Paul nodded. "Yeah. Maybe it was a miscalculation. The XO's human, too."
"Sometimes I wonder about that."
"Geez, Jen. I'm sorry."
"It didn't happen to me, Paul. Not yet." She looked away. "You've taken materials courses. You know how they figure out how much pressure something will take. They just keep adding on, a little at a time, and eventually whatever is being stressed cracks or shatters or whatever. The Navy does the same thing to us. Maybe now that Kris has hit the limit they'll want to see how much I can take. Or you."
"No, Jen." Paul sat near her. "Kris wouldn't say no. She just kept pushing herself. But you're smart enough to know when it's getting to you."
"Since when do you know so much about me?"
"I . . . sorry. I guess I don't."
Jen unbent slightly at the look on Paul's face. "Hey. I know you were just trying to cheer me up. I didn't mean to bite your head off."
"That's okay. I understand. Really."
"No, you don't. You won't understand until you see that wall looming in front of you and you have no idea if you can put the brakes on yourself in time, or if the command structure will even let you put the brakes on. But that's okay. I'll still give you points for meaning well."
"There's nothing we can do for Kris?"
"Only one thing, if I know Kris. If she gets cleared by the doc, don't let on you know anything happened to her. Non-event. Cleared from memory. Deal?"
"Deal." Thanksgiving, huh? I wonder what I'm going to be thankful for tomorrow? Right now there's not a lot on the list.
Paul's dark reverie was interrupted as Commander Sykes swung into the wardroom, expertly propelling himself with a minimum of effort to his favored chair, into which he slid with a sigh of satisfaction. "Ensign Shen. I was hoping to encounter you."
Jen nodded wearily. "You found me. What do you need?"
"This isn't a work request, Ms. Shen. I've just come from sickbay, where I had a pleasant conversation with the ship's doctor regarding your roommate, Ensign Denaldo."
"What? The doc wouldn't tell me much of anything. Why'd he talk to you?"
Sykes smiled. "Professional courtesy. Limited duty officers such as the doctor and myself must stand together against the disdain of line officers. In any event, I wanted to tell you that, after running such tests as he can onboard, it is the doctor's firm opinion that Ms. Denaldo is suffering only from physical exhaustion, with no underlying conditions, and once she has rested she will be, as the old chestnut goes, good as new."
Jen actually smiled, her relief plain. "That's wonderful. Thanks, Suppo."
Sykes waved his hand dismissively. "No thanks required. All in the line of duty. Hah. You heard that? I got to use the words line and duty while describing my work. Not bad for a supply officer." He eyed Jen as she failed to respond to the joke. "You don't seem as happy at the news as I expected. Are you concerned about yourself?"
"No, Suppo. I'm just a little tired."
Paul tried to keep from frowning at Jen's denial. It was her business whether she wanted to discuss her fears with Sykes, and he certainly didn't have the right to contradict Jen if she didn't feel like talking.
Judging from Sykes' expression, though, he didn't believe Jen anyway. "Young Ms. Shen, it isn't respectful to mislead your elders. You are concerned about yourself in the wake of Ms. Denaldo's misfortune, aren't you? Don't look so guilty. You have every right to be concerned. It's not as if you weren't thinking of Ensign Denaldo's well-being first."
Jen shook her head. "Suppo, you wouldn't understand."
"Because I don't work at least twenty-five hours a day like you line officer types? I'm wounded, Ms. Shen. At the very least, you should credit me with being a keen observer of the human condition."
Jen didn't rise to Sykes' last statement, so Paul intervened. "What do you think, Suppo?" Jen shot him an annoyed glance but didn't shut off the conversation.
Sykes rubbed his chin. "About what happened to Ensign Denaldo? It's a more common affliction than it should be. You line officers have to think of yourselves as runners. Yes, I said runners, and I don't just mean in the literal sense of dashing to and fro with your pants on fire trying to deal with the latest crisis, real or imagined. Your work requires you to be marathoners, maintaining a punishing pace for long periods. You have to keep running, but the goal is to reach the finish line without dropping out of the race." Jen was eyeing Sykes now, her face intent as the supply officer continued. "Sometimes, naturally, you have to sprint. A real crisis that involves a threat to human life or something like that. There's no helping pushing yourself too hard for a while under those circumstances. But you have to ease up when you can. Sometimes, all other factors permitting, you might even slack off to a walking pace." Sykes cast a quizzical glance at Paul and Jen. "You line officers do slow down to a walk every once in a rare while, right? In any event, I hope you see why I use the analogy. You have to pace yourself over time so you can keep going. It's all much harder to do in practice than in theory, of course, but the alternative is at some point failing to be able to do your job at all. I don't know about you, but the idea of exhausted, totally strung-out officers making life-and-death decisions about matters in which I am involved does not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling."
Jen shook her head again. "Suppo, that's easy to say, but with my department head and the XO riding me, where's the time for easing up? What do you think would happen if I said, 'Sorry, can't do this, I'm taking a break?'"
Sykes shrugged. "And, as is well-known, junior officers are always one hundred percent candid with their superiors. I can't tell you how to find the time, Jen, because I'm not running every second of your life. Neither is your department head, though I'm certain it seems like he's attempting to do just that at times."
"And if he isn't, then the XO is. How do I catch a breath when Commander Herdez is looking for the smallest sign I'm underemployed?"
"You think Commander Herdez would begrudge you some downtime?"
"I know she would!"
"Ah. Have you perhaps noticed that no critical engineering activity is routinely scheduled for Sunday mornings on this ship?"
Jen frowned, nodded with visible reluctance, then noticed Paul's questioning look. "Regulations say you're not supposed to schedule any work activity for Sunday mornings," she explained. "Day of rest, or at least morning of rest. But the regulations say that if something critical needs to be done in engineering, of course that can take place. So just about every ship always schedules critical engineering work for Sunday mornings, because they can." She gazed back at Sykes. "But, no, this ship doesn't. Are you trying to say that's the XO's policy?"
"Who else could cause it to happen, young lady? The ship's executive officer is in charge of scheduling events."
Jen gave Paul a puzzled look before focusing back on Commander Sykes. "Then . . . I guess Commander Herdez must be responsible. I never thought about that. Why'd she do that?"
Sykes raised both eyebrows at the question. "We were just discussing rest, I believe. What do you do on Sunday mornings? When you're not standing a watch, that is."
"I usually try to catch up on some work . . ." Jen's voice trailed off. "I should be resting?"
"An alien concept to the minds of ship drivers, isn't it? Ponder it long enough, and perhaps the idea will take root. It is officially endorsed, you know. The Navy has provided you with a bed on this ship. You should make use of it every once in a while." Sykes paused, frowning at the two ensigns. "Naturally, I mean individual use. I wouldn't want to be accused of urging two impressionable youngsters down the path to unauthorized social interactions."
Paul covered his face with one hand to cover up his embarrassed reaction to Sykes' joke, while Jen looked pained. "Suppo, I hope no one's trying to spread rumors."
"If they are, I haven't heard of them. But one never knows. I'm simply trying to be prudent." Sykes sighed theatrically. "Young people these days. Meeting, getting married, having children. Noth
ing at all like when I was young."
The absurdity of the statement, paired with Sykes' tone of apparently sincere nostalgic regret, finally forced another smile out of Jen. "Suppo, just how long ago were you young?"
"It's been a while. Back then you could walk from South America to Africa. Oh, occasionally the land-bridge would flood at high tide, but that just added to the excitement of the outing. The continents have drifted much farther apart now, of course, so that little walk is gone the way of the wholly mammoth. Speaking of which, did I ever tell you about my childhood pet? We called him Harry. Sort of a pun, you see."
Jen laughed this time. "Please. No more. Thank you for the advice, Commander. Next time my department head finds me snoozing away, I'll send him to talk to you."
"My office is always open," Sykes assured her, waving his hand around the wardroom as if staking claim to the entire compartment. "Though tomorrow it will be dedicated to Thanksgiving dinner. See the decorations?"
Paul looked around curiously. "No, sir."
"Of course not. They're virtual decorations. When the display projector works. Which, at the moment, it does not."
Jen grinned. "And it's not going to be working soon. We're remanufacturing the control box to try to fix it. Maybe it'll be done in a few weeks."
"Take your time, Ensign Shen." This time Sykes shook his head. "The officially-approved, nondenominational, interfaith decorations, guaranteed inoffensive to any human regardless of personal mindset, are truly horrible in their bland mediocrity. You may take a moment to give thanks tomorrow that the projector remains broken."
Paul smiled. Okay. That's one thing to give thanks for. That and the fact that Commander Sykes cared enough about what happened to run Jen down and give her that talk. Like Jen told me, he's a good pork chop. And a better officer than I'd realized. I wonder what they're going to serve us for Thanksgiving? Something special?
* * *
"Hey, Suppo." Jen held up her portion of turkey loaf, which had been so heavily processed and reprocessed that its texture resembled tofu. "The scuttlebutt was we'd have real turkey for Thanksgiving."
Sykes smiled. "Ensign Shen. Ensign Shen. Close your eyes, young lady. How many real turkeys do you see? That's how many we have on this ship."
"Is it too much to ask that this crap actually taste something like turkey?"
"Yes." Sykes smiled again. "When you joined, the Navy promised to feed you, Ensign Shen. But it didn't promise how often it'd feed you, nor how well."
Carl Meadows swallowed a portion of his turkey loaf with evident difficulty. "Just be grateful they served us this and not one of those lamb roasts."
Lieutenant Sindh choked momentarily. "Why did you have to mention that? Those so-called roasts taste so gamey they ought to be banned under the chemical weapons treaty."
"Where do they come from, anyway? I can't believe that meat is actually from a lamb."
"Well, technically maybe not." Everyone eyed Lieutenant Bristol suspiciously. "They've really improved the solid waste recycling end products and—" Bristol made a futile attempt to dodge the turkey loaf packets hurled at him. "It's a good thing there's no bones in that stuff."
"Oh, I bet there's bones," Jen groused. "Ground up along with damn all everything else."
"Maybe they use something like the turbines, Jen," Paul suggested. "You know, feed a turkey in one end—"
"Feathers and all?"
"Feathers and beaks and all, yeah. Grind it all down and package the end product."
Lieutenant Sindh choked again. "This food is disgusting enough without you guys making it worse. Serves me right for getting stuck eating with the junior officer shift."
Bristol smiled. "You'd prefer eating with the senior officers? Present company excepted, of course," he added, bowing slightly toward Commander Sykes.
"No. No way. Present company excepted, of course." Sindh mimicked Bristol's gesture to Sykes.
Sykes smiled in return, unbuckling his seat strap. "It's nice to receive proper obeisance, but I must leave prior to the dessert course."
"Why?"
"Discretion is the better part of valor. Please just keep in mind that I was not allowed any input to the menu. It was fixed by the gods of supply, loaded onboard in prepackaged lots, and I am merely the messenger who delivers it."
"Suppo." Jen snagged Sykes as he tried to pass her. "What's for dessert?"
"I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise."
"Spoil it. Please. Sir."
"I believe the dessert is commonly known as cannonballs."
"Cannonballs?" This time Paul choked. They were an infamous dessert at the Naval Academy. Officially an apple baked in pastry, cannonballs were actually small portions of apple locked deep within thick doughy shells. Anyone foolish enough to actually consume one ended up with their stomach feeling as if they had ingested a cannonball in truth.
"Get him!" Meadows howled, but Sykes had already slipped away from Jen and swung expertly out the hatch. "Never mind. We'll never catch him now. Suppo's pretty agile for an old guy. Is anybody going to eat their dessert?"
"Are you kidding?"
"No. I just figured we could sort of deliver any leftovers to Commander Sykes' stateroom." Carl looked inquiringly at Bristol. "Which we could do, if we could get the help of a certain assistant supply officer."
"Say no more." Bristol shook his head in mock horror. "Cannonballs. This is a crime against humanity." He turned to Paul. "Correct, ship's legal officer?"
"I'm sure it must be illegal under some provision of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Or international law. Or something." Paul spent the next half-hour mostly listening and laughing as his fellow junior officers spun ever more fantastic plots to dispose of the cannonball desserts. So. Happy Thanksgiving. And I am thankful for something. As bad as things can be, at least I've got some shipmates who are literally in the same boat, and together they make things not only endurable, but sometimes even fun. At the moment, the investigation of the incident with the SASAL ship and the threat of whatever awaited them back at Franklin seemed very far away. And that was fine.
The next few weeks passed in the odd limbo of underway time. The ship's interior lighting cycled on and off to mark the passage of human days, but Paul's life remained defined by the hours spent on watch and a ship's workday which seemed to cover most of the time not devoted to watch standing. Sleep fell where possible into the cracks of that schedule. With morale on the ship sinking lower with every kilometer covered on the way back to Franklin, holiday celebrations normally constrained by tight spaces and lack of materials for decoration received even less attention than usual.
One morning, Paul stared at his personal calendar for long minutes before realizing that December 25th ought to have a special significance beyond another processed turkey meal. It's not like I could go out shopping for presents or anything. Moments later his data link beeped, announcing the arrival of a sentimental e-card from one of the other officers. Hey, that's cool. Paul called up some of the card formats in the ship's data base, hastily crafting his own card as other beeps announced the receipt of further holiday cards from other officers in the wardroom. Later, he spent a fairly happy half-hour, clicking through his collection of received cards several times as if they represented a pile of gifts under an elaborately decorated tree.
New Year's Eve didn't quite sneak up the same way. Paul, due to go on watch at 0400, decided not to stay up to mark the moment, instead choosing to grab a few precious hours of sleep. Unfortunately for Paul, Senior Chief Kowalski had other plans.
"Mr. Sinclair! On deck, sir!"
Paul hastily shrugged into his uniform, blearily checking the time. Half an hour to midnight. What the hell does the senior chief need me for right now? Poking his head out of the stateroom hatch, he saw Kowalski floating nearby, holding an object in one hand. "Is that a fruitcake? A real fruitcake?"
"Very good, sir!" Senior Chief Kowalski beamed happily at Paul, then pointed aft. "With your pe
rmission, I will lead the way, sir."
"The way to where?"
"Why, Mr. Sinclair, you've never heard of parading the holiday fruitcake? You are in for a treat, sir, a rare honor. Please come along, sir."
Baffled, Paul followed in Kowalski's wake as the senior chief pulled himself one-handed along the passageway, holding the fruitcake prominently in his other hand. A weird shriek behind him shocked Paul, who turned to see one of the Michaelson's petty officers with a bagpipe strapped to her and two assistants towing her along with the small procession. Despite the difficulties of playing a bagpipe in zero gravity while being towed through the constricted spaces of a warship, the petty officer made a creditable effort at Scottish marching tunes and hymns, the wails and screeches of the music following Paul and Kowalski as they traversed the ship, with only occasional interruptions as the bagpipes or the petty officer banged into an obstruction. Everywhere, groups of sailors gathered to cheer them on and fall in behind the parade.
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