She hugged them back fiercely, trying to tell them without words that she wasn’t f+ragile and knowing they would never believe her. Ensign Mark Brown, Ensign Keith Dawson, and Petty Officer Tyler Kovavitch had been assigned to the station during Kateri’s command. Seaman Layla Monroe was new, on her first Coast Guard assignment, but she’d heard about Kateri and acquired the guys’ attitude, a reverence predicated in part on hearing of Kateri’s swift and decisive action that had saved two of the three Coast Guard cutters in port the day of the tsunami, and in part because she had survived the tsunami. Kateri supposed she didn’t deserve that kind of worship. On the other hand, she didn’t deserve being drowned and crippled, either, so she took it all in her stride. When the greetings were done, she looked around, searching for the rest of the crew. For Luis. “Where are the other guys?” Silence fell. Looks were exchanged. The four Coasties pulled her into a corner. Mark pushed up his Frankenstein mask, and in a low voice, said, “Lieutenant Landlubber sent them out on a mission.
