Sixteenth Watch

by Myke Cole

  “Ma’am,” Scott said. “You are asking me to disobey an order from my CO.”

  “No,” Oliver said, “I am telling you, as the service charged with maintaining border integrity on the Earth and the Moon that you need to adjust your position. I’ll take the issue up with your CO once we’ve got you in the right–”

  “Ma’am!” Chief radioed. “I’ve got two PLAN small boats launched and tearing ass for this position. I’m hailing but they’re not responding. Not sure they speak English anyway, and I don’t have a lick of Chinese.”

  “Ho?” Oliver radioed her XO on the ops floor. “You got them?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ho said. “I’ll try to hail them now.”

  Oliver patched back to Scott, worked to keep the rising tension out of her voice. “OK, we are officially out of time, you need to relocate this launch right now, as in this very instant. That is a direct order. Let’s go.”

  Scott bridled. “With all due respect, admiral, I don’t take orders from you. I am accountable to my CO and my–”

  “We don’t have time for this! I have two PLAN boats inbound as we speak, and they are not going to–”

  Ho overrode her channel. “Ma’am! I’ve got patrol drone footage from a quarter-klick out. Those PLAN boats are running out missile pods. You need to get off the X right now, please.”

  Scott was turning back to the launch’s cab. “Are you sure? I haven’t received any report of a–”

  “Jesus Christ! Get your people in that bucket and drive the hell away from here right now!” Oliver resisted the impulse to shake the man.

  Scott stopped, turned back to her. “Admiral, I respectfully decline. I have my orders and I am not abandoning my position without first consulting with my command, PLAN or no PLAN.”

  “Chief,” Oliver switched channels. “What’s the SITREP?”

  “They’re right on top of us, boss. They could fire if they wanted to, but I’m guessing they want to see what the hell is going on first. We need to–”

  Oliver cut him off. “Leave Pervez at the helm and get out here with McGrath and Okonkwo right now. Bring dusters.”

  Chief was at her side a moment later, and she could feel Okonkwo and McGrath’s presence behind him. He held his duster at the low ready. “Ma’am?”

  She turned to him, unable to see his expression through his smoked visor, pointed at Scott, setting her radio to all-call, audible to all receivers in range. “Thanks, Chief, arrest this man.”

  “What?” Chief and Scott asked at the same time.

  “Lieutenant Scott, you are violating Chinese territorial concerns without the exemption of hot pursuit. You have been advised that you’ve broken the law and been ordered to change position. You have refused to comply. You’re under arrest.”

  “You can’t arrest me!” Scott’s voice rose to a squeak. “I’m an officer in the United States Navy!”

  “And I’m an admiral of the United States Coast Guard. We have authority under Title 10, 14 and 18. It’s like the royal flush of being able to arrest whoever we want. Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

  Scott stared at her as two specks formed in Oliver’s peripheral vision, became gray wedges growing in the distance. “XO,” she toggled channels. “I need you to get through to those PLAN boats, we are arresting the officer in charge of the launch and forcibly removing them from the site. Can you…”

  “Trying, boss. They’re not picking up so far.”

  “Christ,” Oliver toggled back to all-call. “Chief! I want this man in restraints yesterday.”

  Chief slung his duster and stepped toward Scott, raising a pair of hardshell restraints. “Sir, please comply. Let’s not make a scene.”

  The other three sailors stood stunned. They were unarmed, and made no effort to intervene to save their commander. Scott also stood stunned, saying nothing, but also not turning around. The wedges grew in Oliver’s peripheral vision, brick-sized now.

  “Scott,” Oliver bridged to his radio on a private channel, and now she made no effort to hide the panicked rage building in her as the PLAN boats drew nearer. “I am not fucking with you. You’re going into those restraints. We can do this the easy way or the hard way, and I promise you that you will not like the hard way.”

  Scott said nothing, but he slowly turned, crossing his wrists behind him.

  Chief stepped in and slapped the restraints in place, locking the bails down as the PLAN boats finally arrived, firing bow thrusters to slow their approach. Huge missile pods extended from behind their solar sails like insect antennae, each carrying a cluster of six warheads trained on the spot where Oliver now stood. They were too close to use them, of course, but the autocannons in their ball turrets would certainly do the trick.

  Oliver swallowed the terror in her throat and gave them what she hoped was a casual wave. She grabbed Scott by the link in his restraints, thrust him roughly toward the longhorn. She made an exaggerated motion with her other hand toward the remaining sailors, who began to climb back in the cab of their rover.

  The boats merely held position, weapons trained on her.

  “XO,” Oliver radioed. “Please for the love of God tell me you got through.”

  “I did,” Ho came back. “They’re aware of the arrest, and the pending reposition.”

  Oliver sighed relief as the sailors started up the launch and the vehicle cut a long arc, turning around and heading back the way it had come, leaving dented tire-tracks in the lunar soil.

  She stood, watching them go, doing her best to ignore the firepower trained on her back. When at last the launch was completely out of sight, she turned, waved to the PLAN boats again, and got back in the longhorn.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” Scott radioed her. “You just arrested your own countryman for following orders.”

  “I just kept all of us from being incinerated and possibly kicking off the first lunar war,” Oliver radioed back. “Now, shut up while I get in touch with your Master-at-Arms.”

  Navy shore patrol was already waiting to pick up Scott by the time SAR-1 returned to SPACETACLET. The Master-at-Arms signed the digital transfer paperwork Chief handed him, and passed the tablet back with a grunt. “I gotta say, this is the first time I’ve ever seen a transfer like this.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Chief sounded embarrassed. “Me too.”

  When the Navy left with Scott, Oliver, still in her bunny suit, took a moment in her stateroom to sag into a chair and bolt down a bourbon. “Christ, Ho. What did I just do?”

  “Exactly what you told Scott,” her XO answered. “Staved off a possible lunar war and saved everyone’s asses.”

  “You think Ops will see it that way? Or the old man?”

  “If they don’t they’re fools. Look, boss. You were put in an impossible situation with no time to act. You did what commanders do in those situations. You made the call. It was a good one.”

  “I’m amazed Allen hasn’t called me yet.”

  “Me too,” Ho chuckled. “He’s probably in quarters with his JAG trying to figure out what the hell to do with this mess.”

  “Donahugh is going to call for my head.”

  “Yup, she is. She’d created a perfect opportunity to spark hostilities and you sucked all the fun out of it.”

  Oliver chuckled in spite of herself. “Thank God for you, Wen. Seriously.”

  Ho shrugged, unzipping his bunny suit and fanning air onto his chest. “Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying, boss. Honestly, I think maybe you should call Allen yourself. Head this thing off at the pass.”

  “You’re right. OK. Christ. I just need a few minutes to get my story straight and figure out how I want to tell it.”

  “Sure boss, I…”

  Oliver had long since ordered SAR alarms piped to her stateroom, and she heard it chime now, followed by Baskins’ weirdly calm voice. “Foreign-flagged vessel, unlawful entry. LSST scramble. SAR-1 launch. I say again, SAR-1 launch.”

  Ol
iver jumped to her feet, ran to the ready room. Ho puffed along behind her. “You sure you don’t want to sit this one out, and–”

  “I said I needed time,” Oliver said. “May as well take it on the road.”

  The team was blinking up at the monitor when she arrived. A foreign-flagged vessel penetrating US territory unlawfully was troubling enough, but the scrambling of the Lunar Safety and Security Team made her blood run cold. They were SPACETACLET’s heavy-hand, the pipe-hitters and steel-eyed killers that rolled out when the Coast Guard had to confront a heavily-armed and intractable enemy, dug in and fighting to the last. That Baskins was sending out SAR-1 while they waited for the LSST to gear up meant that whatever this foreign-flagged vessel was doing, the COTP considered it an immediate threat to American lives.

  These thoughts were doubtless registering in the minds of her crew as they slowly stood, their eyes flashing to the monitor, back to her. Oliver moved quickly to break the paralysis. “OK! Hats and bats! Let’s get on the road!” She chucked McGrath’s shoulder as she raced to her locker, “How’s the knee?”

  McGrath shrugged. “Last run was a cakewalk.”

  “Last run you didn’t have to do anything. XO! Get up on the control floor!”

  She could hear the tone of command, felt it reverberate, saw her people react instinctively. They raced into their gear, Chief already running boat checks by the time Ho was sealing Oliver into her hardshell. “You sure you want me to sit this one out?”

  “Absolutely,” Oliver said as the seal indicators flashed green. “I love Baskins to death, but this could get serious. I can’t have us high and dry out there. I want someone I trust riding herd in the control room. I also want you to run interference in case Allen calls before we have this job buttoned up. Run down the LSST and make damn sure they’re lighting a fire under this. We’ll intercept, but I don’t want us fighting this fight alone. Get us backup and get it to us fast.”

  “I won’t let you down, boss.”

  “I know you won’t,” she said, and ducked into the longhorn’s hatch. Chief had already radioed control and gotten permission to launch. Pervez was firing the belly thrusters just as soon as Oliver sealed the hatch. Scott’s arrest hovered in the back of Oliver’s mind, and she knew it would be weighing on the crew as well. The Navy would doubtless drop the charges, but there was no way the slight would be ignored. Oliver tried to put the event out of her mind to focus on the task ahead.

  “SAR-1 launch.” Oliver felt chills crawl up her spine at the words, the thrill more intense for the urgency of the mission. It never gets old. It will never get old. Joy was an odd thing to feel at the prospect of launching on a likely dangerous mission against a violent enemy, but she’d have been lying to say she felt anything else. She thought she detected the same emotion in the voices of her crew as they completed their internal radio checks and SAR-1 lifted off into the Moon’s wisp thin exosphere.

  Chief punched up the plotter and tapped a finger on the screen. “They just belted out of the Chinese EEZ and are running the edge. Twenty bucks says they’re fleeing Chinese pursuit. Probably organized crime.” Oliver glanced at the assignment log at the screens’ top. Sure enough, the words she expected were flashing there – INTEL DRVN. Control was basing the urgency on intelligence, probably secret. “Maybe it’s a triad.”

  “That’s my guess,” Chief said. “Not good.”

  “For them,” Oliver finished for him. “Get on that throttle, BM1.”

  “Aye aye, ma’am,” Pervez said and punched the aft thruster. The longhorn lurched and spun as Pervez set the course, and the Moon’s surface began to blur beneath them.

  “I need us on top of them before they decide they want back in the EEZ. We don’t need another confrontation with China today, thanks.”

  “On it, ma’am,” Pervez said.

  “XO,” Oliver radioed back to control, “what’s the status of the LSST?”

  “Still spinning up, boss, but they’re not dragging ass. They should be launching in ten minutes tops.”

  “Can you give us a line on the intel popping this off?”

  “Baskins says it’s a possible Shui Fong arms shipment gone pear-shaped.”

  “It’s a whose-what?”

  “Organized crime. Bad news, boss.”

  “Is the PLAN in pursuit?”

  “I’m trying to get a line on comms for them now. There’s a lot of traffic this close to the border, ma’am. Hard to tell if any of it is specifically CBDR with our bad guys. They’re sticking close to the EEZ, so I don’t think they intend a run deeper into our space. You have hot pursuit authority.”

  “Level with me, Wen. How bad are these guys? How worried do I need to be?”

  “I have a call in with the two, and they’re scrambling to get me briefed, but just from my knowledge? I’d be pretty damn worried.”

  “Yeah, that’s my thought too. We’ll intercept and board. Pin them for the LSST. Get them running, XO!”

  “All over it, ma’am.”

  “Got a visual,” Pervez said. “Half a nautical mile, port bow. Man, she is hauling ass.”

  Oliver leaned forward and squinted out the longhorn’s front window. She could see the vessel now, a squat, lozenge shaped monster at least twice the size of a six-pack. She could make out the orange and yellow striped tow fenders, two of them, fore and aft. It was in the process of folding back its solar sails, stripped bare of their ablative coating. Its aft thrusters were firing now, probably at the sight of SAR-1 on an intercept course. Without waiting to be told, Chief hit the blue lights.

  “OK,” Oliver said, “you all heard my conversation with XO. We are boarding this beast. I want to keep these… whoever they are, busy long enough for the LSST to get into position and do their thing. No heroics. We’re the anchor around their neck, nothing more.”

  “Aye aye, ma’am,” the crew answered in unison.

  “McGrath, try not to get shot again.”

  “Aye aye, ma’am,” McGrath answered.

  “Man, that’s big,” Oliver said. “That’s a twelve-pack?”

  “It is indeed,” Pervez answered. “Double the crew.”

  “XO,” Oliver toggled back to control. “We got anything approaching a count on the crew?”

  “That would be nice, wouldn’t it?” Ho responded immediately. “On the bright side, LSST is suited up and running boat checks.”

  “Go kick the two in the ass, XO.”

  “I’d have to pull my foot out to take another swing, boss.”

  Oliver silently cursed as the twelve-pack grew in SAR-1’s front window. The vessel had more thrust, but it needed to propel its greater mass, and SAR-1 steadily gained. Pervez tapped the joystick and the longhorn juked perfectly to port, sliding onto a course that would settle it on the aft tow-fender. “Here we go,” she said.

  “Gun!” McGrath shouted as a hatch popped open on the twelve-pack’s aft and an autocannon thrust up through it, swiveling to lock on the longhorn.

  “Got it!” Pervez’s voice was even as she tapped the joystick again and the longhorn shuddered, dancing left and right, never deviating from the direct course to the twelve-pack’s tow-fender.

  “XO! Are you seeing this?” Oliver radioed Ho.

  “Got it, boss. LSST is launching. Your call whether to wave off.”

  “What the hell is an autocannon doing on a hauler? Do the Chinese build these things differently?”

  “Nope. But bad guys do. COTP wants to know what your play is.”

  “We’re boarding. Do not let the Navy–”

  “Too late, boss. I’m sorry. They were already in the water, so to speak. Not sure if they heard about you collaring Scott or not, yet.”

  “I’m sure everyone in 11th Fleet knows already. They’re going to be ornery as hell. Wen, find a goddamn way to wave those fuckers off. This is going to be bad enough without them shooting up the place. You get Donahugh on the horn and remind her that no matter what happened with Scott, the Coast G
uard is the supported command on this op.”

  “Already trying. It won’t work. Be careful, boss.”

  “Worry about the bad guys. You don’t point a gun at the United States–”

  The muzzle of the autocannon flashed, and Pervez slapped the joystick. The longhorn dove to one side, shuddered with an intensity that Oliver knew meant they’d been hit. An instant later, Pervez had them back on course, blasting the aft thrusters hard in an effort to close the distance they’d lost.

  “Damage?” Oliver said.

  Chief was toggling through systems diagnostics. “We’re good. Clipped the sail housing. I wouldn’t risk deploying it, but we don’t need it now anyway.”

  The longhorn’s bow gun tracked as McGrath worked the controls. “Request SNO, ma’am. Let me light these fuckers up.”

  “Denied,” Oliver said. “We just staved off a shooting war with China, and we’re not going to start one now. Can we…”

  “I’ve got this, ma’am,” Pervez said, raising the longhorn’s nose and exposing their belly to give the nipple a chance to latch on. She punched the aft and roof thrusters in time, and the longhorn swept in.

  “Back off, BM1!” Chief said.

  “No way, Chief,” Pervez answered, “that’ll just put us in range longer. I am getting us in close. Once we’re on the tow-fender, we’ll be under that gun.”

  “If that turret can decline you’ll get us all killed!” Chief shouted.

  Pervez turned in her seat, letting Oliver see her face through her hardshell’s visor. “Ma’am, please. I can do this. I need you to trust me.”

  She was already turning back to the controls as Chief raised his hands. “Your call, ma’am.”

  That autocannon has a lock on us for sure. That round is in our sail housing instead of our cabin because they are trying to get us to wave off and don’t want to hurt anyone.

  She swallowed the sick worry in her throat. “Get us to soft dock, BM1.”

  “All over it, ma’am,” Pervez said and raised the bow higher. The gun disappeared from view, and Oliver struggled with the panic coursing through her, the itching certainty that any minute 23mm rounds would come ripping through their hull.