Rule of Evidence (3 page)

"Fine."

Paul surreptitiously glanced from Garcia to Ensign Taylor. Odds were nobody but Taylor really knew for sure how important each item on that list was, and odds were Garcia knew that.
Unfortunately, Garcia
does
know a lot about all the items on
my
division's work list
.

"Do either of you two have any comments?" Garcia eyed Paul and Kris, but both had learned enough by now not to say a word. "There's an all officers meeting in the wardroom at ten hundred."

"Sir?" Kris Denaldo looked like she'd instantly regretted blurting out the word.

"What?"

"Uh, sir, about a third of the wardroom is sealed off today while they work on gear on the other side of one of the bulkheads."

"So?"

"It'll be very hard to squeeze all of us into the remaining space, sir."

"What's the matter, Denaldo? Putting on weight?" Garcia grinned humorlessly. "The meeting's in the wardroom. Period."

Denaldo flushed but kept her voice level. "Yes, sir."

"Sinclair."

Paul braced himself mentally, shifting his stance slightly as if he were preparing for actual physical attack. "Yes, sir."

"Where's that operational events summary? It was due yesterday."

"I'll have to you before the meeting in the wardroom, sir."

"It was due
yesterday
."

Paul nodded, even though he felt like snarling back at Garcia. "Yes, sir." An excuse wouldn't do any good. In fact, it'd be certain to just make Garcia madder. Not trying to make excuses was one thing the Naval Academy had taught him that had proven important in the fleet.

Garcia wasn't calmed by Paul's reply. "The XO already asked me where it was
this morning
."

"Yes, sir."

"Is anything else going to be late, Mr. Sinclair?"

"No, sir."

"It better not be. Get to work. I won't tolerate any excuses for not having every important piece of equipment on this ship ready to go before we get underway next week." Garcia spun on one foot, moving away with his habitually angry stomp.

After Garcia had cleared Combat, Paul glanced over at Taylor. "Akesha, is there any piece of equipment on this ship that isn't important?"

Taylor pretended to consider Paul's question. "Can't think of any. But I'm sure as hell going to talk to the snipes in engineering about making sure that little dingus that heats up the coffee containers in the wardroom is working. As far as I'm concerned, that's the most important thing on this ship. See you kids later."

Denaldo stared after Taylor's retreating back. "God help the supply department if this ship ever runs out of coffee."

Paul shook his head, laughing. "No worry. Commander Sykes wouldn't survive without coffee, either, so no way he's going to let us get underway without enough caffeine to float a cruiser back on Earth."

"Yeah."

"You okay, Kris?"

"I'm pissed off. It's Monday. I'm working for an ass. How are you?"

"The same. And I had the mid-watch last night."

"You win."

Five minutes later Paul stood before the enlisted sailors in his division, Chief Imari taking notes from Paul's words just as he'd earlier taken notes from Garcia's.
Not very efficient, I guess. But redundancy beats efficiency when lives depend on it. Might as well get the worst over with first
. "Ladies and gentlemen, we'll be getting underway in one week." He paused to let it sink in. "Our orders are to get all necessary maintenance carried out before then."

A chorus of groans erupted. "There goes the whole damn weekend," someone in the back said.

Chief Imari sighed. "Okay, sir."

The voice in the back came again. "It ain't all gonna get done!"

Imari turned slightly. "Fastow, see me after morning quarters." The grumbling from the other sailors faded away. She faced Paul again. "What else, sir?"

Paul cleared his throat, grateful that the Chief had backed him up. "We haven't been told what we'll be doing when we get underway, but that it's something high priority."

"We going to war?" another voice asked, this time in a tone that was hushed instead of angry.

"I don't know." Paul looked at the faces before him. All of them looked back with varying expressions, some worried, some curious, some eager as if they were heading for a softball game. "I've got a meeting at ten hundred. I'll let the chief know if I find out anything I can tell you." He caught a brief flash of disapproval on Imari's face.

A few minutes later Paul wrapped up his instructions for the day. "That's it. Chief, can I see you for a minute?"

"Sure, sir." Imari gave the sailors a hard look. "You all be waiting here when I get back."

Paul led the way out into the passageway. "Chief, I noticed you seemed a little unhappy in there at one point."

Imari screwed up her face. "Yes, sir. Uh, telling the division about that meeting of yours at ten hundred. I wouldn't have done that, Mr. Sinclair. Now the guys are gonna be expecting to hear something this morning. They're gonna be pestering me about it, and they're gonna be thinking and talking about what you might tell them instead of concentrating on their work, and we've got a lot of work to do and not much time to do it in. If you do hear something and can't tell them, they're gonna be even more wound up."

Well, hell
. Paul felt himself getting angry at the chief and forced himself to backtrack.
And she's right about all of it. Dammit
. "Sorry, Chief. That didn't occur to me."

"You don't have to apologize to me, Mr. Sinclair. But you asked and I told you."

"And I appreciate that, Chief."

Chief Imari hesitated. "Sir, you do know all that work
ain't
gonna get done."

"We need to try, Chief."

"Yes, sir. But it's either do it all half-assed or do a bit more than half of it right."

Paul closed his eyes while he thought.
Let's see. If I report to Garcia that maybe half of the planned maintenance hasn't been done, he's going to go into screamer mode on me. I don't want that. But if I say I got it all done and some of the 'fixed' stuff doesn't work when we need it while we're on these high-priority ops, then Garcia, the XO and the captain will all be after my hide. Maybe nothing'd break, though. Then I'd be in the clear and my sailors would have time to fix everything right. Yeah, right. When would I be sure they could do that? And if something doesn't work that I said had been fixed . . . people remember stuff like that.

Oh, great. I'm thinking of this all in terms of covering my butt. Hey, LTJG Sinclair, you jerk, maybe it oughta be about getting the job done? So what should I . . . hell, I ought to do what Taylor said she'd do
. He opened his eyes. "Chief, put together a priority list for me. What we intend doing in what order given that we know we're getting underway in a week."
Do I send a copy of the list to Garcia? He'll be sure to raise hell and rearrange the list just for the sake of asserting authority. But if he signs off on that list, he'll have to admit it to the captain. I think. At least I'll have proof I told Garcia about it all
.

Imari nodded. "Okay, sir. I'll have it to you as soon as I can."

"Thanks, Chief." Paul spent the next two hours sweating over the operational events summary. He knew from painful experience that every officer superior to him in the chain of command was certain to remember any event he might neglect to include, but he also was required to only include "significant" events in the summary.
No matter what I put in, Garcia or the XO is going to say I didn't put in something significant or did put in something insignificant. Okay. Fine
. Paul punched the command to send the report to his department head.
If I'm going to lose no matter what, why waste any more time on it? It's as good as I can make it
.

Paul glanced at the time. Enough remained before ten hundred for him to get into the wardroom and suck down some coffee to help stay awake through the meeting. Hopefully the subject would be interesting, but even interesting subjects could be sleep inducing when presented in a dull way in small, warm compartments.

"Commander Sykes." Paul greeted the supply officer, who was seated in his usual place, drinking coffee.

"Good morning, young Sinclair. Bright and early this morning, I see."

Paul shook his head. "Just early, Suppo. It's already been a long day."

"Ah." Sykes leaned back a little more and took a slow drink. "The travails of line officers. I feel for you. Truly."

"Yeah." Paul grinned as he got his own coffee. He'd learned from experience that Sykes only pretended to be lazing about the wardroom, and only pretended to revel in his status as a limited duty officer without the command and combat responsibilities of line officers like Paul.
At least, I think he's only pretending to revel in it
. "Any idea what the meeting's about, Suppo?"

"How would I be aware of the meeting's subject?"

Paul sat down. "Because you know everything important that goes on so you never get caught unable to meet the ship's supply needs."

Sykes looked horrified. "You've discovered my secret. Now, of course, you must die. Sorry about that."

"How are you going to do it? Are you going to serve some more of that Syrian beef stew for dinner?"

"The captain's forbidden me to serve any more of that particular item, you insolent young pup. However, I do know where I can get some artificial shark steaks."

Paul swallowed and gave Sykes a curious look. "Artificial shark steaks?"

"Yes. The real article, the sharks that is, are rare enough that what steaks actually exist are far too expensive for the Navy to serve its wretched masses, so instead we have the joy of receiving artificial shark. Made from pure vat-cultured protein and assorted artificial flavors which I am assured produce a result at least superficially similar to the real article. In taste, at least. I understand the toughness of the artificial shark steaks is legendary."

"You make it sound so yummy." Paul only partially faked a shudder. "I abjectly apologize, Commander Sykes, sir. Your secret is safe with me. Now, do you have an idea what this meeting is about?"

Sykes grinned. "Matters dark and devious. I can say no more."

Kris Denaldo entered. "I'm going to try to get a corner to wedge myself into before everyone else tries to pack in here." She glared at Paul. "And if I hear any comments from you like I did from Garcia . . ."

"Chris, I'm not that rude. Or stupid."

"I hope not." She grabbed something to drink and chose a corner, bracing herself in the angle where two bulkheads met.

Ensign Taylor came in next and sat next to Commander Sykes without any regard for the technically more senior junior officers. "Hey, Paul, Chief Imari got with me about that priority list of yours." Taylor grinned. "Where'd get a good idea like that?"

"I've learned to follow the example of mustang ensigns. You learn things that way."

"Uh-oh. Do that while I'm on liberty and you'll learn a few things you probably never imagined."

Paul felt his face warming and knew he was blushing from the way Taylor laughed. Fortunately, more officers started arriving and diverted Paul from having to come up with a response to Taylor's gibe.

As Kris Denaldo had predicted, the number of officers quickly exceeded the capacity of the wardroom. The
Michaelson
's wardroom never felt like a large space, even when only a few officers were present. With one third of the compartment blocked off and every officer on the
Michaelson
crammed in, Paul wondered whether claustrophobia or lack of oxygen posed the greatest hazard. The department heads pushed their way in last, followed by the ship's executive officer, Commander Kwan. Kwan glowered at the small space remaining by the hatch. "Move back and make more room up here!"

The grumbling from the junior officers was just low enough that Kwan couldn't make out the words. Ensign Taylor called out loudly, "Okay, people. Suck it up! Non-mustang ensigns onto the table!" The junior officers loudly exhaled and tried to push closer together as the ensigns climbed onto the table.

Paul found himself wedged next to the table, his head almost touching the thigh of Ensign Gabriel. Gabriel looked down and grinned at him.
I'm glad she's enjoying this. Too bad it's not Jen up there. No. I better not even start thinking about that
.

"Attention on deck!"

At the XO's command, the officers straightened to attention as Captain Hayes entered the compartment, grinned lopsidedly at the crowded conditions, and took his seat at the only chair left unoccupied. "Carry on. Ops, let's get this done."

Commander Garcia, standing near the large display screen mounted on one bulkhead, pushed one arm upward past the nearest bodies so he could point to the information which flashed into existence there. "The rumors you all may've been hearing are correct. When we get underway next Monday we'll be conducting a multi-national maneuvering exercise involving two US warships, the
Michaelson
and the
Maury,
and three foreign warships. They'll be a British ship, the
Lord Nelson
, a Franco-German ship, the
Alsace
, and a Russian Federation ship, the
Pyotr Veleki
." Garcia stumbled on the pronunciation of the Russian craft, glared at no one in particular, and stabbed one finger toward the name. "The
Peter the Great
. The
Michaelson
will be the flagship."

Captain Hayes raised one hand. "Correction. The
Michaelson
will be on-scene coordinator. There is no flagship. The foreign warships will
not
be under our command."

Paul strained to hear as the other officers around him murmured in reaction to the captain's statement.
We could conduct this same briefing with everyone in their own staterooms linked into a virtual conference and we'd all be able to hear everything and see everything and be halfway comfortable so we could concentrate on it. But, no. We all have to pack in here and suffocate and wonder who the hell didn't get a chance to shower lately. Because this is the Navy and this is how John Paul Jones held meetings
.