The steward grabbed for a migrating bowl, but missed. Quickly accelerating, it lifted, took off from the table, and shattered, spattering kimchi across the bulkhead. Cups and plates slid one way, changed their minds, and slithered back. A junior officer jumped up, knocking his chair over, and rushed out holding his mouth. Dan studied Hwang across the table. The chief of staff looked translucent. His head wobbled like a rear-deck toy as the bow crashed down. Dan didn’t feel that great himself, but it wasn’t the rolls that were the problem. “You all right?” Monty Henrickson asked on the bridge later. The wind was moaning in every corner and crevice. The gray sky was darker than the hour called for. The bow lofted, then avalanched down into an oncoming sea. Green water geysered up through the hawseholes like a whale’s spout. It turned into white spume, wheeled in the air, curved by the wind, and rained down across the black-gleaming anchor tackle. They huddled on the starboard wing, watching the every-twenty-seconds luminescent digital wink of the 19 as it tracked their progress out into the Korea Strait north of Tsushima, north of Honshu, where Phase II of SATYRE 17 would take place.
