Rylae's Storm Page 13

CHAPTER TWELVE

  We’re five days out from Terra, with about five days to go before we reach Stenchstone. The last day-and-a-half or so since my ‘training accident’ were mostly filled with paperwork and meetings. Cap and the Admiral are making their plans for the summit with King Damnation, Calgonnel’s been working on our plans for the Overseer, and I’ve been trying to manage the ship while everyone’s busy. It’s mostly been paperwork, which has allowed me to rest my shoulder enough that the pain has finally disappeared. Sometimes, however, I still have to run some problems down the old-fashioned way.

  Today’s problem is that dragons-be-damned storage bay chief again. Tanna sent me a note saying they’ve been ready for the new battery for a day now, but it hasn’t arrived and they’ve received no word from the storage bay. Senior Chief Ironhammer and I are going to have a bit of a talk about this, but I don’t want that to distract me from getting the battery, so I’m heading to Engineering first to recruit some additional hands.

  I turn into Engineering and weave through the workspaces to get to Tanna’s desk in the back. Just like Tactical isn’t really an interesting room to sit in, Engineering’s a rather uninteresting room if you’re just looking at it. It’s a bunch of holoterminals and workspaces, and looks like almost any business office you visit on a homeworld. The only minor differences are the constantly-changing graphic reports at strategic areas for everyone to see, and the huge three-dimensional graph to the center of the room constantly showing the output of the main battery. That’s a neat thing to sit and watch, with all the jagged lines and circles and sideways bars and vertical bars all constantly moving around. I think there’s an entire semester-long class at the Admiralty on how to read that graph. If I want to be a captain, I should really learn it, if I learn nothing else about the department.

  Closing in on her desk, I see Tanna engaged in an animated discussion with one of her LCs, a female dwarf. They’re looking at a graph between them, with hands and fingers constantly shifting, pointing, poking, pinching, moving up, moving down, and otherwise molesting the holoreport in dozens of ways. I don’t want to interrupt, so I stand back out of Tanna’s eyesight and take a look around.

  Being in full flight and without having had the required dock time, Tanna’s double-stacked her shifts to get in more spell maintenance time. That means there are twenty-two folk in this room, sharing desks, bumping elbows, and validating the tiniest requirements while another eight folk are with the batteries themselves using special tools and chants to regulate the crystals. It’s cramped, but it’s quiet, which tells me it’s running efficiently. Tanna is very particular about her department, which she has to be to keep us all alive. If someone misses something, any number of life support spells can be affected by it.

  I look back over and Tanna’s alone in her office now, with no sign of the LC. Her eyes are closed, and she’s pinching the bridge of her nose with her left hand. Work’s obviously getting to her a little bit. I should be a good manager and find out what’s wrong. And I will… after a small bit of fun.

  I hurry over to a wall corner off to the side of her desk and hide behind it before she can see me. I wiggle my nose a bit to try to get my voice to be more nasally, and take a shallow breath so it comes out a little squeaky, like an annoying child in school. Cupping my hand by my mouth to direct the sound toward her, I say in my whiniest voice, “Commander, ma’am. One of my reports doesn’t look right. Can you help me with it, please?”

  I peek around the corner in time to see her put her face in her hands and shake her head. She stands up, stretches, and turns toward me. As she starts walking closer, she says, “Yes, Ensign. I’m coming now. I told you not to do that impression of the XO. One day she’s going to hear it and I’m not going to save you.”

  What?? That’s… that’s not even funny! Which ensign would dare?!? I’m going to… ... I turn to see Tanna come around the corner and smile at me. She stops and salutes, still smiling. “Oh. Excuse me, Commander Westiel. I didn’t see you come into Engineering. I was just about to go work with one of my more difficult ensigns. I sure hope no one on my team is bothering you.”

  So not funny. Okay then, if that’s the game she wants to play. I snap to a salute. “It’s no problem, Engineering. I’m sure that ensign just needs something to keep their hands busy. Maybe you should ass-sign them more work.”

  I know I scored a point when her eyes open wide and her salute staggers. I hold mine for just a couple seconds longer to make her a tad more uncomfortable, then put my hand down. Her hand comes down, but her eyes are still huge. It’s all I can do to not chuckle. I manage to keep a straight face while I give her a way out. “I’m here to help resolve your problem with the storage bay. Would you care to come with me so we can figure out what needs to be done?”

  Tanna nods. “Aye, Ma’am. After you, please.”

  I turn towards the exit and start navigating through the workstations, while Tanna follows. I get to the exit and turn down the hallway towards the stairs to the bottom level. We walk a bit, with neither of us saying a word. Just as I notice how far we are from Engineering and that there’s no other folk around, I get punched in my left shoulder. Why is it always that shoulder?

  I turn around, and Tanna’s eyes are still huge. I can’t hold it in anymore and start giggling. I get hit in the shoulder again, but that just makes the giggles worse. Looking up at her, she sighs and sags a bit. Still giggling, I grab her in a quick hug and squeeze, then let her go. She’s starting to look like she’s coming back to normal.

  Tanna looks around, verifies we’re still alone, then shakes her head. “Damnit, Rylae!”

  I shake my head. Still a few giggles left, but I’m keeping them quiet. “What? You’re the one that made the joke about that whiny voice being an imitation of me! I couldn’t let you just have it for free! Besides, I haven’t made fun of you yet for your…” I forcibly cough a bit, “misadventures with your new ensign.”

  She sighs and looks at me. “I know you haven’t, and I’m not mad at you. But Cap… Okay, as far as I know, Cap was the only one that saw anything. I heard about it from Lada, and I was so embarrassed! I haven’t been able to look the poor kid in the eye for days. I passed him off on my LC for training. And Cap…” She shakes her head again and goes quiet.

  I put my hand on her arm. “What did Cap do? You’re not normally one to get so worked up over something like this.”

  She looks at me, and there’s a little sadness in her eyes. “Cap was just being Cap. He was joking around with Aelon the other day, and I guess he said that Aelon needed to keep an eye on me or he might lose me to a younger elf. Aelon’s too stupid to think it was a joke. He’s not talking to me.”

  In Cap’s defense, that is pretty funny. I’ll bet the actual line was more like ‘keep an eye on yer assets ‘cause a younger elf wants to grab ‘em’. That’s more Cap’s style. But Tanna’s right. Aelon’s too stupid to reason through the joke. Cap’s too busy to bother him with something like this. I’m too close to the problem and resolving it would be awkward. That leaves only two potential solutions.

  I wrap my arm around Tanna and push her to start walking again. “Someone needs to tell that elf to get his ears out of his ass, but I’m not sure if it would be funnier coming from Lada or Sen.”

  That makes Tanna chuckle a little. “Can’t be Sen. He’s stupid enough to think she wanted to do something hospital-related on his ears or ass. Lada would just kick him in it. I’ll see if Lada will go talk to him for me, since she knows the real story anyway. Thanks, girl.”

  “Sure thing. Solving problems is what I do.” I give her a quick side-hug and drop my hand so we’re walking professionally again. “And, speaking of solving problems… you’ve heard nothing from the storage bay chief? I told him directly to work with your folk to get that battery to you.”

  She shakes her head. “Doesn’t return my messages,
doesn’t answer his communicator when I call, won’t talk to my ensign runners when I send them down. It’s a bit infuriating.”

  “Sadly, infuriating is a good word for the Chief. He treats every square meter of that storage bay like it’s made of gold or something. Poor Zaxn was at the end of his rope, and I’m pretty sure the Chief doesn’t like me all that much.”

  She chuckles. “Girl, no one likes you. Your job is to tell everyone ‘no’ all the time. “

  I smile and nod. That is a lot of my job. Folk ask for ridiculous things, and I turn them down. I don’t expect everyone to like me, as long as they respect me.

  She takes a breath and continues, “Zaxn did come by the other day to talk to me. Said you sent him to learn how to be a leader. I felt all warm and fluffy that you would send him to me for that. Then I asked him about his storage bay and my battery, and the kid got flustered and left. That’s why I finally came to you.”

  While walking, I quietly relay to her the story of the storage bay and the secondary battery, complete with cute elf delivery boy bringing my bags in, and ending with who I told Zaxn to turn to for leadership. I’m just finishing the story when we come up on the staging area door, putting us close to the storage bay.

  I grin and decide to take it just one step further. “I’d have told you sooner about all of this, but you’ve been busy with launch and your tight department. And I’m sure that new ensign is a bit of a handful.”

  She gasps and shoves me with her shoulder, knocking me into the wall. I straighten up, smooth out my uniform, then look at her and shrug with a grin before walking on.

  We get to the storage bay and walk in, and I think I might now understand a little bit of what the Senior Chief was complaining about. A few days ago, this storage bay was mostly empty. Now it’s crammed full of crates stacked on crates stacked on crates, almost to the ceiling. I can’t actually see the battery from here through all the crates. I also don’t recognize the markings on most of those crates. I wonder what we requisitioned that came in so many crates. I’ll have to go back through my report logs to see if I did something wrong.

  I turn and walk over to the workstation, but the Senior Chief isn’t here. There’s a piece of parchment with ink scrawled on it sitting on the table, that says “Out. Find me later.” Probably the most unprofessional out-to-lunch sign I’ve ever seen. I look around from the new angle, and it’s still just a landscape of crates. Finally, I notice a small green glow around the other side of the crates.

  I point to the glow. “Hey. There it is, way in the back there, probably because it came in before all these crates.”

  Tanna looks, following the line of my pointing finger, then nods and looks back at the crates. “But how do we get to it?”

  That is an excellent question for which I have no answer. “No idea. I don’t know what kind of float devices they keep back here for moving stuff around. But it has to move somehow, because it came down the hallway.”

  I go behind the workstation and turn on the holoterminal. A few commands later and I’m looking at the schematics for the storage bay. Highlighted, I can see the equipment shed. It’s not far from the workstation. I also see that it should have four float units in it. That gives me an idea. I pull out my communicator, push the charm, and say, “Gimmir Giantbasher”.

  After a couple seconds, Gimmir’s disembodied head appears in-front-and-to-the-left. “Yes, Ma’am. What can I do for ya?”

  I smile. “Any chance you have anyone down your way that deserves some punishment time? I’ve got a bunch of crates in the storage bay that I need shifted around.”

  Gimmir smiles behind his beard. “Of course I do. How many do ya need? I can give ya… um…” His face turns to the side for a second before turning back. “I got seven. Will seven do?”

  “Seven will do just fine, Major, if one of them knows how to use a float unit. If not, can you find me an escort for them who does?”

  “You got it, Ma’am. I’ll have these idiots down to the storage bay in a minute.” His face disappears and the glow of my communicator goes dark.

  I walk over to Tanna, who’s still inspecting the maze of crates. “Gimmir’s going to send some hands to start moving stuff around. You can manage that on your own authority if the Senior Chief ever decides to come back from lunch, but you’ve got mine as well if you need to beat him over the head with it. Have Gimmir’s folk move stuff down to the staging area until the battery is free, then take that out and put the stuff back. Plus, this gets you out of Engineering for a bit. You looked like you needed the break.”

  She smiles. “Thanks, girl. Just a lot that has to be done to make sure we don’t all die in the starfield. But I’ll oversee this to make sure it gets done right. My LC has Engineering for a little while. She could use the time overseeing a double-shift anyway. She’s looking at promotion in a few years.”

  I nod, then stand with her in silence looking at the sea of crates. It’s almost as majestic as a mountain setting if you really look at it the right way. After a short time, Gimmir’s seven-plus-one comes in, with the plus-one holding tight rein on the others. I guess he’s going to make sure it really is a punishment. Tanna and I turn to the group, and they stop and salute. We salute back, then turn and salute each other. I smile and wink, then head back to the hallway. She’ll have that battery out in no time. I make a note in my head to hunt down the Senior Chief when I have some time. Still need to look up those storage bay regulations, too. I’m sure they’ll move up my priority list sometime in the next few days.