Cormac Kavanaugh was about to find out if he was one of them.
He straightened, shoulders squared and braced to face the cold. Others followed, stumbling with him out of the tents like men returning from the dead.
Chief Petty Officer Brick’s voice hit like a hammer. “Move your asses, or we’ll do a nice round of push-ups before you grab your oars.”
The sea waited, black and endless. The air smelled of salt and pain and inevitability. The rain had stopped, but the air was thick with mist, a cold haze that clung to skin and salt-raw lips. The bay lights burned dim, floating halos in the fog. Boats waited on the sand, rubber IBSs glistening black, slick as seals.
He let the command hang long enough for every muscle to protest, every heartbeat to count the cost. Then, in a tone almost gentle, he added, “If you quit right now, you can be drinking warm cocoa with them tiny marshmallows, steaming loaded pizza with gooey cheese, then a hot shower, warm, dry clothes, pain meds, and we’ll tuck you into bed with a bedtime story. All you gotta do is ring that bell. No paddling. No more wet, no more sand, no more cold or hallucinations.”
He paused, eyes sweeping the line of hollow faces, finding every flicker of weakness and letting it linger in his gaze.
Footsteps sounded behind him, slow, steady. Bear emerged from the mist, his presence solid as bedrock, voice quiet but carrying.
“Just give up your goddamned dream,” he said softly, the calm cutting sharper than Brick’s bark, “and miss out on the best damn experience of your lives.”
His gaze swept over them once, no judgment, just understanding. This man had been here, soaked and broken, and he’d come out the other side. He was living proof it could be done.
Cormac felt it like gravity, that stillness. If this was the kind of man who finished Hell Week, who stood shoulder to shoulder in the Teams, then he wanted to be worthy of it. Of them.
Bear’s eyes caught his for a heartbeat, unreadable but steady. Then he asked, quiet as the surf, “Any takers?”
No one moved. The silence itself became a vow.
Brick’s grin flashed in the dark. “Didn’t think so. Let’s go make history, gentlemen.”
“Boat Crew Two! On me,” Barnhardt said, his voice low, laced with pain, but as determined as the rest of them.
“Hoo-yah, sir!” the five of them responded, voices cracking, but strong in the night.
Brick’s voice shattered the quiet. “This is your last ride, gents. Up the Strand, around the world, and home again. This will take you all night. You’re going to paddle, hallucinate, fight, and you will be watched. You quit now, you get to regret what your brothers earned and you threw away.”
They were at half power, moving as fast as they could, the very little rest for the last eighty-four hours taking its toll. He wanted to sleep so badly that he felt like screaming. But he and Fisher were already at their boat, the rest of Boat Crew Two dropping in behind, Jameson, Barnhardt, Chase, and Bhandari. Hatch and Ramirez were gone. One broken, one rung out. Bear had said nothing when they’d gone, just a slow nod that had felt like mourning.
Cormac ran a palm over the boat’s side. Cold rubber. Familiar.
“Boat up!” Barnhardt barked, and the men lifted, stumbling through the surf until the water swallowed their knees. His arms trembled under its weight as they heaved it toward the surf. The Pacific looked endless, a sheet of pitch under a pewter sky.
Bear stood waist-deep at the edge, hair plastered dark against his skull, eyes unreadable. “Stay tight, Boat Crew Two. Keep rhythm. Keep each other alive.” His voice was quiet enough to make them listen.
They climbed in, paddles poised.
The order came.
Go!
They dug in.
The first shock of cold stole his breath. Then came rhythm. Paddle, drag, breathe. The boat leapt forward, muscles finding memory.
Fisher set the cadence. “One! Two! Three!” The shout rose and fell with the surf. Spray burned their eyes. Cormac’s vision tunneled as the edges of the world dissolved.
They paddled north up the Strand, the coastline lost behind a curtain of fog. Only the phosphorescent gleam of breaking waves marked direction. Every few minutes, lightning forked somewhere inland, white and soundless.
Fisher squinted into the dark. “You see that?”
Cormac grunted. “See what?”
“Zeus. Bastard’s tossing bolts right at us.”
