'Then Wakeman is stuck with having to accept responsibility.'
'Hah! Paul, you are so naive it hurts sometimes. He can still try to blame the department heads, and both Wakeman and the department heads can still try to lay the blame on us dumb, incompetent junior officers and the dumb, incompetent enlisted.'
'That'd never fly.'
'You think? Want to make a little wager on them trying? As for it not working, I did a little quick research myself. There's been plenty of cases where senior officers screwed up, and then dumped the blame for it all in the laps of the most junior personnel they could pin it on.'
Paul was still searching for a reply when the all-hands circuit came to life with the five-minutes-to-burn warning. 'I guess we'll have to see what happens.'
'I'm not going to be waiting to see what someone else does, and I don't recommend that you do, either. Get your story down, Paul. If you don't define what you did, someone else with more rank than you is going to do it for you.'
'You're right. I'll do that. Right after the burn.'
'Where you going to spend it?'
'Uh, in my bunk. That's a nice, secure place.' Paul grinned as Jen smiled approvingly. 'See. I am learning.'
'So you are. Never pass up the chance for extra bunk time. Later, shipmate.'
The only two bad things about the extended period confined to his bunk by the firing of the main drive were being tossed around by the maneuvering thrusters and the fact that the main drive burn ended while Paul was still trying to catch up on his sleep.
'Mister Sinclair, sir?' Sheriff Sharpe stuck his head into the ensign locker. 'Just passing by to let you know Captain's Mast has been postponed.'
Paul looked up from his work, then rubbed his eyes wearily. 'When's it been rescheduled for?'
'To be determined, sir.'
That's not good. Wakeman hardly leaves his cabin, and now he's putting off carrying out parts of his job. 'Thanks, Sheriff. Say, mind having a seat while I ask you something?'
'No problem, sir.' Sharpe pulled himself inside, then nodded toward Paul's desk. 'Looks like you're working on a statement, sir.'
'How'd you guess?'
'It seems to be a pretty popular hobby among the officers right now, sir, if you don't mind my saying so.'
Paul smiled ruefully. 'I can't very well object to you saying so when I want to ask you for some advice on it. I'm having a lot of trouble making it come out sounding right. No matter how I craft it, it sounds wrong.'
'Ah.' Sharpe nodded knowingly this time. 'That's your problem, Mr. Sinclair.'
'What is?'
'You're trying to craft your statement.'
'I don't understand.'
Sharpe folded his arms, looking upward as if dredging up memories. 'I've been involved in a lot of criminal investigations in my time, sir, so I've seen and heard a lot of statements. Let me tell you, the worst ones are the statements that you can tell somebody crafted. They're so carefully phrased and they walk around important issues and they don't often say a helluva lot. You hear or read one of those, and it feels bad.'
Paul rubbed his forehead this time. 'Why?'
'Why? Look at it this way, sir. If all you're doing is writing down what happened and what you saw and what you heard, that's pretty straightforward, isn't it? No call for crafting anything, there. Just make sure the facts as you know them are laid out clear. But, if you're trying to craft something, what you're doing is one of two things. Either you're trying to make yourself look good, which makes you look bad, or you're trying to make somebody else look bad, which also makes you look bad.'
Paul stared at Sharpe dubiously. 'But how do I make sure I'm not, um, unfairly blamed for something?'
'You can't, sir. No matter what you write. Jesus Christ Himself could come down and dictate a statement and if he had anything in there nice about Himself somebody up the chain of command would say 'this guy's trying to make Himself look nice, so maybe He's guilty of something.' Sir, you're best off just laying out the facts. If you did okay, that'll be clear. If you screwed up, they'll find out anyway. Either way, you'll get credit for being up-front about what you did and for not trying to influence the opinions of the investigators.'
Paul sat silent for a minute, thinking through Sharpe's advice. 'You know, Sheriff, that's why I haven't been happy with anything I've written. Every time I expressed some sort of opinion, I thought it sounded like I was either covering my butt or trying to nail somebody else.'
'Sir, with all due respect to your exalted status as an ensign, if they want your opinion on anything, they'll ask you for it.'
Paul found himself laughing. 'Sheriff, one of these days…'
Sam Yarrow edged into the ensign locker, eyeing Sharpe disdainfully. 'Is there some sort of meeting underway or is this a social call?'
Sharpe, his face a professional mask, rendered a rigid salute to Ensign Yarrow. 'Delivering a message to Mr. Sinclair, sir. I have completed that task and now request permission to continue with my other duties.'
Yarrow glowered at Sharpe, but the master-at-arms had said nothing he could label insubordinate or improper. 'Just go. I've got work to do.'
'Yes, sir.' Sharpe spun away, half-nodding at Paul as he turned, then was out the hatch.
Yarrow eyed the now-empty hatch entry sourly. 'A word of advice, Paul. Don't get too familiar with any of the enlisted.'
'Familiar? What the hell are you talking about?'
'Having a joke-fest with that guy in your stateroom, for one. He didn't belong in here.'
Paul pondered a long list of possible replies, many of them profane, but decided to continue to follow Jen Shen's advice of refusing to confront Yarrow directly. 'Thanks for the advice.'
'I mean it. People are talking about you and that guy.'
Yeah. I'm sure. We're heading home early to face what's certain to be a real nasty inquisition after blowing away a bunch of stupid but helpless civilians, everybody's worried about courts-martial and trying to justify whatever they personally did, and people are supposed to be talking about me being too chummy with Sharpe for proper officer-enlisted relations. Give me a break. I may not be perfect, but I know how to avoid crossing that line. 'Thanks for telling me that.'
'I don't want him in here again.'
Paul counted to five slowly before answering this time. 'Sam, this is my stateroom, too. If I need any enlisted to come in here to ask or answer a question for me so I can do my job, I'll do it.'
'A good officer doesn't depend on enlisted to do his job.'
'I guess that means I'm not a good officer.'
Yarrow eyed Paul for a few seconds as if deciding how to respond, then finally smiled in a forced manner. 'Funny. Just watch it. I'm trying to help you.'
'Thanks.'
'Sinclair!' Commander Garcia thrust his head into the stateroom. 'Where's Tweed?'
Paul tried to fight down the automatic knot forming in his gut at the all-too familiar question. 'I don't know, sir.' Out of the corner of his eye, Paul could see Yarrow just barely failing to suppress a smug smile.
'Find her. Then both of you find Chief Imari. Then all three of you find me. We're going to review your divisional training and certification program, and it better be flawless, you hear me?'
'Yes, sir.' Training and certification? Why's he suddenly so hot on… oh. Any investigation is going to be looking into how well-trained and qualified the Operations Specialists who reported those transients actually were. But Garcia can't just blame Tweed and me for any problems because he's signed off on the programs for all the divisions in his department. I guess trying to make sure there aren't any problems is part of him crafting his own defense.
Garcia shifted his glare. 'Yarrow.'
