47
Kris had flown through some rough air. She was totally unprepared for what the Wasp got into next.
She had some inkling when Command Master Chief Mong dropped by to tell her that she and her team would be spending the pass in a specific hull section. A welder 2/c would be responsible for the compartment, and he hoped Kris would see that her officers didn’t get underfoot.
Kris and her team of officers reported to their hull section to find that the second-class petty officer had the situation well in hand. Strips cut from containers were ready to shore up anything that bent, and a full set of welding tools was on hand to secure them.
No surprise, there were plenty of cans of stop-leak Goo at hand.
Certainly, Wardhaven procurement had another name for Goo, but the gooey stuff you sprayed at a leak in the hull that sealed it temporarily was known to all and sundry as simply Goo.
When Sulwan announced to prepare for some rough sailing, there was nothing in Kris’s space that wasn’t tied, lashed, or welded down.
Except the people.
But the petty officer had a plan for them, too.
“You two,” she said, pointing at Kris and Jack, “over against that wall.”
They went.
“You sir, put your back against the wall. You ma’am. Out here. Put your feet against his. Yeah, I figured you’d be well past midpoint with those long, thin sticks you two got,” was not the normal reference Kris was used to getting for her legs.
“You, too, small one,” she said, pointing at Abby and Cara. Kris would never have used the word “small” for her maid. She was usually moving so fast you had to give her lots of extra space. At the moment, through the petty officer’s eyes, Kris realized that Abby was of less-than-average build.
Kris found herself with her back to Abby. When the maid and Cara pushed their feet together, Kris felt locked in place.
“Will this hold?” Kris asked.
“If it don’t, you can write a letter of complaint to the old chief who taught me the trick. If you all don’t intend to lay a hand if we need one, then I guess I could lash you down like you was kids, ma’am, but I was told you’re going to help if things go all to hell in a handbasket.”
“Yes,” Kris said, “we’re here to lay a hand.”
“Then I expect this will do.”
The others found a place in such a line athwart the deck and settled in to wait.
They didn’t have long.
The Wasp started getting downright frisky very quickly.
Sulwan was kind enough to pass The Word. “All hands, we’re getting into the outer fringe of the atmosphere. It’s not enough to give us any reaction mass, but it is enough to make the ride interesting. Hold on to your best friend and enjoy the ride.”
Kris reached out for Jack. To her surprise, he was already reaching out for her.
“Never argue with the navigator,” Kris muttered.
“Never pass up a handhold,” Jack said too darn matter-offactly.
The ride got bouncy, and Kris was glad they had secured everything in the space. Still, a bottle of Goo got loose. The petty officer caught it on the fly and gave one of her sailors a scowl that would have reduced a normal human to a puddle.
The sailor said, “Sorry, ma’am. Won’t happen again.”
The petty officer passed the bottle back to him to tie back down. “It better not,” was all she said.
Then the Wasp did a hard right flip. Kris went from her rump being down to her back holding that honor. Her legs were holding Jack up, and her arms were all that kept him from falling over into her lap.
She grinned mischievously at the thought.
He said, “Don’t you dare.”
“What?
“Do what you’re thinking.”
“Now you’re a mind reader.”
The Wasp flipped back over and down and was once more below Kris’s bottom.
“Thanks, Abby,” Kris said.
“Don’t mind if I do, Your Princessship. I expect you’ll do the same for me sometime. But if you don’t mind, I do wish you’d skip the second waffle tomorrow.”
Cara giggled. “You grown-ups are funny.”
Kris enjoyed the happy sound.
Fifteen seconds later, it was Kris’s turn to support Abby and Cara on her back. Jack stiffened his arms to support them, and they held in place until the Wasp managed to right herself.
“This is fun,” Cara said from the innocence of her youth.
“Sure is,” a young sailor agreed.
“Hold on,” the petty officer warned as the Wasp dropped out from underneath them, leaving them hanging a good fifteen centimeters in the air. Then it slammed up, leaving Kris’s back twitching in pain.
“Press your legs harder against each other. Get those backs hard against the bulkhead,” the petty officer ordered. “That way, when we do those ducks and poundings, you’ll go up and down with the ship.”
“Yes, Mother,” a sailor said.
“And you can wash your mouth out with soap when we’re done here,” the petty officer said in a very motherly voice.
For the next forever, they bounced around like peas in a pod.
Kris discovered that the worst wasn’t the flips that put Jack nearly in her lap . . . or her nearly in his. No, the Wasp could totally turn herself over, leaving them pushing hard against each other and the bulkhead and hoping they could hold on long enough for the ship to right herself.
The third or fourth time the Wasp did the total flip, four of the sailors failed and ended up in a jumbled mess on the overhead below. They scrambled to untangle themselves, and ended up sliding down the bulkheads as the Wasp got herself right.
With the petty officer barking orders, they got themselves back in place before the Wasp did anything exciting again.
Then the bulkhead around them let out a scream like a banshee, and air started shrieking through a rent in the hull.
“Longknife, grab some Goo and stop that leak,” the petty officer ordered.
Being nearest the rent, Kris grabbed for the closest Goo and loosed a long dollop at the hole. The Wasp did a little jig, and Kris missed with her first two shots. For the third one, the Wasp zigged when Kris was expecting a zag, but Jack bumped into her elbow, and, miracle of miracles, she hit the hole.
That stopped the air loss, but the side of the ship was warping in and out.
“All of you, lay a hand getting a sheet of metal over that hole,” the petty officer snapped.
Two sailors undid the lashings on a pile of six steel strips, Jack and the colonel slid one strip out, and the sailors tied back down the other five.
Movement while they did this was wild; the Wasp continued on its bucking ride, leaving them weightless one moment and double their weight the next.
Four of them managed to wrestle the sheet up without cutting off any hands or heads . . . but it was a close-run thing. The metal sheet reached from the deck to just a bit short of the overhead. The petty officer quickly welded the lower half of the sheet in place. A moment later, she’d tossed a rope over one of the hooks Kris hadn’t noticed that now circled the overhead.
Jack boosted the petty officer on his shoulder as the colonel raised her on the rope and belayed it across his rear.
Secured as best as the ride allowed, the petty officer ran a welding bead up the one side of the sheet, then over the top and down the other side. As she got more and more of the patch in place, the hull worked itself less and less.
Done, she settled back to the deck. “What are all you looking at? Help me get this torch kit lashed down, and let’s get back on the deck.”
Kris’s brain trust snapped to, and in only a moment, she was back facing Jack.
“That was well done,” she said.
“Look at all the fun you missed by not doing a tour as an assistant division officer,” Jack said.
“Yes,” Kris said. “Think of the things I could have done if I hadn’t been stopping Turantic from going to war with its neighbors, or dodging battleships around Wardhaven or hurling cabers on Chance.”
“We must all bear our burdens,” the petty officer said.
Someone among the sailors snickered.
“Make that two cakes of soap for you, Henderson.”
“I didn’t say nothing.”
The petty officer gave him the look.
And then the Wasp did something a ship was never meant to do, and they had to do the welding drill all over again.
And a third time.
And a fourth time.
Somewhere in there, one of the sailors lost his lunch. Then Cara. Then just about the entire crew, except for the petty officer.
Kris was eyeing the two remaining reinforcement sheets and wondering if this would ever end when the ride got less rowdy and Sulwan came on the public address.
“All hands, we’re done. I’d love to tell you that we gathered up enough fuel to get us home, but the skipper says that isn’t so. We will, however, be matching orbit with our containers, so we can get things back together and get a good meal and some sleep tonight.” She paused for a moment, and then added, “Commodore Longknife, the skipper sends his regards and asks if you will please report to the bridge.”