“WILCOX!” Becca’s face recoiled. “Wilcox!? Butch the Bastard Wilcox!?”
“Yes.”
“Butch Wil-Cock-sucker!?”
“Yes.”
“He’s still driving the Getty!?”
Kristina nodded regrettably.
“Mother fucker!” Becca erupted again. “I thought that asshole was gone after our last trip!” Kristina didn’t bat an eye at Becca’s volley. Becca was always the more blatant and ruthlessly vocal of the two, possessing a razor sharp tongue that worked in tandem with her razor sharp intellect.
“We all did, Becca, but that’s not the case this time. He’s coming with us; apparently, it's his last hurrah to ensure his promotion. At least, that’s what Dad told me.” Kristina sighed. “And since this is our most publicized voyage, as the Getty’s CO, he wants to make a statement.”
“I hate that bastard with a passion,” Becca spat. “He’s always tried to use WEPS-ONE for his own popularity.”
“My father despises him.”
“Kristina, your father despises everyone that’s why he’s so cool." Kristina smiled weakly at the puzzling statement. "You can trust your dad despite him being a hard-ass. He doesn’t play the popularity game with anyone. You either do the job, or you’re out.” Becca chuckled each time she poked fun at Ramon. It always brought a smile to Kristina’s face.
“Yeah, and because of that Wilcox despises me.”
“No, Kristina. Wilcox doesn’t despise you because of your father; he despises you because you put him in his place. You called him out on our last cruise, remember?” Becca grinned as she brought up a spoonful of ice cream and slid it into Kristina’s mouth. “That was hella sweet,” Becca said with a thick layer of pride. “He tried to dictate our jobs to us and you just planted his ass.”
“He knew he was wrong, Becca. Admiral Armocida made it clear to him and his crew that when we are testing on the Getty I have full command, authority and access within our spaces. Wilcox didn’t like the fact that a woman and her small staff had so much influence.” She took in another spoon of ice cream.
“No, babe, he was furious that you had total command over his ship. That’s the point. We sailed with him on five missions, each one only about a week in length, and each time we had run-ins with him. He couldn’t stomach that he was relegated to water taxi duty.”
“Maybe I overstepped my bounds at times, Becca. It was his ship.”
“You know much better than I that positional and delegated authority are two important concepts that we all are trained to understand, respect and support. He’s so fucking old-school!”
Kristina remained reflective. Becca smiled again as she brought the spoon to Kristina’s mouth. “My God! Remember what we said to him? I’ll never forget your words when you forced him out of combat!”
Kristina’s memory and vision were already there; in the Command Information Center, a.k.a. Combat of the USS Gettysburg.
“What do you mean, please return to the bridge?” The five foot three-inch man glared up at the woman towering over him. “You don’t tell me where to go on my ship.”
That was day eight of the ten-day testing deployment over a year ago. It was also the fourth challenge of Kristina’s authority within 24 hours. The calibrating and testing of her new Cold Start system were crucial. Admiral Jonas Armocida, CO of WEPS, had ordered that for this and all WEPS-ONE testing exercises, Kristina would act with the positional authority of OTC, Officer-in-Tactical-Command. This was something Wilcox hated, believing that the authority of a ship’s captain should never be placed behind a mere visiting authority; and worse still, an authority of inferior rank.
From day-one Wilcox hovered over Kristina’s small staff of junior officers and civilian analysts, making them feel tense, nervous and intimidated. Becca was at the breaking point and wanted to square off with him. But Kristina kept her calm and didn’t want the cruise to turn into a war of nerves.
But that’s exactly what it was. There was no denying that Wilcox was getting deep under Kristina’s skin and everyone was waiting for the day when she would snap. He questioned her decisions throughout the performance phases she conducted, asking her if she followed all the steps or if she entered certain scenarios into her calculations, although he didn’t know anything about electrical and computer engineering. He challenged her authority in front of his crew in order to remind them that he was still the master and commander of his vessel.
“Captain, I need you up on the bridge to take visuals when I shut Combat down.”
“Shut Combat down?” Wilcox shook his head. “You’re not going to shut Combat down. This ship can’t operate with it shut down.”
“That’s why I must run these cold-start tests within this phase of the exercise. I have to shut down the ship for about 45 minutes.”
“Give me a reason to shut down the entire ship.”
“That’s just the window of work I need.” Kristina remained professional at all times. “If my calculations are correct, and the system re-animates the way I designed it to, we’ll have full power in thirteen minutes. If the ship’s NTDS, for any reason, ever died or failed, my system would bring it back to life.”
“The NTDS would never die or go down,” Wilcox scoffed. The CIC crew, thoroughly embarrassed by their captain, just sat nervously in silence. “The Navy has around 50 years of NTDS service; it has and would never shut down.”
Shut up! You old-school fuck! Becca raged in her head, glaring at him.
“Captain, navies around the world are developing hacking and intrusion software that target our NTDS systems. My system can--”
“Ah, bullshit, Commander! No enemy ship could get close enough to shoot one of those signals without getting detected.” Suddenly Kristina found herself losing patience with his obstinacy. She turned back to her laptop; she had work to do and deadlines to make. She felt her armor of professionalism starting to strip away. She took a deep breath and faced him again. And as usual, he began barking.
“With our surface radars, we can detect enemies hundreds of miles away. No ship in the world could intrude our NTDS, much less shut it down!”
You don’t think she knows that!? Becca shot another thought arrow into his throat. Kristina stood from the laptop and took a step toward him. Becca smiled in anticipation as she watched Kristina look down at Wilcox. Here it comes, asshole!
Kristina in a low, respective voice whispered.
“That’s because, Captain; and I’ll say this slowly so you can understand, an intrusion signal would not come from a ship, but from a satellite beaming that signal on you.” Wilcox, unnerved by her words, and the and I’ll say this slowly so you can understand part, put his hands on his hips and raised his chin high.
“I’ve been the CO of three combatants and even in the most extreme conditions, the power--not once--has ever gone down.”
“With all due respect, Captain, you’ve never taken such a lethal missile hit.” Kristina’s eyes burned with the authority forged from personal experience. Wilcox smirked and his voice wafted in the air with a patronizing tone.
“And there it is, isn’t it, Commander? You have such experience under your belt, don’t you? Well, let me just tell you that that experience could never happen to this ship. The captain of the McClusky was an idiot.” His face tightened as his eyes drilled into hers. “I, on the other hand, am not.”
“Jesus Christ already!” Becca roared, no longer able to contain it. “Commander Torres, I’ll go to the bridge and take the damned readings!” She moved quickly towards the hatch, her patience exhausted. Wilcox wheeled around.
“Stand