A SHIP NAMED FRANCIS by John Ringo & Victor Mitchell
CHAPTER ONE
SIBERIA IS A CONCEPT



Sean Tyler tapped on the open door to the sickbay and entered at
a grunt from within.

Tyler was just pushing twenty-three T-years and was on the
beginning of his second hitch with the Manticoran Navy. He was
dark complected and stood a bit under normal height for a
Manticoran, both of which would help him blend with his new
Grayson crewmates. On the other hand, he seemed nearly as
broad as he was tall, a situation of being "big boned" rather than
massive. He had been assigned to the superdreadnought Victory
until his sudden, unexpected and late in the "day" departure for his
new assignment.

A chief warrant officer in his thirties, short and dark as most
Graysons were, with a lean, gray face, was sitting at a desk staring
at a pad as if the message on it might leap out of the screen and
bite.

"Sick Berth Attendant Third Class Sean Tyler reporting for duty!"
Sean said, snapping to attention and throwing a parade ground
salute. He was mildly surprised to find the warrant still on duty; it
was nearly 2400 hours, ship time.

The warrant tossed the pad on his desk and made a gesture
towards his forehead that might graciously have been considered a
salute and waved at a chair.

"Welcome, my friend, welcome to the Francis Mueller," the officer
replied. "Grab a seat. I'll be with you in a minute."

Sean sat down and looked around at what was his new home, for
however long he was going to be stuck here. His first impression
was that the sickbay was small, less than a quarter of the size of
the main sickbay on the Victory-class superdreadnought that had
been his first assignment. It was even smaller than the three
secondary sickbays scattered throughout that massive ship. On the
other hand, the complement of the heavy cruiser Francis Mueller
was less than a tenth the complement on the SD.

Not only was the Francis smaller than the SD, it was far older;
indeed the class was among the oldest designs in the Alliance
fleet. Although it was already obsolete, the ship had been sent to
Grayson early in the current war against the Peeps. At the time it
was one of the most powerful ships in that planet's fleet. Now,
though, between the large number of converted Peep SDs,
captured at First and Second Yeltsin, and the new Grayson SDs
and cruisers that were starting to flow out of the yards, it was again
in the position of being an outmoded and under-armed relic.

Furthermore, it looked it. No matter how many times a ship was
sent into the yards for overhaul, no matter how thoroughly that
overhaul was done, the ship always showed its age. It was
apparent in the little patches of mold that crept out from bulkhead
corners, in the worn spots on corners, even in the design of bunks,
tables and other fittings, which had changed subtly over the years
of war.

So there was a reason Tyler had a sour expression when the
warrant finally tossed the pad on his desk.

"You don't look happy, SBA," the warrant said, pulling open a
bottom drawer on his desk and extracting a half-filled, flaccid
bladder of unidentified liquid. He squirted a generous measure into
a mug of tea on the desk then waved it at Tyler. "Medicinal belt?"

"No, Sir, thank you, Sir," Sean replied, wondering if the clear liquid
was anything other than water. Then the smell hit him.

"Chief Warrant Officer Robert Kearns," the warrant continued,
putting the bladder away. "I'm the physician's assistant on this tub.
You may call me Doc."

"Yes, Sir," Sean said.

"Did you get stowed away? Got a locker, bunk, all that stuff?"

"Yes, Sir. The Bosun met us and assigned us quarters."

"Good, good," the warrant replied. "Where'd they ship you in from?
You're Manticoran, right?"

"Yes, Sir," Tyler said.

"Wanted to come slum with the religious nuts?"

"No, Sir," the SBA replied. "I had applied for a transfer to the
Grayson service nearly a year ago. It's considered a good move
promotion-wise, working with other Alliance forces."

"Uh, huh," the warrant said. "So, you're telling me you volunteered
for the Francis Mueller?"

"Well, I volunteered for Grayson service and there was a priority
opening on the Mueller, Sir, so here I am." He looked around, then
decided to take a chance. "I made a serious mistake, didn't I?"

"Yup," the medic replied, taking a pull off of his reinforced tea.
"You ever have to trank anybody on your previous ship?"

"Once," Tyler replied. "Is that . . . a particular problem?"

"We get about one trank call a week," the warrant admitted.
"Sometimes more on bad weeks. What we do then is put 'em in a
jacket and tie 'em to their bunk. When they come around we try to
decide if it was temporary or permanent. If they talk nice, we let
'em out. If they don't, we leave them in confinement until we can
get a transship to a safe ground area."

"One a week?" Sean gasped. In his six months on the Victory
there had been a total of four people who had succumbed to
"situational stress disorder" or "the bug" as most people called it.
"And you've still got a crew at all?"

"We've got guys on this ship, I swear, are addicted to trank. Kopp,
he's a missile tech, he's been tranked about six times. Cooper in
Engineering, it's about once a month, like clockwork. Heck, the
reason you were a priority replacement is that the other two SBAs
were both medical evacs. If the timing had been different you
would have met your predecessor on the way over; we
transshipped him to the Victory."

"Weird," Sean said. "Any particular reason?"

"Oh," the warrant said with a slight catch in his voice, "I think you'll
come to a few conclusions over time."



"Now hear this! Now hear this! Morning prayers! All hands not on
watch, uncover for morning prayers!"

Sean hadn't had a chance to meet any of his fellow compartment
sharers last night; they were all on second watch and had racked
out by the time he entered the compartment. Now, as the lights
came up and the other three stood up and clasped their hands, he
wondered what to do.

Being a Manticoran, he was not a member of the Church of
Humanity Unchained, so he was under no obligation to join in the
morning prayers. But getting up and getting ready for the day
wasn't exactly a good idea, either. So he figured he'd just bow his
head and sit through it. How long could it take?

"Tester," a nasally voice said over the enunciator, "spare us this
day from your Tests.

    "Please, Tester, don't let any of the airlocks blow out. Let the
    environmental system, old as it is, shudder though another day
    of labor. Please, Tester, let the water recyclers make it through a
    few more days, even though Engineering says they're just about
    shot. Tester, please see fit to keep Fusion Two from terminally
    overloading and blowing us all into Your arms; we love you but
    we want to see our families again some day.


    "Please, Tester, if you could maybe see clear to keeping the
    compensator on-line? If we don't have the compensator, we
    can't make our acceleration back home, and we'll drift in space,
    a derelict, until the systems begin to fail and the power runs out
    and the air gets foul and we all start eating each other . . ."

It continued in the same vein for a good fifteen minutes as the
quavering voice slowly worked its way through every imaginable
disaster scenario.

Spaceships were, inherently, disasters waiting to happen. It was
one of the main reasons that "the bug" was a problem; any
reasonably intelligent individual dealt with a certain amount of
"apprehension," as it was politely termed, as soon as he was out of
the atmosphere. Vacuum is very unforgiving stuff and even the
most advanced technologies could not make space truly safe.

But most people were polite enough not to mention that in public.
Much less broadcast it, in detail, over the enunciator.

He began to see why people tended to flip out on the Francis
Mueller. And he wondered, as he was getting dressed in the
crowded but mostly silent compartment, how much worse it could
get.



"What do you mean we're lost?"

Warrant Officer Kearns had just brought Tyler to the bridge to meet
the captain. The first words out of his new commander's mouth
were not ones to settle Sean's . . . apprehension.

Captain Zemet was incredibly handsome, with high cheekbones,
an aquiline nose and a chin that you could use to crack walnuts. He
probably could have been a holovid star with one exception; he
was short, even by Grayson standards. On Manticore the word
"dwarf" might have been used. He was looking up at the not much
taller lieutenant with an expression of absolute perplexity on his
face.

"We're not lost, Sir," the lieutenant standing braced in front of the
captain replied. "We just appear to be . . . off course."

"Do you know why?" the captain asked.

"Not yet, Sir," the lieutenant said. "We appear to have suffered a
change in course due to a . . . gravitational anomaly."

"Gravitational anomaly?" the captain replied.

"Yes, Sir," the sweating lieutenant replied.

"We're lost." The speaker was a tall man by Grayson standards,
with a pale complexion and a thin, ascetic face. He was dressed
entirely in black. Either Death had decided to visit the Francis
Mueller, a possibility that had some validity all things considered, or
Sean was in the presence of the ship's chaplain.

"We're lost, wandering helpless in the depths of space!" the
chaplain said. It was the same reedy voice from morning prayers.

"We're not lost, Chaplain Olds," the captain said. "We simply have
to make a course correction. How much of a course correction?"
he asked the astrogator.

"We're still computing that, Sir," the lieutenant replied. "But we're at
least a hundred and twenty thousand kilometers off base course."

"Good Tester," the captain swore. "It occurs to me that we made a
close pass by Blackbird Six. You did figure that into your
equations, didn't you, Astro?"

"Err," the lieutenant hesitated. "Let me check my notes."

"You didn't, did you?" the captain said. "It suddenly occurs to me
that if you didn't figure it into your calculations, you probably also
didn't consider that it was out there, did you? It crosses my mind
that you didn't mention that we were doing a close pass until
Tactical picked up the moon on lidar at under sixty-three thousand
kilometers. I remember thinking that was cutting it a bit close, all
things considered."

"I'm . . . not sure, Sir," the lieutenant said.

"Sweet Tester!" the chaplain exclaimed. "In my wildest nightmares,
I never considered that we could slam unthinking into a celestial
body! The ship would be strewn across its surface! Unless we
noticed in time and sent out a distress call, we would be lost for all
time! No one would ever find the wreckage! We would die, lost and
alone, our bodies and souls left to drift helplessly in the depths of
space!"

"Tomorrow's gonna be a doozy," the warrant muttered under his
breath.

"Sir." The speaker was a short—how else—broad, lieutenant
commander, presumably the XO. Tyler hadn't seen him arrive, he
had just appeared out of nowhere as if teleported in. "There are
penalties in the rules for court-martial regarding failure to perform
prescribed duties and placing a ship in unnecessary hazard. We
could convene a summary court and have the Astrogator spaced."

"I don't think that will be necessary, XO," the captain said
helplessly. "Chaplain, why don't you go tend to your flock? Or
maybe say a few private prayers for our well-being in your cabin.
Astro, go punch in the gravitational pull of Blackbird Six and see if
that works." He turned to Tyler and the warrant and gave them both
a brilliant smile. "I take it this is the new medic?"

"Captain Zemet, Sick Berth Attendant Tyler," the warrant said.
"Late of the Manticoran Navy."

"Good to meet you, Taylor," the captain said, holding out his hand.
"You've joined the best ship in the Grayson Navy and, I think, the
best in the Alliance. I'm sure you'll fit in well. All you have to do is
give me one hundred percent of your abilities."

"Yes, Sir," Sean replied, wondering if a little 120,000 kilometer
course error, not to mention forgetting that you were doing a close
pass of a celestial body, was one hundred percent of the
astrogator's abilities. The scary part was that it seemed to be. "I'll
try to do my best. And it's Tyler, Sir."

"Glad to hear it, Taylor," the captain said. "Give him the tour of the
ship, Chief. I've got a few things on my plate at the moment."

"Yes, Sir," the warrant replied.

"Good meeting you, Taylor," the captain said. "Glad to have you
aboard."



It appeared that the chief chose to skip the instructional walk-
around as he led Tyler back to the sickbay.

Doc flopped into his chair and opened up the bottom drawer,
pouring a shot into his tea again.

"So, what's your impression so far?" he asked, taking a sip.

"You only lose one guy a week?" Sean said with a quivering laugh.

"You noticed," the warrant said, lifting the bladder. "Medicinal belt?"

"Not yet," Tyler said, deeply tempted. "Is it just me, or is everyone
on this vessel insane?"

"Certainly the entire chain of command," the warrant replied, taking
another sip. "You haven't even met the Chief Engineer, who at
least is competent."

"And . . . the Chaplain?" Sean asked, carefully.

"Chaplains, by law, have the run of the ship and are an entity to
themselves," Doc replied with a grimace. "In the case of Chaplain
Olds, he has two problems: an overactive imagination, and
insomnia. I can't do anything about the former but I've tried to
prescribe sleeping pills. No luck, he considers them to be a Devil's
Brew. So he lies awake all ship's night, imagining all the horrible
things that can, and very occasionally do, go wrong on the ship.
He's also . . . egged on by some of the ship's company that have
more of a sense of humor than common sense. Ribart, down in
Engineering, is forever coming up with new things that 'need your
prayers, Chaplain.' I've considered just tranking Ribart to get him
off the ship, but that seems over the top. Then there's the
automatic deference to chaplains that is instilled in Grayson at the
bone."

"I'll admit that after the morning prayer I'm a little . . . apprehensive.
And I've never considered that an astrogator might just forget that
there is a planet around. But I still think that what the Chaplain
needs is a good lay; he seems really uptight."

The chief grimaced and Sean realized what he'd said.

"I hadn't meant to impugn your faith, Chief . . ." Tyler said formally.

"Oh, it's not that," the warrant replied wearily. "You weren't here for
the infamous STD incident." Doc took a healthy slug of his tea and
then poured a straight-up refill.

"STD?" Tyler said. "I'm not sure what that stands for."

"Sexually transmitted disease," the warrant said dryly. "I'm aware
that they've been wiped out among the Manticorans, but they do
occasionally crop up in Silesia. We had a little . . . incident on our
last cruise that way. Let's just say the Chaplain was not one of
those who did not contract it."

Tyler looked at him questioningly and the warrant shrugged.

"Long story. Stupid story. Maybe some other time."

The chief took another sip, obviously gathering his thoughts.

"It's like this—you know the Grayson Navy has expanded nearly
fifty fold since we joined the Alliance?"

"I'm aware of that, Sir," Tyler said. "Is that part of it?"

"That's most of it," Doc replied. "Whenever you do that fast of an
expansion, you get people who rise beyond their level of
competence. When that is realized, if nobody gets killed by it, you
have a few choices. You can demote the person, which requires a
lot of paperwork and time by competent authorities, time which is in
short supply. Or you can shuffle them off where they aren't going to
be much of a bother. Are you getting my drift?"

"Oh." Sean started to open his mouth and then closed it.

"And, yes," the warrant said dryly, raising his cup, "I'm included in
that bunch. Whatever my competence as a doc, I've . . . got a bit of
a drinking problem. So here I am, exiled to Siberia."

"Well," Tyler said with a laugh, "at least the Exec has a sense of
humor."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," Tyler said, grinning, "when he said they should court-martial
the navigation officer and sp—" He stopped when he saw the
warrant officer's face. "He was joking, right?"

"Nope," the medic said, pulling out the bladder and taking a squirt
from the neck. "Welcome to Siberia, friend."

"I think I'll have that drink now," Tyler said weakly.

CHAPTER TWO
THE CONSOLATIONS OF FAITH



    "Tester, spare us this day from your Tests.


    "Please don't let us slam into any celestial bodies, our souls to
    drift helplessly through the deeps of space as our families
    wonder what disaster has overtaken us and left us, Tester,
    bereft and alone, among the stars . . .

    * * *

    "Tester, spare us this day from your Tests.


    "It's been three days now, Tester, and Astrogation is still trying
    to figure out where we are. If you could maybe see the way
    clear, Tester, to giving them a hint how to find our way back to
    Grayson before the air runs out or the environmental systems fail
    or one of the shuddering fusion reactors explodes, spreading
    our constituent atoms among the stars . . .



    "Tester, spare us this day from your Tests.


    "Tester, I understand that one of the beta nodes is looking pretty
    bad. If we lose it, Tester, please don't blast out the whole bank.
    We still don't know exactly where Grayson is, Tester, and we
    won't be able to send out a distress call that will be picked up
    unless we can send it in their direction. We don't want to die,
    Tester, drifting through the empty blackness of the Heavens, our
    bodies shriveled by vacuum, fighting like rabid dogs, Tester,
    over the compartments that still have air . . .

CHAPTER THREE
REACTIONS AND ALARUMS



Tyler was just stooging through the bridge, on his way to the
missile tech's quarters where there were reports of illicit gambling
being conducted, when the alarm went off.

The captain was on the bridge three seconds after the alarm
started, in a crouch, looking as if he didn't know which way to run.

"Is that the reactor alarm?!" the captain yelled.

"You're the Captain," Tyler said quietly, putting his hand over his
eyes and mentally kissing his butt goodbye. "You don't know?"

"Fusion Two is in alarm!" the engineering watch PO said. "But
there's no sign of the fault on my screens."

"Prepare to jettison!" the captain yelled as the alarm shut off. "Or
not." He cursed luridly and hit the button for Fusion Two.

"Two! What in the Sweet Merciful Tester's name is going on?!"

"Uh, sorry about that," the talker replied. "Kowalski dropped his
coffee mug on the alarm switch."

"Sir."

"AH!"

The XO had just appeared behind the CO again, causing the
already somewhat overwrought captain to nearly jump out of his
skin. One of these days, Tyler was going to see the XO actually
walk. So far, he appeared to travel by telekinesis. "I recommend
that we convene a summary court and space Spaceman Kowalski."

"I don't think that will be necessary, Exec," the captain panted.
"Tempting . . . but no. We'll talk about a Captain's Mast tomorrow.
For now, I'm going to go to my cabin and change my shorts. Make
that a general order."

"Medic to the missile compartment," the enunciator called. "Bring
your syringe."

Tyler left the bridge shaking his head.

"He didn't know if it was the reactor alarm or not," he said, giggling
helplessly. "He's the captain, and he didn't know. Hah-hah. Hah-
hah, hee. Uhn hah, Oh My God . . ."



"Tester, spare us this day from your Tests . . ."

CHAPTER FOUR
THE POTATO SACK INCIDENT



By the fourth day on the Francis Mueller, Tyler had taken to
carrying a tranquilizer injector with him at all times. He wasn't sure if
that was to use it on other crewmen, or himself.

But he had it, and a straitjacket, with him when he was called to the
bridge on second Day Watch.

"Taylor, you need to sedate Petty Officer Kyle," the captain said,
pointing to a PO in the tactical section. The petty officer was
rocking in his chair, playing with himself.

"Hah, hah! Planet! Missed the planet! Hah, hah," Petty Officer Kyle
was clearly enjoying himself.

"Yes, Sir," Tyler said, walking over and hitting the PO in the
shoulder with the injector. The sedative worked quickly and in a few
moments the petty officer slid bonelessly out of his chair and hit
the deck with a thump.

"Sir," the XO said, appearing again behind the captain.

"AAAH! Sweet Merciful Tester, Greene, wear a bell on your boot or
something."

"Yes, sir," the XO replied, seriously. "Sir, I think that PO Kyle
needs to go before the Mast."

"I don't," the captain replied. "He was clearly driven around the
bend by Lieutenant Wilson's announcement that the fault in his
calculations was that he forgot to account for Blackbird's mass as
well as all of her moons! It turns out that if we hadn't had that forty
minute delay when we were trying to get the course adjusted on
the way in, we would have hit the planet."

Tyler unfolded the straitjacket and started to load the tactical PO in
as he kept one ear on the conversation behind him.

"Well, at least we know where we are, Sir," Lieutenant Wilson said.
"And I've got a course laid in for Grayson."

"Are you sure?" the captain asked. "And are you sure there's
nothing in the way?"

"Yes, Sir," the communication officer said. "We sent a ping to
them. They replied asking where we've been for the last few days."

"I think the best response was that we were lying doggo, under
communications silence, in case anyone was trying to sneak into
the system," the captain said, rubbing his chin. "The less
mentioned about the last week, the better."

"Masterful response, sir," the XO said. "Com, fire that off right
away."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

"We've got two weeks before we're due in the yards," the captain
said. "We're supposed to be doing workups, but with the crew in
the shape it is, I don't think that's a good idea. We're already as
worked up as any crew I've ever seen."

"We can do them, Sir," the XO protested. "All the crew needs is a
little firm discipline. If you'd just see your way clear to giving me a
free hand . . ."

"We don't have any thumbscrews, Greene," the captain said,
shaking his head. "No, what they need is some down time: a day
off. Bosun!"

"Yes, Sir?" The senior enlisted person on the ship was heavyset,
with thinning hair and a bulbous, red nose that indicated he
probably was in Siberia for the same reason as Doc Kearns.

"Adjust Axial One to a forty-five degree, one gee, gravitational
cone," the captain snapped. He keyed the enunciator and cleared
his throat. "All off duty watch, report to Axial One, and BREAK OUT
THE POTATO SACKS!"



Axial One was a large "tube" running down the spine of the ship.
Normally, it was set to low gravity and used for movement of
personnel and equipment. Under the low G personnel could move
materials quickly and efficiently. Or, alternatively, crewmen who
thought they were "salty" could move like a bat out of hell down the
tube, bounding along under the .2 G field at speeds of up to forty
kilometers per hour or moving huge loads like missiles or pallets of
explosive bolts at only somewhat slower velocities.

Of course, the law of conservation of mass applied, so all those
salty crewmen eventually had to decelerate or dodge other
crewmen who were moving down the corridor at speeds far in
excess of sense. And since the human eye and mind are not
designed to calculate automatically what is "too fast" a closing
speed, quite a few of those crewmen ended up impacting on
some other sailor, or his large and occasionally deadly load,
sometimes at closing speeds that would do for a small air-car
wreck.

Axial One produced about fifteen percent of the total "incidental
casualties" on the ship.

Of course, "speeds in excess of forty kilometers per hour" had
never made it into official reports, even in the Manticoran service. It
would take a real jerk, like Hard-Ass Harrington or somebody, to
report what actually went on in Axial One, but for some strange
reason newer ships didn't have anything like it. Of course, BuShips
said that was because Axial One was a structural danger. On the
other hand, the admirals at BuShips had served on the companion
ships of the Francis Mueller. It was a statistical likelihood
approaching certainty that some of them had been involved in an
"incidental casualty" report. Which was a much better explanation
for removing Axial One, in Sean's medical opinion, than "structural
anomalies."

Sean considered all this gloomily as he looked "up" the corridor
towards the bow of the ship and wondered if it was one of those
idiots who had invented Potato-Sack Tobogganing.

The "floor" of the circular corridor was normally scratched and
scuffed alloy. But one strip of it, a U-shaped section about twenty
meters across the chord and the full length of the corridor, had
been quickly polished and waxed. At the same time, the
gravitational pull in the corridor had been set to a forty-five degree
"cone." That is, instead of pulling straight "down" or towards the
exterior of the ship, the artificial gravity was pulling "sideways" at a
forty-five degree angle. Combined with the slickness of the waxed
portion, the tendency was to cause a person to slip, and keep
slipping. Towards the after end of the corridor the gravity had been
adjusted in the other direction. It was an artificial hillside with a
catchment at the base.

"Down" which a succession of screaming spacers were now
sliding at, literally, break-neck speed.

The potato sacks on which they slid were of a strange, rough
material that had been identified for Tyler as "burlap." They were
not, apparently, used for carrying potatoes anymore but were kept
for the sole purpose of this highly idiotic sport. They also stank to
high heaven. The nature of the "sport" tended to cause flatulence
and storing them between times was best described as
"marinating"; they smelled worse than any latrine Sean had ever
encountered. But this was supposedly "fun."

At the bow end of the corridor the captain could faintly be seen,
holding onto a stanchion and shouting encouragement. He was
apparently a big advocate of "crew quality time" and considered it
team-building for everyone in the ship's company to risk their
necks in a suicidal game of "find the nearest stanchion with my
head."

Now Sean crouched in a small aid station set off the corridor
(BuShips was slow, not stupid) and watched as sailor after sailor
slid past on fecal-smelling bags—some yelling, others with
expressions of quiet, fear-filled, desperation—and considered his
orders from the warrant.

"When somebody gets hurt in your area, triage them. If they're just
contused or have a surface cut or abrasion, slap a dressing on it
and send them on. If they break a bone immobilize it, give 'em a
shot to keep 'em quiet and hold them at the station; we'll set them
all later. If they sustain a head-wound or spinal damage, send them
down to me."

"You mean if somebody gets hurt."

"No, I mean when."

He currently had four of the crew stretched out at the back of the
aid station, two with broken legs, one with a broken wrist and one
with multiple breaks and contusions. The reason for the damage
became apparent as he watched the next contestant.

One of the crew, Kopp, one of the senior missile techs, was just
starting down the artificial "slope." He was one of the "face frozen
in determination" crowd and it was well earned. Kopp had a
reputation for being a hard-luck case, so naturally he didn't make it
all the way to the braking field. Instead, he tried to fit in and "surf."

Although the corridor was curved, the artificial gravity drew on it
equally across the surface so it "felt" flat. What that meant was that
using the weight of the buttocks it was possible, with care and skill,
to slide back and forth on the waxed portion and "slalom" down the
corridor. The operative words were "care" and "skill." Failure to use
either sent the tobogganer into what pilots euphemistically refer to
as an "out of control" situation.

Kopp only made it about a third of the way down before he lost it.
He had just started to slalom when he went too far to the side and
hit the unwaxed portion. This slowed his left buttock abruptly and
following the laws of Newtonian physics his right buttock, and most
of the rest of his body, continued in the direction they were going.
This, first, induced flatulence, as his anus responded to the
conflicting forces, then a scream as the first pain hit, and last a
pinwheeling figure, bouncing down the corridor, his potato sack
spinning off in one direction and his shrieking body, spinning
faster, in another.

The yelling stopped, or at least changed tone to low groans, as he
hit the coaming of one of the corridor exits. Tyler worked his way
out of the first-aid station and laboriously climbed "up" the gravity
well on the unwaxed portion, dragging two bags of supplies with
him, until he reached the injured missile tech.

Kopp was holding on to the coaming with one hand while cradling
the other arm and trying to tilt his head to keep blood from pouring
into his eyes.

Tyler felt his cradled arm and shook his head at an in-drawn breath.
"Broken, probably a green-stick fracture." He slapped a bandage
on the bleeding head wound, attached a splint to the arm and put
on a cervical collar for good measure.

"HE'S GOING TO BE OKAY!" he yelled up to the captain.

"NOT WHEN I GET AHOLD OF HIM!" the captain bellowed back.
"WHAT KIND OF A SHOWING WAS THAT, KOPP?!"
* * *

"This is the quality of sailor we get these days!" the captain
grumped.

"Sir," the exec said, apporting in behind him. "There are
Regulations governing making oneself unavailable for duty through
negligence."

"I'm not going to Captain's Mast Kopp for wiping out," the captain
replied, stepping down off his perch and leaning sideways against
the gradient. "But what this crew needs is a lesson in how to ride
potato sacks. Not enough veterans in this crew, not enough
instructors. It's up to the officers to pick up the slack!"

"Uh, Captain," the bosun said uncomfortably as the commander
held out his hand for one of the sacks.

"It's up to us to set an example, Boats," Zemet said, snatching the
square of cloth out of his resisting hand. "PREPARE FOR A
DEMONSTRATION OF HOW TO RIDE A POTATO SACK!" the
captain yelled. "PREPARE TO WATCH . . . A PROFESSIONAL!"



"Well, Astro is pretty sure we're on course for Grayson, but we got
so well lost first that it's a four day run." Doc dropped into his chair
and pulled out his bladder of whiskey, holding it away from his
mouth and taking a hard squirt out of the neck. "How's the
Captain?" he coughed.

"He's breathing," Sean replied. "Just looks like a standard coma,
no evidence of subdural cerebral hematoma."

"Can you just say 'brain bruise' for Tester's Sake?" the warrant
grunted. "Four days under the Exec."

There didn't seem to be much else to be said.



"Bosun," the XO said, standing on the bridge looking at the
navigational readouts, "we have a problem."

"Yes, Sir?" the Bosun said, faintly.

"That problem," the XO intoned, "is slackness."

"Yes, Sir."

"The Captain scheduled his little game in the interests of jollying
people up, but the root problem was slackness. They've all been
slacking. Well, we're not going to have any slackness when I'm in
command."

"No, Sir."

"I've got a work-up schedule," the XO continued, turning to face the
NCO. Deep in his eyes, a little fire seemed to burn. As far as the
Bosun was concerned, it was burning his retirement papers. "And
we're all going to follow it. To the letter." He turned back to
contemplating the Astro display.

"Yes, Sir," the Bosun replied.

"We're not going to have any slackness," the XO repeated. "We'll
show the fleet that slackness doesn't happen on the Francis
Mueller. Whatever it takes."

"But, Sir," the bosun said, regretting the words even before they
left his mouth, "we don't have any thumbscrews."

"That, Bosun," the XO replied in a low, mad whisper, "is why they
give us machine shops!"



"Tester, spare us this day from your Tests. It's been nearly a day,
Tester, with the Captain in a coma, and the Exec is preparing
capital charges for a quarter of the crew. Based on simple
statistics, Tester, no one is going to be alive when we reach
Grayson. The ship will be a tomb, drifting helplessly in the grip of
gravity wells and the solar wind . . ."



"Doc, I've got a problem," the bosun said, slipping into the sickbay
after a cautious look around.

"Don't we all," the medic snapped, looking up from the captain's
recumbent figure.

"I don't suppose the dwarf's come around yet?"

"No," Kearns replied.

The bosun looked up as Tyler slid through the door.

"I'm not going out there," Tyler said. "It's a zoo."

"The crew's ready to mutiny," the bosun went on. "They agree with
the Chaplain; if we let the Exec get away with spacing a quarter of
us every day, there won't be any of us left by the time we get to
Grayson."

"That's an ugly word," Doc said. "Mutiny."

"Yeah, but it's better than 'explosive decompression,' " Sean
pointed out.

"That's not a word, it's a phrase," Doc replied.

"They're both going to be phrases we'll all get accustomed to if we
don't figure something out!" the bosun muttered.

"Well, Manticore doesn't generally use the death penalty," Tyler
pointed out, rubbing his chin in thought. "And if they do, they
generally wait until the ship gets to a major port where a court-
martial can take place with due process. Why not try to . . . Never
mind."

"Yeah, he'd never go for that," the bosun said. "If we even brought
it up we'd be added to the list."

"Is he talking about just spacing them?" Kearns asked. "I mean,
not even a bullet in the back of the head or anything?"

"No," the Bosun replied with a grimace. "He wants to either shoot
them or give them a lethal shot and then . . . Hey!"

"Yeah," Kearns said with a narrowed glance. "Now all we have to
do is convince him not to space the bodies."

"Decent burial," Tyler said after a moment. "I mean, you're all
religious nuts, right? Surely it would only be proper to return them
to the cool green hills of Grayson or something."

The warrant looked at the senior NCO and the SBA for a moment
and then narrowed his eyes.

"Okay, what we're talking about here is conspiracy to mutiny by
circumventing direct orders of a superior." He looked them both in
the eye. "And the penalty for that is death."

"I'll take my chance on a court-martial on Grayson," the bosun
responded.

"Me too," Tyler said. "Hell, I'd prefer Peep justice to this friggin'
nut-case."

CHAPTER FIVE
The Quick and the Dead



The XO stomped down the deserted corridors of the crew
compartment, looking around in delight at the near pristine
conditions. With none of the pesky crew cluttering things up, it was
possible to have a truly efficiently run ship. Suddenly he slid to a
stop.

"BOSUNNN!" he shouted, pointing at the floor. "What is that??!"

"Gum, sir," the bosun replied.

"Who is in charge of this area?" the XO asked, furiously.

"Cooper," the bosun replied. It was getting easier and easier to
remember as the number of crew dropped precipitously.

"Well, space him!" the XO said. "Gum on the floor is just
slackness."

"Yes, Sir," the bosun replied. "You'll remember that we're returning
them to their families . . ."

"Very well," the XO said, continuing on his survey. "Send him to the
medics."



"No, no!" Cooper yelled, hopping up and down in the grip from two
men-at-arms and winking for all he was worth. "Don't kill me, Doc!"

"Oh, shut up and take it like a man," Tyler replied tiredly. He rolled
up Cooper's sleeve and injected the engineering tech with a
sedative. "Take him to the forecastle."

"I bet he dropped that gum on the floor on purpose," one of the
men-at-arms grumped. "I could do with a three day vacation at this
point."

"If we lose many more engineering techs, we're never going to
make it," Sean replied darkly.



Captain Zemet opened his eyes and stared blearily into the face of
Admiral Judah Yanakov. A quick glance to the side showed the two
medics, the engineering officer and the astrogator lined up against
one wall of what was apparently a hospital room.

"Captain, would you kindly tell me what in the Tester's name was
going on up there?" the admiral said furiously. "I would especially
like to know how you came to be in a coma and left that Masadan
of an XO in charge. The one hundred and twenty-three personnel
that your former XO had sedated have all been returned to duty, by
the way."

"Well, Sir," the captain said, not even glancing at the figures
against the wall, "we were drilling on compensator adjustments in
movement. The ship went right and I went left and that's all I
remember."

"Warrant Officer Kearns?"Admiral Yanakov asked. "Corpsman
Tyler? Is that an accurate report?"

"He's our Captain, Sir," Kearns replied. "What he says is what
happened."

"Hmmmph." The admiral peered at the captain for a moment then
shook his head. "That's not quite the same as saying 'It happened
like he said.' I don't have anywhere more out of the way to put you,
Zemet, except Blackbird Base and I already stashed your XO
there. So I guess I'll have to leave you in command. The rest of
you are dismissed."
* * *

"That's it?" Tyler asked, collapsing into the sickbay chair. The flight
back from Grayson had been made in total silence.

"What's it?" Kearns asked, pulling out his bladder of whiskey and
pouring some into his cup.

"No investigation?" the Manticoran asked. "We just go back out on
patrol?"

"You remember you're in Siberia, right?" the warrant asked, taking
a sip of his tea. "And you know that Siberia was nothing but a giant
prison?"

"Sort of."

"We're all prisoners, trapped in a Siberia called the Francis
Mueller. You. Me. The Captain. Hell, even Kopp and the Chaplain,
both of whom have been thrown out of at least one decent ship so
far. And prisoners don't rat out other prisoners to the warden."

"Oh."

"I notice you didn't say anything," Kearns pointed out.

"Well . . . hell," Tyler said. "I guess you're right. Why didn't he just
say he fell in the shower?"

"He's too professional for that," the warrant officer said, tossing the
bladder over to the corpsman. "Only amateurs fall in a shower.
Welcome to Siberia."