Chapter One

 

"Bugger is running hard," Leading Rating Mackenzie said, shading his eyes with his hand.

Sarah shaded her own eyes. "He may simply have not seen us yet."

"Oh, he sees us all right," Petty Officer Dunning said with a snort. "Ma'am," he added as an afterthought.

Sarah let that go. As a midshipwoman, and a very new one at that, she was used to scant respect from the men, particularly senior ratings and petty officers like Dunning and Mackenzie.

The captain had warned her about it when she joined up, and warned her also that she had to walk a very fine line between requiring the respect due her as an officer, albeit the lowest rank of officer possible, and the unspoken understanding that she was in almost all respects entirely ignorant compared to the ratings placed in her charge.

Midshipman was a learning rank, fresh out of the naval academy but not entirely trusted with being in charge of anything, including herself. The navy invariably assigned a senior non-commissioned officer, a petty officer with more experience than the midshipman had years of life, to "guide" the novice officer. And woe betide the midshipman who arrogantly ignored such guidance.

It was more difficult for Sarah because she was female, and the navy had not quite gotten used to the idea of women at sea, particularly in combat zones. The politicians could be as progressive as they wanted in their insistence on gender equality, but the navy was as hidebound an organization as there was, and change came only grudgingly and with much bitter resistance.

She glanced at her watch. The two small aluminum boats under the command of Sub-Lieutenant Miranda Bell were bouncing over the waves in the Persian Gulf, chasing down a rusting freighter which they suspected might be attempting to smuggle opium. The massive freighter had ignored their radio calls, and the deck was so high up no one could even see if there was any crew taking notice of them.

Sarah looked across at the sub-lieutenant riding in the bow of the second boat. Sub-Lieutenants were the lowest "real" rank of officer in the navy, and the navy trusted them only a little further than they trusted the likes of Sarah. Thus of all the sub-lieutenants Sarah could have been assigned to, they had chosen a woman; in all probability because they thought it less likely she would be molested or something. The navy was uneasy with the idea of men commanding young women out in the field, fearing the younger men in particularly would abuse their position and cause a scandal.

The navy, of course, were idiots, in Sarah's estimation, because it had taken her not more than a day in Sub-Lieutenant Bell's presence for her to be relatively certain the woman was a lesbian. One did not ask such things, of course. The navy had no laws against homosexuality, and in keeping with government mandates officially promoted gay rights. That didn't mean, of course, that anyone who was openly acknowledged as gay would have an easy time of it.

As with gender equality, what the progressive politicians thought and wanted was a far cry from what the grizzled veterans in the ranks were willing to tolerate. And despite the rules, the ratings had a way of causing an enormous amount of trouble to any officer they disliked for whatever reason. For that matter, a huge number of officers made little secret of their dislike of homosexuals.

It wasn't, of course, that Sub-Lieutenant Bell had made any particular interest known to Sarah. That would have been completely against the regulations, after all. But Sarah had been getting attention of a sexual nature since she hit puberty. Her large breasts and lithe body were features that neither men nor lesbians would ever overlook, especially when combined with her softly rounded face and thick, silky blonde hair. She knew very well how to interpret expressions, body language, and behaviour to determine whether there was interest in her lush young body.

And she felt that interest coming from Bell - in spades. Nothing was going to come of that, of course. She was not gay herself - though she had "experimented" from time to time in school, just larking about, usually after heavy consumption of alcohol. And the last thing she needed as she began what she hoped would be a long and successful career in the navy was a sexual scandal involving her and her immediate superior - male or female.

She felt that interest coming from the men in the boat with her, as well, and they made less effort to hide it than Bell. The boat held seven people; three navy personnel, including Sarah, and four marines. At 20, Sarah was younger than the senior ratings and non-commissioned officers, and approximately the same age as the men she had tentative command over.

That occasionally made things tense, for while her rank kept anyone from making any overt moves - unless they were drunk - the sexual tension existed, and sometimes became quite pronounced.