Christmas at Steel Beach Read online

  He wondered who he could blame for this one.

  In a moment, he was going to stand up and the fifty Rangers standing on the LCAC’s loading deck were going to be laughing their asses off at the Navy’s expense.

  That just wasn’t right.

  Sly glared over at the small riverine craft, squinting against the bright array of lights so that he could see who to blame. The bow section folded forward and allowed a tall woman wearing a duffle over one shoulder and carrying a small black case to dismount. Then the craft began backing away from the Well Deck even as the bow section was pulled back up. He didn’t get a good look at any of them. The dogs!

  The woman walked up close to Sly and stopped to look down at him.

  That initial impression of tall was combined with Navy fit, and a uniform that showed it off in the best way. Her short tousle of dark red hair hung perfectly as if she’d just brushed it rather than gone for a ride on a craft that could hit thirty-five knots. She wore an emblem of a large crescent-shaped “C” over four horizontal stripes. The “C” marked her as a Steward, the four stripes as the new Chief Steward they’d been told to expect.

  She looked like a breath of fresh air.

  Truth be told, she looked like the goddamn goddess Venus rising from the water as she stepped out onto the last retreating sheen of seawater that was washing back off the deck under her boots.

  He stood to greet her properly.

  A roll of laughter sounded behind him and Sly turned—remembering a moment too late as he turned his back on the new Chief—the butt of his uniform was still sopping wet.

  # # #

  Chief Steward Gail Miller didn’t bother trying to stifle her laugh. It just blew out of her. Her laugh was the main reason of many that her insignia wasn’t gold colored with twelve years of “Good Conduct,” unlike the Chief Petty Officer with the wet behind.

  Somehow, the simple fact that she had laughed in the face of a grumpy ship’s Captain three years earlier—after her ship took a bad pitch and roll and she’d dumped a plate of turkey with cranberry sauce she’d been serving him down the front of his dress whites—hadn’t worked out so well.

  She hadn’t done it on purpose.

  At least mostly not.

  But he was enough of a stiff-necked, stuck-up— Well, when the opportunity presented itself, she hadn’t fought too hard to retain her balance. Might have succeeded if she’d tried, might not, but even in retrospect she’d still say it was worth it. However, Gail would make certain she was less obvious next time; she would have been in lockup if saner heads had not prevailed.

  Not even yet technically aboard the Peleliu, she decided she’d better behave now. She sent the wet Chief Petty Officer a sharp salute as his injured dignity appeared to call for it.

  She also noticed that the Rangers had stopped their laughter the very moment he turned to glare at them. The man clearly commanded respect among them—at least under normal conditions.

  Gail struggled to suppress the rest of her laugh, but she could feel a broad smile giving her away.

  “Permission to come aboard, Chief.” You didn’t “sir” an enlisted man no matter how high he’d risen or you’d get the standard line about how he “worked for a living.”

  A look of deep chagrin slid onto his face, and his salute came back with a smile that pulled up on the left side of this lips first. A good smile. A damn good one, proving he wasn’t nearly as old-school as he looked at first glance. The initial impression of grizzled old sea-dog was actually a handsome and fit man in his late thirties wrapped up in old-Navy respectability.

  “Permission granted, Chief.” His voice was deep and friendly despite his recent humiliation. He looked her in the eyes, not the chest, unlike the Marines who had just delivered her from the carrier. His hair wasn’t crew-cut short, but rather long enough to make her want to mess it up.

  Who knew they even made men like that anymore.

  “Sorry about that, Chief,” she dropped her salute. “But you gotta watch where you sit.”

  “Thanks. Helpful.” He looked down at his watch. “Welcome aboard. We’re out of here in thirty seconds, you better hurry across,” he pointed up the ramp and through the crowd aboard the LCAC.

  He started up the ramp himself, his boots squishing with each step.

  She surveyed the load on the hovercraft. Rangers aboard with combat gear and a trio of M-ATVs looking huge and brutal with a bristle of sharp weaponry. Even the ambulances had turret guns. They were loaded for some kind of exercise. Two Santa hats that stood out among the crowd of Rangers said it would be an easy one. Maybe just transport to do some on-shore relief work.

  “Mind if I come along?”

  The Chief halted halfway up the ramp of his craft. She was still down on the wood deck. A seaman worked his way through the Rangers and came down to her, clearly there to guide her to the ship’s commanding officer to report in.

  “Headed into a live op, Chief Steward,” the Chief Petty Officer fended her off. He emphasized the last word making it clear where he thought she belonged—in the kitchen.

  To him she wanted to say, I’m a soldier too, not just a chef, dammit. Granted she only had Basic Training and a yearly one-week refresher, but she was a soldier. Still, it wasn’t her style, so she gave him a different answer.

  “Excellent!” An actual mission? She’d never been on more than a training sortie. She remembered that as an exhilarating time. How dangerous could this one be when there were Santa hats aboard.

  She handed her gear to the seaman, except for her helmet and armored vest, and waved him off to go do what he had to do with her stuff. With the ease of long practice, he disappeared up the ramp and through the crowd of Rangers headed back into the ship.

  Gail had just come from one of the most boring galley messes on the planet. SUBASE Bangor had been tedious at best. Submarine crews returned to the shore of Hood Canal and immediately evaporated. The only ones she fed day in and day out were the maintenance and refit workers. She was so glad to be back out on the ships that she didn’t dare give the Chief a moment to think.

  There might be seven thousand culinary specialists in the Navy, but there were only three hundred Navy messes. If she was ready to command one of those, she was ready to go on an actual mission.

  Gail strode up the hovercraft’s stern ramp, but didn’t stop beside the nameless Chief Petty Officer still riveted in place halfway up—just in case he came to his senses. Instead she continued onto the LCAC’s deck, donning her gear as she went. She’d never been on one and was eager to look around anyway.

  Three-meter steel walls all around. No, three-meter high walls of machinery. This was a hovercraft, big engines and big fans lined either side of the deck. Glassed-in control station high up forward to starboard. Small observer and gunner station port-side forward. Small steering fans to each side forward.

  The monster fans at the tail, each twice her height, were positioned to push the boat ahead.

  When she reached the first of the Rangers, she turned back to look at him standing there as if paralyzed. She made a show of checking her watch then looking back at him over her shoulder.

  “Ten more seconds, Chief. Aren’t we outta here yet?”

  She offered him her best smile as the nearby Rangers laughed once more at his complete discomfiture.

  Gail was sorry to do it to the man, but it was all in good fun.

  # # #

  There was a part of Sly Stowell that wanted to drive the woman off his boat, but he had the feeling that was a conversation that wouldn’t go quickly and he was out of time. Besides, he had a sneaking suspicion that he’d lose.

  A part of him thought that losing to her might not be such a bad thing. His eyes were finally recovering enough from the riverine’s glaring lights to inspect her by the Well Deck red night-ops lighting.

  She was a nicely built craft, trim in all the right places and generous in the others. There—

  She arched one of those fin
e eyebrows at him and his attention snapped back to reality. He’d been admiring things that a decent man didn’t admire on a new Chief, even if she was a Steward and not a Petty Officer.

  And if he didn’t get on some hustle, he was going to be late to the party.

  Fine.

  “You,” he aimed a finger at her, “are not leaving my side. If you end up dead before you’ve officially reported in, I’m just gonna roll your body over the side, because I sure as hell don’t need the damned paperwork.”

  Then he looked for Lieutenant Clint Barstowe, suited up just like the rest of his Ranger grunts. Found him right in the thick of it by his red Santa hat—made it easy to respect the man. Leading from the front and keeping the guys at ease. These were all seasoned troops and didn’t need their hands held, but it was still well done.

  They exchanged nods; no need to speak. Good to go.

  Sly went.

  He turned his back on the new Chief and climbed the ladder up to the control room. Troops weren’t supposed to ride out on the Service Deck, out in the open, if at all possible. Half crowded into the small deck houses to either side, the rest squeezed aboard their vehicles.

  Even so, no one, except the gunners perched high atop their machines, had a view of anything other than sky. Add in the wild motion of the hovercraft over the Atlantic and he just thanked his lucky stars that he wasn’t the one who had to barf out his guts without breaking stride as he ran out onto some hostile beach.

  The control room sat atop the right front corner of the hovercraft, a glassed-in room that looked like a miniature airport control tower from the outside and a three-seat passenger jet cockpit from the inside. His engines threw the same force as a fully-loaded 737 in flight and took a lot more skill to fly. No such thing as smooth air in a hovercraft.

  Dave and Tom were already in position at engines and navigation.

  “Wow! What a great little Christmas tree!” The new Chief came up behind him as he moved into the right-hand seat.

  The woman walks into one of the coolest cockpits in the Navy, and remarks on a foot-tall tall Christmas tree.

  Well, that told him more about the woman than he’d wanted to know. Why were so many of the really pretty ones brain dead?

  Dave had made the little wire sculpture out of green wire and strung it with red-white-and-blue LED lights and a couple strands of red and green plastic beads that were actually a necklace his four-year old niece had sent him. It was cute, but that was about all.

  “You!” he pointed at the observer’s jump seat. “There!” Why he was being so damned gruff about it was beyond him, but he couldn’t seem to get that “new recruit” tone out of his voice. Some part of him must figure it was the only thing she’d understand.

  She planted her butt. Thankfully, she’d pulled on her armored vest making her at least somewhat less distracting. She really did have a fine shape. That was one nice thing he liked about having more women in the service over the years, it had definitely served to make a ship’s crew more pleasant to look at. Regrettably, unlike most, that appeared to be about all this woman was gonna offer.

  “Seatbelt too. You’re going to be needing it.”

  That got her attention and the quick response showed the woman had some sense; she buckled up. He still wasn’t sure quite how she’d come to be aboard and didn’t have time to unravel it. “Dazzled” was not a state that ever happened to him, but he suspected that it just had.

  He moved into the right-hand seat and nodded for Tom to lift the front gate. He had the comms and nav up, so Sly gave Dave the “go” for engine start.

  Now things were going to start happening fast.

  Like a jet, Dave finished the prestart checklist, and goosed the four gas turbines to life one by one. It was completely deafening as the engines’ roar reverberated throughout the Peleliu’s Well Deck. Even the soundproofing on the LCAC’s control room couldn’t muffle it. He dragged on his helmet and booted up the displays projected inside his helmet’s visor.

  When Sly gave him the nod, Dave inflated the rubber skirt that would make it so that they didn’t sink like a stone—actually like a giant steel box with no lid—if they experienced a lift failure.

  Then Sly fed the power from Dave’s engines into the big blowers beneath the deck and spray erupted on all sides. He set the lift control to force the air downward. That blasted the water—that had flowed under the planking after washing his goddamn butt for him, it was still wet and clinging against his seat—up into a blinding cloud of spray which showered back down on the LCAC. He hit the wipers on the three forward windows and the two to the side. Despite that, their view of the Well Deck disappeared in the swirl of self-generated fog.

  Nika—a testament to just how good a woman could be serving in a Navy uniform—sat in a small turret on the port-side forward corner of the LCAC. He glanced across and saw that her wipers were going as well. Once they were out in the open, she’d call out if he was about to run over anything with her corner—at least anything that he didn’t want to. An LCAC was sometimes even better than a tank at nudging things out of the way, like people. Give them a blast of jet-lift air and a taste of heavy rubber skirt and they cleared out plenty fast.

  Jerome was down making sure the Rangers and their vehicles were all okay despite the walls of mist now soaking everything and everyone who wasn’t hunkered down.

  “Craftmaster has the boat,” he called out over the radio to his crew. He liked the title. It was as if he became even more than being a Chief in the Navy when he was flying the LCAC, as if such a thing was possible.

  He eased back on the yoke for a bit of reverse thrust and backed the boat out away from the steel ramp inside the Peleliu. The air driving out to either side kept him centered in the Well Deck. The ship was steaming straight upwind, but the swells were running three-to-five feet. The U.S. Navy was a strange mash-up of metric, standard, and nautical units that never seemed to straighten themselves out.

  He slipped down the steel beach of the rear gate of the Peleliu and struck clear air over the water. Now all of the generated spray blew out to the sides. However, he still couldn’t see a thing.

  Pitch dark had hit about an hour ago, and except for the muted lighting of the open Well Deck which revealed the wave height and little more, only the ship’s running lights made her visible at all.

  He kicked the nose sideways with a twist of the yoke and pushed it forward.

  His baby roared to life and leapt away into the darkness.

  Chapter 2

  Gail was overwhelmed by the assault on her senses. She’d pulled on her helmet after buckling into the observer’s seat. She’d only secured the belt because she did feel bad for the Chief—he squished as he sat down.

  As soon as they were clear of the Peleliu, the Chief spun the boat—she didn’t even know his name yet—and they shot off across the waves. Her helmet slapped back against the rear window with a hard whack that echoed down her spine.

  The high whine of gas turbine engines pierced through her Kevlar like it wasn’t there and the bass roar of the big fans that lifted and drove the hovercraft pounded against her diaphragm like an awesome Maroon 5 concert from right down in the pit.

  By the time she thought to look back, the towering carrier was dwindling from sight. She scrabbled around until she found the comm system cable by her chair and jacked it into her helmet.

  “Okay if I ask a question?”

  “As long as I don’t have to answer.”

  She wished she could see his face; his tone was so dry, it was hard to read. Humor or macho jerk? Jury was still out. She’d have bet on the latter, except for that great smile he’d lasered at her on first arrival.

  The hovercraft rocked and jostled proving that the seatbelt hadn’t been some idle suggestion and the padding that she’d thought luxurious at first…wasn’t. No way the Rangers down in the deck cabins were having a good time of this.

  “How fast can this beast go?”

&nbs
p; “Seventy knots if I don’t have an Abrams aboard, but the boys down below wouldn’t appreciate it in these conditions, so I’m keeping it under fifty.”

  No wonder the Peleliu had disappeared behind; she had no idea these hovercraft were so fast. She hoped that she wasn’t upsetting her new commander. Jumping aboard the LCAC had been a whim, and since she was technically not due aboard until tomorrow morning, maybe it would be okay. Besides, a training exercise never hurt anyone; good to know as much as you could about a new berth. She just hoped the master of the Peleliu saw it that way and wasn’t some Navy hard-core steeped in propriety.

  “What are you doing with 75th Rangers? I thought that landing helicopter assault ships were always loaded with jarhead Marines.”

  “She doesn’t know,” the guy at the engines station looked over at the Chief driving the boat. “I’m Dave, this is Tom, by the way.” The man at the engine console hooked a thumb at his buddy at the nav station, who did that part-way turn thing to acknowledge her presence without fully turning from his instruments to look back at her.

  Neither one thought to introduce the Chief, which was getting a little peculiar. But she wasn’t going to be the first to ask. Of course, now she had to give her name…or not.

  “Hi, guys. What don’t I know?”

  “What do you think, Chief? Can we trust her?”

  The boat jarred over a particularly rough wave but the Chief kept her rock steady; well, steady wasn’t the right word, but it was clear he was highly skilled at something that looked wholly impossible. The hovercraft must weigh close to a hundred tons and it shuffled and slewed over the water like a puck on an air hockey table. A barely controlled one. He was constantly making adjustments using foot pedals and a wheel that moved like an aircraft’s: side-to-side and in-and-out.

  “She’s the new Chief Steward,” that dry tone again, “maybe we should wait to find out if she can cook first.”