"Were you injured, Mr. w.a.n.g."

"No, Captain. I was a bit stunned but that's all."

"Please go on, Mr. w.a.n.g."

When I got to the part about jamming the snout of the sniffer in the main air intake, we stopped again.

"Why did you do that, Mr. w.a.n.g?"

"Well, Brill sent Diane and I out to check for ga.s.ses in environmental so we were sure we weren't pumping anything problematic out into the ship and then she asked one of us to see if anything was coming into the section. I stuck the nose of my sniffer into the intake manifold and it was clear, but since we didn't know what was going on in the rest of the ship, I figured we better keep an eye on it. I couldn't very well stand there with it, so I taped it down, cranked up the audio alarm and left it. Without other sensor capabilities, it was the best I could do."

"Very logical, Mr. w.a.n.g," the captain said.

"Thank you, Captain."

"Please continue, Mr. w.a.n.g," she said again and I began to hope I was not going to miss lunch.

We got to the part where I went onto the bridge with the portable and she made me pause to describe the machine with brand name and full specifications. I was afraid she was going to ask for the serial number, which I didn't know, but she let me jump ahead to the part where Mr. von Ickles had me boot it up.

"What did you do when he gave you the program cube," she asked.

"I mounted it and began looking at the code. There was a problem with the scripts that needed some adjustments so they would run on my machine and I fixed them. I missed one so the initial load failed, but I saw where it croaked and I got it on the second try."

"And are you a computer expert, Mr. w.a.n.g?"

"No, Captain. I used to play around with them a lot back in school but I am particularly familiar with my mother's machine, sar."

"Why is that, Mr. w.a.n.g?" she asked.

"Whenever she would have trouble with it, I had to fix it for her. I also had performed a few upgrades. When she died I stripped her stuff off to backup cubes and reloaded it fresh." I was proud of myself for not choking there.

"Yet, in spite of not being an expert, you spotted a problem with the ShipNet code and fixed it in less than ten ticks?"

"Yes, sar. But it took two tries, and there really wasn't that much to fix." I wanted to be honest.

"Please go on, Mr. w.a.n.g."

We continued in this vein for some time. We would jump ahead and stop periodically for additional details. They were particularly interested that I thought environmental smelled bad and what the problem turned out to be. We finally got through the part of using the spine as a giant cartridge filter and using the brooms to break up the crust when the CO2 level started rising.

"Why brooms, Mr. w.a.n.g?" she asked.

"Because we had them, Captain. We needed something that was wide enough to punch a good hole without scattering the powder everywhere. The bristles on a broom worked really well, and we had plenty of them handy."

Then I had to go on about replacing the sensor packs and the scheduled maintenance and was just about up to the point where I had to wake up to pee before they finally ran out of questions. Frankly, I was getting a little annoyed because I knew Cookie was already serving lunch.

Finally, Mr. Maxwell said, "Thank you, Mr. w.a.n.g." He shut off the recorder.

The captain said, "Thank you for your time, Mr. w.a.n.g. Dismissed."

As I was leaving, Mr. von Ickles said, "Oh, Mr. w.a.n.g?"

I stopped and hoped it wasn't going to be another question. "Yes, sar?"

"We lived," he said, and then winked.

I smiled. "Yes, sar, we did."

They let me leave then and as I was heading back to the mess deck I pulled up my personnel jacket on the tablet. Sure enough there I found a Specialist Two (Systems) rating dated 2352-June-04 and, oddly, it was endorsed by the captain, Mr. Maxwell, Mr. Kelley, and Mr. von Ickles. That was the strangest addition to my ratings collection.

Seeing my ratings made me think of finding a new berth, which in turn reminded me of what waited on Betrus. I sighed at the thought, but lunch called and I was going to answer before my stomach ate my backbone. I just reminded myself to trust Lois.

Lunch was more than half over by the time I made it to the mess deck. The officers had kept me talking for over two stans. Judging from the looks of things, a lot of the crew had eaten and left. I grabbed a plate and went through the line. Sarah looked tired but all right. She had circles under her eyes but nothing like the bruised look she had when she first came aboard. She smiled and gave me an extra biscuit with a wink. Pip was a little worse for wear with a small cut and bruise on his forehead.

"What happened?" I asked as he dished up some rice and beans.

"Gravity," he said ruefully. "Found the edge of the prep table on the way down."

"Ouch! I landed on a nice flat deck myself. You okay?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah...hard head, soft heart. That's me. Just a glancing blow."

Sarah teased him by adding, "He dented the prep table. Took engineering more than a stan to straighten it out!"

She was definitely doing better.

"You get back to work," Pip said with a grin and b.u.mped her hip with his. He turned back to me, "Still I was luckier than some."

"Really? What happened?"

"You been under a rock? You really need to check your linkages into GossipNet."

I barked a short laugh. "I've been kinda busy the last couple of days, what with trying to stay alive and all."

"Sandy fell wrong and broke her left arm. She's only just come out of the med bay, but she can't stand watch," he said. "Jaime Schwartz, you know, that blond cargo handler with the big blue eyes?"

"Oh, yeah, I know who you mean."

"She was here and got thrown up against the coffee urns and got a couple of burns. Half a dozen people have cracked ribs from landing sideways on stuff."

"I had no idea," I said. The grilling I had just endured in the office made sense now. There'd be a lot of insurance people investigating with all the damage to the ship but more because of the injuries to the crew.

"n.o.body seriously hurt though?" I asked.

He shook his head. "No. Sandy got the worst of it. I don't know what's going to happen there."

"We'll find out eventually," I told him and he nodded. Biddy Murphy from cargo came up behind me in line then so I got out of the way and went to find a seat.

My old bunkie, Beverly, was there so I grabbed a seat next to her. She greeted me with a tired smile and a soft, "Hey there, boy toy."

When she first started calling me that after Gugara, I used to find it embarra.s.sing. Now, I wished it were true. She was also one of the three women that came with me that day shopping at Henri's. Bev sported a buzz cut, piercings, tattoos, and moved with the smooth, deadly animal grace of a hunter. If it wasn't for the fact that we served on the same ship, I really wouldn't have minded being her toy. I laughed quietly. "Hey, bunkie. How you doing?"

"Tired," she said while nursing her coffee. She had a set of empty plates in front of her. "But I'm okay. Pip told you about Sandy?"

"Yeah," I said, "Do you know what happened?"

"She was on the bridge. Gravity cut out and she was reaching for the console to keep from drifting around when it came back on and threw her against the edge arm first. Clean break. She'll be all right, but it hurts a lot. She's on light duty for at least two weeks."

"How's the section coping being short-handed?" I asked.

"Ms. Avril has stepped into her watch for now. We'll be docked in a couple of days. So we'll see what happens there."

The tone in her voice told me she remembered what waited for me on Betrus. We both sighed and I tucked into lunch.

Chapter Nine.

Betrus...o...b..tal

2352-June-10

We docked in Betrus only four days late. Our ballistic pa.s.s around the planet had given us a pretty good sling shot ride around and off at a tangent deeper into the gravity well of the system's primary. After we got the sail generators up and running, we had to climb back out and re-negotiate our path to the orbital. Approach and docking had been routine, if subdued. Sitting there in environmental, we all knew our team was about to be broken up. It was good to get back to dock, but it was sad too. The exact feeling was hard to put a finger on. Sad to be leaving the ship we fought so hard for. Glad to be alive to feel sad about it. There was a bit of anger too but in the grand scheme of things my situation seemed pretty anticlimactic. Being so close to dying made being put ash.o.r.e a lot less onerous.

As we were on final approach, the who goes first routine of a.s.signing watch sections got a bit awkward. Those with the most seniority had first dibs. Brill picked second watch and then looked at Francis. He took first and left third section for Diane.

"I'm sorry, Ish, but you'll be relieved shortly after docking, and I want the new guy with me tomorrow morning."

"Figured," I said, and shrugged.

We secured from navigation detail at 17:45, Francis took the watch and he shook my hand as I left, no longer a watch stander. "You done good, Ish."

I headed for the hatch to pack my duffel. I didn't know when I would be going or how much time I would have to prepare. I figured it paid to be ready. Most of the crew was either on watch or at dinner. The captain had not yet declared liberty. Rumors circulated that the company reps and insurance people were dithering about when and how-and apparently, if-they wanted to interview the crew. In the meantime, everybody hung around and took advantage of the free meal. It made it a bit easier to pack with no one around. It reminded me of my move into engineering from deck. There had been no one in either s.p.a.ce and I was disoriented until Brill burst in and made me go shopping. I grinned at that. We traveled a long road in just a few weeks.

I finished cleaning out and stood the duffel bag in the locker and slammed the door. I had no idea when I would have to go, but I was about as ready as I could be under the circ.u.mstances. Nothing for it but to go to chow.

The mess deck was a-buzz but there was nothing unusual in that. After the last few days, we all felt a bit closer, I think. Several people smiled and nodded in my direction as I made my way to the mess line. Some of them looked sad. Some of them had hopeful expressions. I myself was holding up pretty well. We were here. It was happening. Grace under pressure and all that. "Cry in the flitter on the way home," my mother used to say. It seemed silly at the time, but now I thought I could appreciate it a bit more.

Cookie had pulled out all the stops with his spicy, sizzling beefalo. It might have been my favorite meal of his and I got a little pang thinking he probably had done it on purpose. I almost lost it then, but Sarah smiled at me across the line. "Trust Lois," she said, before going back to her work. She had spoken the words so fast, I wasn't even sure I had seen it. I moved on to Pip who looked as chipper as he could under the circ.u.mstances. The cut on his head was almost healed, but he still looked a little the worse for wear. We just shrugged at each other. There wasn't much to say.

I settled at a table with Bev and Rhon. I didn't see either Diane or Brill and I knew Francis would have come and gone already. What with packing and all, it was near the end of the dinner hour.

"Hey, Ish," Rhon said. "Any word?"

"Nope, nothing yet, but the new guy is supposed to be reporting ASAP. I'm not detached officially yet, but it's probably only a matter of time."

Bev just looked at me. "If you get put ash.o.r.e, you won't be crew anymore," she said with a kind of huskiness in her voice.

Rhon gave Bev a glance and then looked at me with an odd gleam in her eye. "That's true. You won't be crew," she said.

Bev actually growled in the back of her throat. Not a word-just a growl. Even I knew it was a warning. Rhon looked at her and kind of settled back down in her seat. I confess, I rather liked the feeling it gave me.

Then my tablet bipped and the spell broke. I looked at my dinner and then pulled the tablet out. As I feared, it was a meeting with the captain but I had a half stan before I had to be there. I had time enough to eat, and the whole while, Bev watched me with a little smile on her face. I liked it, but I think Rhon found it a bit unsettling.

At the appointed time I presented myself to the captain's cabin. The usual suspects were gathered around the conference table, and she wasted no time. "Mr. w.a.n.g, your replacement has not yet reported, but we have a little problem. It seems we're short-handed, quite literally, with Ms. Belterson's broken arm. Ms. Avril has been covering her watches, but I need my Second Mate back." She paused then, and I hated it when she did that because I never knew if she was waiting for me to say something or just catching her breath.

"How can I help, Captain?" I asked.

"We still have no open position, but we have a temporary need to cover the port-duty watch rotation. We could just double up, but if you'd be willing to stay aboard for a few more days and help us out, that would give us that much more time to see if we can work something out."

"Sure, sar. I'd be happy to."

"We're likely to be kept in Betrus longer than our planned stay in order to make repairs and ensure the ship is thoroughly checked out, Mr. w.a.n.g. Just so you're aware." She turned to Mr. Kelley and asked the question that I knew she already knew the answer to. "How long do you think, Mr. Kelley?"

"At least five days, probably six. Could be as many as ten, depending on spare part availability, Captain," he said. He had a little smile forming at the corner of his mouth. I could see it, and he didn't try to hide it from me.

"Mr. Maxwell," she said, "would Mr. w.a.n.g be an acceptable temporary replacement for port-side duty?"

"I believe he will suffice, Captain," he said without even looking at me.

"Well then, Mr. w.a.n.g, will you accept a temporary promotion to Able s.p.a.cer a.s.signed to deck division for the duration of our stay?"

"Yes, Captain, I will," I said without hesitation. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew something was up. When these three started looking like this, there was always something cooking. It was, after all, the Lois.

"Mr. Maxwell, please see that the ship's records are updated as such."

Mr. Maxwell hit the enter key on the tablet in front of him. He'd had the transaction ready to go. "Done, Captain."

"Thank you, Mr. Maxwell." She turned to Mr. Kelley. "Do you have anything you wish to add, Mr. Kelley?"

"Yes, Captain," he said, and turned to me. "Thank you, Mr. w.a.n.g. It has been a pleasure having you in my crew."

"Thank you, sar. I enjoyed it."

The captain said, "Very well then, Mr. w.a.n.g, you are dismissed. If you would report to Mr. von Ickles in his office at your earliest convenience? Please give him my compliments and notify him that you are on second watch section for the duration of our port stay."

"Aye, sar." I said. "Thank you, sar."