Lieutenant junior grade Sarah Morgan stopped where the concrete quay met pitted bitumen and gazed around her. Her stomach churned with excitement and apprehension, and she thought she might be sick. She took in a deep breath of salty air, let it out and willed the nausea to abate before she made a fool of herself.

In front of her, pier nine extended approximately seven hundred and fifty feet into the sun-spangled cobalt water. Barnacles encrusted wooden pilings that supported its length and seaweed—brought in by the ebb and flow of tides—entwined and floated in undulating mounds beneath it.

Faded in places from constant exposure to the unforgiving sunlight, the asphalt was scarred by tire marks, and small puddles of oil shimmered in a myriad of rainbow colors in the sun’s rays.

Thick, ridged cables, pipes and mooring ropes lay coiled untidily, as if cast aside and forgotten, while, at the end, bright yellow drums piled in a haphazard fashion leaned in a precarious stack over the water, looking unstable enough for a slight knock to send them tumbling to the seabed.

Sarah moved her gaze halfway along the jetty’s length until she caught sight of the USS BIA moored at her berth.

That’s my ship! This is for real.

Her heart skipped a beat and she shivered with nervous anticipation. For the next several months she would be stationed aboard the destroyer as part of her crew. Despite extensive training and her promotion to junior officer rank, her previous role in the United States Navy had consisted of desk jobs. Her deployment to the ship would be her first tour of duty at sea.

Usually impulsive, Sarah had uncharacteristically thought long and hard before she’d decided to change the course of her naval career. Once she’d made her decision, she’d completed the paperwork then waited—with an almost painful eagerness—to see whether her request would be granted.

Her transfer had been approved, but when she’d received her new orders, she’d been surprised to discover that her initial enthusiasm and excitement had waned. Any confidence she’d had that she could do the job had turned to self-doubt.

She questioned whether deployment to a warship was a logical and sensible way forward for her. She’d wanted to serve out the rest of her career to the best of her ability—even rise through the ranks, if possible—but she had no idea what would happen if she couldn’t meet the high standards set by the United States Navy or she failed to achieve her own personal goals. She’d begun to second-guess herself and wondered if she’d made the right choice.

To make matters worse, she’d hoped her induction into life on a military vessel would have given her time—even if short—to settle into her new role. She should’ve known it wasn’t going to be that easy.

Leading up to this day, she’d had a sinking feeling that she was going to be thrown in at the deep end. That was confirmed when she’d been advised that the USS BIA would only be in homeport for five days for maintenance and repairs before setting out on a week’s shakedown training patrol, prior to being deployed on a fleet mission.

Furthermore, the ship’s immediate future included operational combat duties or they could be called up at any time and sent on assignment to serve in a foreign country.

Sarah nibbled her bottom lip. So why in the hell did I request a transfer from a nice, safe desk job to hazardous sea duty?

She forced the troubled thoughts from her mind and stared at the battlefield-gray destroyer. The ship was moored stern-first in her berth, her sleek and sharp-edged bow pointing toward the horizon. Slothful swells churned beneath her hull and she dipped and swayed at her tethers with effortless grace.

Now and again, a large comber crested under her and the vessel reared her prow skyward and tugged at her restraints. Sarah thought it was like watching a wild animal struggling to break free from its incarceration so it could run and hunt or, in the BIA’s case, race the waves.

The ship stirred her elegant bulk to a silent melody that only it could hear and Sarah heard a faint noise of something heavy rolling across a hidden deck and banging into metal with a jarring and discordant clatter.

A loose object could cause untold damage to sensitive equipment and her sympathies were with the individual who had left it untethered. Careless and negligent acts were not tolerated in the Navy, and the person responsible would likely receive a severe dressing-down—or perhaps a harsher punishment—once it was discovered.

A soft and gentle breeze tainted with a briny smell and overlaid with an odor of rotting seaweed blew in from the sea. The scent assaulted Sarah’s nose and her eyes watered. She tasted salt and a heavy, pungent tang of oil.

A herring gull screeched overhead and she tilted her head to watch it hovering above her in a cloudless blue sky. With wings swept back in a vee-shape and head lowered, the bird rode the wind currents, its keen vision surveying the pellucid surface, tracking its next meal and biding its time before it struck.

Close by came the thud and roar from heavy machinery, the clang of a hammer as it struck metal and raised voices intermixed with the slap of waves against ships’ hulls and wharf supports.

Sarah noticed two tugboats—used to maneuver vessels by pushing or towing them to their moorings—out in the Hampton Roads channel, pulling and nudging a battleship to her berth alongside another pier. Dwarfed by the huge warship, they bobbed like toys in her boiling wake as her huge screws on slow reverse engines brought her into homeport.

Sarah half-turned to look over her shoulder. On arriving at Naval Station Norfolk, every man and woman had to report to Nimitz Hall, a major stopping-off point for everyone en route to ships, aircraft squadrons and bases overseas.

Sarah had arrived with little time to spare to be processed through the Transient Personnel Unit and catch a shuttle to take her to the BIA. In her rush to board the coach, she’d only managed to catch a glimpse of the sprawling naval installation. Now, like a child on its first visit to an amusement park, she swiveled full circle and tried to absorb as many different sights and sounds as she could.

Battleships, destroyers and submarines were moored in their berths at jetties to either side and in the distance. She studied them and called to mind some facts she’d read about the naval base.

With a known serving population of nine thousand and with seventy-five ships at any one time berthed alongside fourteen piers, it was easily the largest naval installation in the world.

Sarah was determined not to be late on her first day. She faced the destroyer then glanced at her watch. Butterflies danced in her stomach when she saw that twenty minutes remained before she had to report for duty.

Perspiration dampened her hands and her sea bag almost slipped from her grasp. She gripped the handles tighter and strode toward the warship. When she drew nearer and was able to see the vessel more clearly, pride coursed through her veins.

A gangway spanned a narrow channel of churning water—from pier to quarterdeck—and she stopped a short distance from it. The USS BIA’s hull dwarfed her, even though the ship was small compared to a battleship or an aircraft carrier. To Sarah, the ship’s sweeping lines and symmetry were both forbidding and beautiful.

She’d read somewhere that the ship had been christened after a Greek goddess. Her name meant ‘spirit of force, power and might, bodily strength and compulsion’ and the vessel’s brooding presence was evidence that she lived up to the meaning behind her title.

An article Sarah had read as to why ships were universally known as females made her smile. ‘A ship is called a she because there’s usually a gang of men about her. She has a waist and stays, it takes a lot of paint to keep her good-looking and she needs an experienced man to handle her correctly. Without a man at the helm, she’s uncontrollable. When coming into a port, she shows her topsides, hides her bottom and heads straight for the buoys.’

Sarah was inclined to believe in a more romantic notion of a ‘ship as a she’ as stemming from the tradition of boat-owners—typically and historically male—naming their vessels after significant females in their lives—wives, sweethearts and mothers.

Sarah glanced at her watch once more. She had a little time left before she needed to report aboard her new home, so she gazed up at the lofty bridge with its multiple slanted windows on three sides reflecting the bright sunlight. She was stunned at its size.

The superstructure dwarfed a Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System helicopter at rest on a helipad close to the squared-off stern, its rotor blades tied down to prevent damage from the wind.

She tracked her eyes along the hull from stern to bow, where the ship’s number—one-sixteen—was painted in white. Once she’d received her orders, she’d bought as many books about the destroyer as she could lay her hands on.

Specifications, weapons and armament statistics now tumbled through her head and she went over everything she’d learned about the warship.

The BIA was a United States Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer and formed part of a carrier strike group. Her primary mission was to protect the designated carrier she’d been assigned to and fill an anti-aircraft combat role with her stealth techniques, using her missile defense system, anti-surface warfare launchers, powerful multifunction radar and a vertical launch system. She could launch a destructive force of heavy ordnance, such as the Tomahawk, anti-submarine rockets and evolved Sea Sparrow missiles.

Beautiful she might be, Sarah thought, but she’s also one hell of a dangerous bitch.

Sarah stared at the main deck, where a five-inch, sixty-two-caliber gun sat forward of the bridge, its long barrel pointed skyward, then moved her gaze onward to the vast tripod main mast.

With its intricate passive array antenna, search and rescue aerial and surface gunfire control radar, it towered above the ship’s superstructure and resembled a mad creator’s warped idea of a steel sculpture.

Sarah’s heart raced and she drew in a deep breath. She checked her watch for the third time and saw that she had five minutes left before she lost her freedom. She was out of time, so while she continued to study the bridge, she proceeded toward the gangway.

She’d almost reached it when she noticed someone staring at her through one of the windows. She gasped with surprise, stopped, stepped backward in shock and her heavy bag collided with her legs. She stumbled, almost fell and swore out loud before she regained her footing then glanced around to see if someone had overheard her profanity.

She was still alone, and she turned her attention back to the vessel and raised her hand to shield her eyes from the harsh sunlight. The slanted glass panes of the bridge were tinted gold-green with anti-glare material. The phenomenon prevented her from seeing anything other than the silhouette of a tall man dressed in a multi-blue digital naval working uniform.

Sarah confirmed that even though he must have noticed she’d seen him, the unknown male still watched her, and her anxiety increased two-fold.

Oh, shit. I must have done something wrong. He’s making notes so he can ream me out—and I haven’t even boarded yet. This is so not good.

Perhaps she’d broken some ancient naval tradition by not boarding the ship as soon as she’d arrived. It was too late now and she was annoyed with herself for screwing up on her first day.

Furthermore, one of her pet hates—and an irritation that was almost top of her ‘things guaranteed to piss Sarah off’ list—was being stared at. If she was in for a roasting, she knew she would only dig herself a deeper hole if she reacted to the man’s scrutiny, so she ignored him, drew her shoulders back and proceeded to the gangway.

The muscles in her legs trembled and her heart pounded. She'd never taken part in the naval custom of saluting the ensign and the officer of the deck—OOD—an act of courtesy to the flag and the USS BIA. She had to draw on all her courage not to turn tail and run.

At the foot of the narrow walkway, Sarah placed her bag on the ground. She reminded herself that the man on the bridge might still be watching, and as she had no idea who he was or whether he was someone of rank, she was determined not to make a mistake.

The officer of the deck eyed her as he stood at parade rest on the quarterdeck. Without thinking about what she had to do, she stood to attention and saluted him smartly.

“Permission to come aboard, sir?” she asked.

The confidence in her voice made her feel a little smug and her lips twitched with the beginnings of a self-satisfied smile. At the last minute she thought it might be inappropriate to be seen grinning like a Cheshire cat, so she clenched her jaw and gritted her teeth.

The officer straightened and returned her salute. “Come aboard,” he ordered.

Sarah picked up her sea bag and stepped on to the narrow walkway, her boots ringing on the metal surface as she ascended a slight incline. Before she walked onto the deck, she performed an about-turn to face aft, where the ensign flapped in the breeze, and she saluted for a second time.

She then rotated one-hundred and eighty-degrees to confront the OOD once more and rendered a third snappy salute that would have done her proud at Navy boot camp.

“Permission to come aboard, sir?” she asked once more.

The OOD responded immediately, “Permission to come aboard granted.”

Sarah sighed with relief. It appeared she’d passed the simple but meaningful naval ceremony test and she moved onto the quarterdeck, nodded at the officer and strode at a brisk pace toward the dogged open hatch that led into the BIA.

As she entered the darkness lurking inside, Sarah had an unbidden thought.

Into the depths of hell go I.