Paul glanced up as Chief Imari tossed aside her headset. "You heard the announcement, folks. We're all dead."
I'm dead? "Really?"
Chief Imari looked at Paul, failed to conceal her reaction at his appearance, then shook her head. "No, sir. It's just part of the drill."
"Okay."
"Do you need some aspirin, sir?"
"How many have you got?"
Paul and the rest of the sailors in CIC spent the next hour lying on the deck pretending to be dead as survival-suited investigators, and then damage control teams, picked their way across the compartment. An occasional snore testified to some of the sailors taking advantage of the opportunity. Chief Imari's aspirin slowly brought Paul's pain level down to a tolerable level, and he managed to catch a few minutes of sleep himself.
All good things, of course, come to an end. "All hands secure from collision drill. Stand by for next event."
Chief Imari stood, stretched and roared at the sailors sprawled around CIC. "You heard the word! On your feet, you useless gaggle of neutrons."
Paul replaced his own headset, then called up the chief on a private circuit. "Neutrons, Chief?"
"Yes, sir, Mr. Sinclair. Neutrons got practically no mass."
It took Paul's still-hungover brain a moment to get it. "They're lightweights."
"Yes, sir."
"Thanks for the aspirin. I notice they've run drills in engineering, weapons and damage control so far. I bet we're next."
"I wouldn't be surprised, sir."
General quarters sounded once more, the bongs somehow penetrating the calming aspirin to hammer at Paul's head again. "This is a drill! Multiple contacts inbound."
Paul's console lit up with close to a hundred unknown contact markers, each on a different path and each radiating different information which had to be evaluated in order to guess at its identity. Oh, this is going to be ugly. "All right, everybody. I want a threat evaluation for all contacts based on current trajectories, then threat IDs for all contacts, then a threat hierarchy based on trajectory and probable ID. Don't depend on the targeting and tracking systems to get all that automatically. They're sure to have thrown in some curves that'll confuse the automated systems."
"You heard the lieutenant!" Chief Imari added, then she quickly divided up the tasks among the operations specialists.
The next fifteen minutes passed in a blur of activity. Paul tried to monitor everything his sailors were doing without trying to do their jobs for them. With all the information at his fingertips, it was entirely too easy to focus on the details of one small part of the job instead of keeping an eye on the big picture.
A majority of the contacts had been assigned identification when Operations Specialist Second Class Kaji called in. "Chief? I've got something funny here."
"Show me. Give the lieutenant a copy, too."
Paul frowned as his display focused on a small segment of the incoming contacts. "What's up, Kaji?"
"Sir, right here." Kaji highlighted an almost invisible contact. "It's very faint."
"What do you think, Chief?"
"I'd call it a system echo off the stronger contacts, sir. Except this is a simulation and they don't show echoes because the sims assume the systems work perfectly."
"Then what is it?"
Petty Officer Kaji spoke up. "It could be a warship, sir. With all masking systems operational."
Something clicked in Paul's memory. "It's a Pile On Maneuver."
Chief Imari sounded puzzled. "A what?"
"A Pile On Maneuver. It's a theoretical plan I got briefed on in one of my classes at the Academy. You shove a lot of debris toward your objective, then hide your own approach inside the apparently natural shower of space objects."
"Sir, how the hell would you get so much junk flying on the trajectories you need? That sounds cool in theory, but it doesn't sound very practical."
"That's why it's still a theoretical plan, Chief. But simulations don't have to worry about real-world practical considerations. I think Kaji's spotted the joker in this deck. Good job."
"Real good," Chief Imari agreed.
Paul tagged the faint contact with a 'possible warship, identity unknown' symbol, then called the bridge to verbally pass the information as well. The drill spun on for another thirty minutes of frantic activity before the screens displayed an "exercise completed" message. While Paul was still wondering how they'd done, the command circuit sounded with the voice of Captain Hayes. "Good job, Combat. You nailed that one."
Paul grinned at Chief Imari, who offered back a thumbs-up, while the enlisted trackers exchanged high fives.
After another hour of hearing drills being run elsewhere on the ship, the euphoria of doing well had faded for Paul. Man, there's so much else I could be doing right now, but I don't dare try in case Kwan or Garcia is checking our terminals to see what we're up to. How long are we going to have to stay at general quarters?
His headset sounded again. "Paul? Kris."
"Here. You sound better."
"I had to either get better or die. Thank God for aspirin. Have you seen Lieutenant Silver?"
"Who?"
"Lieutenant Silver. He's Carl Meadows' relief, remember?"
"Oh, yeah. No, I haven't seen him. Why would he be up here?"
"I don't know. But he's not anyplace else. Surely he reported onboard this morning."
"Why not try the quarterdeck? It's still crewed."
A brief pause followed. "Duh. I guess my brain's not working all that well, yet. Wait one." Paul waited, a task made easier by the fact he had nothing else he could do at the moment. "Okay. Chief Hadasa is officer of the deck inport. Lieutenant Silver showed up about half an hour after the fast cruise started. Since the brow had been sealed except for emergencies, they had to tell him to leave and come back later."
Paul found himself laughing. "Lieutenant Silver certainly has a remarkable sense of timing."
"You can say that again. At this rate, he and Carl may never meet. See you at lunch. If general quarters is secured by then. Maybe we'll have to eat battle rations at our combat stations."
"Ugh. Good thing Sykes got rid of the oldest rations."
"Do you really think that'll make any difference in how they taste? Later."
A weary half-hour later, the bosun mate passed the welcome word to secure from general quarters. A small cheer erupted in Combat. Paul took off his headset, rubbed one ear where the headset had rubbed it, then looked around at his division. "Good job, people."
Chief Imari nodded. "Thank you, sir. Now that drills are over we can get back to work." The other enlisted groaned at her words. "But I guess we can let 'em eat lunch first."
"Careful, Chief. You'll spoil them." A chorus of playful protests followed Paul as he headed for his own stateroom. He wasn't sure how he looked after hurriedly throwing on his uniform this morning, but he couldn't imagine it was all that great. I'd better make sure I look halfway decent before I run into Kwan or Hayes.
Chapter Five
"Hey, Paul!"
Paul turned, puzzled by the hail since he didn't recognize the voice. A tall, lanky lieutenant stood at the other end of the passageway, Carl Meadows at his side. Carl beckoned and Paul walked toward them. "This is Lieutenant Silver, Paul."
"Hi." Silver flashed a big smile and extended his hand. "Call me Scott. You're another ring-knocker from the Academy, right?"
"Yup. Nice to see you, Scott."
"Oh, I bet you're not half as happy to see me as Carl was. It seemed like I couldn't get on this ship!"
Carl nodded. "It's a real short turnover. We only have a couple of days left."