Frontline sf-4

by Randolph Lalonde

  The whole thing complicated her relationship with Frost, especially since the last thing Grace accused her of was killing her so she could take Frost for herself. Getting together with the Gunnery Chief may have been an easy decision for her but it wasn't as easy for the crew to deal with, there was still animosity between the Gunnery Crews and Security Teams because of their last public fight. What would happen if Frost discovered her night with the Captain?

  She tried to put it out of her mind as Frost noticed her coming in. He was reclining on a medical pallet waiting for the treatment systems to finish scanning the stump at the end of his shin. “'Bout time. Was thinkin' you'd never show.”

  Stephanie smiled and walked up to his bedside. “You on your back? I wouldn't miss this for anything.”

  The scan of Frost's healed stump completed and one of the few medical workers, a fellow with a shaved head and kind eyes, shorter than herself, came around. He took a look at the scan results and nodded. “We'll start materializing your prosthetic right away sir. Sorry we couldn't grow you a foot.”

  “Aye, still don't understand why,” Frost spat back irritably. “The instructions are right in the computer, if it were me I'd just follow 'em.”

  “Like I said before, it's not that simple. If I grow you one and attach it but something-”

  “Aye, if somethin' went wrong I could be worse off. Fine,” Frost finished for him. “Just put somethin' on that stump so my Gunners aren't lookin' at me sideways for the rest o' the trip.”

  “Yes sir,” the medical tech said with a sobered nod to Frost. “Good to see you Chief,” he said to Stephanie with a small smile.

  “Don't mind him, he gets irate whenever I save his ass,” Stephanie whispered as though Frost couldn't hear her.

  “Oh, that explains everything,” the medical tech said, rolling his eyes as he started towards the materializer across the room.

  “Save my ass?” Frost said with a raised eyebrow. “I lost some good loaders in that fight, we kept 'em off ya while you blasted at 'em.”

  Stephanie stopped feigning a pleasant demeanour but kept her voice low. “We lost people. You, me, maintenance and Triton as a whole. There's no point in comparing loss.”

  “Fine, I'm just sayin' that it woulda been worse if my loaders hadn't a been there.”

  Stephanie sighed, more to take a moment in an attempt to remain calm than anything else. She went on in a whisper; “I told you to get back, you didn't, and the fact that you're sitting here waiting for a new foot doesn't drive anything home.”

  “This is just the part o' the cost, lass. Us gunners polish our decks in blood on days like this.”

  “More like testosterone,” she muttered as she turned and strode for the exit.

  “Ye can't give orders on my deck lass!” Frost called after her.

  “Enjoy your new foot!” she called back over her shoulder. “Should be a great battle scar to show the boys!”

  Stephanie nearly walked right into Ashley as she turned the corner outside of the infirmary. She was carrying two white, blocky food containers. “Coming to visit someone?”

  “I came to see you. From the sound of your talk with Frost it was a good idea,” Ashley grinned and presented one of the containers to her with an outstretched arm. “For you.”

  Stephanie smiled back at her and accepted the package. “Thank you, I haven't eaten in I don't know how long.” They started walking towards the lift, both women quietly restraining themselves from stopping right on the spot and tearing into the fragrant insulated meals. “What's for dinner?”

  “Dim sum, vegetable lo mein, lychee soda and a brownie.”

  “Oriental again?”

  “Couldn't resist, especially since the materializers in the commissaries and pubs are so much better at making food than the ones in our quarters now. The lower ranks almost don't mind having their materializers deactivated.”

  They stepped into the lift and Stephanie highlighted the rear of the command deck as their destination. “Maybe he'd have some advice on what to do. I'm in a spot, Ash,” Stephanie finished in a whisper, keenly aware of the three crew members who were already in the lift.

  Ashley gave her a sidelong look, the lightness and humour falling away. “Aren't you supposed to give me advice?” She whispered.

  “I think the tables are turned this time,” Stephanie replied, lightening her visible mood as the lift doors opened and the express car admitted two more. She couldn't help but sigh as it started in the wrong direction, towards the front of the lower berths. “Anyway, how's the helm?”

  Ashley perked up a little, as much for their audience of five as for her best friend. “Great. Panloo's taking the shift. She's doing really well, has gotten a good feel for how the ship moves.”

  “The ride's been pretty smooth in ship wide sims while she's at the helm.”

  “Yup, she sticks to the safe manoeuvres but I'd rather see that than anything else.”

  “How's Nevin turning out?”

  “Nevil, actually. He's taking the qualifier for Triton tonight.”

  “That was quick.”

  “Well, he was a pilot on a five M rig for a few months, in comparison the Triton's smaller.”

  “I doubt he had to fly it in combat.”

  “Sorry, Ma'am, but what's a five M rig?” asked a nafalli in a loose fitting maintenance vacsuit. The fur of his face stood out straighter than the average nafalli, and was an intermix of blonde and brown shades.

  “S'okay, we know you're listening.” Ashley smiled at him. “It's just a shorter way of saying a fifty megaton rig, one of those really big containment.”

  “Oh, thank you ma'am. I tried the Triton qualifier for fun, I can't see how anyone could pass it.”

  “It's hard, you have to keep thinking in three dimensions and know where your best thrust points are. Besides, there are about two dozen tutorials leading up to the final qualifier. If you don't do most of them anyone would be pretty lost. What's your call sign? Would I have seen you in sims?”

  “I don't think so, but it's Woolly.”

  “Rush At Io, I remember you were part of the vanguard.”

  The nafalli nodded and put his head down, his paws crossing over the back of his neck. “I didn't do very well.”

  “Everyone has trouble at the start, flying is it's own way of thinking,” the lift doors opened and two of the passengers exited. The car began moving back up, to the relief of everyone aboard. “Stick to it, it'll become more natural as you go.”

  “Oh, I will. I've signed on with a team, they won't let me drop out,” the doors opened once more. He and the two maintenance workers with him, both human and much smaller, got off as he said; “thank you, Commander.”

  “You're welcome,” Ashley managed as the doors closed. “I'm never going to get used to that.”

  “People calling you by rank?”

  “Yup, and being asked for advice. It happens all the time.”

  “Well, he's right, I've heard almost everyone has tried the Triton qualifier and the word is it's impossible.”

  Ashley shook her head slightly. “No, you just can't let yourself slip out of three dimensional thinking and you have to account for a lot more. I mean, a lot of ships this size have a pilot, two navigators and an AI dedicated to the helm all at the same time, especially if the mass of the ship is always changing.”

  Stephanie chuckled to herself and shook her head. “You've come a long way since the Samson.”

  Ashley shrugged. “Didn't have a choice. I'm just glad this ship has a lot of studying material. I don't think I've ever read as much as I have in the last month. That's actually the only thing that really pisses me off about some of our new pilots and the wannabes; they don't go looking for their own information. It's all right there in the system, you just have to look it up and figure out how it works with your own style.”

  “Maybe you should start telling them that.”

  “Maybe, though it seems a lot easier to just a
nswer their questions.”

  “But they won't learn how to teach themselves that way, you know, learn to fish.”

  “Huh?”

  “You know, give a man a fish he'll eat for a day, teach him to fish…”

  “Oh, right. Guess so.”

  “Speaking of which, how is Wooly in the cockpit?”

  Ashley tapped a few commands into her control unit and grimaced. “Well, he's getting better, but he's got the third highest collision rate on the ship.”

  “Oh, that's not good. I hope he's a good maintenance worker,” Stephanie said as the doors opened to reveal their long awaited destination; the rear of the command deck.

  They stepped out and made for Ashley's quarters, they were closer than Stephanie's by just a few doors. Upon entering Stephanie couldn't help but stop and whistle. “You did some work in here.”

  The red carpeted floor of the main sitting room was decorated with a long oriental dragon that encircled a low table. There were cushions and low seats arranged around the room, all in an effort to encourage her guests to lounge instead of simply sit. The walls were decorated with oriental fans, masks and beside the door leading into her bedroom was a long tapestry of two silhouetted geisha. Beside the other door was a tapestry of a shadowy samurai. “This goes way past your chopstick collection.”

  “I know, I thought if I made the place my own I'd feel more at home.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Sorta, but to be honest a lot of this stuff was already in the ship materialization database except for the dragon, I had to do that myself. All the materials used were really light, so it only took two days of matter rations. The kotatsu was in storage somewhere though, I had to trade for it.”

  “What's a kotatsu and what did you trade?”

  “It's the table, I think there's a little heater in it too. I only had to give up the furniture stacked in my side room, wanted to get rid of it anyway so I could put a second bed in,” Ashley said as she undid her gun belt and sat down at the low wooden table. “I'm on the list to get it from ship inventory. Apparently they're waiting for security to finish sweeping the junior officer's quarters before they'll release any more furniture.”

  “We're getting there, don't worry. Besides, according to the computer those spaces are fully furnished but were only used for eighteen years so you'll get your guest room bed.”

  Stephanie went to the materializer and ordered a green tea for herself. The transparent cover slid down and her order was prepared starting with the tall white cup then the steaming hot water was poured inside as the teabags appeared. “I'll never get over how this ship actually carries and recycles real water.”

  “The Samson had water aboard. About six months worth with the recycling system.”

  “The carrier I served on had an energy reserve and an emergency store of water and food, I never thought anyone did it any other way, especially on a ship three times the mass.”

  “Chief Grady was saying that the Triton doesn't have an emergency store of water, doesn't need one. Most of the water on the ship runs along the walls, it's treated right there.” Ashley opened her container, revealing steaming noodles, vegetables and six white dim sum bulbs. The aroma of the spices filled the air right away and she smiled as she took a pair of chopsticks from a drawer in the table for herself and passed another pair to Stephanie, who was just sitting down. “Now, about the spot you're in, spill.”

  Stephanie had the lid to her late dinner half open and stopped, looked across the table to Ashley, who stared back with an upraised eyebrow, chewing through her first bite of sliced carrot and noodle. “You have to keep this to yourself, and I mean it.”

  “Promise.”

  “Nono, not like the last time when you said you'd keep it to yourself and told everyone else who you thought could keep it to themselves.”

  “What, Silver and Price? They didn't spread it,” Ashley replied nonchalantly.

  “See? I knew you passed it around. Looks like I'll have to go talk to Chief Grady if I need someone to bounce this off of,” Stephanie concluded as she carefully dug into her steaming pile of noodles and chopped vegetables.

  Ashley looked at her friend, trying to read her and at the same time trying to guess what the big issue could be while she picked at a dim sum bulb. “Wow, this has gotta be huge,” she said quietly.

  “That's why I don't think you can keep it quiet.”

  Ashley thought for a moment and steeled herself. “I'll keep the lid on. I don't care how much it hurts, this one doesn't get out. My lips may pout but they will be sealed.”

  Stephanie couldn't help from keeping the corners of her mouth from curling up.

  “Besides, looks like you're about to burst,” Ashley teased.

  “You're right, but still, this has to stay in the room.”

  “I'm all hush, now get with the sharing.”

  “Okay. The night before Captain left we got into a big fight, I even told him to snap out of the blue he's in and things got heated.”

  “Wow, he threaten to-”

  “Not finished,” Stephanie interrupted.

  “'Kay, go on.”

  “Instead of storming off the Samson I kissed him.”

  Ashley's eyes went wide, she froze mid chew, with her chopsticks half way between her mouth and food.

  “Finish chewing,” Stephanie advised her.

  She hurriedly munched through the mouthful of noodles and swallowed exaggeratedly, filling the room with a gulp. “There's more?”

  Stephanie closed the lid to her food and slowly got to her feet, turning away from Ashley. “Oh yeah.”

  “How much more? Did it turn into a snogging session? Someone catch you? What happened?”

  “We, um, got together in the forward hold, the upper part.”

  “With the stasis tubes?” Ashley exclaimed through a shocked grin.

  “With the stasis tubes.”

  “But you didn't get in that night, I dropped by your quarters-”

  “Then we ran to his quarters.”

  “You jez! I knew you two would bunk up someday! How was it? I mean…”

  Stephanie laughed, turning beet red; “The whole night was fantastic. It think we traumatized Price though.”

  “He caught you?” Ashley burst with shrieking laughter.

  “I checked the security recordings for that night in the service bay and saw him running from the ship around the time things started. I've never seen him move that fast,” Stephanie said through an insuppressible giggle.

  A peal of Ashley's laughter filled the room.

  “Okay, get it out of your system,” Stephanie said, crossing her arms, still blushing furiously.

  “You'll-” she gasped for air, “you'll have to show that to me some time. Did the receivers on the Samson catch anything?”

  “Oh yeah, the whole thing. I deleted the footage.”

  “Smart, I would have kept a copy though.”

  “Oh no, the last thing we need is that kind of footage floating around.”

  “Good point. How'd you leave things?”

  “Well, things were fine at first, we were going to just leave it as a one time thing but then he said something and it just left everything wide open.”

  “Oh no, what'd he say?”

  “'If,' and then he just stopped. I tried to get him to spit the rest out but he just shut up.”

  Ashley's mirth was replaced by sympathy. “I'm so sorry. What'd you do?”

  “Well, we said we'd keep it simple, and I don't know why, but I was pissed, I just got out of there. He came by the security office and made sure things had cooled down, told me not in so many words that he still trusted me before he left.”

  “So things are okay.”

  “Nooooo,” Stephanie said emphatically, shaking her head and waving her hands in front of her. “Things are not okay, I'm screwed! ”

  “Frost,” Ashley concluded.

  “Exactly! He respected me before we got together,
now it's impossible! He lost his foot because he didn't listen to me right in the middle of a crisis! His people and mine know he doesn't follow my orders and whenever I bring it up he just pats me on the head and changes the topic! He's great when it's just the two of us but everywhere else he's been an ass.”

  “And Captain is well, Captain,” Ashley nodded.

  “That's just it. Jake's different, better, he's been easier to be with since we ran into that slave barge. I think he's just starting to see it for himself too. Whatever he's getting from Jonas is just helping it along, he's changing like anyone else when they have a crisis, the only difference is his crisis has a name,” she sighed, looking out the faux window, a section of bulkhead a few meters wide that showed an image of the view outside. “I keep thinking about him, I can't stop.”

  “So you and Frost are-”

  “Done! We have to be! I hear his name and I cringe! What's worse is that I told Captain that I'd be sticking with Frost to 'see where it goes,' I can't believe I said that, see where it goes. What the hell was I thinking?”

  “Um, you thought Frost would start listening to you?” Ashley offered with a shrug.

  “You're right, I actually did but his cock up on the gunnery deck and how he treated me in medical in front of everyone,” she threw up her hands, “it just won't work.”

  “What do you think Captain will do when he gets back and finds that you and Frost have split?” Ashley asked quietly.

  “Well, Cap, I mean Jake took it pretty well when I told him that I'd be sticking with Frost, but I could tell there was something. He was worried about me, that's something.” She sighted and shook her head; “And he said 'if” and I still want him to finish that sentence!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I don't know, yes, but it might be complicated if that 'if' leads to something…” Stephanie said as she started pacing. “… something more.”

  An impish grin started to make an appearance on Ashley's face. “Like you and Frost wasn't complicated? I mean, the gunner and security crews are on the verge, you two barely get along, and he's a mess. Well, not just a mess, a public mess.”