I wrote this while I was reading Erik Larson's
The Splendid and the Vile
, during which I wondered how a person like Pixy Pfeiffer would react if she was huddling powerless beneath a bomber.
Poor thing.
* * *
Pull on a pair of underwear.
Tuck yourself in nice and tight. Adjust it so that your penis is lying to the correct side, or so that it frames your labia just so; arrange it so that it doesn't tug at your pubes. If you're a certain kind of male mutant, go ahead and tuck your four balls comfortably into the pouch.
Now. Pull your pants up.
Fix your staytab, fasten your belt. Pause, shifting your weight from foot to foot, then smile because everything fits perfectly.
Now? Go on into the bathroom and push everything down. Go on. Everything: pants and undies, all the way down to the ankle. Shift your feet around with your pants and underwear all intertwined; get them nice and mingled. Then, bend quickly and pull everything back up in one disheveled mass, no adjusting. Let all your bits and pieces tuck themselves away wherever they want. Let your underwear bunch up under your trousers. Let them get misaligned, the two waistbands not
quite
lined up.
Fasten that staytab! And now? Go on with your day, coping with the fact that everything is just slightly fucked up. But not fucked up enough to keep you from getting your work done.
That was similar to the feeling of discomfort racing through Subcommander Pixy Pfeiffer's mind as she stood in the main bay of the frigate
Desperado
, frowning up at where the Line Chief had fastened the netting... well, not wrong, per se. The netting would get the job done. But not right, either. She cleared her throat, as always fighting the Aries accent that threatened to emerge.
"Um. Chief. Is there a reason the stays aren't clasped left to right, the way I like them?"
The chief, obviously still on a residual high from the dose of bump he'd just sniffed, blinked. "Ma'am?"
"Yeah," Pixy said slowly, "I'm certain, absolutely certain, I told you last time that I liked the stays fastened toward the right. Fleet-fashion, not like some fucking merchant ship." She nodded to herself, then glanced aside at the carefully blank-faced sailor. "What do you think, Chief? Do you remember me telling you that?"
Or are you too wasted to care,
she left unsaid.
"Ma'am," he replied noncommittally. The big man frowned, looking doubtfully up at the netting. "Well. I guess I can send someone up there to reconfigure them." He sighed, that long-suffering sigh chiefs give when officers are bothering them needlessly. "Might mean I need to flush the gravity in the whole hold, ma'am, to get a guy up there."
Pixy's mind churned as she made some notes on her tabslate, her implant feeding her data. The ship was hurtling through sublight space out past the Lesser Bight, fleeting along with 744 souls aboard, weapons status amber. They were crabbed at three degrees to port, which was placing stress on the starboard vanes; not nearly enough to worry about, given the stresses to which combat starships were designed, but still. A gravity dump in the main bay, at these speeds... "No. Do it the old-fashioned way. Get a ladder."
He nodded, mournful, completely unsurprised. His was not a world where officers acted reasonably at any time, and certainly not out here on the Outer Parabola. They only sent fuckups out here, he knew: officers with
pasts
, like court-martials or, in Pixy's case, a former career in Service Command instead of Combat.
But, for all that, she wasn't that bad an officer. "Most XOs," he allowed grudgingly, "wouldn't even come down here to inspect."
Pixy nodded absently, her fingers still flying across her 'slate. "I'm not most XOs," she grated. "I've been here seven months. You should know that by now."
"Still." The chief was rattling at his own 'slate, summoning a sailor to square away the nettings.
Pixy had no desire to chat with this oaf, but she also had no intention of leaving before she watched with her own eyes as someone set up a ladder to fix the clasps. "This isn't my first time," she said shortly. "I've done the job before. On a GP Service ship."
"No shit?" He glanced over at the diminutive women with the fierce glare and the combat medals. "I didn't think Service Branch used XOs."
"They don't," Pixy admitted. "My captain was... well, an outside-the-box thinker."
The chief gave a knowing nod, brown-nosing shamelessly. "He saw something in you, ma'am."
"No," she snapped, "he got tired of my whining. I was a promotable lieutenant, I was sick of being a supply officer, and there were no other good billets for me. He made me XO while I cooled my heels waiting for a school slot."
"Oh!" He sounded surprised, the two of them watching dully as a pair of soldiers sauntered over with an inflatable ladder. "That, uh, sounds like the kind of thing they'd do in Combat, too."
Pixy shrugged. "Actually," she smirked, "I'm continually shocked at how similar Service and Combat often are." She watched with approval as the sailors began setting up the ladder. "Okay. Good enough. I'll be back to check later, Chief, and if all the clasps aren't done correctly, I'll kick your mouth in."
"Aye aye, ma'am." He'd heard about the XO's feet. The whole ship was talking about the kicking she'd given old Francisco in the machine shop last week when he'd moved insufficiently fast in response to her orders. They'd still been finding his teeth three days later. "I'll get it done."
"See that you do." A thought struck her, something she'd been meaning to bring up. "Oh! And do me a favor?" The Line Chief arched a doubtful eyebrow. "I'll be out in the shuttle next week doing the hull inspection. It'll take awhile. Can you find a hotplate and bolt it into the crew compartment? So I can have some tea?"
His face cleared. "Shit, ma'am," he nodded, "that's not a favor. That's barely even a chore. I'll do it myself."
"Thanks," she nodded, but she was already on to the next item in the endless chain of shit that needed the XO's attention. The hatch rattled behind her as she swept from the bay, brooding, her 'slate still chirping. It had yelled at her while she was taking her inspection notes, nagging, reminding her that she still hadn't approved the personnel transfers from after the mutiny near Plastic Nebula.
And she knew she'd better, because the Captain had come back.
Captain Ledecki had arrived on local Tuesday, hauling along her runner-up trophy from the Celestial Cup, the triumphant PR warrior returning to the backwater station to which Fleet had assigned her, where she could get plenty of practice time while still being One Of Our Bravest Starship Captains. Pixy was walking around these days with her fingers crossed, hoping the Captain's new intergalactic Parcheesi ranking would rise, getting her reassigned to the Core. Getting her off this ship.
Not that Ledecki was a bad Captain. In fact, she was generally quite good: she stayed out of the way and let Pixy do whatever the fuck she pleased. She'd arrived back at the main hatch, ordered grog for all hands, and then disappeared back into her cabin astern with her weird little steward. "Thanks for looking after the ship, Pixy." She'd smiled so sweetly. "I'm a little worn out from traveling. Why don't we meet for dinner and go over your inventories in, say, three days?"
