The Command

As the bus got closer, she saw the ships past a field of tall iron tanks. Like big gray buildings, with the sun flashing off their windows. The water, green and rippling in the sun. They pulled onto the pier, and Ina pointed out a canvas sign along the gangplank: USS THOMAS W. HORN. VALIANT MEN. She looked at it twice, then realized it must be the ship’s motto.

The heavy girl, Patryce, said, “Think they named the ship after the guys?”

“What do you mean?”

“Three hundred horny guys. Well, I get just as horny as they do. So horny Horn, look out. Here we come. Hell bitches in heat.”

Cobie limped her seabag up the ramp into a blizzard of faces. The girls were shunted here and there, but none of the guys looked at them. In the passageways they twisted to slide by, like just touching them would infect them with something. Then Control, a big room with panels of gauges she recognized from the Hot Plant at Great Lakes. A chief told them this was home now, if they had a problem to come to him first.

Deeper still, down and aft. To aft female berthing, 3-382-3-L. A huge fan coil unit roared just inside the door. Past that were many narrow metal bunks with blue curtains, stacked three high. Close-smelling, hot, with gray terrazzo decks and fluorescent lights hanging on springs. At one end an escape trunk led up. At the other, a head with two urinals, one toilet, and two sinks smelled like a truck-stop restroom. A sawed-off shell casing painted red, and a sign, TAMPONS HERE NOT IN THE SHITTER. YOU CLOG IT YOU CLEAN IT.

Her own personal space turned out to be a top bunk with a bleed air line as big around as her chest suspended four inches above her face. A motor droned on the other side of the bulkhead, and an emergency breathing pack was mounted where her feet would go. A high school-type locker smelled like something had died in it. At the bottom lay a withered pack of Trojans.

She suddenly felt trapped. Scared. The ship smelled like oil and paint and a heavy funk underneath, like some guy who sweated hard and didn’t shower enough. Guys were real territorial. She knew that from when she’d decided to clean out Toby’s Mustang. The berthing space felt safe. But outside of that she didn’t see any other girls, just one woman in khakis she’d glimpsed down a passageway. That reassured her a little, the woman officer.

She ended up many decks below the last light of day or breath of air, down metal ladders and bangy gratings. In front of five hostile-looking jerks in scuffed boots and blue coveralls, sitting around in front of a worn console in main engine room number one, Main One. A tall stubble-chinned guy with hollow cheeks, a crew cut, and sweat circles under his arms stuck out his hand. He had dark eyes and looked at her out of the sides of them, no hint of a smile. “Petty Officer First Class Helm. You’ll be workin’ for me.”

“Cobie Kasson.”

“Where you from, Cobie?”

“Louisiana.”

“Yeah? Whereabouts?”

“Lafayette.”

“Kasson, that a Cajun name? You like that zydeco stuff?”

“It’s my mom’s name. She’s from Idaho. She raised me after my daddy left.”

“Lemme guess. Straight out of boot camp, A school, Hot Plant, four-year obligation, that right?” She nodded. “How’d you do in school?”

“Eighty-two.”

“That’s not too good, is it?”

“I was UA for eighteen days.”

UA was unauthorized absence, AWOL, going over the hill. The other guys looked up from polishing their boots, reading their comics. They went back to them when she said her daughter’d got sick and the navy wouldn’t give her compassionate leave. They’d restricted her for the rest of A school and docked her pay.

“Well, they teach a lot of stuff at that school we don’t use here. See, this ship was built in 1977. How many cars you see on the road from ’77? The gens are shit, they gave ’em to us off the Haylor. And the waste heat boilers, I don’t know why they put those things on here. We have to make the parts, or buy ’em out in town.”

“Well, I’m eager to learn all I can and start to—”

A second class rattled down the ladder, saw her, looked away instantly. He said, riding over what she was saying, “Chief says we got to cough up another mess crank. That ditzy B-bitch got the monthlies so bad she can’t get out of her bunk. The em-dee-em-ay wants somebody else.”

“Hell with him. We ain’t on the hook. If she’s sick, he got to go to another division.”

“Bolo says he’s countin’ bein’ on the rag same as sick-leaved off. He wants another guy or none of us are eatin’.”

Cobie felt her heart sink. Not mess duty. Not the day she reported aboard. But to her surprise Helm said, “Ricochet, get your ass down there. And wash your fuckin’ hands before you stick ’em in our food.”

X-Men thumped to the gratings. “Fuck that, man! I just got off!”

“You’re only back on till the … regularly assigned person feels better.” Helm smiled at her.