Burden of Proof Read Free Page A

have comms tell that ship to get out of here now , or we will intercept and seize it. Make sure they know there'll be no more warnings."
    "Aye, aye, ma'am." Carl bent to the task, but halted as an alarm sounded. "What the hell? That Greenspace ship is launching something."
    "A lot of somethings," Paul added. "What are those?"
    Gonzalez was chewing on a thumbnail. "Since that's a Greenspace ship, at least we can be reasonably sure they're not weapons. I want a quick ID on those things."
    Paul and Carl exchanged a quick glance. When ships' captains said 'I want,' their crews knew they'd better satisfy the request. Commander Kwan wedged between them, his expression and voice harsh. "Let's get that ID for the Captain. Now."
    As if we needed the XO telling us that, and as if leaning on us will get the Captain a faster answer. Bad Kwan strikes again, but then he might still be ticked off at me for screwing up earlier . Biting his lip to help hide his reaction, Paul tapped in commands which up'd the priority on a target ID. The Michaelson 's targeting system beeped a moment later, calling attention to its identification of the objects. Paul stared at it. "They're short-range emergency escape pods."
    "Escape pods?" Gonzalez checked the ID herself, as did Commander Kwan.
    "There's nothing wrong with that ship," Paul insisted.
    "I'm sure there isn't." Gonzalez looked seriously out of sorts now. "But they've just sown a dozen of those pods through our firing area. It'll take us and the range safety ship so long to round them up that we'll have to postpone the test firing."
    "Sweet," Commander Kwan muttered. "Maybe we should just leave them."
    "Wish we could, George, but those short-range pods have real limited life-support capability. If we don't pick them up within a few hours, those protesters will be dead meat, and letting them die because of their own stupidity will make us look real bad. Go figure. I've got to give them credit for thinking of this." Gonzalez unbuckled her harness and swung out of her chair. "I'll go get on a private line to the Commodore and let her know what happened. Lieutenant Meadows, plot intercepts to those pods. Tell the range safety ship I'd appreciate it if she seized that mothership."
    "Aye, aye, ma'am. Best-speed intercepts on the pods?"
    "Naw. We've got to postpone the firing, anyway. Make sure we take a while to get to those pods. Not too long, but long enough to make 'em sweat on whether their life support'll hold out."
    Carl grinned. "Aye, aye, ma'am."
    The bosun mate of the watch stiffened to attention again as Gonzalez and Hayes exited through the hatch. "Captain's left the bridge!"
    Commander Kwan pointed at Carl. "Keep me informed."
    "Yes, sir."
    Paul glanced at Carl after Kwan left. "Not exactly the nice, routine evolution you were looking forward to."
    Carl shrugged in an exaggerated fashion as he worked on the intercept plan. "No. But that's okay. This is kinda fun. Maybe I can meet our 'visitors' when we haul them aboard. 'Welcome to the USS Michaelson . We hope you have a pleasant stay in the two-meter-square compartment we're going to cram you all into.'"
    Paul chuckled despite the stress of recent events. "Thanks for mentioning that. I'd better give the Sheriff a heads-up." He quickly paged the ship's master-at-arms. "Hey, Sheriff. We've going to have some hippie peacemongers coming aboard." Paul vaguely knew "hippies" had been a group of some sort back in the twentieth century, but the term had long ago entered the permanent vocabulary of the military to describe any particularly unmilitary appearance or anti-military civilians.
    "Once again you have made my day, sir." Master-at-Arms First Class Ivan Sharpe, the Michaelson 's onboard law enforcement professional, didn't sound thrilled.
    "Happy to oblige. You've got . . ." Paul checked the maneuvering plan Carl was finalizing. "About two hours before we haul in the first one. The rest will dribble in over the next couple hours after