The Service of the Sword

head.'

Now Sean crouched in a small aid station set off the corridor (BuShips was slow, not stupid) and watched as sailor after sailor slid past on fecal-smelling bags—some yelling, others with expressions of quiet, fear-filled, desperation—and considered his orders from the warrant.

'When somebody gets hurt in your area, triage them. If they're just contused or have a surface cut or abrasion, slap a dressing on it and send them on. If they break a bone immobilize it, give 'em a shot to keep 'em quiet and hold them at the station; we'll set them all later. If they sustain a head-wound or spinal damage, send them down to me.' 

'You mean if somebody gets hurt.' 

'No, I mean when.' 

He currently had four of the crew stretched out at the back of the aid station, two with broken legs, one with a broken wrist and one with multiple breaks and contusions. The reason for the damage became apparent as he watched the next contestant.

One of the crew, Kopp, one of the senior missile techs, was just starting down the artificial 'slope.' He was one of the 'face frozen in determination' crowd and it was well earned. Kopp had a reputation for being a hard-luck case, so naturally he didn't make it all the way to the braking field. Instead, he tried to fit in and 'surf.'

Although the corridor was curved, the artificial gravity drew on it equally across the surface so it 'felt' flat. What that meant was that using the weight of the buttocks it was possible, with care and skill, to slide back and forth on the waxed portion and 'slalom' down the corridor. The operative words were 'care' and 'skill.' Failure to use either sent the tobogganer into what pilots euphemistically refer to as an 'out of control' situation.

Kopp only made it about a third of the way down before he lost it. He had just started to slalom when he went too far to the side and hit the unwaxed portion. This slowed his left buttock abruptly and following the laws of Newtonian physics his right buttock, and most of the rest of his body, continued in the direction they were going. This, first, induced flatulence, as his anus responded to the conflicting forces, then a scream as the first pain hit, and last a pinwheeling figure, bouncing down the corridor, his potato sack spinning off in one direction and his shrieking body, spinning faster, in another.

The yelling stopped, or at least changed tone to low groans, as he hit the coaming of one of the corridor exits. Tyler worked his way out of the first-aid station and laboriously climbed 'up' the gravity well on the unwaxed portion, dragging two bags of supplies with him, until he reached the injured missile tech.

Kopp was holding on to the coaming with one hand while cradling the other arm and trying to tilt his head to keep blood from pouring into his eyes.

Tyler felt his cradled arm and shook his head at an in-drawn breath. 'Broken, probably a green-stick fracture.' He slapped a bandage on the bleeding head wound, attached a splint to the arm and put on a cervical collar for good measure.

'HE'S GOING TO BE OKAY!' he yelled up to the captain.

'NOT WHEN I GET AHOLD OF HIM!' the captain bellowed back. 'WHAT KIND OF A SHOWING WAS THAT, KOPP?!'

'This is the quality of sailor we get these days!' the captain grumped.

'Sir,' the exec said, apporting in behind him. 'There are Regulations governing making oneself unavailable for duty through negligence.'

'I'm not going to Captain's Mast Kopp for wiping out,' the captain replied, stepping down off his perch and leaning sideways against the gradient. 'But what this crew needs is a lesson in how to ride potato sacks. Not enough veterans in this crew, not enough instructors. It's up to the officers to pick up the slack!'

'Uh, Captain,' the bosun said uncomfortably as the commander held out his hand for one of the sacks.

'It's up to us to set an example, Boats,' Zemet said, snatching the square of cloth out of his resisting hand. 'PREPARE FOR A DEMONSTRATION OF HOW TO RIDE A POTATO SACK!' the captain yelled. 'PREPARE TO WATCH . . . A PROFESSIONAL!'

'Well, Astro is pretty sure we're on course for Grayson, but we got so well lost first that it's a four day run.' Doc dropped into his chair and pulled out his bladder of whiskey, holding it away from his mouth and taking a hard squirt out of the neck. 'How's the Captain?' he coughed.

'He's breathing,' Sean replied. 'Just looks like a standard coma, no evidence of subdural cerebral hematoma.'

'Can you just say 'brain bruise' for Tester's Sake?' the warrant grunted. 'Four days under the Exec.'

There didn't seem to be much else to be said.

'Bosun,' the XO said, standing on the bridge looking at the navigational readouts, 'we have a problem.'

'Yes, Sir?' the Bosun said, faintly.

'That problem,' the XO intoned, 'is slackness.'

'Yes, Sir.'

'The Captain scheduled his little game in the interests of jollying people up, but the root problem was slackness. They've all been slacking. Well, we're not going to have any slackness when I'm in command.'

'No, Sir.'

'I've got a work-up schedule,' the XO continued, turning to face the NCO. Deep in his eyes, a little fire seemed to burn. As far as the Bosun was concerned, it was burning his retirement papers. 'And we're all going to follow it. To the letter.' He turned back to contemplating the Astro display.

'Yes, Sir,' the Bosun replied.

'We're not going to have any slackness,' the XO repeated. 'We'll show the fleet that slackness doesn't happen on the Francis Mueller. Whatever it takes.'

'But, Sir,' the bosun said, regretting the words even before they left his mouth, 'we don't have any thumbscrews.'

'That, Bosun,' the XO replied in a low, mad whisper, 'is why they give us machine shops!'

'Tester, spare us this day from your Tests. It's been nearly a day, Tester, with the Captain in a coma, and the Exec is preparing capital charges for a quarter of the crew. Based on simple statistics, Tester, no one is going to be alive when we reach Grayson. The ship will be a tomb, drifting helplessly in the grip of gravity wells and the solar wind . . .' 

'Doc, I've got a problem,' the bosun said, slipping into the sickbay after a cautious look around.

'Don't we all,' the medic snapped, looking up from the captain's recumbent figure.

'I don't suppose the dwarf's come around yet?'

'No,' Kearns replied.

The bosun looked up as Tyler slid through the door.

'I'm not going out there,' Tyler said. 'It's a zoo.'

'The crew's ready to mutiny,' the bosun went on. 'They agree with the Chaplain; if we let the Exec get away with spacing a quarter of us every day, there won't be any of us left by the time we get to Grayson.'

'That's an ugly word,' Doc said. 'Mutiny.'

'Yeah, but it's better than 'explosive decompression,' ' Sean pointed out.