“Are they from hot planets like you are?”
“I don’t think so,” Morgan answered slowly, adding a rather weak-sounding, “but I don’t much about the planets where any of them are from, except those from the Parlon system.”
“Think it through. If they’re not used to this level of heat, why are they still wearing their full uniforms on the bridge?”
“Oh,” Morgan said, very quietly.
“Oh indeed,” Rain said with a nod.
“They’re wearing their uniform because I am. They think they have to.”
“Exactly. Don’t misunderstand me, Morgan, being able to get certain results simply by providing an example is a powerful tool for any commander, but you have to keep in mind when it can work against you as much as it can for you.”
“So what do you suggest I wear instead?”
Despite having been the one to bring up the topic, the captain suddenly looked more than a little embarrassed.
“I am not going to get into the minutia of what is appropriate for a woman young enough to be my granddaughter to wear. There has to be something you can do to walk the line between accommodating the temperature and still being as professional as you can.”
“And what are you and the Lieutenants Brown wearing?”
Rain shrugged.
“Light slacks and some sort of short-sleeved shirt. Jacob is down to a sleeveless shirt, but he was always more laid-back than most. He can get away with it only because of his extreme competence.”
“All right, I’ll figure something out.”
“That’s all I ask,” Rain said, standing back up to look out the ‘window’ again.
It was a clear dismissal, but since she had him here, Morgan thought she might as well take advantage of it.
“Should we be worried about all these incidents with the crew, sir?”
“Which incidents are you referring to?”
“Just in the last few hours we’ve had the mercs playing some kind of game in a sealed part of the ship, and several people were screaming at each other.”
Rain actually laughed for a moment.
“Sorry, I know you’re being serious, but the mercs… let’s just say that kind of thing is always going on where military types are concerned, the only thing different now is they’re likely channeling their… let us call their exuberant behavior… into areas more likely to be cool. The crew’s temper is another issue, however. Frankly I’m surprised there haven’t been any full-blown fights yet. Maybe the better food helped? If so, that will change soon, because we used up the last of the perishable food yesterday.”
“Will shutting down the freezers make any difference with the temperature?” Morgan asked, despite knowing what the answer was likely to be.
Rain shook his head.
“With power, a bit. With the temperature, not that we’ll notice. As with so many things, it is simply a matter of scale. Yes, we have to keep the freezers especially cold, but as big as they are, it’s nothing against a ship the size of STEVE.”
“Yes, sir. If there isn’t anything else, I’ll go finish my shift.”
Morgan paused as she reached the hatch, her hand hovering over the switch.
“If I might offer some advice of my own, sir, you should get some sleep. Telling me to lighten up on the uniform could have waited until later.”
Rain snorted in clear amusement.
“I should, and it could have. I didn’t come up here for that, though. That was merely me taking advantage of you being here, which is another secret of command – there is usually too much to do, so taking care of several things at once is always nice when you can manage it. Despite almost everything being computerized, there are still a few things I can handle better from here than in my quarters. Carry on, Lieutenant,” Rain said, finishing his comments by sitting back down and pulling open one of the drawers built into the desk.
“Captain,” Morgan said as she slipped out of the room.
Williamson yielded up the command chair with obvious relief, settling back into his own chair at the sensor readouts with a sigh she could just make out over the general chatter and machine sounds.
Morgan had to suppress a snort of amusement of her own as she realized what was behind it. The sensor station was against the far wall… right next to one of the vents for the air system. The air coming out wasn’t anything approaching cold, but it was cooler than the rest of the bridge.
Not much I can do about my outfit tonight, but…
Before sitting back down, Morgan made a big show of opening her tunic, pulling it off, and setting it along the right armrest of the command chair, the one that didn’t have any controls built in to it.
Her undershirt was still mostly soaked through, clinging to her as tightly as if it was a skinsuit, but it was something, and really there wasn’t anything else she could take off at the moment.
I must have been crazy to take on this job. Worrying about how my outfit affects the crew? Things were much simpler when I was just a mechanic.
Chapter 15
I know some of you will groan if I start off by saying that there are many benefits to martial arts training besides knowing how to fight. From what I can tell such a saying was shopworn and eyeroll-inducing long before mankind ever left Earth.
It also happens to be true. Oh, sure, discipline, and exercise, and self-esteem, all of that claptrap is part of it, but there are other things too, things that are rather more important if you ever find yourself in a position to actually use the training. Put simply, knowing how to properly fight can also help you know when not to fight. For someone unused to violence, even in potential, it is just a switch – on or off. For someone with wider training it is an entire toolbelt, with many options specific to whatever the circumstances dictate. Talk someone down, disarm and retreat, restrain to prevent either side being hurt, to yes, lethal force. All of that is useful, but it requires training.
- Grandmaster Arthur Ho, chairman of the Federation of Martial Arts, planet Sitonai.
Sgt. Eck
FINALLY FINISHED ‘counseling’ the mercs under his command who had broken into the empty cargo bay, Max plodded along the corridors toward the mess hall. Truthfully, he was less angry with them at having done it than he was annoyed they’d been caught.
There was a long, long tradition of grunts inventing new and unusual ways of entertaining themselves, and while admittedly some of those ways ended in damage, death, or disaster, this one was essentially harmless. About the only thing that could have gone seriously wrong was if someone’s faceplate had broken and they’d got a lungful of nitrogen, but as nigh impossible as that was, the suit itself would still have been pumping oxygen into the helmet, so they would have had time to get the cosmically unlucky out of the bay and back into the normal areas of the ship.
Come to think of it, if we’re being so careful with power, why are those empty bays gravity plates on in the first place? Hell, as long as they check to make sure everything is secure first, they could probably turn off the gravity in the bays that are full of cargo.
Maybe I’ll bring that up with Morgan later. Decent excuse to come up and talk to her, at any rate. Probably just got overlooked.
That he actually needed an excuse was understandable, but frustrating. There were no more weapons drills, trainings, or anything like that which required the presence of the ship’s mercenary liaison, and with most people staying in their quarters as much as possible, he didn’t see her much, otherwise.
The captain had even put most routine maintenance on hold, an irony of ironies, as missing that same kind of maintenance had caused the problem to begin with, but the less the crew was moving about and the fewer areas they were using, the better.
Finally, Max arrived at the mess, and if he couldn’t have seen the few dozen people scattered about, he’d have assumed it was empty based on the noise level, or rather the lack of one.
It had been his favorite place on the ship, where he could
join any of a half dozen conversations, gossip sessions, or card games at any given time. Now it was a swirling mass of resentment, discontent, and misery, with tempers flaring to match the flaring of the temperature. Not even the fact the heat meant the ladies (and men too, to be fair, not that he cared) were starting to wear rather less could do anything to improve his or anyone else’s mood.
The fact that the mess was one of the cooler spots left on the ship didn’t help much either. In fact, it probably made things worse in some ways, as that meant more people congregated there, making the likelihood of confrontations higher.
Things get much worse, we’ll all be sleeping in hydroponics.
There weren’t any other Aegis employees about, probably because of the fallout of the zero-g ball game, and none of the other crewmen were familiar to him, so Max just grabbed his food and settled in on an empty table not too far from the officer’s section.
I wonder if there is a betting pool going on how many fights we end up with in the next four months?
What am I saying? Of course there is. Corporal Manheim will have added that to his books at least two weeks ago, and there’s probably someone doing the same on the civies’ side.
He was almost finished with his pathetic excuse for a meal when Morgan walked in. She had finally lost her uniform tunic, at least to the extent of having it draped over one arm.
She looked far less annoyed than anyone else in the room, but that was not to say she looked happy. Resigned was perhaps his best guess at her mood.
I’ll let her get her food and get settled first.
Beyond considerations of politeness, he was done with his food anyway, and needed to get his junk squared away first.
He had walked over to do just that, and so had his back turned to the tables when a conversation suddenly erupted into loud shouting.
“Well, maybe I am tired of your ugly face!”
Quickly dumping the rest of his stuff in the proper receptacles, Max turned around in time to see four people vaulted to their feet around one of the tables. If they’d been on a station or groundside it would have been sudden and violent enough to knock over the chairs they were seated in, but being a spaceship, the benches were bolted to the deck, giving their standing far less dramatic weight.
Seriously? Over an ‘ugly face’ insult? That’s what’s setting this off?
The rest of the room was still seated, thankfully, but while their not joining in was a good thing, this also meant none of them were likely to try and stop the brewing fight, either.
And here I am on the wrong side of the room, Max thought. Well, time to earn my absurd pay, even if it is saving the crew from themselves rather than pirates or whatever.
Before he could move more than two paces toward the men, the first punch was thrown, by ‘Ugly Face.’ The insult thrower went down, tripping over the bench to the table behind him, but his buddy was already throwing a return punch at Ugly’s jaw. Even across the room, Max could hear the crack of breaking bones, and idly wondered if it was the buddy’s fist – terrible form, never punch with your thumb on the inside – or Ugly’s jaw.
Probably not both, I don’t think it was quite that powerful a punch.
Insulter was already back on his feet, rubbing his face where he’d been struck. He didn’t go for a punch, however. No, he snapped his foot out and caught Ugly in the stomach, driving the wind out of him with a very lough whuff.
This room is too blasted big, Max thought as he picked up his pace. Gotta get over there before someone is more seriously hurt.
It was getting hard to see what was going on, because the rest of the crewmen had apparently decided apathy wasn’t the right choice anymore, and were standing up and moving over to watch.
Because of that, Max couldn’t see Morgan approaching, short as she was, but he clearly could see when she reached the brawl.
The fourth guy went flying, landing with a crash of trays and splatter of food on top of an adjacent table.
At first, he had thought that a natural part of the fight, but then Ugly started yelling for the “‘impolite word’ to stay out of it.”
Such language in front of an officer and a lady, Max thought, growling to himself. Very stupid, dude, and not only because now you’ve pissed me off.
Finally, Max moved around the crowd, just in time to see Ugly take a swing at Morgan. She clumsily dodged to the side, and then kicked him in the leg.
He collapsed with a scream, a scream that was not loud enough to cover the sound of further broken bones.
Oh, Morgan, that was a bit much, Max thought with a wince.
Insulter didn’t look sure about what to do at this point, and Max took advantage of his confusion to grab him and roll him over his hip, tossing him to the floor and pinning him with one knee.
That just left Buddy, but he was smart enough to see what had happened to the others and put up his hands in surrender.
“Good choice,” Max said. He turned his attention to the one on the floor. “I’m going to let you up now. Don’t try anything stupid. The fight’s over, and you’re in enough trouble as it is.”
Letting Insulter up, Max pulled up the merc’s channel on his uplink.
“We’ve got a fight in the mess. We need a few MPs and at least one medical team. Broken bones for sure, I don’t know if there is anything more serious.”
The comm officer responded within a moment, which made Max rather proud.
“Ready team dispatched. Is the fight ongoing?”
“No, just the cleanup left,” Max said, eying the fourth man who was attempting to clean some of the food off his chest and failing.
“All right,” Morgan said, straightening up and addressing the rest of the room. She had to practically shout to be heard over the still-screaming Ugly. “Rest of you should get back to your quarters or duty stations.”
With a mixture of grumbles, grimaces, and more than a few glances at Ugly clutching his obviously-broken leg, they complied. The last of them were filing out as the mercs arrived.
Now that they were there, Max sat heavily down on a clean bench. Morgan nodded to them, but stayed standing. Her body language clearly told him she was still keyed up to fight, and that she didn’t know what to do with the energy now that the fighting was over.
“Might as well sit down, Lieutenant Black,” he called out to her, gesturing to a spot next to him that hadn’t been hit with flying food. “This is going to take a while.”
Chapter 16
Adrenaline is a funny thing. Absolutely vital in times of serious danger or troubles, it also has plenty of negative effects on the body. Tunnel vision, an inability to hear sounds, or at least process them, followed by shakes, weakness, trembling limbs. It can be quite a shock to those unaccustomed to it, literally.
- Doctor Commander Julius Hanford-Bashram, Beltran Space Force.
ECK’S ESTIMATE turned out to be somewhat optimistic, as simply dealing with the initial reporting with the MPs who had responded to the fight took a good hour. Morgan did her best to answer all the questions they put to her, but it was so hard to concentrate, so hard to hear what they were saying.
She kept looking down at her hands, finding them shaking, and she’d grip her legs a little tighter, but the shaking didn’t stop.
Just a stupid fight. That’s all. That’s all it was. Nobody was threatening your life, Morgan. Relax. You can relax.
Eck was saying something and frowning. Wait, he was saying something to her.
“What? Sorry, what did you say?” Morgan got out as the silence after he finished speaking dragged on.
“I said they’re finished here,” he repeated, quite slowly, though the frown remained. “We should report in to the Officer of the Watch.”
“Right, right,” Morgan said, struggling to think things through. “Better call him down to his office. Captain doesn’t like sharing his ready room, and, um…” Morgan trailed off.
“Less of a scene that way?” Eck helpfully fini
shed for her.
“Right, yeah. That.”
Eck stood up, moving over to stand in front of Morgan and offering her his hand.
Don’t touch me, Morgan thought, her hand jerking in her lap. She said nothing, however, and just stood on her own, taking extra care to replace her tunic, though she left the closure open.
Most of the mercs had already left, though Morgan hadn’t noted when. Probably when the four troublemakers were carted off to… did the ship have a jail? A brig rather, that was the naval term. He probably did.
No, they would have gone to the sickbay first, then to the brig.
There was only two of them left, Eck and a lady sergeant with whom Morgan wasn’t acquainted.
The two of them exchanged a look, the meaning of which Morgan couldn’t even begin to guess at.
“Cutie, I can go report to the LT by myself if you’d like. You can go back to your quarters, lie down or something,” he said, just as slowly as before.
“No, no, I’m going. I saw more of it than you did, anyway,” Morgan insisted, ending the discussion by virtue of simply heading toward the hatch.
It was hard to hear past the slight ringing in her ears, but she thought Eck was following along behind her, which was fine.
It wasn’t too far to the bank of offices the officers used, with a single (vacant) spot out front for a secretary and some benches for people to sit on while waiting.
Morgan sat down on the bench in front of Lieutenant Jacob’s seldom-used office and waited.
As Eck sat down on the same bench, a meter distant from her, she realized she’d forgotten to tell Jacob to meet them.
“Need to get Jacob down here…” she muttered, fumbling at her uplink.
Across from them the other merc sat down, crossing her legs neatly, lowering her head, and looking up at Morgan.
“It’s all right, I told him. We got this, Cutie. We have your statement and everything. It’s just another routine report. Okay, mostly routine. Really, I can do it myself. Sergeant Weaver here can take you back to your quarters.”
Running Black Page 13
