For Honor We Stand (35 page)

“Nope.  Don’t want to make that trip.  I don’t even want the T-shirt.  I’ve had enough of that to last me at least till the end of this war and probably well into the next.”  He sighed heavily.  “Well, Cho, what do we do then?”

“You got your padcomp on you, Dooze?”

“You think I’m crazy?  Of course, I do.  It’s a regulation, isn’t it?  Besides, I don’t want Lieutenant Brown to catch me without it after the way he skinned ‘Wacky’ Waechter the other day.”

“I heard about that.  Everyone said it was an ass chewing of truly legendary magnitude, babe.  Legendary.  Well you’ve got yours and I’ve got mine.  Let’s put ‘em to use.  How about we sit right here, I hit the repair and maintenance database and you hit the maintenance board archives and help boards.  Someone, somewhere, has either had this problem before or they’ve thought it might come up.  I bet, if we follow in their footsteps, we can figure this out, babe, you and me.”

“Cho, that sounds like a plan.”

***

At the stroke of 09:00, about six hours after Cho and Doozie started to get the upper hand in their epic struggle with the gravity generators, the patients and staff in the Casualty Station witnessed an event unprecedented in the history of the
Cumberland
.  First, Zamora, Ulmer, and four other enormous Marines almost their equal in size marched into the compartment in their emerald green dress uniforms complete with drawn ceremonial sabers in their right hands and resting on their right shoulders, followed by Major Kraft, also in his Dress Greens and also carrying his saber.  Kraft led the detail along the equipment lockers that lined the left side of the compartment as viewed from the patient beds.  “Company HALT,” Kraft ordered, his parade ground voice dialed back eight or nine notches in deference to the presence of wounded.  The Marines all halted on the same step, their brilliantly shining boots snapping to the deck in unison with a satisfying stomp.  “Left HACE.”  They pivoted like separate parts of a single machine to face the center of the room.  “Atten HUT.”  Boot heels snapped together.  The Marines were now rigidly erect and perfectly immobile, more like robots awaiting orders than human beings. 

As though cued by the snap of those heels, Captain Robichaux led the senior officers, DeCosta, Brown, Doctor Sahin, Kasparov, and Sauvé, into the compartment.  Wearing their Dress Whites and carrying their dress sabers, they lined up across from the Marines, also at attention.  The only one with his blade sheathed was Max.  He scanned the room, seeing first the five men from Auxiliary Fire Control in patient beds to his left.  They were being treated for internal bleeding and other injuries caused by the shock wave that had breached the hull in that compartment, as well as for exposure to the near vacuum and cold that had been present there before Midshipman Park had sealed the hull breach.  Five more men were in other beds, all being treated for various wounds, none serious, sustained at the Battle of Rashid V B.  They would all be returning to duty within the week.  Four more were resting out of sight nearby with sheets pulled over their faces.  Their duties were done.

Near an empty patient bed was Midshipman Park, who had on some pretext just been helped into a wheelchair by a nurse.  Park was wearing the blue standard-issue Navy pajamas that, but for the thinness of the fabric and the presence of slippers rather than boots on his feet, would look very much like a uniform.  Park had some ugly bruises and the whites of his eyes were full of burst blood vessels from exposure to near vacuum.  Cotton protruded from one ear canal to protect a ruptured eardrum.  Ointment covered his nose and ears where he had been frostbitten by the cold of space.  He looked as though he had been roughly handled.  But he sat up straight in the wheelchair and watched the ceremony taking place in front of him with enthusiasm and wonder.  Park Dong-soo was bloody but unbowed.

Max looked at the small boy who practically vanished in the wheel chair made for a fully grown man five or six times his bulk and barely managed to repress a smile.  With all the gravity he could summon, he announced, “Midshipman Park, front and center.”  A nurse wheeled Park to the center of the space between the line of Navy men and the line of Marines as Max marched to stand just in front of the same spot.  Park’s face wore a look of frank bewilderment.

Max continued in his “official voice.”  “As you all know, almost every aspect of what we do in the Navy is governed by a great many rules and regulations.  The same is true for the awarding of medals and citations.  Most citations can be awarded only on the authority of flag-rank officers, Norfolk, or the Commissioners of the Admiralty, and only to personnel who have at attained at least the rank of Able Spacer.  There are, however, a very few awards that can be given on the authority of a warship commander to individuals under his command, irrespective of rank.  Because the temptation to give awards to men with whom one serves closely is very great, most warship commanders make such awards very sparingly and only for conduct of the most conspicuously outstanding nature.  It is my honor, and my pleasure, to recognize such conduct today.”  He reached into his tunic and produced a small box which he opened with gentle reverence.  “For meritorious service and superlative achievement, performed at grave risk to his own life, exemplifying resourcefulness and courage in the highest tradition of the Service above and beyond the call of duty, Midshipman Third Class Park Dong-Soo is awarded the Navy and Marine Achievement Medal, Combat Grade.”  

Max extracted the medal:  a twelve-pointed bronze star, embossed with the silhouette of a Battleship from the First Interstellar War superimposed on a silver-rayed sun, hanging from a blue ribbon bearing seven tiny gold stars.  A large gold plated letter “V” was pinned to the ribbon, symbolizing that the award had been earned in combat.  Max bent down, pinned the medal to Park’s chest, and came back to attention.  The rather modest medal looked almost absurdly large on the boy’s tiny torso.  “Company.  SaLUTE.”  Max brought his right hand to his right eyebrow in a standard salute while the rest of the company flashed their sabers to the salute position, hilts held in front of them just below their chins, blades held vertically in front of each man’s right eye, cutting edge to the left, elbow tucked close to the body.  The gleaming blades sent reflections of the bright Casualty Station lights chasing each other over the equipment lockers and banks of medical equipment.  A stunned Park returned the salute.  Max snapped his hand down.  The men with sabers whipped them down by their right sides, the twelve keen blades making a faint but distinct swish.

Max did a precise about face and marched out of the compartment.  “Shoulder ARMS,” ordered Kraft.  Each man brought his saber back to his shoulder.  “First detail.  Right HACE.”  The Naval officers performed a reasonably good turn.  “Detail, MARCH.”  They marched from the compartment.  “Second detail.  Left HACE.”  The Marines pivoted perfectly to face the hatch.  “Detail, MARCH.”  They marched out followed by Kraft, who closed the hatch behind him.

For ten seconds or so, the Casualty Station was silent except for the sounds of the ship itself and the quiet beeps of the monitoring equipment connected to some of the casualties.  “Here, let’s get you back in bed, young man,” said the nurse who had suddenly appeared at Park’s side.  “I think that’s enough excitement for you this morning.  In a few hours, when the Captain’s steward brings us the box, we’ll put your medal away for you and have someone put it in your space chest where it will be nice and safe.”  The boy quickly clapped his hands over the medal and shook his head vigorously.  He wasn’t giving it up without a fight.  The nurse shrugged.  “But, now, it’s time for you to get your morning series of injections.  Don’t worry.  This won’t hurt a bit.”   

Chapter
9

06:06Z Hours, 21 March 2315

“They were all in on it, to one degree or another,” Major Kraft, said, his voice heavy with disappointment.  “We questioned the two who didn’t have their fingerprints, so to speak, on the falsified entries—it was Cho and Balduzzi—and we didn’t have to lean on them very hard before they came clean.”

The doctor looked alarmed.  “I have heard rumors of questioning techniques being used in some circumstances.  Techniques with which I would not like to be associated.”

“Don’t worry, Doctor,” soothed Kraft.  “I have little enthusiasm for such methods of questioning myself.  No sharp implements or electrodes were used in the questioning of these subjects.  A full confession required nothing more coercive than an appeal to duty and a heavy dose of guilt.”

The “Senior Officers group” was gathered in Max’s Day Cabin.  While these gatherings were not scheduled and did not occur at stated times on stated days, they were becoming a fixture in the ship’s routine and in day to day management of the
Cumberland
’s
affairs.  Not only was having these five men—Max, DeCosta, Kraft, Brown, and Sahin—in the same room at the same time once every few days a good mechanism with which to make sure that the right hand knew what the left was doing, Max was convinced that he owed a great deal of his effectiveness as a commander thus far to the advice and assistance of these men. 

Admiral Hornmeyer had, to a large degree, made up for assigning Max to a problem ship with a troubled history and crew by giving him this truly exceptional command team.  Max knew very well how lucky he was to be surrounded by officers of this level of ability.  The more he thought about it, the more he expected every man in the room, including Doctor Sahin, to achieve very high rank someday.  He was coming to count on them, as they were coming to trust him.  Max usually brought them together early in the day, saw that an inexhaustible river of coffee flowed into their mugs, and fed them all a hearty breakfast of their choice.  It didn’t exactly make them happy to be there, but it did tend to put them in a better frame of mind. 

“Well, what are they like?”

Brown answered the doctor’s question.  “Just regular general repair and maintenance technicians. No more or less patriotic or conscientious or lazy, really, than the run of the mill fellows replacing junction boxes, swapping out worn parts, cleaning manifolds, and tracing wiring faults in every ship in the Navy.  There is nothing in terms of morals or character to set these men apart from the hundreds of other men who have performed similar service with whom I have worked in my career.”

“Nonsense.  Ridiculous,” declared Doctor Sahin, his peremptory tone bordering on the offensive, maybe even edging across the border.  “There are thousands and thousands of men performing those jobs throughout the Navy who aren’t endangering their shipmates and hampering the war effort by making false computer entries.”  Then, to excuse or explain his vehemence, he added, “I feel very angered by what these men did and perceive it as a betrayal, not of me personally, but of the ship as a whole.  It disturbs me that men would endanger their shipmates.  My experience with Naval personnel is that they care very much for their shipmates and are willing to give their lives for them, a mindset that, it seems to me, is irreconcilably inconsistent with one that would allow someone to affirmatively place their ship at risk.  Therefore, I do believe that these men have to be different in some way.  The conclusion is logically inescapable.  If there is not a difference in the men themselves, then can you identify for me what differing factor explains why their behavior diverges so markedly from that of their fellows on other ships?”

Kraft, Brown, and DeCosta, who had interviewed all of the personnel involved, looked at each other, as if deciding which of them should speak.  Brown and DeCosta deferred to Kraft.

“Yes, doctor, we can.  In fact we can quite easily.”

“I’ll bet I can get it in one guess,” said Max.  “Captain Oscar.  At least, that’s what started it all, I’m sure.”

“
Genau
,” said Kraft.  “We interviewed all eight men involved, starting with Cho and Balduzzi.  We also went back through a cross section, we hope a representative one, of the repair orders, computer flags, REFSTAMAT adjustments, diagnostic outputs, relevant control inputs, and everything else we could think of.  We could spend a lot more time looking at a lot more records or even talking to more people, but what we found had a very high level of internal consistency.  I’ve done a lot of investigations and I know when the evidence is tracking to a solid conclusion.  This one is solid.  We’ve got a clear grasp of the relevant events.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“It’s really quite elementary, my good doctor.”  Brown responded.  “We’ve seen the kinds of lunacy that Captain Oscar put this crew through.  The officers in this room have been dealing with the consequences of this horrific situation and the effect it has had on the men since we came aboard back in January.  We will likely be dealing with them for many, many more months.  We have expended great effort in attempting to get ahead of these problems, anticipate where they might manifest, and then head them off.  For example, we foresaw that some of the senior noncoms and junior commissioned officers who had come up under Oscar would have deficient skills in taking initiative and have been supplying supplemental training to those personnel in that area.  Well, chaps, we missed one.  In fact, we missed a real dobber.  This one’s a bit confuzzling, so you’ll have to follow along with me a bit.  So, where to begin our tale?”

“Might I suggest you start at the beginning of the tale?”  Sahin’s voice was not entirely devoid of sarcasm.

“Of course.  The beginning of the tale.”  Brown’s sarcasm was carefully calibrated to match Sahin’s.  He began to speak with a strange, sing-song inflection and an even odder pronunciation.  “‘Whan that aprill with his shoures soote, the droghte of march hath perced to the roote . . . .’”