The Outback Stars

CHAPTER


SIX





S

ergeant Rosegarten, a diminutive woman with curly red hair, was the leading sergeant for Loss Accounting. She interviewed Myell about the loss of Castalia at the base of T6, taking notes on her gib but obviously entranced by the lights of the DNGOs operating in the shaft above them.



“You said the Repair Shop was closing?” she asked, her head tilted back.



“Yes.”



“And this was two hours before launch?”



“Yes.”



“Are you sure it’s safe to stand under them like this? What if one drops something?”



Myell pulled a wrench from his toolbelt and tossed it upward. It bounced harmlessly off the clearshield and clattered into the corner.

“There’s no gravity in the shaft, so nothing can fall. But if the gravity somehow got turned on, you could drop an asteroid on that shield and it would still hold. It’s the same technology they use on the Flight Deck to protect against the vacuum of space.”



Rosegarten lowered her gaze and rubbed her neck. “So why did you take the dingo over there if they were closing?”



Myell went after the wrench. “I didn’t know their hours had changed.”



Rosegarten consulted her gib. “So there you were, on the Rocks, the General Quarters alarm went off, and you did what?”



Myell hung the wrench back in its proper slot over his bench. Some of the other wrenches were in the wrong places. Every time he let Ishikawa near his things she managed to rearrange them. “I tied her to the post. She had a restraining bolt that wouldn’t have let her go off on her own, but I wanted to make sure. After we were cleared to return to quarters I went back to the Rocks and she was gone.”



“Doesn’t each dingo have a positioning transceiver that allows it to be tracked by Core?”



“I’ve tried several times. She’s not showing up on any scopes. Ei-ther the transceiver’s not working or Core’s misreading her signal.” Myell adjusted the magnetic strips holding his screwdrivers in place. He realized Rosegarten might interpret his action as nervous fidget-ing and stilled his hands. “I’ve seen both situations before.”



“Have you lost dingoes before?”



Myell tried not to sound annoyed. “I didn’t lose this one.”



Abruptly she pocketed her gib. “I agree. I don’t see any blame in this for you, Sergeant, except for not knowing the Repair Shop was closed. I’ll file your statement and my review. Who knows? Maybe the dingo will show up on its own.”



She sounded optimistic, but Myell doubted he’d ever see Castalia again. She was probably torn down to her frame by now and stripped of anything that could be sold or swapped. After Rosegarten left, Myell began work again on Isis, who needed a new transceiver. He took off her access plate and was wrist-deep in her frame when Strayborn came by.



“Lieutenant wants the inventory done today,” Strayborn said.



Myell took back every nice thing he’d ever thought about Jodenny Scott. “That’s crazy. The reconciliations are overdue, the dingoes are nowhere near uploaded—”



Strayborn held up a forestalling hand. “Orders.”



Myell blew out a noisy breath and patted Isis. “If I finish fixing this one, it’ll go faster.”



“No time. I need you up in the command module with Ishikawa. You recall the dingoes, Hosaka and I will handle the uploads. Send this one over to the Repair Shop.”



He wouldn’t, but there was no use arguing about it. Instead Myell said,

“There’s no way we can finish the whole inventory today.”



Strayborn clapped him on the shoulder. “What Lieutenant wants, Lieutenant gets.”



* * * *



E

valuations from Myell’s earlier ships portrayed a serious, dedi-cated sailor who’d enlisted on Baiame the day he turned eighteen. He had earned high marks and two achievement awards on the Kashmir, where his chiefs and division officers had noted his reliability and ini-tiative. Those same traits were cited in his early promotion to ser-geant on the Okeechobee, where he had been in charge of two issue rooms and later a loading dock. For his first few months on the Aral Sea, under the supervision of Lieutenant Commander Ellithorpe and Chief Mustav, things had gone well; it was only after Greiger took over and Chief Chiba moved in that Myell’s scores dropped. Chiba’s first review stated, “Surly and uncooperative. Shows no leadership potential and is a detriment to the division.”



Jodenny had seen good sailors turn bad for various reasons. Some-times they got addicted to Sweet or some other drug, or fell in with the wrong crowd, or let an unhappy romance influence their profes-sional lives. Having met Chiba and witnessed firsthand the results of Greiger’s management style, she was inclined to go with her gut in-stinct on Myell.




“RT Caldicot,” Jodenny said, pinging her. “Update the division ros-ter by noon. Get those AT evals started. Set up a meeting with the chief and all the sergeants for sometime tomorrow, here in my office. And schedule yourself too so we can go over office procedures.”



“Yes, ma’am.” Caldicot didn’t sound enthused.



She put the service records aside and concentrated for the rest of the morning on overdue COSAL reports. When lunchtime rolled around Jodenny considered eating out of the vends but braved the mess deck instead. Inside the entrance she hesitated, caught by bitter-sweet longing for the company of the officers she had eaten with so many times. She imagined the Yangtze galley now, twisted and dark and cold, bone embedded in metal—



A Drive tech bumped into her arm, almost toppling her tray. “Sorry, ma’am.”



Jem’s voice: ”Where would you rather be, boot?”



Jodenny forced herself into line and picked out selections from the salad bar. Decorations for the week centered around the celebra-tion of Mother’s Day in several nations, and she ignored the callous-ness of the organizers in thinking everyone had a mother to celebrate. She went to the wardroom seating area and saw three clusters—one large group of Data officers to port, some Drive officers straight ahead, and a rowdy table of Flight officers to starboard. Closer at hand was a young ensign with a Data patch munching on a kofte burger.



“May I sit down?” she asked.



His nametag said Cartik and he wore the pinched expression of someone trying hard to look as if he didn’t mind eating by himself. “You don’t want to eat here.”



“Is the food that bad?”



“Not here. I mean, here here. It being your second day and all, you probably want to meet more people.”



“How do you know it’s my second day?”



“You’re all over the vids, Lieutenant.” Cartik started to rise. “If you’ll excuse me—”



“Sit down, mister. That’s an order.”



Cartik blinked. “That’s illegal. You can’t order me to have lunch with you.”



“In that case, I’ll give you a yuro to stay.”



He didn’t smile, but his shoulders relaxed a little. “Five.”



“Five,” she agreed. Cartik took his seat again. Five yuros would barely buy a candy bar in the ship’s store. Jodenny added, “With ne-gotiating skills like that you should be in the Supply Department.”



The smile dissolved into a frown. “Couldn’t be any worse.”



“What’s wrong with Data?”



Cartik glanced at the Data Department officers sitting at the next table. Jodenny changed the subject and asked him about life on the Aral Sea. He’d been onboard a year but couldn’t recommend much for recreation except the occasional Mystery parties from Drive. He didn’t play Snipe or Izim, but on his pocket server he ran several soccer dis-cussion groups. He seemed reasonably intelligent, able to carry on a decent conversation, and she could discern no reason for his being an outcast from the Data Department. But he was definitely an outcast.



“Hi!” Hultz slid into the chair next to Jodenny. With her were Quenger, Zeni, and a man Jodenny didn’t recognize. “I called your of-fice but your agent didn’t pick up.”



“Speaking of leaving…” Cartik rose again.



“Don’t go on our account,” Quenger said. “We don’t mind slum-ming.”



Quenger missed the look that remark earned him but Jodenny didn’t. After Cartik left, Hultz introduced Sub-lieutenant Cully Gun-ther.



“Glad to meet you!” Gunther reached for the rolls and nearly knocked over his water glass. “What do you think of the ship? Did you ask for this posting? Big mistake. I’d have asked for one of the new probes, I hear they’re the ticket to adventure, not these milk runs—”



“Cully, shut up,” Hultz said kindly.



Quenger said, “How’s it going? They say Greiger left Underway Stores in a real mess.”



“Not at all,” Jodenny said. “A few loose ends. Nothing we can’t take care of.”



Hultz and Gunther launched into a story about something Greiger had done at a party several months previously. Although Jodenny tried to stay interested she felt Quenger staring at her. She wondered if he was plotting revenge for taking the job he wanted. She was so focused on ignoring him that she failed to notice Osherman coming up the ramp with his lunch tray.



“—and he denied everything, threatened everyone to never say a word about it, and wouldn’t drink beer for the next month.” Hultz finished as Osherman stopped beside their table with a lunch tray in hand.



“Miz Scott,” he said.



Jodenny was acutely aware of everyone’s eyes on her. “Mr. Osher-man.”



Their gazes locked. Jodenny tried not to think about the vacation they’d spent at a tropical resort on Kiwi, how it had been to wake up in his arms in a sunlit bed. He had a swimmer’s body, long and lean and made for distance. He’d given her snorkeling lessons in the ocean, their bodies spooned together in the warm current, his knees nudging her legs open.



No, she wasn’t going to think of any of that.



Osherman nodded abruptly, said, “Good day,” and moved on to sit at another table.



Gunther asked, “That’s the new guy in Data, isn’t it? Do you know him? You look like you know him, that’s why I ask—”



“We were on the same ship.” Although Jodenny wanted to flee, she forced herself to stay for the next twenty minutes to spite Osher-man. Let him think she was settling in fine, the belle of the ball. When Jodenny finally returned to the Underway Stores office, Mrs. Mullaly was studying the division roster.



“Why do they call them able technicians and regular technicians?”

Mrs. Mullaly asked. “It doesn’t sound glamorous.”



“In the old Australian navy, the ranks were called able seaman and leading seaman. ‘Seaman’ was changed to ‘technician’ when we moved into space, and ‘leading’ became ‘regular.’ Now people start out as apprentice mates, move up to able techs, go on to regular techs, and then get promoted to sergeant, which was more of an army de-signation.”



“Is everything based on the old Australian military?”



“Not everything. The Australians got first dibs because they dis-covered the Little Alcheringa near Mars.”



“Yes, but Americans reached the moon first,” Mrs. Mullaly said. “We started it all.”



Jodenny was fairly sure the Russians had started it all, but she wasn’t about to start debating history. “If anyone needs me, send me a ping. I’ll be back in a bit.”



She went directly to Issue Room 4, which was closed even though the hours of operation were clearly posted and eight techs were wait-ing in line. Jodenny used her thumbprint to enter the compartment. She waded past a stack of fallen bedsheets and jerked the gate open.



“What do you need?” she asked AT Abagli, the first tech in line.



He blinked a few times. “Medium coveralls, ma’am. But I can wait.”



The last person to use the deskgib had been playing Izim. Gritting her teeth, Jodenny cleared the game and keyed in her request. RT Mauro came down the passage just as she was searching through a messy shelf.




“Miz Scott!” he said. “You shouldn’t have to do this!”



“You’re right, but no one else was here. Where did you put the medium coveralls?”



“I’m all out. The issue log’s out-of-date.”



Jodenny went back to the counter. “AT Abagli, someone will de-liver your coveralls to your cabin before dinner. Will that do?”



His eyes widened in surprise. “Er, yes, ma’am.”



Several minutes later, after the passage was clear of customers, Mauro said, “Honestly, ma’am, I couldn’t help being late—I was up in Disbursing.”



“You were up in Disbursing while people were in line for you?”



“I had to get my pay cleared up!”



“I see you were also playing Izim.”



Mauro winced. “I was only looking—”



“Games are for your rec time, not work time. Who else works here with you?”



“Barivee, ma’am. He’s in the brig.”



“Then you’ll have to carry on by yourself, and do the best you can,”

Jodenny said.



She went to IR2 next, up in officer country, where Gallivan and Chang were standing bright-eyed at the counter with no customers in sight. Jodenny asked, “Slow day, gentlemen?”



“No, ma’am,” Gallivan replied. “We’re just very efficient.”



The two of them were much more organized than Mauro, al-though they couldn’t produce a current F-89. They didn’t think that was a significant deficit on their fault and neither did Jodenny. She asked them how long they’d been onboard and learned that Chang had recently passed the one-year mark. Gallivan was at the end of his contract, and would rotate off the Aral Sea when they reached Warramala.



“I’m going into music.” Gallivan drummed his hands on the counter.

“My band plays on the Rocks every Friday.”



“How hard has someone tried to talk you into staying?”



“Very hard. Extremely hard. Can’t be done, ma’am.”



Jem probably could have done it. Jodenny made a note to try and persuade him herself, congratulated both of them on doing good work, and trammed over to T6. Strayborn and Hosaka sat clustered in the command module. Three upsynching DNGOs hovered in the zero-g outside.



Strayborn popped out of his chair. “Ma’am!”



“How’s it going, Sergeant?”



“Absolutely fine,” Strayborn said.



She couldn’t tell if he truly meant it or was merely exhibiting a can-do mentality. Hosaka, with her platinum-colored hair and dark eyes, peered intently at her datastream. Jodenny said, “I need a set of medium coveralls delivered to AT Abagli in Ops berthing within the hour. And make it known that playing games is not acceptable while on duty. I’m going to take away the gib of the next person I catch.”



“Yes, ma’am.”



“Who else is working with you on this inventory?”



“Myell and Ishikawa are up in the observation module. Su and Lange are down below.”



She had wanted to talk to Myell about AT Ford, but would rather they get the inventory done. “Carry on,” Jodenny said. On the tram back to Mainship she checked her imail. Twelve new messages had arrived, including a friendly note from A. J. Francesco asking how her day was going. Jodenny decided to swing by the Supply Flats and see if she could drop in on Lieutenant Commander Wildstein. She ar-rived in time to see Dicensu, who was hurrying down the passage while scribbling in a notebook, plow into the perpetually unhappy Ensign Ysten. Both men crashed to the deck.



Ysten shoved Dicensu off him. “Why the hell don’t you watch where you’re going?”



“Sorry, sir!” Dicensu’s face screwed up as if he were about to cry.



Jodenny grabbed the AT’s arm and hauled him up. “It’s all right. No one’s hurt.”



“F*cking baka,” Ysten spat out, climbing to his feet. “You’re a god-damned menace—”



Jodenny swung on him. “Mr. Ysten! That’s enough.”



“He shouldn’t even be—”



“That’s enough!” Jodenny turned to the techs who had gathered to watch the spectacle. “Everyone back to work.”



Ysten stalked off. Tear tracks marked Dicensu’s cheeks and blood streamed from a cut on his lip. Jodenny picked up his notebook and steered him into the nearest dual-gender head.



“Minor injury alert,” she called to the medbot perched high on the bulkhead. The unit, no larger than her fisted hand, swooped down with a series of beeps. “Check patient’s mouth.”



Dicensu giggled as the medbot scanned his lips, teeth, and gums. Jodenny told him to hold still while the medbot sprayed a tiny amount of sealant on a lip cut.



“No further medical attention necessary,” the medbot said.



Jodenny said, “AM Dicensu, why don’t you go back and ask RT

Caldicot for something to do.”



“Okay, Miz Scott.”



“Don’t forget your notebook.” As Jodenny started to hand it back, a drawing of a DNGO caught her eye. “Did you do this?”



“Yes, ma’am. Do you want to see some more?”



Dicensu flipped through the pages for her, and Jodenny saw manga sketches of Caldicot, Strayborn, Loading Dock G, the plant on Bartis’s counter, and a small gray cat.



“These are very good,” Jodenny said. “Can you draw something for me?”



“Sure, ma’am. What?”



Jodenny told him. Dicensu promised to do his best. Once he was gone, she went down to the Admin office and saw Ysten sitting in a chair outside Al-Banna’s hatch. The glower he was aiming at the bulkhead switched focus to her. He said, “You had no right to repri-mand me in front of those techs. Dicensu is a menace.”



“Dicensu is a member of this crew who deserves to be treated the same as everyone else.”



“He’s more trouble than worth.”



“That’s what they say about ensigns. If you’re thinking about cry-ing on the commander’s shoulders, remember that what happened reflects more on you than on me or Dicensu.”



Ysten’s cheeks turned red. The hatch beside Jodenny opened. Lieu-tenant Commander Wildstein, a stocky brunette with a Fortune homeworld patch, gave both Jodenny and Ysten a stern look. “Don’t either of you have work you could be doing?”



“Yes, ma’am.” Ysten scampered off.



Jodenny squared her shoulders. “Good afternoon, ma’am. We haven’t met yet—”



“I know who you are. RT Bartis will get you on my schedule.”



“Thank you, Commander.”



“I heard you couldn’t find your lifepod.”



Would it have killed the Wondjina to give her a supportive supe-rior officer? Jodenny said, “I know where it is now, ma’am.”



Wildstein didn’t look impressed. “How reassuring. You’re excused, Lieutenant.”



As Jodenny walked through the Flats reconsidering her decision to stay in Team Space, she saw Nitta talking with Master Chief DiSola and the notorious Chief Chiba. DiSola was a lanky man with bushy eyebrows and an easy smile. Chiba was tall and wide, not quite bald, and looked strong enough to bench-press a birdie.



“Miz Scott.” DiSola had a deep voice and a strong handshake.


“Welcome aboard.”



“Best ship in the fleet,” Chiba said, squeezing Jodenny’s hand a moment later. She had no doubt he wanted her to feel how strong he was. So this was the man who’d made Myell’s life miserable. Part of the ship’s yakuza, or so Zeni had said.



“You work for Lieutenant Quenger, don’t you?” Jodenny asked.



“Lieutenant Commander Zarkesh is the DIVO. Lieutenant Quenger and I work side by side.” Point made, Chiba gave Nitta a smirk. “Too bad you’re stuck with the lot you’ve got. Underway Stores was a much different division when I ran it.”



Jodenny bit back a retort and asked, “How’s the inventory going, Chief Nitta?”



“Looks good,” Nitta said. “I was just at T6.”



“So was I. Too bad I missed you.”



Nitta took a judicious sip from his coffee cup. DiSola said, “I’d love to sit down and chat with you, Miz Scott. Is now a good time?”



Jodenny had known that was coming. “Now’s great, Master Chief.”



DiSola’s warm, cozy office had been grammed to look like a wood-paneled cabin of an old sailing ship. Nautical charts and repro-ductions of brass antiques hung on the bulkheads. He said, “I’ve been on this ship for three years. Since coming aboard I’ve seen two SUPPOs come and go, as well as twenty officers and three hundred en-listed. Our turnover rate is thirty percent. Helluva way to maintain a status quo.”



“I don’t think there’s such a thing as a status quo.”



“But it would be nice to have a little stability once in a while, don’t you think?”



“‘Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm,’ Chief,” she said.



DiSola laughed. “I prefer Epicurus over Syrus: ‘Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.’ May I offer some advice?

There’s lots of personalities in this department. Lots of inflated egos. It’s real easy to annoy the wrong people. You might want to get a feel for how things work around here before you start making big changes.”



“That’s good advice. When you have the benefit of calm weather.”



“You’re going to liven this department right up, aren’t you, Miz Scott?”



“It’s not my goal, but I don’t think I can avoid it.”



DiSola lifted his coffee cup. “To be honest, neither do I.”



* * * *