Free The Command by David Poyer Page A

without following the Engineering Operating Sequencing System procedure. After the second sewage spill Dan had gotten her, Hotchkiss, and Porter together in his stateroom. Halfway through the counselingsession she’d jumped up, crying, and run out. Dan had yelled out of his door, “Auxo, I’m not finished with you yet.” But the only answer had been a sob.
    When he turned back, Porter had gone white. “Maybe I’d better go see what I can do.”
    â€œThere’s nothing you can do, Lin. If she can’t take a reaming, what’s going to happen when we have a main space fire, or major flooding? I want this lady off my ship by close of business.”
    â€œThat’ll end her career,” Hotchkiss said. Not disagreeing, just pointing it out.
    â€œThen she’ll have to find another one,” Dan told her. “She may be a nice person. That’s not the point. If she clutches under pressure, she’ll kill her shipmates. I’d do exactly the same for a guy who reacted like that.” He waited. “Am I wrong? This is the time to tell me.”
    And, at last, they’d both shaken their heads. And the next morning there’d been an empty bunk in Officer’s Country and a chief in charge of A division.
    Yeah, he’d pushed everybody, and he wasn’t too popular just now. According to his grapevine, some of the wives were having dark thoughts about what their husbands were doing with female sailors aboard. As long as they didn’t write their congressmen … As for readiness, they’d flubbed several exercises in the workup phase, but had come back the next day after reorganizing and retraining deep into the night. But there were still too many glitches, errors, misheard communications, overlooked safety procedures.
    The sun was heating the horizon from beneath like a torch under slowly reddening iron. He caught one of the phone talkers eyeing him through the window. The boy instantly looked away, but he straightened in the leather chair, trying not to look as wrung out as he felt.
    â€œReady for this, Captain?”
    He and the observer/liaison shared sticky buns as the horizon brightened, as the sun suddenly squeezed up, like one of Niles’s Atomic Fireballs spit out by the puckered sea.
    He hadn’t heard another word from Niles. Only silence from on high.
    The boatswain’s mate brought out his gas mask and their new anti-flash gear. Not Navy issue, but heavy, clumsy hoods improvised out of fiberglass cloth and gloves that were meant for aircrew. Wearing them in the heat meant pouring sweat and itchy rashes. But Dan had seen too many men die from burns to worry about comfort.
    He rubbed his face. Wondering if he was asking too much, if he wasprojecting on the outer reality the shadow that lived now within. Was it forehandedness? Or paranoia? The world was at peace. Why should he expect his people to train in the dark, taking mock casualties, taking hits, losing power, drill after drill till they were ready to drop?
    But he couldn’t help the suspicion, intuition, that somewhere under that eastern sky they’d come face to face with something they’d best be ready for. Not a test, or a drill, or an exercise. Something real. Something menacing. Something powerful.
    He didn’t even know what it might be.
    Only that it was there.
    ZERO-NINE-THIRTY. He picked up the rolling shape in his binoculars. A government-leased survey ship, flying for the purposes of the exercise the flag of a “hostile neutral,” the People’s Republic of Micara. It was idling three miles ahead, in what his scripted geography chart showed as the Strait of Benaventa.
Horn’s
embarked helicopter had completed the threat assessment and was drawing a smoke line back in their direction, coming up on bingo fuel state, when low fuel compelled her return. Yerega watched him. When Dan nodded, the boatswain’s hand was already on the 1MC