by David Poyer
Dan rolled over, finding the conversation somewhere between fascinating and beyond him. “Such as?”
“All the way from feminist theory to the archetype of the murdering mother.”
“Huh. Well, regardless, I’m getting the feeling certain elements want Horn to crash and burn. Or want me to.”
“Are you saying the naval establishment wants it to fail?”
Dan thought of Niles. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe that’s why they assigned me.”
“Oh, of course. Good God. You don’t say things like that to that exec of yours, do you?”
“I’m not married to her.”
“Dan, I’ve noticed that when it comes to this issue, maybe eighty percent of the guys just want somebody next to them who can do the job. Another ten percent are gung ho for the women. And there’s ten percent who are just assholes. Whatever a girl does is going to be wrong, just because she doesn’t belong in the club.”
“Where do I rank? Angel or asshole?”
“I’d count you in the eighty percent. Which is fair. But you have both supporters and enemies at high levels. Some will try to help you. Others will try to torpedo you. Most will just hang back and watch. I’ll help you all I can, but—”
“No, Blair. No offense, but please don’t try to help me in any way.”
“As I was going to say, I don’t think you want me to. So let’s leave it at that, okay?” She looked back at her computer, frowned, pushed her glasses up again.
His gaze traced her neck into the robe, and from nowhere came the memory of Hotchkiss’s flushed skin, the fine hairs of her nape. The double image pushed metal up his cock. He shifted his legs. “Turn that thing off and come over here.”
“That an order, or an offer?”
“A threat. Turn it off, or I’ll tell CNN what we did last night.”
“Blackmail.”
“Absolutely. And you know what any hint of sexual irregularity would mean to the image of this administration.”
She acknowledged the thrust with a twisted smile. Glanced at the computer again; then shut it down. “You know, I’ve got something riding on this, too.”
“On Horn?”
“I’ve told some important people that this initiative’s going to show how well women can integrate. If you look bad, I will, too.”
He felt a sudden flare of resentment. Everybody had to put the pressure on. Like the song. Just put the load right on me.
“Slide over,” she said, turning off the lamp. Dropping the robe, and standing; a graceful curving shadow that grew larger and larger until it eclipsed the dawn.
SCREWED, shaved, and showered, he pulled the plastic off a fresh set of whites as she cursed the inventor of panty hose. Horn was due to get under way for the first female combat deployment at noon. Making this an official media circus, he thought darkly. Three-star equivalents, like Blair. COMNAVSURFLANT. He’d heard nothing from Second Fleet staff, which he hoped meant Niles was going to skip it. He threaded a new white belt. Clipped on a pewter buckle with the ship’s crest and sawed the rest of the belt off with his pocketknife. Occupying his hands with routine, while his mind ran free.
Blair turned from the mirror in the cobalt blue suit she favored for TV. “One last hug.”
He said into her ear, “The last? How about at the pier?”
“The under secretary and the captain? Not exactly the tone we want to set.”
She was right, of course. Holding her, he wanted her all over again, but more; wanted not just the physical contact, but to be with her for more than a snatched day or two. Like a criminal on the lam. How had he maneuvered himself into this? His classmates had normal marriages. Normal families. He had an ex in Utah and a daughter he never saw. For a second he imagined letting the ship go without him. Wouldn’t that make Niles’s day.
“What’s funny?”
“Not much, when you think about it.” He kissed her again. “I don’t want to leave. Not with you staying here.”
“I told you, I might be able to work something to come out to the Gulf. Now that we have a permanent presence there. I’ll let you know if I can.”
All he could think to do in answer was hold her tighter than ever.
THEY had breakfast, then split up. Blair’s official reason for being here was as a member of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services. Three other members joined them as she was signing the tab. Other than a marine colonel, who was in uniform, Dan had no idea who they were. Just competent-looking women in civilian clothes. Blair treated them as equals, which would put them pretty far up the political food chain.
Pier 6 berth 2, time 1000. The 1MC echoed from the ship. “Now muster the color guard with the officer of the deck on the quarterdeck.” A yellow poly rope was stretched across the pier, holding back those who’d come to see their husbands, sons, and, in a few cases, daughters and wives off.
Four bells sounded as he neared the brow. “Horn, arriving,” the 1MC announced.
The first thing he did was tell the officer of the deck to strike the pier barrier, to let dependents aboard as long as they stayed topside. His people wouldn’t see their loved ones for six months. The least he could do was let them say goodbye. He checked with Hotchkiss as to their readiness to get under way, then went out on deck again. He told each family how proud he was of their service member, what a good job he was doing for the ship and the navy. One woman said she’d never heard anyone say a good thing about her son before.
His mood darkened again as he saw the cameras.
They were lined up on the fantail, filming the crew as they came aboard. A lieutenant commander he didn’t know was with them. Dan pulled him aside. “Who the hell are you?”
“Com Second Fleet public affairs, sir.”
“Who are all these people?”
“Media requests, sir. National media!”
“Okay, but why are they here?”
“They asked to be here. They’re the press, and you’re news.”
He got his temper under control and was looking around when he saw Woltz. The command master chief was talking to a reporter. Their heads were together, and the newsie was scribbling in a notebook. Dan caught “fucking sailorettes” and “dangerous.”
“Master chief.”
Woltz froze. “Yessir, Captain.”
“You and the chief master at arms make a last tour below. Make sure no one’s aboard who shouldn’t be.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
The reporter said, “The chief was telling me nobody wants the women aboard.”
“Did he?”
“They’re not used to going to sea. They don’t know their way around.”
“Most of them have been to sea before. Oilers and ammo ships and tugs.”
“How’s the crew feel about them?”
“They’re all sailors to me.”
“That’s not what I asked you, Skipper. Is there resistance from the enlisted men?”
“I told you, they’re all sailors to me.” He sounded pompous and evasive even to himself. Worse was knowing now where the command master chief stood. The chiefs’ mess was key to how well the ship worked. He didn’t need trouble there.
Eight bells. “Undersecretary of Defense for Manpower and Personnel.”
Dan held the salute as Blair came up the brow, stepping carefully on the slick metal treads in low heels, and faced the flag and then him. She looked very good, indeed, and the sailors on deck stared when he dropped his salute and she took his arm; then, smiling, thought better of it and simply shook his hand.
A cameraman shouted, “Here comes one of ’em.”
He turned back to see a chubby girl boarding. One of the engineers. Patty something… no, Patryce. Patryce Wilson, electrician’s mate third. A gloss-lipped black woman with a microphone thrust it forward, almost knocking her down. A moment later the others were shouting, too, asking whether the men had hazed her, if she had a boyfriend aboard, if she was sorry she’d come to
Horn.
Dan said to the public affairs type, “Get them off the fantail. Now.”
“Sir, we can use the exposure. We—”
“Get them off my ship!”
Heads turned, but simultaneously he was dragged backward by both arms. He was about to react violently when he realized it was Hotchkiss, on his right, and Blair on his left. “Let go of me,” he told them.
“No, sir. Please. Don’t antagonize the press.”
“I’ll deal with this,” Blair said coolly. “Step back, Commander.” It took him a moment to realize she was talking to him.
“Berenicia Savage, isn’t it? Blair Titus. We went to Somalia together, do you remember? Did you want a statement on what this ship means to the services?”
“Oh, Blair … Just a moment… This young lady was telling us about how well she’s getting along with her male com—compatriots.”
“That’s fine.” Blair smiled at the girl, who looked bewildered by the cameras and attention, and at the same time radiant, fulfilled, like a game show contestant who’s just scored. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“Does this mean the navy’s recovered from Tailhook?”
“I don’t know if we’ll ever recover from Tailhook,” Dan said, catching the PAO’s warning glance but not caring. We defeated a dictator. We liberated a country. The country respected the military again. Then a few drunken louts made us all assholes again.”
Savage’s eyes lit. She held the microphone out. Blair closed her fist over it and pushed it away. “What the commander meant to say is that today is an epochal event in the history of the U.S. Navy. Women went to sea with Stephen Decatur in the War of 1812. Today they’re going again, as combatants. Now let me introduce the other members of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services.”
HE gave the VIPs a quick tour of the spaces, including women’s berthing, which, thank God, Hotchkiss had made sure was squared away and the signs taken down. When they were standing on the bridge and Boatswain Yerega was explaining the layout, the marine colonel murmured congratulations on Horn’s JTFEX results.
“I’m sorry?”
“I was told your overall score was one of the highest in the battle group. That’s outstanding, Captain. Positively outstanding.”
He was saved from a response by the “DESRON Two Two, arriving.” He took his leave politely, inviting them to coffee and cake in the in-port cabin after they’d completed their tour.
ARONIE had come without an aide. He looked relaxed and fit. Dan offered to take him to his cabin, but the commodore said he’d seen the admiral’s sedan arriving. He’d just wait on the quarterdeck.
Keeping his voice below the output of the band, which was tuning up on the pier, Dan said, “I heard we came out better than I, uh, expected on the JTFEX.”
“Indeed you did. That was outstanding.”
“Sir, the chief observer shared his comments with me before they left the ship. We weren’t as good as that.”
“How good were you?”
“Average. If that. We worked on the sore points after the exercise, but in the exercise itself, I have to say, we didn’t show up all that well.”
The commodore said blandly, maybe a shade too smoothly, as if he’d rehearsed the answer, “Well, that’s not what came out of the pipe on my end. They must have done a recount somewhere between you and me.”
Dan thought this was interesting, but was stopped from pursuing it by the 1MC again. “Naval Surface Forces Atlantic, arriving,” it said. He and Aronie stepped forward and saluted side by side.
AS sailing time approached, Dan saw the official visitors off, then the families. Hotchkiss stationed the sea and anchor detail. The tug showed up, not the Clelia Gracie, he was glad to see. The band played “Anchors Aweigh” and “Proud to Be an American” and “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” Dan wondered at this last but figured it was the standard repertoire. Blair gave him a chaste peck beneath the quarterdeck awning and left. She wasn’t big on long farewells, and neither was he. The longer they took, the worse he felt. Then the admiral left, and last, Aronie.
The commodore shook Dan’s hand firmly. “We’re getting under way shortly, too. See you on the other side of the pond.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“You’ll do fine. You’ve got a great bunch of people here.”
At least in the military, the junior guy always got the last word, Dan thought. “Yes, sir,” he said. “We’ll do our best.”
Too late, when Aronie was on the pier, he remembered he’d wanted to straighten out that matter of the observer’s comments. Around him families were weeping openly. Children clung to their mother’s legs, waving to Daddy. He wished his own daughter was here, or that she’d called. Well, she was almost grown. She didn’t have time for a dad half a continent away.
The tug hooted. He rattled up ladders. Hotchkiss saluted. “All stations manned, ready to get under way.”
He looked to where Blair’s car was already pulling out, to where families waved flags, to the homeland they’d not see again for half a year. Then turned to the waiting faces on the bridge. Smiled, more confidently than he felt.
“Okay, XO, let’s get this show on the road.”
II
RED SEA
9
COBIE was down in Main One, washing down the GTG. Main One was main engine room number one. The GTG was the gas turbine generator. She was getting used to talking in acronyms, even when she didn’t know what they meant. Like the little platform everybody called the IR flat, but when she asked what IR stood for, nobody knew. She was getting used to a lot of things. Or trying to, anyway.
After three weeks of standing three-section watches across the Atlantic and past Gibraltar in it, she was real used to Main One. Nickels and dimes, like the guys told her most gas turbine ships stood: five hours on, ten hours off. She worked here and spent most of her off time here, too, unless she wanted to lie in her bunk or go to the ship’s store, if it was open.
The first impression you got coming through the access at the top of the compartment was gratings. Level on level of boot-polished shiny steel, going down and down. Going out on them took an effort of will, like believing you could walk on air. The gratings were set in terra-cotta-colored I-beams with thin pipe handrails painted glossy black. Through them, way down below your boots as the whole space tilted, you could see the shaft going around steadily, usually not all that fast, but giving the impression of tremendous power. The IR flat—a flat was like a deck, in the engineering spaces—was just inside the access, with parts lockers and a couple of mats and the guys’ weights and not much else. You went down the ladder past the huge white insulation-wrapped intake and exhaust ducts for the engines and generators, and you were on what they called the boiler flat. Above the gray padlocked steel cases of the reduction gears.
Here you had to choose between another ladder down or to turn right past the silver-gray, heat-radiating drum of the waste heat boiler, with the steam traps hissing behind curtains of white vapor too loud to speak over. Past that was the 1S switchboards. The next level down was the PLCC flat. PLCC meant propulsion local control console. Threading between racks of firefighting hose and control panels and red Halon tanks, you worked your way around the tractor-trailer-sized boxes of the engines themselves to the console the on-watch used to control everything.
You could peer through a thick window into the soundproofed interior of the isolation module. A jet engine, same as in an airliner, a DC-10 or a C-5. Looking in you couldn’t see much happening, even when they were running, just stainless tubing and hoses and suspended like in midair the long dully gleaming barrel of the turbine itself. It was screaming in there, the temperature was over fourteen hundred degrees in the combustor at full power, but all you saw was the light glowing on it and the safety chains swaying like some unseen hand was shaking them.
Then past that and down yet another half level you came to GTG number one. Another gas turbine, but smaller than
the main engines, it ran at a constant speed to drive the generator. Its exhaust ran the waste heat boiler that provided steam for the ship, hot water for the showers, and steam for the mess deck’s kettles and all that.
Below that was the lower level, with the engine foundations and the coalescers and fire pumps and the complicated hydraulics for the screw pitch control mechanism, and all the lube oil pumps and filters and tanks. Petty Officer Helm wouldn’t let her touch the lube oil. It was synthetic MIL-SPEC-23699 stuff that ate rubber seals. It would give you dermatitis and paralysis and birth defects. He worked on it himself, with rubber gloves and a rubber apron and a face shield. You were walking on diamond-treaded steel floorplates by now, and pulling them up showed you nothing below but the sea chests where pipes came in through the bottom, and red-painted steel, and slowly roiling water that was the bilge.
That was Main One. Main Two aft was pretty much like it, but she didn’t see much of it or the aux spaces or Control because Helm kept his watch section busy doing qualifications and cleaning the steam traps and doing all the other stuff they had to do to keep the engines and generators and pumps running. It wasn’t as hot down here as she’d thought it’d be, but it was so noisy everyone had to wear ear protection and shout at each other. It had been rough all the way across. She carried trash bags in her coveralls to throw up in. Ricochet was worse. He was puking nonstop. He lay on the IR flat whenever he could because he said there was less motion up there.
Her watch section was five people. Helm and Ricochet, whose real name was Sanders but everybody called him Ricochet because when he walked down the passageway he bounced off one bulkhead then the other. GSM3 Pascual, who everybody called the Porn King because he had a stash of books and magazines and tapes under his bunk he rented out by the hour. He read Velvet and Superman and Vero on watch. She’d opened one he left on the PLCC. All guys with huge cocks coming in women’s faces, the women rubbing it into their tits. Only you could tell it wasn’t real come because there was so much of it. She figured probably dishwashing liquid. Whenever she came across one of his magazines after that, she dropped it in the bilge. And Akhmeed, who had a little mustache shaved narrow and came from the Philippines and didn’t want to talk about anything but his truck.
