A Just Determination

Chapter Three

Paul sat, rechecking his seat harness and hoping his nervousness wasn't apparent to every other person on the Michaelson's bridge. He couldn't decide whether his assignment as Junior Officer of The Deck while the Michaelson got underway had been the result of malice or chance, but as he scanned the displays around him Paul was acutely aware that a major screw-up right now could cause extensive damage and cost lives. Not that it seemed likely he would be given such a responsibility right off the bat. However, Paul's discovery of the assignment when he read the underway watch bill had done nothing for his peace of mind. Nor had learning who would be supervising him in that assignment.

He looked over at Lieutenant Tweed, occupying the Officer of the Deck position, outwardly calm as she ran down checklists. Outwardly calm, but Paul thought he detected tension in her movements. On either side of the bridge, the Captain and XO sat in elevated chairs, surveying all the activity around them.

Paul reviewed his own checklist for the third time, then studied the maneuvering display. This close in to the station, it displayed a representation of the Michaelson in her berth along with details of Franklin Station itself. The station resembled a huge disc with a hollow center. That disc, Paul knew from his brief stay on-station, held everything from living quarters and administrative offices to repair facilities and bars. Above and below the disc were the dry-docks and berths for the ships the station existed to serve. The whole arrangement rotated just fast enough to generate a feeling of normal gravity in the mid-sections of the disc. When ships berthed at docks along the top or bottom of the disc, facing bow in toward the center and stern out, they joined in that rotation and gained the same feeling of gravity along the same axis that their main drives would accelerate in space. It was all extremely simple, except the part about actually berthing to the station and then leaving it without slamming into anything.

Tweed looked over at Paul, smiled thinly with her lips sealed shut, then made a small thumbs-up gesture. Turning, she faced Captain Wakeman. "Captain, all departments report they are ready for getting underway. We have received clearance from station control to get underway."

Wakeman peered around the bridge, as if suspicious of her report, then nodded. "Very well. Get the ship underway."

"Aye, aye, sir." Tweed focused intently on her display. On ships that sailed water, the bridge sat high and forward, a place from which the conning officer could see and safely direct activity. On space ships, the bridge sat nestled deep within the hull, as safe from external threat as human measures could render it, every view of the outside provided by remote monitors. "All hands, prepare to get underway. Seal quarterdeck access and retract brow."

"Seal quarterdeck and retract brow, aye," the petty officer of watch echoed in a routine designed to ensure he had heard the order correctly. "Quarterdeck sealed. Station has retracted brow. All seals confirmed tight."

"Take in lines two, three, and four."

"Take in lines two, three, and four, aye." On the outside of the station, grapples released their grip on some of the lines holding the Michaelson tightly to the station. As the lines were released, they were reeled in under constant pressure to prevent them from whipping about and damaging the hull. "Lines two, three, and four secure."

"Port thrusters all ahead one third." Despite the breaking of some of the physical bonds to the station, the ship's mass conformed to Isaac Newton's old laws, one of which said mass kept doing whatever it had been doing until something else affected it. Without the thrusters, the Michaelson would have stayed drifting near the station. "Let out lines one and five."

"Port thrusters all ahead one third, aye," the helmsman echoed.

"Let out lines one and five, aye," the petty officer added.

Under the push of the thrusters, the Michaelson 's mass began moving away from the station, the two lines still tethering her paying out slowly as she did so. Centrifugal force inherited from the rotating station began edging the ship outward and to the side as well, putting extra demands on the computers controlling the tension in the lines. They had to maintain just enough pressure to keep the lines taut, but not enough to pull on either the Michaelson or the station. Paul watched, feeling the many tons of mass that made up the Michaelson slowly gathering momentum, knowing that a wrong application of thrust or a misguided tightening of a line might bring the ship inexorably back into contact with the station.

Tweed waited, watching her displays, the XO watching her, and Captain Wakeman watching his own monitors. "Standby to let go all lines. Let go all lines."

"Let go all lines, aye. All lines let go."

Behind Paul, the bosun's pipe sounded. "Underway! Shift colors!" Where a surface ship would have lowered its bow and stern flags and raised one from the main mast, the bosun on the Michaelson simply punched a key on his console, changing her self-broadcast identity code to indicate the ship was no longer tethered to another object with a fixed orbit.

Lieutenant Tweed nodded stiffly, still watching her display, where the separation between ship and station grew steadily as the Michaelson swung out and ahead. Paul could see a fine sheen of sweat on her upper lip. "Port thrusters all ahead two thirds. Main drive all ahead one third."

"Port thrusters all ahead two thirds, aye. Main drive all ahead one third, aye."

Paul felt a kick in his back as the Michaelson 's powerful main drive kicked in, shoving the ship forward even as the maneuvering thrusters pushed her farther away from the station. On his display, the ship's projected course now formed a beautiful arc leading away from the station.

Tweed watched as the display showed the ship's actual path rising to match the projected path set by the station traffic monitors. Just before the two paths merged she called out more commands. "Secure port thrusters. Main drive all ahead two thirds."

"Port thrusters secure, aye, main drive all ahead two thirds, aye."

Tweed looked back to where the quartermaster sat. "Recommendation?"

"I recommend course two three zero degrees absolute, up fifteen degrees, ma'am. That will take us toward the center of our assigned operating area."

Tweed looked toward the Captain, who nodded brusquely. "Very well," she acknowledged. "Helm, bring us to course two three zero degrees absolute, up fifteen degrees. Captain, request permission to secure from getting underway."

"Permission granted."

Tweed gestured to the petty officer of the watch, who triggered the ship's intercom. "All hands, secure from getting underway. The ship remains in maneuvering status. All hands exercise caution in moving about."

USS Michaelson shuddered as the helm orders caused thrusters around her hull to fire, killing drift in one direction, then bringing her bow around to the desired course. Paul watched the process unfold on his display like a piece of fine art, the current course track once again sliding gently into perfect alignment with the desired course.

"The Captain has left the bridge." Startled by the petty officer's announcement, Paul looked around, suddenly realizing he had been paying attention to nothing but the track display. That's dumb. Even I should know better. I have to stay aware of everything going on while I'm on the watch.

The XO unbuckled herself as well, moving carefully against the force provided by Michaelson's main drives. "Good job, Ms. Tweed."

"Thank you, ma'am." Tweed watched Herdez leave the bridge, then sighed heavily, leaning back against the acceleration. "God. It's over."

Paul eyed her with surprise. "You handled that real well."

"It surprises people. I know."

"That's not-."

"Yes, it was. Don't worry about it. I understand. I'm just glad it's over." Tweed wiped her lower face with one hand, smearing the sweat, and breathed deeply several times.

Paul watched her, unable to match what he'd already seen of Jan Tweed with the way she'd handled getting the Michaelson underway. "Were you really that worried?"

She cocked one eye at Paul, then snorted a brief laugh. "Paul, I was scared out of my mind. I always am."

"But you did it real well, ma'am. It was like… like, a piece of art."

"Thanks. The key is to feel the ship. Don't just look at the displays. Feel how she's moving. Some of these clods just try to jerk her around and end up burning enough reaction mass to get us to Jupiter and back." Tweed looked annoyed. "My name's Jan. Any lieutenant who needs to be formal with other junior officers needs an ego-ectomy."

"Aye, aye, Jan."

"Good. How about you take the conn now?" Paul felt his guts twist, then nodded. Having the conn meant he would be responsible for giving commands controlling the Michaelson 's course and speed. Even with Lieutenant Tweed sitting nearby, and even with experienced sailors at the controls, it was a huge responsibility. Yet it was also a responsibility he should shoulder as soon as possible. You only learn to drive ships by driving ships.

Tweed turned slightly, speaking loudly enough that her voice carried across the bridge. "This is Lieutenant Tweed. Ensign Sinclair has the conn."

"This is Ensign Sinclair," Paul stated as steadily as he could, trying to match Tweed's tone. "I have the conn." The petty officer of the watch and the helm watchstander nodded in acknowledgement.

Tweed grinned. "Scared?" she whispered.

"Terrified."

"Good. Stay scared. People who relax end up having collisions. Just keep on eye on the contacts being tracked. The equipment is supposed to let us know if anything is on a collision or near-miss track relative to us, but it isn't smart to trust that entirely. Keep an eye on the tracks and be ready to react if any act funny." She called up data on her screen. "See this? That's our track through the operating area. Here's how we're coming in. Looks like there's a couple of other ships out there, but they've got their beacons on and are well clear of us."

"Right. Beacons."

Tweed watched Paul intently. "You know why beacons are important, Paul? Why we need to know if they're on or off on us or other ships?"

"Well, they make it easier to see the ships, right?"

"You might say that. Michaelson and other warships are designed to be as environmentally passive as possible. That means they're real hard to see. Visually, infrared, radar, whatever. What happens when you're walking around things you can't see?"

"You trip over them."

"Yeah. Every second you're standing watch up here, you have to think about other ships tripping over us because they can't see us, or us hitting someone we didn't see until too late." She grinned nervously. "I hate it. Really."

"I can see why." Paul's mind briefly looked ahead, to endless hours worrying about unseen objects in the Michaelson's path, then he shut down the vision. If I think about that too much, it'll scare me to death. "Jan? Can I ask something personal?"

"Depends. Ask and I'll let you know if I want to answer."

"You handled getting us underway just fine. Right now, you feel like you're in charge. Really capable. But, well, I don't know how to say this-"

"I've got a reputation as someone who can't be trusted and shirks responsibility. Is that it?"

"I didn't-"

"You don't have to." Tweed slumped a bit, staring glumly at her displays. "I'm not a bad officer, Paul. I'm not going to foul up anything big or hurt a fellow officer. But I miss little stuff. Here and there. It adds up. And when I miss little stuff I get chewed out, and I don't like that. So I hide. Don't look like that. I know that's what people say. It's true. I will be the happiest human in history when I leave this ship. Until then, I'm just trying not to screw up any big things. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Enough on that. Here's another tip on something that's gotten me into trouble more than once." Tweed grinned in obvious self-mockery. "Distance in space is weird. You feel like it takes forever to get anywhere, but then you find yourself someplace a lot quicker than you expected. And you're not ready for getting there because your mind is in long-distance-nothing-happening coast mode. How far are we from the operating area?"

"Uh…" Paul checked his scan frantically, surprised when he saw the projected arrival time had already shrunk appreciably. "Closer than I thought."

"We move fast up here. Earth instincts are totally out of whack with the distances and the speeds. So get as much ready as you can, as soon as you can, before you're actually at the objective. Go ahead and work up the maneuver needed to match us onto our planned track once we get to the oparea."

"Okay." Paul brought up his display, concentrating on the 3-D picture. The maneuvers needed were easily calculated, just calling for plugging in the amount of thrust you wanted to use from both the maneuvering thrusters and the main drive. Then the answer popped up as a time to turn and activate the drives. "How's this?"

Tweed looked the solution over, then nodded. "Looks okay to me."

"Do we need to call the Captain for this?"

"Not necessarily. Scheduled maneuver. But I will. Or I'll let you do it. I don't like talking to him all that much." Tweed grinned nervously again. "Just also be sure to give the petty officer of the watch a five minute heads-up so he can broadcast a warning to all hands that the ship will be maneuvering."

"Right. Five minutes warning." They sat silently for a while, watching the paths of the Michaelson and other contacts, natural objects and manmade, curving around through the navigational displays. Part of Tweed's warning to be prepared in advance came back to Paul, so he called up the standing orders and reviewed the part explaining how the Captain wanted calls to him to be handled. Short, quick, detailed, complete. How can something be all those things at once? Paul thought about his sole encounter with Captain Wakeman to date, then looked over where Lieutenant Tweed sat studying her displays with the demeanor of someone walking through a minefield. So many ways to mess up. So many opportunities to mess up. It's easy to see how Jan Tweed ended up this way. But if I let it get to me I'll end up like her.

"Paul."

Sinclair tried not to jerk in guilty surprise as Jan spoke right on the heels of his last thought. "Yes?"

"We're coming up on that course change."

"We are?" Paul checked his display, appalled to see less than ten minutes remained until the optimum time for the maneuver. "Okay. Okay."

"Relax. I'm here. The petty officer at the helm knows his job. There's no other ships detected within a thousand kilometers. You can't screw up too bad. Ready to call the Captain?"

Paul hesitated, wishing Tweed would take on that responsibility, then nodded. He mentally ran through the wording of his statement again, then keyed the circuit to the Captain's cabin. "Captain Wakeman. Bridge."

After a brief pause, a clipped answer came. "Yes."

"Sir, this is the Junior Officer of the Deck. We are, that is, the Michaelson is approaching-"

"Briefly. Spit it out."

Paul swallowed. "We are coming up on a course change in six minutes, Captain."

"Why?"

"To enter our operating area and merge with our track, sir."

"Very well."

The circuit clicked dead. Paul fought down a wave of annoyance, glancing over at Jan, who shrugged in reply. "Bosun mate of the Watch?"

"Yes, sir."

"Notify the crew that we will be maneuvering in five minutes."

"Aye, aye, sir." The bosun mate keyed the intercom, calling out the warning throughout the ship.

Paul waited, watching the minutes and seconds count down. At zero, he called out commands in a voice he thought a little too loud, a little too strident. "Helm, maneuvering thrusters at one-third power. Bring us to course one eight zero degrees absolute, up ten degrees. Maintain main drive at all-ahead one third."

"Maneuvering thrusters at one-third, aye. Coming to course one eight zero degrees absolute, up ten degrees." Michaelson shuddered again as the thrusters pushed her onto a new vector, her mass slowly responding to the pressure. Paul watch with a sense of pleasure as the ship swung onto the projected course vector he'd calculated.

"Captain's on the bridge!"

Paul looked around frantically as Captain Wakeman hopped into his chair and fastened his harness, then looked over at him and Tweed. "Let's get going!" Wakeman commanded. "Thrusters on full! Main drive ahead two-thirds!"

Paul glanced at Tweed, who quickly signaled him to comply. Hastily checking the display again to ensure the maneuver wouldn't cause immediate problems with other contacts in the area, Paul called out the commands. "Thrusters on full. Main drive ahead two thirds." The helm echoed the command, then the Michaelson jumped under the multiplied force of her drives. Inertia and acceleration tugged at Paul, making him thankful for his tight harness, as the ship yawed into a tighter, faster turn. The hull groaned, complaining of the strain on its structure. Paul scanned his display, watching the ship's projected track swinging far off the planned course through the oparea and trying to understand the reason for Captain's orders.

Wakeman leaned back, grinning happily even though his face reflected the stress of the maneuvers. "This is more like it! Looking good, people! Now, where are we going? What are we doing?"

For the first time in his life, Paul felt his jaw actually drop in amazement as he stared at Wakeman. He has no idea where we're going or why and he kicked the ship around like that?

Tweed signaled him again, a resigned expression on her face, speaking softly. "I'll take it, Paul." Then, in a louder voice she called to the bridge. "This is Lieutenant Tweed. I have the conn. Captain, we are enroute our planned track through the oparea…"

Paul felt his attention straying from Tweed's words, still stunned that a cruiser had been jerked around for no discernible reason. He watched the subsequent maneuvers, as Tweed nursed the Michaelson back onto the track the ship had been intended to take. Captain Wakeman looked increasingly bored, then abruptly popped out of his chair and headed for the hatch.

"The Captain has left the bridge!"

Paul looked over at Tweed, sure his face still showed his emotions. "Why'd he do that? What was the point?"

Tweed looked like she'd eaten something bitter yet familiar. "He told us. 'Looking good.' Pushing the ship through that high-speed turn set off alerts on every ship in the area, and back at the station where they're still tracking us. He was showing off."

"That's it?"

"That's it. Get used to it."

The watch crawled to its end without further event. Carl Meadows was Paul's relief, listening to the turnover with jaded stoicism and checking the list of scheduled events for his watch. "Okay. I got it."

"Thanks. On the bridge, this is Mr. Sinclair. Mr. Meadows has the watch."

"This is Mr. Meadows. I have the watch and the conn. See ya, Paul."

He left the bridge, moving with caution under the unfamiliar conditions of being underway. The push of the Michaelson 's main drive provided an illusion of gravity, but not normal gravity. Paul fought down a quiver in his arms and legs brought on by relief and tension, still grasping a handhold just outside the bridge as Jan Tweed came through. "Uh, thanks, Jan."

"Don't mention it. You going to lunch?"

"I don't think my stomach can handle it."

"Oh, yeah. Don't worry, you'll get your space legs in a while. Remember, we've also got the second dog watch." Paul nodded numbly, recalling that the watches around the evening meal were 'dogged' in half so both watch sections could eat. "Be sure to eat dinner early if you're up for it by then."

"Thanks." Paul made his way to his ensign locker, trying not to notice the amusement his shaky progress and strained expression brought out in the crew he passed. He made it to his bunk, lay down, and stared at the already familiar pipes, wires and ducts running just above his nose.

At some point, he must have fallen asleep. The bang of the hatch opening startled Paul awake. "Hey, Sinclair. You in here?"

"Yeah, Sam." He'd followed Jen's advice, not letting on he knew about the trick Sam Yarrow had pulled on him. It had seemed to make Yarrow nervous in a manner Paul found gratifying.

"The XO said to remind you she wanted to see you."

"Right now?"

"I guess. What's up?"

"I don't know." The honest answer seemed to annoy Yarrow, bringing another spurt of satisfaction to Paul. He rolled out of his rack, very cautiously, and made his way to the XO's stateroom. "Commander? You wanted to see me?"

Herdez seemed unfazed by the effects of being underway. Except for the straps holding her to her seat, they might still have been moored to Franklin station. "Take a seat, Mr. Sinclair. Be sure to strap in."

"Yes, ma'am."

Herdez passed over a data cartridge. "I want you to take a look at this and give an evaluation. It's our patrol orders and rules of engagement. They're still not for general distribution, so share that card with no one."

"Ma'am?" Paul was sure his face reflected his bafflement. I'm an ensign who can barely find his way around the ship, and she's asking me for an evaluation of operational orders?

Herdez almost smiled at Paul's reaction. Almost. "I don't need an operational assessment, Mr. Sinclair. I want a legal assessment. These orders require us to do certain things in certain ways. I want to know how you would interpret them in legal terms based on the training you've received in that area."

"Yes, ma'am." Paul hesitated, turning the data cartridge in his hand. "Am I looking for anything in particular, XO?"

"Anything you don't understand, anything you can't pin down, anything that might need interpreting. Understand? If we're being sent out under orders crafted in legalese, I want to know what they might mean to someone who was seeing them for the first time. Thank you."

"Yes, ma'am." Sensing he'd been dismissed, Paul left the stateroom, pausing in the passageway to once again examine the data cartridge. She didn't say so, but the XO doesn't seem to trust these orders. What's in them that's got her worried? And if someone as good as the XO is worried, maybe I ought to be scared to death. Paul headed back to his stateroom, thankful he'd brought all his notes from the legal course.

"Sinclair!"

Paul stopped in his tracks at Commander Garcia's hail. "Yes, sir?"

"Where the hell is Lieutenant Tweed?"

I've got a feeling I'm going to get incredibly tired of hearing that question. "I don't know, sir."

"Find out. No, never mind. Get your division's training records and meet me in the Operations office."

"Yes, sir." Training records? Oh, man, I've hardly glanced at those. Paul glanced at the data cartridge. I could use this as an excuse. Tell Garcia the XO needs me to do this right away… but then Garcia might ask the XO. And doing that would set me down Jan Tweed's road right off the bat. I can't start out hiding. She didn't even start out that way, I bet. He stowed the cartridge in one pocket, pondering his next step.

"Make way." Kris Denaldo shot Paul a curious glance as he edged to the side of the passageway to let her past. "I've hardly seen you since you came aboard."

"It's been a busy few days, Kris."

"I bet. You're still trying to figure out which way is up, right? Jen told me to help keep an eye on you. Need anything?"

Paul nodded, thinking as he did so that Bull Ensign Sam Yarrow should have been the one telling other junior officers to help out the new guy. "Yes, but nothing you can help with. Garcia wants to see my division's training records."

"And…?"

"Well, I haven't even looked at those, yet."

"Oh. You ought to. It's a good way to learn your enlisted sailors' names and abilities."

Paul bit back a sarcastic reply. That's good advice, even though there's about a hundred things I ought to do within the next couple of days. "I will, but Garcia wants to see the records now, and I'm not even sure where they are."

"Then just ask… never mind."

"What?"

Kris Denaldo looked embarrassed. "I was going to say you should just ask your division officer, but that's Jan Tweed, so…"

"So I may not even be able to find her. What else can I do?"

Kris shrugged. "Get ahold of your chief."

"My chief?"

"Your senior enlisted. That's Chief Imari, right? I've heard she's a good chief, so she should be able to help you if anyone can."

Paul brightened. I've been thinking I'm alone in this job, but I do have people I can count on to at least show me the way. People like my chief, and people like some of my fellow junior officers. "Thanks, Kris. That's great advice."

She was already moving away from him, continuing on down the passageway. "No problem. Gotta run. See you around."

Locating Chief Imari didn't prove to be hard, as she was in the Combat Information Center working at one of the terminals.

"Divisional training records? No problem, Mr. Sinclair." Imari tapped in a couple of commands, popped out a data cartridge, then stood. "Let's go."

"Uh, Chief, Commander Garcia said he wanted to see me."

"Did he say he didn't want to see me, too?"

"No."

"Then let's go, sir."

When they reached the nearby Operations office, Commander Garcia glanced from Sinclair to Imari with a sour expression, snatched the proffered cartridge from Imari's hand, then scanned the data rapidly. "Sinclair, has Seaman Frost completed all the requirements for damage control training?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Paul saw Chief Imari incline her head in a surreptitious nod. "Yes, sir."

"Hmmm. What about Petty Officer Kaji? Is she done with her Passive Tracking qualifications?"

This time Chief Imari twitched her head ever-so-slightly to one side and back. "No, sir."

"She should have finished that training by now. Will she have it done by the time we return to the station?"

Another nod. "Yes, sir."

"Hmmm." Commander Garcia swiveled to view Chief Imari and Paul squarely. "These look okay. Keep on it, Sinclair."

"Yes, sir."

"Did you need something, Chief?"

"No, sir. As the Divisional Training assistant, I figured I should accompany Mr. Sinclair."

Garcia looked from Imari to Sinclair, then pulled out the data cartridge and pointedly returned it to Paul before pivoting back to face his terminal. "That's all."

Paul nodded to the back of Garcia's head and followed Imari out and back to CIC. "Chief, you saved my butt in there."

"No, sir. I did my job, part of which is to help young naval officers through their learning process."

Paul grinned. "Thanks. But I ought to take over maintaining these training records. I'm being paid to do it, after all."

"Mr. Sinclair, how many jobs do you have right now?"

"Ummm, five."

"Yes, sir. So if I handle part of one of them, you got to figure the Navy is still getting its money's worth, right?"

"That's true, but-"

"But, nothing, sir. I'm the Division's Training assistant. That's official. There ain't anything wrong with me keeping these records up."

"Commander Garcia told me to do it."

"Yes, sir. And good officers don't try to handle every task they're responsible for themselves, do they? They delegate them." Imari reached and took the data cartridge from Paul. "Just like you're delegating this particular job to me. With all due respect, sir, you probably don't have the time to maintain these records right."

"Chief, I can't argue with that. But I do want to go over those records with you and be familiar with them."

"That's good, sir. Want to do it now?"

"Yes, I-" Paul stopped, remember the data cartridge he'd received from Commander Herdez. "I want to, Chief, but there's something the XO told me take a look at."

"The XO?" Chief Imari looked slightly disconcerted. "She's giving you tasking directly?"

"No, chief, not like that." If the Executive Officer had been directly giving Paul orders on what to do within his division officer's job, instead of routing such instructions through Commander Garcia, it would have been a gross breach of the chain-of-command and poor leadership as well. "It's something to do with my collateral duty as ship's legal officer."

"Oh." Imari didn't try to hide her relief. "That's okay, sir. You take care of the XO's stuff and we'll get together on the training records later."

"Thanks again, Chief. Hey, is Kaji going to get those passive tracking quals done?"

"Yes, sir. We had a little conversation about that and I think she's real motivated now."

Paul kept a straight face with some effort. "Sounds good. Later, chief."

Since his ensign locker was both empty and likely to be the best place for any degree of privacy, Paul loaded the XO's data cartridge into the terminal at his desk and began carefully picking his way through the convoluted official wording. The early sections were essentially boilerplate, standard wording with slight modifications to fit the exact circumstances of the Michaelson 's upcoming patrol.

Then he reached the section on operating instructions, and began bogging down. 'USS Michaelson is to conduct a thorough patrol of the U.S. space sovereignty zone, ensuring through her actions that all violations are countered in such a fashion that US sovereignty is unchallenged.' What does that mean exactly? A challenge to sovereignty can be as subtle as somebody sticking their toe into our claimed area of space. But these orders say we have to counter every violation. If the captain lets a single incident go unchallenged, we wouldn't be carrying out our orders. But 'countered in such a fashion that US sovereignty is unchallenged' implies that we've got to really got to hammer anyone trying anything. Or does it? The lawyers who taught me this legal stuff could have taken a phrase like that and made it mean anything.

Paul read on, a headache growing as he tried to nail down meanings in phrases which seemed to grow increasingly vague. 'Actions are to be tailored to reflect requirements of the operational situation as well as tactical considerations… swift and effective response to emerging opportunities is expected… care should be exercised in avoiding unnecessarily provocative situations… nothing in these orders should be construed as limiting the captain's ability to respond appropriately to any situation.'

The Rules of Engagement proved even more twisted than the operating instructions. 'USS Michaelson shall ensure that any violations of U.S. space sovereignty are countered with all appropriate and necessary actions.' "Shall" means the captain has to do it, but do what? "Appropriate" and "necessary" are both situational words. What one person thinks is appropriate in a certain case, someone else might declare inappropriate. So the captain has to do something, but they won't tell him what he can or should do. It's up to him to figure it out. Wait. 'USS Michaelson should refrain from any and all action(s) likely to generate activity resulting in adverse consequences for national policy objectives.' So we "shall" do everything "appropriate" but "shouldn't" do anything inappropriate, I guess.

On one level, the instructions made sense. After all, captains of ships, by long tradition and legal precedent, were given great powers and expected to exercise a tremendous amount of discretion in using those powers. For Earth-bound or near-orbit operations, that old rule no longer really applied thanks to virtually instant communications networks which gave higher authority the ability to monitor and direct any action by a captain. But out in deeper space, the light-speed limit on communications meant that long periods could still elapse between the need for a decision and whatever direction came back from home. Captains had to be trusted to make decisions without precise instructions.

But these orders are still too vague. There's no upper or lower limit on them. "Appropriate and necessary"? That could be nothing. That could be opening fire and destroying another ship. Or anything in between.

Paul read on. 'The safety and security of USS Michaelson shall be safeguarded against hostile activity by taking all actions required in accordance with the tactical and operational environment.' How does that "shall" rank compared to the "shall" that directs the Michaelson do whatever it takes to prevent US sovereignty from being challenged? What if someone after the fact decides certain actions taken were or weren't "required"? Heck, it says "all actions required." "All"? We could be nailed if they think we didn't do one thing that someone could judge "required."

He skipped down a ways, suddenly eager to see the accompanying intelligence assessment. 'Aggressive challenges to our sovereign claimed areas may materialize… foreign forces encountered may be operating under unknown rules of engagement… composition or nature of foreign spacecraft likely to be encountered remains unknown… possible hostile action cannot be ruled out but cannot be predicted at this time… unconventional threats remain possible… warning of hostile action may not be timely…'

Paul rubbed his forehead, closing his eyes but still seeing in his mind the words of the orders he'd been reading. So, if my assessment of the legal meaning of these orders is right, we're being ordered to do everything we should do, but nothing we shouldn't do, against an unknown level and degree of threat, and do all that without making anybody mad that the US doesn't want to make mad. He thought of Captain Wakeman, happily hurling his ship through extreme maneuvers in the hope it might impress anyone who might be watching, without much thought to where the ship was actually going and planning on doing. And the paragon of good judgment and careful analysis who is supposed to decide what's "appropriate," "necessary," and "required" in every circumstance is Cap'n Pete Wakeman. Good grief.

Paul began writing a report to the XO, working through it word by word to avoid implying anything about his opinion of Wakeman's judgment or ability to execute the orders. Just lay out the contradictions I see, and the areas in which guidance is vague enough to create potential problems. The XO doesn't need me telling her how to operate a ship. And I've got a feeling that if anybody on this ship can read between the lines and see trouble ahead, it's Herdez. He wasn't thrilled with the end result, but couldn't think how to improve upon it, so he sent it to the XO's inbox and hoped it would at least come close to meeting her standards.