Convoy (The Shelby Logan Chronicles Book 1)

by Chris Hechtl

  A few minutes later there was a knock on her door. “Enter,” she said, setting her tablet down. Ensign Gregoire “Ham” Pan came into the room and closed the door, then came to attention in front of her desk. She sized him up out of the corner of her eye. She'd met him briefly when he'd reported aboard of course; he was a good Neochimp, quiet, a bit reserved but good at his job, which made his request for a transfer a problem.

  “Ma'am, ensign Pan reporting as ordered,” the Neochimp said crisply, brown eyes at regulation height looking six centimeters above her head.

  “Ensign … what's this about? You just got here,” she said, indicating the tablet with the offending transfer request.

  The ensign's eyes cut to the reader, but she noted he didn't bother to read it. His jaw worked. “It is correct, ma'am.”

  “Care to tell me why you think our living conditions are not up to your standards?” Cynthia asked, leaning forward on her elbows as she crossed her arms in front of her. “I'm wondering.”

  “Ma'am, it's not …,” the ensign paused and then started again. “It isn't something I'm supposed to discuss.”

  “Oh?” She raised an eyebrow and sat back. “A personal problem?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Get over it,” the blond woman said coldly. “Try acting like an adult.”

  The ensign's jaw worked for a moment. “It isn't that simple, ma'am. I'm just the first. I know a couple of the others will most likely put in their transfers shortly.”

  The XO's eyes narrowed at that news. She drummed her fingers on the desk. “Not getting along with each other? Is this over a girl?”

  “Problems with each other? No, ma’am. We're fine.”

  “Okay, I was going to suggest shuffling your room assignments. But if that isn't the problem … please don't tell me it is about your love life,” she said with a grimace.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “So? What the hell is it? If it hasn't occurred to you, I don't have all day.”

  “Ma'am, I've been specifically ordered not to say anything.”

  “By who?” The ensign frowned then stared above the bulkhead for a moment. “Well?”

  “First Lieutenant Jardin, ma'am.”

  “This is getting out of hand. So, what did the lieutenant say? I'm ordering you to spit it out. I'm tired of playing games here. You two get in a pissing contest?”

  “Not exactly, ma'am.”

  “Okay, so …?”

  “Ma'am, the lieutenant has specific needs. He doesn't like the water temperature above tepid. He has adjusted the tankless water heater that is on our deck to his standards and banned anyone else from touching it. He has also adjusted the AC to his standards. It is uncomfortable when we are in our compartment. It is eight degrees above normal and stifling. That makes it hard to sleep. I don't want to put up with that for the next year or more, ma'am.”

  “I see,” the XO said as she came to an instant decision. She frowned and then got up. “Come with me.”

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  Cynthia led the Neochimp ensign through the ship to the deck where his quarters were located. She located the panel covering the tankless water heater that serviced his side of the deck and pulled it off. The tankless water heater was a small box a meter off the deck with pipes going in and out of it. It used electrical induction to heat water in a series of coiled pipes and fins. Cold water entered from the ship's supply and then hot water exited on demand out the other end to go to the compartments in that section that the heater answered to. Everything was in order she noted with a critical eye. “Now, let's see …,” she frowned as she scanned the readings. “I see what you mean. Personally, I like a hot shower after a long day or to start my day myself,” she said with a grimace as she adjusted the temperate controls. She then identified the lieutenant's water lines and shut them off.

  “Ma'am …”

  “Relax, I got this,” the XO said as she finished up and closed the panel. She dogged it shut and then turned to the AC unit. “Now … yeah, I see, he's got it about six degrees above shirt sleeve. Not comfortable,” she said.

  “Ma'am, if he hears I ran to you, he'll make my life a living hell. Worse than he has,” the Neochimp ensign implored. “Can't we just …”

  “Hush,” Cynthia said as she adjusted the thermostat. The AC immediately kicked on to cool the compartments. The ensign braced the bulkhead at attention just as the lieutenant's door opened abruptly.

  “Who the devil is messing with the AC unit?!” Lieutenant Jardin snarled as he came out of the compartment without a shirt on.

  “That would be me,” Cynthia said mildly as she turned to the lieutenant. The lieutenant stopped dead and then turned to glare at the ensign.

  “No, he didn't come running to me. His transfer request told me something was wrong,” she said as a few people making their way through the companionway stopped at the tableau. “I had to order him to tell me what was wrong, so he didn't tell a tale out of school,” she said crisply as she finished with the thermostat.

  “Move,” she said, motioning the lieutenant aside.

  “Ma'am?”

  “Make a hole, Mister!” she snarled. That got the lieutenant to instantly jump aside out of the doorway and come to attention.

  Cynthia eyed him coldly, then went into the compartment. It was cooling off noticeably. She noted the mess but turned her attention to the lieutenant's bathroom. Since he was a first lieutenant, he had the compartment to himself. She went into the head and grimaced. It wasn't exactly clean. She made a note of that as she went to the shower. “Lieutenant,” she said.

  “Ma'am.”

  “Come here,” she said as she fished her multitool out of her pocket. He came up behind her to watch as she popped the chrome bezel panel off the shower wall and then unscrew the handle. She silently popped the handle off and then the bezel and then handed him each. She then went in and unscrewed a small cylinder. Water sprayed for a moment before the pressure dropped to a trickle. “I took the liberty of shutting your water off,” she said as she pulled a brass cylinder out.

  “You did, ma'am? Can I ask why?”

  “So we can do this,” she said as she made some adjustments to the cylinder. “This is an anti-scalding temperature gauge. You can set the water temperature in the shower to your liking, which I am doing … now,” she said as she fine-tuned the temperature and then reinserted the brass tube into the guts of the controls.

  “Bezel,” she said, putting a hand out. He fumbled the ring as he handed it to her. She slipped it over the pipe sticking out of the wall, then put her free hand out again. “Handle,” she said. He handed her the handle. She popped it on and then used the screw to tighten it down.

  She went back out into the companionway and turned his water back on, then dogged the panel again.

  She turned to the two officers and the looky-loos hanging around on either end of the companionway. “Now, what have we learned today, children?” she asked as she took a handkerchief out and wiped her hands.

  “How to adjust the room to someone's need, ma'am?” the ensign ventured.

  “And how to get along,” the XO said, turning a glare on each of the officers. “If you are cold Lieutenant, wear a damn shirt or a sweater, I don't care which,” she said coldly. He gulped. She turned to the ensign. “If you have a problem, find a better way to deal with it than running from it.”

  “Ma'am, yes, ma'am,” the ensign said. The lieutenant gave her a raggedy echo of that acknowledgement.

  “Good. Now, Lieutenant, a moment of your time,” she said as she motioned for him to enter his compartment again. “That is all ensign. Return to your duties,” she said, poking her head out to the ensign.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, snapping too before he left.

  She crocked her finger to the lieutenant and had him come in. Once the door was shut, she glared at him. “Now, what do I do with you?”

  “Ma'am, I don't know what he told you …”

&
nbsp; “Can it. I'm putting you on notice, Mister. Don't pull rank for this shit ever again. And if you retaliate against the ensign or the others, I'll come down on you like a load of bricks. Are we clear?” she snarled.

  His Adam's apple bobbed as he snapped to attention. “Yes, ma’am!”

  “Good. I'm glad we've got that covered. For the record, making yourself comfortable by making others around you uncomfortable is a pretty shitty way to treat your shipmates. Adjust that attitude. Rank is supposed to have some privileges, but you don't abuse it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good. Get this room squared away; it's appalling,” she said as a parting shot as she stormed out.

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  Shelby smiled as she noted the XO come onto the bridge. She waited a few minutes to let Cynthia absorb the log and status board, then wandered over to where she was standing. “Having fun reading people the riot act?”

  “Um …”

  “And then there is the talk of you going into a certain shirtless lieutenant's room all hot and bothered. I found that scuttlebutt particularly interesting,” Shelby said softly.

  “Oh, lords of space,” Cynthia sighed in frustration. “How bad did I screw up?”

  “Not much. I heard different takes on the story. It'll coalesces into the right version eventually,” she said. “The juicy one will linger though.”

  “Damn it …”

  “Didn't think about that last part. You had your recorders on?” Shelby asked.

  Cynthia nodded. “Verbal reprimand.”

  “Good. Can I ask what it was about? Something about water and power?”

  “If you must know, I headed off a bunch of junior officers ready to jump ship. The lieutenant had turned into something of a tyrant,” she said quietly, looking around to note who was around them.

  “Ah, I see. What did you do?”

  “Stepped on the urge, then checked to see the problem, made adjustments. The water thing was a simple fix; the lieutenant didn't know about it or care. I don't know if he liked being an ass or not.”

  “I don't know about that either. He's new.”

  “Yes, ma’am, that he is—recent transfer and promotion.”

  “Is he going to be a problem?” Shelby asked mildly.

  “I … don't know. I don't know him yet. He hasn't been aboard long, and I haven't heard anything bad from Lieutenant Jardin. I did a spot-check. He does his job, runs his shift well; that's all in the files so far. No complaints.”

  “Ah,” Shelby said with a nod. “Well, the crisis seems averted for the time being.”

  “That's what a good XO is for, ma'am, heading crap like that off before it gets to you.”

  “Good. I'm glad you've learned that part of the job. Let's work on how you do it.”

  “Next time I'll make him march down to my office shirt or no shirt and rip his ass open there you mean,” Cynthia growled.

  “Nice pecks?” Shelby asked maliciously.

  “Oh, zip it,” Cynthia sighed. After a long moment, she grimaced, then nodded. “Yeah,” she said under her breath. “And he'd just worked out too. A little too wiry for my tastes though. Probably why he liked it like a sauna in his quarters.”

  Shelby snorted as she shook her head and walked off.

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  The ships settled into the final routine of exercises and last minute teething repairs. Shelby thought they were all set to go but then fate and the powers that be had to throw a last-minute monkey wrench in the form of a couple additions to the crew, a reporter team with an actual anchor desk and equipment. She got the call as the bosun and XO tried to deal with the mess.

  She checked and found the order had come in during her downtime to sleep. She swore and put a call in to Admiral Subert's office. Unfortunately, the admiral was indisposed so she got his chief of staff. That might be considered a good thing since she could vent a little easier she thought. “Are you serious?” Shelby demanded. “What the frack? I can figure out why but … where are we supposed to put them?”

  Commander Saul Garretaj grimaced. “As a heart attack, ma'am. We've got a couple dependents who have contacts. One is even a blogger. They got hired on to have a column with a major network. That sparked the imagination of the media corporations at the last minute. They finally pulled enough levers and pushed enough buttons to get them on board.”

  Shelby grimaced. “Twisted arms you mean, or someone doesn't want them in their hair. Fine. Do they know it is a long shot? The risks involved?”

  “Yes. They also agreed to be under military discipline, before you ask. Nothing gets reported without your clearance. Since they are going to be sending broadcasts through the ansible, it will be cleared on our end too,” Saul said.

  “I bet that took some arm twisting of our own. I know they love the First Amendment,” Shelby said.

  “Not as much as you might think, ma'am,” Saul said shaking his head. He was looking forward to getting his own captain's rank soon. It might come with a transfer however. That might be considered a good thing; being stuck to the Admiral's side seemed to be hampering his career more than helping it along he thought. It wasn't fair that staff and support personnel didn't advance as fast as line personnel.

  “Great. So now I need to figure out where to stuff them so they don't get underfoot. And we'll need to figure out guides, how to deal with them in an emergency, and where to store their gear,” Shelby mused.

  “I see you are no longer being a part of the problem but working it. Good,” Saul said with a nod of approval.

  Shelby eyed him. “Right,” she drawled.

  “Don't forget, they need a compartment for their studio,” Saul said as she went to hang up.

  “You are …,” she stopped dead and stared at him. “You realize every compartment is stuffed to the bulkheads with gear and people, right? We've got stuff stowed in the companionways! Even the boat bays! There is no way …”

  “Figure it out, Captain,” Saul said with a smile of sympathy as Shelby sputtered. He nodded once and then closed the circuit.

  ]][#]]]{OO}===}==>

  They held an introduction to the reporter at dinner later that evening. Fred Muggs, the lead State Department diplomat, also attended since he was on board. The dinner was in the wardroom and a bit crowded with the Neochimp and female civilians in their midst, but they managed to fit almost everyone in who wanted to be there. Miss Jurgens, the news producer, excused herself when she realized there wasn't enough room for her too. So did Oz who had begged off to attend to duties elsewhere.

  That was a relief for some; the Neogorilla lieutenant JG seemed to fill up any room he entered.

  Once the meal began and polite small talk ended, they dug in. Halfway through the meal, Miss Trejo looked up. “I want to thank you for having us on board, Captain,” the young human woman said. She had short black hair and was a bit feisty. At one point in her teenage life, she'd been a beauty queen, but her entire life was wrapped up in journalism. She'd made a name for herself in Pyrax and across the sector as a sterling and photogenic reporter with a reputation of digging in to get to the bottom of a story.

  She wouldn't acknowledge it, but she was following in the footsteps of April O'Neill, another famous reporter and now head anchor in Antigua from Knox News. She was tired of the beat and had decided to move her career onwards and upwards when the Tau mission had been presented to her. She'd petitioned to get in with the Eastern Front as a war correspondent for months, but that had been nixed.

  Nellie 'Ole Nellie' Jurgens, her editor, producer and older lover had been the primary reason for shifting gears and targets. Nellie had been right she knew, Tau offered far more opportunities for her career with a lot less risk of getting blown up, captured, or worse, censored.

  “I have to admit; I wish we had more notice. That way we could have planned accordingly,” Shelby said. “We would have found a way to get you onto one of the liners or something. This last-minute shift has ca
used ripples throughout my ship and the fleet,” she said mildly.

  “You've got that right,” Cynthia sent in a group text to the officers in the room. Lieutenant Talon snorted softly.

  Rachel looked at the quartermaster curiously but got an innocent expression. When she didn't get an answer to the man's levity, she decided to ignore it as beneath her. She hadn't known that her last-minute joining would cause such a disruption. She personally believed they were making it out more than it actually was; after all, there were just the three of them. No, they were more put out at the arm twisting involved to allow them on board and the nosy reputation the media had. Well, that was just too bad, she thought. I'm not going anywhere, she reminded herself firmly. She turned her head back to the captain. “About our quarters …,” the reporter ventured, fluttering her eyelashes. “I know …”

  “Yes?” Cynthia asked sharply, looking up in challenge.

  Rachel blinked, then grimaced, recognizing the challenge and slippery slope she was on. Nonplused she decided to just plunge ahead knowing that it wasn't going to work. Getting shot down on one might make them more amiable to her other request she knew. “I'm sorry, I'll be blunt. They are a bit … cramped. They are very utilitarian.” She wrinkled her pert nose. The truth was she and Nellie had to share the quarters with Oscar Mikula, their Neoorangutan technician. The ape was damn good at his job. He knew the technical side of the business inside and out, and she knew Nellie was glad to have him on board. But his personal hygiene left a lot to be desired.

  Besides, he was a male. He may not be human, but he was a male intruding in her love life she thought very privately.

  “Unfortunately, that is the reality we all face. We are on a navy ship, a factory ship not a luxury liner. For the record, the personnel you displaced are now living in a locker,” Cynthia said with a cool measuring look to the reporter.

  Rachel instantly realized she'd overstepped herself. She backpedaled mentally. “I see. I'm sorry to inconvenience them,” she mumbled. She paused a moment, then decided to change tactics. “Um … we're supposed to have studio space to record our broadcasts …”