21:57
She reached for the clock and, with practiced hands, turned off the alarm that was to go off in three more minutes. She had only intended for it to be a short power nap anyway. While she wasn’t technically needed in CIC for either the missile test or the search and rescue mission, she wasn’t about to put the burden on her crew while she sawed logs. Leadership bore responsibilities she was unwilling to pass on to others.
Beth still wore her blue coveralls but had kicked off her steel-toed boots before climbing into her rack. She bent over and slid her feet inside the worn leather footwear, then laced them up like she had done countless times before. It was pitch black, but she didn’t need the benefit of light to navigate the scant furnishings of her stateroom, and she rose from her bed and walked through the door into the head, where she flipped on the fluorescent light above the sink.
She stared at her reflection for a long minute, studying the bags under her eyes and the creased worry lines on her forehead. It seemed like only yesterday when she had stared back at herself from a mirror in the fourth wing of Bancroft Hall, questioning her decision to leave her family and friends behind and travel across the country to pursue a career in the Navy. The lines hadn’t been there then, but the worry had.
A distant knock on the door to the passageway broke her trance of reminiscence, and she glanced at her watch to see that the three minutes had elapsed.
Right on time, she thought.
She exited the head and made for the door on the far side of her office, opening it a crack. Master Chief Ben Ivy stood like a massive statue in the doorway, blotting out the red glow from the passageway beyond. “It’s time, ma’am.”
Beth nodded. “Let me brush my teeth. I’ll be right out.”
“Aye, ma’am.”
She closed the door softly, wondering how long Master Chief had been standing outside her door, waiting for the minute hand to point due north so he could rouse his captain. Fortune smiled on her when the Navy ordered her to the Mobile Bay and gave her Ben Ivy as her Command Master Chief. He was one of the good ones.
She turned back to the head and quickly brushed the fuzz from her teeth, enjoying the way the peppermint toothpaste invigorated her and propelled her further from her sleep. Then she splashed water on her face to try to dampen the heavy bags that came with command at sea, before pulling the ship’s ball cap down from the hook next to the sink and setting it onto her head.
Beth took a few moments to smooth back her hair, tucking loose strands up underneath the ball cap, then stepped back to study her reflection in the mirror. She knew Ben was waiting for her just beyond her stateroom door, but this last personal inspection had served her well since her very first day as a midshipman, and like all who called the sea their home, she was loath to break from tradition.
“You are the captain,” she said to herself in the mirror.
She flipped off the fluorescent light and turned for the door.
Punky killed the engine and swung open the door, squinting against the maelstrom of wind and loose debris flung into the air by the helicopter’s powerful rotors. After jumping out of the Carbon Cub, she reached back inside for the night vision goggles she had discarded before making her emergency landing, then turned to look at the edge of the cliff she had stopped less than a yard from.
That was close, she thought. Too close.
With the taste of bile in her mouth, she turned away from the cliff and shielded her eyes as she watched the military helicopter set down twenty yards from the Carbon Cub. She knew Colt wasn’t going to be happy she left his plane damaged and stranded on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but she couldn’t think about that now. The gunfire that had brought her down was enough confirmation she was on the right path.
She turned for the helicopter just as the side door slid open and a man in a green flight suit jumped to the ground and raced toward her. “Ma’am! I’m Petty Officer Rose, and I’m here to rescue you! Do you need any assistance?”
“I don’t think so!” she shouted over the tumult of the rotor wash.
The aircrewman gripped her arm gently and guided her to the open rear door, bracing to help her climb inside. But she brushed him off, nauseous with anxiety from being shot down but determined to stop TANDY before she could do anything else.
The pilot in the right seat turned to look back at her. “Ma’am, are you okay?”
She nodded. “Thanks for your help.”
“What the hell is going on? Why are you here?”
“We need to get in the air,” she said. “Before somebody comes to finish off the job.”
The pilot nodded at her, then turned back to the Seahawk’s complex controls. “Rose, keep an eye out. Let’s get her back to the Mobile Bay.”
“No!” Punky shouted. “I can’t leave.” Her stomach dropped as the pilot raised the collective to lift the helicopter off the butte and quickly nosed over to accelerate in the air over the water on the east side of the island. He banked right and followed the coastline south as it bent back to the west.
“What the hell is going on?” he asked again.
The aircrewman in the back turned to look at her. She knew she needed their help to find TANDY, but she wasn’t sure what to say that would convince them of that. So, she settled on the truth. “There is a hostile enemy force on the island.”
The other pilot turned to look at her. “Say that again?”
“I have been investigating a sailor suspected of giving secrets to the Chinese, and we believe they used him to help develop a weapon that hacks into the Joint Strike Fighter.”
“For what purpose?”
She thought that would be obvious, but it was really a question for Colt and Jug. Her only objective was to find TANDY before she could do it again. “I don’t know. But I believe she is attempting—”
Rose did a double take out the window. “Contact, right!” he shouted.
Punky darted across the narrow cabin, scrambling to look over the aircrewman’s shoulder, but she couldn’t see anything but darkness. She slipped the NVG bracket on over her head, then affixed the goggles in place and powered them on. As the green image stabilized on the island’s butte, she saw movement but couldn’t make out anything else. It was only after seeing the unmistakable muzzle flashes of an automatic weapon firing up at them that she recognized a man’s shape.
It’s not her.
“Break left!” Rose shouted.
The first rounds plinked into the helicopter’s skin as Punky felt the world tilt underneath her. She tumbled backward and fell hard on the deck as the aircrewman pulled himself hand-over-hand to the .50-caliber machine gun mounted in the door on the right side. She looked up and saw him jerk back on the charging handle, preparing to return fire.
“Talk to me, Rose,” the pilot shouted, banking the helicopter back to the right while dropping low to the earth. “Is that our guy?”
“That’s our guy!” he shouted.
It’s not, Punky thought, then rose to her feet and inched closer to the door.
“Cleared hot!” the pilot shouted.