"Tells me she hasn't a clue. Can't even imagine a scenario."
"But there's got to be alternative explanations!"
"Like I said, I'm open for suggestions."
Paul hastened back to the Michaelson, finding Colleen Kilgary sitting in the wardroom. "I really need your help."
Colleen gave him a curious look. "You, or Jen?"
"Both." Paul explained the problem. "You're main propulsion assistant on the Michaelson. You know this stuff a lot better than I do. So, what else could've done it?"
Kilgary sat back, staring at the overhead, and stayed that way for a long time before shaking her head. "Damned if I can think of anything."
"The systems can't be that perfect!"
"They're not! But you're not talking about one component failing. You're talking about everything going boom at pretty much the same time. It can't happen."
"It did happen."
"Yes." Kilgary bit her lip. "Paul, I just can't come up with something that would've done that. Not on the Michaelson."
"The Maury wasn't the Michaelson."
"True. There's always at least minor differences even between sister ships. And Maury had just gone through that overhaul. But if the accident happened because of something on the Maury that was different from the Michaelson it means I can't help you much. I know this ship."
Paul slumped and nodded. "Thanks, Colleen. I'd appreciate it if you'd ask Chief Meyer for his assessment, too."
"Uh, okay." Kilgary looked away, twisting her coffee container in her hands.
"What's the matter?"
"Noth— Oh, hell. Paul, when Jen got charged with doing that . . . people got strange."
"Strange?"
"You know." She stared at her hands. "Like. . .they don't . . ."
Paul felt like a lead weight was settling in his stomach. "They think she did it?"
"No! Uh, well, they're kind of . . . concerned."
"They think she did it."
Colleen looked up at him. "Sorry, Paul. Even I wondered for a second. But I know you. Better than I ever knew her. And I trust your judgment in this. But why'd they charge her with doing it? They must have a reason."
Paul heard his voice laughing bitterly. "The reason is that they don't have any other reasons. They can't explain it otherwise. So they're blaming Jen."
"Oh." Kilgary looked back down at her hands. "She ought to be able to beat it, then."
"Yeah." She ought to be able to beat it. If she can prove she didn't do it. Is that what this case comes down to? People assuming Jen was charged for good reason and demanding she prove her own innocence? But how can she do that? "Thanks for talking, Colleen. Please tell everyone that Jen is innocent."
"Sure. But like I said, that's about all I can do, because the Michaelson and the Maury have, uh, 'had' I guess, different engineering plant configurations."
"You said that you couldn't see any way it could happen.."
"No. I said I couldn't see any way it could happen on the Mike. Based on what I know, I'd be looking at any differences between the Mike and Maury for whatever might've caused it."
Paul nodded. "How many differences could there be?"
"Lots. Mostly little stuff. But it all adds up. Maury had that SEERS thing installed."
"I should look into SEERS?"
Colleen shrugged. "I would."
"Have you heard anything about it?"
"Just what you told me Jen told you. That and the fact that it was approved for introduction into the fleet."
Paul nodded, knowing that neither fact gave any indication SEERS posed a danger to the Maury. Quite the contrary, in the case of it being approved for installation on the Maury. He knew Colleen knew that as well, but was being kind enough not to say it out loud. It's a big difference, though. The biggest I know of. I need to look into it and hope it does some good. From what I know now, it won't. But I've got to try. I guess I need to go through Lieutenant Bashir to do that, though, and I can't do that until tomorrow. There's nothing else I can do tonight but worry.
He was sitting alone in Combat, the lights turned down, when a knock sounded on the hatch rim. "Mr. Sinclair?"
"Here, Sheriff."
Sharpe came walking into Combat. "Catch."
Paul snagged the beverage container he saw flying toward him and glanced at the label. "Hey, this isn't the cheap, generic stuff. This is real."
Sharpe popped his own and took a drink. "Yes, sir. But Senior Chief managed to snag a case and allowed certain individuals to score a tube or two."
Paul managed a smile. "I'm honored, Sheriff. To what do I owe this favor?"
Sharpe grimaced, leaning against a nearby watch console. "Sir, I think you know that. Sort of a very small attempt to cheer you up."
"Thanks." Paul took a drink himself. "It's good."
"How you doin', sir?"
"I've been better. A lot better."
"Ms. Shen?"
"She's . . . lot's of things. Baffled. Shocked. Outraged. Confused. Pick an emotion."
"I bet." Sharpe sighed. "Mr. Sinclair, my job means I do my best to bring people to justice. But that doesn't always make people happy."
"You don't think she's guilty, too, do you?"
"No, sir. I know Ms. Shen. Unless my ability to judge human nature is totally gone, she couldn't have done that. But . . ."
"Right now the entire Navy's trying to prove she's guilty, and I'm trying to prove she's innocent."
Sharpe actually smiled, his teeth looking unnaturally white in the darkened compartment. "You're not quite that alone, sir. But there ain't much I can do."
"I know. Can you do anything about how they're treating her in the brig?"
Another grimace. "They figure they got a mass murderer on their hands, sir."
"If they—"
"Sir." Sharpe held up a restraining hand. "I've guarded prisoners. There's all kinds of things you can do to a prisoner. Things that maybe ain't technically right but ain't technically wrong either. Little stuff. It doesn't leave any marks except on the inside of their brains. And ordering guards not to do that kind of stuff is like waving a red flag at a bull." He took another drink. "I always figured that was fair since the prisoners must've been guilty. Maybe I wasn't being so smart about it."
"Can't you tell the brig guards something? Anything?"
"I'll try, Mr. Sinclair. I've already talked to them before. But, to be perfectly honest with you, I don't see them listening this time any more than they did the last couple of times."
Paul drained his drink. "It's kind of like a nightmare, isn't it, Sheriff? Things just keep getting worse and nothing we try to do helps."
Sharpe nodded grimly. "That doesn't stop us from trying, sir."
"No. Nothing's going to stop me from trying. Thanks, Sheriff. Knowing you still believe in Jen, excuse me, Ms. Shen, means an awful lot."
"Sir, a good cop's gotta be tough, but he can't be blind. And he's gotta know who deserves his trust." Sharpe touched his brow. "Goodnight, Mr. Sinclair."
"'Night, Sheriff." Paul watched him leave the compartment. A nightmare. But you never think you're in a nightmare when you are. It all seems perfectly real. And you wake up from nightmares sooner or later. You never hit the ground at the end of your fall. Unless you're dying, and then urban legend says you hit the ground and die in your dreams and in reality. How is this nightmare going to end?
Preparations for the court-martial proceeded with all due haste. Paul found himself avoiding news sources. They all kept reporting the charges against Jen, going over her "crimes" again and again, showing highly amplified pictures of the battered Maury being towed gently back toward Franklin, showing high-ranking politicians trying to calm the storm of anger which had swept up against the South Asian Alliance and redirect it. At Jen, whose name the politicians never mentioned but which everyone knew.
Paul started getting a trickle of messages asking for interviews, then a flood. He deleted them all without reading, thankful that the
news media couldn't get free run of Franklin to try to chase him down in person.
"What're they waiting for?" Kris Denaldo asked him one day as Paul was making a show of trying to work.
"They're waiting for the Maury to get back. They want some of her personnel at the court-martial."
"Why? I thought all the other engineers died."
"They did. It'll probably be about other stuff."
"Other stuff?"
"I don't know, Kris. I really don't know." Which was a lie. He knew. He just didn't want to talk about it at all, even to someone who knew Jen and he as well as Kris did. They wanted to ask the rest of the survivors of the Maury about Jen. About whether she'd been having an affair with anyone. About whether she hated anyone. About anything that might help build a case against her.
One night he went into Combat and called up a display with the estimated position of the Mahan on it. The estimated position didn't mean much. Captain Shen had authority to move his ship anywhere within a large volume of space. Keep the enemy guessing. Paul wondered if Captain Shen had heard what had happened to the Maury, and to his daughter. Jen still insisted he shouldn't send a message, though even if she allowed it there was no telling when the Mahan would reveal her location precisely enough to allow high-speed communications. Captain Shen might get back and discover everything that had happened, discover Jen convicted. Welcome back, captain. We hope you had a pleasant voyage, and we hope you weren't planning on your daughter meeting you at the dock. She's in a military jail cell back on Earth.
The Maury finally returned to Franklin with fanfare that almost matched the world's interest in the event. Various military and civilian VIPs had flown up to Franklin, their entourages requisitioning every spare resource on the station as well as quite a few resources that were already needed for other purposes. Every display screen on the station was set to watch the Maury as the battered warship was eased into the space-dock which dominated one section of Franklin. Paul, far from the crowds and the VIPs at the dock, stared like everyone else, appalled yet again by the damage he saw, amazed that his own memories of the devastation had somehow been dulled.
His eyes locked onto the after survival bulkhead. Jen was back there when I thought she was dead. Then I thought she was okay. But she wasn't, not after losing every person she worked with in engineering. And not after getting charged with causing it to happen. Now Commander Hughes tells me Jen won't even see her anymore. Too worried about being labeled mentally unstable just because she's getting counseling. How's that for a Catch-22? If you need help, you can't seek it without people thinking you're full-scale nuts. But Hughes can't make Jen talk to her, and Jen won't listen to me on that score.
Paul shifted his display to the dock itself. Standing in the large group awaiting the Maury, he knew, was at least one military lawyer waiting to personally interview Captain Halis after the senior officers and senior politicians had given their speeches and pinned a medal on the captain. I wonder what Captain Halis thinks about all this? I'm sure she'd trade it all for half those dead sailors back. Or maybe even one of them. What'll Halis say to the lawyer? I know she's already listed as witness for the prosecution, but that doesn't tell me what the prosecution wants her to testify about. Events? Character? Background? I'll just have to wait for that answer. Won't be long now. Now that the Maury's home.
He looked back at the severely wounded warship again. The reinforcing members laid across the Maury's gapping wounds stood out clearly. He'd helped with that. Not a lot of help, measured against everything it'd taken to get the Maury home, but something.
On the bridge, he knew, Captain Halis would be watching as well, while the tugs which had brought the Maury this far carefully handed her off the station. Riding a crippled ship unable to maneuver on her own, the captain would just be an observer, but still surely watching everything and looking out for her ship. I can understand that. I hope I'd do the same. It must hurt, though, being towed back into port, with her ship ripped wide open.
Paul wished he could see Captain Halis in person, plead for her help, but he suspected that might fall into the category of witness tampering. Though he doubted it'd have much effect in any case, even if he could fight through the crowds of VIPs and other well-wishers, because his very brief meeting with Captain Halis in the midst of tragedy had left Paul convinced that Jen's commanding officer would hold to whatever course she thought proper.
And there wasn't time, anyway. The court-martial would begin tomorrow. People needed to be assured as quickly as possible that the incident was being "handled." That the South Asians hadn't been involved, that justice was being done, that appropriate punishment would be meted out to the guilty. The only problem Paul had with any of that was his certainty that what people were being assured would happen wasn't the same thing he saw happening.
Chapter Nine
The courtroom selected for the trial was the same one in which Captain Wakeman had been court-martialed. Given the small number of courtrooms available on Franklin, that wasn't too surprising, but Paul thought it an unnerving coincidence. As far as he could remember, the layout hadn't changed. But the paint on the walls had been freshened, the entire room cleaned and scrubbed, ready for any media scrutiny. Cameras would record the entire trial, of course, as they did every trial. Because classified material might well be discussed, open media access wouldn't be allowed and the proceedings wouldn't be televised in real time. But once the trial was over, that record might be released, edited or whole, to satisfy the curiosity of those watching from a distance.
The judge's bench dominated the front of the courtroom, rising higher than any other table or seat. There were two doors in the back of the room. One, Paul knew, led to the judge's chambers. The other was the entrance to be used by the five officers who were the members of the court. The member's table, just a long standard issue military table which had been glamorized by having a navy blue tablecloth draped over it, had five chairs behind it, the whole arrangement angled to face the judge's bench and the witness stand.
Actually facing the judge's bench on either side were two tables. Commander Carr already sat at the trial counsel's table, studying her data pad and ignoring the spectators. At the defense table, Lieutenant Bashir sat, his fingers drumming slowly on the table.
Paul sat directly behind the defense table, the only officer of his lowly rank that far forward in the court-room. But Lieutenant Bashir had been able to reserve a seat for him there, where Paul tried to look straight ahead and ignore the curious looks he knew he was attracting.
A loud murmuring finally made Paul look around. Coming in the main door was Jen, walking with stern dignity that couldn't banish the image of the two masters-at-arms escorting her, a prisoner under guard. Even though the masters-at-arms tried to lead Jen toward the defense table, she moved to block them and take the lead herself, then stood at attention for a moment before sitting down next to Lieutenant Bashir. The masters-at-arms retreated back to the main entrance of the court-room, where they went to parade rest and kept their eyes on Jen. Jen and Bashir exchanged some quiet words, then she turned enough to look at Paul and nod, her eyes revealing far more than her rigidly controlled expression.
As Paul smiled encouragingly back, he finally caught a glimpse of the band on her ankle which marked Jen's bonds. He'd seen such bands on prisoners, the violent, dangerous ones who might flee or attack their guards. Seeing it on Jen just emphasized how unreal the entire situation felt. If I'm going to wake up from a bad dream, now would be a real good time.
The court bailiff had walked to the center of the room, standing before the judge's bench. She looked around to ensure she had everyone's attention before speaking. "When the military judge enters, I will announce 'all rise' and everyone is to rise. The military judge will instruct everyone to be seated. When the judge directs me to summon the members of the court, everyone should rise once again. The military judge will once again instruct when you are to be seated. Are there any questions
?"
The bailiff didn't bother waiting to see if there were any questions. She went to the judge's door, knocked gently, then stood back as the door opened. "All rise."
Paul sprang to attention along with everyone else. Captain McMasters walked up to his bench, settled himself, then looked at the trial counsel, the defense counsel and defendant, and all the spectators. Apparently reassured that all was in order, McMasters addressed the crowd. "This Article 39 (A) session is called to order. You may be seated. Trial Counsel?"
Commander Alex Carr stayed standing as everyone else sat. "The court-martial is convened by general court-martial convening order 0322, Commander, United States Space Forces, copies of which have been furnished to the military judge, counsel, and the accused. The charges have been properly referred to the court-martial for trial and were served on the accused on 22 March 2101. The accused and the following persons detailed to the court-martial are present: Captain McMasters, Captain Carney, Commander Carr, Commander Bolivar, Lieutenant Commander Cloud, Lieutenant Bashir, Lieutenant Kalin, Lieutenant Ishiki."
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