The rest of the day turned into a frantic swirl of activity as Paul huddled with Chief Imari to make sure everything important would be working well enough within two days, tried to plow through due-yesterday paperwork that had already been postponed to deal with other operational matters, and handled a sudden personnel emergency with Petty Officer Daniels when they got word both her parents had died in an accident back on Earth. The last thing he wanted to have to worry about at that moment was dealing with arranging emergency transport for her back to Earth for the funeral, but Paul also knew he didn't have any choice. Luckily, Commander Sykes had connections with the transport office and was able to get an unknowing officer bumped off the next shuttle home to make room for Daniels.
Sometime late in the day Paul realized he'd already worked into the early evening hours. He put in a hasty call to Jen, who peered blearily back him from the phone display. "Hi."
"Hi."
"Bad day. You know why."
"Yeah. Same here."
"Bye."
"Bye."
And then there was one day left.
"Bring in all lines." If Sonya Sindh was disappointed about taking the Michaelson out again, she didn't show any sign of it. "Bosun. Shift colors."
The familiar wavering whistle sounded as the bosun of the watch blew his pipe over the ship's general announcing system. "Underway. Shift colors."
They were heading out before the Maury, this time, which left Paul no leisure to watch Jen's ship. He focused all his attention on Lieutenant Sindh, acutely aware that her place on the watch team would soon be taken by Lieutenant Val Isakov. Isakov herself was strapped into an observer position near the back of the bridge, hopefully learning by watching. Paul stole a glance back that way, seeing Isakov looking around with an expression that might've described as either calm or unimpressed. She's supposed to be experienced. Qualified as an officer of the deck on the Isherwood. So Sonya Sindh had told him, anyway, since Isakov herself seemed totally uninterested in talking to Paul about anything. Not that I'm looking to be buddy-buddy with every officer I stand watches with. But I'm not looking forward to losing a great officer like Sonya, who I know I can depend upon, and getting an unknown quantity in return, supposedly qualified or not.
The pressure of the main drive and lateral forces of the thrusters finally died down, leaving Paul's stomach doing the usual flip-flops, though at least this time the period they'd spent under Franklin's sensation of constant gravity had been so short that readjusting to zero gravity shouldn't be too hard. Captain Hayes, looking a little haggard himself from all the work of the last few days, unstrapped. "Nice job."
"Captain's left the bridge!"
Sindh smiled at Paul. "Perhaps this was the last time I'll take the Merry Mike out."
He looked at the hatch where Captain Hayes had departed. "The captain's not feeling too hot. He usually says more than that."
"Yes. We need to tread a little lightly. Val." Sindh turned to look at her relief. "Any questions?"
Isakov smiled and shook her head. "Nope. Same class of ship, same layout, and it looks like she handles like the Ish-fish did."
"Paul's familiar with the ship, too. He can help with anything you need up here, since he'll be qualifying as an independent officer of the deck himself before long."
Isakov shifted her look to Paul for just a moment. "That's nice."
Sindh unstrapped. "Why don't we swap places so you can get a first hand feel for the watch station and get used to working with Paul."
The women switched seats. Isakov remained cool, but not off-putting, as she worked with Paul. He found himself feeling better about the imminent change in his watch team. Okay. If we can work together, that's all I need.
The watch relief went off easily, with nothing to do until they reached their positions near the border of SASAL-claimed space. Sam Yarrow scowled as Paul explained the moon-bounce messages which would provide brief, coded updates on the Maury. "What a lousy way of doing business. Prehistoric. Why don't we just toss out flares?"
"Taylor thought of it," Paul added, knowing Yarrow and she didn't get along.
"Figures," Smiling Sam mumbled. "Okay. I got it."
"I stand relieved. On the bridge, this is Lieutenant Sinclair. Lieutenant Yarrow has the conn."
"This is Lieutenant Yarrow. I have the conn." Sam leaned a little closer to Paul as he strapped in. "What's she like?"
"Who?"
"The new lieutenant. Who else?"
Paul thought about his reply. Anything he said which could even be remotely twisted to cause trouble would be dangerous to say to Yarrow, who had a nasty habit of repeating suitably embellished accounts of such conversations to his superiors. "She seems fine."
"Not bad looking, is she?"
"I hadn't noticed."
"What, not your type?"
Paul just shook his head and left the bridge. His stomach had decided that, even though nauseous from zero gravity, it still wanted more food than he'd wolfed down in the last couple of days.
Lunch in the wardroom was unusually quiet, with the junior officers worn out from the recent press of work. Commander Sykes shook his head with mock sorrow. "They don't make them like they used to. In my day you could work junior officers for, oh, weeks at a stretch before they started wearing out on you."
Kris Denaldo gave him an arch look. "Suppo, in your day they had to use junior officers to spell the rowers in the galleys."
Sykes nodded, still affecting sadness. "Ah, yes. The good old days of the wine-dark sea. I still have the calluses on my hands from the oars."
"A supply officer with calluses on his hands? That'll be the day."
Everyone laughed, while Sykes made a production out of bringing out his data pad and making some notes. He glanced up and saw he had their attention. "I'm just making some notes on what to serve the junior officers for dinner."
"Not those fake shark steaks, I hope," Paul noted.
"Sadly, no. There was a problem with the manufacturing facility, and we were advised to return all the steaks as they were unfit for human consumption."
Mike Bristol, the assistant supply officer, nodded. "Not that that's ever bothered us before, but this time they were officially unfit for human consumption."
Colleen Kilgary eyed the odd-looking meal before her. "One shudders to contemplate what it'd take to get something officially declared unfit to serve us, considering what we get most days."
As he nodded in agreement, Paul remembered an uncompleted task, so he followed Kilgary out of the wardroom when the meal was over. "Hey, Coll, I hadn't had a chance to tell you. I asked Jen about the new engineering stuff on the Maury. SARS?"
"SEERS. What's she think of it?"
"She said they can't tell, yet. Too much stuff in engineering still didn't work quite right after that yard period. Their Chief Engineer's not letting SEERS do much so far, because the Maury 's snipes are spending their time trying to manhandle it all back into shape."
Kilgary grinned. "Tweak. In the high-tech, ultra-modern Space Navy we tweak things in engineering. We may use a sledge hammer to do it, but we tweak."
Paul laughed. "Okay. I've seen the electricians tweak a few things by hitting them, so I guess it makes sense for snipes to work the same way. Jen said they'll probably let SEERS handle things this time out because they think they've got the engineering systems about where they should be."
"Well, thanks for asking. I didn't expect she'd have too much to tell me at this point."
"What's the thing do, anyway?"
"Run things." Kilgary rolled her eyes. "The systems on this ship are incredibly complex and because it's pretty much a closed environment anything one sub-system does affects all the other sub-systems. If you let a metal brain try to handle too much of it, it ends up mismanaging power loads because it gets caught in feedback loops."