Rule of Evidence (12 page)

Time appeared to crawl after that. Combat seemed unusually quiet, without much of the usual conversation and wise-cracking among the sailors. When Paul glanced up he could see everyone intent on their displays.

At thirty minutes prior to the time when both ships were to reveal themselves, hopefully in close formation and going the same way at the same speed, a time counter popped into existence on the displays and began scrolling downward. Paul tried not to look at it, since the time counter made the minutes seem to drag even longer, like an old fashioned clock in a classroom that never seemed to move if watched too closely.

Five minutes. Paul took another look around Combat. Everyone seemed ready for anything. The fuzzy ball that represented the
Maury
's estimated position had thankfully shrunk considerably, but enough uncertainty remained to keep everyone on edge and the
Michaelson
's maneuvering systems in a constant tizzy about the threat of collision. On the bridge, no one was talking, either, every eye and full attention focused on the maneuvering displays.
If something is seriously off, though, it won't matter. I know that. We'd have maybe a couple of seconds to react, which wouldn't be fast enough even if we could move the
Merry Mike
's mass instantaneously. But if even one second makes a difference, we'll be ready
.

Chief Imari's voice sounded in his headphones. "What do want to bet they're sweating just as bad on the
Maury
, Mr. Sinclair?"

"I wouldn't doubt it, Chief." He wondered where Jen was. If the
Maury
's crew was reacting like the
Michaelson
's, then surely Jen and the other engineering officers were at their duty stations, ready for whatever might happen. It felt odd to be able to see her in his mind's eye, to know pretty much how Jen and her surroundings would look at this moment, even though he had no way of seeing her in reality.

Paul stole another look at the bridge. Ensign Jack Abacha, still standing watches under instruction, was looking around with ill-concealed enthusiasm. .
Where ignorance is bliss. He's probably the only one on board not experienced enough to know how dangerous this is.

The time counter scrolled down toward zero. On the window in Paul's display where video from the bridge was displayed, he saw Captain Hayes hold up one hand with his fingers crossed. Over his headphone he heard the captain's forced joviality: "Here's hoping."

There wasn't any noticeable change onboard as the time counter hit zero. The ship's systems responded as programmed and the
Michaelson
became highly visible to the universe. The visual by-pass system shut off, making her once again easy to spot by the naked eye. Active scanning systems activated, sending out clear signals of the ship's presence as well as pinpointing her location.

The biggest change was the sudden looming presence of the
Maury
. The fuzzy ball wasn't there anymore. Now, her own anti-detection mechanisms deactivated, the
Maury
was there, another ship clearly pacing them at a distance of precisely eight point nine kilometers. Not exactly matching vectors, but close enough that there wasn't any threat of collision in the immediate future. A ragged cheer went up on the
Michaelson
's bridge.

"Good job!" Captain Hayes exulted. "Congratulations, everybody. That ought to impress anyone who's planning to mess around with us."

Paul realized he was smiling widely. He turned to Chief Imari, raised one hand and exchanged a long-distance high-five with the chief.
Crisis over. Let's see if anybody we can see reacts to us
. Opening the range scale, he looked far outward to monitor the nearest SASAL ships, which were fairly deep within their claimed area of space at the moment.

He was still messing with range settings when the high-pitched stutter of the collision alarm shattered the euphoria on the
Michaelson
. Paul stared at his display as the
Michaelson
's systems added verbal warnings. "Multiple objects on collision courses. Recommend immediate engagement of all objects on collision courses." A debris field had suddenly appeared, spreading out at high speed from the
Maury
. It only took Paul a moment to realize the debris was too close and moving too fast for the
Michaelson
to hope to evade it.

The general quarters alarm sounded, overriding the collision alarm, its repeated bongs reverberating through the ship and spurring everyone in the crew into immediate, trained responses. "General Quarters! General Quarters! All personnel to battle stations. Seal all air-tight bulkheads. All personnel don survival suits and brace for multiple impacts."

A babble of voices sprung into life on the comm circuits, then Captain Hayes' voice overrode the rest. "Silence on the circuit! Combat, can you identify any of that debris? Are there any sailors in there?"

Paul looked toward Chief Imari, who quickly scanned her own displays even as she shook her head. "Sir, there's not enough time, and there's too much junk messing up our picture." Her face twitched. "Besides, sir, if any sailor hits us at the speed that stuff is moving, even a survival suit wouldn't save 'em."

"Yeah. Thanks, Chief." Paul's brain was working on automatic, responding to all the training and experience he'd had so far. Emotions hadn't come into play, yet, and Paul didn't particularly want any emotions warring with the advice he knew he had to give. "Captain, this is Combat. No ID of individual debris items possible within time constraints. Assess chance of survival of any personnel on collision course with us as nil."

The briefest pause followed. "Understand. All combat systems, engage any object on collision course with this ship."

Paul tapped his communications circuit. "Chief, make sure we're double-checking combat systems' choices of highest priority targets." Sometimes the computers would fixate on the wrong object or objects, blazing away at them while more dangerous things were left unengaged. On Paul's visual display, nothing could be seen but a twinkling of bright objects and a glowing cloud obscuring the view of the dim shape of the USS
Maury
. The
Michaelson
's lasers and particle beams firing at the oncoming debris hurled shots invisible to the naked eye as they tried to divert the objects, blow them to dust, or at least shatter them into smaller fragments traveling at lower relative velocity to the
Michaelson
. Paul knew the weapons were firing from the subsonic hums that marked discharges of energy, from the occasional dimming of lights on non-critical circuits as weapons recharged, and from the symbols on his other displays, where objects headed for the
Michaelson
were vanishing or fragmenting. As Paul watched, a symbol representing a large object broke into a half dozen smaller pieces, most of them heading off at angles to their original path. He wondered what the object had been, which small part of the
Maury
it had once represented.

Paul finished sealing his survival suit, then hurriedly checked his personnel. "Is everyone in Combat suited up?"

Chief Imari gave a thumbs up. "Yes, sir. Any idea what the hell happened, sir?"

"I don't know, Chief. I haven't heard anything."

"At least the
Maury
's still there. Part of her, anyway."

Paul hadn't thought about that, caught up in responding to the immediate crisis. Hadn't thought about where the debris had come from, hadn't thought about what its sudden appearance implied.
An explosion on the
Maury
. Has to be. A big one, from all that debris.
He focused back on the symbol for the
Maury
. Her navigational beacon had stopped operating. Instead, the
Maury
had been tagged with a blinking red warning that the ship's emergency distress beacon had lit off. The
Maury
's course had altered as well, shoved off to the side by some blow to her.
How big was that explosion? Where was it on the
Maury
? Jen. Please be all right
.

Debris began impacting on the
Michaelson
's hull, mostly tiny particles but still traveling fast enough to damage even the extremely tough materials in the outer and inner hulls. Warnings flashed on Paul's display as sensors were destroyed by impacts, their functions immediately and automatically shifted to whichever other sensor could try to cover the same area. Paul imagined he could feel the
Michaelson
quiver from all the tiny impacts, though he shouldn't have actually been able to notice.

"Lost some water cells," Chief Imari reported.

Paul nodded. He saw the warnings appear, as small clouds of water vapor puffed out from the
Michaelson
. The water-filled inner hull was designed in part to do exactly that, absorb the heat and other energy of anything hitting the ship. Something big enough to rupture those cells had made it through the defensive barrage of the
Michaelson
's weapons.

The glowing cloud around the
Maury
expanded rapidly, dimming as it did so. "We've got gases headed for us, too," Chief Imari noted. "By the time it gets here it shouldn't be dense enough to hurt us, though."

Paul checked his own data, where the
Michaelson
's systems had already automatically analyzed the composition of the cloud.
Vaporized water from the Maury's inner hull. Oxygen and other gases from shattered compartments. Various chemical vapors. Trace elements. Carbon. Carbon? Oh, no
. One likely source of that carbon had to be human bodies, blown into ashes by the explosion.

The
Michaelson
trembled as the wave of gases reached her then swept on past. Without those gases blocking the view, the
Maury
could be seen much better.

"Jesus Christ," somebody muttered, sounding more like a prayer than profanity.

The
Maury
's mid-section looked as if something huge had taken bites out of it. Paul increased the magnification on his visual display. The bites became holes with ragged edges, where something had blasted through the
Maury
's inner and outer hulls. Paul could vaguely make out the areas surrounding the holes, where structural members and internal materials were ripped and twisted.
It's like looking at a human with his guts torn open. Exactly where'd the damage hit the worst
? The
Maury
was the
Michaelson
's sister ship, so she had the same general layout.
Most of the forward section looks intact. Maybe half the ship. There's a section right at the stern that doesn't look beat up too badly. What would've been located in the parts of the Maury that've been torn up? That'd be . . . no. Please, no
.

A voice over the command circuit confirmed Paul's conclusion and his fears. "Captain, it looks like at least one of
Maury
's engineering compartments blew." Commander Destin, the
Michaelson
's Chief Engineer, sounded as if she couldn't quite believe it. "Probably both."

Captain Hayes' voice over the same circuit carried more than a hint of shock. "Blew up? An engineering compartment? How could that happen?"

"I don't know, sir. It'd require an awful lot of equipment and software to fail simultaneously, and a lot of people to miss warning signs. But those holes are where the
Maury
's engineering compartments are."

Captain Hayes' voice sounded flat and emotionless. "Where they were, you mean."

"Yes, sir. From what we can tell,
Maury
's lost all power. I recommend we get as many people as we can over there to assist."

"Do we have any communications with the
Maury
?"

"No, Captain," Commander Garcia came on line, his answer blunt. "I'm in comms. We're picking up nothing but the emergency beacon's automated distress call. There's no telling what effect the shock from that explosion and its fragmentation effects had inside the
Maury
's hull."

"Very well. How many damage control teams can the gig hold?"

Commander Destin answered again. "Normally, two, captain."

"I don't want normally. How many maximum?"

"Uh, three, sir. If they're packed in tight. Very tight."

"Get three teams over there pronto. I'll see how close to the
Maury
we can maneuver the
Michaelson
."

Paul listened to the conversation, feeling as if it were some sort of audio-book, dealing with fictional events which couldn't have happened here and now.
Something I should be doing
. "Chief, I want a recommendation for the captain on how close to the
Maury
we can get."

Chief Imari looked back at Paul, her face questioning behind the survival suit's face shield. "Considering what, sir?"

"Debris. And possible secondary explosions."

"If you're concerned about secondaries, sir, this is as close as we should get."

"We're concerned about helping the
Maury
, Chief!"

"Yes, sir. We'll scope out the debris and work up a recommendation disregarding the threat from secondary explosions."

"Good. Thanks." There. He'd done something. Not much. But something. Paul looked back at the image of the
Maury
, wondering why his mind kept insisting the picture couldn't be real.

He was jerked out of his detachment by a sharp voice. "Sinclair!"

Commander Garcia calling, his anger as usual easily apparent, but this time certainly not aimed at Paul. For all Garcia's faults, Paul knew he cared about the lives of sailors.

"Yes, sir."

"Get down to the gig. They want you to command one of damage control parties."

"Me, sir?"

"Yes, you! Your chief can run Combat and you're one of the only officers on board with actual experience leading a damage control team. Now stop asking stupid questions and get your butt down there!"

"Aye, aye, sir." Paul switched back to Combat's internal communications. "Chief, I've been tapped to go over to the
Maury
. You've got Combat. Get that recommendation to Commander Garcia as soon as possible so he can pass it to the captain."