Chapter Seven
Kris Denaldo entered the wardroom where the second shift was eating lunch, ran her eyes along the table, then pulled herself near Lieutenant Bristol. 'Looks like you're senior officer present. Request permission to join the mess.'
'Knock it off, Kris. Sit down.'
'Hey, I'm just trying to maintain wardroom etiquette.'
'Like you have to do that among junior officers.' Bristol cocked an eyebrow at her. 'You look pretty beat.'
'I just came off watch.' Kris looked around at the others, who were also watching her, then sighed. 'Okay. I hate standing watches right now.'
Carl Meadows tossed a meal pack to her. 'Lunch is beefy green bean stew. Just like mom used to make. Why do you hate standing watch now in particular?'
'Why now? Are you kidding? We're still holding formation on that thing. The wreck.' She shivered. 'I swear, sometimes I almost think I can see them, looking out at us, planning some way to get even.'
'Kris, I've been over there. So has Paul. It's a dead ship.'
'I know that.'
'Do you happen to know why all the department heads got called to the captain's cabin a few minutes ago and left us unsupervised by older and allegedly wiser heads?'
'Oh, yeah.' She gestured in the general direction of Earth. 'We got a message in from fleet staff, ordering Wakeman to immediately transmit all available evidence of armament on the SASAL ship. Emphasis on immediately.'
'There's no evidence to transmit. They've already sent us other messages asking for it.'
'Right. Three others. And we've sent back replies that promise the evidence but doesn't provide any. Fleet staff's gotten more and more insistent, and I guess fourth time's the charm. This one ordered that the evidence be forwarded to fleet staff within one-half hour of transmission of the message.'
Meadows laughed briefly. 'Fleet staff is sort of pushing the light-speed limit, aren't they?'
'They never take the real world into account when planning stuff. Why start now? Anyhow, not long after that message came in, we got ordered to pass the word for the department heads to meet with the Captain. I figure it's cause-and-effect.'
'Good bet. Wakeman's spent a lot of time in his cabin. Does anybody know how he's doing?'
Lieutenant Bristol looked around the wardroom carefully, as if wanting to be certain of his audience, before answering Carl Meadows' question. 'Sykes tells me Wakeman is in major denial. He's still insisting that SASAL ship was making a firing run on us.'
'Major denial is right. We've already sent over two more search teams looking for evidence of weaponry, and both found nothing more than the first team did.'
'And,' Jen Shen added, 'Cap'n Pete himself insisted on personally commanding the last search team. He's been there. He's seen there's nothing on that wreck.'
Kris looked at Paul. 'He wouldn't be the first to want to see something that wasn't there. Remember those weapon-charging transients that CIC reported? I heard a rumor there's no trace of any such detections in the combat system records.'
Paul nodded reluctantly. 'The rumor's right. The Operations Specialists swear they saw them, but the system records say the sensors never detected them and never displayed them.'
Carl Meadows shook his head. 'Funny what stress can do.'
'Not so funny when you think about that dead ship out there.'
'You know what I meant.' Meadows fiddled with his drink for a moment. 'There's going to be hell to pay for this. The intelligence summaries say the SASALs are screaming to everyone who'll listen, claiming we murdered the crew of that ship on purpose and demanding 'justice,' whatever that means in this case.'
'How'd they find out what happened? That ship sure didn't send any messages out.'
'Paul, you can't hide weapon discharges from deep space sensors. The SASALs, and anybody else looking this way, would have seen both ships close on each other, then the weaponry discharging, and then their ship goes silent. Even an idiot could draw an accurate conclusion from those observations.'
Jen slammed her hand onto the table. 'Speaking of idiots, those idiots caused this as much as Wakeman did! What were they doing? Teasing and taunting us, refusing to communicate, then making a near-collision run at us? Did any of them stop to think the Merry Mike is a heavily-armed warship? Stupid. They were stupid!'
'I'm not disagreeing with that. But how much of the rest of the human race is going to agree with what we did?'
' We did?' Jen questioned. 'I don't remember Cap'n Pete asking for my input when he was leading us into this mess.'
'Scapegoats don't necessarily have to be guilty. Paul, could they nail anyone besides Wakeman if they wanted to do it?'
Paul glanced around at all the faces watching him. 'If they wanted to, sure. They could court-martial all of us, if they wanted to. Would it stick? That's a different question. Even what happens to Wakeman is going to depend upon what they want to do.'
Jen frowned at him. 'Surely they'll court-martial him.'
'Maybe. Maybe not. This is an international incident. Our own national prestige is at stake. Do we care what the SASALs think? Do we need to accommodate them, or do we just thumb our nose at them? That's the difference between Wakeman getting a court-martial, or a slap on the wrist or less.'
'I don't-'
Jen's next sentence was cut-off by the shrill of the bosun's pipe over the all-hands circuit. 'This is the executive officer. The Michaelson has just received orders to immediately terminate our patrol mission and return to Franklin Naval Station at best speed. We are currently calculating the necessary maneuver, which will require a sustained main-drive firing. All personnel should begin preparations. That is all.'
The junior officers exchanged glances. Carl shook his head. 'Hell to pay, and the bill just came in the mail. I never thought I'd be unhappy to hear we were going home early.'
'Yeah,' Bristol agreed. 'Paul, you remember what you and Sykes said? Anything that got us sent home early might be real bad. You were right.'
Paul nodded back mutely. Sometimes being right didn't feel very good at all.
Paul was swinging hastily toward the ensign locker so he could strap in prior to the main drive burn when he saw Ensign Jen Shen coming from the other direction. Jen gestured urgently to Paul, speaking in a low voice as soon as he drew near. 'Hey. Don't ask me about my source, but I got some solid information on what happened during the department head meeting with the Captain.'
'Really? I thought there wasn't anyone in the cabin but the Captain and the department heads.'
'I told you not to ask me about my source.'
'So what happened?'
'Wakeman showed the department heads a message that basically blamed them for the whole mess and asked them all to sign off on it.'
Paul stared at her in disbelief. 'You're kidding. Did they?'
'Are you nuts? Of course not. There was, apparently, much wailing and gnashing of teeth, but the department heads all refused to fall on their swords in order to save the career of Cap'n Pete.'
'Boy, that must have been ugly. What did Herdez do?'
Jen shrugged. 'She wasn't there.'
'That's interesting.'
'Yeah. I can't imagine the XO agreeing with Wakeman on that message. I don't like Herdez as a human being, but she's professional. She's surely not undermining the captain right now, but she wouldn't go along with trying to leave the department heads holding the bag, either.'
