Overhearing the exchange, Andy called, “Segar! Bring the young man up to the control center!”
“Right this way, young feller.”
Ord turned and saw what appeared to him to be the oldest man on the planet. Segar’s eyes were set in what seemed a permanent squint, and his face was all jowl and bristle, with his head thrust forward defiantly on a thin neck. He was wearing white ducks and a short-sleeved blue shirt that had the Missouri’s name emblazoned above the right breast. His forearms were incredibly well muscled, given his age.
“You’re a sailor?” said an astounded Ord.
“D’ja think I’m a cowboy?” said Segar. He gestured for Ord to follow him and then moved with surprising speed. He didn’t walk so much as he waddled with long strides. Ord hustled after him.
Segar brought him straightaway to the control room, which was blocked off by cordons meant to keep tourists out. Without hesitation Ord picked up the wooden barriers and chucked them aside. Then he entered the room, Segar right behind him, and stopped dead in his tracks.
Where there ordinarily would have been a computer array, Ord was faced with what seemed to be ten thousand analog dials.
He stared at them, not knowing where to begin. Then he said hopefully, “Is there, like, a mouse or something?”
“Nope,” said Segar, shaking his head. “Used to be, but we got cats on board, so that ain’t a problem. Which is good ’cause sometimes the little buggers could get up inside there and start buildin’ nests. Screws up all the readings.”
Ord stared at him. “Riiiiight.”
Meanwhile another old salt, named Grumby—rotund and with a hearty laugh—had accompanied Beast down to the engine room. Beast stopped in awe, having much the same reaction as Ord had up in command. Massive boilers loomed over him like iron sentinels. He didn’t even know where to start, and looked to Grumby in bewilderment.
The old man laughed. “Step aside, son.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a book of matches. He lit one and then held it up in Beast’s face as if he were about to perform a magic trick. Then he tossed it to one side. It sailed through the air like a tiny shooting star and landed inside one of the boiler’s pilot burners. “Here there be dragons,” he said solemnly.
An instant later Beast understood what he meant as, with a massive roar of flame—as if indeed belched up from the mouth of one of those mythic reptiles—the oil that was deep within the bowels of the boiler ignited. “Best hold your ears,” Grumby advised him. Beast clapped his hands over his ears, although he noticed that Grumby was not doing likewise. Instead the old man was manipulating a complex array of dials, firing up the engine, which gave off a hellacious roar that was quite simply the loudest thing Beast had ever heard. Yet Grumby wasn’t flinching from the racket, which led Beast to conclude that years spent down in this cacophony had probably made the old man partly, if not mostly, deaf.
Grumby shouted over the noise, “Like a kitten!”
And Beast thought, Right, purring like a kitten. A thousand-pound kitten.
Hopper arrived at the helm, Nagata right behind him. A sailor named Driscoll was there waiting for them. Driscoll had narrow, canny eyes beneath bushy white eyebrows, and carried with him an air of adventure, as if he were a sailor on a quest to hunt down some great, legendary monster.
There was a sense of majesty in the room. Heroes in a great war had tread here, and—in a sense of ironic turnaround—had done so in battling the very people from whom the man at Hopper’s side had descended. Funny how enemies can become friends, Hopper thought, and wondered briefly if that meant someday the aliens now trying to annihilate them would eventually be allies.
Then he remembered the explosive death of his brother and hoped he wouldn’t be alive to see it. He didn’t want to live in a world where he had to be best pals with the monsters that had killed Stone. If that made him some sort of racist, if that was shortsighted of him… fine. He was really okay with that.
“How we looking on fuel?” he asked Driscoll.
“Six hundred tons, sir. Just enough for maintenance runs.”
“Ordnance?”
“Scraped what we could from storage. It ain’t much.”
He nodded and then said, “Cast us off, sailor. Set course for Saddle Ridge.”
Driscoll ran off to carry out the orders. As the combined crew of young men and old salts made final preparations for the ship to depart, Hopper—as he walked around the helm, running his fingertips along it with reverence—said, “You got kids, Nagata?”
“Children, yes. Three. I have three girls.”
“Three girls.” Hopper whistled softly.
“I am hoping to try for a boy, but my wife… she only makes girls.” There was something in his voice that sounded like a trace of humor, although with him, it wasn’t easy to be sure.
“Girls aren’t so bad.”
“They are my angels,” he said softly. “Do you have children, Mr. Hopper?”
It seemed to Hopper that the time for formality was long gone. “Alex. Please… call me Alex.”
“Children?”
“Not yet. But I’m going to. And I’ll tell you something, Captain Nagata.”
“Tell me what?”
“I can’t wait to put my arms around that little guy and give him the biggest hug that he’s ever gonna have in his life. Don’t think I’ll ever let go.” He sighed, his expression changing, and then patted the bulkhead. “Let’s just see how mighty she is.”
Minutes later, everyone on the ship was at their stations aboard the vessel that had the unenviable task of being the last, best hope of the human race. Hopper, standing up on the flying bridge, picked up the PA and clicked it on.
“I’m not good with words,” he said, his voice echoing throughout the entirety of the ship. “So let me just give you a fact. World War II ended on this ship. The Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed on the very deck you stand on.” He paused, glancing at Nagata, who was standing next to him. No offense, he mouthed to Nagata. None taken, Nagata mouthed back.
Hopper continued: “I don’t think that’s a coincidence. This old girl ended one war. We do our jobs today, and she’ll see to it we end another… and just maybe save the world in the bargain. My…” He hesitated, trying not to choke up. “My brother always said the same words to his men before a mission. Since he’s not here, I’m saying them to you: Be safe out there. Look out for one another. And let’s keep chargin’.
“Mr. Ord… take us out.”
“Aye, Captain.”
There was a slight lurch, and a groan, and for a second Hopper was worried that someone had forgotten to clear the last of the moorings and the ship was going to rip out the dock in its departure. But then the Mighty Mo eased from its resting place like a coma patient waking after a decades-long slumber. She slid into the water, the propellers picking up power and speed, and a raucous series of cheers went up from all over the deck. Hopper even fancied that he could hear the cheering from deep within the bowels of the ship.
Nagata cleared his throat to get Hopper’s attention. Hopper turned to him, his face a question. With his customary calm, Nagata reached toward a switch, the purpose of which Hopper didn’t know, and flipped it once.
The song “Anchors Aweigh” blared through the speakers, not only setting off a rousing cheer, but also prompting many of the men to start singing along.
“Nice touch,” said Hopper. Nagata bowed slightly. Then Hopper noticed that a number of Nagata’s men were also singing the song, but in their native tongue.
“Man, you have got to teach me how to sing it in Japanese.”