Sixteenth Watch by Myke Cole - First 2 Chapters

She knew Ho was using the crew-wide channel, and that everyone else on the boat was hearing him as well. “Opening bay doors.”

Below them, the bay doors slid slowly open, and the moon stretched out beneath them.

“Sound off,” Chief called to the crew, the speakers in his helmet made his voice sound tinny. This was a ritual officers weren’t supposed to hear, Oliver knew, but she had barged onto his boat and that meant she would have to shut up and pretend it wasn’t happening.

“Honor, respect and devotion to duty, Chief!” the crew responded, casting worried glances at Oliver.

“Not that bullshit,” Chief said, “sound off for real.”

The crew’s discomfort was palpable, and Oliver felt a pang of guilt for being the cause of it. Small boats just didn’t get underway with the cutter’s skipper on board. But the thought of Tom out there without her made her stomach do loops. If it was a weakness to want to go help him in person, it was one she would indulge. She used her chin to toggle the radio to the bridge’s channel. Maybe if she were having a separate conversation, the crew would feel more privacy. “Coast Guard Cutter Aries, Coast Guard Cutter Aries, this is CG23359 requesting designator.”

“Sound off for real!” Chief said again.

“CG-23359, this is Aries,” Ho’s voice came back over the commlink in Oliver’s helmet, “CG-23359 is designated Search-And-Rescue-One for mission duration. I say again, 359 is SAR-1. Good luck, all.”

“We have to go out,” the crew said now, eyes locked on the bay doors, still sliding open, the velvet black of the void swirling below.

“But we don’t have to come back,” Chief said. “Let’s go save some lives.”

The moon’s surface glowed, swathed in blots of gray terrain that looked like mist to Oliver’s naked eye. The sun’s radiation bathed them, blocked by the shielding in the longhorn’s hull and the armor of their hardshells. The wash of it made the moon blink like a warning.