Red Sky at Morning

Chapter

Ten

DAR LEANED BACK in the leather seat and rested her knee against the wheel as the Lexus made its way down the long stretch of road. She had a soothing New Age CD playing, a new one Kerry had bought her on a recent trip to the mall. Dar pulled out the cover and glanced at it.

“Huh.” It was an all-instrumental healing CD, with natural background noises worked into it, and she liked it very much.

It was soothing, and Dar felt very calm. She took a sip of the milk she’d put in her travel mug and felt its cool thickness slide down her throat. Funny. Her eyes dropped briefly to the cup, then lifted. She’d been staying away from coffee lately, and she was starting to notice a real difference. Instead of her usual five or six cups, she’d been having maybe two, and even her breathing seemed to have slowed down a little.

On the seat next to her rested the laptop, full of data and reports she’d downloaded from Mark’s mainframe just before she’d left. Time enough when she got there, Dar reasoned, to take a quick look at them, before she headed off to see the new recruits.

Part of her was looking forward to that, in an odd way. “There but for having a brain cell, go I,” she murmured to herself with a smile.

“Seaman Roberts, the second.” She sighed. “Oh, Dar. Was that ever so not for you.”

But then, it had hurt. That one last day, when she’d waited in the driveway for her father to come home; waited, and known, the moment she saw his face, what the answer was.

No.

Andrew had indulged in a rare bit of physical affection, putting his arms around her and hugging her. “Sweetheart, you ain’t got to do this. There’s lots of damn things you can do in there.”

Dar had leaned against him, utterly miserable. “Why couldn’t I have been a boy?” she’d whispered. A hand had come and gripped her chin, lifting her head up.

“’Cause God didn’t want you that way,” her father had told her. “You ain’t gonna argue with God, Paladar. What he made you is what he made you.”

162 Melissa Good Dar smiled faintly. Yeah, I guess he did. She took another long swallow of milk, then set the cup down as she prepared to turn into the base. The guard opened the gate without her even pausing and she entered, finding a spot under a large tree to park.

Shouldering her laptop, she got out and walked across the lot, pausing as a group of children dashed in front of her, heading for the bus stop. A harried-looking woman chased after them, dressed in a pair of cotton pants and a haphazardly buttoned shirt.

“Nora! Wait! Slow down!” the woman yelled.

One of the smaller girls, a cute tyke with soft, dark-brown hair and a mischievous grin, turned and made a face at her. “Go now, Mom!” she scolded, then turned and dashed after her friends.

“Oh, my God,” the woman sighed, pushing her hair back as she ran past Dar. “Kids. Nora!”

Dar chuckled softly and continued on her way, trying to recall ever being that small. Could she? Being here helped, she acknowledged, as she walked through the lower corridor and up the curved stairway. As her hand touched the banister, she had a sudden flash of memory that almost made her stop short.

She did remember, just a little. It had been a very rainy day, so bad that they’d gotten all the kids and the parents from the housing area and put them up in the admin building. Here, in fact. Dar stopped at the landing and turned to look down. Yes. She remembered the blankets spread out.

Maybe it had even been a hurricane. Her dad had been gone, away at sea, and she and Ceci had joined about ten other kids and fifteen or so adults in taking shelter here in the hall. She remembered sliding down the banister, thrilled at the access to the normally closed and guarded building.

“Paladar!” Her mother had looked up to see a small form hurtling toward her at frightening speed.

“Whee!” Dar had leaped off the end of the wood and crashed into her mother, knocking the diminutive Ceci right down on her behind. “Wow! I liked that!” She’d gotten up, intending to race back up the stairs.

But her mother had grabbed her and spanked her, right there in the middle of the hall, and all the other kids had laughed.

Dar hadn’t laughed. She didn’t now, as she felt again that hot sting of shame.

“Hey, Roberts.”

Dar turned at the voice and gave Chief Daniel a cool look. “Yes?”

The stocky chief came down the rest of the stairs, but stayed one up from the landing, to bring her eyes level with Dar’s. “Got something you might want to see.”

“Like what?”

Red Sky At Morning 163

A faint smile edged the chief’s lips. “C’mon. I’ll show you.” She turned and walked back up the stairs. After a moment of watching her, Dar followed.

“MORNING, EVERYONE.” KERRY put her PDA down on the conference room table. The extended operations group looked back at her, waiting for her to sit down. Familiar faces all, including the newest, Clarice. Kerry opened her notes and cleared her throat, lacing her fingers together as she reviewed the page. “Okay, Mark, you start. Tell me about those router projections?”

“Well,” the MIS chief twirled his pad around the pencil he had stuck in one of its holes, “I don’t know, Kerry. I extended out the contracts we have pending to the end of the year, and we ain’t got enough hardware for them.” He lifted one shoulder slightly. “Not sure what happened.”

Everyone shifted uneasily.

“Okay.” Kerry tapped her thumbs together. “Either sales oversold, or we underbought. It’s not like it’s rocket science, Mark. Which was it?”

Clarice spoke up. “I’m sure you could probably tell us right off, right?”

Kerry’s hackles invisibly rose. However, she didn’t answer; instead, she eyed Mark. “Well?”

“Um...”

“Mark, just spill it.” Kerry said. “Someone counted wrong, it’s not a crime.” She rested her chin against her fist.

“Well, that’s the problem.” Mark said. “If I use our invoices, and use our contracts, we’re not short.”

Kerry cocked her head at him. “What are you saying?” she asked.

“Are you saying we lost a bunch of routers?”

“That’s pretty funny, for the operations machine,” Clarice chuckled, getting a few people to chuckle with her. “I guess humans work here, too.”

“Considering it means either someone’s been incompetent, or someone’s been thieving, I wouldn’t really call it funny,” Kerry stated, overriding the noise.

“Oh, c’mon, Kerry,” Clarice said. “They’re probably in a closet somewhere, or under a cabinet.” She smiled. “It happens.”

Kerry waited for the murmuring to stop, which it did when she remained silent. “No, it doesn’t, not with our inventory system,” she said quietly. “Mark, open an investigation. Track every asset we have by bar code. I want to know the last known location of anything we can’t find.”

“Well, in my experience, even computers can make mistakes,”

Clarice said, undaunted.

164 Melissa Good

“Not these computers,” Kerry stated with finality. “Not this program. The coder made sure of that.” She looked at Mark. “By tonight?”

Mark nodded.

“Thanks.” Kerry dismissed the subject. “Carol, give me the rundown on the new VOIP system for the central help desk?”

She was beginning to regret, she realized, a thoughtless moment of kindness.

DAR STARED AT the empty space. “What happened?”

Daniel shrugged. “Beats the heck out of me. Came in here to adjust some packet sizing, and found the damn thing gone. I called Security, but I got told to keep my mouth shut and take off.” She rocked on her heels. “Y’know? I don’t like your ass, Roberts, but I don’t like being told to shut up worse.”

Dar felt a grin tugging at her lips. “Yeah.” She put her hands on her hips and took a breath, eyeing the area that had held the mysterious T3

and its router. “I know the feeling.” One finger rubbed the strap on her laptop idly, then she pulled out her cell phone and dialed. “Mark?”

“Uh?” The MIS chief’s voice sounded distant. “Hang on...I’m under my desk.”

Dar’s eyebrows rose. “We having bad weather again?”

The voice came much closer. “No.” Mark exhaled audibly. “My goddamned friggin’ NIC cable came loose again. I gotta replace it.

What’s up, boss?”

“Remember that T3 I was having you chase down?”

Mark paused for an instant. “Yeah. I was getting install data for you. It’s almost all here.”

“Good. Now get the disco order for it, because someone pulled it out of here yesterday,” Dar told him. “Did we get anything back on the serial number of that router?”

A long, long beat. “Not that we wanna talk about over the cell,”

Mark stated firmly. “Can I e-mail the info to you?”

A soft warning bell rang in Dar’s head. “Sure,” she murmured.

“Send me what you have. I’ll go pull it down.” She closed the phone and looked at the chief. “Something doesn’t smell right.”

Daniel sniffed. “Must be that weird-ass soap you civvies are always using.” She shook her head and turned toward the door to the small telecommunications closet. “But, yeah, I figured. I don’t like my stuff going AWOL, then being told it ain’t my business.”

They walked down the hall to the small office that had been assigned to Dar. It was empty, as always, since Dar brought everything with her she needed and took it home with her at the end of the day. A pencil, left behind on her prior visit, rolled idly in the breeze from the open windows.

Red Sky At Morning 165

Dar put her briefcase down on the desk and unzipped it. “Let me get that mail, and maybe it’ll make some sense.” She glanced out the window. “Too early for the recruits?”

Daniel snorted. “Bus broke down up near the split to Card Sound.”

She perched on a corner of the worn wooden desk and watched Dar unpack her laptop. “Nice box.”

Dar flashed a quick grin. “Thanks. It’s a new generation chip we’re testing for Intel.” She flipped the screen open and pressed the rapid on, watching the fifteen-inch display light crisply.

“Yeah?” Daniel sounded interested. She edged closer. “Shit, that’s fast.”

“Mm.” Dar reached down, picked up the Ethernet cable lying limply on the floor, and started to plug it into the jack on the computer.

An odd sensation under her thumb made her stop, however, and bring the end of the cable up for a better look.

No, it seemed fine. Dar rubbed her thumb over the plastic again while the chief watched her in fascination. Hmm. Unable to figure out why she didn’t like the damn thing, she shrugged and put the cable down, unzipping the top part of her laptop case and retrieving a second cable, with which she replaced the first. “Here.” She tossed the discarded coil to the chief. “I don’t like that one.”

“Picky.” Daniel caught the cable and examined it. “Looks fine to me.”

Dar sat down and watched her desktop come up, her mind mulling over the last few minutes. Then she suddenly hit the pause key and stopped the machine’s progress. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed Mark’s number again. “Hey.”

“Yeah? Didn’t come through?” Mark asked.

“Put a filter on that T1 from here.” Dar’s voice became clipped.

“One way. Everything. Fast.”

“What are you doing?” Chief Daniel eased around the desk and peered at the computer.

“Wh—okay.” Mark’s keyboard rattled hard for a long moment.

“Okay, got it. What’s up?”

Dar released the pause button and watched the computer continue to boot. “Read me the talk back.”

There was a pause. “Nego,” Mark said.

“Go on.”

“Protocol’s up.”

“Okay.”

“IP request to the DHCP. You were issued 194.156.168.131.”

“Got it.”

“RAS coming up...you should get your validation in a second.”

The computer beeped softly, requesting input. Dar typed her network login and password and hit enter. “Okay, it’s got it.”

“You’re validated. Services starting.” Long pause. “Looks okay, boss wh—holy shit!”

166 Melissa Good Dar smiled grimly. “Invasion barrage?”

“Son of a bitch! Jesus, what the hell is in that hub?” Mark squeaked.

“Shit, let me get a more macho filter on that before it sends my security program running for the hills. Brent! Get me box ten online, wouldja!”

Long fingers drummed on the wood surface. “Let me know when you get something in place to trap it. Then disable it so I can get my goddamn mail.” Dar gave Chief Daniel a look. “I don’t mind the bullshit, but if this was you trying to bust into my network, I’m gonna hang you out that damn window.”

Chief Daniel was staring at the laptop. She looked at Dar with an astonished expression. “Me? Shit, if I could do that, you think I’d be working in a half-assed, sun-baked sand pit down at the ass end of the Navy?”

No. Dar’s eyes narrowed. But someone else here was.

KERRY STIFF-ARMED HER way into Operations, tossing her folder down on the console as she circled the big desk. “Okay. Let me see the inventory screens.”

Mark had walked in behind her, and he paused, leaning against the other side of the desk as he watched her scroll through the program.

“Probably ended up being coded to some other account, Kerry. I’m sure they weren’t scarfed.”

An annoyed wrinkle appeared across Kerry’s brow. “That’s not the point,” she told him. “If they had been scanned right, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

The MIS manager exchanged rueful looks with the tech behind the desk, who had slid his chair back to make room for Kerry to get at the machine. Their blonde VP took up less space than her tall boss did, but Mark noticed they both had the same exact habit of restlessly moving their mice around while waiting for the program to give them what they wanted.

He wondered if Kerry had picked that up by watching Dar, or if it was just a coincidence.

“C’mon, c’mon,” Kerry grumbled. “This damn thing’s slower than my grandmother’s cat.” Her eyes flicked across the screen, then paused, and she leaned a little closer. “Ah.”

Curious, Mark put his briefcase down and circled the console, peering over her shoulder at the results. “Uh-oh,” he muttered. “I forgot about that.”

Kerry turned and looked at him, putting them almost nose to nose.

One of her blonde eyebrows hiked up sharply.

Mark backed up hastily. “Okay, so it was my fault. I forgot to recap those routers we sent you in NC, boss,” he admitted. “We haven’t processed the recovered ones from the old center yet back into inventory.”

Red Sky At Morning 167

“And we’re just now realizing this?” Kerry’s voice rose in disbelief.

The MIS manager half shrugged apologetically. “When Dar calls, we jump. You know how it is, Kerry. My foul-up—I’ll make sure it gets fixed and call the warehouse to put those returns back into circulation.”

“Grr.” Kerry mock-growled at him, relaxing a little now that she’d solved the mystery. Losing that many routers wasn’t funny, but finding them in a paperwork snafu was a lot better than having to call Security over it.

Mark’s phone rang and he scuttled backward, waving at it. “Duty calls...I’ll take care of that in a jiff, Kerry. Promise.” He opened the phone and answered it, glancing up at Kerry after he heard the voice on the other end. “Hey...you just got me in big trouble!”

Dar, Kerry guessed, shaking a finger at him before she collected her folders and headed back to her office. She pushed the door open and emerged into the hallway, coming close to colliding with Clarice as the black woman walked in the opposite direction. “Whoops...sorry.”

“No problem, Kerry.” Clarice paused, regarding her. “Find that missing stuff yet?”

Kerry had to concentrate on her voice to keep the edge out, which surprised her a little. “Found them, yes. Just an inventory mix-up.”

“See?” Clarice laughed. “I told you it was something like that. You shouldn’t take things so seriously, Kerry.” She gave the smaller woman a nudge on the arm. “Lighten up!”

Kerry’s eyes narrowed slightly against her will. “Well, you know how it is,” she responded politely. “When I’m responsible for something, I take it very seriously.” She paused. “Old-fashioned attitude, I guess.”

Clarice ignored the barb behind the words and shook her head in mock dismay. “Well, I can understand that. You working...so closely...with Paladar and all,” she said. “If I were in your shoes, I’d have lost my sense of humor, too.” She patted Kerry on the shoulder and walked on past. “Later!”

Kerry took a breath, then headed for the stairwell, passing Clarice up as she opened the door. “Lucky me,” she commented, making sure she caught the black woman’s eyes. “I’m the only one who fits in my shoes.” With a pleasant smile, she let the door close in Clarice’s face with a satisfying snick.

“Yeesh.” Kerry scrubbed her hand across her face, exhaling a little of the frustration out. “Dar, we need to talk.” She turned and started up the steps to the fourteenth floor, shaking her head the entire way.

“DID YOU GET that last packet?” Mark’s voice emerged tinnily from the cell phone. “I think that’s it.” There was a pause. “Dar?”

Pale blue eyes were fastened intently on the laptop’s screen, flicking over the data it displayed. “What?”

168 Melissa Good

“Did you hear what I just said?”

“No.” Dar looked up and glared at the phone. “What was it?”

Mark sighed. “I’m done here.”

Yeah, yeah. Dar braced her chin on her fists. “All right.” Her eyes didn’t stop scanning the lines of code, though, as she attempted to find the pattern that was just—barely—eluding her. “Did you suck out the attack program?”

“Sure.”

“Decompile it and dump it down to me, willya?”

Mark was silent for a little bit. “Wouldn’t it be easier if you just did the analysis back here?” His voice sounded a touch odd.

“No.” Dar’s brow creased. “Why would it?”

“We’ve got more cycles here.”

“Bullshit, Mark. Just send it down.” Dar called up another file and split the screen, displaying both files and scrolling them at the same time. After a moment, she stopped scrolling and put her chin back onto her fists, studying the results. What the hell is going on?

The door to the office opened, and Chief Daniel entered. “Figures.

The damn bastard’s on some lame-ass trip up to Baltimore.”

“Mm.” Dar traced a single line with one long finger. “What about Ms. Pit Bull?”

“Says she doesn’t know anything about it.” The chief perched on the edge of the desk. “Nobody knows anything, nobody saw anything, no vendor was cleared on base, no guards saw anyone carrying a thirty-five-pound hub out of the building.”

Dar looked up. “Either someone’s covering up, or you’ve got the worst security outside of the White House.” She rubbed her eyes.

“Damn it, Mark, facilities don’t materialize out of nowhere. Don’t tell me you can’t locate who installed that pipe.”

Mark sighed audibly. “Am I in trouble again?”

“Where the hell is Kerry?” Dar was aware she sounded like a cranky child, but she didn’t care. “Have her start calling up the chain at BellSouth, it’s their POP.”

“Um.”

“Well?” the CIO snapped. “Get on it, Mark!”

“Hey, honey.” A warm voice suddenly emerged, an octave higher than the MIS chief’s.

An awkward silence ensued, then Dar cleared her throat. “Hi,” she said. “You’re on speakerphone.”

“Uh-oh.” Kerry replied. “Don’t tell me you’re in a room full of macho sailors, are you?”

“Two hundred of them.” Dar felt her annoyance fading. “They all want your phone number.” She exhaled. “Listen, I need you to—”

“Shake BellSouth’s cage, I heard.” Kerry’s tone turned crisper.

“What’s going on down there?”

Dar wished she knew. She was aware of the chief’s now somewhat Red Sky At Morning 169

chilly demeanor and guessed the prickly woman was smart enough to figure out that subordinates didn’t usually greet their bosses in quite that manner at ILS. “Something,” she admitted. “I just can’t figure out if it’s someone who’s just curious as to what we’ve found, or someone...”

Dar stopped speaking as her eyes finally found something in the pattern of code on her screen. Her brow contracted and she leaned closer, blinking as her vision blurred slightly, then cleared.

“Dar?” Mark asked, hesitantly.

“Hang on.” Dar typed in a command, then studied the result.

“They’re using a stepped algorithm.”

“Huh?”

“What?” Chief Daniel walked around behind Dar, but conspicuously not too close.

“Right there.” Dar pointed. “It’s a programming trick you can use to shift data from one field to another in database design.” She folded her hands together. “Question is, why?”

Everyone held their tongues. “You still want that dump?” Mark finally asked.

Dar rested her lips against her clasped hands and allowed her eyes to close. The nagging headache she’d picked up after the attack on the network was making her a little sick to her stomach, and she just spent a moment breathing to settle it. “No,” she said at last. “Put it on my drive at home, Mark. I’ll look at it this weekend.”

“Do you want me to get after BellSouth?” Kerry murmured. “I’ve got some contacts that will probably open up for me.”

“Yeah.”

Kerry’s voice strengthened. “Okay.”

“Eh.” Dar kept reviewing the damning bit of data. She carefully saved the data and leaned back as the chief scurried out of range.

“Mark, take that entire database and run it through the C1F program.”

“For real?” Mark sounded a touch puzzled. “I didn’t think—”

“Just do it,” Dar ordered crisply. “If Duks is in there, tell him I need the CPU cycles.”

“All right,” the MIS chief agreed. “I’ll do it. You coming back here?”

Should she go? Dar considered the question. There was something very wrong, that much her experience was telling her. But what if it was just something like what she knew went on during her adolescent years? When the petty officers and lower-ranking crew found ways in and out of the system to hide a few barrels of this here, and a box of that there, just to make life a little easier.

For her, it’d been peanut butter. She’d traded blocks of her nascent programming talents for Number 10 cans of the stuff in the informal black market that had also produced her Navy shirts and boots.

She’d never seen anything wrong in that, really. Even her father had taken advantage of it, getting little luxuries for her mother and 170 Melissa Good using the trading system to save up a few bucks for a toy for her birthday.

No way was she going to blow the whistle on that.

Was she?

Dar sighed. “Kerry, let me know if you get any answers from BellSouth. I’m going to put this to bed for a while and go review the recruit program.”

“Will do,” Kerry replied. “Talk to you later.”

Dar folded her cell phone up and slid it into its clip at her belt.

Then she sat back and turned her head, regarding Chief Daniel in silence.

The naval officer’s lip was curled into an almost unconscious snarl of distaste. “I knew there was something wrong with you,” Daniel said.

“No wonder you didn’t make it into the Navy.”

Asshole. Dar felt her temper stir. She hitched a knee up and circled it with both arms. “The Navy?” she laughed. “You’ve gotta be kidding.

I’m married to a gorgeous woman, I live in a five-million-dollar condo, I make a seven-figure salary, and I don’t have to wear ugly clothing that doesn’t fit right. Why the hell would I want to be in the Navy?”

Chief Daniel stepped back. “You’re sick.”

Dar got up and closed the laptop, after setting its security. “Save your ignorance for someone who gives a crap about what you think.”

She turned her back on the chief and walked out of the office.

HER PHONE RANG. Kerry hit the button. “Operations, Kerry Stuart.”

“Howdy there, Kerry!” Bob Terisanch’s booming voice entered the room, making her desk ornament rattle. “Sorry it took so long, but hot damn, lady, that circuit was buried so deep under a pile of rat poop, it took me the whole day and a jackhammer to pull it on out.”

Colorful, Dar had often called Bob. “Great, Bob. Thanks for the effort. What do you have?” Kerry pulled her pad over and poised her pencil over the white ruled paper.

There was a rustle of shuffled paper. “Well, ma’am, the private company that installed that sucker’s called Fibertalk Associates, and they’re based right down by you in Miami, matter of fact.”

“Great. Do you have a billing address for them?”

“Sure do. 1723 NW 72nd Avenue,” Bob provided cheerfully.

“They’ve done a bunch of little high-priced jobs round town, mostly fiber optics, a little sat.”

“Thanks, Bob. I owe you one,” Kerry told him. “Lunch, next week?”

“Heh. I’ll never say no to lunch with such a pretty lady. You’re on, Kerry. See ya!” Bob hung up, leaving Kerry to nibble thoughtfully at her pencil. The office was one of those little miniwarehouses out behind the airport. Odd. Curiously, she brought up her database search and Red Sky At Morning 171

entered the company name in it. Then she sent the little bot on its way and set her pencil down. “Well, that’s that. Let’s get outta here, okay?”

WHAT IN THE hell are they recruiting these days? Dar rested her arms on the railing and studied the group of new sailors. Kids out of grade school? The twenty new swabs were clustered around the admitting petty officer, looking hapless and mostly bewildered. Watching their painfully earnest faces made Dar suddenly feel older than her years. She put her chin down on her crossed wrists and sighed, wondering if she’d ever really been that young and feckless.

“Can you people not stand up straight? What the hell are your spines made of, Jellah?” the petty officer barked loudly. “Pick up them damn bags and get in line!”

The new sailors looked at each other. “Which you want us to do first, Sarge?” the tall, crew-cut boy closest to Dar drawled. “Gotta get out the line to get them bags.”

Dar’s lips quirked faintly, as the petty officer’s neck veins started to bulge. The kid sounded a lot like her father, and she imagined briefly what she’d have been like in just this sort of lineup, smartass that she’d been.

“Are you finding this funny, ma’am?” The petty officer’s attention had been drawn suddenly to his unwanted observer. “I’m not sure what the joke is.”

Your toupee? Dar had to clamp her jaw shut to keep the words from emerging. The smart-assed kid she’d been snickered at her. Been? “If I were you, I’d just take care of the problems you have right there, not look for more with me,” she warned the man. “Those problems you’ve got a chance to do something about.”

The petty officer glared at her, then decided the tall, dark-haired woman he’d been told to be cursorily polite to wasn’t going to go away.

“All right, you lot of useless baggage. Go to that pile of bags, pick up the bag that has your goddamned name on it, then walk back to where you started and get in line. Is that clear enough, or d’you want me to stamp it in Braille letters on your goddamned useless foreheads?”

Dar resumed her position leaning against the railing as the swabs picked up their gear and shuffled into place. Six of the new sailors were women, and she found herself studying them, making mental guesses as to their backgrounds and reasons for joining.

The two nearest her, she considered, were probably from poor families in tough neighborhoods. They were almost twins: medium height, Latin complexion, dark curly hair, and a permanent suspicious look in their eyes.

The redhead in the front of the line with the pugnacious chin and smattering of freckles looked like an only girl raised with a pile of brothers, some of whom were probably already in service.

172 Melissa Good One of the remaining three was, Dar suspected, a cheerleader. She had the wholesome good looks and feathered blonde hair of one, along with a perky snub noise and a perfect smile.

Dar wondered what wrong turn she’d taken, and when she’d realize she’d taken it. Next to her was a short, heavyset girl with a bulldog attitude, who reminded Dar strongly of Chief Daniel.

Great. Dar exhaled and turned her head slightly, startled to find the eyes of the last female swab fastened firmly on her. For an instant, clear, pale gray eyes met Dar’s with startling clarity, and then they dropped as the petty officer started to yell more orders.

Dar blinked. The girl was facing forward now, her blonde head cocked to one side as she listened. She was fairly short, shorter than Kerry by an inch or so, and she had a wiry, but very slender build. She held herself with a sense of secure confidence, despite the intimidating petty officer, and Dar felt an unusual curiosity prick her.

But not for that long, as the petty officer shoved them out the door and toward the processing center. Dar pushed off the railing and ambled after them, pushing the hinged doors open and moving to one side of the room as the new sailors picked up their new uniforms.

A computer terminal was on a table to her right, and Dar went directly to it, bringing up a login screen and entering a collection of letters and numbers in a rattle of keystrokes.

“Hey.” The petty officer was at her shoulder. “Are you supposed to be in there?”

“I have a password,” Dar replied. She scanned the information she was looking for and keyed in a further request. “Your swabs are unraveling.” She waited for the man to leave, then examined the record.