Seawolf End Game by Cliff Happy

avoid having alcohol without too much trouble. Brodie had been drawn away from his officers almost immediately by a group of half a dozen ships’ captains, and she soon lost sight of him, for which she was thankful. Although she suspected he might be avoiding her, she knew she was doing her best to stay away from him. Simply put, she didn’t trust herself to think objectively around him anymore.
    “You look nice tonight,” Terry offered her as they waited together for the doors to the banquet hall to open.
    “So do you,” she offered with a friendly smile. “You clean up pretty good for a rogue.” She looked around the crowd wondering if he’d already found a date for the evening out of the handful of female officers present. “I would have thought you’d be out hunting already.”
    “What makes you think I’m not?” he answered with the same devilishly handsome smile Kristen had come to expect from him.
    “Won’t you ever quit?” she asked as she rolled her eyes, no longer taking him seriously.
    “Hey, I am what I am,” Terry shrugged innocently.
    Graves joined the other Seawolf officers, and with him was a British Navy commander.  Everyone turned to greet the British officer as the XO introduced him. “This is Commander Alec Gardener of Her Majesty’s Ship, Audacious,” he explained.  He was several inches shorter than Kristen and portly with flaming red hair.
    Kristen nodded politely as Graves introduced her, “And this is the lady I was telling you about, Alec,” Graves said in a hushed tone.
    Gardener clasped her hand with both of his as he shook her hand in greeting. “Indeed?” he asked. “It’s a great pleasure to meet you, Miss.”
    Graves then lowered his head and explained to Kristen, “It was the Audacious we picked up heading out of Korea.”
    “Jason tells me you heard our power plant signature,” Gardener said with a hint of skepticism.
    Kristen nodded, remembering their encounter with the Astute class British submarine being shadowed by the Korean diesel electric boat. “Yes, sir,” she replied modestly. “We got lucky.”
    “In my experience, my dear,” Gardener replied, “there is no such thing as luck.” He then spoke to Graves, “Tell Sean to hold on to this one, Jason. Otherwise I’ll steal her away.”
    Graves chuckled. “No chance, Alec.”
    “Bollocks!” Gardener replied with an engaging smile. “What are you drinking, my dear?”
    “Water, sir.” More officers from the Audacious came over to meet Kristen and her fellow Seawolf officers.
    “Water?” Gardener asked. “Good heavens, dear child!” he said scandalized. “Haven’t you heard, fish fornicate in water.”
    Kristen was about to protest as Gardener ordered one of his junior officers to “fetch her a real drink,” but the XO intervened on her behalf. “The lieutenant has watch later tonight,” Graves explained with a polite lie.
    “How do you know the captain, sir?” Kristen asked Gardener, liking the chubby Englishman.
    “You mean Brodie?” he asked as he rolled his eyes.
    “Yes, sir,” Kristen replied politely.
    “I taught the bastard everything he knows,” Gardener told her pointedly.
    Kristen raised her eyebrow at the defaming reference to her captain but Gardener continued, “We were students together at the Perisher Course, my dear,” Gardener explained as Brodie appeared in their midst. Gardener turned on Brodie with a mischievous grin. “And I’d have graduated at the top of my class if you hadn’t shown up, you dirty bugger!”
    The Perisher Course was the Royal Navy’s submarine command course that any aspiring captain had to pass. It was generally accepted that Perisher was the most difficult command course in any Navy, and it routinely flunked out twenty-five percent of students, making the small number of qualified British submarine captains a truly elite breed.
    “Hi, Alec.” Brodie shook his friend’s hand. “How’ve you been?”
    Gardener wasn’t