see me?'
Herdez seemed unfazed by the effects of being underway. Except for the straps holding her to her seat, they might still have been moored to Franklin station. 'Take a seat, Mr. Sinclair. Be sure to strap in.'
'Yes, ma'am.'
Herdez passed over a data cartridge. 'I want you to take a look at this and give an evaluation. It's our patrol orders and rules of engagement. They're still not for general distribution, so share that card with no one.'
'Ma'am?' Paul was sure his face reflected his bafflement. I'm an ensign who can barely find his way around the ship, and she's asking me for an evaluation of operational orders?
Herdez almost smiled at Paul's reaction. Almost. 'I don't need an operational assessment, Mr. Sinclair. I want a legal assessment. These orders require us to do certain things in certain ways. I want to know how you would interpret them in legal terms based on the training you've received in that area.'
'Yes, ma'am.' Paul hesitated, turning the data cartridge in his hand. 'Am I looking for anything in particular, XO?'
'Anything you don't understand, anything you can't pin down, anything that might need interpreting. Understand? If we're being sent out under orders crafted in legalese, I want to know what they might mean to someone who was seeing them for the first time. Thank you.'
'Yes, ma'am.' Sensing he'd been dismissed, Paul left the stateroom, pausing in the passageway to once again examine the data cartridge. She didn't say so, but the XO doesn't seem to trust these orders. What's in them that's got her worried? And if someone as good as the XO is worried, maybe I ought to be scared to death. Paul headed back to his stateroom, thankful he'd brought all his notes from the legal course.
'Sinclair!'
Paul stopped in his tracks at Commander Garcia's hail. 'Yes, sir?'
'Where the hell is Lieutenant Tweed?'
I've got a feeling I'm going to get incredibly tired of hearing that question. 'I don't know, sir.'
'Find out. No, never mind. Get your division's training records and meet me in the Operations office.'
'Yes, sir.' Training records? Oh, man, I've hardly glanced at those. Paul glanced at the data cartridge. I could use this as an excuse. Tell Garcia the XO needs me to do this right away… but then Garcia might ask the XO. And doing that would set me down Jan Tweed's road right off the bat. I can't start out hiding. She didn't even start out that way, I bet. He stowed the cartridge in one pocket, pondering his next step.
'Make way.' Kris Denaldo shot Paul a curious glance as he edged to the side of the passageway to let her past. 'I've hardly seen you since you came aboard.'
'It's been a busy few days, Kris.'
'I bet. You're still trying to figure out which way is up, right? Jen told me to help keep an eye on you. Need anything?'
Paul nodded, thinking as he did so that Bull Ensign Sam Yarrow should have been the one telling other junior officers to help out the new guy. 'Yes, but nothing you can help with. Garcia wants to see my division's training records.'
'And…?'
'Well, I haven't even looked at those, yet.'
'Oh. You ought to. It's a good way to learn your enlisted sailors' names and abilities.'
Paul bit back a sarcastic reply. That's good advice, even though there's about a hundred things I ought to do within the next couple of days. 'I will, but Garcia wants to see the records now, and I'm not even sure where they are.'
'Then just ask… never mind.'
'What?'
Kris Denaldo looked embarrassed. 'I was going to say you should just ask your division officer, but that's Jan Tweed, so…'
'So I may not even be able to find her. What else can I do?'
Kris shrugged. 'Get ahold of your chief.'
'My chief?'
'Your senior enlisted. That's Chief Imari, right? I've heard she's a good chief, so she should be able to help you if anyone can.'
Paul brightened. I've been thinking I'm alone in this job, but I do have people I can count on to at least show me the way. People like my chief, and people like some of my fellow junior officers. 'Thanks, Kris. That's great advice.'
She was already moving away from him, continuing on down the passageway. 'No problem. Gotta run. See you around.'
Locating Chief Imari didn't prove to be hard, as she was in the Combat Information Center working at one of the terminals.
'Divisional training records? No problem, Mr. Sinclair.' Imari tapped in a couple of commands, popped out a data cartridge, then stood. 'Let's go.'
'Uh, Chief, Commander Garcia said he wanted to see me.'
'Did he say he didn't want to see me, too?'
'No.'
'Then let's go, sir.'
When they reached the nearby Operations office, Commander Garcia glanced from Sinclair to Imari with a sour expression, snatched the proffered cartridge from Imari's hand, then scanned the data rapidly. 'Sinclair, has Seaman Frost completed all the requirements for damage control training?'
Out of the corner of his eye, Paul saw Chief Imari incline her head in a surreptitious nod. 'Yes, sir.'
'Hmmm. What about Petty Officer Kaji? Is she done with her Passive Tracking qualifications?'
This time Chief Imari twitched her head ever-so-slightly to one side and back. 'No, sir.'
'She should have finished that training by now. Will she have it done by the time we return to the station?'
Another nod. 'Yes, sir.'
'Hmmm.' Commander Garcia swiveled to view Chief Imari and Paul squarely. 'These look okay. Keep on it, Sinclair.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Did you need something, Chief?'
'No, sir. As the Divisional Training assistant, I figured I should accompany Mr. Sinclair.'
Garcia looked from Imari to Sinclair, then pulled out the data cartridge and pointedly returned it to Paul before pivoting back to face his terminal. 'That's all.'
Paul nodded to the back of Garcia's head and followed Imari out and back to CIC. 'Chief, you saved my butt in there.'
'No, sir. I did my job, part of which is to help young naval officers through their learning process.'
Paul grinned. 'Thanks. But I ought to take over maintaining these training records. I'm being paid to do it, after all.'
'Mr. Sinclair, how many jobs do you have right now?'
'Ummm, five.'
'Yes, sir. So if I handle part of one of them, you got to figure the Navy is still getting its money's worth, right?'
'That's true, but-'
'But, nothing, sir. I'm the Division's Training assistant. That's official. There ain't anything wrong with me keeping these records up.'
'Commander Garcia told me to do it.'
'Yes, sir. And good officers don't try to handle every task they're responsible for themselves, do they? They delegate them.' Imari reached and took the data cartridge from Paul. 'Just like you're delegating this particular job to me. With all due respect, sir, you probably don't have the time to maintain these records right.'
'Chief, I can't argue with that. But I do want to go over those records with you and be familiar with them.'
