It was now a couple of weeks since the beacon had been launched, and life had returned to a grinding routine of sameness. Wills found himself down on the strut platform looking down an open loading ramp at the back of a female Petty Officer sitting at the bottom of the ramp and crying. He approached to within a meter of her and cleared his throat. She jerked her head back over her shoulder and jumped to her feet and came to attention when she realized who it was.
“Good aftern-, whatever it is, sir.”
She wiped her face and eyes with a dirty rag and returned to attention.
“It’s about 0330 hours ship time Petty Officer; not that it really matters.”
He stepped down to ground level where she stood and looked her over. Her hair was a mess, her ship suit was wrinkled and had grease on it, and her boots hadn’t seen polish in at least a month. The worst part was that she smelled bad. Wills circled her like a predatory drill sergeant, and the wisp of a thought went through his head that he was doing a Katrin Jordan. “Petty Officer Second-Class Edwards isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir; Anaya Edwards, sir.”
“What is your duty assignment Petty Officer?”
“Sir, I am a grav tech first-class assigned to floater maintenance.”
“Are you rated to fly a floater?”
“Yes, sir; I have a second class rating.”
“How many hours?”
“Sir, I have 1,342 hours.”
Wills eyebrows went up at that; that was a lot of hours for a second class rating, “Did you pass your instrument test?”
“Yes, sir, perfect score.”
His eyebrows went up even further and then back down to a narrow-eyed suspicious look as he leaned in closer to her left ear, “And why do you have only a second class rating and a second class rank? Did you do something to get busted?”
It was obvious that the rigid petty officer was nervous about her answer, but she plowed ahead anyway, “Ah . . . well . . . sir, things on Archer are . . . slow. Check rides are hard to arrange.”
That answer amounted to a slap in the face if it had been delivered to the commanding officer of Archer. Wills stood back erect as he recovered from the sting. A moment later, he leaned back, “Tell me, Petty Officer Edwards, if your check ride were to be given right now, how much difficulty would you have passing it?”
This time, she turned her head and eyes to look into his, “No difficulty at all, sir; a mere formality.”
There was a challenge in her tone and look. Wills knew that he had touched a subject of great pride for Edwards. He stood back up and looked past her at the four floaters sitting fifty meters from them, “Give me your opinion on those four floaters; which of them would be your preference to fly?”
That lifted a questioning eyebrow, but she didn’t even turn to look, “All of them are in good shape, sir, but from the standpoint of comfort and equipment quality I would pick the one from the Gregory Falls.”
Wills nodded; he had a feeling that would be her choice. He looked back down at her, “Effective immediately, you are promoted to Petty Officer First-Class and are awarded a First-Class floater pilot rating under the rule of field necessity. Also effective immediately, you are assigned as my personal pilot. I will be making regular trips to the other towns for inspection purposes. You will have yourself and your ship ready at all times other than my normal bridge watch of 1800 to 2400 hours”
That got both her eyebrows high over wide eyes.
“However Petty Officer First-Class Edwards,” he began that circling, scowling inspection again, “you are a mess; you even smell bad. You are not what any respectable person above the rank of bilge rat would want as a personal aide. I will give you forty-five minutes to clean up, get proper rank insignia on your sleeve, and get back down here for our first inspection trip. DO I HEAR A ‘CAN DO’ PETTY OFFICER?”
He shouted that last right into her face.
“SIR, YES SIR, CAN DO, SIR!”
And she was gone at a run. He checked the ship’s time display on his com pad before turning to walk toward the floaters.
#
It was quiet out here--no, it was QUIET out here. He stopped and looked all around him. There were fires burning in the streets of Watts, but he couldn’t hear them from here. The game field was abandoned; the lights of the Weasel were no longer sufficient to enable anyone to withstand the blackness that surrounded the ship. People needed walls to hold out the night.
He lifted his com pad and tapped the call address for CeCe.
“Yes, Admiral, what can I do for you? I thought you would have been asleep by now.”
“Sleep is something that eludes me and most of the people I have seen this . . . ahh . . . ,” he looked out over the ocean that was as black as what used to be the sky, “night. I just called to see if anything critical has come up.”
Wills could hear her smile, “No, sir; nothing critical has come up since you went off watch. Given the edge we are teetering on, I’m going to have to say that is a good thing.”
He smiled too, “I guess that’s true. However, I wanted to inform you that I have hired a personal pilot, and, as soon as she gets back down here, I am going to make an inspection trip out to one of the towns.”
“Well,
