho back on the private channel, touching the throttle to give them just enough speed to come up alongside. “We can shoulder them.”

  “Shoulder them into what?” Ho asked. “This is a deep space simulation. There wouldn’t be anything out here to shoulder them into.”

  “Sure there would,” Oliver said, cutting the thrust and letting the launch’s greater velocity pull it ahead of the six-pack. “There’s that big planet right there.”

  “OTRACEN?” Oliver could see the horror on Ho’s face. “Jesus Christ, boss. That’s… That’s goddamn unforgiving is what that is. This is supposed to be a deep-space simulation!”

  “If they wanted it to be a deep-space simulation,” Oliver grunted as she goosed the throttle and yanked the control sticks hard to starboard, “then they shouldn’t have put a simulated planet right in the middle of it.”

  The launch bucked, canted and drove hard at the six-pack. She could see the coxswain waving his arms and shouting at the helmsman, the six-pack’s bow thrusters burning hard as it desperately sought to slow itself. OTRACEN stretched across Oliver’s vision with astonishing speed. The six-pack managed to slow so quickly that Oliver missed it entirely and raced past its bow, so close that the launch’s collar nearly brushed the six-pack’s bow lift-point.

  She could see Gonzalez shouting into his radio, made sure to keep his channel muted. She didn’t want him flattening her ear drums while she was trying to concentrate. Catrona was silent, at least, but she felt her seat shifting as he braced himself hard against it.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the southern accent barked over the radio.

  “Back it off, boss. Back it off!” Ho’s former calm was a memory.

  But Oliver was as placid as still water on a hot summer day. She cut the aft thrusters, yanked the control sticks hard to port and burned the starboard thrusters. Her stomach lurched as the launch spun like a penny turned on its side. She watched the six-pack appear and disappear twice before she compensated, firing the port side thrusters. The spinning gradually stopped, and she was already giving the launch aft thrust as the six-pack rotated into her vision just off the launch’s bow. One hundred yards, fifty, thirty. She miscalculated the distance slightly, and was surprised by the gentle nudge as the launch’s belly slid over the six-pack’s tow-fender.

  Ho had braced himself against the plotter with a shaking arm. “Dear God,” he said, still on the private channel, “my poor beleaguered guts. Ma’am, as long as we sail together, I swear I will never forgive you…”

  “XO,” Oliver cut him off. “Get us soft dock.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Ho shook his head. “Catrona, soft dock, please.”

  Catrona punched out of his restraints and raced to the control lever of the launch’s grasping “nipple” –
the long, flexible gangway that would latch on to the other vessel’s tow fender. Oliver felt the launch tremble and stop moving as it locked together with the six-pack. “I have soft dock,” Catrona said.

  “Gonzalez,” Oliver said, hoping a task would calm the marine, “call it in. Get us permission to board.”

  “OTRACEN, OTRACEN, this is training vessel 199,” Gonzalez did sound calmer, “we have soft-dock with non-compliant vessel. US flagged, unknown status, ops normal at SMGRS 39952. Positive control. Request permission to board.”

  “TV-199, this is OTRACEN,” Oliver could hear the irritation in Fullweiler’s voice, presumably at her aggressive maneuver. “Permission granted. Go when ready.”

  “Cut in, sir!” Gonzalez said.

  “You heard him,” Oliver said. “XO, make the cut.”

  “Why am I cutting?” Ho radioed on the private channel.

  “Because the assignment sheet didn’t list an engineer,” Oliver responded on the same channel, “and I want the kids to train getting eyes-on, now start cutting.”

  “I’m the goddamn coxs’un,” Ho said, digging the torch-assembly out of the gear locker. “I’m supposed to be telling myself to start cutting.”

  Catrona pulled another lever, securing the nipple. “Hard dock. Venting atmosphere.” It was a formality. Performance for Fullweiler and the instructors listening on the radio. Both vessels were in vacuum. There was no atmosphere to vent. Ho threw open the belly doors and pushed off, floating down the nipple. A moment later, the sparks of the cutting torch came leaping up.

  The six-pack was hailing them, but Oliver overrode them with her own priority hail. “Fugitive vessel Marlin, this is United States Coast Guard. Prepare to be boarded. Muster all crew on the bow behind the helm. Do you have any weapons aboard?”

  There was a long silence before the southern accent replied with an angry, “Yes!”

  “That’s nice,” Oliver said, “steer clear of them if you don’t want to get shot. XO! How’s that cut coming?”