Terror At Dawn

ONE

By the time the aircraft carrier USS United States arrived on station in the Persian Gulf, the allure of the United States Navy had long since lost its charm for Airman Gary Williams. He had been promised exciting adventures, the chance to see the world, training to work on highly sophisticated electronics gear, and more intangibly, a sense of meaning to his life.

None of the above had materialized, at least not in a way that he’d expected. The much-anticipated “exciting adventures” had consisted primarily of being yelled at by chief petty officers, first in boot camp and then at his A school. All he’d seen of the world so far was Great Lakes, Illinois, and it had been a cold, inhospitable place filled with people who talked funny to a kid from San Diego. The high-tech training, okay, the Navy had come through on that count, but it wasn’t exactly like he’d had a chance to use it. His Data System A school had been six months long, and he’d studied hard to graduate first in his class. He’d been given first choice of the available billets and he’d picked VF-95, an F-14 Tomcat squadron currently deployed to the Persian Gulf on board the USS United States.

And the Persian Gulf — now that was another whole disappointment in itself, wasn’t it? The war on terrorism had shifted its focus back into the Middle East, as the connection between Osama bin Laden’s henchmen and Iraq had become so obvious that even public opinion supported the recent increased presence in the area. With rigorous internal security measures in place within the Continental United States, a growing National Guard involvement in keeping track of foreign visitors, and a few months without overt threats of violence, the President had decided that now was the time to deal with the Middle East once and for all. The USS United States was on station in the Persian Gulf, and the USS Thomas Jefferson was lurking just outside the Red Sea in the Med, well within weapons range of most targets. Even a casual observer could tell that something was up, that this time the President meant to finish what Desert Storm and Desert Shield had started.

To Williams, that sounded like the place to be for a hotshot young avionics data — systems technician. But daydreams of flying attack missions over hostile territory and astounding his squadron mates with his cold determination and heroism had not survived A school. Somehow, the Navy did not seem to feel that his duties encompassed flying sidekick on combat missions, although he was still convinced he’d heard the recruiter mention something of that nature. Nor did his squadron seem particularly impressed with his potential ability to contribute to the war.

The day Williams checked into his squadron, they’d sent him to the galley for cleaning detail and mess cooking for three months. Since then, he’d been scrubbing decks and peeling potatoes all the way across the Pacific.

Airman Williams was willing to tolerate most of the indignities inflicted on him, except for the failure of the recruiter’s last promise to materialize. So far, he wasn’t feeling a helluva lot of pride at serving his country. Mostly, he felt tired and lonely.

Like now. His day had started at 0400. Eight hours later, he’d been informed by the mess management specialist senior chief that he was being transferred back to his squadron. He’d been excited, expecting that now he would finally have a chance to show them what he could really do fixing the data systems on an aircraft, but that hadn’t materialized either. He’d been assigned to the line division, told to qualify as a plane captain, and then maybe after a year he would be transferred to his rating work center. So much for training and high-tech electronics.

As it happened, the line chief petty officer had had a hole in his night watchbill to fill. Williams showed up just as the petty officer was trying to rearrange too few bodies to cover too many watches, and the young airman had promptly been slotted into the 0200–0400 roving security patrol. Williams spent the rest of the afternoon and evening checking in, and caught three hours of sleep before being roughly awakened by the roving patrol and told to get his ass into the hangar bay. There, another airman had passed over a flashlight, sound-powered phone, walkie-talkie, and a few brief instructions on what he was supposed to do.

It was never really cool this time of year in the Persian Gulf, but the temperature had dropped to an almost bearable ninety degrees. There was a light breeze blowing in through the open hangar bay doors, not enough to really cool him off, but enough so that he could pretend it did. He tried to not remember the fantasies he’d had before reporting to the ship, the ones about walking the streets of exotic cities, hearing the babble of other languages, coolly bargaining down sinister merchants in the local market until an exotic — try as he might, Williams thought that the word exotic pretty much summed up everything overseas — an exotic woman approached him, admiring, ever so grateful — although the details of exactly why were always slightly hazy — and willing to express her exoticness in ways that he’d only read about.

His current assignment was every bit as hot as his fantasies about exotic women, although in an entirely different and most unpleasant way. For the next two hours, he was expected to walk around the hangar bay checking to make sure that all aircraft were securely tied down, that no fires started, and just generally keeping an eye on the security of the place. His fantasy woman was replaced by the few technicians still working on aircraft, the dim lights of a scented candle replaced by hangar bay lights far overhead.

There were eight aircraft packed into the hangar bay, all in various stages of disassembly. Most minor repairs were taken care of on the flight deck, but major evolutions such as an engine change-out or major component replacement took place below. Aircraft were lowered into the hangar bay on one of six elevators that lined the edge of the flight deck immediately overhead.

It only took about fifteen minutes for Airman Williams to reach his boredom threshold. It was better duty than the galley in some ways. At least he was alone, allowed to roam around at will and take a good hard look at whatever interested him, alone to daydream about how duty in the Persian Gulf was supposed to be. While there might not be any exotic women around — and none of the female sailors he’d met so far came even close to filling that description — at least there was no first-class petty officer standing over him bitching about how many massive pots and pans there were still to clean, no clouds of chemical-laden steam from the dishwashing machine enveloping him. Instead, there was a sharp tang of aviation fuel and grease and the acrid smell of metal.

The carrier was never entirely silent, not even at night. The massive machinery that kept her running vibrated through her steel hull, producing a dull background noise that Williams had long since ceased to hear. Metal clanked on metal as technicians struggled with avionics boxes, slammed panels shut, and shouted for tools.

So what exactly was he supposed to be looking for? It wasn’t like this was a shore station, with the threat of civilians wandering onto the base and trying to damage aircraft. Everybody on the ship was Navy except for a cadre of contractor representatives and a few squads of Marines. Sure, he’d heard stories about disgruntled sailors trying to sabotage the birds, but how likely was that? Not very. So what really was the point of this whole watch? At least in the galley, he had a stack of clean pots and pans to show for his hard work.

He paused by one of the open hangar bay doors, a massive opening in the side of the ship. The hangar bay ran two thirds of the length of the ship, and when the hangar bay doors on either side were pulled back, almost the entire area was exposed to the open sea.

With the lights on in the hangar bay, the night outside was a dark, impenetrable black. He could see a few bright stars on the horizon, the lights of the cruiser keeping station to the east, but that was it.

His radio crackled to life, and the brusque voice said, “Hangar Bay, what’s your status?”

Carefully remembering his training on proper radio communications, Williams keyed the mike and said, “Watch Supervisor, Hangar Bay. All secure, sir.”

“Don’t call me sir, asshole. I know who my father is.”

“Yes, si—” Williams stopped talking, aware that all he could do was get in more trouble at this point.

“I’m sending down a couple of guys to help secure the hangar bay doors. We’ve got a report of some small craft in the area.”

Williams’s heart sank. With the hangar bay doors shut, the entire area would feel like a tomb. “Roger,” he acknowledged. “Standing by.”

“Yeah, right. Just do what they tell you.”

Fireman Apprentice Audrey Smith was no more thrilled with her Navy adventure than Airman Williams was. She had followed a similar track to the ship, the difference being six months of Engineman A school rather than Data System, and she’d done two more months in the galley than he had. Unlike Williams, she was already used to her operational watch station as a lookout. She had been rotated through the various stations, and tonight was on the starboard bridge wing, sound-powered phone clamped over her ears and binoculars making circles around her eyes.

Smith preferred the late-night watches to the daytime ones. There were fewer people around, which meant fewer people to mess with her and fewer witnesses if she screwed up. Standing outside now on the bridge wing, scanning her assigned sector of the horizon, she felt at peace with the world. Behind her, through the open hatch, she could hear the small noises coming from the bridge: the occasional rudder or engine order from the conning officer, a complaint from engineering about the lineup of boilers and reactors and machinery, and the routine reports that kept track of all radar contacts in the area.

With no moon overhead, the horizon and sky blended into nothingness. The blackness was broken only by the running lights of the cruiser and other escorts, and the occasional light configuration from a commercial ship. There were a few small boats out here as well, and the crews on both the bridge and in Combat kept track of them to ensure that the carrier stayed well clear.

Suddenly, she stopped her smooth scan of the water. What was it? Something had caught her attention, although she couldn’t exactly see what. She moved her binoculars in a slow, oscillating motion back and forth, trying to see what it was that had distracted her.

There it was again. A small area of darkness against the water, something that looked out of place. Odd. If it was a boat, it should be showing at least one light for safety of navigation. But then again, not all of the fishermen in this area found it necessary to comply with good seamanship practices. She had been warned that there were also smugglers in the area, and they would certainly show no lights.

But this close to the carrier? We’re not that hard to miss. The memory of the USS Cole came to mind, the gaping hole in the side of the smaller ship the result of a small boat pulling up alongside her and detonating explosives. Even a rowboat could be dangerous.

Smith keyed her sound-powered phone. “Surface Plot, Starboard Lookout. I think I have a contact to the starboard, a small one. Relative bearing 030, showing a slight right-bearing drift. No lights.”

“You sure, Starboard? I’m not holding anything there.”

Am I sure? No, not really. I can’t even see it now.

“Not entirely sure, Surface,” she acknowledged. “If it’s anything, it’s a small boat running without lights.”

The voice of the Surface Plot petty officer sighed. “OK, keep an eye on it. I’ll take another look in the area and see if there’s a possibility. Could be one of the smugglers we were briefed on. Good work.”

Behind her on the darkened bridge, Smith heard the operations specialist airman pass her information to the officer of the deck. “Sir, possible unidentified small contact on the starboard bow.”

“Range?” asked the OOD, Lieutenant Commander Fred Brisco.

“Close aboard, within two miles, sir. Low-confidence visual contact.”

Brisco walked out on the starboard bridge and propped his elbows on the railing next to Smith’s companionably. “You getting Surface stirred up over something, Andrea?”

Smith relaxed. Brisco was a good sort, not one of the screamers. He even used her first name sometimes when nobody else could hear him. It made her feel like she was part of the team, even when she screwed up.

“I’m not certain, sir,” she allowed. “I thought I saw something, but I can’t pick it up now. It was right there.” She pointed in the general direction where she’d seen the patch of blackness.

Brisco had his own binoculars up now and was scanning the area carefully. She felt a shiver of relief — she’d reported it, and the officers were taking a look. Now, no matter what it was, it was no longer her sole responsibility. And maybe he could see something that she couldn’t.

“I don’t see — wait.” Brisco abruptly stopped scanning the area and kept the binoculars fixed on one spot. “Yes, I think you’re right. A small boat, running without lights. Tell Surface I see it, too.” Without dropping his binoculars from his eyes, he raised his voice and said, “Conning Officer, bring us twenty degrees to the left. We’ve got a small boy up ahead who doesn’t seem to realize that tonnage counts.”

“Surface Plot, Starboard. OOD says he sees it, too, and we’re changing course to avoid,” Smith said into her sound-powered phone.

“Roger, keep track of it. We’re still not getting anything on the radar.”

And that was exactly why they had lookouts, wasn’t it? Because very small wooden vessels were difficult to pick up on radar even in the best of conditions. Keeping a visual eye on the ocean as well as an electronic one only made sense.

“Security, close the hangar bay doors,” Brisco said suddenly, his voice sharp. “Come on, people — move it!”

“What is it, sir?” she asked, now alarmed.

“Probably nothing,” he said. “Just something seems to — hell, I don’t know, Andrea. Call it a gut feeling.”

It only took a few minutes for the reinforcements to show up and find Williams. At the same time, the 1MC announcing system boomed, “All hands not actually on watch in the vicinity of the hangar bay report to security team leader to close hangar doors.” The technicians working on the E-2 Hawkeye in the forward part of the hangar bay dropped what they were doing and trotted over.

The doors could be opened and closed electronically, but sufficient hands had to be on station in case something went wrong and they had to be closed manually. The hangar bay filled with a hard, grating noise as the massive metal watertight slabs of steel grated along their tracks. The breeze died down as they started to close.

“So what is this all about?” Williams asked.

“Probably just an OOD with a hair up his ass,” said one of the petty officers. “Sometimes I think they do this just to see how fast we can move.”

That pretty much fit in with what Williams knew so far about the Navy. Every evolution, no matter how trivial, was practiced, timed, and graded ad infinitum. Why should closing the hangar doors be any different?

Suddenly, a star low on the horizon flared into brightness. Williams brought his binoculars up to take a look at it. Beside him, the senior petty officer said, “Oh, shit. Move it!”

Brisco leaped from the bridge wing to the bridge and slapped the General Quarters alarm toggle switch, simultaneously picking up the microphone for the whole ship-announcing system. As the insistent gong of the General Quarters alarm started, he said, “All hands, General Quarters. Small boat on the starboard quarter launching Stingers!”

Stingers. Smith’s blood ran cold. The small, shoulder-launched missiles had a maximum range of just over two miles, but any explosive warhead could do serious damage to the carrier if you hit it in the right place. It wasn’t capable of penetrating the hull, but if you could hit the aircraft on the flight deck, starting a fire, it would prove difficult to control. Or it could—

“The hangar bay,” she breathed, her voice full of horror. If a Stinger got inside the hangar bay, it could cause a catastrophe.

White fire seared her retina as a small missile streaked across black water, destroying her night vision and leaving a trail of light as an afterimage.

“Damage Control, report!” Brisco shouted.

The trail of fire dropped below them as it speared through the half-open hangar bay door.

The sailors manning the port-side hangar doors were moving faster than those on the starboard. Already more than half of the exposed area was closed off as the massive doors slid along their tracks. The starboard hangar bay doors had barely started to move.

Williams watched, both horrified and terrified at the same time. This wasn’t a drill — this was an actual attack. The seconds seem to tick by too slowly as he stared at the white fire racing across the water.

“Get down!” someone shouted, and Williams was smashed to the deck as a petty officer tackled him. They rolled over until they were behind an enclosed part of the hull, out of the open doorway.

“What the hell are you—?” Williams began, his protest cut off as the impact forced the air out of his lungs.

A lightning bolt coursed through the hangar bay, accompanied by a high-pitched screaming sound. The Stinger warhead entered the starboard hatch, flashed across the hangar bay, and slammed into the partially closed port hatch, containing the fire inside. It exploded with a deafening fireball, flames and hot gases engulfing half of the hangar bay, then subsiding into a hard, hot fire engulfing the port side.

“Fire, fire, fire!” the 1MC howled. “Fire in the hangar bay.”

No shit, fire!

“Grab the nozzle!” a petty officer said, shoving Williams toward a hose reel mounted on the bulkhead. “I’m activating the AFFF hose reel. You know how to use it, right?” The aqueous film-forming foam was the preferred method of extinguishing a Class B, or fuel, fire.

“Right.” Williams grabbed the nozzle head. Another sailor fell in behind him to help manage the hose, and then two more behind him. Everyone moved with an economy of movement born of hours of practical damage-control training.

Everyone except Williams. He stumbled over the hose as he took the nozzleman position, fingers fumbling over the moveable U-shaped handle called the bail. He hadn’t spent much time on damage control since a three-day firefighting class in San Diego before deploying but the basics were coming back to him. The AFFF would cover the burning surface and deprive it of oxygen. And in here, with so many fuel lines crisscrossing, lubricants and oils and drums, and the presence of so many aircraft for a possible Class Delta fire, it was the first choice.

The fire was centered against one bulkhead, and had consumed both a toolbox and a stack of supplies left there. It was spreading quickly, reaching out toward a helicopter tied down nearby. If it got the helicopter and started a Class Delta fire, then there would be no chance of extinguishing it. The helicopter would have to be shoved over the side of the ship and into the water.

“Where is it?” Brisco shouted, his voice carrying over the babble of damage-control reports now flooding the circuits. “Damn it, I need that contact!”

“We just don’t have it, sir,” Surface answered, frustration evident in his voice. “Small contact, choppy seas — recommend searchlights, visual targeting, and fifty-cal guns, sir.”

“The fifty-cals are already being manned,” Brisco said. He turned to Smith and said, “Get on that floodlight. Find them. You and I seem to be the only one with eyes in our heads.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” she said, already running aft along the catwalk toward the floodlight. She’d only experimented with it once or twice, but she could probably manage it.

She flipped the power switch on, shielding her eyes while she pointed her binoculars in the general direction of where she’d last seen the contact. She flipped the shutters on the floodlight open and aimed them in that general direction. Above her, she could hear the shouts of sailors scrambling to man the fifty-caliber guns.

“There he is!” she shouted, forgetting to depress the button on her sound-powered phone, but her voice carried easily up to the gun crew.

“Roger, we see him,” the gun crew chief shouted down at her. Briscoe came running out of the bridge to stand beside her.

“Weapons free,” he ordered. “Take it out, Chief.”

The hard chatter of the fifty-caliber machine gun drowned out the babble from the bridge. Empty casings rained down on them, bouncing off the steel deck and over the side. Smith concentrated on keeping the searchlights centered on a small craft, nailing it to the water with a spear of light.

The first two seconds of rounds fell short, and then the tracers danced across the small target as the gun crew adjusted their aim. She could see now that it was little more than a rowboat with an outboard motor stuck on it. There were two men standing up in it, their features indistinguishable, but one was yanking frantically on the cord attached to the outboard motor as though it had stalled.

Small waterspouts peppered the water as the fifty-cal rounds stitched a line down the wooden hull, splintering boards into shrapnel. The outboard engine kicked to life, the noise lost in the chatter of the gunfire, but the results evident in the boiling water behind the stern. The boat started to turn away from the carrier, quickly picking up speed. It was listing severely to the starboard side, indicating that at least some of the rounds had found their mark.

“Get them!” Brisco shouted.

The gun crew adjusted their aim, walking the tracer rounds up the wake to the boat. Almost immediately, the results were evident. A few rounds found the outboard motor and then the fuel can. There was a soft whoosh as the gas exploded, the flames immediately obscuring the boat and its occupants. The fire expanded momentarily into a large ball of orange and yellow billowing out black smoke evident even in the dark night. There was a secondary explosion, momentarily doubling the size of the fireball, and then it sank down into a smaller form, eating away at the wooden hull and its contents. The machine gun fell silent. Smith heard one anguished scream, and then nothing more.

She turned to look at Brisco, but he was already gone. The immediate threat eliminated, his priority now was fighting the fire.

Through her feet, Smith could feel the vibrations radiating up from the hull, the odd noises and vibrations induced by water rushing through the fire mains to supply the hose reels and hangar bay. She could see the doors sliding back now as the damage-control crew sought to ventilate the area. A few flames slipped out, licking up the side of the ship. They were one hundred feet below the bridge, but the heat was still palpable.

“Starboard, are you on station?” Surface asked. “Look, there may be more of them. Anything you see, I want to hear about it immediately.”

“Roger, Starboard is in position.” She hesitated for a moment, aware that she should avoid cluttering the circuit with unnecessary chatter, but not able to avoid asking, “The fire. How bad is it?”

“We don’t know. I’ll tell you soon as I hear something. In the meantime, keep your eyes on the water.”

Smith was cursed with an unusually vivid imagination and it kicked in now, trying to distract her from her watchstanding. She could see how the flames below looked, the liquid way that they raced up bulkheads and ceilings, enveloping fire mains and fuel lines, reaching out with tendrils of heat to seek skin and flesh, growing, engulfing the entire ship. She was so far from the water, so far, the equivalent of an eight-story building from it. If the fire grew out of control, how in the world would she ever get off the bridge? The way down to the lifeboat stations would be blocked, too, and she held no illusions about her ability to survive jumping from the bridge wing into the sea. Even if she avoided hitting the part of the flight deck that jutted out, the fall alone could very well be fatal. She saw her crumpled bleeding body floating facedown in the sea, tendrils of blood streaking the water, and a knife fin cutting through the water toward her.

Stop it. You’ve got a job to do. By a supreme effort of will, she forced herself to ignore the pictures her mind insisted on creating, and concentrated on the water. But one part of her mind remained focused on the fire below, asking incessantly just how bad it was.

Fourteen feet away from the fire, Williams came to an abrupt halt. The heat was already painful on his face and hands, although not yet unbearable. The darker parts of his mind responsible for his self-preservation instincts were screaming loud warnings, trying to force him to turn around. The realization that the fire before him was a wild creature, not a chimera under the control of the damage-control-simulator people, came crashing in. For a moment, caught between the instinct for self-preservation and his conscious knowledge of what had to be done, Williams could not move.

“What’s wrong?” the man behind him shouted. Williams felt the hose slack starting to accumulate around him. “Go on, go on!”

Williams forced himself to take one step, and then another, his hand steady on the hose and the bail, focusing on the base of the fire. He was too far away now — another ten feet, maybe a little more, and he could unleash the torrential power of his fire hose on the creature before him.

He concentrated on his feet, staring down at the black safety boots’ leather and steel toes, forcing them to move one at a time. The heat grew harder and harder to withstand, but he made himself move. If he didn’t, he would not be the only one in danger. The fire had to be contained before it could spread to the aircraft or the rest of the ship.

“Now!” the man behind him shouted. “Go on, sweep the base!”

Williams flipped back the handle of the nozzle, opening it completely. He staggered backwards as the hose tried to squirm out of his hands, a powerful stream of water mixed with foam shooting out the end of it toward the fire. The hose was bucking in his hands like a python, trying to escape. He clung to it grimly, getting the nozzle back under control and sweeping the stream of AFFF across the base of the fire. He was dimly aware of another fire crew approaching from the other side of the fire, doing the same thing.

Williams moved to his left, putting himself and his fire hose between the fire and helicopter closest to it. Over my dead body, he thought. As he saw the fire start to respond to the cooling water and the suffocating foam, he felt a wild surge of savage glee. Take that, you bastard. And that. Now more confident, he had the nozzle firmly under control, and chose his attack points with more precision.

The effects of the two hoses was starting to be evident. The fire was broken into patches now, fighting against the water and the foam but growing smaller by the minute. Behind it, the bulkheads were charred and blackened, paint peeling off, with twisted lumps of metal that used to be a tool case.

Take that. And that. The fire was almost out now, but Williams felt himself losing control. He longed to run forward and stamp the remaining flames out himself, making it personal. This wasn’t just a catastrophe, it was personal. And by God, he was going to make the fire pay for it.

“That’s enough,” a voice behind him said, and a hard hand clamped down on his shoulder. “Secure the hose. Come on, wild man — that’s enough.”

Dazed, Williams did not respond. A hand reached forward and flipped the hose bail forward, cutting off the stream of foam. Two more men crowded up beside him, peeling his hands off the nozzle and taking the hose from him. They stepped away, holding the still-charged hose, a look of awe in their eyes.

“Wild man, that’s what you are,” the damage-control petty officer said, the gruffness in his voice masking the compliment. “I thought you were going to walk into the middle and start from the inside out.” He turned to the two men now holding the hose. “Set the reflash watch. Stay here until I relieve you.” He lifted his damage-control radio to his mouth and said, “Central, Team Leader. Fire out. Reflash watch set. Sending the investigator to check for damage in the adjoining compartments now.”

“Roger, copy fire out, reflash set. As soon as your investigator confirms no damage to the compartment below, I’ll recommend we secure from General Quarters.”

Williams was barely aware of the conversation going on around him. Sudden weariness swept over him as the adrenaline left his system. It had been a long day, too long. Now, he was so tired he could barely stay on his feet.

A corpsman appeared at his side, intense green eyes staring at it at him from behind ugly black-framed glasses. “Let me get a look at you. Come over here and sit down.” The corpsman took him by the elbow and led him to a stack of pallets. He made Williams sit and crouched down in front of him.

“Do you know where you are?” the corpsman asked.

Williams stared at him. Of course he knew where he was. He was in hell, but hell was disguised as an aircraft carrier. Just then, he became aware of the ugly stench of burnt metal contained in the smoke around him. He ran a hand over his face, surprised to find that it was unburnt.

“What’s your name?” the corpsman asked.

“Williams. And yeah, I know where I am. At the fire — geez, man, I’m just tired. That’s all.”

The corpsman examined his face carefully. “This is going to be uncomfortable, but it’s nothing serious. Just first-degree burns. You may have some coughing for a while from the smoke inhalation. Don’t you guys know you’re supposed to just contain it until the damage-control team in full suits gets there?”

“I had to put it out,” Williams said numbly.

The corpsman just shook his head. “Next time, don’t get so close.”

Next time. There will be a next time. A wave of despair rushed over him.

“Secure from General Quarters,” the loudspeaker ordered. Smith felt a rush of relief. If the fire was out, then there couldn’t be any more danger, could there? No, they would not have secured from General Quarters if there could be.

While the crew was putting out the fire in the hangar bay, the carrier had launched four helicopters from their spots along the side of the flight deck. They were now combing the ocean around the carrier, spotlights illuminating the water below, searching every inch of the sea within a two-mile radius for any other small boats. To the starboard, a small sputtering fire burned, debris from the first boat.

“Smith, put down the binoculars for a minute. I think the helicopters can handle it.” Brisco’s voice was tart but amused. “Captain wants to talk to you.”

Smith let her binoculars dangle from her neck and turned to see the captain of the ship. She had only met him once, during an indoctrination session after she checked on board, and had never actually spoken to him, although she recognized him from his pictures plastered all over the ship.

“Good work, Smith,” the captain said, his voice low and gravelly. He clapped one hand on her shoulder. “You got that guy before he could get off more than one shot. It could’ve been a lot worse if you hadn’t seen it.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said, her voice shaky. Somehow, having the captain talking to her was almost as nerve-racking as the fire.

“No. Thank you. Effective immediately, I’m promoting you from Fireman Apprentice to Fireman. You will be transferred to the engineering department immediately, unless you have some objection.”

“No, sir. Thank you. Yes, I’d like very much to work in engineering.”

“And the chief engineer will be glad to have you. I expect great things out of you, Smith. Remember that.” With that, the captain turned and walked back on the bridge, where he was immediately deluged by damage-control and bridge personnel finalizing their reports on the fire.

Promoted! And transferred into engineering, just like she wanted. For a moment, joy threatened to overwhelm her. But then, hearing a helicopter approach close by, she turned back to the black water surrounding the ship. She might be an engineer, but right now she had a job to do.