Free Burden of Proof by John G. Hemry

department, and probably yours as well, will be due tomorrow morning. I'd get to work writing if I was you."
    Diego looked horrified. "Tomorrow morning? Why are our department heads doing that to us?"
    "The XO wants it that way."
    "But I thought our department heads were supposed to look out for us."
    Oh, man. Was I ever that naïve ? "Let me pass on some wisdom, Randy. I got told this right after I reported onboard. Officers in the Space Navy tend to fall into three categories. There's the exiles, guys who think they've been unjustly consigned to isolated duty in which they've little chance to maneuver for promotion. So the exiles tend to ride their subordinates hard in hope of somehow gaining favorable recognition for themselves. Then there's the survivors, officers who are merely trying to endure their tours without killing themselves or anyone else. They're usually relatively easy-going for Space Warfare Officers, but I imagine you can already guess there aren't that many survivors at department head-level and above."
    Randy Diego grimaced. "Yeah. I haven't met any I'd call easy-going. Except for Commander Sykes."
    "He's a special case. Finally, there's the idealists, who believe in human destiny in space and are willing to put up with extra hardships to help accomplish that, even if it doesn't necessarily enhance their careers." Paul didn't say that he'd been pegged as an idealist early on by his then-fellow-ensign Jen Shen. "Now, my department head, Commander Garcia, is very definitely an exile, which doesn't make life for me any easier and means Garcia's number one priority is looking good. Trying to talk the XO out of some new deadline the XO dreamed up is no way to look good. What about your department head?"
    "Commander Nimitz? Uh, I think he'd be an idealist."
    "Okay, so would an idealist, willing to undergo hardships himself, beg off the XO's new deadline so you can get a halfway decent night's sleep?"
    Randy slumped for a moment, then with a flurry of curses shut off the movie and pulled up his own evaluation files. The compartment stayed silent after that, except for the sporadic sounds of Paul and Randy working.
    Kris Denaldo rapped on the hatch coaming and leaned in. "Got word on the XO's anti-cut-and-paste program. As long as you make sure at least every fourth word varies, even by one letter, it'll give you a clean bill of health."
    "Really?" Paul looked at his work and grinned. "Oh, that'll make things go a lot faster. How'd you find out, Kris?"
    "I ran into Senior Chief Kowalski, and he happened to mention it."
    "God bless him." Senior Chiefs weren't technically fonts of all knowledge, but they were close enough that smart officers tried to work well with them.
    "Later."
    Kris vanished, followed a moment later by a red-faced Sam Yarrow. "What'd Denaldo want?" he asked the compartment in general.
    Paul debated not answering for a moment, then decided that keeping silent would be acting too much like Sam. "She'd just talked to the Senior Chief, who said -"
    "I haven't got time for whatever the Senior Chief told Kris Denaldo." Yarrow strapped into his chair and called up his own evaluation files.
    Paul raised one eyebrow, then glanced at Randy Diego, who favored Yarrow with a "screw you" look. Paul smiled, shrugged and went back to work as Randy smiled in turn.
    Hours later, Paul closed his files out and blinked at the time display. I have to go on watch again at 0400, which means getting on the bridge by 0330 to turn over with Kris, which means getting up no later than 0300. Hey, I might get three hours sleep tonight. What a deal. I sure hope tomorrow - Paul checked the time again, seeing it was now past midnight, and corrected himself. I sure hope today's better than yesterday .
    * * *
    About twenty-four hours later, Paul stood beside Sheriff Sharpe as the Greenspacers were herded off of the USS Michaelson by a bevy of security personnel. Some of the Michaelson 's crew gawked at the protestors, while others