If only there were some way he could quietly and discreetly leave the small classroom in which their party of evacuees been instructed to wait. Unfortunately, there wasn't one, and Berkeley happened to be the senior officer present, which put him in charge of their small detachment. If Paulo tried to sneak out, the lieutenant would demand to know where he was going, and somehow "anywhere you aren't" didn't seem the most diplomatic possible response. Truthful , yes; diplomatic, no.
"And if we just had to do something this stupid," Berkeley continued, "at least we could have done it when we weren't—"
"Excuse me, Lieutenant," a contralto voice said from the doorway, "but exactly what 'stupid' something did you have in mind?"
Berkeley's mouth shut with an almost audible click, and he spun towards the slender, dark-haired commander standing in the open door with her head cocked to one side.
"I, uh, didn't see you there, Commander McGillicuddy," he said.
"No," Commander Anastasia McGillicuddy agreed pleasantly. "I don't suppose you did. However, I was just passing through when I heard what sounded remarkably like a raised voice. I was down at the end of the hall, you understand, so I wasn't completely certain that was what I was hearing. I decided to find out."
Her smile was as pleasant as her tone, but her brown eyes were cold, and the much taller and bulkier Berkeley seemed to shrink slightly.
"As I drew closer, I realized you were availing yourself of this opportunity to continue the instruction of the junior officers entrusted to your care," she went on. "I was impressed by your apparent vigor. Obviously, you'd been discussing a subject you felt strongly about. So I thought I'd take this opportunity to find out what it was."
"Ma'am, I was just—that is, well . . . ." Berkeley's abortive response trailed off, and despite himself, Paulo actually felt a feeble—very feeble—flicker of sympathy.
He throttled it without difficulty.
"Should I assume, Lieutenant, that you question Vice Admiral Faraday's priorities?" McGillicuddy asked softly.
Berkeley said nothing at all, and her nostrils flared. Then she looked past Berkeley to the junior officers and enlisted waiting in the classroom. She considered them briefly, then returned her attention to Berkeley.
"Since you feel qualified to critique this exercise, Lieutenant," she told him, "I'll arrange for you to present your view of it directly to Captain Sugihara." Berkeley's fair complexion turned considerably fairer at the mention of Captain Brian Sugihara, Rear Admiral Trammell's XO. "In the meantime, I strongly suggest you give some consideration to the appropriateness of your present forum. Especially considering that you happen to be the senior officer present. You might want to spend the time more profitably doing something like . . . oh, I don't know. Considering your report to Captain Sugihara, perhaps. In fact, you might want to give a little thought to whether or not Article Ten figures into your thinking, as well."
Paulo felt his lips trying to purse in a silent whistle as that last salvo landed. Obviously McGillicuddy had heard even more—and was even more pissed off—than he'd thought. From the little Paulo had seen of her, she didn't seem like the sort who normally screamed at a subordinate—even a stupid subordinate—in front of that subordinate's juniors. The fact that Berkeley had ticked her off enough to do that was sufficiently significant on its own, but her last sentence had been so pointed not even Berkeley could miss the implication. Article Ten was the article which forbade actions or speech prejudicial to discipline and the chain of command. If Berkeley was brought up on that charge and it went into his personnel record . . . .
McGillicuddy held Berkeley's eyes for another few seconds, then nodded, glanced once at the breathlessly watching group of JGs, ensigns, and enlisted, and left without another word.
* * *
"Well, I'm undoubtedly the most unpopular officer in Weyland ," Claudio Faraday said with an air of satisfaction. "For that matter, I might well be the most unpopular officer in the entire Beta subsystem!"
"I think that might be going just a bit far, Sir," Marcus Howell replied. "At least as far as the entire subsystem's concerned. Although, now that I think about it, they probably aren't too fond of you down on Gryphon at the moment, either."
"Nope. And I imagine I may be hearing a little something from the bean-counters back at Admiralty House, too." Faraday sounded a bit more serious, but his air of contentment was unabated. "We've probably just written off—what? ten percent?—of the station's life pods, after all."
"Not to mention shutting down the entire R&D section until we get the pods recertified, Sir," Howell pointed out respectfully.
"Oh, thank you for recalling that little detail to my attention, Marcus!"
"One of the things chiefs of staff are for, Sir."
Faraday glowered at him, but the vice admiral didn't seem able to work up much wattage. Then he allowed his chair to come upright, planted his elbows on his desk, and leaned forward over his folded forearms.
"Actually," he said much more seriously, "the downtime bothers me most. But I don't expect Admiral Hemphill to kick up much dust over it. I know most people think of her as the tech weenies' tech weenie, but she's got a lot better understanding of the realities than some of her research people out here do." He shook his head. "Frankly, I think quite a few of them haven't figured out they're actually in the Navy and hence subject to the Service's little foibles, like making sure they're up to date on relevant emergency procedures. And even for most of the others, the thought that anyone might possibly want to hurt them never enters their minds! Which doesn't even consider the fact that genuine accidents can happen even aboard the most modern space station."
Howell nodded. He wasn't sure he agreed with Faraday's decision to actually evacuate the space station and send all but a tiny caretaker detachment down to the planet Gryphon. He was perfectly ready to admit that the readiness state of Weyland 's disaster and evacuation planning had been, well, disastrous, though. And Faraday was certainly correct about the possibility of accidents. There hadn't been a major catastrophe aboard any of the Star Empire's main industrial platforms in decades, but there'd been several moderately severe accidents, and catastrophe was always possible, however improbable it might seem. If that had happened aboard Weyland a few weeks earlier, personnel losses might have been cataclysmic.
The series of of simulations Faraday had ordered had created a great deal of anger and frustration. At the same time, his grumpy subordinates had finally been forced to accept that he was serious about trying to get them off the station alive if something went wrong. They might not have been happy about it, but they'd at least started going through the motions with something resembling efficiency.
Of course, they'd known it was only going to be simulations , which would let them get back to work on more serious concerns after a half-hour or so of nonsense. Until this morning, that was, when the exercise had concluded with the words "this is no sim."