Jennings stopped and turned. With a flourish, he gestured to a row of doors. “And these are your staterooms.”

Kemp looked in the first door and whistled. As an officer, he’d had a bigger room than the crew anyway, but this put his former room to shame. “I could get used to this.”

Narang looked inside the next unit. “On the ICDC budget, I usually have to fly coach. And share seat space with a barnyard animal.”

Captain Jennings grinned. “Make yourselves at home, then come up to the bridge when you’re ready.”

Kemp watched as the captain walked down the corridor. “Now, there is a happy man.”

64.Reports of My Death

64.Reports of My Death

Moore pulled the next item from his in-basket. Unbelievable. It was over two hundred and fifty years since the invention of computers. And, for almost that long, pundits had been predicting a paperless society. Moore rubbed the sheet between thumb and forefinger. At least they were no longer using dead trees, but nowadays the use of plastics gave the environmentalists fits. You just couldn’t win with the loony left.

He scanned through the report. The Mad Astra had departed, headed for the Lunar Antipodal docking station. Moore snorted. They would charge Jennings five times what the Navy would have levied. And nickel-and-dime him for every little thing. Probably charge him for micro-meteor impacts.

Well, that at least was no longer his problem. Moore frowned for a moment. Strangely, the ICDC weren’t coming on as strong as expected. And of course, Jennings had had his teeth pulled, although Moore would have expected him to try something less direct.

Internally, there was a push to have his use of a nuke investigated by the JAG, but other than that…

Moore shrugged. All upside, as far as he was concerned.

The admiral continued to work through his in-basket. Promotions, disciplinary issues, logistics and supply, quarterly reviews, all the administrivia that he hated so much, but could do in his sleep.

He glanced at the next item, a surveillance report, then scanned the contents quickly. His jaw dropped, and he went back to the top and re-read the whole thing slowly, several times.

“BENTLEY!”

There was a crash as Bentley’s chair struck the wall, then he poked his head through the office door. “Sir?”

“The Mad Astra. Did anyone actually show up to pilot her?”

Lt. Bentley looked confused for a moment, then went to his desk and began to dig through his files. “I have the departure report here, sir. All protocols handled properly, no citations. A completely forgettable event.”

“Find me the report on the arrival of the pilot.”

Bentley spent several minutes at his workstation, then looked up to meet the admiral’s stare. A sheen of sweat showed on his forehead. “Uh, there doesn’t seem to be any record of anyone arriving. Of course, they’re different departments, there’s no reason to tie the two together…”