Sixteenth Watch by Myke Cole

Author:Myke Cole
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
ISBN: 9780857668066
Publisher: Angry Robot
Published: 2019-04-12T16:00:00+00:00

Oliver had the flag mess converted for her contubernium – the small round table reserved for her and her staff replaced by a long rectangular one big enough to accommodate the whole team. She pointedly made sure that no chairs were placed at either end, and that those ends were marked with black and yellow – CRIME SCENE – DO NOT CROSS tape she had Ho requisition from the logs officer. The crowd in the mess were polite enough not to stare directly, but she caught the sidelong glances and could overhear the whispered conversations. That’s OK, let them talk. I was sent here to win this, and the whole command has to be on board with that.

She was already at the table as the crew arrived, filled their trays and sat silently. Okonkwo smiled at her and gave her a polite dip of his head. Chief smiled as well, but made no attempt at conversation. McGrath was blank-faced as always, and Pervez sullen and petulant. Oliver almost started eating before she noticed Okonkwo bowing his head in prayer. Pervez rolled her eyes and was about to lift her fork to her mouth when a glare from Oliver caught her up short. She set it down and looked at the table until he was finished.

“How’s everyone doing?” Oliver asked as they set to work on their food. “Anything interesting happen on watch duty?”

“No, ma’am,” they all answered in unison, not looking up.

“That’s surprising,” Oliver said. “We had at least one SAR alarm every day in Yorktown, and that’s in the middle of nowhere, relatively-speaking.”

“Yorktown’s not nowhere,” Ho offered. He’s trying, at least.

“In terms of shipping traffic it is, compared to say, New York or Baltimore. Surely we have more traffic out here so close to the Chinese EEZ.”

Heads remained down, forks continued moving. Silence.

Oliver bit back her frustration and crossed her arms over her chest. “All right. Out with it.”

That brought the heads up, but did not get mouths moving.

“What’s going on, guys?” Oliver asked. “We had a bad day. Teams have bad days.”

“I think you’re right, ma’am,” Pervez said, her tone just barely respectful, “maybe we’ve ‘lost touch with the mission.’ Maybe we need to ‘honor our lost loved ones.’”

Alice had briefly gone through what Tom had called ‘her independent phase’ when she was sixteen. She’d tried sassing Oliver then a few times, with limited success, until Oliver had finally dropped the hammer and put a stop to it. Pervez sounded so much like the adolescent Alice that Oliver had to swallow the urge to laugh.

Still, she couldn’t allow even borderline insubordination. Don’t jump down her throat. That isn’t going to work with her. You want to bring her around, you’re going to have to meet her where she is. She doesn’t get how important this training is. She’s a racehorse set to pulling kids in a wagon. She wants to be out in the world doing the real thing.

Her conversation with Ho pricked at the back of her mind.

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