John Ringo - To Sail a Darkling Sea

“Is there a four?” Brice said. “Tell me there’s a four!”

“There’s like, every size!” Faith said. “Pick a color!”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Brice said, leaning back and holding up her hands. “Professional. How endangered were your Marines, Lieutenant?”

“Ma’am, if at any point it got down to close quarters, I would have drawn back and let the infected have the container,” Faith said. “Reluctantly.”

“I bet reluctantly,” Brice said. “You shouldn’t have endangered your Marines getting your own dress. What’s it like, by the way?”

“Oh, it’s like this really hot red thing with holographic silk,” Faith said. “It turns like every shade of red you can imagine… ”

“Oh, God,” Brice said. “It sounds gorgeous… Still, I can understand your desire to ensure the security of the materials but remember, mission, men, me, Lieutenant. Your mission was to secure the wharf, not go dress shopping.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Faith said. “No excuse, ma’am. Will not happen again. Even if I find a container of Prada.”

“Okay, maybe if you find a container of Prada,” Brice said, chuckling. “But even Prada is not worth losing Marines, Lieutenant. Understood?”

“Understood, ma’am. Won’t happen again.”

“Captain,” Brice said, then paused. “I’m not sure you’ll get this, but I’m ordering you to divert any available resources not focused on clearance to emptying out that container and putting the materials somewhere safe. While Lieutenant Smith’s personal salvage spree was ill-considered, I frankly can understand it. I’d recommend a verbal counseling, this will do, that she had a lapse in judgment in securing her own needs at the expense of endangering her Marines but that her decision to ensure the security of the materials was well considered. I’m not sure that you or anyone else in her chain of command would understand that, but, well, absent being overruled by Mister Galloway, I’m the boss.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Steve said. “And I get it intellectually but it is, I suspect, a gender thing. Which was why I brought you in on it.”

“I’m glad you did,” Brice said. “And, Faith?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Could you find me a four in blue?”

“Absolutely,” Faith said. “I think you’re about my sister Soph’s size, General. We’ll hold one back for you.”

“I feel terrible… ” Brice said. “No, never mind. Captain, you should distribute those to females who… Those would make very nice bonuses, Captain.”

“I take it you only have uniforms in the Hole, ma’am?” Steve said.

“Yep,” Brice said. “Maybe it’s a gender thing, maybe it’s cultural. But… I love my uniform and I’m proud of it. But there is, and don’t tell anyone this, a ‘woman’ side to me that really, really is dying for a splash of color.”

“Ma’am,” Steve said. “Absent direct order to the contrary, I’ll have Faith, after we secure the materials and when she has some downtime, get on the video conference, closed, and have her show you some of them so you can pick one out in your size.”

“I’m not sure that would be an advised use of resources, Captain,” Brice said.

“Two points in argument, ma’am,” Steve said. “One, the situation that you are in is psychologically extremely stressful. As you noted, you are dying for a splash of color. You need something to take your mind off of, well, the zombie apocalypse, being trapped in the Hole and all it entails. Two, absent direct orders, if you think I’m not going to try to butter up the acting CJCS, you’re out of your mind already.”

“I’ll take your first point and ignore the second, Captain,” Brice said with a laugh. “But, seriously, it’s an order. Get those secured. They’re probably the last Paris fashions on earth. Don’t distribute all of them. We’re going to have museums again, someday, and one of them should be in it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Steve said, making some notes. “I’ll order that right away.”

“Don’t do it if you’re going to lose people,” Brice said. “Not that important.”

“Again, not an issue, ma’am,” Steve said.

“Anything else?” Brice asked.

“No, ma’am,” Steve said. “Thank you for your time, ma’am.”

“Looking forward to meeting you in person someday,” Brice said. “Both of you. Especially if you’re carrying a dress. Out here.”

“Okay, Faith,” Steve said. “You were right on securing the dresses.”

“I was still wrong on grabbing them right then and there, Da,” Faith said. “And… I’m sorry I lost my temper with that… the guy in the saloon. I’ll work on the officer deportment.”

“The truth is, Faith,” Steve said, sighing. “It’s not that dressing you down feels like pulling the wings off a fly. The truth is that if things weren’t so absolutely fucked to hell, you’d be a shoe-in for the Medal of Honor. And that’s not just being your dad saying that. You are an absolute asset. A living embodiment of the best in us.”

“Now you’re going all Da,” Faith said.

“No,” Steve said. “I’m trying to judge this fairly. If you were a twenty-one-year-old second lieutenant straight out of the Point or Annapolis or ROTC, you’d still be somebody that people would follow into battle. And the way that you fight is just so over the top that every real warrior on this ship wants to have your babies.”

“I think it’s supposed to be the other way around, Da,” Faith said, laughing and looking awkward. She handled praise about as well as she handled being dressed down.

“You know what I mean,” Steve said. “All that is true. The other truth is that you have a lot to learn about all the other stuff in being an officer. And, believe it or not, I think that Wilkes can teach you that. And maybe, just maybe, you can teach him what actual leadership means. Sometimes when you’ve got two problems they can cancel themselves out. I’m hoping that’s what this experiment will achieve.”

“I’ll do my best, Da.”

“That’s my Shewolf.”

“Captain Wilkes,” Steve said, looking around the embarkation area. “How’s the clearance going?”

After clearing the immediate area and cleaning up, a team under Janu had fought their way to DCC and brought back not only all the hardcopy maps but laptops that, huzzah, contained all the same information. The TOC was set up with several plasma screens connected to those as well as other computers brought aboard. It looked almost professional.

As areas were cleared they were “greyed out” so they didn’t repeat. With four people clearing, that had not been an issue. With thirty Marines working on the boats it had happened.

“Nominal, sir,” Wilkes said. “Would you care to examine the map?”

“No,” Steve said. “Other things to do. How far are you into the ship?”

“We’ve reached deck six and are proceeding upwards, sir,” Wilkes said. “There is a significant infected level throughout the ship. At least, according to reports… ”

“Have you… ” Steve said, then stopped. “Can you turn this over to somebody, we need to have a chat.”

“Yes, sir,” Wilkes said. “Gunny, come get me if anything comes up.”

“Yes, sir,” Gunny Sands said.

Steve gestured aft and Wilkes paused.

“Sir, the infecteds have officially been cleared from these decks, however… ”