Chapter TWENTY-TWO

Senior Chief Electronics Mate Lewis tried hard to keep a scowl off her face as she entered Impeller One. This wasn't Ginger's duty station, and she didn't want to be here. Unfortunately, there was a glitch in Impeller Ones links to Damage Control Central, and Lieutenant Silvetti, Ginger's boss in DCC, had sent her to supervise the techs looking for the fault. It wasn't, strictly speaking, part of her job as DCC Chief of the Watch to make routine repairs, but Silvetti had already learned to rely on her troubleshooting instincts, and the inexperienced third-class petty officer whose crew had caught the detail was likely to need a little nursemaiding.

Ginger couldn't fault Silvetti's logic, particularly since it let him designate her as a "casualty" and put Chief Sewell into her slot in DCC for the rest of the exercise. Engineering had made strides over the last few weeks but the department as a whole was still substandard and its people needed all the drills they could get. What Ginger did object to was that Randy Steilman was assigned to Impeller One, and she'd fully intended to obey Sally MacBride's orders to stay clear of him. Not because she agreed with them, but because they were orders.

"Howdy, Ginger." It was Bruce Maxwell, as newly promoted to senior chief as Ginger but ten years older and tough as a well seasoned tree stump. He was chief of the watch for Impeller One, and she didn't envy him a bit. Steilman was on Maxwell's watch, and even with his tough, no-nonsense attitude, that was enough to bring his crew's efficiency rating down a full ten percentage points. Not because Steilman didn't know his job, but because he had a constitutional objection to doing that job.

"Hi, Bruce," she replied, standing aside to clear the hatch for PO Jansen and his crew.

"Understand we've got a telemetry problem?" Maxwell raised an eyebrow as Jansen’s people clustered around the data links which drove DCC's repeater displays for Impeller One.

"Yeah." Ginger watched Jansen go to work. She had no intention of getting involved until and unless Jansen asked for help, and his people looked good as they set up portable work stands to hold their equipment and got right down to it. "Could just be a bad line plug," she told Maxwell, "but I doubt it. Something took out our readouts on all your odd-numbered nodes."

"Just the odd numbers?"

"Yep. That's the problem. They're all on the same primary link, but there're two separate secondaries, either of which should carry the load alone. Makes me think it's something to do with the monitoring system itself." She shook her head. "I wish Vulcan'd had time to do a compete refit on the drive rooms."

"You and me both," Maxwell agreed sourly. Naval designers were great believers in redundancy, and a Navy impeller room would have had two complete primary data links, which would have been as widely separated as possible to prevent a single hit from taking both out. Moreover, every line would have served a separate monitoring system, each totally independent of and isolated from all the others. Wayfarer's designers had seen no reason to include battle damage in their consideration of things which might go wrong, however. Her cost-conscious civilian ancestry showed all too clearly in her maintenance links in general, but especially here.

"If we're lucky, it's a minor hardware problem," Ginger said hopefully, "but if it's in the software..." She shrugged, and Maxwell nodded glumly, then shrugged.

"Well, wherever it is, I'm sure you'll find it," he said encouragingly, and turned back to his own duties.

A part of Ginger’s brain watched him move off towards the after end of the huge compartment, vanishing around the far side of a towering bank of generators, but most of her attention was on Jansen and his people. She stood to one side, ready to step in if he screwed up and available for advice if he wanted it, and gave a mental nod of approval as she watched his people. He had two of them checking the physical circuits, but his own focus was on the monitoring system itself, which meant he was thinking the same thing Ginger was.

Several minutes passed, and she drifted closer to watch Jansen's test screen over his shoulder. The third-class glanced up, then gave her a smile of mild triumph.

"Hardware checks out clean, Senior Chief," he reported. "Just one problem: none of these nice, functional systems are doing their jobs."

"And why do you suppose that is?" she asked.

"Well, given that all the hardware on the front end looks good, sensors and interfaces all check out at a hundred percent, and the CPU tests clean, too, it's got to be software-related. I'm interrogating the software now, but if I had to make a bet, I'd put five bucks on corruption of one of the primary execution files. It'd have to be something like that to take the whole system down. Only, if that's what it is, I can't figure out why none off the self-tests twanged back in DCC."

"Where’s the self-test software loaded?" Ginger asked.

"It's, Oh." Jansen grinned a bit sheepishly. "I keep forgetting this is a civilian design. It's right here, isn't it?"

"Right." Ginger nodded. "That's why I'm going to take your bet. My five bucks says the fault's either in the communications protocols or else that it's a hardware fault after all. If the data link is down, or if the intercom just isn't accepting command input, then the system got the message to come up and report to DCC in the first place, and..."

"... and if the monitoring system never came up, then the secondaries wouldn't do us a bit of good because they're output only," Jansen finished. "You're right. That would duplicate a dead computer, wouldn't it?"

"Why they pay me the big bucks now," Ginger told him, patting him on the shoulder with a grin. Jansen returned it and started to look back at his display, then jumped in alarm at the sudden, shocking clatter of metal on metal. Ginger's head whipped around, and her blue-gray eyes flashed as she saw the source of the sound. One of Jansen's techs sat on the deck, face clenched with pain while his left hand clutched his right to his chest, and his tool kit's contents had cascaded over the decksole around him, but that wasn't what lit the dangerous glitter in her eyes.

Randy Steilman stood looking down at the tech, shaking his head while an unpleasant smirk twisted his lips. He started to step away, and Ginger took two long strides towards him.

"Hold it right there, Steilman!" her voice cracked across the space between them, and he stopped, then turned with slow, unspoken insolence to face her. His eyes surveyed her with an insolent familiarity all their own, and he cocked an eyebrow.

"Yes, Senior Chief?" he asked with elaborate innocence, but she ignored him to look down at the injured electronics tech. Two of the young man's fingers were bloody, and one of them looked broken to her.

"What happened, Dempsey?"

"I-I don't know," the tech got out through gritted teeth. "I just reached for my kit, and..." He shrugged helplessly, and Ginger looked at the woman who'd been working with him.

"I don't know either, Senior Chief," she said. "I was watching the display. We needed a number-three spanner to get the cover off the next port, and Kirk reached for it, and then I heard it all hit the deck. By the time I looked up, it was all over."

"You still need me?" Steilman put in lazily. Ginger shot him a dangerous look, and he smiled back blandly. She bit down on a sharp remark, mindful of MacBride's orders, and stooped to examine Dempsey's work stand. One look was all it took: both legs at its right end had collapsed, and the locking lever swung loose to her touch.

She straightened slowly, and the fire in her eyes had gone cold as she turned to Steilman.

"I hope you still think this is funny in a few minutes," she told him in an icy voice.

"Me? Think it's funny? Now, why would I think anything like that?" he asked with another of those mocking smiles.

"Because I watched Dempsey and Brancusi set up myself, Steilman. I saw Dempsey lock those legs, and they sure as hell didn't unlock themselves on their own."

"What're you saying? You think I had something to do with this?" Steilman's smile had changed, and there was an ugly twist to his lips. "You're outa your fucking mind!"

"You're on report, Steilman," Ginger said coldly, and an even uglier light flared in his eyes.

"You're full of shit, Senior Chief," he sneered. "You can't prove I did shit to that stand."

"Maybe I can and maybe I can't," Ginger said flatly, "but at the moment, you're on report for insolence."

"Insolence?" Steilman said incredulously. "You got delusions of grandeur for a jumped up..."

"Say it and you're dog meat," Ginger snapped, and he paused, mouth gaping open in sheer surprise. Then his right hand clenched into his fist, and he started forward.

Ginger watched him come, not giving an inch. She watched the fist come up and willed it to strike, because the minute it did, Steilman's ass was hers. Striking a petty officer wasn't the capital offense striking an officer was, but it was close enough, and...

"Right there, Steilman!" a baritone voice barked, and Steilman froze. He turned his head, and his jaw clenched as he saw Bruce Maxwell bearing down on him. He looked back at Ginger, giving her a look filled with hate, and she swore silently. Why in hell had Bruce had to turn up at exactly the wrong moment?

"What the fuck d'you think you're doing?!" Maxwell snarled, and Steilman shrugged.

"Me and the Senior Chief were just having a little difference of opinion."

"Bullshit! Goddamn it, I have had it up to here with your crap, Steilman!"

"I didn't do nothing," Steilman insisted sullenly. "I was just standing here, and she jumped my ass over what one of her stupid fuckers did."

"Ginger?" Maxwell looked at her, and she looked back levelly.

"Call the Master-at-Arms," she said, the corner of her eye watching Steilman stiffen in the start of true uneasiness at last. "Steilman's on report for insolence, and I want this stand checked for prints."

"Prints?" Maxwell looked puzzled, and she smiled thinly.

"Somebody unlocked its legs to cause it to collapse. Now, it may have been one of my people, but I don't believe it for a minute. I think somebody else did it just for the fun of it, and I don't see anyone in this compartment in gloves, do you?"

"But..." Maxwell began, only to be cut off.

"It's not just a prank," Ginger said coldly. "Look at Dempsey’s hand. We've got personal injury here. That makes it an Article Fifty, and I want the ass of whoever did it."

Maxwell looked down at the sitting tech, and his face tightened as he took in the impossible angle of his ring finger. When he looked back at Steilman, his expression was bleak and cold, but it was Ginger he spoke to.

"You got it, Ging," he said flatly, and beckoned to another petty officer. "Jeff, go get Commander Tschu, then buzz Mr. Thomas."

"You sent for me, Ma'am?"

"Yes, I did, Rafe. Sit down, please." Honor turned from her contemplation of a bulkhead plaque with the image of a sailplane etched into its heat-warped golden alloy and pointed at the chair facing her desk in her day cabin. She waited until Cardones had seated himself, then folded her hands behind her and regarded him for a long, silent moment.

"What's this I hear about Wanderman?" she asked finally, coming to the point with characteristic bluntness, and Cardones sighed. He'd hoped she wouldn't hear about it until he'd managed to deal with it, but he should have known better. He'd never been able to figure out how she stayed so thoroughly abreast of the most minute happenings aboard her ship. He was certain MacGuiness was part of her network, and no doubt her Grayson armsmen were, as well, now that she had them. Yet he felt certain she would have managed the same thing without any of them.

"I'd intended to take care of it before bringing it to your attention, Ma'am," he said. It was never a good idea for an exec to prevaricate to his CO. At the same time, it was the exec's job to deal with things like this without involving his skipper. The authority of the captain of a Queen's ship was the ultimate sanction against the improper actions of any crew, and it was properly held in reserve until there was no option but to employ it. Once the captain became involved, there was no turning back from the full force of the Articles of War, and Cardones, like Honor, believed it was almost always better to salvage a situation than to call in the heavy artillery.

But sometimes there was no choice but to roll out the big guns, he thought glumly, and the desire to salvage what one could was no excuse for allowing an animal capable of assaulting his own crewmates to go unpunished.

"I appreciate your motives and your position, Rafe," Honor said now, seating herself behind her desk and cocking her chair back, "but I'm picking up some rumors I don't much care for... including some about an episode in Impeller One." Nimitz dropped from his perch to leap into her lap and sat upright, leaning back against her to regard the exec with his own grass-green gaze, and she rubbed his ears.

"I don't much care for them myself, Ma'am, but at the moment, we're stymied. As far as Wanderman's concerned, he's insisting he fell, and Tatsumi, the SBA who carried him into sickbay, claims he doesn't know anything about it." The exec held up his hands. "I think they're both lying... but they're both scared to death, too. Unless something changes, I don't believe either of them will come forward, and unless they do, we don't have an official leg to stand on."

"What does the Master-at-Arms say?"

"Thomas took some of his people and had a very close look at the site of the 'fall.' It wasn't hard to pinpoint, Wanderman bled a good bit. There's nothing in the area for him to have fallen over, and the blood spots are close to the bulkhead, which isn't exactly where someone moving down the middle of the passage would be likely to hit his face in a fall. None of that is conclusive, however, and Wanderman could have tripped over his own two feet if he was moving quickly enough."

"And his ribs?" Honor asked quietly.

"Again, unlikely but possible," Cardones sighed. "Angie and I have discussed ways a fall could have inflicted his injuries. We've even run computer models. I'd say it'd take a professional contortionist to manage most of the ways he could have done it, but you know how awkwardly people can land when they're not expecting to fall. My own belief, and that of the medical department, the Bosun, and the Master-at-Arms, is that someone beat him up. Speaking for myself and the Bosun, we think it was a power tech named Steilman, but we can't prove it. We also believe that whoever was beating on him was interrupted by Tatsumi’s arrival. I've considered trying to break Tatsumi down. He's got some serious black marks on his record, and I might be able to sweat the truth out of him, but Angie doesn't want me to. She says he's one of the best SBAs she's ever seen, and whatever his past record may've been like, he's kept his nose clean aboard Wayfarer and, apparently, on his last two deployments. If he's really rehabilitated, I don't want to undo what he's managed to put back together."

"And Impeller One?"

"Part of that one is crystal clear, Ma'am. There's no question about Steilman's insolence. There were over twenty witnesses. Some of 'em were slow speaking up, because they're scared of Steilman, I'd say, but they all support Senior Chief Lewis' version of what he said. The other part's not as clear, though. Lewis was smart to try, but Thomas' people couldn't get a clear set of prints off the work stand that collapsed. They managed to pull two partials that definitely don't belong to the people who were using it, but they're too smeared to say more than that. It's pretty clear somebody deliberately unlocked the legs so it fell, but we can't prove it was Steilman."

"But you think it was," Honor said flatly.

"Yes, Ma'am, I do. He's trouble with a capital 'T', and the fact that Wanderman won't identify him as the one who beat him up is only making him worse. That's one reason I thought so hard about sweating Tatsumi, but, like I say, if he's really put himself back together, we could end up washing out his career right along with Steilman's."

"Hmm." Honor swiveled her chair slowly back and forth, rubbing the tip of her nose, and frowned. "I don't want to do that either, Rafe... but I also won't tolerate this sort of thing. If the only way to get to the truth and put a stop to it is to sweat Tatsumi, we may not have a choice. He's only one person, and we've got an entire ship's company to think about."

"I know that, Ma'am, and if it comes to that, I'll do it. But given what's already happened to Wanderman and how frightened Tatsumi is, I'd also like to proceed cautiously." Cardones scratched an eyebrow, and his hawk-like face was uncharacteristically worried. "The problem is that we don't know everything that's going on. The Bosun and I both think Steilman’s behind it, but she's also picking up rumbles that he isn't acting alone. Even if we brigged him preemptively, we couldn't be sure one of his cronies wouldn't get to Tatsumi or Wanderman before they talked to us. I suppose we could put both of them in protective custody and keep them there until they decide to tell us, but I can't do the same thing with Lewis, and just locking up Wanderman and Tatsumi would constitute an escalation I'd like to avoid. In the short term, it would only point out that Steilman’s getting away with it for now."

Honor nodded, still rubbing the tip of her nose, then made herself sit back and folded her hands across Nimitz's soft, fluffy coat. Years of command experience kept her expression calm, but rage boiled deep inside her. She hated bullies, and she despised the sort of scum who could band together to create the kind of fear Cardones was describing. More than that, Steilman’s victims were members of her crew. She didn't know Kirk Dempsey, but she did know Wanderman, and she liked the youngster. Yet that was almost beside the point. It was the Navy's responsibility, and, aboard Wayfarer, that meant her responsibility, to see to it that things like this didn't happen and that people who tried to make them happen paid the price. But Cardones was right. As long as Wanderman and Tatsumi refused to name names and they couldn't prove Steilman had caused the "accident" in Impeller One, there were no official grounds for the only sort of action which was likely to call him to heel.

She gazed down at her blotter for two endless minutes of thought, then inhaled sharply.

"Do you want me to talk to Wanderman?"

"I don't know, Ma'am," Cardones said slowly. One thing the exec was certain of was that if any officer in Wayfarer could get Wanderman to open up, it was the captain. The lad idolized her, and he trusted her. He might just tell her who'd attacked him. But he might not, too. Not only was he scared half out of his mind, but by now he'd insisted on his "fall" in so many interviews that changing his story would be the same as admitting he'd lied, and Wanderman was young enough to feel the humiliation of that deeply.

"There's something else I'd like to try first, Ma'am," the exec said after a few seconds. Honor cocked an eyebrow at him, and he smiled thinly. "The Bosun's decided that what Wanderman may need is a little, ah, counseling," he said, "so she's asked Chief Harkness if he'd care to play mentor for the kid."

"Harkness?" Honor pursed her lips, and then she chuckled. There was something evil about the sound, and her almond eyes gleamed with chill delight. "I hadn't considered that," she admitted. "He would be a... reassuring presence, wouldn't he?"

"Yes, Ma'am. The only thing I'm a little worried about is his tendency to take direct action," Cardones replied, and Honor’s eyes flickered as she remembered a conversation in which Admiral White Haven had lectured her on the disadvantages of direct action. Still, there were times when that was precisely what a situation called for, and she trusted MacBride's and Harkness' judgment. Every commissioned officer knew who really ran the Queen's Navy, and she was more than willing to give her senior noncoms a little creative freedom of action.

"All right, Rafe," she said at length. "I'll leave that side with you and the Bosun for the moment, but we can hammer Steilman right now for the insolence charge. Captains Mast tomorrow for Mr. Steilman. We'll see how he likes being a power tech third-class, and I want a chance for a little talk with him. And I want an eye kept on Wanderman, and Tatsumi, for that matter. I don't want anything else happening to them before we get to the bottom of this. I'll stay out of it to give you, and Chief Harkness, some room to maneuver, but if Wanderman has any more trouble or anyone else 'falls down' or has an 'accident,' the gloves come off." She smiled grimly. "All the way off," she added softly.

"Well, well, kid. I see you're up and around again."

Aubrey Wanderman turned quickly, wincing with the pain in his knitting ribs, at the sound of the deep voice. The burly, battered looking senior chief in the open hatch wore the crossed missiles of a gunners mate. He was a big man, not as big as Steilman, but five centimeters taller than Aubrey, and he looked tough. Aubrey had seen him around, but he had no idea who he was... or, for that matter, why he'd come by sickbay.

"Uh, yes, Senior Chief...?" he said uncertainly.

"Harkness," the senior chief said, tapping the name patch on the right breast of his utility shipsuit. "I'm in Flight Ops."

"Oh." Aubrey nodded, but his confusion showed. He didn't know anyone in Flight Operations, but he knew the name "Harkness." The senior chiefs reputation was something of a legend, though rumor had it that he'd reformed of late. Yet Aubrey could think of no possible reason for Harkness to visit him.

"Yeah." Harkness sat on the unoccupied bed opposite the one Aubrey had spent the last two days in and grinned. "Understand you had a little accident, kid."

Being called "kid" by Harkness didn't offend Aubrey the way it did when other old sweats used the term, but he felt a familiar chill at the word "accident." So that was it. Harkness was here to try to get him to talk, and Aubrey felt his face stiffen.

"Yeah," he said, looking away. "I fell."

"Crap." The word came out without heat. In fact, Harkness sounded almost amused, and Aubrey felt a hot flush replace his earlier chill. It was hardly funny, after all! His eyes darted back to Harkness, bright with anger, but the senior chief simply gave him the lazy, confident grin of a Gryphon kodiak maximus or a Sphinx hexapuma, and Aubrey flushed darker.

Harkness let silence linger for several moments, then leaned back on his elbows, half reclining across the bed.