“Oh, I hope not,” Franklin said and then looked horrified. “Sar.”
Pip and I both laughed.
“I suspect Chief Stevens has the scrubbers on overtime at the moment, trying to clear away the worst of it,” I said. “I’m sure you’ll believe me when I say it was much worse when I first came aboard.”
“You mean yesterday, sar?” Franklin asked.
“I mean back in ’71.”
He paled. “Oh. Of course, sar.”
“What’re your priorities on this, Captain?” Ms. Sharps asked. “This will take a couple of days to make right, but you need the mess deck this afternoon, right?”
“Exactly. You should find some cleaning gear in the locker there. Some of it might be good. The brooms won’t have rotted, but I’m not sure of the swabs and soaps. Figure what you need and see Mr. Carstairs to get it from the chandlery. We’ve an account you can use for replenishment but no inventories set up. You’ll be able to order your own once you’ve signed The Articles.”
She nodded to Pip. “Aye, aye, sar. I can’t guarantee coffee by 1500 but we should be able to find you a clean place to sit.”
“All efforts will be appreciated, Ms. Sharps.”
“I’m in, Captain,” she said.
Franklin nodded. “Me, too, sar.”
I pulled out my tablet and brought up the contracts Pip and I had agreed to, and after some fumbling managed to get both crew signed on. “Thanks, both of you. You’ve got your work cut out for you, and I need to get on with making captain noises so I’ll leave you to it.”
I left the galley and picked up my trunks on the way up to the cabin. Pip followed me up the ladder and paused in the passageway for officer country. “Any of these cleaner than the rest?”
I shook my head. “Not really. We’re going to need to replace all the mattresses and bedding before we sleep aboard.”
“The berthing areas are already stripped,” he said.
“Small blessings. Book us a suite at the Rangefinder on deck ten, would you? We’ll need someplace to sleep for a few nights.”
“Aye, aye,” he said and trundled down the passageway, his grav-trunk following in his wake.
“Hey,” I said.
He looked at me.
“What happened to the beer?”
“Redirected it to a storage locker on the oh-two.”
“Didn’t want to share with the new crew?”
“Thought better of trying to store it in that cooler before it’s been cleaned.”
“Thanks. You did good out there,” I said.
“We make a good team. Always have. Anyway, I’ve got work to do.”
I pulled my trunks into the cabin and locked them down out of the way.
On the bulkhead the chrono ticked over to 1054. It felt much, much later.
Chapter Thirty-One
Breakall Orbital:
2374, August 9
My stomach grumbling alerted me to a basic priority. I bipped the chief to meet me on the mess deck and picked up Pip from his stateroom on the way down the ladder.
Sparks and Franklin had done yeomen’s work on the mess deck in the scant time they’d had available, clearing away the rubble and bagging it for disposal. They worked with the simple tools of buckets, hot water, soap, and rags to clean off the surfaces of three of the tables. I found them up to their elbows in the muck, sleeves rolled up and smiles on their faces.
Franklin saw me enter and straightened up to attention. “Captain on deck.”
Sharps straightened before I could speak.
“Oh, belay that. We’re going to work together and we’ve got too much to do to get all military.” I looked around at the progress and nodded. “Nice job here. What do you need most?”
“Mops and wringers, skipper,” Sharps said. “A fresh jug of deck cleaner and another for glass would help.”
“We’ll do that, but I think you’re wrong.”
She looked at me, her eyes wide. “Captain?”
“I think what you need most is lunch.”
Pip nodded. “I know that’s what I need most. You two aren’t hungry?”
“Well, yes, sar,” Franklin said. “No offense, but this isn’t someplace I’d want to eat just now.”
Chief Stevens stepped onto the mess deck and laughed. “You’re not the only one.”
“Chief? Spec Two Sharps and Messman Franklin. Our first new crew members. Sharps and Franklin, this is our chief engineer, Margaret Stevens.”
The chief nodded and smiled. “Nice to meet you. You’ve made some good progress here in—what? A stan?” She eyed me. “I heard you come aboard and wondered if you were going to skip lunch mess.”
“First priority,” I said.
“Feed the crew,” Pip said.
Sharps tossed her cleaning rag into the bucket on the table and rubbed the end of her nose with the back of one wrist. “We calling for takeout, sar?” she asked. “I didn’t look in the coolers, but I’d bet we’d like what’s in there even less than what’s here.”
“Who wants a beer?” I asked.
Pip raised his hand instantly, straight up from his shoulder, his face alight with a grin.
I turned to see the chief with her arm up. The ratings stood there with confusion so plain on their faces I nearly laughed. “Let’s go find food,” I said. I led them off the ship and down to The Corner.
The place jumped with the lunch crowd so we took a round of the washrooms to sluice off the slime from being aboard ship. By then Brian had saved us a table in the corner and I ordered a pitcher of Whistle Wetter while we perused the menus.
“You can have something else, if you don’t like the beer,” I said glancing at Sharps and Franklin. “Mr. Carstairs will drink it if you just leave it there.”
“Sorry, Captain,” Sharps said with a glance around the table. “I guess I’m just not used to drinking with officers.”
The chief leaned over and asked, “Would it make you feel more comfortable if we took off our collar tabs?”
Sharps laughed. “No, sar. Not really.”
“All right,” I said. “This is a ship’s function. We need food. We need information. And Mr. Carstairs likes beer. We can tiptoe around all day but there’s work to do.” I grinned. “We may as well enjoy it. Besides the cleaning gear, what does the galley need, Ms. Sharps?”
She shrugged. “Everything, Captain. Cookware to cutlery, flour to roots. I didn’t get a good look at the steam tables or other fixtures, but I assume they’ll be fine once the crud’s cleaned off them. Stainless is pretty durable.”
I turned to Pip. “I loaded Ms. Sharps and Mr. Franklin into the crew roster this morning. Can you approve her for chandlery replenishment?”
“Of course, Captain.” He took a pull from his beer and slipped his tablet onto the table.
“Chief? How’s it going in engineering?”
“I spent the morning in environmental tweaking up the scrubbers and getting set up to flush the potable tanks.” She looked to Sharps. “I diverted the orbital supply direct to the ship. You shouldn’t see any difference in the galley, and it’s fine to drink or cook with.”
“Thank you, sar.”
One of Brian’s servers stopped by the table. “Ready to order?”
Neither Sharps nor Franklin looked ready but I didn’t want our meeting to run all afternoon. “Anybody have an objection to burgers? They make good ones here.”
Four heads shook so I gave the waiter our order. “Five burgers, deluxe. Fries. I’d like a coffee. Anybody else need anything?”
“I’ll take a coffee, too,” the chief said, raising a finger.
“How do you want the burgers cooked?” the waiter asked.
We went around the table and in a tick he was off to the kitchen.
“How are doing on your inventory, Chief?”
“All I’ve got is eyeball numbers at the moment, skipper. There’s a stack and a bit of scrubber filters. The potable tanks are nearly dry so flus
hing them won’t be a problem. I’d like to get a survey of the volatile and fuel tanks. The gauges tell me there’s stuff in there, but I don’t know what it’s like after a couple of stanyers at the dock. That’ll take some doing if we have to flush and refill them.”
“How soon before you can get a replenishment order?”
“At least a few days. We’re going to be that long just getting the decks so our boots don’t stick.”
“What do you think is a reasonable estimate for getting underway?”
She laughed. “We can get underway now. Getting docked again would be the problem.”
She made me grin. “You know what I mean. A week? Two?” I asked.
“If we can get some hands aboard, two weeks is a good target. I’ll know better after I’ve had a chance to dig into the power and gravity systems. Right now, I have no idea what’s there. If it’s really bad, we’re gonna have to tow that baby. We could do that today, but it would cost us dearly.”
Franklin raised a hand with a glance at Sharps. “Permission to speak, Captain?”
“You never have to ask permission to speak if you’re at the table, Mr. Franklin. It comes with the chair.”
“I was just wondering when we might be able to move aboard?”
“Good question. One we should probably answer before we meet with the gang this afternoon.” I looked to the chief. “We’ll have hot water and power by then?”
“Got it now, but yeah. Once I get the potable tank flushed we’ll be just using station services to stay topped up. We’ll stay on station services until we can get underway and fire up our fusactors.”
“Food services?” I looked to Sharps. “How soon can you feed a dozen or so people?”
She glanced at Franklin before answering. “Just the two of us? A couple of days to make it clean enough. We’d need a replenishment order to get the galley up to snuff, but I’d not want to do that until I had clean spaces to stow it.”
“Very well. Let’s take a walk around when we get back to the ship.”
Our waiter returned with food and we all dug in.
“Berthing,” Pip said around a mouthful of potatoes.
“Oh, yes. I don’t want to refit the entire ship until we get done with the yards. Deck berthing has what? Twenty bunks?”
“Twenty-four, Captain,” Franklin said.
“If we clean up that area and the san, that’ll give us a working berthing area. It’s already the cleanest because it’s where we stayed when we brought the ship in.” I looked at Sharps and Franklin. “You don’t mind sharing with grease monkeys, do you?”
“Hey, watch it,” the chief said with a twinkle in her eye. “I’ll have to warn my people they’ll need to share with deck apes.”
“Twenty-four enough?” Pip asked.
“We’d planned on sixteen. What are you thinking?” I asked.
“There’s a lot of work to do and a lot of time to do it between here and the yards. Most of it won’t be on the yard work orders,” he said.
“You’re thinking we hire on more?”
“And buy a pallet of cleaning and painting supplies.” He shrugged. “Sooner the ship’s shipshape, the sooner we get to hauling cargo.”
I looked at the chief.
“He makes a good case,” she said.
I looked at Sharps. “Thoughts?”
“Me, sar?”
“You’re going to have to feed them,” Pip said. “Can the two of you handle twenty-eight of us?”
I saw the doubt in her eyes when she glanced at Franklin.
“Sharps?” I asked.
“We probably could,” she said, her words slipping out as if each cost her credits. “I’d feel better about it with one more steward. Even an attendant to help on the line and with cleanup would make a big difference, Captain.”
“Noted,” I said. “And Ms. Sharps?”
She seemed almost fearful when she looked up to meet my eyes. “Captain?”
“It’s been a long time since I worked a mess deck. Your job is to keep the crew fueled. I know only too well how much that takes, and I’m relying on you to make sure I know what you need to make it happen.”
“He’s not kidding,” Chief Stevens said.
“Yes, sar.”
“We’ll keep an eye open for another likely mess attendant,” I said and looked back at Pip. “Twenty-eight?”
“What?” he asked, innocent as new cloth.
“You asked if Ms. Sharps could feed twenty-eight.”
“Oh, did I? I must have miscounted.”
“You’ve only had three beers—”
“Two, Captain.” He winked at Franklin who seemed a bit nonplussed by our exchange.
“The one in your glass is the third and it’s almost gone. The point remains that you haven’t miscounted anything since you started sorting your peas on the galley table as a toddler.”
“I might have seen a first mate in the list of applicants.”
“I didn’t realize we’d posted for a first mate.”
“We haven’t, Captain.”
“All right, then,” I said, with a glance at the chrono. “It’s coming up on 1300 and we have two stans to get enough of the galley cleaned so we can start interviewing crew. Anybody still eating?”
Franklin stuck the last of his burger into his mouth and washed it down with a healthy slug of beer.
I waved for the waiter and added a healthy tip to the tab before thumbing it. We left The Corner and headed for the lift. I pressed the button for oh-one and noted Sharps and Franklin looked confused.
“A little detour,” Pip said. “Chandlery.”
I led the parade as we descended on the ship maintenance section and pulled out swabs, brooms, dust pans, trash bags, wash rags, sponges, detergents and anything else that seemed likely. I piled Franklin’s arms full and then shifted to Pip’s before the chief took his place, and I gave her a couple of buckets of deck cleaner. It all happened so fast it left Sharps standing at the end of the aisle in bewilderment.
“Ms. Sharps? Did I miss any cleaning gear you’d need in the next four stans?”
She looked at the loads everybody held and shook her head.
“What else do we need to make the crew interviews go smoothly?” I asked.
“Coffee?” she asked. “I don’t know how we’d do that at the moment.”
I held out my arms for Pip’s load. “Gimme that. Contact Cackleberries on the oh-two and have them cater a coffee service for forty. Paper cups. The works. If they have a pastry service, add that.”
He pulled out his tablet and pecked at it.
“Anything else, Ms. Sharps?”
“You want me to carry something?” she asked.
“I want you to go see that nice clerk up there and thumb the tab for this.”
“Me, sar?”
“You need to stop asking that, Ms. Sharps. I want to make sure you’ll be able to access the ship’s account when you start placing replenishment orders and the best way to do that is here, now. Go. This is getting heavy.”
“Stars in their eyes,” Pip said.
I winked at him.
We were back on the lift in a matter of a few ticks and redistributed the load across the five of us. Chief Stevens grinned at me and shook her head.
“What?”
“I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.”
“What about the new edition of your book? Sifu Newmar said you were supposed to be working on that.”
She shrugged and nearly dropped a broom. “I’ve got the files. I can work on it when we put the ship in the yard.”
I laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“You’ll be working double watches with the ship in the yard.”
She grinned again. “Probably, but the new chapters are on maintenance and supervising yard workers. This will be perfect.”
“Book?” Pip asked.
“Chief Stevens wrote the textbook on engineering,” I said.
/>
“What?” His eyes got round but before he could say anything else the lift opened onto the docks.
I led the charge across the dock with the ratings right behind me. Pip and the chief brought up the rear. “You’re that Chief Stevens? That’s what you meant? You literally wrote the book on engineering?”
“Guilty as charged.”
“We used your book at the academy. I nearly flunked that course,” he said.
“Don’t feel bad. An astonishing number of people do.”
I knew what was coming and had the hardest time keeping the grin off my lips.
“What happens to them?” Pip asked.
“They transfer to Deck Division.”
I think it was Sharps who squeaked and Franklin who dropped the bundle of toweling. I could have had them reversed.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Breakall Orbital:
2374, August 9
We all trooped into the mess deck and dumped our loads on the cleaned tables.
“Now what?” the chief asked.
“We’ve got about a stan and a half before we open the lock to the ravening horde. You’ve probably got stuff to do, don’t you?”
She checked the chronometer. “I do.”
“Carry on,” I said.
She grinned and headed aft.
I turned to Pip. “We have coffee coming?”
“I asked for 1445 so we’d be able to get a cup before the crowd arrives.”
“Ms. Sharps? Priorities, please?”
She took a breath and blew it out slowly as her gaze swept the mess deck. “Tables, Captain. Then decks. If we have time to clean the pass-through, we can use that as a coffee mess. If we can scrape off the first layer here, Mr. Franklin and I can work on the galley proper while you’re busy interviewing. Tomorrow we can deal with the coffee urns themselves. They’re going to take a lot of time that we don’t have today.” She blinked and added a belated “Sar.”
“Sounds good. Lemme go get into a shipsuit. You two set up a couple of extra buckets.”
I left the mess deck with Pip in tow.
“Gonna be like old times,” he said.
“Not exactly, but it’s a lesson I want passed to the crew. This is a good way to do it.”
“What? That everybody works?”
“The captain’s not afraid to get his hands dirty.”
In Ashes Born (A Seeker's Tale From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 1) Page 24