A Just Determination (2 page)

Paul shook his head.

"Good. Try not to look at it or taste it, and you'll do fine."

Paul hesitated, then nodded again.

"I imagine you want a bunk someplace?"

"Uh, yes, sir."

"Well, my young friend, you are in luck. It just so happens I have a vacancy. Come along, Ensign Sinclair." Paul hastily scooped up his bag, following the Supply Officer out the hatch and down a short passageway, ducking as he passed through other hatches and trying to hug the bulkhead to his right as an occasional crew member squeezed past going in the other direction. Sykes finally halted before a hatch with three nameplates already stuck on it. "Welcome, Mr. Sinclair, to the starboard ensign locker."

"Ensign locker?" Paul looked on with foreboding as Sykes rapped sharply on the bulkhead, then opened the hatch.

A bedraggled lieutenant junior grade glanced up from a tiny desk and raised one hand to wave two fingers in greeting. "What's up, Suppo?"

"Got you another roomie. Meet Ensign Sinclair."

"Ah, fer . . . Okay. I guess we won't be able to stretch out in here anymore."

"Too much luxury spoils the young. Everybody happy? Wonderful. I'm off to attend to my many and exhausting duties. He's yours, Mr. Meadows."

"Thanks, Suppo. I'll take him from here."

Sykes nodded and left as Paul carefully maneuvered himself and his bag into the ensign locker. The JG stuck out his hand as Paul dropped his bag. "Welcome to a tiny corner of hell. And I do mean tiny. I'm Carl Meadows."

"Hi. I'm Paul. Paul Sinclair." Paul looked around, taking in the three bunks stacked against one of the bulkheads, the four small desk and locker units ranked two-by-two on either side, and a fourth bunk wedged between the top of one set of locker units and the overhead. "I guess it's a good thing I packed light."

"A very good thing. You get the top bunk."

Paul glanced upward, noting the power cables and ductwork overhead, which reduced the clearance above the top bunk to something less than the three feet of space the other bunks enjoyed. "Lucky me."

"You're junior ensign, my lad. Get used to the short end of the stick." Meadows grinned to take the sting from his words. "Ship designers pack everything they can inside the volume of the hull. It makes for tight quarters. I hope you didn't believe all those movies that showed space crews living in individual luxury apartment suites."

"The ones with soaring ceilings and lots of floor space?" Paul laughed. "Heck, I've never lived that good back on Earth. I didn't expect it up here, in living quarters provided by the government."

"A wise expectation. For an ensign."

Paul laughed again, then surveyed the small amount of personal storage space and shook his head. "If this is an ensign locker, why is a JG living here?"

"Because I've not yet achieved the exalted rank of full lieutenant, after which I can aspire to a two person stateroom which is about half the size of this place. That's supposed to be better. But it beats living in one of the ensign lockers. Your two other roomies are also men, by the way. I hope that doesn't disappoint you. Aside from me, you get to share quarters with Ensign Sam Yarrow, and Lieutenant Junior Grade Bill Door. Don't expect to see much of Bill. He's the Computer Systems Officer. Basically, Bill lives in the mainframe compartment. If you and he end up on opposite watch schedules, you may never see him except for rare sightings when he actually sleeps in his bunk. We send Bill emails occasionally to make sure he's still with us." Carl pointed out the hatch. "As for our female counterparts, the port ensign locker is where the babes live."

"Babes? The female junior officers get called babes?"

"Sometimes. In private. If they're in a good mood. And even then only among the other junior officers," Meadows cautioned, "not around anybody ranked lieutenant commander and above, and never, not ever in front of the enlisted."

"So, what do the, uh, babes call us? Sometimes, in private, among junior officers, that is."
"Studs."

Paul unsuccessfully tried to smother a laugh. "First time I've ever had that nickname."

"Me, too. Enjoy it while you can. I have a suspicion the stud nickname is at least slightly facetious, though. I'm Gunnery and Fire Control officer, by the way. Have you got any idea what your primary duty will be?"

"My detailer said I'd be Assistant Combat Information Center Officer."

Meadows raised one eyebrow. "And you believed him?"

"No, not really. When do I find out for sure what my job will be?"

"When you meet the executive officer." Meadows canted his head in a direction Paul guessed to indicate forward and to port. "Commander Herdez. If she tells you that you'll be ACICO, then you'll be ACICO."

"What's she like?"

"She's the XO. She works our butts off. Then she works us some more. But Herdez knows what she's doing. The XO's a very sharp officer. And, trust me on this, when you screw up you'll find out just how sharp she can be." Carl grinned. "You'll note I said 'when you screw up', not 'if.' I've been the ensign route, and the best you can say for it is that it's a learning experience."

"Yeah." Paul sagged into one of the free chairs. "I'm really looking forward to it."

"Don't worry. From the dawn of time, naval officers have gone through the ensign stage, and most have later gone on to lead happy, productive lives."

"Most have?"

"Let's not talk about the others. You may meet some of them," Carl added enigmatically. "A word of warning, though. We're heading out real soon for a long cruise. We get underway in four days for a week of shakedown in the local operating area. Then another week back here to fix whatever breaks during the shakedown, and after that, we're heading out into the big, empty black for a long time. All of which means you won't have much luxury for learning the ropes onboard the
Merry Mike
. Hit the deck running, and keep your eyes and ears open."

Paul fought down a wave of apprehension. "Thanks. I guess everybody calls her the
Merry Mike
?"

"JOs do."

"Commander Sykes did, too."

"Oh, well. Suppo's a special case. I wouldn't use the name around the Captain or the XO."

"I was starting to guess that. It seems to be said sort of . . . sarcastically."

Meadows pretended shock, then laughed. "She's a warship, not a fun ship! You know what we say after putting in twelve hours on the job? 'Great, we only had to work a half-day!' Mostly, it's more like twenty hours a day of work and watch-standing under what you might call demanding supervision."

"Huh." Paul bit his lip. "So the XO is tough. What about the other senior officers? The Department Heads? What are they like?"

"Uh-uh," Meadows demurred. "You make your own mind up on them. I don't want to predispose you."

"But—"

"Uh-uh."

"Okay." Paul glanced forlornly around the tiny stateroom.
My new home. For months at a stretch, with people I don't know yet who I may not like and who may not like me, working my tail off the whole time. Why did I ever volunteer for this?
"You said we'll be going out on a long cruise? Has the mission been announced?"

Carl grinned, one thumb idly rubbing the silver bar of his collar rank insignia. "Our mission? Arrrhhh, we be pirates, lad!"

"Huh?"

"We're—" Meadows stopped speaking at a rap on the bulkhead, followed by the hatch opening. An enlisted sailor looked in, silently handed him a folded cloth, then left. Meadows unfurled the cloth, revealing the pirate flag Carl had seen in the wardroom. "Ah. It appears one of our humor-challenged seniors finally saw this."

"Suppo told me they'd take it down."

"Yeah, that's what I figured. But, what the hell. Why pirates? That's an open secret. We'll be on sovereignty patrol. Enforcing the U.S. claim on a very large volume of very empty space containing very valuable transit routes and the occasional very valuable rock."

Paul nodded. "Yeah. I know about the sovereignty bit. We need to enforce our claim of control or it won't have any legal standing."

"Meaning what? That's a real question. We're all a little vague on the reasons for what we're doing. Not that that's so unusual."

"Well . . ." Paul paused to order his thoughts. "You can't just claim something and then leave it. If you claim you own something, but then let other people use it without hindrance for a while, then eventually your claim won't be regarded as having legal standing anymore. You have to enforce your claim in some meaningful way. You know, it's like if you have a trademark on some word but let everybody use it all the time and never complain. After a while the word is legally in public domain and you can't enforce the trademark anymore. That's really simplified, and I'm sure a lawyer could poke all kinds of holes in what I said, but that's the general idea."

"Interesting." Meadows raised both eyebrows. "You know legal stuff, huh?"

"Sort of. I had a one-month gap in my orders, so they packed me off to a Ship's Legal Officer course. I guess you could say I now know enough to be dangerous."

"Lucky you. Then you also know what 'enforcing' our claim means?"

"In theory . . ."

"In practice." Meadows smiled, this time without real humor. "Like you said, we can't let other ships just cruise through our space, can we? But we're not at war with anybody, not officially anyway, so we can't officially blow them away, if that should be necessary."

"Blow them away?" Paul stared. "You mean we'll be authorized to shoot at other ships?"

"That's the scuttlebutt. How we can get away with that when we're not at war with anybody, I don't know, but then I'm just a dumb JG."

"That's better than being a dumb ensign. Our orders really say that?"

Meadows shrugged. "That's the scuttlebutt," he repeated. "You'll see the actual orders when the rest of us do. For now, I better get you to see the XO. You don't want
her
thinking she's being dissed. No, sirree. Follow me."

Meadows went out the hatch, expertly ducking to avoid banging his head, and led the way through a maze of passageways in which Paul had already lost his bearings. His head brushed objects overhead twice, causing Paul to hunch even lower and envy the casual way Meadows ducked and twisted to avoid hitting things. A female ensign came around a corner, flattening herself against the bulkhead as Paul and Carl passed. "Hey, babe," Carl offered.

"Hey, yourself. New stud?"

"Yeah." Carl indicated the female ensign. "Jen Shen. Paul Sinclair."

"Charmed."

"Likewise."

Carl pointed a thumb down, where the aft portion of the ship lay. "Jen's the Auxiliary Machinery Officer. She's not bad, for a snipe."

Jen bared her teeth. "That reminds me. I may need to have the ventilation in your stateroom taken off line. Maybe for several hours."

"Oh, God, please, no—"

"Just joking." She looked Paul over appraisingly. "Is Carl giving you the ten cent tour?" Paul nodded. "Did he warn you about Smiling Sam, yet?"

"Smiling . . . ?"

"Sam Yarrow," Carl amplified. "The Bull Ensign." The official nickname indicated Yarrow was the senior ensign onboard. "Don't call him Smiling Sam to his face."

"But keep your eye on him," Jen added. "He's a snake."

"Now, Jen—"

"Don't 'now' me, mister. Paul, if Sam tries to pat you on the back don't let him unless you've got armor strapped on between your shoulder blades. Otherwise, you're likely to find a knife there." She smiled with mock sweetness at Carl. "But that's just
my
opinion. See ya. I got work to do, unlike some underemployed combat systems types."

Meadows shook his head, smiling wryly, as Shen hustled down the passageway. "Jen's got attitude to spare."

"I can tell. She seems squared away, though."

"Oh yeah, real squared away. You can trust Jen, on official business or on personal stuff."

"Thanks. So she's right about Yarrow?"

Carl hesitated before answering. "I don't want to predispose you—"

"Come on."

"Okay. The Bull Ensign's supposed to look out for the other ensigns, right? Sam Yarrow mainly looks out for Sam Yarrow. That's all I'll say. Now, onward. The XO awaits."

They went around another corner, ducking where cables and ducts came too far down from the overhead, until Carl stopped before a hatch with Herdez stenciled on it. He rapped twice, waited for an acknowledgement, then opened the hatch and waved Paul forward. "New officer reporting aboard, XO."

"Thank you, Mr. Meadows." Herdez rose from her chair just enough to shake Paul's hand. "Please wait outside while I speak with Ensign . . ."

"Sinclair, ma'am."

"Sinclair. Welcome aboard the USS
Michaelson
." Herdez sank back into her chair, gestured Paul to the stateroom's other seat, then held out her hand. "Your service record, please."

"Yes, ma'am." Paul hastily popped the data cartridge containing his service record out of his wallet and handed it over. As Herdez loaded the record into her terminal, reading it intently, Paul tried to surreptitiously study her and his surroundings. Herdez had a build that was slim, but even through her uniform seemed hard. She scanned her terminal with a stern expression which seemed habitual, radiating an aura of cool competence. Paul found himself hoping he never screwed up in her presence, yet simultaneously certain such an event was only a matter of time. Her stateroom, perhaps half the size of Paul's new shared quarters, was almost devoid of personal decoration except for one bulkhead which held a small collection of medallions and pictures, obviously memorabilia from Commander Herdez' earlier assignments.

"Impressed?"

Paul froze at the dryly-phrased question, looking to see Commander Herdez gazing directly at him once again.

She pointed toward the memorabilia. "My 'Love Me' wall, Mr. Sinclair. Eighteen years of naval service are represented there. Perhaps you'll have such a wall someday, should you succeed in this profession." She paused, as if expecting a reply.

"I hope to, ma'am."

Herdez twisted one corner of her mouth in a brief smile. "Hope counts for far less than performance, Mr. Sinclair. Do well, and success will follow." She indicated the screen of her terminal. "You ranked two hundred and tenth from the top of your Academy class. Not bad. Could you have done better?"