The message from Admiral Lillian Warner, the Commander, Naval Air Forces, U. S. Atlantic Fleet, was classified "Echo Oscar," an ancient Naval epigram for "Eyes Only." The language was terse, the content explosive. I had served with "Iron Lil" years ago during the flashwars with the Chinese and found her to be very nearly unflappable. Nevertheless, the gravity of the situation hemorrhaged through the carefully worded message, like arterial blood through a hastily applied field dressing. CVN 99, the latest and greatest in a long, proud line of nuclear attack aircraft carriers, had gone "cold contact." She wasn't missing from radar, sonar or SolRad, but the world's largest killing machine, capable of obliterating the planet six point five times over, apparently wasn't taking any calls. Better if she were headed to the ocean floor in steaming, molten fragments.

I was surprised at the Admiral's formality in sending a coded Naval message instead of merely picking up the secured line in her office in Norfolk, and dialing (not even long distance) my station at the Little Creek, Virginia Amphib Base, or merely going on-line over SecureNet. Search and rescue was my forte after all, even if I had never tried to bring in a renegade aircraft carrier. To the best of my knowledge, no one had. Of course, Lillian was fully aware that my kid brother, Ensign Thomas Nycz, was on his first shake down cruise -- on board CVN 99.

Tommy drifted aimlessly for a while upon graduation from the University of Texas; after all, I had assumed the prerequisite position of upholding the family's tradition of seafaring men and women. Mom had served twenty years as had her mother and her mother's father. She didn't seem to mind when I joined the enlisted ranks on my eighteenth birthday, but she was absolutely livid when Tommy informed her he was going to Officer Candidate School fifteen years later. Since, like my absent Father, I was hardly around, I suppose Mom always naturally gravitated toward Tommy. Now they had put her eldest, black sheep daughter in charge of some half-assed scavenger hunt with her treasured "baby" as a sort-of door prize. I hoped he was okay, so I could punch him in the mouth.

I formally acknowledged the message, suited up, and headed for Pier Four and my boat, the USS HERMES (SK 01), the Navy's one-off, eighty-five foot, twin turbine powered hoverfoil Skimmer. She was a war machine, theoretically built for close combat in defense of United States shores, outfitted with laser cannons fore and aft, as well as "smart" missile launchers and stealth torpedoes.

As a result of the Great Famine of China, tensions between the two remaining superpowers had somewhat cooled (we ARE feeding them, after all). By and large, the dire predictions of that World War III scenario faded into an embarrassed chuckle.

The Mossad and Palestine extremists had managed to very nearly cause one another's extinction. And after the dismal, expensive experiments with cold fusion were dismissed as unstable, fuel finally began to be synthesized from a surprisingly simple compound of organic waste and a hybrid crop by-product (ridiculously easy to recycle). Big Oil was ultimately toppled, replaced by something called "MegaSynth," with the same cast of characters in charge, and the same profit-motivated mission statement. The oil cartels' stranglehold on the West went away. The oil producing giants quietly vanished, replaced by sand-blown wastelands of poverty and suffering. Of course shortly thereafter, Iran and Iraq "accidentally" nuked and/or biochemed each other into oblivion; fortunately for the rest of us, the megatonnage was minimal and weather patterns took a fortuitous turn, insulating the two countries in a deadly, viscous morass of radioactive muck. I wouldn't plan on taking your significant other and the kids there on vacation anytime within the next couple centuries. The brain people have so far been unable to let us know exactly what long term damage this has done to our weary planet, although there are a plethora of black theories.

It was only a decade earlier that the 'Substance Wars' took a decidedly malignant turn, culminating in the controversial decision by the Western Block countries of secretly lacing major water supplies with a chemical deterrent to drug abuse -- resulting in the inadvertent elimination of much of the Drug Cartels' customer base. A rather ironic solution, I always thought.

The preceding, I suppose, was an oversimplified illustration of civilization's uneasy war/peace chronology more or less revolving to a "peaceful" cycle for the last few decades, in spite of numerous clandestine skirmishes, executions and toppled governments. Similar to Russian Roulette when the pistol's hammer falls on an empty cylinder, but still scares you nearly to death. Of course, the venerable United States Navy, although radically downsized, was ever-vigilant, running innumerable nautical miles of sea water beneath barnacle-encrusted keels of warships, relentlessly training sailors in endless general quarters drills, exacting oceans of sweat from them, preparing for defense from some always lurking, always unseen enemy.

Economics would always be economics, however, so the formidable HERMES, forever battle ready, had been relegated to the somewhat mundane position as a Coast Guard supplement vessel, plucking the wealthy from their foundering yachts in summer squalls, rescuing hapless fishermen who brazenly ignored increasingly frequent storm warnings. Until today.

My crew of four mustered on the pier, waiting for me. After all the questions I couldn't answer were asked, I gave the order to get underway. Within two minutes, HERMES was heading for the last reported position of the runaway aircraft carrier, in excess of seventy-five knots.

CVN 99 had been performing a three-day shake down cruise about one hundred fifty miles off the Virginia coast. She would perform high-speed maneuvers, full throttle stop and reverses, and limited flight ops. Three days of taking everything the Captain and crew could throw at her, then back to the shipyard to fix or replace anything that was broken or had fallen off. Routine.

Except after three days she hadn't come back. She had been under a comm blackout for nearly forty-eight hours. An F/A-45 Hellcat unmanned drone fighter made a few flybys noting that there were no personnel on the flight deck and no one visible in the superstructure. She appeared to be heading into the open Atlantic, rudder-straight, all ahead full. I gave my helmsman, Petty Officer Kovak, the intercept coordinates and ordered flank speed. He shot me a nervous look, and throttled full. HERMES initially shook like a wet terrier, then lurched ahead, cutting the swells like a scalpel.

For the first hour of the kidney-jarring voyage, I stood silently on the bridge, scanning the horizon with the telenocs. Periodically, I would record relative position, atmospheric and oceanic conditions into ship's memory. It was not fair winds and following seas. The remnants of a recent cat five hurricane had whipped the Atlantic into a green-black seething caldron. We were beginning to see swells at over twenty feet, odd chops at nearly thirty. Another reason HERMES had been dispatched. She could practically fly over spikes and rollers. And the way the carrier deck would be dancing, it would be impossible to land a jetcopter or Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) aircraft on board without risking a cataclysmic accident. Given the conditions, I was beginning to wonder just how the hell I planned to board her, when the unmistakable silhouette appeared on the skyline. "Kovak, starboard, 15 degrees. Bearing 220," I barked excitedly as I dialed the telenocs to full mag.

"Aye, Aye, Commander Nycz," Kovak replied. Nervous. Good.

There she was in the telenocs, CVN 99, wallowing in the swells, a twelve hundred foot piece of flotsam. My heart leapt into my throat as she caught a swell hard on the port side and way too much of the keel was exposed for a horrific instant. Could something that wide possibly capsize?

I fingered a button on the command console. "Sparks, this is Commander Nycz. We've got the target vectored up here. Can you squeeze out a few more knots?"

"Sure, Skipper. But we may have to make an arrested landing on the flight deck of that bird farm if we go much faster," came Sparks' static punctuated reply. "Yeah, well, we just might end up doing that anyway, Sparks. Keep an eye on the turbine pressure. And keep me advised."

HERMES jolted once, then the acceleration was such that I had to grab the Captain's chair to keep my feet. I didn't look at Kovak, but I could feel his eyes boring into me. It wouldn't do for him to realize that his Captain was as unnerved as he was. In two minutes, the speck among the swells in the distance was alongside, looming like a skyscraper two hundred yards off starboard. We attempted all the standard communications procedures, including the highly classified SatNet, to no avail. Hell, had it appeared there was anyone on board who would answer, I would've attempted semaphore in the nude.

In the rough seas, a life boat launch was out of the question, as was a bosun's chair. So, the only alternative for boarding the carrier was the Navy's Personal Self-Contained Solid-Propellant Airborne Device, or "Blast Pack" as it was more popularly called.

"Master Chief McGavin and Seaman Claiborne to the bridge, ASAP," I barked over the 1MC. "Petty Officer Kovak, you will have the conn. I am going over." Stark terror. Or anger? "But -- Ma'am? Shouldn't you send McGavin or Claiborne -- ?"

"That's a negative, Kovak. Keep HERMES roughly parallel with the carrier, but mind the chops and swells. I'll post McGavin up here with you. Another set of eyes. You'll be fine. Just don't break my boat."

"Aye, Commander." Almost a smile. Still nervous. Good. Nervous people tend to pay more attention to what they're doing. And subsequently, they live longer. I wanted Kovak around for a long time. He was the best helmsman I'd ever served with.

McGavin, a short, stocky Irish Boatswain's Mate, and Claiborne, a tall, lanky farm boy Seaman, burst onto the bridge.

"'Portin' as ordered, Ma'am," McGavin rumbled.

"Boats, I'm going over."

"Sure you wanna do that?"

"I'm sure. Break out the Blast Pack." McGavin grunted and shot me a 'the old gal's off her nut' look, but said, "aye, aye, ma'am" as he and Claiborne left the bridge. I was following when Kovak cleared his throat.

"Yes, Petty Officer Kovak?"

I'll never forget how strikingly handsome the young man looked standing there at the ship's wheel, big brown eyes shining, square jaw trembling, an impossibly competent seaman, abruptly nakedly sensitive. "Christine, please be careful? Please?"

"As you were, sailor," I growled, and he turned quickly back to his post. I suppose the awkward intensity of that moment was only fitting since it was the last time we would ever see each other.

Within seconds, McGavin and Claiborne were strapping me into the Blast Pack. McGavin's rough hands unabashedly brushed my breasts and crotch as he expertly wound the straps around me. There was no gender in that old man's Navy. The seas were getting progressively worse and now the wind was gusting to about sixty knots. The ocean was an ominous black, swirling wildly with the occasional surrealistically bright whitecap. I glanced over the side at the water and hoped that the inflatable housed inside the pack worked in case I had to ditch. McGavin must've read my mind.

"Damn, Skip, think we oughta 'bort this one."

"Can't do it, Boats," I replied. "Besides, it'd take me an hour to get out of this damn rig. Listen, contact COMNAVAIRLANT with a sitrep. And then man the bridge with Kovak. This whole thing is freaking him out."

"He ain't the only one, Skipper," Claiborne finally drawled sheepishly. We couldn't help it; Boats and I laughed until the tears came.

I put the optional breathing apparatus over my nose and mouth, just in case, and waved McGavin and Claiborne off. Then I keyed the controls and felt the powerful burst of hot energy behind me. I had only used a blast pack in training, under perfect conditions. A bit shaky in the howling wind at first, finally I was able to maneuver with a small amount of confidence. McGavin and Claiborne receded beneath my feet, Boats going to attention and stiffly saluting me before disappearing into the ship. Claiborne just stared in slack-jawed wonder as I slowly rose above the turbulent Atlantic.

Going up was not a problem, but I found lateral movement to be a nearly fatal challenge. A hard wind shear, coupled with a gigantic rouge wave almost sent me on a forever swim. I blasted upward, stalled the pack, then after a heart-stopping moment, restarted it, heading spasmodically toward the pitching aircraft carrier. I came down much faster than I went up, clattering and clanging across the hard, cold deck. The rough non-skid shredded the knees and elbows of my flight suit like ferrets' teeth, rending flesh into ground meat. As bruised and battered and bleeding as I was, I still considered kissing the deck. If the thought of the return trip hadn't turned my heart to palpitating slush, I probably would have.

Quickly, I unstrapped myself from the Blast Pack, and did a cursory test for biological/chemical agents. Surprisingly, the test came back negative for any "known" biochems. I keyed the mike inside my breather and reported the results to HERMES. I glanced around, half-expecting an air crewmen to run up and order me the hell off his flight deck. I opened the hatch entrance to the island, removed and stowed the Blast Pack just inside. It was then that the dead echo resounding up nine decks told me that I was on a deserted ship. Of course, I did not want to believe that initial, emotional impression, even though every molecule in my body screamed concurrence.

I quickly dashed up nine decks to the bridge, encountering not a soul. Not a sign of any problem, any crisis, any thing. Near the Captain's Chair was a plastofoam cup of coffee, the rough seas sloshing the cold liquid over the sides and onto the deck. As I had suspected, the helm was set all ahead full, rudder straight. I knew if I disengaged the engines, the carrier would founder, break up and most assuredly sink, even on the outside chance watertight integrity could be maintained. The deck plates eighty feet below groaned as if in pain when the ship took another swell head on. I watched in awe as white water crashed over the bow, a bow normally eighty-five feet above the water line. I glanced portside as HERMES expertly glided over the huge swell. Once again forward, the bow raised until the waterline vanished and only angry sky was visible. Shaking off my fear and amazement, I whirled around to exit the bridge and continue my search. That's when I first saw . . . it.

Or thought I did. No. I did. First glance, the initial thought that escaped my adrenaline-addled subconscious was of morning dew in a spring garden, and the criss-crossing shiny slime-trails left by slugs overnight. Except, dimly lit, the maze of trails on the bridge seemed to have been made by slugs nearly a meter wide. When reason finally overrode my jacked-up imagination, I figured that the moisture was probably condensation of some sort. Until I dipped my middle fingertip into it. Sticky, slimy, viscous. Faint odor of JP-10. Synthesized jet fuel.

I activated the 1MC, and set it to broadcast throughout the ship. "This is Commander Christine Nycz of the USS HERMES, on the bridge. Any and all personnel are requested to contact the bridge at this time."

I repeated the request three times, but the phones and comm box remained silent. I killed the 1MC and left the bridge. In the next hour, I searched officer's country, the admiral's and captain's quarters, the massive mess decks, personnel and medical, and with the exception of the faint sheen of muculence across the decks, nothing. How do twenty seven-hundred men and women vanish without a trace, as if in a single instant? There was only one place left to look. The quarters of Ensign Thomas Darius Nycz.

In five minutes, I was standing by the door with the familiar name and that of another ensign engraved on a brass plate. I took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped inside. My heart sank. No one. I suppose I really believed that out of twenty-seven hundred crewmembers, my brother would've been the only one who hadn't vanished. Not believing that had been unthinkable.

When whatever happened happened, there was no sign that Tommy had been in his stateroom. He may have been on watch on the bridge, he could have been having a meal in the officer's mess, maybe in the gym or library . . . suddenly, it felt important for me to know, probably because I knew I never would. I sat gingerly in the chair next to his desk. A picture of Mom, Tommy and me, all in uniform, was taped up behind a minidisk player.

Suddenly, I was transported seventeen years into the past, sitting on a ship in the middle of Naples Harbor, pissed off because I had duty our first day in port. It was my first, but the final cruise of the USS NIMITZ (CVN 68) . The historic aircraft carrier was to be decommissioned upon our return to Norfolk, Virginia. But she did not go without accompanying fireworks. Mount Vesuvius, dormant for several hundred years, exploded without warning at 9:45 that gray Sunday morning, effectively destroying Naples, Italy, killing nearly everyone in the city that day, including thirty-five hundred sailors on liberty from NIMITZ. The Command Duty Officer quickly managed to get the ship underway, or we might've been lost as well. We were relieved a week early by the LINCOLN and our heavily damaged carrier with the psychologically scarred remnants of a crew limped back across the Atlantic, where survivors were assigned new duty stations and NIMITZ was mothballed. It occurred to me that this ship felt like NIMITZ the day before I left her the last time. A ghost ship. Worse than that, a ship possessed by the spirits of the missing crew -- forever trapped, duty bound and unable to escape the cold gray bulkheads and decks.

Once again, I was left with the unanswerable questions: how and why?

I found myself staring blankly at the minidisk player on Tommy's desk. I noticed through the clear plastic that there was a disk inside. Pressing the 'play' button caused the small vid screen to pop out of its sheath and flash on. To my total astonishment, the drawn, haggard face of Admiral Lillian Warner appeared.

"Hello, Christine," she breathed, managing a terse smile, "I put this disk where I knew you'd find it. I suppose I owe you an explanation, from one sailor to another . . . or maybe just as a friend.

"As you know, we have been monitoring the activities of the Chinese, with whom we fought against tooth and nail to a standstill not even a decade ago. But recently, they have been threatening once again, threatening in their annoyingly inscrutable way the rest of the Pacific Rim . . . it's no secret, they want control of that half of the globe. And they will do whatever it takes to make that happen, including go to all-out global conflagration. In the interests of continued world peace, certain levels of the government have decided to offer a clandestine olive branch -- a state of the art aircraft carrier.

"CVN 99 is headed for a rendezvous with a Chinese jetcopter, where she will be boarded and taken to a secured location so that the Chinese may examine and assimilate her technology, to be utilized in her land based struggle on the southern border of the developing New Soviet Empire." The Admiral swallowed hard; bitter medicine, indeed. "There is precedence here...the Contras, Ethiopia, Iran..." Her granite facade cracked momentarily, then she continued, "I was on board CVN 99 four days ago, a supposed surprise inspection before the shake down cruise. I set the plan into motion. As soon as the carrier was seventy-five miles off the coast, a cataclysmic reactor accident was faked, resulting in a top secret abandon ship order. A skeleton crew was left in place and ordered to set the course and engines on auto." Her eyes narrowed and dropped. "The skeleton crew was 'neutralized' -- with an aerosol chemical. Our scientists found that synthetic jet fuel, when mixed with certain alkylines, breaks down and absorbs human organic tissue on the molecular level. No witnesses, minimal trace evidence, you understand."

Another bad swell and an unnatural sideways heave snapped me from my horrified reverie. I had been out of contact with HERMES too long, so I activated the mike. No response except static.

The Admiral calmly continued. "There are casualties in war, Christine, and sometimes there have to be casualties in peace -- to keep the peace -- as well." She stared at me through the technology. "Your brother was chosen to remain among those in the stay-aboard crew. Another reason the decision was made to dispatch you and your ship. I knew if your brother was lost, you wouldn't rest until you found out why."

My mind flashed white-hot, and I didn't know anything for an undetermined period of time.

Admiral Warner was still droning on. "CVN 99 and HERMES will both be listed as lost in the storm and shipwrecked. The effects of the first chemical aerosol have long dissipated, but a second one has been prepared for you and your crew. I'm truly sorry, but we have our orders. Because you have always been an officer's officer, Christine, I know you will understand. " She stared at me hard, meaningfully and for a moment, I would've sworn those steely eyes glistened. "And I know you will do the right thing. Godspeed." Abruptly, the Admiral was gone, replaced by the revered logo of the United States Navy.

As I dashed down the long passageway through officer's country, I kept trying to communicate with my ship, to warn my crew away, with the same disheartening result: static. I hoped the comm silence was because I was inside the ship, but I suppose I knew the real reason. I found the island exit to the flight deck and stepped out once again into the harsh elements . . .

That was about an hour ago. I have since found an extremely uncomfortable seat on the bow, right between the huge number 'nines'. I've always liked the feel and taste of salt spray on my face.

I repeatedly attempted contacting HERMES with no success; I can still barely see her trailing just portside aft of the carrier, bobbing like a cork in the violent sea. I wish I could believe there was still someone on board.

The Blast Pack was too damaged to get me back to my ship, but I don't suppose that really makes any difference. The next large swell the carrier takes the wrong way will undoubtedly wash me overboard, but, in the grand scheme of things, I guess that doesn't much matter either. After all, we have our orders.

Somehow, I can't seem to shake the images of the empty berthings I searched, faces of loved ones smiling up at me from hundreds of holographs, thousands of small remnants of the personalities of missing sailors. Each life touching dozens of others, hundreds, thousands, in turn eventually touching everyone on Earth. If anyone's left to touch. I think of my mother, brother, the family I never took the time to have. I taste salt on my lips.

Through the clouds, I can make out vaguely winking stars in the timeless, indigo sky. I glance aft, just as a forty-foot rogue wave nonchalantly claims HERMES, sending her to the depths without a hint of the melodrama humans invariably append to such events. Alone on this massive ship, toyed with by the mindlessly powerful sea, really only a sub-speck on our dust mote of a planet in a swirling, out of control, tempest-tossed Universe, how else am I to feel, but insignificant?

The sky's starting to break up now, and the sun's beginning to shimmer just below the horizon, painting the calming ocean a flat copper. A half dozen waterspouts, the Fingers of God, dance like silver light reflected in chrome among shafts of white-hot lightning in the distance. Suddenly, my lost shipmates and I are not insignificant pawns of the Universe, not at all -- suddenly we are the Universe. And if this should happen to be my Apocalypse, my End Time, with every life on Earth on hold while I'm being rendered into judgment alone, so be it. I can feel, though not see, tens of thousands of lost sailors from the ages, following, swimming in the widening, churning wake of this mighty ship. With Boats, Claiborne, Kovak and Sparks showing the way.

I think of Admiral Warner, prerequisite glass of bourbon in hand, nervously awaiting the message whether CVN 99 has been delivered safely, secretly into the hands of the Chinese, all for the greater good, while hundreds of sailors -- including my brother -- had to die for the sake of political expediency. I calmly wonder if being reduced to gelatin by an aerosol chemical is very painful.

Abruptly, an unlikely smile spreads my lips as I think of the several dozen hatches I opened below decks and the bilge controls I reversed and the hundreds of thousands of liters of sea water filling the voids, raising the waterline ten feet a quarter hour. I hope the Chinese enjoy their scuttled carrier on the bottom of the ocean. If they can find it.