Sixteenth Watch

by Myke Cole

“Up on top of the stacks, and from there, into the propellant access hatch. Okonkwo! How many can we fit in there?”

  “If we go one at a time? Maybe three.” Okonkwo answered.

  “OK, get your ass back in there and get ready to receive McGrath.”

  “Ma’am,” McGrath said, “I can fight, put someone else…”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re shot. Get your ass up there before I get truly pissed.”

  McGrath gave no answer other than a grunt of pain as Chief helped Oliver boost him up the stack. He crested the top and began wriggling out of sight as Pervez rolled out, firing her duster. She rolled back and dove to the farthest side of the tiny enclosure the crew occupied.

  An instant later, three crates in the stack closest to the passageway vaporized as a plasma ball enveloped them. The crates above them hung suspended in the air, then slowly began to drift their way down.

  Holy shit, we are actually going to die. The thought was oddly liberating. Her memories sparked, played back in a rush across the backs of her eyes, moment after moment – her promotion to captain, Ho and his family applauding in the front row of the auditorium. Adam teaching her how to work her smartphone, his face lighting with one of his rare displays of genuine affection, standing on the deck of the cutter Ibis in the Hudson River on the Fourth of July, the ash from the fireworks exploding overhead dusting her shoulders. Tom, always Tom, his face filling her vision, his thumb tracing the line of her mouth. I swear, Jane. I have never loved a human being in my life like I love you.

  At least I’ll see you again, Tom. At least I’ll see you again real soon. Tom’s face dissolved into Alice, a crystal-clear picture of her daughter curled up on a mod couch in her hab, smiling contentedly as she surveyed her mining drones on her smartphone. There was sadness, sure, but mostly Oliver felt lighter. Boarding Action, the threat of a war, Fraser and Donahugh and Allen and the Commandant himself, all disappeared. They couldn’t touch her now.

  Alice. The thought of her daughter jolted her. She couldn’t die. Alice needed her. She had promised she would get through this and join her, help her find her feet and get her stake running right. That thought had kept her going throughout this whole thing, and she would be damned if she would give up on that now. Stay alive. Save your team. Then save your daughter.

  Oliver took a breath, rolled out into the passageway, raised her duster. She did not want to shoot at the PLAN, but they were clearly already shooting at her. She had to slow them down long enough for help to arrive.

  The mobile barrier had been pushed to less than five feet away. Oliver could see the rubber wheels supporting the ballistic sheeting, the clear plexiglass at the top, slits cut for the PLAN marines behind it to thrust the barrels of their plasma railguns through. Their skintight biosuits were patterned with an obtuse blue and white digital camouflage pattern that made them stick out like sore thumbs.

  She could see them freeze, hesitating, clearly stunned that a single person would actually engage them. It gave her a moment to raise the duster and pump off three blasts in rapid succession. The mobile barrier would make short work of the actual munition, but she could see the marines flinch back instinctively regardless. She saw a flash of orange erupt past her head and knew a plasma round had nearly decapitated her. The next one won’t miss.

  And then she was knocked to her side, bouncing against the stacked crates, the ship shuddering around her. The ship shook again, and Oliver almost imagined she could hear it groaning despite the lack of atmosphere. The shooting had stopped, and she found that her legs still worked, glanced down at her body in amazement, still struggling to process the miraculous fact that she was still alive.

  She wrenched herself out of the passageway, back behind the remaining crates, sawing her head to her left, looking down toward her longhorn’s nipple gangway.

  And realized who had saved her.

  A Navy small boat’s nipple had replaced her longhorn’s. She recognized the digital camouflage pattern of a US Marine boarding team as they raced down the gangway, pushing a mobile barrier of their own.

  Her own longhorn was nowhere to be seen. They must have just rammed it out of the way, and docked in its place. She caught her breath at the skill necessary to execute a maneuver like that. Pervez could have done it, she felt sure, or… or Gunnery Sergeant Fujimori. It can’t be them. What are the odds?

  Her question was resolved an instant later as the mobile barrier was shoved forward by the biggest marine she’d ever seen up close.

  Farah Abadi.

  She could see Koenig beside her now, his lieutenant’s bars thin black lines on the shoulders of his hardshell, leveling a hornet gun, popping off two of the rockets in rapid succession. Beside him, Slomowicz pulled the pins on two smoke grenades, tossed them gently down the passageway, enveloping all of them in thick, viscous pink fog, blossoming like dandelion balls, perfectly symmetrical, gradually expanding out from their containers in the micro-gravity.

  More marines were coming down the gangway, Oliver scanned for Fujimori, guessed the gunnery sergeant was up in the boat’s cockpit, firing the thrusters to keep the vessel locked in place. The sheared remains of the longhorn’s nipple prevented the Navy boat from extending their own nipple to get hard dock with the Chinese vessel. But Fujimori managed to pilot the Navy boat perfectly, thrusters keeping it moving in perfect concert with the twelve-pack.

  The marines were toppling crates, setting up firing positions behind the mobile barricade. Oliver counted at least ten hornet guns pointed down range. Oliver waited, not daring to look out into the fatal funnel for fear of getting shot. Ten seconds. Thirty. No more rounds fired either way. It appeared to be a standoff.

  She radioed Okonkwo. “Can you see anything from up there?”

  “Only a lot of people pointing guns at each other but not shooting. Which is… good?” Okonkwo replied.

  “Jesus, XO. Are you seeing this?” Oliver asked after toggling back to Ho.

  “I am,” Ho radioed back. “You’ve got eight marines there.”

  “That’s eight marines blowing this vessel apart if this détente breaks.”

  “I don’t think it’s going to break, boss,” Ho said.

  “Why not?”

  “Can you get a view out the starboard side windows?”

  Oliver turned, glanced up toward the low windows spanning the sides of the hold. She could just make out the long, gun-studded keel of a Perry Class frigate coming out of orbit and burning to station keep alongside them.

  “Cavalry’s here,” Oliver said.

  “Theirs too, boss. There’s a Chinese Type-054B frigate off your port beam. But from what I can hear on the radio neither side wants to start a war here. I guess if shooting starts, Donahugh wants it on her terms.”

  “I’m relieved to hear that.”

  “Admiral Oliver,” Lieutenant Koenig had bridged to her radio, come to stand before her in the half-melted remains of their enclosure of crates. “General Fraser has asked that you allow my coxs’un to escort you and your crew to the Gibbs, ma’am. My apologies for your longhorn, but its drift trajectory is sending it back toward SPACETACLET. I’ll send a salvage team as soon as we get the situation stabilized here.”

  “That won’t be necessary, lieutenant, thank you.” Koenig’s cool professionalism added insult to injury. Of course this was the team that had saved her. A part of her wondered if Fraser had planned it that way. She toggled back to control. “XO…”

  “I’ve already launched a UTB, ma’am. They’ll recover the longhorn,” Ho replied.

  She glanced back at Koenig, radioed Ho. “So, I guess we’re not the only Boarding Action team that feels it’s more effective to do the work than stick to the simulator.”

  “I guess great minds think alike, ma’am,” Ho said.

  “Thank you, lieutenant,” Oliver said to Koenig. “I know I speak for my entire command when I say how grateful I am for the assistance.”

  Koenig’s mouth twitched ins
ide his helmet. “It’s our pleasure, ma’am. You know how it is out here. One team, one fight.” That is the complete and polar opposite of how it is out here. “Are any of your people injured?”

  “My boarding officer took a hornet round, I haven’t had a chance to see how bad it is.” She toggled to her team’s channel. “Everybody out! We’re getting off this thing.”

  A part of her wanted to contest Koenig’s assumption of command of the situation. Her team had intercepted the vessel, she was the supported command. But she looked at her team clambering down off the stacks – Pervez with her visor abraded beyond use, McGrath with his failsafe shrink-wrapping visible through his visor – and she knew the truth: they had bitten off way more than they could chew, and the marines had saved their asses. She wasn’t going to pretend it was different. And, even if it was, SAR-1 was not in a position to negotiate with hostile PLAN naval infantry.

  The team dropped back down from the crates and followed her up the nipple gangway and into the Navy small boat. Fujimori sat at the controls, turning to regard McGrath as he winced his way on board. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m good,” McGrath heaved his bulk onto the boat’s casualty crash bench. “Just got shot up a little, is all.”

  “He does that,” Pervez explained. “Thinks it makes him tough.”

  “I’ll make sure corpsmen are waiting on the Gibbs,” Fujimori said, firing the starboard thrusters to push them off. Oliver looked out the starboard windows to see another Navy small boat, its cabin crammed with more marines, maneuvering to dock in place the moment Fujimori pushed off. Behind it, she could see three PLAN boats, and the massive, sleek bulk of the Chinese frigate beyond. Like the Chinese biosuits, it was more compact and streamlined than American manufacture, its four hundred feet shaped somewhere between a cigar and a bullet, the smooth lines broken by regularly studded ball-turrets, bristling with ordnance trained past the Navy boats where Oliver knew the Gibbs awaited them.

  Past that, she could see the LSST’s rhino, blue-light flashing, firing attitude thrusters to keep it alongside the twelve-pack. Oliver could see one of the Navy boats matching its position, interposing itself between the LSST boat and the twelve-pack. She bit back rage and radioed Ho again. “Tell the LSST to RTB. They can’t do anything out here. Make sure they understand they have my gratitude and that I will get this worked out.”

  “Aye aye, ma’am,” Ho radioed back.

  Fujimori glanced sideways, caught Pervez watching her, looked back to her controls. When a second glance revealed that Pervez was still staring, she turned. “What?”

  “Sorry,” Pervez said. “It’s just that I watched you the last three years, and I’m just a huge fan of the way you fly.”

  Fujimori smiled, nodded. “From what I hear, you’re going to be getting up close and personal with everything my team does real soon.”

  Pervez’s smile vanished, and she looked studiously out the front window for the rest of the trip.

  In a development that surprised no one, Fraser was waiting for them when they exited the airlock, accompanied by two marine security guards and two hospital corpsman who swarmed McGrath, breaking the seals on his suit and getting him loaded onto a gurney Oliver assumed would be rushed off to sickbay. “I’ll go with him,” Okonkwo said, “if that’s OK.”

  “I’m fine,” McGrath said.

  “I’m not,” Oliver said. “You like catching rounds so much, I’m worried that you’ll do it again if you’re not supervised. Whole team is going with you.”

  “You’ll be all right,” Fraser put a hand on McGrath’s boot just before one of the corpsmen whisked it off. “I’m glad you all made it out in one piece.”

  “Us too,” Oliver said. “Thanks.”

  Fraser shook his head. “You can thank me by coming to speak with the Commanding Officer of 11th fleet. The Obama is about to drop in out of orbit to assess the situation. Admiral Donahugh is on board, and she is going to want my report on… this. She’s also… concerned about your arrest of one of her JGs. I think you should speak with her personally.”

  “I think that would be best,” Oliver said. “I need to discuss with her why the Navy nearly provoked hostilities a stone’s throw from my faculty, and then practically shouldered my rapid response force in their rush to respond to this incident.”

  “Perhaps we should discuss this in private, admiral?” Fraser asked.

  Oliver looked back at her crew and turned back to him. “Do you know what a contubernium is, general?”

  Fraser smiled. “Of course I do.”

  “We’re a contubernium. If you have something to say to me, you can say it to them, too.”

  “Look,” Fraser said, “Donahugh’s going to make a… request directly to Admiral Allen. This is your chance to speak your piece to her. That is,” Fraser turned to Pervez and Chief, “if your coxs’un and ranking NCO will permit it.”

  Chief smiled and Pervez laughed out loud. Oliver was amazed at how charming the marine general could be. “Just have her back before 21:00, sir,” Pervez said.

  “Aye aye, BM1,” Fraser said, gesturing to the adjacent launch bay where another small boat waited.

  The Navy boat had barely gone five hundred meters from the Gibbs when a huge shadow swept over and the coxswain angled their bow upward to meet it. Oliver looked up to see the massive thousand-foot length of the USS Obama, 11th Fleet’s flagship, and the largest spacegoing warship in any American service. Small boats clustered around it like pollenating insects, the groups of its antennae arrays, solar collectors, and gun batteries making it look like some dark coral reef.

  “Man, that is awful big.” Oliver tried to keep the awe out of her voice, failed.

  “It’s not the size,” Fraser said, “it’s the ordnance. That monster can launch seventy-five boats in a pinch, can put over two thousand marines anywhere on the surface in just a few hours. The Chinese can’t match it. Not even close.”

  “They’re working on it, surely.”

  “They surely are, but it’s the same game as it is back on Earth. We’ve got the better gear and training. They’ve got the numbers. The Obama’s badass, to be sure, but it’s just one. The Chinese Type-003 is three quarters the size, and they can throw five of them at us. I don’t like those odds.”

  “All the more reason not to ever test them.”

  Fraser turned, regarded her through his visor. “I’m sure Vice Admiral Donahugh will be interested in your perspective on the matter.”

  Oliver ignored him, watching as one of the Obama’s six docking bays on this side of the ship grew in her vision. A tethered traffic controller drifting in the micro gravity waved their boat into place with lighted wands. Oliver swallowed her admiration and her sense of vertigo as they disembarked into a loading bay that could have easily accommodated most of the Coast Guard’s spacegoing vessels all on its own. Huge cranes and robotic arms were at work all around them, hauling small boats into dry dock, or even fixing larger ships in place while Navy crews swarmed their exteriors, welding torches blazing.

  Inside the airlock, the ship’s spin gravity took over, and Oliver leaned gratefully into it as her stomach settled. A sole adjutant, white uniform crisp and gleaming with gold braid, waited patiently for them to remove their hardshells. Fraser, at least, was wearing his duty uniform underneath, and she watched as he reached under his blouse, adjusting his shirt stays until most of the wrinkles were smoothed out. Oliver had to make do with her suit’s base-layer –technically a uniform, complete with her name, service and rank – but the contrast between their appearance was marked. Fraser made no offer to give her a chance to freshen up before the adjutant led them down a maze of passageways, getting Oliver quite lost before ending at a hatch with a brass plaque reading: COMMANDING OFFICER, beside 11th Fleet’s logo – an owl clutching a trident, soaring up into the black of space on a trail of blazing stars.

  Fraser caught Oliver’s eyes, gave a sympathetic look, and knocked.

  “
Come!” Donahugh’s voice was the rasp of someone who had quit a bad smoking habit many years back, running just beneath the even tone of command that Oliver instinctively recognized in the most powerful leaders. Donahugh was a woman who didn’t yell, and this was because she didn’t have to.

  Oliver followed Fraser through the door, into a modest office perfectly balanced to blend the cramped military efficiency of shipboard life on the 16th Watch with the trappings of authority. The reflective-surfaced cherry-wood desk was small, the stars-and-stripes and US Navy flags taut on plastic spreaders that ensured they would remain perfectly smooth even if the spin gravity switched off. A hardshell stood stacked on top of its case in one corner, conspicuously in a state of readiness. Vice Admiral Donahugh was every bit the woman from the recruiting ad Elias had shown her back on Earth. Her smile was warm, her eyes alert, and her presence commanding and regal as royalty. “Demetrius, great to see you! Admiral Oliver, it’s a pleasure to finally put a face to a name.”

  Oliver knew it was most assuredly not a pleasure to put a face to a name in her case, but she was grateful for the diplomacy regardless. She shook Donahugh’s hand, the grip firm, not the insecure crushing handshake of someone attempting to intimidate, but not the dead fish Fullweiler had given her either. Donahugh was a pro. “Great to finally meet you too, ma’am,” Oliver said.

  Donahugh sat down, motioned for them to take their seats. Oliver noted her seat put her head lower than Donahugh’s, in a tactic that was well familiar.

  “Can I offer either of you something to drink?” Donahugh asked.

  “We’re fine, ma’am,” Oliver said, smiling toward Fraser, who inclined his head.

  “All right,” Donahugh said. “Thanks for coming on such short notice. I hope you don’t mind if I ask my adjutant and JAG to join us.”

  Oliver felt a chill lance through her belly. The handshake wasn’t an attempt to intimidate, but this surely was. She wished like hell that she’d had Ho by her side. She considered asking for him, but it would take far too long for him to arrive. Still, it wouldn’t do to object on Donahugh’s own flagship. “Of course.”