The Command

That afternoon everybody from the other sections, Punchy and Drone and Ina and one of the hull techs they called Mr. Blonde, after the Michael Madsen character in Reservoir Dogs, came down. They stripped the switchboard and cleaned it, and Mr. Blonde burned out the disconnect links with the torch. After a while Patryce came down with root beers, beaded cool cans they sucked gratefully, and the scuttlebutt was they were headed for Jubail to meet their new engine. She said she was off watch, she could stay and help Cobie out. Cobie wasn’t too sure about that, but what the hell. They stripped the wiring out and got both switchboards disassembled and the electricians started putting it back together, but that would take longer than taking it apart. Then Chief Bendt put them on stripping down the low-pressure compressor, but it was more fucked than it looked. Some of the heads and blocks had to be replaced. Helm wanted her to help him get the covers off the generator rotor. When they did, black water and shit came pouring out of the casing, with chunks of burnt insulation. It stank, big-time.

She asked him, “Is this gonna be a big job, Mick? Replacing the GTG?”

“You’re gonna see it, Cober.”

Cober? Well, it was better than Sugar Mama. “Ever done it before?”

“In Barcelona, in the yard. I don’t think anybody’s done it out here before.”

Osmani came by as they were putting beam clamps in the overhead, setting up the chain falls. He asked how much the rotor weighed. Helm told him twelve tons.

“Twelve tons?”

“You’ll see. This is a solid piece of copper wiring and stainless shaft as big as your desk in the log room.”

Cobie was looking at Osmani, kind of admiring his eyebrows and his skin. He wasn’t hairy, like a lot of the guys. He gave her a smile, and she switched her eyes away.

And found herself looking at Patryce. She’d come back down from the compressor where she’d been talking to the guys.

Maybe it was seeing Cobie looking at him. She didn’t want to think that was it. But Patryce started to try for Osmani’s attention. Cobie didn’t notice at first. She just thought Wilson was acting silly. Then suddenly she realized what was going on.

Patryce was coming on to the Wiz. And, true, he was OK-looking, with that smooth brown skin and dark eyebrows and kind of twisted smile. But he was an O. Not only an O, but in their chain of command. But there Wilson was coiling herself around a stanchion like some hot-tie at the Full Moon A Go-Go. Asking him where he was from and how he got to be an officer. Then, God help her, she lay down on the deck and gazed up at him. Cobie couldn’t believe her eyes. Even Helm was staring. “Wilson,” he said, “don’t you have something to do back in the Aux spaces?”

“I’m off watch. This is how you learn, working on the gear. Isn’t that right, sir?”

“Definitely,” Osmani said. Smiling down at her, like he didn’t know what was going on. Or else did, and didn’t mind. “You have to cross-train to get the big picture.”

Cobie gritted her teeth, watching her play coy.

But eventually Osmani drifted out, like the Os did when you were working and obviously didn’t want to talk to them, and after that Patryce didn’t want to help out as much, and finally left. Then the word came over the 1MC, early meal for watch reliefs. She asked if she could eat. Helm said yeah. She went back to the berthing space. Wilson wasn’t in her rack, but she found her at the table in back reading an old People. She pulled out a chair. “Patryce, what were you doing with Osmani?”

She looked up, startled. “Me?”

“Coming on to him like that? Jeez.”

“ ’Zat a problem? If he’s yours, I’ll get off the bus.”

“He’s not mine. He’s not anybody’s. You can’t fuck every guy on the ship!”

Her face set. Sounds like fun to me. What’s the fucking problem, Kasson? Can’t you stay in your rate?”

She scratched her forehead, trying to think. But her fingers hit the bandage and her mind slid off whatever it was she was trying to put together. Then she had it again. “Look. We’re going places we never could before. Like on this ship. Like, someday my daughter’s going to be grown-up. When guys look at her, what are they going to see? Just another piece of ass? Or somebody who can do a job, too?”

“You are so weird,” Wilson said, examining her like she’d grown horns and a tail. “Do you have any idea what you’re talking about?”

“I’m talking about — Never mind. Look, you just can’t hook up with everybody aboard who wants a quick lay. The whole ship’s talking about it.”

“I don’t ‘hook up with everybody’ Where the hell are you getting this shit?”

“All right, I’ll tell you. You know, like in the helo with the helo crew? And the weight room, the guys you give massages to? Bartlett, from the ship’s store? I saw that. At the Daiquiri Palace. You can’t tell me I didn’t see that.”

“So I made some guy’s day, so what.”

“Guys don’t keep secrets, Patryce.”

“So what? Let them talk.”