Paul read on, a headache growing as he tried to nail down meanings in phrases which seemed to grow increasingly vague. 'Actions are to be tailored to reflect requirements of the operational situation as well as tactical considerations… swift and effective response to emerging opportunities is expected… care should be exercised in avoiding unnecessarily provocative situations… nothing in these orders should be construed as limiting the captain's ability to respond appropriately to any situation.'
The Rules of Engagement proved even more twisted than the operating instructions. 'USS Michaelson shall ensure that any violations of U.S. space sovereignty are countered with all appropriate and necessary actions.' "Shall" means the captain has to do it, but do what? "Appropriate" and "necessary" are both situational words. What one person thinks is appropriate in a certain case, someone else might declare inappropriate. So the captain has to do something, but they won't tell him what he can or should do. It's up to him to figure it out. Wait. 'USS Michaelson should refrain from any and all action(s) likely to generate activity resulting in adverse consequences for national policy objectives.' So we "shall" do everything "appropriate" but "shouldn't" do anything inappropriate, I guess.
On one level, the instructions made sense. After all, captains of ships, by long tradition and legal precedent, were given great powers and expected to exercise a tremendous amount of discretion in using those powers. For Earth-bound or near-orbit operations, that old rule no longer really applied thanks to virtually instant communications networks which gave higher authority the ability to monitor and direct any action by a captain. But out in deeper space, the light-speed limit on communications meant that long periods could still elapse between the need for a decision and whatever direction came back from home. Captains had to be trusted to make decisions without precise instructions.
But these orders are still too vague. There's no upper or lower limit on them. "Appropriate and necessary"? That could be nothing. That could be opening fire and destroying another ship. Or anything in between.
Paul read on. 'The safety and security of USS Michaelson shall be safeguarded against hostile activity by taking all actions required in accordance with the tactical and operational environment.' How does that "shall" rank compared to the "shall" that directs the Michaelson do whatever it takes to prevent US sovereignty from being challenged? What if someone after the fact decides certain actions taken were or weren't "required"? Heck, it says "all actions required." "All"? We could be nailed if they think we didn't do one thing that someone could judge "required."
He skipped down a ways, suddenly eager to see the accompanying intelligence assessment. 'Aggressive challenges to our sovereign claimed areas may materialize… foreign forces encountered may be operating under unknown rules of engagement… composition or nature of foreign spacecraft likely to be encountered remains unknown… possible hostile action cannot be ruled out but cannot be predicted at this time… unconventional threats remain possible… warning of hostile action may not be timely…'
Paul rubbed his forehead, closing his eyes but still seeing in his mind the words of the orders he'd been reading. So, if my assessment of the legal meaning of these orders is right, we're being ordered to do everything we should do, but nothing we shouldn't do, against an unknown level and degree of threat, and do all that without making anybody mad that the US doesn't want to make mad. He thought of Captain Wakeman, happily hurling his ship through extreme maneuvers in the hope it might impress anyone who might be watching, without much thought to where the ship was actually going and planning on doing. And the paragon of good judgment and careful analysis who is supposed to decide what's "appropriate," "necessary," and "required" in every circumstance is Cap'n Pete Wakeman. Good grief.
Paul began writing a report to the XO, working through it word by word to avoid implying anything about his opinion of Wakeman's judgment or ability to execute the orders. Just lay out the contradictions I see, and the areas in which guidance is vague enough to create potential problems. The XO doesn't need me telling her how to operate a ship. And I've got a feeling that if anybody on this ship can read between the lines and see trouble ahead, it's Herdez. He wasn't thrilled with the end result, but couldn't think how to improve upon it, so he sent it to the XO's inbox and hoped it would at least come close to meeting her standards.
Chapter Four
Lieutenant Jan Tweed slowly reached forward, gently tapping a few controls on her watch station console. In the dim lighting of the bridge, the gentle radiance of the illuminated control panels seemed to glow like small candles behind colored glass. On the screen displaying an image of the outside, nothing could be seen but endless dark spotted with countless stars, each bright and hard as a diamond. Somehow that vision of emptiness sucked the warmth from the bridge, leaving Paul shivering slightly, even though he knew the temperature inside the ship was comfortable for both humans and their machines.
The ship's night had been in effect for hours now, with reddened, minimal internal lighting which helped keep human sleep cycles on track. When sunrise officially arrived in a few more hours, the internal lights would brighten to mimic daylight on Earth. But for now, darkness ruled both inside and outside the ship, as did a quiet aimed at aiding the sleep of those crew members fortunate enough not to be on watch.
One month out of Franklin Station, weeks away from routes frequented by humans (though frequented often meant little in the vast spaces of the solar system) the Michaelson proceeded on a patrol marked so far by isolation and emptiness. Paul glanced at the time as Tweed worked at the casual pace of someone who knew they had hours of boredom yet to endure. The midwatch had started at midnight, ship's time, even though Paul had actually been on the bridge a half-hour earlier for turn-over with the officer he was relieving on watch. It would run until four in the morning, or 0400 on the twenty-four hour military clocks. Paul's thoughts idly wandered back to the days when he'd called that time 4 A.M., back before the Academy had rearranged the way he thought about time and a lot of other things. Back then, the eerie quiet of a world where almost everyone and everything else was asleep had been foreign to him. Now, the low lighting, the hushed silence aboard the Michaelson and the cold-beyond-cold outside the ship's hull combined to leave him chilled and subdued.
Tweed leaned back again. From the speaker near her position, odd sounds began issuing. Something like whale song, veering wordlessly up and down the scale, snatches of almost-words growing to near-audibility then fading away, bursts of random static that somehow seemed to formed patterns just beyond his grasp, and beneath it all a low hiss of background noise.
Paul shivered again. "What is that?"
"Space ghosts." Tweed's lips quirked in a smile that was only half-humorous. "That's what they're called, anyway. You lower the noise filters for your radio receiver and expand the frequency reception band. Then you hear them."
A long, low moan whispered across the circuit. "Jeez. That's weird. I guess it's actually really weak signals, Earth-origin and like that, too weak and distorted to be understood? And background radiation and stuff like that?"