The Fighting Lady

 “Huh.  That’s odd.”

 Dan Flint, the harbor master of the Port of Charleston looked up from his monitor at the young man who’d just spoken.  “What’s odd?”

The brown-haired man spun his chair around to face his boss.  “That tanker we’ve been tracking?  She’s still not squawking, Dan.”

The older man scowled.  “She’s well within our envelope, Chekov, that makes no sense.  Do you have imagery?”

Chekov spun back around, and his hands danced across the keyboard.  “Yeah, one of the drones has a feed.  She’s Brazilian, the Minuano.”

The harbormaster consulted his computer.  “She’s not on the list of arrivals, what’s she doing here?”

“No idea.”  Chekov’s fingers continued their dance.  “She was apparently bound for New York.”
Flint’s scowl darkened.  A few years ago, this would be a relatively minor concern.  Now, though…

“She’s not responding to us, hasn’t contacted us, and is in entirely the wrong goddamn place.”  Flint stood, circling around his desk to look over Chekov’s shoulder.  “Get Joint Base on the horn.  Something screwy’s going on here.”

------------

The Captain of USCGC Hamilton stood, watching the feed from a drone orbiting the wayward tanker that was less than half a mile off to starboard, as his cutter paralleled its course.  “Anything yet, Blake?”

His XO, Emily Blake, shook her head.  “Nothing, Skipper.  She’s still just tickin’ along.  Our boys’ll be ready to board in the next 30 seconds.”

The captain nodded.  “Still no signs of life?”

“Negative.  She’s silent as the grave.”  She looked off towards the ship, silhouetted against the sun’s dying light.  “Gives me the heebie-jeebies, Dick.”

“Captain Palmer,” the captain said off-handedly, still engrossed in the drone’s feed.  “And yeah, I feel a little off, too.”  He blew out a breath.  “Bear the 57 on her.  Just for fun.  She’s ignored our hails, we’re well within our rights.”

Seconds later, the cutter’s .57mm gun swivelled to bear on the Minuano, just as Hamilton’s boarding party came over the side.  The radio crackled to life.  “We’re aboard, Cap.  Nobody home.”

Palmer scowled.  “Arright, clear to the bridge.  By the book, gentlemen.  That means you, Torrez.”

A bark of laughter.  “Thanks for the reminder, Dad, here I was just about to pull out mah four-tay five an’ go git these here varmints mahself.”

Palmer bit back a smile.  “You know, that’s why you’re never gonna make Senior, Torrez.”

“You mean keep it longer than a week, right?”

“Right, that too.”

There was a moment’s pause.  “Right, we’re outside the bridge.  Requesting permission to enter.”

“Granted.  I want to know what the hell’s going on here.”

Blake blinked at her screen.  “Skipper, she’s accelerating.”  Palmer’s head whipped around to stare at the plot.

“Hey, Cap, the bridge is fuckin’ empty.  There’s nobody he - hey, you!  Hands on your head, step into the li-”  A wet crunch came through the radio, and then gunfire erupted on Minuano’s bridge.

“Torrez?  Torrez, goddammit, what’s happening?  TORREZ!”  A moment later, Palmer dropped the dead radio.  “That’s hostile intent confirmed.  Blake, I want this bitch sunk yesterday.”  The last flashes of gunfire died on the ghost ship’s bridge, and Hamilton’s bow lit up as the 57mm gun went to work.  Palmer went back to studying the drone’s feed, watching the shells slam into the big tanker’s side.  He suppressed a shudder.  Whatever it was that got Torrez, he wanted it-

“Cap, I think we have another problem.”  Palmer turned away again to see Blake fiddling with her terminal.  “All the instruments just went screwy.”

He turned back to the drone feed, just in time to see it fuzz over with static.  “What in -”

A brilliant flash illuminated Minuano’s deck, and Palmer lost his footing and crashed to the deck as something slammed into Hamilton’s stern with a sound like a thunderclap.  The whole ship jerked hard, and the vibrations from her engines died a sudden, terrifying death.

“What in the flying fuck-”  The captain levered himself upright, bracing against a terminal as his head swam.  “Blake, what the fuck hit us?”

“I don’t know, Skipper, there’s nothing else out...here…”  The Lieutenant trailed off, before visibly biting back a surge of panic.  “Skipper, two sonar contacts off Minuano’s starboard!  They’re fucking HU-”  Another awful blow rocked the cutter, and when Palmer regained his feet, he could see the twisted ruin that had once been his bow gun.

“Coming out from behind her now, goddamn they’re fast - “  Blake had somehow kept her seat, eyes glued to the screen.  Palmer spun to stare at the tanker, just in time to see two shapes drop over her side.  “Oh god, two more contacts, our side.  What is even going on, Skipper?  ...Skipper?”

Palmer stood transfixed, as day turned, for an instant, black as night.  An instant later, he wished it had stayed that way, as two vicious-looking, gnarled, low-slung shapes appeared between Hamilton and the dying tanker.  An icy calm descended over him and, in a near-trance, he reached for the radio, ignoring his screaming XO.  “Joint base, this is Hamilton.  Abyssal forces sighted outside Charleston.  We are engag-”

An 8-inch high-explosive round, the third fired, slammed into Hamilton’s bridge.  More soon followed, and within minutes the crippled cutter slipped below the waves.  More dark shapes dropped from Minuano’s deck and into the sea, swiftly outpacing the dying behemoth and taking up formation, centering on one ship in particular.  As one, the newly-formed battlegroup turned into the wind.

------------

“We have to wake her up.”  The Lieutenant was leaning over her Commander’s desk, looking him dead in the eye in flagrant disregard for protocol.

Commander Jeff Munson leaned back in his chair, running a hand through short-cropped salt-and-pepper hair.  “We just can’t, Donna.  You know as well as I do what the Joint Chiefs said, we can’t-”

“Then fuck the Joint Chiefs, fuck Washington, and respectfully fuck you Sir, Charleston is going to burn-”

“You.  Are.  Out.  Of.  Line, Lieutenant Scheidt.”  The chill in Munson’s voice blew right past Arctic and was headed for deep space.  “What you are suggesting borders on mutiny.  You want me to disregard STANDING ORDERS to never, ever, under any circumstances try to summon one of them, in the vague hope that one hull will make a difference?”  He took a deep breath, and his voice dropped an octave.  “You think I don’t want to do just that?  You think I want to sit here on my happy ass and watch these bastards burn my city?”

“Then DO something about it!”

“I…”  Munson sighed.  “Lieutenant, I just can’t.  Those orders are in place for a reason, and I’m sure it’s a good one or they wouldn’t have made such a goddamn huge deal of it.  Nobody in the Navy is under any circumstances to attempt a summoning.”

Donna’s jaw worked.  “In that case, Sir, I respectfully tender my - “

“BUT.  I’m a busy man; I have to stay here and coordinate whatever  forces we can scare up.  If you were to go AWOL, I probably wouldn’t have time to track you all down for a good long while.  Do I make myself clear?”

Scheidt gave Munson a narrow, calculating look.  “Yes, Sir.  Yes, I believe you have.”

“Very good.  Dismissed.  ...oh, and Donna?  There’s a red box in the back of my personal vehicle, the keys to which I seem to have just misplaced.”  He tossed her a set of keys.  “It’d be a real shame if that box were to vanish with an AWOL officer.”

--------------


After the fifth failed attempt, Lt. Scheidt paused, leaning back against the island.  “Why?  Why won’t you wake up?  We need you!”  She slid down until she was sitting on the deck, tears starting down her cheeks.

“Yanno, I knew it was a goddamn mistake to let girls into the Navy.  How the fuck are the rest of us s’posed to look good when half the officers cry at th’ drop of a fuggin’ hat?”

The man’s voice, bass and rough from years of chain-smoking, snapped Scheidt to her feet, spinning to face the open hatch.   A man stood there, leaning against the gray metal.  His broad, weathered face was disapproving, arms crossed in the fashion of Senior Chiefs everywhere when they find a misbehaving Ensign.  “What’s your business aboard my ship, Butterbar?”

Scheidt collected herself.  “Cla-classified.”  A beat.  “Wait, why are you even here, didn’t you hear the sirens?”

The man shook his head.  “Hearing’s not so good, these days.  What are you doin’ here, then, hm?”  He leaned closer, staring at the deck.  “And what th’ fuck did you do to my flight deck?”

“I. Um. C-classified!  It’s classified!”

He was positively leering now.  “...yer tryin’ to summon th’ ol’ girl, ain’t’cha?”

“Ye- no!”

He snorted.  “Well you’re doin’ a fuckup job of it.  You think yer gonna just waltz aboard a proud fuckin’ American warship, do some arm-wavy hoo-hah some ching-chong dingalong Jap thought up, and poof, here’s yer ship?  WROOOOOOOOONG.”  The last word was delivered at bullhorn volume, and the man - wearing a docent’s uniform, Scheidt saw - stumped past her and out onto the deck.  “You want a fuckin’ AMERICAN ship, you ask like an AMERICAN fuckin’ sailor.”

“Wai-”

The man spun to face the island, mad light gleaming in his eyes.  He cupped his hands around his mouth -  “HEY.  HEY, WAKE THE FUCK UP YOU RUSTY BUCKET OF SHIT, THEM WATERLOGGED SLUMBITCHES IS ATTACKIN’ YER PORT.  WAKE THE FUCK UP OR SOHELPMEGODIMGONNASHOVEMYBOOTSOFARUPYOURMETALASSTHAT-”

He was interrupted midbellow as a parasol cracked him across the back of the head.  He spun, winding up for another bellow, before stopping dead.

“That what, Sailor?~”  Blonde curls, down past her shoulders,blue blue eyes, and was that a ballgown?

The docent - after that tirade, Scheidt was sure he was a SCPO - recovered quickly.  “That this ship’ll wake up and send those fucks-”  He waved in the general direction of the harbor’s mouth, and the tiny black shapes moving relentlessly closer “- Back where the sun don’t shine.”

The new girl tilted her head.  “Really?  Well, then, I suppose I really ought to get to work.”  She took two quick steps to the side, and raised her parasol into the wind.  Arrows appeared from thin air around her, and seconds later, the scream of jet engines filled the night as USS Yorktown, CV-10, flung her fighters into the sky.