I had seen this book sitting on the shelves at my local bookstore and the simple cover art and title really sucked me in. A brief read of the back blurb convinced me I had to buy it. So, I set off once more to the Moon of tomorrow!
Set an indeterminate amount of time into the future, we come to a Lunar surface being rapidly developed by Chinese, American, Russian, and European Helium-3 Mining interests. China and America are in fierce economic and military competition in space. Sabers have been rattled and punches have been thrown, and it seems like the first Lunar war is only just around the corner.
Enter Jane Oliver of the United States Coast Guard, the fifth branch of the United States Armed Services. She and her XO Wen Ho are aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Aries as it runs over Lacus Doloris where American and Chinese miners are running riot, brawling over mining rights and economic losses. Things turn ugly, weapons are drawn, and Jane's husband Tom of the United States Navy is caught in the crossfire.
Three years pass and Jane is back down the well in Yorktown teaching Coast Guard cadets, putting the best class she can forward as her daughter Alice moves to stake her own Helium-3 claim. It is with this revelation that she is approached by her commandant about training the Coast Guard's SAR team to compete in the widely televised Boarding Action, where the elite teams from each branch of the Armed Services and United States security services compete in a zero-gee game to see who can board and clear a boat against an opposing team.
What reason might this be to send Jane back to the Moon? Well, the American Navy is increasingly taking over the 'maritime' enforcement and search and rescue activities on the Lunar surface, putting it on a collision course with its People's Liberation Navy counterpart. Unless the Coast Guard can do something to wrest control of policing duties back from the Navy, then it seems very much as though war on the moon may become inevitable.
As a damn good teacher Jane seems right for the job, and she has the most talented operators in the Coast Guard to work with. Unfortunately, they don't seem to work well together, and Jane has only three months to turn them around in order to beat the United States Marine Corps elite operations team. A task that might be beyond even her considerable resources.
Myke Cole has his character voice down pat. Jane comes off as a multidimensional woman who knows what she wants and how she wants to do it. She's a long time operator in the Coast Guard, space experience, and wonderful strengths and limitations. Her banter with both her long suffering and great XO, Wen, is hilarious and endearing, giving their relationship a lot of important depth. Then her own difficult experiences with losing her husband, fears for her daughter, and the stress of her own job comes across quite well.
Oliver's narrative primarily revolves around dealing with her superiors and subordinates. There's a great degree of latitude too the author allows his main character in that she comes up with a pretty ingenious team building plan to put them all on rather even ground. The supporting cast who are her primary charges, the men and women of SAR-1 are quite fun. The best of the best, but not well functioning as teammates. This forms the primary interactions in the books outside Oliver's occasional meetings with her Marine counterpart, General Demetrius Fraser. Those interactions were always a hoot, and Oliver's banter with both her teammates and Ho all made me laugh out loud at points.
The author himself has served in the Coast Guard, and two tours in Iraq. His experience is undeniable and shines through in the book itself quite well. Even though we don't yet have any SAR operators in space, he makes a quite believable case for them operating by the Coast Guard's rules. The doctrine and actions portrayed are all superbly written and they sucked me into the story in a way I really didn't expect.
His portrayal of the politics of military service really adds to the plot. The cajoling for position between the Navy, the Marines and the Coast Guard over who has jurisdiction on Luna is also engaging. I was impressed at how he managed to make it feel like the characters were threading the needle between following orders and not causing a general bureaucratic free for all between departments when things went sideways. And oh boy do many things go sideways!
This isn't your run of the mill military science fiction, its actually taking the idea in a bold new direction. We do indeed have space navies and space marines, but the latter really plays out more like a police drama in space, interspersed with the occasional terrifying firefight between heavily armed opponents. Without the usual emphasis on weapons systems, space battles and gunfights I had to interpret this story in a very different way. It actually gave me an appreciation for a branch of the armed services I never had even considered before!
One might call it part police procedural and part military thriller.
Sixteenth Watch takes our conception of what we expect to see in space and turns it around on us. The goal isn't knock down, drag out action, its life saving by the book work, and I think that's a great way to tell a story. For military science fiction as you haven't seen it before, definitely check out Myke Cole!
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