Sharron McClellan - Breathless

In this case, the name was given when the entire squad of nine went to a Japanese restaurant a few weeks ago. They’d eaten questionable sushi and sucked down sake.

They’d spent the next day hungover and sick with food poisoning.

She’d used the opportunity to take them on a five-mile run. Cruel, she mused. However, they’d all finished, proving their tenacity and strength of spirit not just to her but to themselves.

“How you doing, Latham?” Jess asked when they were a few hundred feet closer to their objective.

“Good, ma’am,” he replied.

“It’s just us for the next few minutes,” she said. “If you have any questions, now would be the time.”

“None, ma’am.”

She didn’t think he’d have any. One of her best recruits, Chuck Latham was a husky young man from the Atlanta inner city. He’d been given a choice when he was sixteen and standing in front of a judge for theft—join ROTC and get his life in line or go to juvenile hall.

Despite the ridicule of his peers, he chose ROTC. After graduation, he’d put himself through college. He was one of those rare recruits that had brains, instinct and heart. One day, he’d make captain or better. She was sure of it.

“You understand how the charges work?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She sighed, hating the formal term. She was only a few years older than Latham, and whenever he ma’amed her, it felt like a decade of difference in age.

She was not ready to feel that old. Not yet. “Latham, quit ma’aming me. It’s Whitaker.”

“Yes, ma’am. Whitaker, ma’am.”

Newbies, she thought, rolling her eyes.

The DPV sputtered, almost coming to a halt. Jess let up on the power, smacked the console, and it lurched forward. Damned machines.

The combination of night and their depth in the water column left them blind as they motored along, but Jess knew the water around them teemed with life. Lobsters. Snappers. An occasional white-tipped reef shark. Moray eels hunting for food.

And her favorite animal, mantas. Gentle giants that fed on plankton, their ten-foot-plus wingspans created pressure waves that she sensed, even through the skintight wet suit. Occasionally, one passed close enough that its wake rocked the DPV, making her trainee tighten his grip.

“They won’t hurt you, Latham,” she said, a chuckle tinting her voice.

“I know, ma’am. Whitaker,” he corrected himself. “They just startle me sometimes, and you have to admit those horns are a little creepy.”

“They’re not horns. They’re cephalic lobes that help them funnel plankton into their mouths,” she said. “Stop thinking of them as horns, and they won’t make you jump when they catch you off guard.”

“I’ll try, ma’am,” he replied, his deep voice taking on a drawl that he managed to hide except when he was nervous.

“You do that,” she said, not bothering to tell him to stop ma’aming her. “There’s nothing that’ll get you killed faster in the ocean than lack of knowledge and being unprepared.”

Ten minutes later, they arrived at the ship, and Jess checked her watch. Right on time.

Opening the case attached to the front of the DPV, she pulled out the explosive device. Flicking on a small, pencilsized light attached to her helmet, she checked the mine. It wasn’t much. This was a training exercise, and they didn’t want to actually blow a hole in the ship.

Or a recruit.

She handed the device to Latham. “Tell me what you know.”

Flipping on his light, he turned the cylinder over in his hands. “Limpet mine. Magnetic. Capable of a range of charges and producing a range of responses from barely noticeable to what the fuck, there’s a hole in my ship.”

She chuckled at his description but nodded in approval. “Time to get away before it blows?”

Latham examined the timer. “Anywhere from three seconds to three hours, depending on the required settings.”

“Give me fifteen minutes,” she said, even though the explosion would be little more than the equivalent of a child’s cap gun and fifteen seconds was plenty. In a real-life situation, they’d need those fifteen minutes, and she preferred to treat this as real even though it was a teaching situation.

Latham set the charge, and in the small line of light from his mask, she saw him freeze. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head. “I’m not sure. I entered the correct numbers, I swear, but the countdown is starting at sixty seconds.”

“Hand it over.”

He handed her the mine, and she punched in an abort code. Nothing happened. Fifty seconds.

She punched it in again. Still nothing.

She’d have to speak to someone about this equipment. Whoever was supposed to maintain it was doing a lousy job. Irritated, she took the all-in-one tool kit from her belt and flipped out the Phillips screwdriver.

The screws turned. And turned. But otherwise, didn’t move outward. They were stripped. She brought the explosive device closer to her mask and noticed scratches around the outside of the case with the majority being around the screws.

Underneath her tight black wet suit, the hairs on the back of her neck strained to rise, as she realized the problem with the timer was not accidental. Quite the opposite.

Sabotage.

Then true horror washed over her. If someone had taken the time to change the timer and strip the screws then it was a sure bet there was a reason.

Like blowing a huge hole in the ship.

Which meant a larger charge.

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

The console blinked the countdown. Twenty-five seconds. She dropped the mine, pushing it toward the bottom of the ocean and away from the ship, herself and her trainee. “Latham, get to the DVP and get moving. Now!”

He swam over to the idling machine and set it in motion. The engine sputtered, stopped. He pushed the start button. Still, nothing happened.

Her heartbeat pounding in her ears, Jess pushed him aside and pounded on the console. “Start, you bitch.” The machine refused to engage.

Perhaps this was a bad joke, she told herself. Taylor, hoping to make her late for the rendezvous so he could win their ongoing bet of who bought the beer.

The bitter taste of fear in her mouth told her different. “Taylor, you there?”

There was no reply, but neither did she expect one. Mission protocol, after all. Damn. “If you can hear me, get out of here. We have a problem,” she shouted into the microphone.

She prayed Taylor and Eielson were where they were supposed to be. Sushi was a big ship. They would be fine unless the charge was so big it disintegrated the entire ship.

However, she and Latham were much too close. “Swim,” Jess said to Latham. “Fast.”

Latham followed her into the dark water away from the ship, the miniscule beams emanating from their flashlights a thin, bright path into the dark void. “Ma’am, what’s wrong?” he asked, his drawl more pronounced than she’d ever heard and his breathing hurried and harsh in her earpiece.

Fifteen seconds. They weren’t going to make it. “I’m not sure,” she lied. “Just swim.”

She pumped her legs and within seconds was ahead. No one was better in the water. She’d never lost a race in school or since she joined the Marines.

If left to herself, she might even outrace the explosion.

But that would mean leaving Latham. A trainee. A young man who trusted her to be a commander and do the right thing.

The right thing did not mean leaving a man behind to die.

She slowed, grabbed his arm and pumped her legs again, pulling him along beside her. He was heavy, slowing her. She refused to let go. He was not going to die. Not here. Not like this.

Neither was she.