John nodded. It could have beena whole lot worse.
“Why is it you seem to get suchgreat pleasure in beating each other up?” the doctor queried, opening acupboard and taking out a bottle of painkillers.
“It wasn’t my fault. He startedit.” John used the instinctive defence of a child.
“And you couldn’t walk away?”
“Not exactly.” He avoidedlooking at the doctor.
“Get dressed.”
John slipped his arms into hist-shirt. Lifting his shoulders to pull it over his head brought a painfulmoan. The shirt was jerked roughly down over his body.
“You can’t even dress yourself,”Dunlop grumbled.
“I don’t think I care for yourbedside manner,” John sulked. “Why is it always the big ones who pick on me?”
“Because they think they can getaway with it. And you always have to prove them wrong.”
John eased himself into hisjacket.
“I assume if I prescribed aweek’s bed rest you wouldn’t take it,” Dunlop continued.
“I’d be bored out of my mind.”
“Then you better take these,” thedoctor handed over the painkillers, “and get back to the bridge where youbelong.”
John headed to engineeringfirst. The engineers looked okay and the place didn’t look like it had beenmessed with.
“Red,” he called the chief over.
“Sir,” Red obeyed.
“I know you’re going to hate me…”
Red’s sideways frown wasn’t forthe comment as his eyes focused on John’s cheek.
“But we need to find a way to cutthrough cloaks.”
“Sir, the technology –”
“I know. We can’t cut throughwhat we can’t even detect,” John sighed. “And I ask enough of you boys as itis.”
“We’ll try, sir.”
Red’s positive tone and slow nodreassured John more than he realised.
“Thank you.”
*
There were messages waiting forJohn when he returned to the bridge. He took them in the office, easingcarefully into the chair.
They were locked into thecomputer. Theoretically, they could have been there for days, undetected andunretrieveable to anyone who didn’t know the correct access.
He uncapped the bottle and threwdown a couple of painkillers while the messages opened. They stuck in histhroat and it took a couple of decent swallows before they went down.
The first message was from FleetCommand. Acknowledgement of the repairs and agreement to pay on completion,followed by a second message confirming payment. At least there’d been nohassles there – and no “Please explain”.
Their schedule had also beenupdated “since you’re in the area”. A couple of places added before they wereback on track. Confirmation was expected, and sent back as soon as John readthe file.
He deliberated over the newlistings. Most of them were along the border. He didn’t want that at themoment. Something nice and simple to take everyone’s minds off the recentincident would be better. Nothing ever turned out simple, he knew that. Ithad been non stop since this whole war started. The occasional day’s leave hadeased the pressure, which only seemed to double with each assignment.
“Lieutenant Commander, can youcome in here?” he called to the bridge. Leaning across his desk to theintercom was painful.
She was there momentarily, hernose clean, scrutinising his appearance.
“Sit down,” he indicated thechair opposite. “This may take a while. Coffee?”
“I’ll get it,” McReidy offered.
“I can manage it myself.” Herose to his feet slowly, gritting his teeth.
“No, you can’t,” she told him. Afirm hand on his shoulder pushed him back to his seat. “Gillespie told us –”
“Gillespie’s got a big mouth,”John cut in. His health was not open to discussion.
He gratefully accepted thecoffee, and took a sip while she sat down. A soft sigh escaped. “Neededthat…”
He turned the screen around soshe could read it.
“Command’s added a couple ofplaces to our list.”
By the expression on her face,she was as displeased as he was. There was something else he noted.
“Something wrong?”
“Yes… no,” she stared at her mug.
“Which is it, yes or no?”
“Off the record?”
“If you like,” he nodded.
She lowered the mug to her lapand looked up at him. “What’s got into you?”
“What do you mean?” The questionwas personal. Surprisingly, he didn’t feel defensive. He didn’t know how hefelt, but knew it was about time they cleared things up between them.
“You’ve never bothered consultingme on assignments before.”
“As temporary as this situationis, as you well reminded me recently.” He saw the uncomfortable blush that shetried to hide. “You are the first officer and it’s about time I started totreat you like one.”
The confession caught her bysurprise. She took a quick sip and put her mug on the desk.
“Someone told me a while ago,” hecontinued quietly, almost to himself, “that I can’t take on the universe singlehanded.”
“What happened out there?”
“I thought Gillespie –”
“No,” she cut him off. “Youchanged the rules.”
“It became personal.” The lookof sorrow returned to his eyes. “Everything used to be so clear. What wasright or wrong. It was black and white. Now it’s clouded over, only shades ofgrey… What is wrong, and what is less wrong… And I wasn’t prepared to loseyou… any of you.”
The imploring look he gave hermade the generalised statement seem personal.
“You’re not going to hand thisship back to Command, are you?”
“No.” He shook his head slowly. “Bismarck’s mine and I’m going to keep her. Oh, I’ll stick to orders, but Ialso intend to strike back. To take out whatever I can when the opportunityarises… This is where this war’s going to be won. Not head to head out on thefront. Hitting them where it hurts, right under their noses.”
“Aren’t you taking this wholething a bit too personally?”
“Probably… I want you to pull meback into line when I go too far.”
“Me?”
“Not on the bridge, of course. Istill expect respect there.”
He couldn’t explain why. Hedidn’t have to. When his emotions were involved he lost all rationalthinking. McReidy could pick up on this when no one else had been able to.
“How did the crew cope?” Johnchanged the subject.
“They never doubted you’d getthem out.”
He noticed that she didn’tinclude herself in her answer. “And you?”
She thought about her answer fora moment. “It seems to me that you have a solution for everything, no matterhow farfetched it might be.”
John smiled warmly. It was oneof the nicest compliments she had paid him.
“One day,” she told him, “you’regoing to run out of luck. You’ll get in
