Pāhonoa te oro

Vex glanced left, out over the endless grey. Somewhere out there, invisible in the haze, the USS John F. Kennedy carved a hole in the North Sea, her battle group scattered in a loose screen. They were on a freedom-of-navigation exercise, a pointed message to Moscow about the GIUK gap. Routine. Everything was routine. “They’ve been shadowing us since dawn,” Vex said. “Probably Bears out of Severomorsk. Let’s go take a picture.”