“It was very…appropriate, Miranda,” he had that smile she could never interpret.
“Good.” Now she could cross that off her mental list. Prior to that they’d been discussing the high diversity of dog species.
She looked down at her lap in surprise. When she’d handed the tablet to Andi, Andi’s arms had been full of the dog. So they’d exchanged the tablet for Sadie across the aisle.
Without thinking, Miranda had left a hand resting on the dog’s back after she had set it in her lap. Directly against her palm, its fur was so soft. The warmth, rapid heartbeat, and each breathing motion were not as alien as she’d anticipated. Perhaps classifying all dogs as dangerous carnivore attack animals had been overly generalized.
“Sadie definitely likes you,” Susan stopped by her seat to pet Sadie’s head before returning to her seat.
“I am…unconvinced as to whether or not I like it.”
“Her.”
“Is a dog always referred to by its gender? What am I supposed to do if I don’t know the animal’s gender?”
“Miranda,” Susan leaned forward after buckling her seatbelt and running a hand over her midriff. “The dog doesn’t understand human speech. And if the owner is offended, they’re an idiot.”
“In the qualitative sense of the word? How do you measure that without inquiring as to their IQ? I’ve never been comfortable with such classifications. And if they haven’t been tested, then—”
Holly, who stood in the aisle between herself and Andi, rested a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m doing it again, aren’t I?”
Holly squeezed her shoulder as Mike nodded. “But don’t worry about it, Miranda. Let’s see why Commander Piazza is escorting us to the opposite corner of the Pacific Ocean.”
For travel from the Gulf of Alaska to the South China Sea, that was a sufficiently accurate description.
Holly nodded to Susan, “You’re up, Squid”
Susan smiled at Holly, who was still standing in the aisle as all of the seats in the group were taken, “You’re still a bitch, boot.”
“Proud to be.”
Which was odd as Miranda understood the first to be an insult to all Navy personnel and the latter to imply Holly was fresh out of boot camp, which was wholly inaccurate.
Neither made any other comment, which Miranda took as good advice and kept her own mouth shut.
Susan then looked at her watch before turning to Miranda.
“Approximately thirteen hours ago there was anincidenton CVN-71, the aircraft carrier USSTheodore Roosevelt.An F-35C crashed badly during landing. The present casualty count is fifty-seven killed, another forty-seven injured, and fifty-two still unaccounted for.”
“Unaccounted for? How the hell did that happen?” Miranda needed no emoji chart to identify Holly’s fury.
Miranda didn’t want to listen, but couldn’t help herself. The snippets of information and conjecture that had been sent to Susan were often conflicting. What was clear was that something had gone terribly wrong during the landing of the nation’s most advanced jet on one of the world’s largest warships.
She heard the change in the C-37B’s engines, the descent had begun. Thirty minutes to landing. Another thirty to sixty minutes after that to reach the ship.
Susan had been right, she did need to be briefed prior to arriving on the scene of this accident. She needed six months notice, not sixty to ninety minutes.
She interrupted Susan but refused to feel bad about it. “I need everything you have on the design, construction, and performance characteristics of the F-35C Lightning II.”
“But that’s classified,” Susan protested.
Miranda lifted Sadie out of her lap and passed her to Holly. “I also will need operations manuals for Nimitz-class carriers, especially landing and deck procedures.”
“Also classified.”
Miranda pulled out her ID wallet, flipped past the NTSB identification to the CAC—military Common Access Card—and held it out.