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was Lieutenant
Shapiro, who had virtually zero experience on his own. That, in
itself, represented an opportunity of sorts.
    Burke had the funny feeling they would
be on the ground and hard to extract in a hurry if and when the
word from above came through. It was worthy of a brief
smile.
    Orders were orders and this one was
unusually succinct. It also came from a long ways up the ladder,
and good officers were long in the development.
    Burke had no choice but to make a stab
at it.
     
     
     

Chapter Three
     
    A First Briefing
     
     
    Lieutenant Newton Shapiro sat at the
head of the table and surveyed the senior members of the landing
party. His eyes swept the faces, all carefully neutral.
    They were gathered for their first
briefing and planning session. The enlisted personnel at his
disposal were all the usual suspects, and were the most easily
spared from the ship’s regular routine according to Commander
Burke. In his words, it might even do the odd free spirit among
them some good to get off the ship.
    It was his first meeting with the
command team.
    A couple of the troops hadn’t seen
planet-side in years, as they were habitually in the brig by the
time the ship actually got anywhere.
    As to why his own name came up at the
top of that list was another question, but he was a junior officer,
and while his duties as the vessel’s supply officer were not
unimportant, there were others at least partly trained in his job.
He could be spared, and he recognized that much.
    “ All right. Our deserters
are last seen in the Port Complex, the usual port of call for Fleet
units. Frankly, we’ve never had occasion to land anywhere else, and
they have the best facilities. If a ship having problems set down
elsewhere, it would cause considerable problems of logistics to set
her right and lift off again. They go on shore leave. The first
place they head for is a bar. It’s the usual sad story. At some
point they realize they are absent without leave, and we figure the
usual practice is to get as far away as possible from anything that
smacks of Empire and authority.”
    “ They’re fugitives.” Ensign
Spaulding nodded. “The punishment is harsh.”
    A willowy blonde in her mid-twenties,
Beth was a human resources specialist, which aboard ship meant
everyone got paid. They made the contributions to their retirement
or kid’s schooling. She was a grief counselor when required and
helped in the infirmary with trauma victims, physical and
psychological. She was in charge of all records pertaining to
personnel outside of confidential medical and command security
files.
    “ Right.” Shapiro went on.
“And yet they really didn’t have a plan of action. They’re not here
to emigrate and make a new life. The trouble is, they don’t have
any choice but to try, otherwise they starve, kill themselves, or
give themselves up.”
    A few had ended up incarcerated under
criminal statutes. Over the years, one or two had been apprehended
that way. Sometimes people turned themselves in.
    One or two over the years had done just
that. They turned themselves in to the Planetary Authority, who
placed them in custody and notified the Fleet. If they did it
quickly enough, the punishment was the usual thing, not desertion
but absent without leave. Desertion was another level of offense,
and yet how would he define it? They probably just got scared. Were
they actually intending to desert? Intent was part of the
definition of the desertion offence. Some of them were just kids,
really. As for suicide, there were no statistics.
    “ Over the years, fifty-seven
men and women have deserted Fleet units of all types, on Third
World, or failed to return after shore leave. Some of them quite
recently, ah, including two of our own.”
    Sober faces watched him
silently.
    “ For all we know, some might
have been murdered, been killed in accidents, or even just got sick
or starved to death.”
    The Fleet took full legal
responsibility for people when they