The Leyte Gulf's medical officer had trouble focusing on the direction of the voice. The mess hall was full of wounded men and women. The worst cases had first call on the Gulf's relatively small hospital, where they were stabilized before being choppered across to the Clinton or the Kandahar-a process that had been complicated by the destruction of the helicopter bays. The patients had to be carried up onto the deck through the bridge structure, a long and winding route.

"Doctor! Please!"

Wassman urgently cast around for the source of the cries. There had to be sixty people laid up in the mess. Most of them were in pretty bad shape. The walking wounded were all helping with salvage operations. The room presented a tableau from one of Goya's nightmares, bloodied bandages, burned limbs, chaos, and horror. She'd treated deep tissue lacerations, compound fractures, crushed vertebrae, shrapnel and bullet wounds, and, of course, some terrible injuries caused by ceramic flechette rounds.

"Doctor!"

Wassman sourced the cries to a reedy-looking officer, off the Astoria, judging by his uniform. He didn't look too badly hurt. He had a good long scrape on his forearm and a bruise on his forehead. But that was it.

This better be good, she thought.

The lieutenant fidgeted impatiently as she approached him. As she did so, his eyes roamed up and down. She was running into that a lot, and she was struggling not to react badly to it.

"Yes… Lieutenant?" she said, drawing up in front of him. "Is one of your men in need of treatment?"

"No, Commander… uhm, Wassman. But I've been waiting here for a blood tranfusion for nearly an hour."

Wassman was genuinely confused. Her eyes flicked from the small bandage on his forehead to the one around his arm.

"I'm sorry, a tranfusion?"

"I've lost some blood," he explained. "I may need a transfusion, but nobody has spoken to me about the type of blood I would need."

She shook her head, wrestling with her irritation. Then she leaned over and somewhat peremptorily plucked his dog tags out to examine them.

"O positive," she read out. "There you go, Lieutenant… Charles, is it? Done deal."

A strange look flickered across the lieutenant's face. Levering himself up, delicately, he motioned for her to follow him a few feet away, into the corridor. Wassman was disinclined to follow at first, but was forced to comply when Charles carried on regardless, stepping over a black woman who was leaned up against a bulkhead, nursing a hand with some nasty-looking burns.

"Lieutenant!" barked Wassman. "I really don't have time for this."

Charles stopped, sighed heavily, and rolled his eyes before turning to face her.

"What is your problem?" Wassman demanded.

People were beginning to stare. Most of the men and women in the room were too lost in their private struggles to notice the scene by the door, but those who were nearby, such as the woman with the burned hand, were turning to watch.

Lieutenant Charles sighed with exasperation. He tried to lean in as if to talk discreetly. "You misunderstand me, Doctor. I didn't mean blood type. I meant type of blood."

Wassman scrunched her eyes shut, then blinked twice, rapidly.

"You're right. I'm sorry, I don't understand. Type of blood?" She gestured with her hands-which were sticky with gore-to emphasize her lack of comprehension.

He grimaced with distaste and rolled his eyes toward the black woman on the floor.

"Type of blood," he murmured. "Don't you see?"

What little concern she had felt for the man abruptly disappeared, and she just gave him a cold stare. Before he could say anything else, she turned away.

Charles reached out to grab her elbow and was stunned when she spun around and slapped him across the face. It was a hard, stinging blow. He gasped and, without thinking, slapped her back. His blow wasn't particularly firm, but the slap galvanized everyone who saw it.

Someone grabbed a handful of his shirt. It was a Chinese American sailor.

"Get your hands off me, you damn coolie," Charles shouted. He made a fist and drove a fierce uppercut into the man's chin, angling the blow to drive the jaw sideways.

Before the man had even hit the deck, though, another of Wassman's shipmates came at him. A white man this time, with a padded sleeve covering one arm. His other arm was fine, though. Wassman watched as it drew back and the hand formed a fist. Charles flinched as the blow came in.

The office housed the ship's Training Department. It was packed with VR gear, computers, screens, and office equipment. They had to break it down and get it all off the ship in less than forty minutes.

Seaman Davidson wasn't really helping with his endless stream of questions.

What's that?

What does it do?

How's it work?

But the ensign from the Leyte Gulf, who was supervising the salvage detail in this part of the ship, tried to answer as many as he could because Davidson was one of the few men off the Astoria who'd shown any inclination to be friendly. And his buddy, Molloy, he could carry a goddamn Xerox all on his own. Ensign Carver was glad to have them. They'd been no trouble at all, really, and had mixed in well with the rest of the work detail. He'd just made a mental note to talk to their Chief Mohr, and tell him what a good job they'd done, when shouting and the sound of something like a brawl reached them.

"What the hell is that?" said Carver.

"Sounds like a brawl," said Davidson.

The officer swore and told his team to keep working. Then he headed for the door.

Slim Jim resisted the urge to pocket another handful of the small, pencil-like objects they called data sticks. He was here to learn, and to establish his bona fides as a stand-up guy.

"Come on," he said, swatting Moose on the back. "He's gonna need some help."

"But he told us to stay here," a young female sailor protested. Quite a cutie, too, thought Davidson. These guys really knew how to fit out a ship.

"Yeah, well he won't be telling nobody nothing when he gets his fucking teeth kicked in. Listen up, would you? That's a real fucking fight out there, toots. Come on, Moose."

The sound of bedlam seemed to swell. There could be no doubt that a pitched brawl was under way. Slim Jim grabbed a small crowbar and dived out through the door, with Moose close behind on his heels. The three remaining sailors, all of them from the Leyte Gulf, hesitated for just a moment before following.

Slim Jim and Moose joined a general rush toward the mess where the fight had broken out.

"Watch my back," said Davidson. "But keep an eye out for that officer, too. We don't want him getting hurt."

"Why not?" Moose asked.

"Just fucking do it, okay."

They had to step on it. The melee had spilled into the passageway, and Carver was already at the edge of the fighting. Davidson could see that he didn't have the first idea about mixing it up in a real street brawl. He was actually trying to haul a couple of guys off someone.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," muttered Slim Jim.

The confined space roared with a tribal savagery. Men and women from both ships were mixed in together, punching, biting, kicking, swinging wildly. Slim Jim saw a guy he recognized from the Astoria, one of the apes from the boiler room, turn and swing at Ensign Carver. The much smaller officer was knocked right off his feet, and slammed into a bulkhead. His attacker, a brute with arms like tree trunks, grinned and pushed him back into the wall.

Maloney, that's his name, thought Slim Jim. Stupid fucking mick.

Stoker Maloney grabbed hold of Carver's throat and pinned the ensign down. He cocked one giant fist back behind his ear, ready to drive it right through the man's head, just as Slim Jim reached him.

"Hey, asshole," Davidson called out.