Sixteenth Watch

by Myke Cole

  There was a long uncomfortable silence. Oliver could almost feel Admiral Allen’s eyes burning into the back of her neck. I told you you wouldn’t like this part, sir. The silence stretched on, and Oliver’s stomach sank with every passing second. Come on, people. Work with me here.

  “So others might live,” a familiar voice said. Oliver looked up, saw a man standing at the back of the room. His thick arms were folded across his broad chest, his deep-set eyes sad. Chief Elgin had grown in a tight iron-gray mustache since Oliver had last seen him, and what little hair left to him had retreated to the point where he’d given up and shaved his head. But there was something so familiar to him, something that evoked that day on Lacus Doloris so strongly that she had to swallow hard to keep the tears from coming.

  It took Oliver a long moment to find her words. “That’s right. So others might live. Others. It’s not about us, and it never was. Retreating into ourselves isn’t the way. If we are going to move past Lacus Doloris, we’re going to do it aggressively, by going out there and showing what our loved ones have taught us, by living it for others. We will save their lives, we will protect their goods, and those we’ve left behind will meet us on the other side someday, and thank us for shining their light for just a little longer.

  “Lord knows, out here,” Oliver gestured to the window, a sweeping vista of the deep black of space stark against the gray lunar landscape, “we could use a little more light.”

  The silence was total as she finished speaking. She stepped back from the podium, and suddenly the audience’s faces were plain to her. More than a few were white with shock. She spotted a few red-rimmed eyes, faces pressed into hands before shaking shoulders. Christ, I made these people cry. She had hoped that being straight with them would set the right tone, would shake them out of their stupor and galvanize them to tackle the challenge straight on. I’ve miscalculated. I picked the scab when it was still too fresh. I’ve crushed their morale.

  She turned to Alice, more to not have to face the reactions of her audience than for any other reason. Her daughter was still crying, a hand held to her mouth. Oh, angel. I’m so sorry, Oliver thought. First NCD/0G, and now this. I’ve made such a goddamn hash of things. My first steps as an admiral, and they’re right off a cliff. I swear to…

  And then three things happened.

  Alice rushed into her arms, hugging her so hard that the breath was blown from her lungs.

  Admiral Allen’s hand settled on her shoulder, squeezing gently. Oliver could hear the low murmur of his voice. She couldn’t make out the words, but the support in his tone was unmistakable.

  Chief Elgin began clapping, his thickly calloused hands thundering against one another, shockingly loud at first, but gradually dissolving into the ocean of applause that spread out from him through the audience, as if the Chief’s clapping hands catalyzed a chain reaction, sending the sailors in the room to their feet.

  Oliver broke away from her daughter long enough to face the cheering room. The looks of shock were still there, as were the tears, but now Oliver could see they drowned in the inspiration burning in the eyes of everyone present.

  “We should take you on the road,” she heard Ho say, his voice thick. “You missed your calling, boss.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Oliver said. Then, because she couldn’t think of what else to say, she said it again.

  CHAPTER 7

  “Sure, it’s weird switching between worlds,” Petty Officer Almond’s grin is self-deprecating, and she appears uncomfortable with her newfound fame, “but the Navy has my contract, and I was raised to do what I said I would.” Still, PO Almond privately admits that being the spotlight of a Boarding Action finalist initially impacted her duties for the brief period before her command opted to transfer her to train full time – a billet the Navy describes as “Public Affairs.” She’s up for reenlistment in two months, and says she plans to process out, a decision that isn’t surprising given the many lucrative private sponsorships awaiting her in civilian life.

  BOARDING ACTION FINALIST STRUGGLES WITH A LIFE SUDDENLY ON STAGE

  STARS AND STRIPES SPECIAL FEATURE

  SAR-1’s training evolution began at 0600, so Oliver made sure she was up at 0400. She allowed herself a few minutes in the rack, staring at the ceiling, as she did each morning. In these few stolen moments she was not a commander, Tom was not dead, and the world was not on the brink of a lunar war. There was only her, and the foam of the mattress pad beneath her, the dull soft throb of her shoulder where it had gently pushed her into it as she slept. She savored the moment, trying to be grateful for what she had – a daughter who loved her and a son who probably did, though he didn’t know how to show it, and a career that had, as of yesterday, officially exceeded her wildest dreams.

  She sat up, blinked sleep from her eyes, kissed her fingers, and then touched Tom’s face where it smiled out at her from Alice’s wedding photo. “Made flag, babe,” she whispered to him, “wish you could have seen it. Man, I’d have given my left tit to make you salute me.”

  Tom’s face was frozen in joy, as it had been for all these years. “Well,” Oliver said, “you look happy. Guess I’ll take it.”

  She swung her feet onto the deck, grabbed her calcium pills and swallowed two of them dry. It would have been charitable to call them horse-pills, and her throat worked against them, but she managed to get them down without water. If her traitor body was going to go all wobbly with age out on the 16th Watch, then she wasn’t going to do it any favors.

  SPACETACLET didn’t have a private gym for senior staff, and Oliver had had enough of being the old woman working out in the company of babies who were made entirely of stretchable plastic at OTRACEN. She changed into her PTs and hit the deck at the foot of her bed, grunting her way through pushups and sit-ups, rowers and burpees, one eye on the LED clock above the mirror.

  The door chimed and opened even as Oliver was in the process of saying “Come!”.

  She knew it was Ho before she even saw his boots lightly push the door open and step to her small desk. She heard a clattering of plastic as he set something down. “You did not just bring me breakfast.”

  “I’m starting to think, ma’am,” he sighed, “that you’d complain if I paid off your mortgage.”

  “Nope,” she said, standing up and surveying the tray of food – exactly what she liked, yogurt with fruit and granola and a mug of black coffee, “but the ethics committee investigating improper gifts from a subordinate would be furious.”

  “Figured I’d save you some time.”

  “Well, thanks, Wen, but I need to show my face in the mess sooner or later.”

  “You need to show your face in the gym sooner or later. When I didn’t see you there this morning, I figured it was later. Eat, ma’am, today’s the first day as boss. You’ll need your strength.”

  Thank God for you, Wen, she thought as she crunched down the granola, still standing. I don’t know what I’d do without you.

  “Alice get out OK?” Oliver asked as she grabbed a fresh utility uniform and stepped into the head to change.

  “She texted me last night that she’d landed back at Sinus Medii. She seems… she seems adrift, ma’am.”

  “I know it.” Oliver grabbed her tablet computer and opened the stateroom door. “Well? I can’t get down to Medii to help my daughter until we win this stupid contest. So, let’s hurry the hell up and get it done.”

  SAR-1’s first training evolution was the zero-g “dunk tank,” a space variant of the one back on Earth. Oliver remembered her dunking days fondly when she’d still had to stay certified – the metal simulation chamber mimicked the inside of a small boat perfectly. The crew had strapped in, and held their breath as the chamber spun upside down and plunged into a swimming pool. Oliver had remembered the disorientation, her lungs crying out for air, the sounds of her seat-harness groaning with the dull echo that being underwater added to everything. She’d been shocked at how calm she’d felt, eve
n as the pressure built in her chest and ears, even as the need for air became more frantic. Chaos is contagious, and so is calm. She’d taken her time, made sure she was clear on which way was up, punched out of her restraints, and swam to the surface, gulping air that tasted like sunshine.

  This “dunk tank” didn’t use water, but the idea was the same. The simulator was a mocked up longhorn cabin suspended between four metal poles, which would simulate a loss of control from impact, whirling the crew as they would be in space, giving them the same wild disorientation, testing their ability to recover and exit the craft according to mission parameters.

  It was one of the events at the Boarding Action.

  Elgin and McGrath were suiting up into their hardshells when Oliver arrived, speaking with the simulator operator, a short, broad-shouldered woman whose nametape read ENGLE. Suiting up with them were two more coasties, a southwest Asian woman with hard eyes and a long black braid coiled around her neck, and an African man so tiny that Oliver wondered if he’d gotten a height waiver to join up.

  “Those are the replacements for Kariawasm and Flecha,” Ho said.

  Oliver nodded, looking down at her tablet. “BM1 Naeemah Pervez and MK3 Everistus Okonkwo. She’s coxs’un, and he’s engineer.”

  “Pervez. Okonkwo,” Ho tried the names out. “Pervez. Okonkwo. Holy shit. I can actually pronounce these.”

  “What do we know about them?”

  “Okonkwo’s solid. Two comms is pretty unheard of for an MK3. They’re operational awards, before you ask.”

  Oliver grunted. “OK, so he’s good at his job. Anything else?”

  “Nope, pretty unremarkable otherwise.”

  “And Pervez?”

  “She got the Coast Guard Medal for stopping an attempted rape. The attacker was another coastie. He shot her, she sucked it up and beat him half to death. He was planning to kill the victim after he was done, so they ruled it risking her own life to save another’s.”

  Oliver swallowed. “My God. That’s awful. Was the victim…”

  “She’s fine. Pervez intervened before the attacker could do any real damage.”

  “Well, that’s incredible. I look forward to–”

  “She’s also been NJP’d, boss. Twice.”

  “Twice? For what?”

  “Fighting, the first time. Mouthing off to an officer the second.”

  “That should have washed her out. Even with the Coast Guard Medal.”

  “It should have,” Ho agreed. “She’ll certainly never make Chief.”

  “So, why is she still in the guard?”

  “Because,” Ho said, “and I am quoting from her last FITREP here, she is finest small boat coxs’un in living memory.”

  Oliver watched Pervez give the thumbs up as Okonkwo locked her hardshell helmet in place and Chief Elgin checked the seal, giving his own thumbs up. The woman was barely bigger than Okonkwo, but the ferocity visible even through the helmet’s clear plastic made her appear bigger somehow. “Well, I’ve dealt with attitude before. I can’t make someone into a stellar coxs’un in two months.”

  “Can you make someone into a grownup in two months?” Ho asked.

  “We both raised two kids, Ho. You tell me.”

  “No. It took me nearly that long to potty train Hui-Yin.”

  Oliver sighed. “Maybe it’s different when they’re already grown up.”

  Elgin shot Engle a thumbs up, and the operator returned to her control booth beside the dunking machine. As the SAR-1 crew turned to enter the simulated boat hatch, Oliver saw that all four of them wore a black mourning stripe over their nameplates. She doubted Pervez and Okonkwo had ever even met Flecha and Kariawasm, but clearly the legend of their loss loomed large enough in the unit’s culture that everyone was expected to be in official mourning. Oliver made a mental note. If they’re going to perform their best as a team, they can’t be laboring under the shadow of the dead. She would have to find a way to break them out of it without making them feel as if they were being disrespectful.

  “Ready in the cabin?” Engle’s voice sounded on the PA.

  Elgin flashed a thumbs-up through the simulator’s window.

  “Stopping spin,” Engle announced, followed by a loud clunk and whirring shudder as the chamber’s braking mechanism engaged and the spin began to slow. Oliver felt the familiar queasiness as her stomach rose, but she was much better with it now, and simply relaxed and enjoyed the gentle feeling of lift as the room normalized to lunar gravity. It wasn’t the micro-gravity she experienced further from the Moon’s surface, but it was still a fraction of what they’d had while the chamber spun.

  “Contact right, fifty yards, CBDR,” Engle called over the PA. Oliver watched as the crew braced themselves, warned that the exercise would simulate the impact of a vessel coming in hot from fifty yards out – constant bearing, decreasing range.

  “Bang,” Engle said and punched a button in her booth.

  The simulator shuddered, then spun like a dropped penny, whirling so quickly that Oliver lost any sense of front and back, up and down, and she wasn’t even inside the thing. She couldn’t imagine how much worse it must be for the crew. It spun for a long moment before Oliver could see air puffs as the simulated port side thrusters fired. That was good. Even the best coxswains could mix up the cardinal directions in a spin like that. If Pervez had fired the starboard side thrusters, she’d have made the spin worse. But she hadn’t, and the simulator slowed the spin, bow and aft coming into focus and the day-glow orange of the crew’s hardshells becoming visible through the windows.

  “Gunfire right,” Engle said, letting the crew know they would be taking fire from their starboard side, and needed to bail to port to get the vessel between themselves and the enemy. Even as the spin slowed to a near stop, it bucked on its right side as the metal rods suspending it simulated the impact of autocannon rounds.

  The port side hatch blew open with a puff of gas, swinging out from the simulator. Elgin hauled himself through, using the lunar-gravity to launch himself behind the simulated longhorn’s stern, where the thickness of the engine would provide some cover from gunfire. He had his long gun dangling from its sling from his elbow, was fumbling it into his grip as he let the momentum carry him into position. It looked clumsy, but Oliver knew it was a display of incredible skill. Anyone else would have bailed on the wrong side, or not been able to find the hatch at all, let alone being able to get their long gun out of the rack-restraints on the way out the hatch.

  Behind him came Pervez, her small frame clearing the hatch easily. She hadn’t bothered with a long gun, but she carried the small boat’s survival kit, which would be critical if the crew was stranded in space for any period of time. She drew her handgun as she pushed off to join chief, so smooth and graceful that Oliver could almost believe she hadn’t just been in the middle of a skull-shaking, stomach churning spin.

  Okonkwo came next, even smaller than Pervez, flailing one hand back into the cabin, presumably to get his long gun from McGrath. The act forced him to pause for a moment, and Oliver’s throat tightened. They would be timed in the actual Boarding Action, and these kinds of delays would be as fatal to their chances of victory as they would to their odds of survival in a real ramming scenario. At last Okonkwo kicked off. Good, Oliver thought, they didn’t lose more than a second or two at…

  Okonkwo’s drift abruptly halted, his feet shooting out in front of him as his back hung fast to the hatch.

  “Shit,” Oliver’s stomach clenched. “What’s…”

  “It’s the drag handle on his hardshell,” Ho said. “It’s hung up on the hatch.”

  And sure enough it was. Oliver could see the tiny loop of nylon hooked on one of the hatch’s fastening tabs. If Okonkwo could simply pull himself up an inch, he would be free. But the engineer was pulling straight ahead. As Oliver watched, Okonkwo swung his feet behind him and pushed hard against the hatch interior, trying to break himself free by pure force. But the hardshell drag handles
might be the last resort for a coast guard reaching out to stop a shipmate from drifting beyond help. The ripstop fabric was made to be strong, and all Okonkwo succeeded in doing was making his hardshell stutter and jerk as his feet slipped and kicked out in front of him again.

  Oliver caught her breath, “No, this is not good, where’s…”

  McGrath appeared a moment later. Or, his fist did, the hardshell gauntlet slicing upward to punch Okonkwo’s drag handle free. As bad as his start had been, Okonkwo rallied magnificently, kicking off and sending himself gliding smoothly to his shipmates behind the simulated engine housing, his gun stock already nestled against the sweet spot of the hardshell’s articulated shoulder. McGrath followed behind him, ducking low to ensure his much bigger bulk cleared the hatch without a similar issue.

  When all four of the crew were behind the engine housing, Engle punched a button in her booth and red strobes above the simulator began to flash. “ENDEX, ENDEX, ENDEX,” she called into the PA. There was a low whirring as the chamber spun up again, and Oliver felt her feet slowly pushing back down into the deck, the slight lean in her posture as the spin gravity took hold.

  Elgin popped his hardshell helmet, turned to look at his crew. Pervez already had hers off and was turning to Okonkwo, cheeks puffing out as she prepared what Oliver assumed was a robust criticism of his exit.

  “Do not speak,” Chief said before she could get the words out.

  Pervez spun on him, looking as if she might say something, stopped as Chief stabbed a finger in Oliver’s direction. “The skipper is watching!”

  Pervez’s eyes widened as she followed the direction of Chief’s finger and saw Oliver and Ho, but they narrowed again nearly as quickly. This one will be a tough nut to crack.

  The rest of the crew looked up at her. McGrath stood at ease, acknowledging her with a nod and smile. Okonkwo came to attention for a moment before an elbow from Chief snapped him out of it.