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the Combat Information Center, nerve center
for operations aboard. Maybe they would know what was going on.
    “The Old Man said it was a kinetic
strike.”
    “Kinetic strike of what?”
    “Inert reentry vehicles. Like nukes but just
made of metal.”
    “No way that could have blasted that cruise
ship like it did.”
    “Dude, those things come in at fifteen thousand miles an hour. Mach 20. I ran the energy on my
computer – it’s way enough. Like manmade meteors. I’m surprised it
didn’t take Ingy with it.”
    “It almost did, from what I hear. Two dozen
dead and fifty wounded.”
    “Somebody screwed up bad. They should have
had her move away.”
    “If they wanted it gone, why didn’t they just
have us do it? With a missile or the guns or something?”
    “Dunno, man, dunno. Maybe all them civilians
on board. Glad I didn’t have to push that button.”
    “Oh, yeah. That would suck. So where we going
now?”
    The sailors all stared at the questioner, a
young junior enlisted rating, but no one spoke. Security prohibited
talking about operational details, such as their destination,
outside of secure spaces.
    “Sorry.”
    “That’s what I always tell them you are.”
    “What?”
    “You’re sorry.” The sailors laughed.
    Jill finished her third tray. Replete at
last, she went back and got a to-go carton for later.
    When she slipped into Chaplain Forman’s
office she found the older woman staring at her shipnet computer
screen. “Come here,” the lieutenant said. She pointed at an open
e-mail.
    “All hands, pass this message. Sergeant
Repeth report immediately to the Personnel Support Detachment.”
    “Someone must have noticed you weren’t on the
manifest.”
    Jill growled. “Gaona.”
    Forman looked a question.
    “Just a nice guy that tried to help. Probably
tried to look me up at Personnel and found out I wasn’t in the
system. Now they’re trying to find me. There goes my anonymity. F–
umm, freaking do-gooders. Sorry, ma’am.”
    “I’ve heard salty language before, Sergeant.
I’m sure Jesus did too.”
    “Yeah, Jesus…ma’am – I need to get off this
ship. I need to get to somewhere that I can plausibly rejoin from –
I can say I missed the cruise – that I got drunk and got left
behind in the Bahamas or something. Do you know where we’re
headed?”
    “Yes, and I think I know how to get you off
the ship. We’re going to Norfolk to transfer the wounded ashore to
Bethesda. That’s how you’ll go – as combat wounded.”
    Jill looked at her doubtfully. “That seems
pretty iffy. I don’t have any fresh wounds.”
    “You’ll have a concussion. Disorientation,
you can’t think straight. It will be the perfect cover. And I’ll
attend the wounded. Nothing more natural. I’ll make sure you get
left alone. Then, at Bethesda, you’ll disappear in the
shuffle.”
    “Ma’am…that sounds like it will work. Can I
say, you’re the most…unusual chaplain I’ve ever run across?”
    “Why, are most of them you have met
cowards?”
    “No, just more sticklers for the rules, I
guess.”
    “I never much liked rules. I didn’t like my
father’s rules,” – she pronounced it ‘fahtha,’ the New England
Brahmin coming out strongly through clenched teeth – “so I married
a Navy man. After a while I found I didn’t like my husband’s rules
much either - or his skirt-chasing - though I did keep his name
after the divorce. Better than ‘Jenkins.’ But then I found God, or
perhaps God found me, and I decided to go to seminary, be a
chaplain. I still didn’t much like rules, so I made sure the only
ones I respected were really His, not the ones that mankind had
tacked on to the religion.”
    “That…that makes a whole lot of sense,
ma’am.”
    “I’m glad you approve,” she said drily. “If
we’re going to be co-conspirators, you might as well call me
Christine.”
    Jill squirmed. “Ah…I’m not really comfortable
with that, ma’am.”
    Forman’s tone turned ironic.