Problem Taken Care Of

Colonel Victor Kane drove his boot into my chest and sent me over the rail of the USNS Resolute.

For one second I saw his face. The next, there was nothing beneath my boots, and the Pacific rushed up to meet me.

I hit the water hard. Cold slammed through every muscle until it locked. When I broke the surface, the Resolute was already pulling away, hundreds of faces crowding the rail — and above all of them, Kane, hands resting easily on his hips.

"Problem taken care of," he said.

It had started three hours earlier, on a flight deck hot enough to cook. Three heat casualties were already in the medical log, and still Kane refused to unlock the emergency water two decks below. He called it ration control. Nobody believed that anymore. When a young signalman swayed and collapsed at my side, Kane stood over him and said, "Dead weight doesn't deserve rations."

I stepped between them before I could think about how it would look. "Sir, he needs water."

Five hundred people heard me. Kane removed his sunglasses.

"And who exactly do you think you are, Petty Officer?"

"The only person here still speaking to you as if you're human."

That was the moment he decided I would be gone before sunset. He called an unauthorized morale swim, chose me and three larger men, and when I towed one of them back alive, he demanded I apologize.

"For bringing your sailor back?" I said.

Then his boot found my chest, and the ocean swallowed everything.

Kane expected me to panic — to swim for open water and wait for a courage nobody aboard had. Instead I turned toward the dark mass beneath the stern.

My father, Master Chief Mason Cole, taught me one thing before I understood what it meant. Panic creates noise. Training creates decisions. I inhaled and went under.

Because the missing water was never the heart of it. The real investigation was Deck Four — a compartment with fresh welds below the waterline, an access point on no schematic. I reached the hull, followed the seam, and my fingers found a recessed latch that should not have existed.

I pulled the waterproof evidence key from my sleeve and slid it into the concealed lock.

It fit.

That was the first bad sign.

I turned it anyway. The mechanism released with a click I felt in my teeth. Above me the engines changed pitch, the current shifted —

— and behind that panel that wasn't supposed to exist, something began to move.