Paul tried not to glare at Carney. The captain's thought process was transparent — that Jen and Lieutenant Schmidt had been pursuing some kind of affair, that Schmidt had broken it off to become engaged to a man, and Jen had been jealous. The stuff of bad movies. Commander Carr couldn't stomach that. She cut off Taber before he could really bring it out. But Carney did it, anyway.
Lieutenant Taber left, not looking to either side as he marched rapidly out of the courtroom. Commander Carr stood as soon as Taber had left. 'The prosecution rests.'
'Very well. Lieutenant Bashir, do you wish to make any motions?'
'No, Your Honor.'
McMasters rapped sharply with his gavel. 'This court-martial is closed. It will reconvene at 1000 tomorrow morning for the presentation of evidence by the defense. In this courtroom.'
Once again everyone waited, standing while the judge and members of the court left through their respective doors. Jen stood at attention the entire time, moving only after the masters-at-arms came to stand beside her in order to escort her back to the brig. She also didn't look at anyone as she left the court-room.
Paul waited while Lieutenant Bashir made some notes on his data pad. 'I never thought Commander Carr would do something like that.'
Bashir glanced at him. 'Like what? That stuff at the end?'
'Yes. I mean, it's crap.'
'Almost certainly. But the government had to find some motivation for what they allege Lieutenant Shen did.'
'But they didn't prove anything! That little bastard Taber just described totally innocuous things and implied there was something improper about them.'
'Right.' Bashir shook his head. 'Unfortunately, in this case all the government has to do is introduce a reasonable level of belief in the members' minds that something was going on. I warned Jen about this. I told her a military judge would be far less likely to be swayed by innuendo. But she insisted on being tried by members, because she was sure they'd stand with a fellow officer.'
Paul sagged back into his seat. 'But why would Commander Carr stoop to that kind of thing?'
'Because she's got a job to do, Paul.' Bashir pointed toward the trial counsel's table. 'She's in charge of prosecuting this case. Carr's in charge of bringing to justice someone she believes murdered sixty-one of her shipmates. I disagree, obviously. But that's why Commander Carr would do that.'
Paul nodded, feeling numb. Carr really believes Jen must be guilty, doesn't she? Carr wouldn't do this if she didn't believe that, didn't believe that she was legally right to introduce something like Taber's garbage. Even if I could tell Carr hated having to do it.
'If it's any consolation,' Bashir added, 'she pulled her punches.'
'What?'
'You heard me. Carr pulled her punches. She had to sow suspicion in the minds of the members of the court that Lieutenant Shen had engaged in improper relationships with other officers on the Maury. She did that. But if she'd really gone after the accusations it would've looked a lot more damning.'
'How?'
'Oh, take that little sleaze Taber. The Alex Carr I know would've checked up more on him, found out if he had ulterior motives for his little fairy tale about Shen and Schmidt. She didn't. Consciously or subconsciously she left me an opening to discredit Taber. She also could've raised the issue of hearsay on those statements about his asking the ladies for dates. It wouldn't have held up because my sources personally witnessed the events, but still…'
Paul looked over to where Carr was reading something at the trial counsel's table. 'She hasn't looked happy. Not like when she was trying to get Silver convicted.'
'She's got a job to do, Paul. She's doing it. She thinks it's necessary. But, like you say, she's not loving it this time.' Bashir sighed. 'Unfortunately, even when she's not loving it, Alex Carr is one tough opponent.'
'It doesn't help that Captain Carney's obviously made up his mind already.'
'You've picked up on that, eh? No. It doesn't help. But he's allowed to do that. He's not allowed to order the other members of the court how to vote, but he can exercise his seniority as president of the members.' Lieutenant Bashir looked toward the now-vacant table used by the members of the court, his jaw tight.
Paul just nodded, knowing what Bashir was probably thinking. Captain Carney had decided what decision he thought the Navy wanted, so Captain Carney was going to do what he could to make sure that decision was reached. That way, the Navy would hopefully be grateful to Captain Carney, and it never hurt to have the Navy grateful when the next promotion board came up. I hope he's wrong. I hope the Navy as an institution isn't pushing for Jen's conviction regardless of whatever the truth might be. I can't believe it. I can't believe that some of the people involved in this, people like Alex Carr, would be part of that kind of thing. Like Mom said. There's a lot of good people in the Navy. People who surely wouldn't stand for that.
'It'd be a lot simpler if it was a big conspiracy, wouldn't it?' Paul stated aloud.
Bashir gave him a skeptical look. 'Why?'
'Something that big, somebody'd talk, right? Somebody would refuse to play along.'
'I like to think so.' Bashir shook his head. 'But it doesn't feel like a grand conspiracy to me. The senior people I've seen pushing for this court-martial seem to think Lieutenant Shen's guilty. That's why they're pushing it.' He laughed bitterly. 'It'd be a lot simpler if they didn't believe it. Then you and I and Lieutenant Shen wouldn't be here.' Bashir paused, then reached into his pocket and offered Paul a data coin. 'You asked me to look into SEERS. This is everything the government provided.'
Paul took the coin gingerly. 'Everything the government provided? Nothing else?'
'There isn't supposed to be anything else, Paul. I asked for all material pertaining to SEERS. The government's obligated to provide that if I ask for it and it's reasonably available. When Commander Carr gave me this she said it's the whole ball of wax and she's looked at it all. If Alex Carr says it's everything, then it's everything, and if she says she's looked at it, then she's looked at it. Now here it is for you to look at. Development, testing, evaluation, the works. I've skimmed it and I don't know how they managed to pack so much stuff into one data coin.'
'You've just skimmed it?'
Bashir raised one eyebrow at Paul. 'Don't sound so shocked. I went through all the executive summaries, did global searches for certain words and phrases, and so on. I'll be frank. I didn't find anything that contradicted what Admiral Hidalgo said. But if you want to dig into it, be my guest. I'd really appreciate input from a line officer, especially one as motivated as you are.'
'You'll get it.' Paul put the coin away carefully. Good thing I'm on leave. If this contains all the material Bashir says it does then I'll take a long time to go through it. And there's only so much time somebody like Colleen can give me for it because she's got her own job to do. 'Thank you, sir. I'm sorry I…'
'Thought I wasn't working hard enough for Ms. Shen? I'm doing all I can. Let me know if you find anything in there. As soon as you can.'
Paul rushed back to the Michaelson, where Colleen Kilgary copied the coin and promised to look at it even as she couldn't help casting a despairing glance at the lengthy 'to-do' list visible on her display. Sitting down in his own stateroom, Paul began scrolling through documents, trying not be overwhelmed by the sheer mass of material on the disc. Just the listing of document titles seemed to go on forever. Now I know why Bashir just went to summaries and did word searches. There's months of work in here. Why can't he get the court-martial suspended until we have time to go through this in detail? Even as he framed the question to himself, Paul saw the probable answer in his own search results. Every reference to 'failure' or other likely keywords was in the context of avoidance or ensuring it couldn't happen. Because we need to find some indication in this mass of charts, graphs, data and words that SEERS could've caused or contributed to what happened. And none of it's saying that.
Paul kept going, nonetheless, until he realized he wasn't actually absorbing what he read anymore. His numbed brain just slid over the surface of endless pages, all of which seemed to say that SEERS was doing just fine, thank you very much. Just my luck. The one system I want to be screwed up somehow or other, and it's the only system in the Navy that isn't screwed up somehow or other. Something in the back of his head hesitated over that, but the thought dwindled away into nothing before he could grasp it. Paul shut off his display with a muttered curse. I can't even think. I need a break. Sorry, Jen. Jen… Maybe they'd let me talk to her. Cheer her up a bit, and remotivate me. I can ask.
