Damn it.… He cleared his throat again and rasped, “I just came from commissioning a destroyer named after a woman who died under my command. USS Cobie Kasson. Any idea we’re not supporting our female members is flat wrong.” He gave it a beat, then went back to the formula. “Are there any more witnesses you’d like to call, or additional statements or evidence you would like to present?”
Peeples shook his head, looking enervated, but beside Dan, Tausengelt stirred. The senior enlisted adviser growled, “Captain, a comment.”
“Speak your piece, Master Chief.”
“Basically, I agree with what you said and all, the command policy about supporting female members. But on the other side, it’s not really fair to try this kid on how politically correct he is when he loses his temper. Or give him some kind of extra punishment because of it.”
Dan sighed again, inwardly. Now he had Tausengelt, McMottie, and the chief master-at-arms, the three most influential chiefs on the ship, glaring at Singhe and Scharner, while beside Dan, Staurulakis was staring at him expectantly. He harrumphed and they all looked at him. “I appreciate everyone’s input. After due consideration, I am imposing the following punishment: sixty days’ restriction to the ship and half pay for three months, the half pay to be suspended for a period of six months. To clarify this, Peeples, you’ll serve the EMI and restriction. If you succeed in not repeating your offense for six months, your pay will not be docked. But if you screw up like this again, I’ll revoke the suspension and your pay reduction will start then.
“I strongly advise you to take this opportunity to revise how you interact with your seniors. Petty Officer Scharner, you are reminded to exercise fairness and restraint in dealing with your juniors, just as you expect fairness from those above you in the chain of command.” He paused, but got only weak “Yessirs” from them both. He snapped, “Dismissed.”
“Accused: Cover. Ready… two. About face,” said Toan. “Forward… harch.”
When the door closed on them Dan snapped the binder shut and handed it to the exec. She looked remote. Singhe, angry. Danenhower, puzzled. The chiefs left quickly, speaking to none of the officers.
The chief engineer, still frowning, went to the sideboard and valved coffee into a heavy mug. “Uh, what just happened?” he muttered.
“You think that was a fair sentence, Bart?”
“For Peepsie? Oh, sure. Pretty much what they usually get, right? For a first-time fuckup. But what was all that from Amy?” He lowered his voice, glancing toward the exec. “And the XO nodding, agreeing with her?”
Dan didn’t answer. He’d hoped this whole Singhe versus the Chief’s Mess fight was over, but it looked like it was on again. He raised his voice. “Cheryl, we need to talk. About the exercises. We’re heading into dangerous waters. I want us to be ready.”
“Yes sir. Certainly, sir,” his exec said, expressionless, gaze eluding his. She flipped her PDA open. “Let’s see what we have planned.”
6
Despite the wind, the clouds never seemed to move. Since dawn, they’d been visible only now and then through low plaques of fog that hugged the sea. Beyond them a burning sky should have belonged to some hellish planet much closer to the sun. six- to eight-foot seas were locomotived by winds from the southwest of twenty knots, with gusts to thirty. The bulwark of the bridge wing that Dan leaned on was too hot to touch with bare skin. The arid wind spasmed his throat; after the icy air in CIC, the heat made his temples throb. Right now they were in one of the gaps in the fog. The blue sea rolled, streaked with foam but otherwise empty, for ten thousand yards in the direction they’d be firing.
He lowered the binoculars. “Check again with Combat.”
“Combat confirms: range clear, both radar and visual.”
“Very well.” He coughed into a fist and screwed bright yellow foam plugs into his ear canals. “Batteries released.”
The phone talker repeated the command, and the first rounds cracked out of the chain gun, followed by light gray smoke that blew aft as the ship left it behind. Dan followed the projectiles in the binoculars by the furrowed instantaneous trace they left, like a crease in reality itself. The target rocked and rolled amid blue swells, a lashup of empty oil drums and scrap dunnage daubed fluorescent orange. Gray-helmeted, life-jacketed, the gunner’s mates took turns at the pedestal-mounted gun, fitting their shoulders to the yoke to trigger bursts of five to seven rounds. Spray fountained up, obscuring the target. He braced his elbows, watching. The 25mms seemed more accurate, or maybe just easier to aim, than the 50-cals. And the rounds would hit harder, though a .50 was nothing to sneeze at.
He lingered on the wing as control was shifted to the remote operating consoles, just inside the doors. The operators twitched joysticks, watching screens. This time the rounds perforated the target. Within seconds, as the white spray subsided, it rolled over and disappeared beneath the blue.
“Target destroyed.”
“Very well. Come back to base course.” Dan crossed the pilothouse to his chair, stowed his glasses, and climbed up. And once again, resumed flipping through, and worrying about, that morning’s messages.
After a five-hour refueling stop in Djibouti, then exiting the Bab-el-Mendeb, Savo had reported in to Commander, Task Force 151, the antipirate coalition that patrolled the Arabian Sea. Since then she’d been trolling the Gulf of Aden and east coast of Africa, what the Navy called the “internationally recognized transit corridor” or IRTC. Maritime Trade Operations was reporting dozen of attacks each month on commercial vessels, and not long before, a private yacht had been hijacked and four Dutch nationals killed. A Russian combat tug, patrolling off Socotra, had reported boarding and sinking a confirmed pirate. So far, though, no one on Savo had glimpsed Edward Teach, Johnny Sparrow, or indeed any pirates whatsoever.
Meanwhile, the Iranians were threatening again to close the Gulf to foreign, meaning Western, shipping. He reread the top message: a maritime advisory for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, southern Arabian Gulf, and western Gulf of Oman. It warned about swarm attacks by the Revolutionary Guard Corps, or Pasdaran, an ideological force separate from the regular Iranian navy.
He fidgeted, annoyed. That was their mission. Not hanging out here inspecting sixty-foot fishing dhows. But the shortage of frigates, now that the Perrys had almost all been retired or given away, meant the Navy had to use high-value ships in low-value missions. “This saves money?” he muttered.
“Sir?” Max Mytsalo, the cherub-faced officer of the deck. He was new to the job, but so far, Dan liked the way he stood his watches. A little overanxious, but better that than bored.
“Nothing. Just talking to… nothing.”
He caught the glances from around the pilothouse, and cursed. Exactly what he wanted them to pass around the ship: that the skipper was talking to himself. Still, their patrol area had been shifted farther east, closer to Socotra. Hormuz was only a thousand miles’ steaming from there.
He was in his in-port cabin with the light off, trying to conduct a quick eyelid inspection, when the ship heeled in an unscheduled turn, superstructure creaking to a new rhythm. His eyes snapped open. Two seconds later the cabin J-phone and his Hydra went off simultaneously. He got to the radio first. “CO.”
Pardees, for once sounding not totally carefree. “Captain, got a report from a ro-ro in the IRTC. Shadowed by two boats acting in a suspicious manner. Now under attack with antitank grenades. Plots twenty miles to the east. Coming to course to intercept, increasing speed to flank.”