Brinus, wearing a white T-shirt and military boxers, was sitting on the countertop. He held a nicotine vaporizer between his lips. Simmie had just come into the kitchen to get his morning coffee. Brinus took a pull from the vape and blew out.
Simmie sighed as he put a cigarette in his mouth and lit the other end after replicating his morning coffee. “Are you vaping now?”
“Dr. Calnori recommended a medical vape. She said I should avoid earth vapes ’cuz of the metals; I should only use health department ones and replicated formulas.”
Simmie took a drag from his cigarette and shook some ash into an ashtray. “What shop did you go to? ”
“Proctor Vapes.”
Simmie laughed. “That’s a proper pharmacy!” Simmie took another drag from his cigarette and blew the smoke off to the side.
Brinus took another pull from his medical vape and then jumped down. “I gotta get ready. Today is my turn in the robotics lab.”
Brinus came down and kissed Simmie on the lips. Simmie opened his mouth after a few seconds and then licked the inside of Brinus’s mouth, which caused him to jump back.
Brinus yelled out in surprise. “What the fuck!?”
Simmie smiled. He laughed, “I like the taste. What is it?”
Brinus gagged and then yelled, “In the name of the spirits! Your breath tastes like a cigarette!” He walked over to the fridge and grabbed a soda. “The flavor is Earth bubble gum and cotton candy. Don’t ever do that again without my permission!”
Brinus took a deep breath and then closed his eyes for three seconds. He kept his hands by his side staring daggers at Simmie. He opened the soda and swished out his mouth and left the kitchen with a stiff body posture and dilated pupils.
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Brinus was working on the radiation shielding of a walker leg in the robotics lab. He had just smelted a tungsten, titanium, and rhenium alloy plate and was in the process of welding it with a TIG welding torch and a metal patch.
He wore a safety vest and a welding mask. He had a pair of leather steel-toed boots and a set of welding gloves. He also was listening to gangster rap from Saffron Planetary Prison as part of their music program.
The music was loud enough to fill the room but not be obnoxious. He was singing and dancing to it when his commanding officer walked into the room.
Brinus said, “Compute! cut music!”
Brinus removed his welding gloves and mask, “May I help you, ma’am?”
“So tell me, do you think this is funny?”
Brinus looked confused.
“You know what you did. Don’t try to act innocent.”
Brinus took a pull from his vaporizer and just started her. What the fuck was she talking about?
“Confess, and I won’t go to the commander. We can keep it within the robotics department.”
Brinus took a second pull from his vape and then put the TIG welding torch down. He said in an assertive military voice. “Lieutenant, ma’am, wouldn’t it be a shame if I had to go to the first officer because you were targeting me for dismissal because of my felony status? I wonder what would happen if you lost your career?” He smiled a classic screw you smile.
“Are you threatening me, midshipman?”
Brinus smiled, “Computer! Read the email transcript sent by Lieutenant Smog on start date 22.6.32.”
Lieutenant Aura:
I hate that smug asshole Brinus. I don’t want felons in my department!
Lieutenant Smog:
One of my favorite tricks is to falsify claims against someone, go to your superior with the information, and then...
“Computer cut dictation.”
Aura crossed her arms and yelled in a military voice. “Why the hell is Lieutenant Smog sending you my private messages?”
“He didn’t. I became friends with the Ship’s AI. She is very nice and an introvert. She knew what you were doing and sent me a full copy of the messages. I have unedited DMs with timestamps. I have a voice recording. Alex was offended by your behavior.”
“This violates privacy laws. I demand you delete those messages with an apology!”
“No, I won’t, and if you take this further, I will go directly to the captain. You see, according to section ten of the Data Privacy Act, unless you wrote the messages on your custom-built computer on an app you designed, the data is not yours but belongs to the company. In this case, the data belongs to the Navy.”
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“No, it doesn’t!!!! You’re Lying!!!”
“I can send you a copy of the law if you want?” Brinus smiled his screw you smile. He knew he won.
“The commander will hear about this!”
“Oh, the captain will be receiving the Email. Computer! Attach the file two-two-five-seven and send it to all listed email addresses in the email files.”
“Command accepted. Email sent!”
“What the fuck did you just do!”
“I just ended your career. Now get lost.” Brinus made a shooing motion with his hand. “Computer activate music from the previous playlist!” He returned to welding.
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One hour later, Commander Theodore was meeting with Brinus. He had an annoyed look on his face. He wasn’t upset at Brinus for a change. “Do you wish to escalate this? You have a legitimate case for discrimination.”
“I don’t want to be a bitch boy. If she continues, I will escalate it. For now, I don’t want to be a snitch.”
“I will let the record show you’re filing a report but no charges. Just to let you know, you have two years to file charges should you choose to. Send in the Lieutenant.”
“Sir.” Brinus saluted and left. The lieutenant came in.
She stood at attention and saluted. The commander stood behind his desk and began shouting in a military voice. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
She said nothing.
“Damn you! I am going to remove you from active duty and recommend your transfer to the front lines. Pack up your things! You will ship out by the end of the week. Oh, and you’re at the rank of midshipwoman with a ban on further promotion for five years. Give me both of your lieutenant’s ribbons! Now!”
She handed him her ribbons, saluted, and left.
The commander knew it must have gotten bad between them if Brinus had done something like this. He never complained. It was one of the things he admired about him. Even though he had his objections at first, Brinus was a valued member of his team. He and Simmie were unstoppable during a fleet battle.
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After military tactics class, Brinus was waiting for the class to clear out. Once they were gone, he approached the professor and saluted.
The professor was shuffling some papers on his desk and then looked at Brinus, “Do you need something?”
“I wanted to talk to you about something that happened today, sir.”
The professor laughed and rolled his eyes. He then snapped his briefcase closed. “Really? Shouldn’t you discuss it with your mentor?”
Brinus tilted his head to the side and crossed his arms. “How did you know, sir?”
They laughed and made their way to their office as Brinus Followed. He said, “Come Brinus, Everyone knows. The bitch had it coming for a long time. Did anyone tell you how she ended up in the robotics department? She was a commander, first officer under Captain Saz, and would have been a captain. She then threw her captain under the bus during the Third Pirate Was and was demoted to lieutenant commander. After being reassigned to Excalibur, that woman was then caught discriminating against catpeople for basically being catpeople because ‘I hate those furballs.’ She couldn’t articulate a valid reason. Now, you became a target because of your felon status, and she lost her commission. I doubt she will ever be promoted again.”
Brinus said with a blank look, “I still snitched. I should have dealt with this on my own.”
The professor laughed and then tapped brinus on the side of his shoulder, “This isn’t the syndicate anymore. Some people see too much combat and then snap. She was a good officer with a promising career and could have retired at the rank of commodore with an admiral’s pension. She refused help at every opportunity, and now she will be discharged at the rank of midshipwoman. Some people don’t need to serve in the military.”
Brinus shuffled out of the room.
In the meantime, the first officer and Captain Plato were going over personnel records of commissioned officers and came up to lieutenant Aurua.
The captain shuffled some papers and looked at Her files. “So we are now at Lieutenant Aurua.”
The commander sat at attention and then looked the captain in the eye. “She is now a midshipwoman. I believe she tried to get Brinus dismissed from the academy over false allegations.”
Captain Plato laughed until he realized the commander was serious. He leaned forward and crossed his paws on the desk. “Does she not know Brinus is the Duke of District 12 and the son of the first lady of the admiralty?”
The commander said nothing. He simply sat at attention.
The captain let out a cat howl and then screamed, “I want her cashiered out of the service! Today! I want that bitch off of my ship by the high noon watch tomorrow! Clear!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Now, who is next on the list?”
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Brinus came home after stopping at the pharmacy to buy a new vaporizer pen. He stripped off his steel-toed boots, socks, and shirt. He switched out his uniform pants for gym shorts and walked into the kitchen. Simmie was not cooking supper. A note on the stove said he would be back in three days after a seventy-two training exercise on the planet’s surface. Brinus secretly wondered when he would be invited to a training exercise. He had been to two thus far, but mainly paintball exercises in urban training scenarios since the whole Simmie debacle.
A knock rang on the door. He walked up to the door after checking his doorbell camera and seeing it was Brinus’s friend from the two paintball exercises.
He opened the door, and they both slapped hands together. Brinus snapped his fingers, and they both laughed. His friend embraced him in a bro hug. “Are you here for the raid, Godfick?”
“Sure.”
Brinus went into the console and booted it up.
“I heard your boyfriend is on mission. I came to check on you and keep you company.”
Brinus laughed and said, “Yeah. I just found out.”
“Hey, you got any cigarettes?”
Brinus shrugged and looked off the side. He then said, “Simmie is the smoker; I’m a vaper. There is a cig vending machine down the hall to the right.”
Godfrick left Brinus’s quarters for a few minutes and came back. He put a smoke in his mouth and lit the other end. Brinus’s mouth curled in a slight look of disgust. He was hoping to have a weekend without having smoke in his face, but whatever.
“You wonna get started on the game? Or do you wonna finish your cigarette?” Brinus felt tempted to kick out Godfrick. Since he started vaping, cigarette smoke has irritated his sinuses and made him sneeze if the room was too smokey.
After an hour of character creation, Brinus went into the main menu, and they began playing on the game together. He didn’t have a second headset; therefore, routing the sound through the AI comms was necessary.
Brinus created a pirate character, and Godfrick created a mage. Since Godfrick was not a gamer, Brinus had to show him various concepts he had mastered by the age of five. He also showed Godfrick how to hold a controller. He taught them about the buttons, basic concepts of collision physics, and in-game items. He explained side quests and battle passes. Brinus looked at the clock on his timer; it was zero six hundred hours. Brinus had spent twelve hours gaming with his friend.
Godfrick looked at Brinus. “Is it really sunrise?”
“I guess we had fun.”
“Damn, It just felt like three hours.”
“Yep. I need to charge my vape and get ready for bed. I think we both have the day off, so see ya. You wonna do this again next week?”
Godfrick nodded.
They left, and Brinus disposed of the of the ashtray. He then sprayed an air freshener in the game room. After Twelve hours of cigarette smoking from Godfrick, the room smelled like an ashtray. It occurred to Brinus that he had magic. Pointing his finger at the room, he caused the smoke to flash over in a fireball, and then he repaired the fire damage in a burst of Golden light. It occurred to Brinus that he could do this for his entire quarters. Therefore, he snapped his fingers, and then everything burst into a ball of flames; he snapped his fingers again, and the fireball went out in a burst of golden light.
The first thing Brinus noticed was how much easier it was to breathe in the quarters. The haze was gone. The air smelled fresh. He replicated a no-smoking sign for Simmie and
put it in the foyer.
After burning away the smoke, Brinus started charging his vape when someone rang the doorbell. He checked the camera app he designed, and it was Aura. She began banging and screaming on the door, cursing his name. She called him a swamp rat because he was the delta region of Otis Datis, the f slur, a wannabe pretender, which is a derogatory name for a peasant nobleman. She blamed him for why she was being discharged from the military.
Brinus called the police as she ranted about how he was the cause of everything that ever went wrong in her life. Apparently, he caused her to hate him because of...and then she was tackled by four officers when after pulling out a large Earth Bowie Knife and stabbing the door.
A cop walked up to the doorbell camera and waved. “My name is security officer Jones. Are the owners of these quarters home?”
Brinus pressed the mic button on his camera app. “Yes, I am. My name is Brinus Helios. My service number is four-five-four-six. What can I do for you?”
“Would you like to press charges?”