The next morning, the strung-out survivors of the farewell discovered to their horror that a no-notice 'fast cruise' had been scheduled so that Captain Hayes could evaluate how well the crew handled a variety of situations. A fast cruise involved pretending the ship was underway instead of actually getting underway, but otherwise involved plenty of stress, plenty of demanding work, and plenty of alarms sounding to simulate emergencies.
Paul, like the other members of the farewell, was still sobering up when the emergency drills began. His hangover building rapidly, Paul gripped his command console in the Combat Information Center so hard his hands turned white under the pressure as the strident clamor of the general quarters alarm pounded repeatedly into his brain. He imagined his face looked just as pale as his hands at the moment. The alarm finally halted, replaced by an amplified voice booming details of the 'emergency' they were to practice dealing with.
'Paul?' The voice over the comm circuit was a pained whisper.
'Yeah. Kris?'
'I think so. I'm in incredible pain.'
'Me, too.'
'I'm going to kill Carl.'
'He didn't know they'd have all these drills today.'
'I don't care. When I feel this bad, someone has to die. And I can't very well threaten to kill the captain.'
'No. That always looks bad. How's Mike Bristol?'
'Last I saw, he was pretending to be alive. He wasn't too convincing, though.'
'How about Carl?'
Her answer was forestalled by another urgent announcement. 'This is a drill! All hands brace for collision!' A moment later, the piercing squeal of the collision alarm drove daggers into Paul's head. The alarm finally halted, leaving Paul staring cross-eyed at his console as a follow-on announcement heralded the next phase of the drill. 'This is a drill. Collision has resulted in decompression of all compartments on 01 level. I say again, collision has resulted in decompression of all compartments on 01 level. All personnel on 01 level assessed dead from decompression. Damage control parties prepare to reenter 01 level and reestablish air-tight boundaries.'
Paul glanced up as Chief Imari tossed aside her headset. 'You heard the announcement, folks. We're all dead.'
I'm dead? 'Really?'
Chief Imari looked at Paul, failed to conceal her reaction at his appearance, then shook her head. 'No, sir. It's just part of the drill.'
'Okay.'
'Do you need some aspirin, sir?'
'How many have you got?'
Paul and the rest of the sailors in CIC spent the next hour lying on the deck pretending to be dead as survival-suited investigators, and then damage control teams, picked their way across the compartment. An occasional snore testified to some of the sailors taking advantage of the opportunity. Chief Imari's aspirin slowly brought Paul's pain level down to a tolerable level, and he managed to catch a few minutes of sleep himself.
All good things, of course, come to an end. 'All hands secure from collision drill. Stand by for next event.'
Chief Imari stood, stretched and roared at the sailors sprawled around CIC. 'You heard the word! On your feet, you useless gaggle of neutrons.'
Paul replaced his own headset, then called up the chief on a private circuit. 'Neutrons, Chief?'
'Yes, sir, Mr. Sinclair. Neutrons got practically no mass.'
It took Paul's still-hungover brain a moment to get it. 'They're lightweights.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Thanks for the aspirin. I notice they've run drills in engineering, weapons and damage control so far. I bet we're next.'
'I wouldn't be surprised, sir.'
General quarters sounded once more, the bongs somehow penetrating the calming aspirin to hammer at Paul's head again. 'This is a drill! Multiple contacts inbound.'
Paul's console lit up with close to a hundred unknown contact markers, each on a different path and each radiating different information which had to be evaluated in order to guess at its identity. Oh, this is going to be ugly. 'All right, everybody. I want a threat evaluation for all contacts based on current trajectories, then threat IDs for all contacts, then a threat hierarchy based on trajectory and probable ID. Don't depend on the targeting and tracking systems to get all that automatically. They're sure to have thrown in some curves that'll confuse the automated systems.'
'You heard the lieutenant!' Chief Imari added, then she quickly divided up the tasks among the operations specialists.
The next fifteen minutes passed in a blur of activity. Paul tried to monitor everything his sailors were doing without trying to do their jobs for them. With all the information at his fingertips, it was entirely too easy to focus on the details of one small part of the job instead of keeping an eye on the big picture.
A majority of the contacts had been assigned identification when Operations Specialist Second Class Kaji called in. 'Chief? I've got something funny here.'
'Show me. Give the lieutenant a copy, too.'
Paul frowned as his display focused on a small segment of the incoming contacts. 'What's up, Kaji?'
'Sir, right here.' Kaji highlighted an almost invisible contact. 'It's very faint.'
'What do you think, Chief?'
'I'd call it a system echo off the stronger contacts, sir. Except this is a simulation and they don't show echoes because the sims assume the systems work perfectly.'
'Then what is it?'
Petty Officer Kaji spoke up. 'It could be a warship, sir. With all masking systems operational.'
Something clicked in Paul's memory. 'It's a Pile On Maneuver.'
Chief Imari sounded puzzled. 'A what?'
'A Pile On Maneuver. It's a theoretical plan I got briefed on in one of my classes at the Academy. You shove a lot of debris toward your objective, then hide your own approach inside the apparently natural shower of space objects.'
'Sir, how the hell would you get so much junk flying on the trajectories you need? That sounds cool in theory, but it doesn't sound very practical.'
'That's why it's still a theoretical plan, Chief. But simulations don't have to worry about real-world practical considerations. I think Kaji's spotted the joker in this deck. Good job.'
'Real good,' Chief Imari agreed.
Paul tagged the faint contact with a 'possible warship, identity unknown' symbol, then called the bridge to verbally pass the information as well. The drill spun on for another thirty minutes of frantic activity before the screens displayed an 'exercise completed' message. While Paul was still wondering how they'd done, the command circuit sounded with the voice of Captain Hayes. 'Good job, Combat. You nailed that one.'
Paul grinned at Chief Imari, who offered back a thumbs-up, while the enlisted trackers exchanged high fives.
After another hour of hearing drills being run elsewhere on the ship, the euphoria of doing well had faded for Paul. Man, there's so much else I could be doing right now, but I don't dare try in case Kwan or Garcia is checking our terminals to see what we're up to. How long are we going to have to stay at general quarters?
His headset sounded again. 'Paul? Kris.'
'Here. You sound better.'
'I had to either get better or die. Thank God for aspirin. Have you seen Lieutenant Silver?'
'Who?'
'Lieutenant Silver. He's Carl Meadows' relief, remember?'
'Oh, yeah. No, I haven't seen him. Why would he be up here?'
'I don't know. But he's not anyplace else. Surely he reported onboard this morning.'
'Why not try the quarterdeck? It's still crewed.'
