Read Mission Zero (Fourth Fleet Irregulars) Online
Authors: S J MacDonald
‘Well, I can only do my best,’ he said resignedly. ‘So, what are you taking out, then?’
‘I thought I’d try ‘Fifty Easy Ways to Cheat at Triplink,’ said the Exec, at which the skipper looked at him reproachfully.
‘Buzz,’ he said, deadpan. ‘You
wrote
that one.’
As the command deck burst into laughter again, Mako joined in with a chuckle. He was trying to be unobtrusive, just observing, but it was reassuring to see how relaxed and cheerful they were.
After a while, though, he went back to the mess deck to observe how the parolees were settling in. Jok Dorlan was already there, sitting at a table with Elsa Nordstrom, the rating Alex von Strada had spoken of as a computer whiz kid.
Elsa Nordstrom was Jok Dorlan’s ‘oppo’, a crewmember of similar rank and interests who’d been detailed to be his official friend and help to get him settled. Mako had been told that this was normal Fleet custom and not something that was being done specially for the parolees. Elsa was giving the newcomer the lowdown on the ship, telling him that ‘Tally’, their computer Sub, was brilliant and adding that he was teaching her to by-line in G39, whatever that might mean.
That was clearly been a turning point for Jok Dorlan. He stopped looking horribly self conscious and looked astounded, starting to protest that that wasn’t possible. Elsa Nordstrom grinned.
‘It is
now
,’ she told him, ‘thanks to the new bones we’ve got.’ Since then the conversation had become impenetrably technical and almost certainly highly classified. Jok Dorlan was sitting forward, his face alight with keen interest. He, clearly, was settling in well.
It was, however, taking longer to process PO Timon Barrington. He was still in sickbay nearly two hours after coming aboard. Hali Burdon, who was his oppo and waiting to undertake her duties as official friend, was unconcerned.
‘Tekki – Dr Tekawa – is probably doing his bells and smells,’ she explained, and seeing that Mako still didn’t understand, ‘Holistic therapy, chimes and aromatherapy, healing mantras and chi massage. It’s what he usually offers when people are stressed. Very good, too,’ she added, with the voice of experience. ‘I mean, okay, not what you expect in a Fleet medic, but it’s great, really de-stresses you, and doesn’t go on your records as a medical treatment either.’
‘Is that a concern, then?’ Mako queried.
‘Well, yeah,’ she said, with a grin, as if that was obvious. ‘The Fleet does not look favourably on personnel who need to be medically treated for stress when it comes to shipboard assignments. So most medics will offer some kind of off the record therapy or counselling. Tekki’s is just a bit, well, out there.’ She grinned. ‘But it
is
very good, and that’s what my bet would be, that that’s what he’s doing. I would only be concerned, myself, if he was calling in a second doctor. It takes two medics, see, to sign off on a decision that someone is not fit to be on the ship. I don’t think that’s likely to happen. They’ll already have done an assessment before letting Ty Barrington come aboard. He’s going to be very down at first, we know that, but he couldn’t have better support than here. He might cry a bit,’ she added, as an afterthought, ‘when he sees the bunk we’ve given him, but don’t worry about that. It’s just because he’ll understand, see, just how welcome he is, and how much we’re supporting him.’
‘I noticed that Jok Dorlan seemed a little emotional when he was shown his bunk.’ Mako observed. The mess deck was pretty much surrounded with bunks, other than for a serving counter between the mess deck and galley and part of a wall with a big holovision and entertainment unit. Some of the bunks were stacked in alcoves lengthways to the mess deck while others were stacked sideways on around the walls. There were more bunks throughout the ship, even single bunks tucked in here and there. They were all the same in design, narrow enclosed bunks with lighting, air conditioning controls and personal holoscreen. They had a slide-up privacy panel that gave, he had been assured, a high degree of soundproofing when sealed to the upper edge of the bunk. Every stack of bunks also had locker units either end.
‘Well, yeah,’ said Hali Burdon, and explained with the kindness he was coming to recognise as the Fleet enlightening an idiot civilian, ‘bunk placements are a big social thing, on any ship. There’s always a pecking order to it, see, with particular bunks considered the best ones to have. Bunks are assigned on seniority – and that’s got nothing to do with rank, we’re talking about
social
seniority, which is mostly down to how long you’ve been on the ship. Newcomers always accept being assigned to the most remote and least convenient bunks, and it is considered a huge compliment for someone who
has
a high status bunk to give it up for a newcomer. Here, there was practically a war fought out over who was going to give up their bunks for these three. Everyone wanted to do that, see, to make them feel welcome and valued. In the end, I picked the bunks they’re to have and we did ‘names in a hat’ for who’d go to the supernumeraries, as the fairest way to settle it.
‘That’s one of my jobs, see, as deck CPO, assigning bunks. Ty Barrington has got the mid-bunk in the single stack cubby, there,’ she indicated an alcove that was tucked in at a corner. ‘That’s top notch, socially,’ she informed him. ‘And that was my bunk, in fact. Deck CPO’s privilege, you always get the number one bunk regardless of how long you’ve been on the ship. Ty Barrington was deck CPO on his last ship, so when he sees we’ve given him that privilege here, he may get a little emotional. But in a good way, I hope, in recognising the support he has here.’
She was right about that. When Ty Barrington was brought to the mess deck, he was horribly self conscious. His body language suggested that he was doing his best to will himself invisible. He was obviously grateful to Dr Tekawa, though, who left him with a pat on the back and a promise to check in on him later, and he managed to respond, at least, with appropriate courtesy when Hali Burdon introduced herself as the deck CPO and his ‘oppo’ for orientation to the ship. He did become emotional when Hali showed him to his bunk and locker.
‘I don’t deserve it,’ Mako heard him say, ‘please, just put me in the cacker.’
Mako was impressed by the skill with which Hali responded to that, with the perfect blend of authority, reassurance, and humour.
‘Now, don’t you start getting stroppy,’ she told him, though anything less stroppy than the wretched man would have been hard to imagine. ‘Just do as you’re told.’ It was clearly a joke, but also established that she was the one calling the shots. ‘Stow your kit and come have a coffee.’
The coffee was clearly a pivotal moment, as the parolee closed his eyes, savouring it.
‘Oh, that’s good,’ he said, and Hali Burdon grinned agreement.
‘Have as much as you want,’ she assured him, and as he looked enquiringly at her, told him, ‘The skipper gave us extra supplies privilege for coming out top in our class. We’ve enough coffee on board for a frigate to drink themselves sick, so just help yourself.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. But he was glancing uneasily in the LPA inspector’s direction. Mako was keeping his distance, not wanting to add to the stress the parolees were going through by being in their faces. He was, by then, having a chat with a couple of crew who were on watch-break.
‘Don’t mind Mr Ireson,’ Hali told the newcomer, and Mako saw her give a murmured comment and grin which he guessed, correctly, was along the lines of ‘Harmless, but a bit dim.’
Mako couldn’t argue with that, really, as he felt himself to be wholly incompetent in this environment.
Still, at least they
were
friendly, which was a great comfort. They were friendly to the point, indeed, where he was feeling rather bombarded by all the people eager to give him information. He wouldn’t have minded, really, retreating to the wardroom for a while to go through his notes and catch up with himself. A crewman was currently standing outside the wardroom door, however, minding the Higgs baby and ensuring that nobody went in.
It was not difficult to guess what a married couple might want privacy for when they had been parted for several months and were about to be parted again, and Mako would not have disturbed them anyway. It did mean, though, that his options at the moment seemed limited to either sitting on the command deck, which he still felt rather shy about, or on the mess deck, where everyone who even came walking through seemed to feel the need to come and talk to him.
He found out why that was from seeing the Second Lt, Martine Fishe come onto the mess deck. She was looking for PO Barrington, who was assigned to her watch. Having welcomed him, she asked if she might impose, and at a friendly smile from Hali Burdon, helped herself to a mug of coffee and sat down at the table with them.
‘Is that usual?’ The inspector was trying to get to grips with the rules and protocols here. ‘I mean, officers having coffee here?’
The crewman he was talking to gave the slight double take and broad grin that Mako was coming to recognise as a sign that he had just asked something crashingly dumb.
‘Sure,’ the crewman told him. ‘Though only at the semis, of course.’ He spoke as if he expected the inspector to know what he was talking about, but seeing that he didn’t explained. ‘Those tables, see, they’re twos and fours.’
‘Er..?’ Mako had noticed that there were smaller tables at one end of the mess deck without realising that there was any significance to that.
‘They’re where you sit,’ the crewman explained, in terms adapted for civilian understanding, ‘if you want to work, have a private conversation, or just be left to yourself for a bit. People won’t disturb you, if you’re sitting there, but here, see,’ he indicated the four eight-seater tables which occupied most of the deck space in the mess, ‘these are the social tables. Officers wouldn’t come and sit here and they tend not to take any notice of things they may hear if it’s being said at these tables. It’s our informal social space, see. But if they want to talk to you about something that’s not so confidential you need to go to the skipper’s office or the wardroom, they’ll use those tables. And they might have a coffee, sometimes, sure, that’s no big deal.’
‘And is that the same on all Fleet ships?’ Mako queried, at which his informant grinned again.
‘Sure,’ he repeated, patiently. ‘Unless it’s a very big ship like a carrier. Most Fleet ships are like this, everyone on top of one another. And when there’s no physical privacy, see, you have to create it socially, so all ships have some kind of rules-relaxed talking area and a quiet zone.’
‘Ah, right.’ Enlightenment dawned as he realised that people had been coming up to him to chat because he’d been sitting at a social table, unwittingly inviting them to do so. ‘And ‘semis’,’ he hazarded, ‘for ‘semi-official’?’
The crewman managed not to laugh. ‘No, ‘semis’ because they’re half tables,’ he said. ‘The two-seaters are hemi-tables, really, but we just say ‘semis’ for small tables in the Fleet.’
Mako thanked him and made another note, feeling a twinge of apprehension at the realisation that he was almost going to have to learn a new language in adjusting to life here. He had, however, learned quite a bit already, as he realised when calling his boss some time later. Now relocated to a two-seater table, he found that people left him alone. He was able to sort out his notes and complete a preliminary assessment that he called his boss to send in person. She was impressed by his progress in such a short amount of time, and relieved too to be told that he was being made very welcome.
‘It’s been insane, here,’ she told him. The LPA had issued a media statement overnight confirming that they were sending an inspector aboard at the invitation of the Fleet. They had been bracing themselves to be bombarded by calls but that had not been the half of it. ‘The media’s taken over the car park, and we’ve had the police here dealing with demonstrators. The receptionist had hysterics and is refusing to come out of the lavatories and we’re having to lay on a security bus to get staff on and off the premises. I can only imagine how stressed the atmosphere must be there.’
Mako looked around. Three crewmembers on a break were eating toast at one of the social tables and talking about a ball game while Hali Burdon was chatting easily to Ty Barrington about Fleet news and gossip. From the command deck above came the sound of Lt Fishe, now holding the watch, having a conversation about the rival merits of frosted lemon versus walnut cake.
‘You would be amazed,’ he said, breaking into a grin, ‘at the total absence of stress on this ship. It’s as if somehow to them all that is just happening…’ he gestured to indicate something remote and unimportant, ‘over there somewhere.’
‘Lucky them!’ Said his boss, feelingly. ‘Honestly, I’ve just never seen anything like it. It’s like everyone has gone berserk, and it just doesn’t matter
what
you say, what facts and evidence you put out there, either they don’t believe it or they twist it to fit their own agendas and just yell and rant even more. And they have, I’m afraid, homed in on you personally. Many of them are now saying that you are part of a massive government conspiracy to cover up what the Fleet is doing there, and there is, as I dare say you’ve seen, extensive coverage about you in the media.’
Mako was startled. ‘I haven’t been watching it,’ he admitted. ‘There’s been a lot to get to grips with here, finding my way around and talking to people. What are they saying about me, then?’