They came within sight of the Duke’s moorage, and Amanda forgot the growing complications of her personal life. Loading operations had commenced, with a row of Navy deuce-and-a-halfs lined up at the foot of the aluminum gangway.
Work parties were already hogging a steady stream of crates and cases across the well deck and through one of the watertight doors into the hangar bay.
A final fuel top-off was under way as well. A heavy hose snaked up from a-dockside valve head and down through a deck hatch to an internal bunkerage point, carrying a flow of high-density kerosene into the destroyer’s tanks.
As Amanda and Christine crossed the sun-softened tarmac from the parking lot to the gangway, they noted a small group of people clustered at the gangway base. Three of them were Cunningham hands — the Officer of the Deck and the coverall-clad gangway security team. The other pair of seamen wore standard Navy dungarees and had seabags lying at their feet.
They all snapped smartly to attention at Amanda’s approach.
“Good morning, Mr. Selkirk,” she said, answering their salute. “What’s going on?”
“A couple of new hands reporting aboard, ma’am,” the OOD replied.
“Very good.” She looked over her new crewmen, reading name tapes and ratings badges and opening a couple of new mental personnel files. “Seaman Kirby … Seaman Langdon, I’m Captain Garrett, your CO. You’ve managed to sign on just as we’ve caught an emergency deployment order, so we’re all going to be a little busy for a while. Check in with the exec, Commander Hiro, for your duty stations and quartering billets. Once we’re at sea and we get things lined out, we’ll get a chance to talk. Until then, gentlemen, welcome aboard the Duke.” Amanda and her officers continued on up to the deck, leaving the two sets of enlisted hands to eye each other dubiously.
Finally, one of the new men said, “Hey, we’ve never done a cruise with a woman captain before. What’s the word?”
The two veteran Cunningham ratings exchanged the bored glances of seniors putting up with the new kids in school.
“The Lady’s okay,” the female half of the team replied, shifting the sling of her snub-barreled riot gun. “She sticks by the crew and she doesn’t get in your face over the small stuff. The big thing is that you gotta do your job.”
“Yeah,” her opposite number added darkly. “You let down the ship, and the Lady’ll hand you your cock in a hotdog bun.”
8
Clad in a worn set of work khakis, with a Cunningham baseball cap tugged low over her French-braided hair, Amanda Garrett lounged back in the bridge captain’s chair, one deck shoe braced comfortably against the wheelhouse grab rail.
They were exiting out into the deeper waters of Mamala Bay from the gut of Pearl Channel. Already she could note the darkening blue of the surrounding waters. Likewise, she could sense the first tug of the great open-ocean rollers coming in from the Pacific.
“All engines ahead standard. Make turns for twenty knots.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am,” the lee helm responded from the central bridge console. Dropping a hand down to the lever studded control pedestal that separated him from the helmsman, he rocked the throttles and power levers forward.
The rushing whine of the great turbogenerator sets increased.
There was a palpable surge of acceleration as the Duke tacked on speed, the V of snowy foam streaming away from under her forefoot broadening in response.
“All engines answering ahead standard. Making turns for two-zero knots.”
Amanda smiled to herself, reveling in the sensation, as a skilled rider might enjoy lifting a thoroughbred stallion into a canter.
Off the starboard bow, one of the big Honolulu tourist schooners lazed along on a breakfast cruise, cheating on the wind with her auxiliary diesels. Her rail became a solid wall of camera and binocular lenses as the big man-of-war swept past, and humbly, the sailing ship dipped her flag in salute.
“Quartermaster, reply with two on the siren, please.”
The Duke’s air horns blared, echoes returning faintly off the receding shoreline.
The schooner drew away astern, and Amanda shifted her gaze to the row of repeater monitors mounted above the brow of the bridge windscreen. Seeking out the navigational radar, she checked her clearance with the cruise vessel.
Okay, looking good.
“Navicom status, please?”
“We are at initial point, Captain,” the duty quartermaster replied from his workstation. “SINS and GPU cross-referenced and verified. Course is on the boards and Navicom is ready-to engage.”
Another brow telescreen displayed a computer-graphics chart of the Oahu approaches, and a glowing set of departure headings now materialized on it, angling away to the west.
“Very well. Helm, engage autopilot and go to Navicom.”
The helmsman tapped a pattern into his systems keypad.
Smoothly, the Duke’s prow began to come around into the rising sun as she hunted for her new course.
“Steering two six five degrees true, Captain. Autopilot tracking on marked headings.”
“Very well. Pass the word to all compartments. Stand down from Condition Zebra. Set cruise mode in all spaces as per Plan of the Day.”
At that declaration, the bridge crew could allow themselves to relax. They were clear of the harbor, and from here, if necessary, the Cunningham could take herself to the rendezvous point ten days away off the coast of China. Amanda pushed herself out of her chair and stretched. “Okay, Mr. Freeman,” she said, addressing the Officer of the Deck “You’ve got the con and the start of a beautiful day out here. Enjoy.”
She went aft to the hot-water urn in the chart room and made herself a mug of tea from her private stash of Earl Grey. Flying in the face of the purists, she dumped a packet of creamer into the brew along with a couple of sugar cubes. Sipping appreciatively, she went forward again and out onto the starboard bridge wing.
Crossing to the rail, she assumed the traditional Navy slaunchwise lean against it, a few inches down from Ken Hiro. She’d noted that her exec had been lingering out here during most of the departure.
“Misa and the kids weren’t dockside this morning,” she commented quietly. “Is everything okay?”
Rather guiltily, Ken straightened. He was generally a little stoic, but today Amanda had taken him by surprise.
“Uh. sure, Captain, everything’s fine. They never come down to the pier anymore when we haul out this early. Instead, we have this thing that we do I say my good-byes the night before, then I sneak out of the house the next morning before anyone else is awake. Misa has an alarm set, and after I’m gone she gets the kids up and they drive out to Keahi Point.”
He nodded toward the shoulder of the passage they were sweeping past.
“They watch us clear port from there It’s just something that works for us.”
“Sounds like as good a way as any,” Amanda replied, nodding in sympathetic agreement. Looking aft along the weather decks, she noted that Ken wasn’t the only one drawing out his farewell. Little groups of Cunningham sailors were lingering along the rails, watching Oahu disappear into the haze behind them. It was an endemic situation in the New Age Navy. The somewhat older, more career oriented crews meant more hands with dependents to leave behind. It was the trade off that had to be made for their experience and professionalism. Amanda could understand their feelings, but she couldn’t say that she shared them. For her, whether she was conning an 8,000-ton man-of-war or a twenty-four-foot cruising sloop, heading out had always been a time of renewal, a chance to shake free of the dirt of the land and find new challenges. She knew that this mind-set stemmed partially from the fact that she wasn’t leaving anything of real import behind her. Early on in her career Amanda had realized that, if she was to gain a ship of her own, she would have to travel light. Accordingly, she had organized a life that could be carried in a pair of suitcases or contained in a set of cabin lockers, deliberately avoiding all long-term entanglements, either physical or emotional.