William Forstchen - Article 23

" Hemenez, you're dead for this," MacKenzie shouted.

"Maybe we all are, sir," Hemenez replied, "but if so it will be done by a lawful court-martial and not an act of murder, as you attempted."

Next she turned to Zhing.

"Doctor, I am asking for your oath of honor as a physician that you will not attempt to intervene any further in the command of this ship. If you agree, sir, I will not be forced to confine you, and you may go about your duties."

Zhing looked up from Matt and nodded. A cadet came back from sickbay and handed him an oxygen bottle; Zhing clamped it on Matt.

"You and Leonov, you'll have to wait, as will the others," Zhing announced.

Justin looked back and saw that there were a number of injured in the room. Some were nursing simple bumps and bruises, but one looked like she had a broken leg and another appeared to be unconscious.

"Enlisted personnel, turn in your weapons," Hemenez said. "I will ask each of you to report to me in ten minutes. If you give your personal oath not to aid the former Captain you will have the freedom of the ship. O'Brian, you are Acting First Officer, see that the weapons are collected if you please."

She now turned her attention to the cadets.

"Well, you've received a hell of an education on this flight," she said, her voice cold and bitter. "I just pray that all of you learn from it. My first order is that you are forbidden to discuss anything regarding the separatists for the duration of this flight. Do I make myself clear?"

There was a chorus of agreements.

"Nor are there to be any recriminations. Debate as to who was on which side in this incident is finished for the duration of this flight."

Justin could see Colson's followers looking about nervously, having already backed into a corner away from the rest of the cadets.

"I remember Thorsson telling us we were comrades no matter where we came from or how we might one day be separated by choices made by our superiors, and I still believe that. Mars, Venus, Earth, sailors and habitat dwellers, you are first and foremost of the Service. What you saw here," and she nodded back towards the forward part of the ship, "that's not us.

"Now to the business we must face. All of you are to write a fair and honest report of all things that you saw transpire from the moment you boarded this ship. You can write it any way you want, but it must be honest, with no hearsay. All of you are forbidden to utter another word to each other about what happened here until every last report is filed. You will deposit them with me, and you have my pledge that I will take your reports, seal them and not examine them in any way. I will turn these reports over to the appropriate authorities upon our arrival at Deimos. I shall offer the same opportunity to the former Captain, Flight Lieutenant Lewis, and Mr. Colson.

"Finally," she said, and looked toward Justin and Tanya, "I regret to inform you two, along with Cadet Smith, that you are hereby under arrest on the charge of leading a mutiny."

Justin looked at her, startled.

"I'm sony, but in this case we're bound by tradition and law, and we will automatically face charges upon our arrival at the base on Deimos. If I have your pledge of honor you may have access to the galley, but for the duration you are confined to your quarters and no other cadet may speak to you. Upon arrival we will turn ourselves over to the commander of the Base, and that includes you, too, O'Brian. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, sir," Justin replied.

"Fine, all hands dismissed."

The cadets started to leave the room, a sharp glance from Hemenez stilling all comments. She came up to Justin, hesitated, then finally extended her hand.

"You have guts, Bell, more guts than I've ever seen before. Especially that last moment. I would have tried to stop you, I think O'Brian would have as well, but you could have killed the Captain a lot of them were ready to follow you."

"I know, and it frightened me," Justin said.

"I could see that too. I'm sorry to have to place you under arrest, but we have to follow procedure here, unlike that man we arrested."

"I know that, sir."

"Come on, let's get to the infirmary."

"Me?"

"You're wounded, too," and she pointed to his side. Under the battle jacket he felt a sharp pain for the first time, and he remembered that Colson had hit him.

They went over to Tanya, who was sitting against the wall with weapon still in hand, helped her up and went through the door to the forward section. Madison greeted them.

"I left it on auto-pilot at least I hope I did it right. Lewis is down below."

"Fine, Madison," Hemenez said. "I'll be up in a moment to check."

"What a kick to that engine," Madison announced. "I told Lewis to give us full power and he did I darn near cut his throat by accident when the engine came on. So everything's OK?"

"Yeah, OK," Justin sighed.

When he reached sickbay he saw Matt sitting up, an oxygen mask still strapped to his face. Zhing was putting drops into Mart's eyes. His hands and feet were wrapped in warming cuffs, and an IV was stuck into his arm.

Justin could sense the smile under the mask, and in spite of Zhing's protest Matt pushed the mask aside.

"Well, I figure it was forty seconds in the vacuum club this time," Matt gasped weakly.

"Is he going to be all right?" Justin asked.

"Possible frostbite to his extremities. Eyes were starting to freeze up, I think the drops will stabilize them, some freeze damage to his throat so he'll talk funny for awhile. No symptoms of nitrogen bubbling, though with forty seconds of vacuum we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed. I think, with luck, his lungs will heal up and be all right. Hearing might be off for awhile, looks like one eardrum ruptured, but he's anesthetized now and not feeling much pain."

"Hell, pain," Matt mumbled, "this is nothing. Why, I remember the time" and his voice trailed off as he looked around at the group with a lopsided grin.

"I'll be with you three in a minute," Zhing announced. "But for heaven's sake don't stand around there gawking, get your anti-radiation suits on right now."

Justin suddenly realized that he had been getting a heavy exposure for nearly an hour.

He stepped closer to Matt and clumsily took his friend's hand.

"Thanks again, old buddy, I owe you one," Matt whispered.

"No matter what, it was worth it, Matt, it was worth it."

"Hard dock!"

"All hands, all hands, proceed to the main airlock."

Justin unstrapped from his seat and looked over at Tanya. The storm had finally abated the day before, allowing them to at least get out of the anti-radiation suits. Zhing estimated that their little one-hour jaunt free of protection had exposed them to over a year's acceptable level of radiation, which would mean either grounding or limited duty aboard a well-shielded habitat. The end of the storm had meant that communications had been reestablished as well, and when the USMC heard the news they had been ordered straight to the moon of Mars as Hemenez had assumed they would be. The base commander was undoubtedly waiting just on the other side of the airlock.

The one great irony to the entire crisis was that the incident aboard Gustavus had been resolved without casualties; in fact, the first report of injuries was exaggerated, only one crew member of the ship had been injured, a tooth loosened in a scuffle, and one separatist slightly wounded. After holding the ship for only a day they had disembarked without incident and fled upon the approach of a Service heavy cruiser, which had not engaged in pursuit.

He could well imagine, though, that with the Gustavus incident fading into the background what had happened aboard the Sotners would now be the center of attention.

"Ready for this?' Justin asked, extending a hand to Tanya to help her up.