The Command

Dan thought about installing the generator versus letting the snipes have the night off. But they could get orders to sea again anytime. He told her reluctantly to swap out and test it as soon as possible, then grant additional liberty for the work center concerned. “Anything else?”

“We had a policy overnight stays, hotels, required a special request chit.”

“If you mean did I put in a chit to stay at the Regency—”

“No, sir, I didn’t mean you.” She unclipped a flimsy from her clipboard. “This is from Mr. Richardson and Ms. McCall.”

Dan looked it over. The strike officer and one of the helo pilots wanted to get a room at the Sheza Tower together.

“You didn’t want a no-dating policy. I went along with you. Then I got this.”

Since Richardson was a pilot, he wasn’t in Kim’s chain of command. But he didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of his officers … fucking each other, to use absolutely accurate language. Fornication wasn’t an issue in the civilian world anymore, at least in legal terms, but he’d read about an air force general getting fired for it. And Richardson? The guy was such a twit. A narcissistic blowhard. Dan remembered how Kim had looked at him on the way to see Niles, how she’d gazed so worshipfully at him—

Hotchkiss was looking at him like she could see every picture in his mind. “What, they couldn’t just get two rooms?” he said weakly.

“The frontiers of navy policy. Don’t ask something if you don’t want to know the answer.”

“What’s your call?”

“We should disapprove it.”

“Because it would be officially condoning it?”

“Exactly,” said Hotchkiss, compressing her lips in a subtle but extremely effective conveying of primness and contempt.

“I agree,” Dan said. He put an X in the Disapproved box and signed it in the CO’s space. “Okay, I’m out of here. I’ll check at the hotel desk if we go out to dinner or shopping or whatever.”

“Have a great time with your wife, sir,” Hotchkiss said.

Dan wondered what that tone of voice meant. Trying to keep it light, he said, “Any chance Chip’s going to make it out here, this cruise?”

She didn’t answer, just shrugged. Which was unlike her. But he was thinking about Blair, so he just turned away and returned the petty officer’s salute and ducked out from under the awning into brightness so intense he caught his breath. He went down the jetty with Palzkill, blinking, and showed his ID at the gate. The marine waved him into a crowded, heavily built up compound, past a movie theater playing The Fugitive and the Desert Dome lounge and a post office. The streets were full of dungarees and desert camo fatigues. At headquarters Palzkill mumbled to have a good day, and Dan went up the stairs.

* * *

Cobie hadn’t figured on going ashore, even after the briefing from the black Arab woman or whatever she was. The rest of the crew got liberty, but not the engineers. The older guys, the ones who’d been on steam-powered ships, “teakettles” they called them, said it used to be that way in every port. You had to light off a week before you sailed, long before anyone else had to be back from leave. You had to keep the boilers lit in liberty ports, in case you needed to get under way in a hurry. They said she was lucky to be on a gas turbine ship. Fifteen minutes from cold iron to cast off. She didn’t really care about how it used to be. She figured it was probably all about the same, and the most annoying things, like the whistles that went on and on till you were ready to scream, were what the navy liked most to keep around.

In the days since the seal failure and explosion M division had gotten the old turbine broken out and ready to move. They’d taken off the module walls, disconnected the hoses and piping, bleed air lines, and electronics leads, and unbolted and taken out the scatter shield. This was a four-piece steel assembly, each part an inch thick and upward of three hundred pounds, that was supposed to keep the turbine blades confined in case of explosive disassembly. Only Helm said they didn’t fly out when they came apart, they went backward into the engine. Which seemed to be what they’d done in this case, so she didn’t think they’d be putting the scatter shield back on. Especially since they’d lugged the pieces back aft that night and dropped them over the side. But that had been a bear, getting them unbolted and out of the module. There was zilch room to do this, and as the smallest, she’d done most of the inside work, S’d around the turbine with her boots sticking out.

She hadn’t seen Patryce since their screaming argument. Or, yeah, they’d seen each other. You couldn’t exactly miss someone, so many women in a space as small as the berthing compartment. Only now Co-bie Kasson didn’t register on Patryce Wilson’s radar. Even when they came face to face in the head, the third class just pushed by, bulling her out of the way.

Or at least she’d thought she was off her radar. Till Ina had said, “I hear you and Helm got something going. That right?”