'Bingo. But cheer up. If the minimum wasn't good enough…'
'It wouldn't be the minimum.' Pullman waved a farewell with his free hand as the other grasped a nearby handhold to propel him toward the hatch leading off the bridge.
Paul grinned, turning to offer his own farewell to Lieutenant Kris Denaldo as she finished turning over officer of the deck duties to Lieutenant Val Isakov. Kris nodded back, then raised one hand with the thumb and forefinger held out parallel to each other and only a short distance apart. Paul grinned wider at the hand gesture signifying that Kris was 'short,' as in not long left before she transferred off the ship. 'You're not gone, yet,' he reminded her.
'No. But another day's gone. I'm very, very short.' She smiled. 'Soon I'll be short enough to walk under the lines painted on the deck. And soon after that I'll actually get to sleep every night instead of standing watches.'
'I thought you intended doing other things during your free nights.'
'Depends if I find the right guy. Has Jen told you to take a hike, yet?'
'Nope.'
'Fine. I'm tired of waiting. You're off my list. I'd love to stay and chat the rest of the night away, but my bunk is calling.'
Paul waved again in farewell, then noticed Lieutenant Val Isakov giving him a sour look as she strapped in at the officer of the deck watchstation. Uh oh. Now what's she up to? 'Something wrong?'
Isakov shrugged elaborately. 'Of course not. You have your little cliques and old friends. I'm just the newcomer.'
'Val, you've been on the ship for about six months.'
'And you and her,' Isakov noted with a jerk of her head toward the hatch where Denaldo had left, 'have been onboard for about three years. But that's okay. I don't expect to be allowed to feel part of your group.'
Paul kept his expression noncommittal, carefully avoiding nodding or otherwise seeming to agree with her. He thought of Isakov as sort of a reptile, not bad to look at but not something he wanted to get close to, either. He also suspected that Isakov knew that Kris Denaldo usually referred to her as 'Crazy Ivana,' a name Paul also thought fit Val Isakov perfectly.
'But then your old Academy pal shows up,' Isakov continued, 'and you go through all that ring-knocker bonding nonsense. It's a bit much.'
'What ring-knocker nonsense?' Paul had never been bothered by the standard nickname for Naval Academy graduates, which mocked their alleged tendency to knock their class rings on objects as a way of drawing attention to themselves.
''If the minimum wasn't good enough…''
This time Paul shrugged. 'It's sort of an unofficial motto. That's all. Brad Pullman wasn't a big friend of mine at the Academy. We're classmates, and we shared a few courses over the years, so I know him and he knows me. No big deal.'
'Sure.' Isakov subsided into sulky silence.
Paul pretended to be concentrating on his display. He never knew whether Isakov would try to aim a heavy-handed come-on his way or try to bite his head off or just ignore him. Personally, I much prefer being ignored by her.
'Mr. Sinclair, sir?'
Paul twisted his chair so he could look at the bosun mate of the watch. 'What's up?'
The bosun tilted his head toward the messenger of the watch. 'I've been tryin' to explain what we're doin' here to Valejo, and damned if I can.'
'That's okay, boats. It's not in your job description.'
Val Isakov bent another sour look toward Paul. 'Keep it professional.'
Paul followed an old piece of advice and just smiled back at her. 'Yes, ma'am.' Then he addressed the messenger. 'Seaman Apprentice Valejo, you just came aboard, right?'
She nodded quickly. 'Yes, sir. I came on with Mr. Pullman and Ms., uh…'
'Commander Moraine?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Okay, then.' Paul hooked a thumb toward the display dominated by the craggy surface of the asteroid. 'There's a rule, one of the few rules everybody's agreed to up here, that nobody gets to set themselves up on an asteroid without international approval, supervision and inspection.' Valejo nodded again, but her face was puzzled. 'Do you know what killed the dinosaurs?'
'Oh, yeah. I mean, yes, sir! Some big rock hit the planet.'
'Right.' Paul indicated the asteroid again. 'A big rock like that. We don't really want any more big rocks hitting Earth anytime soon, but if somebody was allowed to just settle on one, they could maybe set up a propulsion method to kick that rock toward Earth. Hopefully, we could intercept and divert it. Hopefully. No one wants it to get to that point.'
The bosun spoke again. 'That's what I don't understand, Mr. Sinclair. Why'd anybody do something like that?'
'I don't understand it either, boats, but every once in a while some group of people does something that's really scary for the rest of us.' Paul indicated the structures on the asteroid's surface. 'This particular group calls itself the Church of One. 'One' as in the only one they think should exist, apparently. They received approval to set up a remote settlement on Mars. No big deal. That sort of thing's been done before. It makes a small group of people happy, helps pay for stuff on Mars for everybody else, and pretty much renders any anti-social types harmless since they're out in the Martian equivalent of east nowhere.'
'But they didn't go to Mars,' the bosun noted.
'No. They hijacked the ship carrying them. They did a good job of it, too. No alarms. No alerts. They diverted the ship here and did it so quietly that no one realized what was happening in time to stop them. That ship, there. It's just a regular merchant named the Jedidiah Smith.' Paul pointed with one finger at the symbol representing a ship hanging perilously close to the asteroid. The Michaelson 's combat systems had a half dozen aim points fixed upon the ship's hull, ready to blow holes through critical areas if need be. 'Then they offloaded their stuff, which seems to have included a lot of gear for living on an asteroid and not all that much for living on Mars, and pretty much dared everybody to do anything about it.'
'And we're goin' to take 'em off, right, sir?'
'Right. Not you and me, but those modified cargo carriers loaded up with cops.'
'Cops? Not Marines or SEALS?'
'No. This isn't a combat mission. Nobody's supposed to get shot. Combat troops like Marines are trained to shoot. Cops are trained to try to avoid shooting.'
Valejo nodded again but the bosun looked perplexed. 'Then why are we here? And all them other guys?' He made a gesture encompassing all the other ships shown in the displays.
Paul pondered the question for a moment. Do I really want to get into all the politics here? The fact that everyone is here to keep an eye on everyone else as well as the illegal settlers and the cops? That these Church of One types not only have made hostages of the crew of that ship they hijacked but are also threatening to kill all of their own kids if force is used against their 'settlement?' I can't go into any of that. The rules of engagement that tell us under what conditions we're allowed to fire, and who we're allowed to fire at, are classified pretty high and the bosun doesn't have a need to know. 'Everybody's here to keep an eye on things.' The bosun let his skepticism show. 'Boats, that really does sum it up. And that's as detailed as I can get.'
Paul became aware that Lieutenant Isakov was watching him narrowly. Just waiting for me to spill something I shouldn't? I wonder what Crazy Ivana would do with knowledge I'd broken security regulations? Not keep it to herself, I'm sure.
The bosun nodded. 'Yes, sir. I understand you officers can't tell us everything. Thank you, sir.'
'No problem.' Paul noticed Isakov going back into a solitary sulk. He relaxed against his own seat, eyes on the surface of the asteroid, watching as it completed rotations and the same structures and aim points came into view time and again. At some point he realized the repetitive motion was becoming hypnotic and began cycling through other views to remain alert.
An external communications circuit chirped for attention, breaking the silence on the bridge and startling
