They didn't talk much more, but were suddenly more polite to her, formal, even the larger man that had been playful before.
No one was out when she got to the hangar for the smaller ship, tiny only compared to the others in their giant hangars. She walked to the port side hatch and pounded with her fist as she'd seen others do. The wood made a solid bang, but the ship had enough room inside that a few extra noises might be missed.
After repeating this again twice, about two minutes apart, the hatch opened and Groundling popped his head out.
“Curly! Come on in, girl. Finally decided to take another trip with us? You know, we still don't have anyone to replace you. Well, the Admiral let Darnell come back, but he doesn't really count as a replacement. Green as you are, you're twice, maybe three times, the worker he is. We can just ditch him at a port somewhere and claim he jumped ship. That or push him over the side. Everyone will buy it.” He shook her hand as she explained the deal with the crystals.
“So I'm just here to get you all underway, then I turn around tomorrow and do the next ones to go out. Not a lot of fun, but it keeps things moving. For now at least. I just hope people are taking it easy with their thruster charges, because it's going to be a pain trying to do everything all at once, you know? Those still have to go to the chargers.”
The quiet man bowed toward her and led her to engineering, where Gloria barked at her for being late.
“You want a job on my boat, you better show your ass up each day ready to work. No taking Yule off like some princess or shit like that. Left me stuck with that shitheel Darnell... No charge left in the main crystal either, which is the only reason I'm not ordering you off right now. That and the fact that I really, really want to get rid of Darnell.” Gloria grinned at the end, but shook her head. “Serious about that last part. Can I tell the Captain that you've signed up so we can shuffle that headache off to some other berth?”
“Nope. Sorry, I'm here for other reasons, though I'll keep an eye open just in case I find anyone that might work for you.”
Gwen sat on the floor in front of the crystal and started charging it then. Hoping that someone would bring food soon. Smitty did, actual food, if portable stuff, bread, cheese, and fruit, along with beef sandwiches and hot chocolate instead of coffee part of the time, since he knew she liked it from her time following him around a few weeks before. The way Sue made hot chocolate impressed her, though she figured it probably had about six hundred calories per cup. Gwen had a guess that Sue's special ingredient was heavy cream, but it tasted fantastic.
She'd almost finished when she heard the yelling from the back of the hangar. A clatter came, more screaming and yelling. Finally, she finished, wondering what the distraction had been about and walked toward the noise, which continued.
Outside, Katherine's uncle, the Admiral, stood ringed by loaders, many of them with wrenches and pieces of timber or pipe in their hands. Facing them seemed to be nearly the same number of people, mainly men, holding similar objects.
In the front, a short man with a red face and rusty hair, stood screaming at the Admiral, apparently not letting him speak at all.
“You can't just hire anyone for it you know! We'll cut you off so fast that you people will never get an airship off the ground again! Think you can go it alone? Fuck that! We've got connections and we'll make sure no one ships with your line until you buckle under!” He continued on like this.
Finally someone in the crowd saw her and yelled. Pointing helpfully.
“There she is!”
A half dozen people, all large men, rushed her then. Remembering all her recent practice, she pulled the PC from her pocket, waited for them to nearly reach her and threw three of them back into the rest of the group. Only one remained standing, the others on the ground in shock, though they didn't look hurt too bad. One bled from the nose. He'd live. If you wanted to fight, you had to be aware that you were probably going to be hurt, even if you won.
She took the combat stance that Winslow had been drilling her on with this kind of weapon and made herself relax, taking a deep breath, when she felt calm enough, she looked at the men on the ground and asked them to stay there for now, while she figured out what exactly was going on. One of the men on the ground decided that she needed to be taught a lesson, at least that's what he yelled before he surged to his feet and rushed at her again. The man flew backwards nicely, catching better air than the whole group had.
Good to know, she thought. Plus, it looked a lot more impressive for some reason, and caused the crowd of people to quiet down for a second or two. She walked to the ring leader and pointed the small rectangle at him, even though he had just seen that it wasn't in any way a lethal weapon.
“Don't you attack me, bitch! Union rules say that we have the air-shipper contracts for this area. Come in and steal our work! We'll get you, bitch!”
Looking at him Gwen had to resist blasting him. She knew this type of person from way back. It wouldn't matter that he was in the wrong, he'd decided he was right and that was the end of it. He made it clear by ordering everyone to get her. He actually said the words “get her!”, as if he expected that to work. She just shook her head amazed at how simple some things were in this world. It was like a bad movie set in the nineteen-twenties.
A chorus of voices came from the Peregrine then, everyone turned to look up at the ship and saw four military style weapons, crin, she now knew, pointed at the people in the attacking crowd.
“Hold!” A man's voice, Groundling she realized, called out. It sounded so final that everyone, including the Admiral forgot to move for a minute.
“Hurt her and we'll kill you. This is non-negotiable. Do you understand? Say anything but yes right now and we'll be forced to open fire.” The little man with the big mouth and bigger ego stepped forward as if daring them to shoot.
Admiral Welk raised his hand and called for silence.
“We haven't breached the union rules. We're allowed to charge crystals ourselves in emergency situations. Since we can't get a charge from you through normal means and your people aren't allowed to come here, even after we offered to pay double time for any who did, that counts as an emergency. Do you deny that?”
He looked at little big mouth, the small man's lips clenched into a white line. He suddenly pointed a finger at Gwen, a move so violent that she almost hit him with a blast of force from the weapon in her hand. Seeing that this man was about to try and get violent with her, as a surrogate for the people on the deck some twenty feet above them that couldn't be touched, she pocketed the power conduit and readied herself.
“This fucking slut's been charging main drive crystals! Alone. You going to tell me she just happened to be working here? You can't hire someone just for charging and then claim an emergency. This bitch is stealing our work, taking money from our kids' mouths!” He worked himself up and turned red again, finally working up enough rage to overcome his common sense and moved in to try to slap her.
Slap.
Not even the sense to try and hit her with something that might do some damage. She blocked it easily, almost lazily and stood amazed for half a second when he just stopped, leaving his arm out like a moron. She wrapped the arm around the top with her left out of instinct, locked his arm out straight and stepped into him, her right leg snaking around behind his. Pushing suddenly across his face with her right forearm, she took him to the ground, finishing it up with a palm strike to the nose. It didn't kill him, that was pure urban legend that came home from WWII, something that officers taught GIs so they wouldn't be so afraid of facing martial arts trained Japanese soldiers.
It did bloody his nose though.
“You fucking bitch! I'll kill you!” He screamed, earning himself several more blows to the face. Seeing that this wasn't working, she finally stood and kicked him in the head hard. Twice. The heavy work boots worked well for this Gwen realized. He finally shut up and started twitching a bit, signaling that he was losing consciousness. Not for long, but maybe long enough to have an actual conversation with someone reasonable.
“Alright,” this came out amicably enough, she thought. Katherine's voice being so much smoother and friendlier sounding that hers had been. Not as nasal either. Gwen really loved the new voice.
“Who is in charge while this one's napping? I think we can deal a bit more fairly with someone else. He seemed a little worked up, don't you think?” Looking around she saw a woman, one that had been standing toward the back of the group stepped forward.
“I guess... I guess that's me. I'm Barbara Fines, section lieutenant for area seven local, Chargers Guild Union.” She moved to the front and addressed them directly, though clearly afraid.
“Hi, Barbara. There seems to be some kind of problem here. A misunderstanding? We were under the impression that the union rules allowed company employees and direct family members to charge crystals if your services weren't available and that your own rules made them unavailable to us at this time, since the sledges can't carry the big crystals in this weather, were we wrong in that?”
The woman, shaking faintly, took another step forward, looking down at the angry little man on the ground, who seemed to be waking up.
“All that's true, but you can't just hire chargers and keep them on staff to undercut us. We heard that some loader or dock hand or whatever charged four full main drives in a day. By herself. That's world class talent. No one would work as a simple loader if they could do that. So we came to see what was happening here. Things did get a little out of hand, but surely you can see why we're concerned. With even one person like that, a lot of our business could dry up in this area.”
A snort, one loud enough to fill the huge space, followed by a grunt came from Gloria up on the third deck.
“Well then, I hired Curly there, based on her skills as a loader, not anything else. Meaning your claims are bull-shit rabble rousing. If you came looking for a fight, you're going to find it doesn't go in your favor.” The menace in her voice ripped through the crowd, causing them to take another step back.
The Admiral took a step forward, his hand out to the woman, who shook it, looking at him with a bit of intimidation in her eyes, even though he smiled at her kindly.
“I do have to concur with Gloria, that... Curly here was hired due to her loading skills, helping to save a crystal due to her quick thinking, a two thousand pound one, it was about to fall out of its loading cradle, on point, someone had greased the corner.” Several people in the crowd winced at that. They knew what the cost of such a thing would be, even if it really had been an accident, or so it seemed to Gwen, who watched them carefully.
“But Katherine saved it and then aided in the emergency rescue of a Terrace passenger liner, the Merriment. Perhaps some of you have heard about that event?” A few of the crowd nodded one or two muttering yes.
“She dangled over the side of an out of control craft at four thousand feet, charging a crystal in midair, even though she's terrified of high places. Does that sound like someone we hired just to take work from you? We here at this location, at all our hundreds of locations across the world, value honesty and good relations with all those that make our work possible. The Chargers Union has been one of our closest allies. We don't take that lightly.”