Sixteenth Watch

by Myke Cole

  I need you to trust me.

  Christ, BM1.

  “MK3!” Pervez was shouting.

  “I’m on it!” Okonkwo had already dropped into the nipple gangway, cutting torch over his shoulder.

  “Long guns up!” McGrath raced after him. “Stack on me!”

  Oliver knew it was only the space of a few seconds before she felt the gentle nudge as the nipple grabbed hold of the twelve-pack’s tow fender, but it felt like an eternity. “Soft dock!” Okonkwo called. His voice was tenser than Oliver would have liked, but in his defense, this was scaring the shit out of her too.

  Chief dropped down into the gangway as she tapped Pervez on the shoulder. “BM1, I need you with us. I want all guns in the fight.”

  She toggled to the crew wide channel. “Cleared hot, everybody! We’ve already taken fire, so we are going in ready to stop the threat! Suppressing fire! I want that vessel disabled and its crew pinned down until the LSST gets here. Roger up down the chain! Sound off!”

  She listened as each member of the crew acknowledged her order, then toggled back to Ho. “XO, you got all this? Where’s my LSST? We’re about to get into a fight and I’d prefer it to be as short as possible.”

  “Roger all, boss. They’ve launched and are inbound. Just keep them from jetting off until they arrive.”

  Oliver paused, let herself feel the longhorn trembling through her spider boots. Sure enough, the twelve-pack was still firing its aft thrusters, dragging the longhorn along. “Okonkwo! Can we fire the longhorn’s thrusters to arrest our movement?”

  “Negative, ma’am. Belly thrusters shut down when we cover the tow-fender. Attitude thrusters would just set us spinning.”

  “Damnit. OK, I need you thinking about a way to kill these engines.”

  “I already know ma’am,” he radioed back. “There’s an access panel inside where I can cut the propellant, but that’s not going to stop our inertia. We’ll need to fire the bow thrusters for that.”

  “Can you do that without us having to fight our way to the helm?”

  “Never tried on a Chinese-made twelve-pack, ma’am, but I bet I can figure it out.”

  “Damn right you can, start cutting.”

  “Cutting, aye, ma’am.” She heard a clunk as he retracted the nipple, hugging the two vessels tight together. “Hard dock! Venting atmosphere!” She saw sparks beginning to fly up the nipple gangway below her. “Exterior hatch is sealed,” Okonkwo radioed. “I think I can cut the… Got it!” She heard his panting as he raced the few feet into the airlock to the interior hatch. “Now I’m cutting!”

  She toggled back over to Ho. “Any sign of pursuit?”

  “Looks like it boss,” Ho answered. “Two Chinese-flagged government vessels CBDR with your position. They look like they’re going to arrive before the LSST.”

  “Well, if they’re PLAN, hopefully they’ll thank us for stopping criminals.”

  “Hope’s a dangerous strategy, ma’am. And that’s not your biggest problem.”

  “Jesus, XO.”

  “Yeah, well. The Navy is going to beat everyone else, including the LSST.”

  “Fucking Christ. Make damn sure they know we’re already cutting in. I need them to keep it in their pants long enough for the LSST to arrive. Make sure they know that we’ve possibly got two PLAN boats inbound. I do not want a shooting war over our fucking heads. Christ, twice in one day.”

  “Already on it,” Ho said. “Be careful, ma’am.”

  She toggled back to the crew channel as she prepared to drop into the nipple gangway, but before she could speak the deck lurched under her feet, throwing her against her seat. A moment later the ship stabilized and she pushed herself off, dropping down into the gangway. “What the hell just happened?” she radioed her crew.

  “They just cut hard to port and then burned the aft thrusters again,” Chief answered. “We’re heading back into the Chinese EEZ.”

  Oliver’s stomach sank. “Why the hell would they do that?”

  “Because something on this side of the border scared them, ma’am,” Chief replied. “Anything you want to tell us?”

  “Navy’s here, aren’t they, ma’am?” Pervez asked.

  “Not yet,” Oliver answered.

  “They’re coming?” Okonkwo asked. “Who’s coming?”

  “Everybody!” Oliver said. “Find a way to fire those bow thrusters before we wind up in Beijing. How’s that cut coming?”

  “Almost there.” Okonkwo grunted.

  “Chief, please tell me you hailed them,” Oliver said.

  “Three times,” Chief answered. “No reply.”

  “I also tried them in Mandarin,” Ho broke into the channel, “so we’re covered there. Sent them two text cables too, in English and Chinese. No replies. Might be they’ve had enough of talking to the Coast Guard for one day, but I’ll keep after it.”

  Oliver swallowed. “Thank God for you, Wen, seriously.”

  She dropped into the gangway and took up the anchor position behind Chief. Okonkwo had just finished his cut, dropped his torch, lifted his duster and faded back behind McGrath. The boarding officer lifted his hand, crossed his first and second fingers in the air, then spread them. Crisscross by twos. He then made a fist followed by spreading his fingers. Deploying explosive munition, get ready.

  Okonkwo gave a nod that was nearly imperceptible through his hardshell, moved up alongside the cut plate.

  “These are likely bad hombres,” Oliver radioed. “Get ready to fight.”

  The stacked line trembled as each member nodded, edged a little further out of the fatal funnel that would be opened once Okonkwo knocked the plate aside.

  “Here we go!” Okonkwo said, then slammed the butt of his duster into the cut section of the plate.

  The blast of metal dust exploded through the opening just as soon as the plate fell inward, followed by a second, and then a hornet round that punched through the cladding at the back of the nipple gangway.

  “XO! Taking fire!” Oliver radioed Ho, “Where the fuck is my LSST?”

  “Jesus Christ, boss. Navy boats practically shouldered them to beat them out. They’re still on course, but the Navy’s blaming them for a near-collision, and telling them to wave off.”

  Oliver fought against the sick rage bubbling up her throat. “Are you fucking kidding me?” No, you cannot worry about this now. For now, you keep your head down and your crew safe.

  Ho echoed the thought a moment later. “Don’t think about it now, boss. Either way, cavalry’s coming. Don’t get shot.”

  “Working on it.”

  “Fire in the hole!” McGrath radioed, tossed a grenade through the opening. The team rolled aside as the flash, eerily silent without atmosphere, was followed by a third cloud of dust.

  “Go! Go! Go!” McGrath shouted and high-stepped through the hole, racing through the twelve-pack’s compromised airlock and into the cargo bay.

  Oliver took up the rear, squinting to peer through the cloud of smoke, metal dust and drifting plastic particles. The twelve-pack’s interior was a tunnel of silver-white fog, slowly clearing as it was bulled aside by the passage of the crew’s charging bodies. One moment, there was only Chief’s plunging back, and the next she blinked and realized just how much trouble they were in.

  Most six-packs stored their cargo in port and starboard bays, leaving the aft clear as a gangway to load machinery, or to give teamsters space to work. This twelve-pack had converted that space to storage, packed to the ceiling with gray plastic crates now scored and abraded by explosions of dust, lids peeled back and knocked askew, yellow Chinese lettering so badly scored it was well-past readable. They had been tied-down against the micro-gravity, but the sharp metal particles of the dust clouds had turned the nylon strapping to tattered ribbons. The crates towered to either side of the team, extending the fatal funnel from the entry point all the way into the twelve-pack’s interior, tall solid walls of materiel to either side of them, pinning them into a st
raight-line shooting gallery with no way to get out of the line of fire.

  “Shit,” McGrath muttered, and Oliver could see him begin pumping off rounds from his duster, not worrying about hitting anything, desperate to simply keep the unseen enemy’s heads down, to blind them before they could get their wits about them enough to return fire down a passageway where they literally could not miss.

  Oliver leaned back, craned her neck to look out the top of her hardshell’s visor. Was that a gap she saw between the top of the stacked crates and the ceiling? No time to think on it, she would have to pray it was. She dropped her duster to hang in its sling and pushed off Chief’s shoulders, sending herself shooting up until her hardshell helmet knocked against the ceiling. She turned to her right and nearly cried out with relief at the sight of a space just big enough for her to scramble on her back.

  “Everybody, back it up!” she called into the radio.

  “Ma’am, I…” McGrath was grunting as he racked the slide and fired again and again.

  “Back it up right now! I’m about to get you cover!”

  The team jostled each other as they performed the difficult maneuver of moving the stack backward, bounding in the micro-g, timing their hops to use the momentum of the person in front of them to propel them in the right direction. Guess the simulator training wasn’t for nothing.

  The cloud of dust was settling at the far end of the passageway where it widened into the twelve-pack’s cabin. Oliver could see dark shapes moving beyond it.

  A hornet round streaked out of it, blazing down the passageway and colliding with McGrath. “I’m hit!”

  “Hang on!” Oliver scuttled backward on her backside, got her feet braced behind the first tower of stacked crates, and shoved. McGrath had just cleared the way, driven backward by the momentum of the hornet round as the stack tumbled across the passageway, tops popping off, dumping a stream of plastic packing pellets, dotted with the slender, insectile shapes of guns across the deck. The crates tumbled on their sides, choking the passageway, creating a low barrier that Oliver knew wouldn’t offer real cover, but would at least obscure the line of fire.

  The crew turned and began to scramble into the tiny alcove she’d created, out of the fatal funnel. Oliver immediately scooted to her right and toppled the next stack of crates as Pervez took a knee and pumped three more rounds from her duster up the passageway before scrambling after her shipmates into the rapidly growing safe-zone.

  After the third stack of crates was down, the team had a large enough area to squat out of the line of fire, and Oliver dropped down off the stack and observed her handiwork. The pile of guns, packing pellets, and crates was roughly three feet high, and thick enough that Oliver felt confident it might give them some protection from dust, at least.

  Chief had drawn a hornet pistol and was stacked on the edge of their enclosure, covering in case the enemy decided to rush their position. Oliver squatted in front of McGrath. “You OK?”

  She could see through his visor that his emergency seal had activated, swept her eyes down until she located the small black hole in the left side of his hardshell’s torso.

  “Yeah,” his answer was pained. “It got meat this time, but I don’t feel like a bone’s broken. Doesn’t hurt when I breath.”

  “What’s your HUD saying?”

  “There’s liquid. I’m definitely bleeding, but I think I’ve got time. Hornet round’s propellant probably cauterized when it went through.”

  “XO? What are you seeing on your end?”

  “Just like the man said,” Ho answered. “He’ll make it. I think.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ, ME3,” Oliver said, “you have got to stop getting shot.”

  “Sorry, skipper.” McGrath winced.

  “XO, what’s our position?” Oliver asked.

  “You’re still hauling into the Chinese EEZ,” she could hear Ho tapping keys in the background. “We can follow under hot pursuit, but this is about to go seriously dynamic. It would help if you could stop the boat, or get it turned around.”

  “Chief! How many contacts downrange?”

  “Uh, I count ten, boss. Give or take one or two,” Chief said.

  “I’m putting you in remedial math class when we get back to Pico, Chief.”

  “With all due respect, boss,” Chief ducked back as another hornet round streaked past, “you come up here and count moving targets through a dust cloud.”

  “MK3, can you get this boat stopped?” Oliver radioed Okonkwo.

  Okonkwo was already scrambling his way up a stack of crates, leap frogging his way up by pushing off the opposite stacks in the micro-g. “Should be an access hatch somewhere back here.”

  He crawled his way aft, crate lids toppling in his wake.

  “Dude!” Oliver radioed. “Do not put debris in our egress route!”

  “You want the bow thrusters fired or not, skipper? I’m following the propellant lines. There’ll be an access panel.”

  “You sure it’s the same on a Chinese hauler?” Pervez asked.

  “Chinese need to clear their propellant lines same as anyone else,” Okonkwo answered. “Got it!”

  Oliver turned to look, saw Okonkwo had crawled all the way to the vessel’s stern, where a plastic pipe was penetrating the bulkhead. He reached out, ripped a panel away, sending it drifting down into the passageway, and thrust his head into the dark void beyond, his helmet lights turning on.

  “Shit!” Chief muttered, leaning out and firing at someone Oliver couldn’t see. “BM1, give me some dust!”

  Pervez rolled out, her long gun flashing, before rolling back. “They’re coming, skipper.”

  “Well, don’t let them!” Oliver radioed back.

  “They don’t seem interested in my opinion,” Pervez said as she rolled out again, firing before jerking back. “Fuck! Got singed on that one!”

  “Look at me!” Oliver raced to Pervez, turning her so she could see her visor. The plastic was badly scored by metal dust, but the seal indicators were still green, and the failsafe didn’t appear to have fired.

  “Fuck, skipper. I can’t shoot like this,” Pervez said.

  “It’s a duster,” Chief said, “just point in a vague direction and you’ll be fine.”

  “Okonkwo!” Oliver said.

  “Almost…” The engineer’s voice was taut with effort. “Hope this is the right one.”

  “What do you mean you hope this is the right one?” Oliver demanded.

  “I can’t read Chinese, ma’am! Everybody hold on to something.”

  “There’s nothing to hold on to!” Oliver called back.

  The ship lurched to one side, and Oliver felt the sudden stability of centrifugal force as she slammed into a stack of crates. They were spinning.

  “Guess that was starboard thrusters,” Okonkwo grunted. “Sorry.”

  A moment later, the vessel shuddered, stabilized. “Was that you?”

  “No,” Okonkwo said, “that came from the helm. OK, I’ve got it now. Hang on… again.”

  Oliver felt the ship lurch again, her body pitching forward and slamming into the stack of crates before her. “XO?”

  “You’re moving backward now, ma’am,” Ho said. “Unfortunately, post spin, it’s got you moving laterally to the border. You’re not going any deeper in, at least.”

  “Well, that’s something.”

  “Yeah, well, the Chinese pursuit is making contact as we speak, so fingers crossed they’re in a good mood.”

  “No response to your hails? What’s the Navy–” She was cut off as the ship shuddered, and she felt the deck slow under her feet. “XO? What’s happening?”

  “You’ve got a Chinese vessel on the opposite tow-fender,” Ho said. “They’re at soft dock already. My guess is that they’re cutting now.”

  “They are,” Okonkwo said. “I can see sparks from the conduit.”

  “XO, got a read on their transponder? Who is it exactly?”

  “Ma’am, do you have
good cover?” Ho asked.

  “Not great, but enough to hold what we’ve got until rescue.”

  “Do me a favor and stay in it?”

  “This dance of a thousand veils shit is seriously pissing me off, XO.” Oliver said.

  “It’s PLAN naval infantry, ma’am,” Oliver could tell Ho was desperately struggling to stay calm. “Stand by for the Chinese marine corps.”

  Oliver managed to toggle her radio off just before she spoke. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

  Okonkwo dropped down next to her. “They’re in, ma’am.”

  Chief ducked back as a hail of hornet rounds blazed past, followed by a sizzle of smoke from further down the nipple gangway. “Jesus Christ, ma’am. Plasma railgun fire. The nipple is shearing. We’re gonna lose the longhorn.”

  “What’s the status in the cabin?” Oliver asked.

  “I think the first crop of bad guys are down, ma’am,” Chief said, “but we’ve got a new crop of bad guys now. They’re putting a mobile barricade into the p-way.”

  “Tell me they’re not advancing. I do not want to get into a gunfight with the PLAN.”

  Chief ducked out into the passageway, rolled back as several crackling plasma balls whipped past. “Momma taught me that lies make baby Jesus cry, ma’am. Looks like we’re already in a gunfight.”

  “XO! What’s the status on rescue? PLAN is advancing on our position and we’re about three ticks away from being overrun.”

  “LSST is on scene, but the Navy’s keeping them back. Navy small boats are on top of you, but both tow-fenders are covered. They’ll have to cut through the hull.”

  “MK3! How long will that take?”

  Okonkwo had braced himself against a stack of crates, his duster ready for the first PLAN marine to round the corner. “Too long, skipper.” Before he toggled off his radio, Oliver could hear him whispering a prayer.

  “OK, Chief!” Oliver looped a gauntleted hand into McGrath’s armpit. “Help me get McGrath up.”

  “Where are we going, boss?” Chief asked.