Captain Rick Jamieson and the crew of the SFS Lincoln had been stuck in the Kuiper Belt for nearly nine months now, monitoring cometary fragments for possible threats to the colonies further into the solar system, and looking for any potential rebel activity that might rise up at the edge of the solar system.
So far, they had found no cometary fragments that posed a risk to anything aside from possibly another cometary fragment, and they hadn’t seen any signs of rebel activity, or any activity of any kind. In fact, they hadn’t even seen another ship since they’d arrived in the Kuiper Belt, but at least they hadn’t ended up in the Oort Cloud like they originally thought they were going to.
Still, to say that morale was low onboard the Lincoln would be an understatement. They’d basically been banished for failing a mission that was pretty much doomed to failure before they’d even set out on it. Three enlisted personnel and one officer were now in the brig for mutinous activities, and Captain Jamieson was sure there’d be more to follow. Hell, he’d felt like mutinying a few times himself. This was an unjust punishment for something that wasn’t their fault, but that was part of the military life. Trying not to sigh, he realized that he had more than two years left before this rotation was up. When it was up, he seriously thought about retiring, or at least leaving the service.
“Nothing on scans,” Lt. Andrew Jenkins said from the helm. It was the hourly report that he was required to give. He didn’t sound enthused to be giving the report, and Captain Jamieson certainly wasn’t enthused to be receiving it.
“Thank you, lieutenant,” he said automatically.
“Surprise, surprise,” his first officer, Elena Castillo said.
Captain Jamieson shot her a freezing glare.
“Apologies, sir,” she said, but he knew she didn’t really mean it. She was just as frustrated as he was, but she needed to remember that neither of them could show that frustration. Morale didn’t need to drop any lower than it already was, or they’d be mopping blood up off of the decks.
“We’ll be back where we belong soon,” he said, even though he wasn’t really sure if he believed it. No, truth be told, he didn’t believe it at all.
His first officer didn’t answer him. A wise choice, he thought.
“I’m going to go put our next report together. I’ll be in my quarters should you need me.”
He could see in her expression that she was thinking the same thing he was, it’ll be yet another very short report, since there was really nothing to report, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to need to call him for anything.
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