Weapons of choice

Evans listened to the Negro woman's speech with mounting distress. He couldn't believe she was just writing off the Astoria like that. After all, there were some decent holes punched in her own ship, courtesy of the old girl's eight-inch batteries. He could feel his anger building, but it never came to a head. He suspected the drugs they'd given him for his injuries might have been damping down his temper, as well. He had a strange feeling, like a fine head of fury was trying to build somewhere inside him, but every time it threatened to break, the anger slipped away.

He rubbed at his eyes with his good hand. They felt gritty and hot. The bruises on his face ached painfully, despite the drugs.

"I'll have to confer with Admiral Spruance," he said flatly. "He's already lost a few cruisers tonight. He won't be happy about scratching another one."

Anderson opened her mouth, ready to argue, but she held her peace.

"I'm sorry, Commander. Please excuse my poor manners. I don't mean to make it sound as if your ship or her crew are unimportant. I'm just playing the numbers. The equipment on the Leyte Gulf will be of tremendous value to your war effort. I don't want to give up on her, either. She's my baby. But she's been run through the heart. We can't make any headway without tearing each other apart, and we're already sinking. I'll have to confer with Admiral Kolhammer and the engineers, but I think they'll agree. The Leyte Gulf is finished, and so is the Astoria."

Chief Mohr had been suspicious when Davidson put himself forward for the cleanup crew in the confused snarl at the intersection of the two ships. Davidson was one of the laziest, shiftiest sons-of-bitches you'd never hope to meet. Mohr knew he'd only joined the navy to avoid a prison term for passing bad checks in Baltimore. The judge had given him the option of military service or the big house and Davidson, true to form, had joined the navy because he heard it had the best chow and the least exercise. He was also scared of flying.

It was almost reassuring, in a way, when Mohr crawled back into the Astoria to discover that Slim Jim was inexplicably absent. Moose Molloy had done his best to cover for the lazy bum, but that didn't necessarily work in Davidson's favor. Mohr waved away Molloy's excuses and determined to deal with the slacker later.

For now he had other problems. He'd just bruised his knuckles on the thick skull of some moron who'd grabbed a piece of ass over on the other ship. Personally, the chief couldn't see the problem. If you put a bunch of broads on a ship, they're gonna get their fucking asses grabbed. That was only natural.

But that Captain Anderson, who didn't look like anyone had grabbed her ass in a long while, had gone bitching to Commander Evans, who was over on the Leyte Gulf having his injuries tended to by their supermedics. Evans had gone to Mohr, and Mohr had gone to the source of the trouble, some dumbass gunner by the name of Finch.

"You grab her ass, Finch?" he demanded to know.

Finch had sort of smirked and shrugged, so Mohr had hauled off and slugged him one, right between the eyes. At that point, Captain Anderson had gasped. But what the hell had she expected him to do? A guy grabs some ass ain't his to grab, you put Chief Eddie Mohr on the job, the guy gets knuckled good and proper. Case closed. You woulda thought from her reaction that the knuckling was nearly as bad as the original ass grabbing.

"The fucking saints preserve me," Mohr grumbled as he hauled himself back into clear space aboard the Astoria. He was gonna get himself a corned beef sandwich and a coffee, and then he was gonna find that lazy fucking Slim Jim asshole and maybe he was gonna knuckle him some, too.

Lieutenant Commander Helen Wassman taped off the IV line and stood up to stretch her back. She'd been crouched over for nearly four hours, attending casualties from both ships. Her back ached and the muscles in her legs burned with fatigue. It had been nearly thirty hours since she'd rolled out of her bunk, and she wondered whether the time might be coming when she'd have to dial up a little stim flush from her implants.

"Doctor! Doctor, over here!"

The Leyte Gulf's medical officer had trouble focusing on the direction of the voice. The mess hall was full of wounded men and women. The worst cases had first call on the Gulf's relatively small hospital, where they were stabilized before being choppered across to the Clinton or the Kandahar-a process that had been complicated by the destruction of the helicopter bays. The patients had to be carried up onto the deck through the bridge structure, a long and winding route.

"Doctor! Please!"