"And we will of course escort you back to international space," Cates said. "You have five minutes to start heading that direction."
"My apologies again, Admiral," Beil said, offering a small salute. With that he signed off.
Of course everyone knew that Beil and the Granite had not simply strayed into WestHem space. They had been spying, something that stealth attack ships were uniquely suited for. But diplomacy was delicate between the two superpowers and the game was played this way. Granite lit up its engines four minutes later and began to accelerate to escape velocity. The A-12s, their active sensors still pounding the invader with energy, turned and matched velocities to follow. Ingram and the rest of the Mermaid bridge crew watched the departure on the tactical display, Ingram recording every second of energy being radiated from Granite's engines for later intelligence reports.
"Secure from general quarters," the captain told Braxton, unzipping his pressure suit.
"Right," Braxton responded. He repeated the order over the ship's intercom system.
"Sir," said the communications technician from his console. "I have a hail from SCNB."
"Put it on the screen," the captain told him.
"Aye sir."
A moment later the face of Admiral Cates was back on the screen, his features much friendlier now. "Commander Hoffman," he greeted the captain warmly. "I just wanted to tell you that you did an excellent job locating that Henry. Thanks to you our EastHem friends will have a lot of explaining to do at the next summit conference."
"It was nothing, sir," the captain replied modestly. "I was just doing my job."
"Well, let me assure you that you did you job very well," he said. "I'm going to recommend you for an official accommodation. How does that sound?"
"That sounds just fine," the captain shot back at him. "Thank you very much, sir."
They signed off a minute later. The captain never once mentioned his bridge crew or his greenie detection technician as being deserving of praise. After all, a captain was responsible for everything that happened on the ship, wasn't he?
Two hours later Ingram was lying on his rack in one of the berthing rooms. It was a small room, one of four crammed onto that particular deck, and there were five other racks, stacked three high on each wall, in the room with his. Since they were just above the starboard engine room the noise and vibration from the fusion drive hummed loudly and imparted an unpleasant thrumming to the walls. There were only six Martians on Mermaid's crew and strangely enough, all six of them were housed in this room, although four were currently at duty stations and absent at the moment. Steve Sugiyoto, a cooks assistant (which meant that he washed the dishes and cut the food into portions) was lying in his underwear on his own rack directly underneath Ingram. Since Dolphin had arrived and relieved them, Mermaid was currently under maximum acceleration, just starting the long trip back to Triad Naval Base. As such neither man needed the Velcro straps to hold them onto their racks. The acceleration of the ship imparted them with one tenth of their natural weight. In Ingram's case this was a whopping eight kilograms, just enough to keep him firmly on the floor or whatever ever surface he put himself upon.
"That's total bullshit, Brett," said Sugiyoto from beneath him, his voice low, almost a whisper. "I heard what went down up on that bridge. You were the one that found that fuckin Henry and you were the one that had to beg the old man to prosecute it. Where the hell does he get off takin all the credit for it?"
"It's the way of the solar system, Sugi," Ingram sighed, stretching out a little. As the senior Martian on the crew there was an unwritten rule that he was responsible for keeping the other Martians in line
"Yeah," he said bitterly. "Fuck the greenies over every chance you get. That's the way of the solar system all right. That's why I'm trained in fusion engineering and they got me working in the kitchen."
"Shit, Sugi," Ingram told him with a laugh, "this is what, your second cruise on the great Mermaid?"
"That's right," he said.
"You ain't seen shit as far as fuckin over greenies goes then," he told him. "Wait'll you get ten years on these things like I have and then you can bitch to me about greenie fucking. I was a trained computer systems operator and analyst when I went on my first cruise. And do you know what they had me doing?"
"What's that?"
"The fucking laundry," he told him. "I spent my first year of space duty down in the goddamn laundry room washing the shit stains out of those Earthling's shorts. My second year I was graduated to the kitchen detail. My third year they finally trusted me to start working in the torpedo room as a lifter. It took me six years and twelve cruises before they finally put me on the bridge where I belong. If I were an Earthling, I'd be at least a lieutenant commander by now. I'd be at least an XO on one of these tubs and probably in line for a command. Instead, I'm a damn spacer first, just two grades higher then you are, and if I somehow make it another ten years in this place, I'll retire as a spacer first."
Sugiyoto shook his head angrily. "That's depressing," he said. "Why do we put up with this shit? Why have you stayed here so long?"
"It beats being vermin doesn't it?" Ingram said. "What else can I do? There ain't much call for a detection tech in the civilian market now, is there? Even if there were, the Earthlings wouldn't hire no greenie to do it."
They laid in silence for a few minutes, each of them contemplating their second class citizen status. It was Sugiyoto that brought up the subject of Laura Whiting, asking if there had been any more news heard.
"All I hear is what the bridge crew has to say about it," Ingram told him. "And all they watch to get their information is big three stations. They all seem to think that she should be thrown in prison for inciting terrorism."
"No way to get MarsGroup stations out here?"
"Not these days," Ingram said. "Before all of this shit hit the fan we used to be able to catch MarsGroup in the enlisted lounge. The Earthlings would make fun of us for watching it of course, but they'd at least let us keep it on for a while sometimes. Now though, I wouldn't let anyone catch you trying to watch it. I wouldn't even talk about it. Things are bad enough as is without making them more suspicious of us."
They talked a little more about the sad state of Martian affairs in an Earthling ruled solar system. Finally, tiring of that subject, they drifted off to sleep, both trying to catch as much as possible before their next watch. As they snored in the miniscule gravity, the ship kept pushing them faster and faster towards home.
"More trouble?" Laura Whiting asked General Jackson as he entered her office early Tuesday morning. It was not really a question of course. On Mars these days there was always more trouble. The question was how bad the trouble was this time.
Jackson was dressed in his standard day uniform of red shorts and a white T-shirt. He nodded solemnly as he helped himself to a cup of coffee from the dispenser next to her desk. "I just got word," he told her. "There was another mass shooting of civilians by FLEB agents. This time up on Triad. They're still sorting through the mess up there as we speak, but preliminary reports are sixteen dead, twice that many wounded."
"Jesus," she said, shaking her head and feeling mixed emotions. On the one hand she knew that she had set the stage for these confrontation and had put the wheels in motion. She had done that deliberately, with the hope of inciting the rebellion that was now about to boil over. But she had not counted on the price that was being paid in blood. "What happened?"