by S T Xavier
CHAPTER FIVE
Oooohhh yes! There’s nothing like the deliciousness of a cherry crème puff from House of Ryvvik to take the sting out of urgent paperwork. I’m so glad I decided to keep one from last night. It’s the perfect reward for getting up early, cleaning up my on-world quarters, packing my stuff, and getting the urgent requisitions completed. Now that the paperwork’s done, I can drag my bags to the landcraft and move myself back into my ship quarters. But not this crème puff. No, it’s too heavy to drag around. I should finish it here. It’s the sensible thing to do.
Losing the on-world quarters after only a week is sad, but I’ve lived on-ship long enough to be used to those accommodations. Imagine a fifth-century dwarven feasting hall on the bottom level of a really boring fifth-century inn, and you can probably imagine what the on-ship quarters are like. Cap has better quarters, obviously, and the Admiral’s quarters will be nice, but the rest of us all have basic inn-style rooms. At least most LC’s and above get individual quarters instead of the bunk rooms that lower ranks and NCO’s get.
Individual or not, on-ship quarters aren’t much for privacy since anyone can find you at any time. On-world quarters are larger and more private, so a lot of senior officers prefer to “vacation” in them when we’re docked. I know I do. Not that I really need the privacy or the additional space, but I like the fact that it feels different, so it’s about as close to a real vacation as I’ll ever get.
Vacation’s over now, so back to the ship it is. I check my messages before I leave, and I see a new one from Admiral Mom. In Mom’s official capacity, she’s Admiral-in-charge of the personnel office of UCST, which easily explains why she knows about our mission. I’d think being arrested for an assassination attempt and causing war to be declared on the Corps would likely bring a black mark to the LC’s record, so of course it would come to Mom’s attention.
The message from Mom is marked Level 2 Confidential, which is pretty standard for items from the personnel office. Level 2 is able to be shared on an as-needed basis with any officer of rank, but should generally still be protected. I open it, and I see it’s the personnel record and history of Lieutenant Commander Spazkin Darkmuck. That will probably come in handy while talking with the Overseer on Stenchstone. Thanks Mom! I’ll read it later on-ship.
I shut the terminal down and drag my things out the door and into the landcraft. The standard size of these vehicles can hold six folk comfortably, plus room in the back for packages, so there’s plenty of room for one skinny elf and her two small bags of things. I know Tanna can fill one of these things to the rim with her stuff and not have any room for herself, and that’s just for an overnight trip! I love her, but I don’t always understand her.
The ride back to the ship is uneventful, and I spend most of the time in a food daze over that last crème puff. Once the landcraft comes to a stop, I pull my bags out and start the short trek to the docking pad. Rounding the last corner, I can see the new secondary battery is already sitting at the back of the ship waiting for the large bay doors to open. Cap wasn’t kidding when he said we had urgent priority!
The battery is about standard elf height at 170 cm, but it’s width in either direction is about the size of four dwarves standing shoulder-to-shoulder. It’s diamond-shaped, like a large crystal, on a square base, and has a slight greenish-bluish hue to it. It’s actually a crushed-and-shaped composite of multiple types of gems and stones, developed specifically to hold mana and slowly deplete it only as it’s used. I honestly don’t know exactly how they work – my study of technology doesn’t include knowledge of battery maintenance. Tanna knows, and that’s good enough for me. I’m sure I’ll learn when I get my captain’s chair, but right now there are more important things that need my attention.
One of those important things is the fact that there’s a giant secondary mana battery sitting outside of my ship, and the bay doors still haven’t opened. It takes me another five minutes or so to get the rest of the way to the ship, and those doors really should have opened by now. The bay doors require senior officer approval to open, or in their absence the storage bay chief and Engineering LCs can authorize the door opening. Everyone knew this was coming, so there’s no excuse for the closed door.
I walk up to the two delivery guys – one dwarf and one elf. They see me and salute. I salute back, then look pointedly between them and the ship.
“Gentlefolk, you’ve been standing here a long time. Have you notified the storage bay chief to get door approval?”
The dwarf steps forward and hands me a manifest scroll, detailing the delivery. There aren’t any portable holoterminals yet, although I understand there are a few research departments on different worlds which are getting close. Until then, portable data is still written on parchment in scroll form with ink or spellsand. I unroll the scroll while the dwarf speaks. “Aye, Ma’am. Contact is for Senior Chief Ironhammer in the storage bay, but there’s been no response yet. It’s been an hour, Ma’am.”
My eyes get wide. An hour is completely unacceptable. I return the scroll and extend my hand. “On behalf of my ship, please accept my apology for your wait. We’ll resolve this issue immediately.” The dwarf shakes my hand. Dropping his hand, I walk to the door charm and touch it. It beeps.
“Door authorization, Westiel-seven-nine-star-one-zero-zero-four-five.”
The large back panel of the ship fades out, leaving an opening big enough to put a battalion through… which, of course, is one of the primary functions of the bay door. I take a step inside and look around, but the large staging area appears to be completely empty. We sort deliveries here before taking them to where they need to be. We also prepare the battalion here before deploying them to where they need to be.
I motion to the delivery guys to come forward. They each step to one side of the battery, move their arms and appear to speak a few words. The battery and platform slowly rise to about 10 cm off the ground. Each man grabs a handle on the platform, and they walk the battery inside the ship. They speak a word to slowly lower it to the floor, and that’s when I notice that my bags are sitting on the back of the platform with the battery!
I walk towards the battery, but the elf delivery man is faster than I am. He scoops up my bags and brings them over, gently handing them out to me. “Commander, Ma’am. I saw you were bringing these back to the ship, so I thought I would save you the trouble of carrying them inside.”
I give the elf a good look, and I like what I see. Not too tall, not too short; strong without looking ridiculous; thoughtful and nice… I’m starting to miss my on-world vacation quarters and the rest of our docking time. “Thank you, sir! That was very thoughtful and I appreciate it. I’d like to send a note to your boss about how helpful you are. What’s your name?”
Did he just blush a little? That’s adorable! “Thank you, Commander, Ma’am, but that’s not necessary. It’s part of our job to be helpful where we can.” He gives a salute and turns to walk away, then stops and turns back quickly. “My name is Iandril Falanae.” He turns back to his delivery partner as they both leave the ship.
I watch them go, a little dumbstruck. Why’d he leave so quickly? I didn’t even get to give him my name! Ugh. Now I feel fat and ugly. I shouldn’t have had that crème puff this morning. Oh well. Enough of being lovestruck Rylae and back into being XO Westiel. They probably had to leave because they were stuck here for an hour and behind schedule. Where’s that dragons-be-damned storage bay chief?
I close the door, grab my bags and set them at the edge of the door from the staging area to the ship hallway, then continue down the hallway to the storage bay. It’s not a long walk, which is part of the point. Should be easy to get stuff from the doors to the storage bay, or there’s not much point in it. I turn into the storage bay and see the dwarf chief arguing with my Chief Science Officer.
Well, it’s more like ‘arguing at’, since Zaxn doesn’t seem to be do
ing a whole lot of arguing himself. He looks worried and frightened. He’s about 20 cm taller than the dwarf, but with his hanging head and hunched shoulders, he almost looks smaller than the senior chief. His green skin looks pale, and his pointed ears are sagging a bit. He’s twisting his gnarled hands around each other like he’s trying to rub his knuckles off. When we get back from this mission, I’m signing him up for leadership classes. Maybe I’ll even teach him some things myself. Maybe I’ll start now.
“Lieutenant Gloomfire!” I make sure my voice booms across the cavernous storage bay, and it has the desired effect. The goblin looks like he’s about to jump out of his skin, and the dwarf shuts up fast. They both turn to see me in the doorway. Zaxn salutes quickly. The dwarf takes a second longer, and it almost seems like an insult, but I have larger issues to chew on.
I stride over to the pair. “Lieutenant. Would you care to explain why the delivery team with the secondary battery was standing outside the bay doors for an hour? While the battery was delivered faster than I expected, it was still expected and should have been no problem.”
Zaxn looks horrified. He looks at me, then to the storage bay chief, then back to me, then back to the storage bay chief. Then he seems to find his courage and turns to me. “I’m sorry, Commander. My storage bay chief should have taken care of it, but I neglected to inform him of the urgent deliveries to the ship due to our new mission.”
For all his nerdy faults, Zaxn certainly has plenty of courage when it comes to admitting mistakes and taking responsibility for errors. If he’d just stand up more forcefully to his teams he wouldn’t have to accept so many errors. I nod to him. “Okay, so the Senior Chief wasn’t aware of the deliveries. That’s still no excuse for not accepting that battery when it arrived. I saw the delivery scroll, and it was obvious that it had Commander Aldamiel’s approval, along with mine and Cap’s. If the Senior Chief had looked at it, he would have obviously let it in.” I turn to the senior chief. “Any chance you want to explain to me why you didn’t look at it, Senior Chief? I’m listening.”
Did the dwarf just snarl at me? He’s obviously angry, but there’s really no reason for it. He looks like he’s about to snap at me, then abruptly stops. He takes a breath, but it doesn’t seem to help much. “Commander. As I was telling the Lieutenant, I sent both of you a status update on the remaining room in the storage bay a few days ago. We are over capacity by fifteen percent, and there’s just no room for something the size of a secondary mana battery! I can’t accept it because I have nowhere to put it!”
I look around the storage bay. “Senior Chief. I’m currently standing in the storage bay, and I see plenty of room for storing things. Based on the size of this room, I’d say it’s only about 30% full of science equipment and backup tools for Engineering. For the sake of those who find math difficult, that means it’s 70% completely wide open. I plan to familiarize myself with the storage bay capacity regulations later, but right now, it doesn’t matter much. We have an urgent mission, and we launch in a little over one day. The mana battery is in the staging area. Move it to the storage bay immediately, where it will stay until Engineering is ready for it, and inform them that it has arrived. Those are your orders, Senior Chief. Do you have a problem with completing them?”
The dwarf looks like he absolutely has problems, but he’s smart enough to not say anything. “No, Ma’am,” is all he says as he salutes and walks off.
That was exasperating. Sometimes folk just get too big for their helmets and need to be reminded who’s in charge and calling the shots. I’m thankful we don’t have very many of those difficult folk on the ship. Most of the officers can handle their difficult folk, though, so I don’t have to get in their faces like I had to with the Senior Chief. Which reminds me…
“Zaxn.” He jumps a bit and turns to me. “I know. I know you’re not a leader. You’re a damn good adept, but you’re not a leader… and that has to change. You’ll never make LC at this rate, and if you can’t control your department I’ll have to bump you from the ship.” As that last bit hits him, he staggers like he was physically hit in the face. His head and shoulders sag again. Poor nerdy science kid.
I walk closer to him and put my arm on his shoulders. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to be hard on you, but there are requirements to your position and this is one of them. I’ve been sheltering you for too long. I want you to start talking to the other senior officers and get advice from them. Specifically, talk with Simon and Gimmir to learn how to deal with difficult folk, and talk to Tanna and Aelon about having a proper leader attitude. After you’ve worked with all of them, we’ll get together and talk about what you learned and how to apply it. Can you do that?”
He’s shaking and seems like he’s about to cry, but he nods with his chin on his chest. “Yes, Ma’am. Sorry, Ma’am. And thank you, Ma’am.” He takes a breath, then looks up at me. “Thank you, Rylae. I really didn’t know what to do with him, and I’m really glad you showed up when you did. He just kept yelling at me about his capacity and wouldn’t listen.”
I pat him on the shoulder and lead him to the door. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure Simon can give you some good tips, goblin to goblin, on how to handle difficult dwarves like that. After all, he works with Gimmir all day long.”
That brings a chuckle out of him. He’ll be fine. We get to the door and I point to the staging area. “If you really want to thank me, though, you can carry my bags to my quarters for me. They’re right inside the staging door.” He nods and takes off towards the staging area. He’s a good kid. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. We’re the same age, but he’s a good kid and I haven’t been a kid for a long time now. It’s amazing to me how that works sometimes.
I should walk around and do a general check of readiness since Admiral Shockpaw will be here tomorrow. I know goblin admirals have a higher tolerance for mess than elves or dwarves, but I still want to make sure everything’s in order. The happier the admiral is, the happier Cap will be, and the happier the rest of us will be.