'You and Herdez.'
'Do not mention her and me in the same breath!'
'Yes, ma'am.' Even if you have a lot more in common with our old XO than you'll ever admit. 'I don't know. I knew the risks I was signing on to face. I just never really thought about having to worry about my One and Only facing the same risks.'
Jen snorted a brief laugh. 'I never thought I wouldn't have to worry about that. Paul, both your parents were Navy. Why didn't you think you might get involved with another officer?'
'I don't know. Really. Maybe because by the time I was a teenager Mom was retired and Dad followed soon after. But now here we are and maybe next time we go out the SASALs will do something even more outrageous and someone on our side will shoot and this time it won't be an isolated incident that everyone just wants to sweep under the rug.'
'Maybe. We're doing our jobs as best we can. We'll keep our ships and our shipmates and ourselves intact if we possibly can, no matter what. If we can't, well, hell, we're both doing this job because we believe it's important. Right?'
'Right.'
'So carpe diem and all that stuff.' Jen yawned. 'Are we going to talk political events and philosophy all night or do you want to get naked?'
'Uh, well…'
'Oh, please. Stop trying to pretend you have to think about it.'
'I like your mind, too.'
'As much as you like my stern?'
'Uh…'
'Men.'
'Would you rather I was a woman?'
She reached for him as she answered. 'No way.'
Chapter Four
'The SASALs weren't impressed enough by our little display.' Commander Garcia almost snarled the words. 'We're going out again.'
'Second time's the charm,' Taylor murmured.
Garcia ignored her. 'No nonsense with foreign ships this time. We're going out with Maury. We'll head for the border of the region of space claimed by the South Asians, and when we get nice and close we'll deactivate our anti-detection devices.'
Taylor snorted. Denaldo raised her eyebrows. Paul nodded. So this time we're going to try to scare the SASALs by sneaking up on them and then going 'boo.' 'Just us and the Maury, sir?'
'That's right. And here's the fun part.' Garcia bared his teeth. 'They want us within ten kilometers of each other when we reveal ourselves. Going on the same vector right along the border at high speed.'
'How the hell are we going to coordinate that when we can't see the Maury any better than the SASAL's can?'
'Because we're good, Mr. Sinclair. And because our fine communications officer Ms. Denaldo is going to figure out a way to pass information between the ships without giving ourselves away.'
Chris spread her hands, looking dazed. 'Sir, we can use visual signaling vectored only toward where the Maury 's supposed to be, but if both ships are moving at high speed she might not see the signals in time to react even if she is where we think she is.'
'Then figure out a way they will see them in time to react. Feel free to consult with Ensign Taylor on the matter.' Garcia grinned again without any trace of real humor, his expression reminding Paul of a hungry bear. 'This is a chance to look good. I expect you all to look good. Is that clear?'
So you can look good, right, boss? Garcia's got orders coming up before long, too, and pulling this off might help him get real good ones. Paul glanced at Denaldo's face, now tight with repressed annoyance, and then addressed Garcia. 'Sir, just how close are we supposed to be to the border?'
'Twenty kilometers.'
Paul barely kept his jaw from dropping. 'At high speed? That's no margin of error at all.'
'We don't need a margin of error, Sinclair. Now stop complaining about the orders and start getting ready to execute them.' Garcia checked his data pad, then glared at them again. 'Oh, yeah. We're getting underway for this the day after tomorrow. Make sure your divisions are ready.'
Ensign Taylor leaned against the nearest console. 'I guess there's no sense in worrying about getting that back-logged maintenance taken care of.'
Garcia focused on her. 'Are there any equipment problems that I'm not aware of?'
'No, sir. Just all the stuff you are aware of. But that's okay. I'll tell my boys and girls to break out the chewing gum and duct tape again and hopefully everything important will hold together until we get back home.'
For once, Garcia's grin held some real humor in it. 'It'd better. Now, get to work. Denaldo, I want a workup on your communications plan before noon.'
After Garcia left, Kris Denaldo looked at Taylor. 'I sure hope you know a way to do this.'
Taylor nodded. 'Matter of fact, I do.'
'You're kidding!'
'Nope. Ever hear of moon bounce communications?' Denaldo glanced at Paul and then they both shook their heads. 'Didn't think so. It was pre-communications satellite stuff. Very primitive. To get a radio signal sent over a real long distance on earth, one station'd send the signal straight at the moon. The signal'd bounce off the moon, and get picked up by the receiver back on earth.'
'That'd take a lot of power. And how did they aim the signal?'
'It did, and they didn't aim it. As long as the sending and the receiving station both had the moon up, they could bounce signals back and forth. But if we're just sending signals through vacuum we wouldn't need much power. And the spread from a reflected signal makes it real hard to trace back the angle to the sending station. Here's what you propose, Chris. Low power, high frequency signals.'
'HF? That's Stone Age communications. You can't get any decent amount of information into an HF signal.'
'What do you want to send 'em, movies? HF will spread real nice and nobody's going to be monitoring those frequencies for military communications. Just set up a simple code with Maury that'll let you pass basic location, course and speed data. Then every once in a while you guys bounce a signal at each other. You'll be transmitting away from SASAL space to bounce the signal off the moon, and by the time the reflected signal gets back to where we are it'll have spread out so much nobody'll be able to get a decent fix on the place it originated from even if they can work out the reflection angle.'
Denaldo rubbed her chin, her expression showing she was thinking intently. 'I can't see why it wouldn't work.'
'Kris, you got Senior Chief Kowalski working for you. 'Ski was probably around when they were doing that moon bounce stuff.'
'I don't think he's quite that old.'
Taylor grinned. 'Nah, but tell him I said so. 'Ski won't have any trouble setting up a system like that for us and the Maury to use.'
'Thanks, Akesha.'
'No prob. You need any brilliant plans, Paul? I got a two-for-the-price-of-one deal going this morning.'
'I don't think so.'
'Guess again.'
Paul watched the older and much more experienced but technically more junior officer warily. 'What?'
'The systems will provide proximity alert warnings when we get too close to something, like say that
