Panic Switch полностью

Varney shook the new officers’ hands. “These alcoholics call me ‘Boozy’ because I drink — in moderation, unlike them — despite being a Muslim. The way I figure it, the USS New Jersey is damned lucky to have us aboard. Except you, Lipstick. Try not to burn up the New Jersey, will ya?”

“Dammit,” Pacino said.

“Hey, as of now, we have all the J.O.s, right?” Vevera said.

“You’re MPA, I’m DCA,” Dankleff said, referring to Vevera’s job as main propulsion assistant and his own job as damage control assistant. “Easy’s commo, Lipstick’s sonar, Boozy’s E-div, Gang’s supply. Short Hull Cooper is torpedo division officer and Long Hull is reactor controls officer. So yeah, we’re all present.”

“So now I guess we just wait for the department heads and the XO and skipper,” Vevera replied. “Let’s get a couple rounds of drinks here before they come.”

“Kind of strange,” Pacino said to Dankleff while Vevera went off to grab a server. “An all-male wardroom.”

“Who knows? We haven’t met the navigator, weapons officer, XO or captain. One or all could be female.”

“A female captain. Hasn’t been one since Devilfish went down,” Pacino said.

“I’ll be the next one,” a female voice said, but a booming female voice that was an octave deeper than Pacino’s. Pacino looked over to see a petite woman in tight jeans tucked into ugly sheepskin boots, with a black sweater that clung to her well-proportioned figure under a black sport jacket. She had full and shining black hair that was combed straight and reached below her shoulders. She had conventionally pretty features, but there was something about her eyes. Her dark brown eyes looked normal one second and eerily wide the next, and when they went wide, she looked frantic or even crazy.

Believing her to be one of the department heads, Pacino reached out and shook her hand. “Ma’am, you’ve arrived at the table for the USS New Jersey wardroom. I’m Patch Pacino, oncoming sonar officer.”

She smiled at him. Her warm hand seemed strangely rough in his.

“I’m Lieutenant Commander Alyssa Kelly. Oncoming chief engineer of the New Jersey.”

“You’re the eng?” Vevera asked. “I’m Duke Vevera, MPA. This is Dieter Dankleff, DCA. Muhammad Varney, electrical officer. Over there is Don Eisenhart, communicator. These guys are the nubs, both named Cooper. That one’s Long Hull and he’s Short Hull. Short Hull is the PCU torpedo division officer and Long Hull is reactor controls officer.”

Kelly greeted the officers with a smile, shaking their hands and learning their street names, and all the while, her eyes kept up that normal-then-wide-eyed thing, as if she were flashing messages with her eyes. After a moment, Vevera became brave enough to ask her what her callsign was.

“I’ve had a few,” Kelly said. “Hated them all. Machinegun Kelly. Moose—that’s the one that’s seemed to stick the hardest, because of my stupid baritone voice. And my least favorite, Crazy Eyes. Any of you J.O.s ever call me Crazy Eyes, I swear I will write you up to the XO.”

“Eng,” Pacino said, feeling strange calling her ‘Eng,’ the usual name for the chief engineer of a submarine, since the Eng for him had been Elvis Feng Lewinsky back on the Vermont. He’d always think about Elvis every time someone said ‘Eng.’ “Do you know who is going to be the XO?”

“No idea,” Kelly replied. “I guess I’ll find out when you guys do. But I do know who the weapons officer is. River! We’re over here!”

Kelly motioned over a tall, slender brunette woman who wore a gray cashmere form-fitting dress that came just above her knees with tall black high heels. As she walked over, Pacino felt his stomach descend several floors. The woman was Wanda “River” Styxx. Before the Panther run, there had been a party for the Vermont officers at AUTEC — the Bahamas Atlantic Undersea Testing and Evaluation Center, the Navy’s version of Area 51—when Pacino had been awarded his full lieutenant bars by Vice Admiral Catardi, the commander of the submarine force, and been ordered to “drink his bars” by downing a large glass filled with rotgut scotch with his new rank emblems at the bottom. The scotch had gotten to him and he’d gone into a full memory blackout. When he woke up the next morning, he found himself naked in the bed of a beautiful and similarly naked woman. And that woman had been the aide to Admiral Catardi, Wanda River Styxx. When Pacino had arrived back at the submarine, the crew had doubled over in laughter. His face was covered with Styxx’s lipstick, from his nose to his chin and from ear-to-ear, earning him the ignominious nickname “Lipstick.” And now here she was.