Day 1: 0800 Hours, Springfall Atoll (Piax Ocean Theater).

“Goddamnit! Not again!”

The profanity rolled across the camp of the 23^rd Unified Territories Naval Construction Battalion (Sea Bees), awaking any members of the unit that were still asleep. One of those was Chief Petty Officer Loutran “Tor” (short for Torpedo) Rivers.  The river otter was startled out of his doze and came to his senses on the floor next to his bunk.  He grabbed a thin khaki work shirt and some “borrowed” Army pants that were too large as they had been cut for canines, dressed quickly, and then headed out into the warming Springfall morning.  Given the time of the tirade, Tor could guess what it was about.  A moment later Tor’s guess was proven correct as a large mass of beaver waddled past him, muttering under his breath about “tanuki bastards.” 

Tor turned to his left and stood on tip toe to see the end of the row of Quonset huts.  Sure enough, the laundry line was empty.  Once again, the remaining Araigumase on Springfall had managed to steal the Sea Bees’ underwear.  Tor sighed, shook his head, and silently thanked the Good Lion that he had the foresight to keep a stash of underwear in his duffel.  Something had to be done about this.  The otter’s thoughts were interrupted by a shadow falling on the ground in front of him.  Tor looked up to find that the irate beaver, Chief Petty Officer Caster Banks, had returned.

“We need to fix this Tor.” Banks slapped his tail on the ground in frustration.  “We don’t need five hundred guys running ‘round in this heat with no underwear.”

“Yeah,” Tor agreed, looking around to make sure no Seamen were close enough to overhear.  “No offense Cas, but you get smelly enough as is.  Even to me.  Not sure I could stand you with all your musk gettin’ out through just your shorts.”

Banks let out a short laugh that whistled through his larger front teeth.  “Be glad you’re not the boss.  Poor wolf bastard must hate being around us all day with that overactive sniffer of his.”

“I’m glad I am not the paddler,” Tor nodded sagely.

The otter fell into step with his superior as the pair headed towards the commander’s office.  Commander Lycon was a good CO. But there was no denying that the wolf did try to keep his nose out of what to him must have been the reek of the enlisted men; which explained why he usually called his chiefs with less sensitive noses to a meeting in the morning and then let them handle the direct supervision of the battalion. 

This particular morning, the chiefs arrived to find Lycon already deep into his daily paperwork.  The wolf barely looked up at the two noncommissioned officers, and then pointed at the coffee pot, set on a lower table for their convenience.

“Grab some coffee and a seat.  This one’s going to be a doozy.”

Tor’s whiskers twitched in curiosity.  Like most of the Sea Bees under his command Lycon was an older individual, depending on one’s view of 40 as “old.”  To the teen and early twenty-something Marines and Army infantry, Lycon seemed ancient.  Of course, that was typical of most of the Sea Bees- like Banks, they were mostly over 30 and had backgrounds in construction before the war.  Tor himself split the difference at 25 and was a career navy man, recently transferred to the Sea Bees from destroyer duty. So what could get the former construction foreman so riled up that even an otter could tell?

Soon, the otter had his muzzle in a wide mug of coffee which covered up the scent of canine irritation that was spread around by the four fans that the wolf had going in the office.  Banks climbed onto the other stool in front of the commander’s desk.  The wolf shuffled the papers on his desk, selected one, and then glared down at his two senior NCO’s.  Tor swallowed nervously and put his muzzle deep into his mug to avoid the wolf’s wrath.  Banks, more familiar with his commander’s moods, took a swig of his coffee and met the big wolf’s gaze without concern.

“So, what’s going on boss?”

“New top secret, drop everything and do this now crap,” Lycon huffed and let out a low growl. “No real information other than what we need to do the job.”

Lycon tossed two pieces of paper in the general direction of the two aquatics and slapped his paws on the desk.  Tor picked one up and began to study it while Banks clicked his tongue against his prominent front teeth and continued to meet the canine’s blue-eyed gaze.  Lycon bared his teeth and Tor shrank a little deeper into his stool, despite the memory of Banks telling him that the act was one of frustration, not of threat. 

“They need the north runway on North Field extended. The ‘A’ one, if you’re using the official designations.”

“No big deal.  Been doing that for over a month now any way,” Banks sipped his coffee.  “Least no one’s shootin’ at us much anymore.  How much longer?”

“They don’t know,” Lycon growled.

Banks choked on his coffee, spit the last mouthful back into his mug, and rocked forward gagging.  Tor let out a quiet chatter of frustration of his own.

“How the… How can they not know?” Banks coughed, surprising Tor with his self-censoring.  “It’s not like those big chrome Army birds have changed at all.”

“Apparently they have,” Tor murmured as he continued to study the sheet of paper.  He looked up in time to see Lycon staring at him- Tor was usually silent during these meetings.  The otter quickly pulled the paper back in front of his face.

“What?”

“No real details,” Lycon waved his paw in dismissal.  “Scuttlebutt is that they have modified some Leviathans to carry some new payload.  All they provided was that the new takeoff weight is heavier than normal.  They think.”

 “And the Army can’t do this on their own?”  Banks’s tail smacked the floor in agitation.

“The unit flying them is going to be assigned here,” Tor put in, his own thick tail swept behind his stool as he reached back to scratch the base of it.

“Damnit,” the beaver swallowed the last of his coffee out of the wide mug.  “And when do the Army morons expect us to have this done?”

“Yesterday,” Lycon grabbed a pen and scrawled something Tor couldn’t read on a notepad.  He ripped the sheet off the top and repeated the process and handed the papers to Banks.  “So I’m putting my best Chiefs on it, with written permission from me to acquire anything they need to get a Leviathan of the weight specified into the air a-sap.”

“A-sap means PSP and crushed coral,” Banks took the paper with a huff.  “Thought the Army mechanics said that screwed with the engines.”

“Not going to be our problem.” Lycon handed Tor the other copy.  “Just get it done.”

“That’s impossible.” Tor put the orders back on the wolf’s desk. His tail twitched in agitation that overrode his nervousness.  “How we supposed to build anything with only the briefest of information?  And what do they need it for so soon?”

“You don’t even have the hard part,” Lycon glared down at the otter.  “Corvin is going to be putting in the weird stuff they want for this new payload.  But that’s not your problem.  Get the damn runway finished by the end of the week or that big rudder tail of yours is going back to destroyer duty.”