"I need to learn all of these things." Your eyebrows come down as much as his went up. "You're the one who looked like a fork that got stuck in a garbage disposal three nights ago, sir, why would you think I'm the one who needs to knock off?"
"I've got no answer for that you won't take amiss, I expect," you remark, and turn back around to go off to the hangars. After those are sorted it's off to the ventilation control area to show Kadros how the air, ideally, circulates, and the various pumps and fans that keep everyone in the boxy warren of residential area from quietly asphyxiating in their sleep. After that, airlocks, a trip to the makespace for repair fabrication and supplies, then back to the problem airlocks to fix up what gaskets have been failing and which doors have been sticking. Then back to the makespace to put the tools away and set all the various printers to clean, repair, and reload. You sit down on the makespace couch, then, to chew on a pilfered protein bar— it's been another eight hours, as near as you can tell. Everything goes to hell when you're down for three days. "I'm taking four hours," you say. "Then I've got to get back to medical, we only did a basic run-through, I didn't have any time to see what they actually needed. And it's been ages since anyone checked on Galley. That's next." You shove the cushions around a bit, set a timer on your phone, and curl up around it. "Then we go through the lusus spaces... then the residential areas need treating for that new mold, got to figure that out... go home, Kadros. You're not captain. I'm captain. 'M see if the carts are... charging... charging right. After that. Don' think they'r. Right. Fuck off." You fall asleep.
Nodding along, you write down the tasks he describes. Once he's fully asleep, you pilfer his phone, turn off the alarm, and set the wake-up screen to the dictionary entry for 'delegate'. Then you pry your weary ass off the couch and lope off toward medical. See what they actually need, right. Then check on Galley. You don't know if it's a great idea to meet the Captain Killer without Aspera beside you, but then, Aspera implied Galley would be watching and judging you ever since you came aboard, so it probably doesn't make much difference really. And you do need to learn helmsman maintenance.
What medical needs, it turns out, is just about everything, including personnel. Although Aspera's hippie ideals mean there are far fewer injuries among the crew than is usual for a ship that's not under frontline discipline, the ships that dock for repair almost always have a casualty or two, and their captains are eager to dump them in the carrier's medbay because their own medics are overworked, out of supplies, or nonexistent. You wonder for a moment whether you could get Pancho posted here, but shake it off. This is a dead-end posting. Her career would stop here. And if Aspera turns out to be secretly a typical violet shitweasel after all, she would be leverage against you. Though the likelihood of that seems less every day. The Slammer's crew is just too relaxed for there to be any power-tripping fuckery going on behind the scenes. You're good at detecting that sort of thing. The awkward subject changes, the sudden tensings, the glances toward cameras. You only ever see that latter item, and then only when someone mentions the helmsman, which they usually do in tones of fond but exasperated regard. When you ask about helmsman maintenance, you get skeptical looks. Only the captain does it, you're told. Galley gets pissed at other people. Does he kill them? No, he hasn't subverted his programming enough to be able to shred people or anything, but he might 'accidentally' shoot the straw from his juice box through your tablet or drop an open jug of lubricant in front of you while you're running. You thank the medical staff solemnly for the warning, and then ignore it. They said the captain usually brings him a gift, some treat or reading material, and what sort of thing he likes. That explains the stack of movie magazines on the little table by the office door, you suppose. You grab those, and also a comic from your own quarters; it's not the raunchy comedies he likes, but maybe he'll find superheroes adequate to pass the time. You've never been to the helmsblock before, only even walked past it a few times; it's far aft, near the engines. The door doesn't snap open at your approach like most of them do. So Galley is allowed as much personal privacy as any crewman; you approve. You press the doorbell button and announce yourself: "Captain Aspera sends his regrets; I'm Commander Belatu Kadros. May I come in, please." It's weird to ask permission of a lower-ranked crewman on duty, but since Galley's never off duty and his workspace is also his quarters, you choose to err on the side of courtesy.
The door slides open. The small room inside is warm and humid, and smells of trollsweat, and ozone, and medical cleaning wipes. A tall, slim troll in a crisp black flight suit reclines in a hammock-style rig, pulsing ropes of biowire plugged into his arms, his neck, his thighs. A foot is braced against the wall and he rocks himself, just a little, in intervals as precise as a clocktick. His hair's trimmed professionally short, his twinned horns show signs of repair and polishing, and he's got a plush toy about the size and shape of a brick in his arms. He doesn't wear helmsman's goggles, and bright sparks crackle from the corners of his yellow-on-yellow eyes as he narrows them at his visitor. "Commander Kadros," he says. "How are you to be assisted tonight?" His voice is surprisingly deep, and even more surprisingly clear: very different from the atrophied hiss and croak an unused windchute is reduced to producing.
You actually honest-to-god stumble as his voice hits you like a cruise missile direct to the bulge. Emotional emergency systems sound alarms in your hindbrain. Everything clamps down as if you're getting a spit-in-face chewing-out from a twitchy Subjugglator. Your reply comes out with the pleasant impersonality of a computerized voice message system. "As you probably know, Helmsman, the captain was injured recently, and it threw his schedule off, so he hasn't been able to check on you. I'm trying to get him to delegate more, so I took it upon myself to do it in his place; I apologize for the irregularity. I've brought you some magazines he set aside for you, and a comic book I enjoyed, in case you'd like to borrow it. Where would you like me to put them?"
"Up your ass," the helmsman replies, just as pleasantly and impersonally, and then grins, baring long pale fangs, sitting up and forward. "UP YOUR FUCKING ASS, BITCHBOY." More points of light spark from his bare eyes, dancing around his horns, crawling up the wires. The room's atmosphere takes on the breathless, heavy fug of a stormfront before a lightning strike.
"As you were, Helmsman, I'm not here to interfere with your life," you say calmly. "I'll put them here." You set them on the foldout medical maintenance table someone didn't square away. "Is there anything you need? Any items for my to-do list?" Somewhere deep down, behind seven locked iron doors in your soul, something you didn't think you even possessed is sending up signal flares that spell out Hell yes you sass that brass, you gorgeous jerk, go go go! But on the surface you're not even sweating.
The helmsman's face blanks. He lies back against his hammock, resumes ticking. The sparks and lightning-crackle atmosphere fade out. "Conditions are sufficient for continued optimal performance, Commander Kadros. All systems fffuck you. Functional. This unit is fully operational."
"Very well. Feel free to contact me if you require anything. Good night." You turn and walk out, feeling as if you just discovered an error on your paystub that will make you rich if you can survive depositing the funds.
"Bel," his phone purrs— gone to speaker, and still that same deep voice. "If the Captain skins you for fucking his schedule up I'm going to get a new throw-rug."
You stop dead in the hall, riding out a full-body shiver. You swallow twice before you can reply. "New throw rug, got it." You put 'throw rug for Helmsman Galgal' on your to-obtain-somehow list. You're going to have to make a stop at your quarters before you can do the rest of your errands. You're going to have to find whatever cameras have ended up installed in your ablution block and put tape over them so the helmsman can't watch you jerk off to the memory of his black-coffee voice calling you 'Bel'. No one can ever know.
You wake up slow, warm, and spend a good while just absently nuzzling at the pillows before you realize the smell is all wrong for Lainey's place. Or yours. You're in the... the makespace's breakroom? wh. What. You sit up, groggily concerned, and pat yourself down for your phone. When you peer at it you wake up in a hurry, powered by an unholy combination of terror and rage. Your phone has been silenced. The wake setting was turned off, the alarms, notifications, messages— there's so many, how long have you been— nine hours. You've been out for nine hours. Glasswind was to have docked three hours ago. You should have had everything you'd meant to see to done with and been standing by to greet her as she docked because she takes the least little discourtesy as a slight oh hell oh FUCK oh damnation if she's gone and spaced anyone— You scramble off the couch and dither, for a long terrible moment, dashing to the closed door, back to the couch, to the sink. Then you focus. Dress uniform, you think with Lainey's voice, you know how to do this, you know what you've got to work with. You strip, redress, a little fumble-fingered but more steady. Shorts that would barely qualify as briefs. Tattered undershirt rather than pressed button-up, but the jacket, braids, glossy boots, yes. Rings on your fingers and bells on your toes, you think, and giggle to yourself, slipping on a dozen bits and bobs of gold and amethyst and carnelian and garnet— rinse your face, rinse your teeth, run wet claws and a bit of glitter through your hair, messy dark eyeshadow and lipstick, iridescent blush on your fins that gives them a shimmery, trembly sort of effect. The blonde-wood cane with the white-gold shark's head, the pink pearl eyes, you tuck it under your elbow and jog off, jingling. Best to work up a bit of a sweat before you burst on scene. Breathless. Flustery. Glasswind's a cantankerous old battleaxe but she does like her cute young things. And in this parsec they hardly get younger than you.
Much as you enjoy a challenge, you wish you were facing this one on a full day's sleep. She's not the most entitled seadweller you've ever had to deal with, nor the most hostile, but she just might be the most needy. You wish Aspera was here to oversee the actual repairs and refueling so you could focus completely on saying "Yes, Captain Glasswind," and "As you wish, Captain Glasswind," and "Right away, Captain Glasswind" in your most soothing and sonorous butler voice. At least you're not so green you actually try to comply with her demands. This type just likes to see people jump and scurry. Her first mate has the actual docking list. Aspera's crew know their jobs, but they're understaffed and underfunded, and it really shows at times like this. You could get Glasswind on her way a lot sooner if you were free to find out where you can pull crewman from for a couple hours to burn through the labor-intensive jobs like shifting stock and repairing micrometeorite damage. Really, you should have robots for this. You suppose there must've been once upon a time, but they can't work without the right spare parts like trolls can, so they must've broken down a long time ago. You serve Glasswind mixed drinks and agree apologetically with her insults to yourself and the crew, and you idly daydream about twisting her head off. When Aspera bursts onto the scene, your first thought is Oh good, swiftly followed by Oh god. You do not ask him what the hell he's wearing or why. You know for a damn fact he was sleeping like a grub half an hour ago, not partying it up at Lainey's. Maybe you underestimated the extent of his insanity.
"Captain, Glasswind, dear heart, I am so, so tremendously sorry for this outrageous state of affairs, the most recent help I got in's some sort of maniac saboteur, switched up all sorts of schedules, I hardly had time to throw a stitch on before I dashed off here to see what the trouble was! You must forgive me, your grace, your radiance, if I'd known it was you I might have skipped the stitches entirely and saved us all a bit more time. How are you, starlight, you look terrifying, absolutely blood-curdling, I shall have to order in more mops just to keep up with all the ensigns pissing themselves. Magnificent. Oh, are those drinks? Be a dear, Kay, and have a second round sent to my quarters— I just had some corals put in, Glasswind, I've been dying to get your advice on polyp propagation, you know how much I love my little gardens— the refitting? Yes, yes, of course, I've pulled simply everyone to get you restored to the style a deadly space horror like yourself should be used to." And all this kissing her claws, her rings, her hard-shelled cheek, one of her arms held close to your nearly-bare chest. You ferry the iron-fanged daymare off towards the cart area, the pitcher of drinks in your free hand, a glass in hers, head tilted in towards her shoulder. "Oh, the saboteur? I've a good idea how to root them out, but you know I'm all earfins to hear how you run such a tight ship! I'm hopeless at discipline— show me a few tricks? Glasswind, you scandalous old thing, I can't say I'd mind—" you glance over your shoulder just long enough to lock eyes with Kadros. "I'm sure I can think of a few applications for that sort of activity," you coo to Glasswind, and bare all your fangs at Kadros in a silent, furious signal: you are IN FOR IT, MISTER. Then you have Glasswind settling on to a flirtatiously-placed pillow on the passenger's side of a cart and you can get her the hell away from your crew.
You pretend utter absorption in the dock list until they're out of sight and earshot. Then you turn to the nearest noncom with a quizzical look. "Was I supposed to do that?"
The crewman regards him with a thoughtful expression. "I don't think you could pull off those shorts. Sir."
You nod solemnly. "Exactly what I was thinking." You pause for a deep breath, to gather yourself for effort and fight off fatigue, as if you got a ten minute sit-down and a meal bar instead of a bivouac and a hot MRE, and you still have twenty miles to march. Then you raise your voice and your tablet. "All right, where are we hung up? I'm going to get some extra manpower down here, show me where we need it." Hard work distracts you handily from the little shot of eager adrenaline you got from Aspera's death glare. You don't need to be dwelling on that.
Three hours later you make it back to the hangar bay, damp, tired, drunker than you'd like to be, and employing a sensible cane. And a sensible pair of trousers. "Alright, we've wined her, dined her, and wrung her out to dry. Lainey's staying on to, mm, to run further interference. What's the, the, the... mm. The damage?" you ask Heinsz, the current project manager. She hands over the dock list. You read it a bit more slowly than usual, squinting firmly to keep all the letters on the same line. "That... I say, that doesn't seem so bad," you say cautiously. "I mean, for a, a, a three-hour stand up." "Kadros stalled her," Heinsz says. "Kadros is why she needed to be stalled." "No shit?" Heinsz asks. "You think he's playing something?" "Something?" Heinsz coughs significantly into her fist and gives you a pointed look up and down. "Oh, shut up, Heinsz. The man's type is probably his fellow rocks. He has a pin up in his quarters of, of— a bucket of gravel." You giggle. Heinsz tactfully catches you around the waist. "I love you, Heinsz," you tell her, resting your cheek on her head. "I appreciate the sentiment, Captain," she says, and gently tries to steer you back towards the carts. "Stop— sss. Stop handling me. I'm the handler around here! Where's Kadros, I need to take a strip off him, he sabotaged my fucking phone— should make him cram it up that tight ass of his and do laps— KADROS. KADROS! GET OUT HERE."
You're helping the engineers replace a sticky shuttle bay door hinge when you hear his shout. You don't move, though, because you have your shoulder braced against the door and are holding it open while the worker slots a new part in. If you so much as flinch, he loses a finger. Only once that operation is complete, and tested to make sure it won't all come down again, do you extricate yourself and go find your captain. You're wiping grease off your hands; your face and arms are filthy. Your ponytail is looped into a knot and secured with a ballpoint pen and a small screwdriver. There's a rip in the thigh of your fatigue pants where the corner of a wire crate caught you. You know you're in for it, but some mad instinct makes you greet Aspera with a cheerful, "Evening, sir, did you sleep well?"
