Pixy's Choice

She woke up from a bad-dream nap, the taste of metal filings in her mouth; it was always like that, with repairs underway. The whole ship was filthy, with epoxy and fresh weld seams everywhere amid a constant stink of ozone. The message chime sounded again, and Pixy dragged her head across the pillow to look incoherently at the plot repeater mounted to the headboard. They'd put it there from Densborg's quarters now that she was acting as First Officer. "What the fuck?" she barked into the intertube.

"Urgent, Lieutenant Pfeiffer. They need you at the shuttle dock." Sounded like Klingmann, on the bridge watch. Good kid.

She felt her belly sink. That fucking supply run should have been back awhile ago... "Is Mr Amisuul back with the converters?"

Klingmann paused, and when she replied she managed to sound carefully diplomatic. "It's Mr Amisuul that needs you, ma'am."

She swore loudly without bothering to shut off the speaker. Fucking Amisuul. "Does the captain know?"

Again, that careful diplomacy. "I'm not certain the captain knows Lieutenant Amisuul's name yet, ma'am."

"Roger." She yawned and stretched, sitting up naked in the bed. Space outside her viewport was frosted with stars and choked with ships all around them. "I'll be right there."

* * *

Part I: The Basin

* * *

Pixy was not amused. "This is not the way I wanted to spend my afternoon, Mr Amisuul."

"Sorry, ma'am." He was careful not to look back into the crew bay, where Pixy was busy swabbing that other lieutenant's semen out of herself. This wasn't the first time she'd done that around him; once, he'd even left some of his own in there, but that had been many months and a thousand tribulations ago, almost like it had happened to someone else. She'd become a hero since then, and he hadn't, and that was not the kind of gulf he knew how to bridge.

She knew how, but wasn't interested.

So he kept his eyes forward. Besides, he was flying the shuttle, and he'd never been more than adequate at that kind of task. Pixy sighed behind him. "This is one of the kinds of things you have to do now, Amisuul. It's not what you asked for, but I just don't have the time anymore." She made a last swipe, put the drywipe into the incinerator, and then sighed as her uniform did itself up.

She was enraged, if she was being honest with herself, and Pixy Pfeiffer was usually honest with herself. Amisuul was not cutting it at all, and he needed to be told that. She took a deep breath, then pitched her voice toward careful neutrality so that he wouldn't miss the message. "Mr Amisuul," she announced, "you need to step up your duty performance."

He started, the shuttle yawing a tad as he clenched reflexively at the controls, for in the careful language of Fleet-speak she'd just delivered a torpedo shot at immediate range. That loaded Fleet phrase,

duty performance:

it alluded to things like evaluation reports, confidential personnel files, counseling memos, even the distant specter of a court-martial: no subordinate ever liked to hear that phrase from a senior officer's mouth. He was far too ashamed to glance back as Pixy climbed through onto the flight deck.

She knew she'd rattled him. Good. She let the silence build; the sailors always knew when Lieutenant Pfeiffer was pissed, and now Amisuul knew it too. She was beginning to despair of ever turning him into a borderline competent supply officer.

The complication, of course, was that he wasn't truly responsible for supply: she was, as Second Officer. But now she was also the acting First Officer, which meant she had far too much to do and needed to delegate. So Rocky Amisuul had become the part-time supply officer.

"It's just... It's far too much to do, ma'am," he complained now, hating himself for whining. You didn't whine in Fleet. You shut your mouth and you did your job. But lately, Amisuul's

job

had become

jobs

, and he'd discovered he just didn't have enough energy. "I'm not sure I can do it."

"Bullshit." She glared evenly over at him. "What? Is it the sex? Because I'll tell you, a supply officer who can't fuck is a useless piece of shit." She sniffed, still smelling that other lieutenant's sweat in her nostrils; she'd ended up with her face in the hollow of his neck, gripping onto him with both arms and one leg as he'd cum from above her, his beard leaving a raw red patch on her right shoulder. "You can fuck, Amisuul; we both know that. What's the problem with this stuff?"

She'd explained The Rules to him when they'd started this game, while they were still on the way to the repair basin, limping along under half solar power. "Supply guys work according to a very simple set of Rules, Mr Amisuul." She'd detested her own tone, all dry and didactic, but she'd had much to do then and little sleep to do it on.

"You offer to barter the shit you've got too much of, in exchange for the shit you've got too little of. There's always an officer asking for a favor, and another one granting the favor. The officer asking the favor is expected to sweeten the deal. Right? So, you do that with the same old shit supply officers have been using forever: money, drugs, or sex."

But usually it was sex, especially in this particular sector. They were far, far from home, far from wives and mistresses, aboard claustrophobic ships where even the onboard prostitution rings grew stale after awhile, the customary bedwarmers becoming too much like spouses. So supply officers usually looked forward to these kinds of visits as a chance to sample a new hole.

And Rocky Amisuul had been unable to make that happen today.

So, faced with a better supply geek than he would ever be, he'd panicked. And then Klingmann had gotten on the intertube, so now Pixy had rented her vagina to the sublieutenant aboard the frigate

Janzee

. For forty dozen power converters, sure, but still: a lowly sublieutenant? And it had been Amisuul's job. "Was it because he was a guy?" she asked abruptly. "I didn't think you minded it in the ass."

"Well... it's not my favorite," he admitted. Pixy's eyebrows rose in surprise.

"Dude. I thought your bedwarmer is a man."

Amisuul glanced over; every officer in the Fleet kept a bedwarmer, but it wasn't considered polite to mention them. "What about it, ma'am?" he replied evenly.

"Well, I mean, I'm just saying..." Pixy trailed off, in the unusual position of feeling awkward before a subordinate. The silence grew heavy, edged, as their ship loomed larger in the viewport. She cleared her throat. "You don't fuck him?"

"No." Amisuul sighed. "He really does just warm the bed. We snuggle. Talk. Whatever. But no." He shrugged. "I get more than I need, auditioning the sailors in the prostitution ring; you know that." She nodded; pimping the ship's whores was a traditional part of a Third Officer's job. "That's the problem, see. Between keeping the whores in practice and these supply pukes you're making me fuck, it's just too much. You know... physiologically."

Pixy blinked. "But, but you're a Tygon."

"Yes. Prehensile dick, ejaculation on command; sure. But it's not like I've got an inexhaustible supply, ma'am." He gripped the controls. "And I was up all night with that new sailor, the one from the

Tibert

."

She frowned, then remembered. "Ooh, yeah. The Korlene. You're welcome, by the way; you don't know what I had to do to get her included with the replacements." This was true; Korlenes were in great demand because everyone had heard about what they could do. Amisuul shivered.

"Yeah," he said vaguely, his scaly green forehead wrinkling. "Yeah. Thanks, ma'am; she was memorable." Korlenes were telepathic, which made sex with them pretty fucking stupendous. It also sometimes left their partners unsure quite what they'd done in bed. He shook his head to clear it. "She's going to make me a fortune."

"Minus my finder's fee," Pixy snapped. 1.3%! She was still amazed Amisuul had agreed to it. Well worth the cock she'd needed to suck to get that sailor assigned.

"Sure, sure." He frowned at the controls. "It's awkward. It's never been awkward before; when you're Third Officer, the crew knows you have sex with them and it doesn't matter. Now you've got me doing some of your Second shit, and I have to give them orders and yell at them; it's not easy."

"It's the Fleet. We're in a war. It's not supposed to be easy." She had no time for this kind of shit. "Look, you just need to prioritize." She glanced at the instruments, checking his alignment. "We're in a goddamn repair basin. You should be stealing shit left and right. This is the kind of place where we supply pukes do our best work." She gestured at space all around them, packed with combat vessels in every possible state of repair, plus the smaller lighters and shuttles servicing them. "This is an ideal place to learn how to be a Second Officer, Mr Amisuul. So even when our new First shows up and we all go back to normal, you'll know how things work when you get promoted."

"If."

"Whatever. Look, the yard personnel are even

giving

us extra shit, just because we've been in a fight. And now you need my help to close a deal for fucking power converters?" The hard-dock ring was coming up in the periscope, the brand-new ring they'd just had installed. "You forgot to drop the gravity, dumbass."

"Oh. Sorry."

She sighed. "Come around again to the Blue Point, drop the gravity, and go back on approach the right way." She glared back at him. "I can't do it all. You need to do at least

one

thing right today, Sublieutenant Amisuul." In Fleet, it was very bad news when people used your full rank.

"Aye aye, ma'am."

* * *

The other problem with being acting First, Pixy had discovered, was that it made her every other officer's boss. Which made it difficult to socialize. Which meant there was nobody she could decently exchange incredulous rolled-eye glances during meetings when the new captain came up with more stupid shit.

"The whole sector is proud of this ship right now," he was saying, spreading his arms expansively. "You guys are something special. You're the only repair ship ever to destroy two enemy vessels. Hell, it's been years since a repair ship has even participated in a battle."

An uncomfortable silence made its way around the table, but Captain Reye had served in

transport

ships; he didn't understand all the conventions yet. Shifty glances were sliding from face to face, all of them ending up on hers. Pixy could see it was up to her to correct him. "Uh, sir?" She cleared her throat. "It's 'service ship,' sir, not 'repair ship.'"

"Sorry." He held up his hands. "My mistake; I'm still getting used to the culture here. But this ship is almost a mascot now. Everyone wants to see the USS

Pulver

succeed. Which is why," he went on, a little ominously, "I'm puzzled by the state of morale aboard this ship."

Pixy was still getting used to Reye. She wasn't sure what to make of him. He was better than Captain Crick had been, sure, but that was a conspicuously low bar. He seemed sincere, and someone in the engine room had flown with him before and couldn't remember anything bad, but still. You never knew how bad a captain could be until you got out into space, and Reye hadn't yet taken the

Pulver

out. And these GP ships of the service fleet did not tend to attract the world's best leaders. Again, Pixy became aware that everyone was looking at her. "Well, in fairness," she pointed out, hoping she didn't sound like a bitch, "it's hard for a crew to be enthusiastic in port, sir. Especially with all the new replacements."

Reye snapped his fingers. "Exactly. Replacements." He had a vaguely unpleasant smile; nothing you could really pinpoint, but there was something asymmetrical about it. "New personnel to reflect a new culture. That's why I'm instituting a new motto for the ship."

Jaws dropped around the table. Many of the officers were inexperienced, but you didn't have to be in Fleet very long to learn that management via motto was a popular move by captains. Down at the end of the table, Klonmyre tried to make eye contact with Pixy, who just stared rigidly ahead. Reye had already told her about the motto plan, and she'd tried to talk him out of it. Chief della Sera's head had nearly exploded. But Reye seemed to have all the buoyant faith and confidence of the newly-converted, and he pressed ahead like a man convinced he could change the world.

"

Pulver

is on her way up. She's on the move. She's reaching for excellence. And, of course, she's also battle-hardened." Pixy was not unsympathetic; it had to be difficult to take over a famous ship that's just been in action, and be the only officer aboard who wasn't there for the fighting. But still, the motto was stupid. "So. Effective this afternoon, we'll exchange the new motto with each salute. The subordinate will sound off with 'Pulver,' and the officer's reply will be 'Rising.'" He beamed genially around at the table, waiting for everyone to get the joke. "It's a pun."

Silence.

Pixy glared down the table at Klonmyre's cynical smirk, daring her to say something fresh; Klonmyre had a big mouth, but this time she merely leaned back with her fingers rubbing her chin. She clearly felt no pressing need to piss off the new captain. But the poor man obviously wasn't going to go on until someone filled the conversational void. So Dr January decided it was his turn. "A pun," he mused.

"Yes, but like all puns, it contains a grain of truth: we are rising, ladies and gentlemen. And we are also powerful. So, there it is. 'Pulver: Rising.'" Pixy wondered whether admirals taught this kind of thing at the pre-command course. He slapped a decisive hand on the conference table. "It's just a part of a much more comprehensive morale strategy, of course, which I'll be putting out to you before we head out. But meanwhile, make sure you spread the word to your sections."

Klonmyre couldn't help herself. "Sir, should we also say the motto at mealtimes? And with the morning announcements?" She blinked those big brown eyes of hers, the picture of innocence. "Maybe also when we break up meetings?"

Reye had no idea she was taking the piss. "Whenever it's appropriate, Ms Klonmer."

"Klonmyre, sir." She tossed her red, wispy hair back over her shoulder, every part of her uniform spotted with engine grease. "It's Klonmyre." She pointedly ignored Pixy's murderous glare.

"Sure. Ms Klonmyre. Yes, absolutely you should feel free to use the motto wherever appropriate." He glanced down at his tabslate. "So I'll be meeting with all the department heads individually later on, to go over the repair status, but other than that?" He swept the room, his eyes like a pair of guns. "I think we're done."

Chief della Sera shot to his feet. "Attention!" he called, and the shuffle of the chairs moving back dominated the room as the officers all rose.

"As you were," Reye nodded curtly, and that's when Klonmyre went batshit crazy.

"Pulver! Rising!" she called at the top of her voice, not even bothering to stop grinning, and the captain paused on his way out the door.

"Yes," he replied vaguely. "Well, carry on."

As soon as the hatch snicked shut behind him, Amisuul was sticking his tongue out at Klonmyre. "Kiss-ass."

"Everyone out." Pixy's voice was low and even. "Get to work." She waited until everyone started packing up before she sat back down, looking deceptively relaxed. "Not you, Sublieutenant Klonmyre."

"Ooh," whistled diBiase. "Someone's in trouble..."

"And fuck you too," Klonmyre replied sweetly.

"Knock it off." Pixy watched as everyone shuffled out. Well, she told herself, Reye was right about one thing: morale sucked. The

Pulver

was hardly the most elite ship in the Fleet at the best of times; now? In for repairs, constant work, no liberty, and without enough officers? Ah, but Pixy reminded herself, everything would be fine now.

After all, they had a motto.

The room emptied at last, to the ever present repair-basin smells of lube oil and overheated metal, and Klonmyre slouched into a chair as soon as the hatch shut. "Shit. A motto?" Pixy merely stared, hard, until Klonmyre got the message. The little engineer flushed scarlet, then jumped out of the chair. "Sorry, ma'am."

Pixy stayed silent until Klonmyre finally glanced back at her, uneasy. When she spoke, she used that ice-bitch tone nobody liked. "He's new, Ms Klonmyre. But he's been in Fleet since before you knew how to read." She waited to let it sink in. "Comprehend?"

"Yes ma'am." Klonmyre stood cadet-straight, her posture excellent, looking amazing even with the engine-room filth caked onto her.

"Good." Pixy reached for her tablet. "So stop being an asshole."

"Yes ma'am." She waited, transparently expecting more, but Pixy just scowled up at her until she licked her lips and finished up. "Was there anything else, ma'am."

"No." Pixy debated, then made up her mind. "Did I put you on duty tonight? Bridge watch?"

"Yes, ma'am. But it's on call, you know, us being in the Basin and all." The brown eyes flickered down, meeting Pixy's. "So as long as there aren't any emergencies, well, I should be able to just stay in my quarters." She was smiling faintly now; they hadn't shared a bed in almost a week. "That is, somebody's quarters."

Pixy allowed herself a tiny sigh. "I'm sorry, Ms Klonmyre. Being the First Officer's bedwarmer probably isn't quite as nice as being the Second Officer's."

She shrugged. "I take what I can get, ma'am." The smile was definitely wider now. "I'm not complaining any more than you are." Her eyes were bold now as they stared straight into Pixy's; Klonmyre had been a different person since the Battle.

A different bedmate, anyway.

"Oh, but I'm complaining." Pixy stood up, her back protesting just slightly; she'd need Dr January to give it another tweak. "I miss you," she shrugged. "You know how I like my routines. This first-officer shit is fine, but not when I'm also the Second." She started for the hatch, and Klonmyre relaxed.

"Any word on a new First, ma'am?"

"Nope." Pixy shrugged. She'd asked the very same question last time Reye had sent her to the Yard Office; shit, was that only yesterday? Everything ran together. "They still say we'll get one before we move out, but that's assuming everything goes on schedule. You know Fleet." They stepped out into the corridor, nimbly avoiding five passing sailors. "They'll tell us we've got another month in the Basin, and then we'll get orders to ship out immediately."

Klonmyre gnawed thoughtfully at her lower lip, then shook her head. "Yeah. Well, did you want to know the update on the Mk 14 generators? Or should I just send it to you?"

"Shit, Klonmyre. You know I don't know anything about Mk 14 generators. Do they work? Or don't they?"

Klonmyre hesitated, as expected; she was an engineer, so she often failed to answer those kinds of questions. "Well, ma'am, it's complicated."

"Fuck that. No it isn't, Klonmyre. You figure out that answer, and then you give me your fucking update. Comprehend?" Sailors had started to glance over; for the millionth time, Pixy reminded herself it wasn't good to yell at officers in public spaces. But, also for the millionth time, she couldn't stop herself. "You're the engineering officer; you're the one who knows the goddamn generators. If you need me to order parts, tell me to order fucking parts. Otherwise, that sucker needs to be mission-capable by when?"

"0400 tomorrow, ma'am," Klonmyre sighed.

"Yes. So, do you need parts?"

"No, ma'am."

"Ah. So, your update is that you'll be good to go by 0400 tomorrow. See how that works, Ms Klonmyre? Simple, right?"

"Simple. Yes, ma'am." She'd adopted that wounded, robotic voice she always used when being scalped, the one they taught at the Academy. "Permission to carry on, ma'am?"