they knew they could just watch it again. They could call up anything you’d
ever said to them, yet they could never remember it.
The gold-rimmed Samsung glasses that Torres wore were definitely not
Navy issue. Mike caught a flash of the Palo Alto A’s @ logo in reverse on
the lens. So Torres was watching a replay of Palo Alto’s game against the
Yankees from last night. Beneath the game’s display, a news-ticker video
pop-up updated viewers on the latest border clashes between Chinese and
Russian forces in Siberia.
“Game was a blowout, but the no-hitter by Parsons fell apart at the bottom
of the eighth,” said Mike. “Too bad for the A’s.”
Torres, busted, took off the glasses and glared at Mike, whose eyes
continued to pan across the steely water.
The young sailor knew not to say anything more. Shouting at a contractor
was a quick path to another write-up. And more important, there was
something about the old man that made it clear that, even though he was
retired, he would like nothing more than to toss Torres overboard, and he’d
do it without spilling a drop of coffee.
“Seaman, you’re on duty. I may be a civilian now and out of your chain of
command,” said Mike, “but you work for the Navy. Do not disrespect the
Navy by disappearing into those damn glasses.”
“Yes, sir,” said Torres.
“It’s ‘Chief,’ ” said Mike. “ ‘Sir’ is for officers. I actually work for a
living.” He smiled at the old military joke, winking to let Torres know the
situation was over as far as he was concerned. That was it, right there. The
sly charm that had gotten him so far and simultaneously held him back. If
Torres hadn’t been aboard, the chief could have puttered across the bay at a
leisurely seven knots and pulled up, if he had the tide right, at the St. Francis
Yacht Club. Grab a seat at the bar and swap old sea stories. After a while, one
of the divorcées who hung out there would send over a drink, maybe say
something about how much he looked like that old Hollywood actor, the one
with all the adopted kids from around the world. Mike would then crack the
old line that he had kids around the world too, he just didn’t know them, and
the play would be on.
The rising sun began to reveal the outlines of the warships moored around
them. The calls of a flight of gulls overhead made the silent, rusting vessels
seem that much more lifeless.
“Used to be a bunch of scrap stuck in the Ghost Fleet,” said Mike, giving a
running commentary as they passed between an old fleet tanker from the
1980s and an Aegis cruiser retired after the first debt crisis. “But a lot of
ships here were put down before their time. Retired all the same, though.”
“I don’t get why we’re even here, Chief. These old ships, they’re done.
They don’t need us,” said Torres. “And we don’t need them.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” said Mike. “It may seem like putting lipstick
on old whores in a retirement home, but you’re looking at the Navy’s
insurance policy, small as it may now be. You know, they kept something
like five hundred ships in the Ghost Fleet back during the Cold War, just in
case.”
“Floater, port side,” said Torres.
“Thanks,” said Mike, steering the launch around a faded blue plastic barrel
bobbing in the water.
“And here’s our newest arrival, the Zumwalt,” Mike announced, pointing
out the next ship anchored in line. “It didn’t fit in with the fleet when they
wasted champagne on that ugly bow, and it doesn’t belong here now. Got no
history, no credibility. They should have turned it into a reef, but all that fake
composite crap would just kill all the fish.”
“What’s the deal with that bow?” said Torres. “It’s going the wrong
direction.”
“Reverse tumblehome is the technical term,” said Mike. “See how the
chine of the hull angles toward the center of the ship, like a box-cutter blade?
That’s what happens when you go trying to grab the future while still being
stuck two steps behind the present. DD(X) is what they called them at the
start, as if the X made it special. Navy was going to build a new fleet of
twenty-first-century stealthy battleships with electric guns and all that shit.
Plan was to build thirty-two of them. But the ship ended up costing a mint,
none of the ray guns they built for it worked for shit, and so the Navy bought
just three. And then when the budget cuts came after the Dhahran crisis, the
admirals couldn’t wait to send the Z straight into the Ghost Fleet here.”
“What happened to the other two ships?” said Torres.
“There are worse fates for a ship than being here,” said Mike, thinking
about the half-built sister ships being sold off for scrap during the last budget
crisis.
“So what do we gotta do after we get aboard it?” asked Torres.
“Aboard her,” said Mike. “Not it.”
“Chief, you can’t say that anymore,” said Torres. “Her.”
“Jesus, Torres, you can call the ship him if you want,” said Mike. “But
don’t ever, ever call any of these uglies it. No matter what the regs say.”
“Well, she, he — whatever — looks like an LCS,” said Torres, referring to
the littoral combat ships used by the Navy for forward-presence patrol
missions all over the world. “That’s where I wish I was.”
“An LCS, huh? Dreaming of being off the coast of Bali in a ‘little crappy
ship,’ wind blowing through your hair at fifty knots, throwing firecrackers at
pirates?” said Mike. “Get the line ready.”
“Didn’t I hear your son was aboard an LCS?” asked Torres. “How does he
like it?”
“I don’t know,” said Mike. “We’re not in touch.”
“Sorry, Chief.”
“You know, Torres, you must have really pissed somebody off to get stuck
with me and the Ghost Fleet.” The old man was clearly changing the subject.
Torres fended the launch off from a small barge at the stern. Without
looking, he tied a bowline knot that made the old chief suppress a smile.
Maybe the new kids weren’t all bad.
“Nice knot there,” said Mike. “You been practicing like I showed you?”
“No need,” said Torres, tapping his glasses. “Just have to show me once
and it’s saved forever.”
USS Coronado, Strait of Malacca
Each of the dark blue leather seats in the USS Coronado’s wardroom had a
movie-theater chair’s sensory suite, complete with viz-glasses chargers,
lumbar support, and thermoforming heated cushions that seemed almost too
comfortable for military life — until you were sitting through your second
hour of briefings.
This briefer, the officer in charge of the ship’s aviation detachment of three
remote-piloted MQ-8 Fire Scout helicopters, thanked her audience and
returned to her seat. A few side conversations abruptly stopped when the
executive officer rose to give his ops intel brief.
When the XO, the ship’s second in command, stood at the head of the
room, you felt a little bit like you were back in elementary school with the
