Sixteenth Watch

by Myke Cole

  Pervez mimicked her posture, and Oliver saw the petulance in the stance, the statement, whatever you do to me, I can do back. She cursed inwardly. This wouldn’t be easy.

  “I know what you’re going to say,” Pervez said, “and I just want to say up front that I delivered on this mission. You specifically told me you wanted contact with that tow fender before the Navy boat could intercept, and that’s what you got.”

  “That’s true,” Oliver said, “and I won’t lie to you, Pervez. That was probably the best piloting I’ve ever seen on Earth and the 16th Watch combined.”

  Pervez looked surprised. “So what are we out here for?”

  “Because you know even better than I do that it could have just as easily gone the other way. We collided with that Navy boat…”

  “…and it would have been on the Navy,” Pervez interrupted. “72 COLREGS for both international and inland give right-of-way to the starboard. We were the stand-on vessel, ma’am. It was for them to wave off.”

  “Oh, come on, Naeemah. I’m not going to argue the COLREGS with you. They haven’t been updated significantly since 1972. We’re still technically governed by the ’67 Outer Space Treaty out here. Do you honestly think anybody is paying attention to that crap? You know better than that.”

  Pervez stiffened at the use of her first name. “Then what are we doing out here, ma’am? We’re supposed to be the cops. If the law is meaningless, we might as well go home.”

  “Bullshit,” Oliver said, “you know as well as I do that there’s the law as it’s written and the law when the rubber meets the road of real life. Cops have been living at that junction for as long as there’ve been cops. You know that better than anyone. Forget the gold on my shoulders, Naeemah. You need to remember you’re talking to a thinking individual here. I may not be able to drive a boat like you can, but don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m not as smart as you.”

  Pervez’s cheeks colored, and she looked down for a moment. “You’re right, ma’am, I’m sorry.”

  Oliver waved a hand. “Don’t sweat it. I do shit like that all the time. You don’t know who you’re dealing with until you know who you’re dealing with.”

  “Anyway, law aside, the job got done. And it got done the way you wanted it done. And you had your chance to knuckle your forehead to Ops, and you didn’t, which tells me you’re good with the result.”

  “That’s the thing, Naeemah. I am and I’m also not. I’m good with the outcome, but you’ve got to dial it back anyway. Because this shit is killing us as a team. I can’t have everyone else on the team thinking their safety is at the risk of your whims.”

  “That wasn’t a whim, ma’am. That was me knowing my business. I knew the right-of-way rules. I knew the Navy coxs’un knew them too. I knew they would wave off. If you want me to deliver results, you have to trust me to know my business.”

  “Again, horseshit. You couldn’t read that coxs’un’s mind. What if he’d had a fight with his girlfriend that morning? What if he was fresh off leave and still feeling his way around the cockpit? What if he had a death wish? What if General Fraser was yelling in his ear that he’d better beat us to the tow fender no matter the cost? I know you know your business, Naeemah. But the fact is that you’re not out here alone. It’s everybody else’s business that you seem to have a problem with. This is going to be an issue not just at Boarding Action, but out in the field in general, moving forward.”

  Pervez’s mouth was moving before Oliver had even finished speaking. She’s not listening. “Ma’am, I am following your orders to the–”

  “Naeemah, I am not ordering you here. I am asking you. If we’re ever going to fix…” she waved an arm, unable to find the word, “this, I need you to work with the team. And that means you wave off when Chief or I tell you too. Even when you’re the operational leader on scene. Even when you think you know better.”

  “You want me to work with the team, then you need to make sure that the team understands that I’m not the guy I replaced. I will never be Kariawasm. I won’t drive like he did, I won’t navigate like he did. I do things differently.”

  “I know you do,” Oliver said, “and that’s what we need. The truth is that if I’d been one tenth as good as you are when I was back running ops, I’d have two more stars on my shoulder and the Coast Guard Medal by now. You have more natural talent for this than I could ever hope to have. But none of that is going to help you if you can’t convince the people around you that when you put that talent to work, you’re putting it to work for everybody, not just for yourself. We do dangerous work. We have to be able to believe that the person behind us is covering our six.”

  Pervez was quiet for a long time. “That’s what Chief says your husband did.”

  “He really did.” The memory of Tom, the knowledge that Oliver shared it with these veritable strangers, that Tom’s essential goodness was so powerful that everyone who met him couldn’t help but recognize it made her throat swell, and she blinked back tears. “It’s what every good sailor does. Life is about leaning on other people.”

  “It is,” Pervez said, “and that means you all have to lean on me too.”

  “We are. More than anyone else on the team, we’re all leaning on you. You think I’m certain here? You think I came out here thinking it would be a cake walk to the finish? I’m terrified. I have no idea how we get this thing done, but I do know that if we’re going to get it done it’s because we all pull together.” She paused, giving Pervez a moment to reply, and when she didn’t she sighed. “Look, Kariawasm is irreplaceable. So, don’t try to replace him. You don’t have to be better than his shadow, Naeemah. You just have to do the job to the best of your ability, and part of that job is sticking with your team.”

  “You going to NJP me, boss?” Pervez asked.

  “If I were going to have you NJP’d, Chief would be having this conversation with you, not me, and I sure as hell wouldn’t be asking you to do anything, nor would I be calling you by your first name. I was sent here to do a job, and you are absolutely the coxs’un I need to get it done. You were the operational leader on scene. What you did was technically within the limits of your remit.

  “But you’ve asked me to trust you, Naeemah. I’m telling you that I do trust you. I trust your years of experience, and I trust the skill you’ve displayed to me again and again. Now, I’m asking you to trust me, too. I know blue water boardings aren’t the same as what we do on the 16th Watch, but they’re not that different either. And more importantly than my time in the saddle is my time as a commander. I have been leading people for longer than you’ve been driving boats. I know how to make a team work together. It’s my job to see the forest instead of the trees. I’m not telling you to back off believing in yourself, but I am asking you to believe in me. Can you do that?”

  Pervez dropped her eyes. Her mouth worked, no words coming. Oliver’s heart sped up, her mind racing. If Pervez shut down, if she doubled down on recalcitrance, she’d have no choice but to punish her, and she knew that would be the end of it. Pervez would retreat into sullen petulance, and the impact of the team’s effectiveness, and morale would be devastating.

  Come on, she thought, watching the corners of Pervez’s mouth as she ground her teeth. Come on. Come through for me here.

  At last, Pervez looked up. “OK.”

  OK, ma’am, Oliver thought, but didn’t say. “Thank you. I’m going to hit the head. I’ll meet you back in the ready room.”

  Pervez left without a word and Oliver turned toward the head that she didn’t really have to use. She was less than surprised when Ho detached himself from the bulkhead. “Jesus, boss. That could have blown up in your face.”

  Oliver shrugged. “It didn’t. If BM1 can play chicken with the Navy, then I can do it with my mission out here.”

  “Still, asking her? You’re an admiral.”

  “This is why I’m the CO, and you’re the XO. People have different learning styles, Wen. Pervez is a fig
hter in her bones. You come at her head on and she’s going to dig in and scorch the Earth. She’ll burn everything down – her career, the mission, everything, rather than give in. You can’t tell people like that anything. You have to ask them, even in the military.”

  “I just hope she doesn’t start thinking she runs SAR-1.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry about that. You just saw the carrot. I’ve still got the stick. That was her free one. She’s got the inch. She tries to take a mile, and I’ll show my teeth and damn the consequences.”

  “I just hope you’re right.”

  Oliver rubbed her temples, blinking back the headache that was beginning to form there. “Great leaping Christ, Wen, so do I.”

  SPACETACLET’s sickbay had the latest regenerative medical tech on hand, and a stem-cell injection did the trick. McGrath’s knee was better than Oliver could have hoped, and the team only lost a week back in the simulator before he was operationally capable with a brace. Oliver weighed ordering him to stand down longer, but the clock ticking down toward Boarding Action convinced her otherwise, as did the look on the big petty officer’s face when he said, “I’m ready, ma’am, put me back in the fight.” Oliver knew better than anyone the cost of refusal, both to his morale and the team’s.

  When he walked stiffly back into the ready room, the smiles on the team’s faces set Oliver’s heart at ease. She could see reflected in the eyes of all that she’d made the right decision. Chief clapped him on the shoulder, “Stop trying to get a Purple Heart.”

  “You dodge hornet rounds,” Pervez added, “you don’t block them.”

  McGrath grunted, embarrassed by the affection, and moved to inventory his gear.

  He had just spread the pieces of his hardshell out on the deck and was sitting Indian-style, running his thumbs along the seals when Oliver heard a chirp from her terminal. It was a message from Baskin, and Oliver didn’t bother to open it. The ops floor was close enough for her to check in person.

  “Welcome back, McGrath,” she said, gestured to Ho, and headed down the passageway and up the ladder, her stomach performing the customary acrobatics as she reached the central desk where Baskin stood awaiting her.

  “What’s up, ops? Get it? It’s like what’s up doc, only…” she trailed off.

  “…Less funny?” Ho offered.

  “Remind me to fire you the minute I need you less,” Oliver said.

  Baskin didn’t smile, only tapped the plotter, which showed a blinking blue anchor just inside the Chinese EEZ. “You’d mentioned that 11th Fleet would be sending a mobile QRF launch, ma’am? I think they’re here.”

  Oliver squinted at the map, countered lines showing the changes in elevation across the Sea of Rains. “That’s… Is that inside the Chinese EEZ?”

  Baskin nodded. “That’s why I thought you’d want to know. They’re well inside.”

  “And you have no indication that they’re in hot pursuit of anyone?”

  “No, ma’am,” Baskin said.

  “Have you hailed them?”

  “No, ma’am,” Baskin said again, “I figured I’d check with you first.”

  “Do you have a copy of their orders?” Oliver asked.

  Baskin shook his head. “That’s between them and the COTP, ma’am.”

  Oliver tapped her chin, hoping the motion would appear normal and settle the sudden churning in her gut and the roaring in her ears. “All right. SAR-1 will launch and see what the hell is going on. Any alarms to the next duty crew until we get back.”

  “Aye aye, ma’am,” Baskin tried and failed to keep the excitement out of his voice.

  Ho followed her down the ladder, silent and omnipresent as a shadow. “XO, if they are not in hot pursuit of a vessel, it is my understanding that they are in violation of international law. Do you have a different interpretation of the statute?”

  “You’re absolutely correct, ma’am.”

  “And they know this. They have to.”

  “They do.”

  “So what the fuck are they doing, Wen?”

  “Well, I can’t read their minds, ma’am, but I’d say they’re trying to start a war.”

  They reached the bottom of the ladderwell and Oliver picked up the pace, moving toward the ready room. “Not on my watch, they’re not.”

  The crew looked up as she entered, freezing in what appeared to be an exercise of stealing parts of McGrath’s hardshell and forcing him to chase them around the ready room to get them back.

  “Play time’s over,” Oliver said. “Hats and bats. We’re launching now.”

  They immediately passed McGrath his gear and moved to their own lockers. “What’s the alarm, ma’am?” Chief asked. “I didn’t see any…”

  “It’s not an alarm. Navy set up their mobile QRF launch inside the Chinese EEZ. We are getting them the hell out of there before the PLAN decides to make an issue out of it. Okonkwo, what do you know about PLAN long-range sensors?”

  The engineer looked up at her, hopping on one leg as he struggled into his bunny suit. “Not much, ma’am. I’m mostly boat systems, but we did learn a little…”

  “If the Navy just set down a mobile launch inside the Chinese EEZ, how long until the Chinese see it?”

  Okonkwo got his leg in, stopped hopping. “They knew the minute the Navy crossed the border.”

  “I figured, thanks. Light a fire under it, people!”

  Pervez launched them hard, grimly silent as she angled the longhorn toward the blinking blue cursor in the plotter. Chief looked askance at Oliver more than once, but nobody on the crew asked the question she knew was foremost in their minds – what are we going to do once we reach them? Oliver wasn’t sure herself, but she knew she couldn’t allow this to happen unchecked. She strained to see through the front window, looking over the gray horizon for a sign of the Navy unit. “Chief, you see any contacts? PLAN inbound?”

  Chief shook his head. “No, ma’am. Not so far. Their nearest launch is about two klicks out. It won’t take them long to get here if they decide they want to get here.”

  “They’re probably scratching their heads and wondering what the hell is going on,” Oliver said. “Let’s hope that condition holds until we can get this resolved. Sing out if you see anything.”

  “Wilco, ma’am,” Chief kept his eyes on the plotter, silently yielding the helm lookout to Oliver.

  The Navy had set down just outside SPACETACLET’s footprint, and Pervez didn’t have to drive them far before Oliver got a visual on the site. The mobile launch was a large wheeled rover, its thick, knobbed tires wide enough to give it strong traction in the lunar gravity. It hauled a single trailered small boat, the trailer itself a kind of flat-bed launch pad insulated to resist the pressure of the vessel’s belly thrusters. The crew were already out, just four of them, setting up lighted wands to mark the corners of their position. Oliver could see by their hardshell markings that they were Navy personnel. No marines yet, but she didn’t doubt those would be inbound soon.

  They looked up as Oliver hit the blue lights and Pervez brought the longhorn down to settle gently just above the regolith beside them. Three of the sailors kept at their work, probably at a radio order from the fourth, who strode out to meet Oliver as she popped the starboard hatch and stepped out. She could see qualification pin of the Navy’s construction battalion, the “SeaBee” with its grim smile and its tommy gun. A lieutenant junior grade’s bars marked his shoulders. His name plaque read SCOTT.

  “Lieutenant Junior Grade Scott,” Oliver returned the young man’s salute. He kept his visor smoked in the bright lunar day, so she was unable to read his facial expression. “I’m Admiral Jane Oliver, I run SPACETACLET.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Admiral Oliver,” Scott said. “I’m surprised SPACETACLET’s CO came all the way out here to greet us personally.”

  “Admiral Allen told me you’d be setting up out here.”

  “Well, we’re almost done, ma’am. The launch is pretty self-sufficient. T
his is just the duty crew, the actual QRF operators should be here in…”

  “What Admiral Allen didn’t mention,” Oliver cut him off, “was that you’d be setting up inside the Chinese EEZ.”

  Scott paused, and Oliver wished she could see the expression on his face. She was almost about to speak again when he said. “We’re not inside the Chinese EEZ.”

  “Maybe your plotter is on the fritz, but mine is working fine. You’ll find in the Coast Guard we live by the accuracy of our charts. You are outside US territory right now.”

  Scott looked back toward his crew, who were all paused in their work, watching their conversation. Whatever he was looking for, he didn’t seem to have found it, and his voice shook a bit when he turned back. “We’re on the LMGRS coordinates in my orders, ma’am. I triple checked before we started setting up.”

  “May I see your orders, please?”

  “I don’t see that I have to…”

  “Lieutenant Scott, I am asking you nicely. These orders aren’t classified, are they?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Then there shouldn’t be a problem bridging them to my boat so I can check your LMGRS coords. If this is a misunderstanding, this will clear it up.”

  Scott was silent for another long moment, then he finally grunted. “Just a moment, ma’am.”

  One of the other sailors bounded toward the launch, likely at a radio prompt from Scott, and hauled himself into the cabin. A moment later, Chief radioed Oliver on a private channel. “I’m looking at them now, ma’am. The coords are right. They’re where they were ordered to go.”

  Oliver cursed inwardly. 11th Fleet had thrown this poor kid under the bus, but that didn’t mean Oliver had to put up with it. “Well, you’re not misinterpreting your orders, but you also can’t stay here, lieutenant. I need you to move your position one klick south, right now. We’ll accompany you in case you need assistance.” And to make sure you get where you need to go and stay there.