A Just Determination (19 page)

"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."

"Then Wakeman is stuck with having to accept responsibility."

"Hah! Paul, you are so naïve 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."

Sam Yarrow looked up, unable to mask his surprise. "Yes, sir."

"You told me your division's qualification records were being maintained by Chief Herzog."

"That's right, sir."

"Chief Herzog says you transferred those records from him two months ago for your review and he's been locked out of them since. Is that correct?"

Yarrow's face supplied the answer. Paul did his best not to let his own satisfaction show.
Forgot you'd done that, eh, Sam? And from what I hear of the way you treat Chief Herzog, I hope you weren't expecting him to help cover your butt. He probably loved the chance to drop a ton of bricks on you
.

Garcia's face darkened. "Is that correct?" he repeated.

"Uh, I, uh, think so, sir. I'll have to—"

"Get those records back to your chief so he can update them. I want them fixed immediately. Is that clear?" Commander Garcia focused back on Paul. "Why are you still here?"

"I . . . was just ensuring you were finished with me, sir."

"Find Tweed!" With that parting admonition, Garcia whipped his head out of the stateroom.

Paul closed out his work, making sure the personal encryption was active. He didn't think Yarrow would try to spy on him, but he also didn't put it past the other ensign.
I think I'll run down Chief Imari, first. She might have some good ideas where Tweed's latest hiding places are
. He swung out of the ensign locker without a backwards glance at Yarrow.

* * *

Jan Tweed looked more haggard than usual on their next watch. "You okay?" Paul asked.

"I'll survive. It wasn't any fun having Garcia go through those qualification records."

"I was there, too, remember? At one point, I thought I'd start bouncing off the bulkheads if Garcia said 'I don't care if that entry isn't supposed to be filled in, do it anyway' one more time."

Jan managed a weak smile. "Paul, I've got about three months left on this tub before I transfer to shore duty. I had this weird idea those three months might not be too bad."

And you're running out of hiding places on the ship that Garcia, Imari or I don't know about
. But Paul nodded in real sympathy. Despite the aggravation Tweed's avoidance behavior caused him, he'd grown to like her somewhat. He was still in awe of her ability to maneuver the ship by feel, and it was easy to empathize with the reasons she chose to hide.
And once Tweed transfers off, Garcia won't be able to ask me That Question anymore
.

A brief chirp from the watch panel announced the arrival of a high priority message. Tweed visibly braced herself before calling it up, then read the message with a bleak expression. "The admiral's appointed an investigating officer to look into our encounter with the SASAL ship."

"That's no surprise. Why'd they tell us with a high priority message?"

"Because that officer is apparently hitting the deck running. We've got orders here to collect and forward statements from all officers onboard."

"We knew that was probably coming, too." Paul craned his neck to look at the message. "Wow. They want them back at Franklin within twenty-four hours of when this message was sent?"

"Like I said, our investigator is hitting the ground running." Tweed glanced at Paul. "Is your statement done?"

"Yeah. Yours?"

"Sort of. I've been working on some of the wording. I guess I'll finally have to decide how to say things now, though."

"I got some good advice on that, if you don't mind me passing it on to you once we get off watch." He decided not to tell her that Sheriff Sharpe had been the source, just in case that might bias Tweed against the advice. She kept so much of herself internalized that there was still a great deal Paul didn't know about Tweed, and probably never would.

"Sure, why not?" Tweed keyed in commands routing the message to the captain and executive officer, then punched the send command.

"Maybe the department heads should see it, now, too," Paul suggested, "so they have a heads-up."

"Maybe. At the moment I don't feel too charitable toward department heads, so I guess I didn't think of that, and now they'll have to scramble a little. Too bad."

Paul fought down a smile. Superiors could always make the lives of their subordinates miserable, but every so often the subordinates found ways to balance the scales a little.

Naturally, everyone ended up scrambling to get the statements collected and put into message format within the time limit. Paul and Jan were still on watch when Commander Garcia came onto the bridge. "You two make sure your statements are done no later than sixteen hundred. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir," Paul answered for them both.