the Manasseh was entirely lucky. The XO stopped by Claire's stateroom later that evening, after she'd spent a long session in the simulator being repeatedly killed by various adversaries. The lieutenant had replayed each session in detail pointing out why she had died.
The XO had a similar recording as evidence against Lockhart. Lieutenant Loyd had been working a tactical session of his own and recording it while waiting for her to arrive, and it included some visual through the open door and all of the audio of her encounter with the Mantie exchange officer. The XO blushed and couldn't meet Claire's eyes when the fast-forwarded display showed the Mantie grinning at her impact and caught the pinch in clear detail. The XO just needed her thumbprint and signature that she was the person shown. Then he provided the contact information for Legal Assistance if Claire wanted to press assault charges.
Rustin was in the back of the stateroom engrossed in studying the approach for docking at the station. So Claire didn't hesitate to ask, “Sir, I hit a senior officer. Why aren't I the one being charged?”
The exec just shook his head. “I didn't hear that. What did you say?”
Claire said it again, and the exec again denied hearing her.
She started to repeat herself a third time and then stopped. Finally, she said, “What else is on the tape?”
The exec pushed a button and the rest played through. Lieutenant Loyd rose quickly and blocked the view before Lieutenant Commander Lockhart's muffled grunt and then very clearly audible solicitation. The exec shrugged. “He could try to file charges under the Articles of War, but no Grayson admiral would hear them, and no one else has jurisdiction. The commanding officer could make an issue of it, but he feels that you need all the time you can get in the tactical simulators and should not be distracted by petty charges any reasonable Admiralty Review Board would throw out.”
Claire blinked. “You have a witness . . .” She trailed off realizing Lieutenant Loyd had either left that out of his report or colluded with the exec.
The exec snorted as he walked away. He called over his shoulder, “Merchant-class Advanced Technician is a hack exam that you could have passed after your first year at Saganami. I'll approve your leave chits to go waste time prepping for a civilian career when you get competent in the tactics sims and stop signing yourself up for scams.” Then she remembered the certification course she had been trying to take leave to attend. It wasn't a scam! Unless . . . she tried to remember if any of the glossy advertising had actually mentioned who gave the certification or accredited the training program. The whole thing seemed less important now.
Claire mulled over whether she could just have said something weeks earlier instead of ducking Lockhart's advances. More than the master chief on this ship seemed trustworthy.
She spent another afternoon and morning running sims while Manasseh prepared to dock at the poorly outfitted station orbiting Masada. A few days had passed since she'd had a chance to review maintenance logs or run spot checks. If being an officer meant ‘fighting the ship' as Lieutenant Loyd and the exec insisted, she had to depend on other officers to remember to schedule their maintenance smartly and ensure the crew had the time, tools, and training to keep the Manasseh from dissolving in hyper from radiation corrosions. The materials were pretty fantastic, so actual structural integrity would likely never be an issue on a modern warship, she reflected wryly.
Rustin took the bridge watch for the docking. Claire paused her sim when the ship got close to watch on the screen in CIC where Rustin's boss, Lieutenant Knutson, had duty and would be watching to keep an eye on his division officer. She was distracted from the initial calls to the station by the duty officer's selection and practice targeting of the station and the other ships in orbit. The whole ship drilled on killing things out of sheer habit. Captain Ayres would have strenuously objected to his crew running targeting solutions on allies, especially since one of the Mantie cruisers would be taking charge of Lieutenant Commander Lockhart and saving Manasseh an extra trip to Manticore, but Commander Greentree obviously felt differently.
Lieutenant Knutson paused the tracking session and turned up the speakers as Manasseh neared the station and Rustin's voice repeated the standard docking orders with no response from the station. A