Page 49 of Badd B*tch

"I am,” I said, and explained Papa Lucas's love affair with the snack.

She just made a face. "Oh. Okay." A pause. "I feel like every time your family comes up, it’s something else super weird and interesting."

I cackled. "Because we are a supremely weird and interesting family."

She looked almost…wistful. "Being a legacy Navy family is the most interesting thing about my family, unless you count a genetic predisposition to emotional unavailability."

"I mean, I feel like there's gotta be some pretty banger stories to be shared," I said. "What with three generations of naval staff."

She sighed. "Yeah, if you could get anyone to talk about any of it, which you wouldn't."

"No?"

She shook her head. "Fuck no. My great-grandfather served in the Pacific in World War Two, and according to my father, if you got Great Grandpa Tom tipsy enough, he'd get going. He served on a destroyer and saw action at Midway, Tarawa, and Iwo Jima, among others. He would tell some stories. Granddad and Dad? No fucking way. Ask 'em and you’ll just get the Tiernan Terror."

Jax sputtered a laugh. "The what?"

"You know how I said I lied about being related to them?" I nodded, and she continued. "Well, it didn’t really work, since I'm so much like them in so many ways. Chief among them being the Tiernan Terror. I was able to keep the cat in the bag for a while, but then I messed up, and the truth got out."

"You need to back up and explain what the Tiernan Terror is," I said.

She huffed. "I am. Just listen. So, one of my first berths was as a little bird pilot on an aging destroyer that Dad had also served on early in his career—see, Dad enlisted in the Navy rather than get drafted for Vietnam, so he served on a destroyer before he got himself into flight school. Still not sure how he managed that one—Granddad, probably. Anyway. The Tiernan Terror is something we all do, Granddad, Dad, and me. It's a stare. I know, sounds lame, but it's legendary in certain circles. Like a death glare on steroids, basically. Again, explaining it doesn't really do it justice."

I snorted. "I've been on the receiving end of your stare of irritation, so I can sort of fathom what a death glare might be."

She shook her head. "No, you can't. Look, you're a civilian. The hierarchy in the military is an ironclad thing. Rank is a very serious fucking thing, Jax. You don’t get it if you've never served. But…look, it's…god, how do I explain? When you're a rank-and-file grunt in the Army or Marines, an airman in the Air Force, or a sailor in the Navy, one of the first things they drill into you is the importance of the structure of authority. It's sacrosanct. A sailor, like on day one out of boot camp, is…no one. A number, pretty much. Not unimportant, per se, because everyone has a role to fill, but you just don't rank. You salute everyone but another sailor. Now, my grandfather is an Admiral. I know you know what that is, but you probably don't understand the scope of it. An admiral is so far above a sailor that…god, I dunno. An admiral may as well be the president; it’s that big of a difference. An average sailor will likely never even see, let alone meet, an admiral. They just live in different worlds."

I started to speak, but she held up a hand.

"An officer, as in a commissioned officer like I was, has nearly absolute authority over a sailor. There are ethics involved, though, so you can't just do whatever you want. Like you probably could make some poor sailor who pissed you off shine your shoes with his toothbrush, but if it got out to an officer above you, well…" She shrugged. "This is where the Tiernan Terror comes into play. When you have rank, you have authority. It's right there on your shoulders. But not every sailor is gonna automatically respect that. Sometimes, you have to assert your authority. For my dad and granddad, it was just part of their personality. Glares, silences, unspoken and vague but very real threats…that's just how they communicate. For me, as a woman, and a short and slight woman at that, getting people to take me and my authority seriously has been challenging. It's part of why I'm such a bitch."

“You're not—"

"Save it, Jax," she cut in, softening it with a smile. "I am. It's okay. It's not all I am. I can be nice." She lifted a hand to forestall anything else I might say. "The Tiernan Terror is a way of asserting authority. But it's a specific thing, I guess. Granddad started it—he was legendary for silencing people who were doing or saying something he didn't agree with with no more than a look. And those under him feared that look so much it developed its own nickname. Dad grew up with that stare when he misbehaved, and so did I.” She smirked. "My claim to fame, if you want to call it that, is pretty funny, now. I was a newly commissioned O-3, a first lieutenant. Basically, it put me in charge of missions, training, stuff like that. It's a pretty big jump in responsibility, and I took it very seriously."

I gave her an innocent, wide-eyed look. "You? No. I don’t believe it."

"Shut up," she laughed. "Well, one day there was this E-7, a senior petty officer, which in rank terms is pretty far down from an O-3, my rank at the time. He was just berating this poor seaman apprentice. It was brutal. The kid had done something dumb; I don’t know what, but the man was just ripping this kid a new asshole to a totally unnecessary degree. Important for the story is that the officer was a very large man, big, built, and intimidating, with a very loud voice and a lot of colorful insults. And the sailor was this small girl who couldn't have been a week past eighteen. Just tiny and terrified, and this guy was towering over her, screaming at her, insulting her for what had to have been a very minor infraction or mistake."

I winced. “Oh, shit. I can see that not going very well for bro."

"It did not, in fact, go well for bro." She grinned. "The whole room was watching, but until I walked in, that asshole was the ranking officer, so no one could do jack shit. I watched for a minute, and in that minute, my rage just became…" She shook her head. "Like that mama bear, basically."

"Is that what that was?" I asked. "I didn't exactly have time to notice the gender."

“Yeah. I saw the cubs hiding behind her."

"Makes sense, then. Anyway, continue."

"I'm not a girl's girl, okay? Not a shock to you, probably. But when I see shit like that? Oh, hell no. So I waltzed over, put myself in his line of sight, and didn't say a word. I just stared at him until he stopped screaming at the poor kid. The dumb ogre was so caught up in whatever he was so pissed off about that he must've missed the bars, because he started yelling at me for interrupting him.”

"Oh, shit. An E-7 probably isn't supposed to yell at an O-3, I imagine?"

She snickered. “Not exactly, no. It's a good way to tank your career.”

"You held the stare, I assume?"

She nodded. "Basically, I put all my anger and authority into my eyes. Just let him see his doom. It's…I can’t explain it, but it's something you can feel. Like lasers from your eyes. Who’s that guy with the visor from the X-Men?"