The Coast Guard was a substantial presence offshore during shuttle launches, deflecting clueless sailors, gaping rubberneckers, and on occasion even alligator poachers from taking their boats in too close to the Cape during countdown and launch. Rick's first launch had been put on hold at T minus thirty when a charter boat skipper in a thirty-five-foot Carolina Classic pretended to have lost power and was drifting ashore with the current, all the better for his four drunken clients to snap photos of themselves in front of the shuttle standing white and gleaming against the gantry. At eight hundred dollars a day each they were probably expecting something other than being boarded by a Zodiac full of irritated Coasties, their skipper arrested and their boat commandeered, but that was what they got, and the shuttle raised ship after only a sixty-minute delay, which had to be some kind of record. Rick told them that the astronauts on that mission had been of one mind when informed of the reason for the hold: to limber up the big gun on the foredeck of the cutter and blow the offending boat out of the water.

Today they landed in Miami and were picked up by a starstruck chief petty officer who couldn't take his eyes off Kenai, who had to remind him more than once that he was veering over the line into oncoming traffic. It was only after Bill offered to drive that the CPO managed to focus on the road. When they got to District 7 headquarters they discovered that the CO had mustered the entire workforce in the parking lot to greet them, many of whom wanted their pictures taken with the astronauts. Bill said a few words, Kenai said a few more, and many, many photographs were taken, after which ordeal Kenai's new love slave hustled them out to the Munro, a high-endurance cutter 378 feet long that would head up offshore security during their launch.

The Munro also had its entire crew on parade and the helo, a Dolphin HH-65, rolled out for their inspection. The executive officer, a stunner who looked like Naveen Andrews, welcomed them with a smile and a firm handshake and introduced them to the Munro's captain, whose handshake was equally firm and who invited them to join him for lunch after their tour of his ship. Kenai and Bill repeated their thank yous and were happy to accept, after which the captain commanded his crew to fall out and go to their duty stations. He vanished up a ladder and the XO, one Lieutenant Commander Mustafa Azizi, proceeded to run Bill and Kenai's butts off over Munro from bow prop to aft steering and all points above, below, and in between, including a stop in the Combat Information Center, or Combat for short, a cool, dark room the width of the ship's beam filled with banks of computers and monitors. It was located amidships, two decks down from the main deck. "This is where everyone comes when it's rough or hot," said OSC Cutburth, a tall, laconic man with a shaved head, batwing ears, and a grin part saint and part Satan. The operations specialist chief radiated a quiet pride in his domain and in his crew. They were the only members of the crew who didn't have tans.

"If the engine room is the heart of Munro, Combat is the brains. OS2 Carrey." A thin, dark young man wearing Buddy Holly glasses whose hair stood up in agitated tufts came out from behind a console to shake their hands, beaming. "It's an honor," he said about seven times.

"And communications. OS3 Pachuco." A short, plump woman with raven hair bundled carelessly at the back of her head and an Aztec face Hernan Cortes would have recognized gave them a shy smile. "And detection and identification of all surface and air contacts. OS2 Riley." Another thin, dark young man with equally bad hair, this time with John Lennon glasses, raised a hand in a vague wave without lifting his eyes from the screen in front of him, his hands busy at a keyboard. The chief let the silence stretch out, until Riley raised his head, made eye contact, and gave them a curt nod. He looked sullen, as if he might be a little impatient with all this astronaut nonsense. Kenai's heart warmed to him.

"Forgive him," the chief said dryly, "he's better with bytes than he is with people."

"We all are," came a swift response from someone else, and the chief grinned. "True enough. At any rate, this is where we maintain Maritime Domain Awareness, keeping watch for yahoos, trespassers, and strays during your launch."

Kenai thought of Rick's last mission and said with emphasis, "Thank you."

"Over here, we track and control the helo." A young black man whose outsize shoulders and biceps made up for his lack of height went from dead serious to a megawatt grin so bright it made them both blink. "OS3 Griffin."

"What does OS stand for?" Kenai said.

"Operations specialist," Cutburth said. "OSC stands for operations specialist chief."

"And the ones, twos, and threes?"

"How high up you are in the pecking order. You go to school, you pass your tests, you break in at OS3, and move up."

"And you call each other by your job titles. Is that a Coastie thing?"

He nodded. "People change all the time, rotating in and out of duty stations, on and off ships. Job titles don't." He waved a hand at his domain, very much master of all he surveyed. "In Combat we coordinate search and rescue operations. We collect and disseminate intel." Nods all around. "And of course, in a worst-case scenario, we fight the ship."

"We get to shoot the big gun," his number two, an OS1 Cortez, said. She was a slim blonde with an impish expression and a crackling personality. In spite of the diamond on her left hand Bill gravitated toward her the way a compass needle does to true north and for a few moments there Kenai was afraid she might have to walk home. "What's the big gun?" she said.

Mention of a firearm, especially a big one, naturally brought back Bill's attention. Chief Cutburth whistled up GMC Colvin, the gunner's mate chief, a compact man who looked made entirely of muscle, with an air of authority either natural or cultivated-probably a bit of both, Kenai decided-that made everyone stand straighter in his presence.

Chief Colvin gave them a tour of the 76mm gun on the gun deck, forward of the boat deck and two decks below the bridge. The casings on the ammunition were three feet long and weighed anywhere from thirty-six to fifty-six pounds. It could fire four different kinds of ammunition up to eighty rounds a minute, and had a range of about six miles.

"Hell, you could take us out if you wanted to," Bill said, impressed.

"Please don't," Kenai said.

Chief Colvin's face broke into what Kenai was sure was a rare smile. "I'd love to show it off for you," he said regretfully, laying a hand on the 76mm's housing, "but it's impossible in port," and on that mournful note they were escorted to the hangar deck, where the aviation detachment- two aviators, a gunner, a swimmer, and a mechanic-was mustered.

"Helos," Bill said loud enough to be heard, with a grimace exaggerated enough to be seen by everyone on the flight deck.

Kenai gave an elaborate shudder. "They're sort of the bumblebees of the aviation world, aren't they? Amazing they ever get off the deck."

"And this, this is what we're relying on to haul our asses out of the drink if we go splash," Bill said, squinting at the helo with a gloomy expression. "Definitely a product of low-bid design."

The junior aviator, one Lieutenant Noyes, grinned and said sympathetically, "Fixed-wing types, I take it? Don't be nervous, girls, we'll recover said asses, and we won't need a mile of runway to do it."

Everyone laughed and relaxed, and Bill and Kenai got a hands-on demonstration when the AvDet did a turbo wash of the rotors, followed by a brief stop to admire the artwork on the inside of the door to the av shack. Kenai's favorite was the coastal outline of Mexico with the signatures of the AvDet from a 2000 EPAC patrol and the caption "No drug busts, no migrants, no real SAR, no reason to be here, 57 days!" Bill's favorite, naturally, was the upside-down helo with the caption "Will fly for beer!"