Foolish Errands
Alwen stared at her stomach incredulously as another wave of pain came over her. It didn’t feel like indigestion, or the time she accidentally drank chocolate milk. This was different, though she wasn’t sure how. She gritted her teeth and stood up before walking out of the Med-bay. Whatever it was, it might pass after a while. Maybe she was just hungry.
The pain seemed to go away as she quickly strode through the corridors of the newly rebuilt Astaroth. A lot of the old corridors were removed to make way for the new cannon built through the center line of the ship, but fortunately the mess deck and gym deck were just above the reinforced barrel of the Shield breaker cannon, so they were the same as before.
As she passed a few of the newer crewman saluted her as she passed, she just scowled at their hands and told them to stop waving their arms about. If they had salute every officer that passed then they would never get anything done around here. They seemed honest and hardworking, but they needed a serious reality check to really get how things were done around here. Maybe she could ask Highland about that?
The Officers mess was on the opposite side of the normal mess deck, with the kitchen in between them. The food was the same for either side, but since the Officer mess had less to feed and could expect a higher level of dignity from its occupants it came equipped with nicer tables, chairs, real china plates and silverware and a few viewing screens that displayed the scenery of a craggy beach like they were windows.
Alwen saw the Bosun and the Chief of Engineering already seated off to the left, along with a few bridge officers and the four grim looking lawyers the Astaroth had on hand. They would pick up more in Parox from the Hellworlders official law offices. She gave the two men a wave before she walked over the kitchen window. Today’s meal was barley stew and a bread of some sort, it didn’t sound like much but the smell was already making Alwen’s mouth water.
“Well look at you” Butch said as she leaned out the window. Her pristine white smock was rolled up so that Alwen could see the cooks shredded biceps and the sleeve of tattoos she wore with pride. One arm had white puffy clouds with winged humans called angels playing harps and lyres, and the other had a depiction of the nine layers of Hell as described in Dante’s Divine comedy. Butch, Adela, had once told her that one arm would send you to Hell, while the other could bring you to Heaven. And she had heard enough rumors to know that either statement was true. “Don’t think I’ve seen you since the marking ceremony.”
Alwen frowned “We saw each other last week at the Officers meeting.”
“That doesn’t count Bones.” She scoffed with friendly derision.
Alwen rolled her eyes “Yes, well I honestly expected you to drop by first, you didn’t pick up anything during our stay of Pandemonium?”
She scowled “I wasn’t on Pandemonium, after our scrape with death I went back home to see my parents, stupid mistake on my part. Spent the whole time being criticized and judged, stupid high society snobs.”
Alwen felt a pang of sympathy “That’s a story I know all to well. I didn’t know you came from a well-off family.”
She scoffed “Depends on your definition of ‘well-off’. Money, yes. Kindness and love, they’re practically paupers. I swear they’re not human, or, umm, not Terran, bagh you know what I mean.”
“I think I do” Alwen said slowly “Like they have black hearts.”
“I wouldn’t go that far, but maybe it means something else for you in Torweni.”
Butches words reminded Alwen that she hadn’t seen her own parents in close to two years. She hadn’t bothered to meet them on Torwen when she recruited her old friends. Its not like they missed her, or that she missed them. The thought made a part of her ache in a hollow sort of way. “Was it really that bad?”
Butch groaned “Yes it was, kept asking me when I’d find a nice man, or if I was done playing sailor.”
Alwen frowned in confusion “But your…Butch?”
In any other case the term might have been insensitive, but she knew that Adela wore the name with pride and never bothered to hide exactly which gender she was attracted to.
“Try telling them that. I don’t think they grasp the core concept of being gay at all. I think they somehow feel its just a rebellion from doing what they want. Hell, they’re still trying to set me up with the same guy, even though he’s been happily married to his husband for three years.”
Alwen shook her head. Torwen for the most part didn’t have any prejudices against same sex relationships, though their unique ability for same sex conception might have been the reason for that rather than societal acceptation. There was a preference for male-female relations, or male-male relationships since Torwen was still a very patriarchal society. But that was more an issue of gender roles than homophobia.
She hadn’t even considered it a strange thing until she had gotten to know Terran society better. Everyone on the Astaroth had been so open about it Alwen thought it was just a normal thing, she didn’t know that things were different across the wide breadth of Terran societies.
“I didn’t think it was much of an issue on Mars, isn’t Karega’s sister dating the CEO of MDY?” She hadn’t met either woman directly, but Butch was the center of all gossip on the ship and had let Alwen in on the story of why MDY had even built the Astaroth and Lucifer. Apparently Karega had his sister do them the favor of building the first Archdevil cruisers before Astarte was a well-established power.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Its not too bad on Mars, lot of the old progressive ideals stuck around even after the Union took over. But its different on stations or other direct Union territories, my grandparents were born and raised on Serenity before moving back to Sol. Brought a lot of the Union’s ideas with them about what was and wasn’t normal.”
Alwen nodded and looked over her shoulder to see the Bosun waving at her to ‘stop gaffing aboot’. Butch saw the Bosun’s impatience and held up a single finger to indicate she needed one more minute. “Before you sit I’ve got something special for you.”
“Oh” Alwen said, her curiosity peaked.
“I had a few spare moments to try out something new. It seemed a shame that you couldn’t have any ice cream, so I learned how to make sorbet from scratch.” She said while sliding over a cold dish with a pink-red colored ball in the middle. “Only a little portion to match your diet and training schedule, but it should be a good treat.”
Alwen looked at the frozen treat and smiled “Thank you, that was very thoughtful.”
The cooks cheeks reddened a little. “Yeah, well, thanks for listening to my bitching.” She grumbled before turning away.
Alwen gripped her tray and walked to the table where the Bosun and Chief Heizer were sitting.
“Wat took ye so lahng” Highland grumbled as she sat.
“Just catching up with Butch, apparently she tried to visit her parents.”
The two men cringed reflexively at the same time. “Well, dea was stupid”
“Agreed” Heizer said. When Alwen had started her term aboard the Astaroth she had been unfamiliar with English, she couldn’t tell normal English from accented English. With the sole exception of the Bosun who had some how figured out how to lace his every word with a thick incompressible Scottish accent, which an impressive feat in Galactic Common since it was literally designed to work with every possible mouth shape imaginable. But now that Alwen was more familiar with the chaotic language of the Terrans she could easily tell the difference between American English from British English, and more importantly she could identify the slight halting lilt in Heizer’s voice that implied a German origin.
She smirked to herself at the progress she had made in the last two years. Her next step was to eliminate the hints of Torweni in her own accent so that Alice and Izzy could no longer tease her.
A thought occurred to her. “Where’s Alice and Gato?”
Highland looked confused by her sudden question, but Heizer understood what she was getting at. “They’re Marines, they don’t eat here.”
Alwen raised an eyebrow “Why?”
Highland caught on “cuz dea’re glued at dea hips.”
That didn’t answer her question at all and her eyebrows crept up even further.
“Marines eat together, sleep together, fight together, and die together. In the past Alice and Gato could slip away and sit here in the officer mess occasionally, but with their new batch of recruits they have to be there to foster the camaraderie. Didn’t you think it was strange two Marine Captains always ate in the general mess deck?” Heizer asked after explaining the nuances.
“Never thought about it, they were just always there. But that makes sense. Should I have eaten in the general mess with my new recruits?”
Highland shook his head, which caused his bushy red beard to wave as well. “Nah, can’t baby ‘em. Dea nid ta integrate.”
Heizer nodded “There’s also a certain degree of separation expected, it helps establish the pecking order. Which is something you’re going to need since you’re all the same age and former classmates.”
Alwen considered his line of reasoning before nodding. “Speaking of which, Boson, the new Deck Apes seem a little jumpy?” she added a slight twist the way she said the last words to imply a question without actually asking one. A facet of the English language she had only recently been able to grasp.
“Caz they’re not Apes yet, dea’r stell jus crewman. Dea’ll relax wit time, jus sit back and enjoy et while et lasts.”
“Is there nothing we can do to speed it along? Eight of them tried saluting me as I passed, I wasn’t even doing anything officery” She wasn’t sure if that last word could be used like that, but she had learned that adding a Y to the end of a word like that would make it okay.
Heizer had grown bored of the conversation and had begun to fiddle with his data pad, so Highland took over. “Eh a bit, ets all a matter of gettin ‘em ta relax. We spent months drillin ‘em, conditioning ‘em for when shit ‘its dea fan. Now dea have ta learn when ets alright to ease up. But en my experience a couple o’ fools errands will speed et along.”
“A fool’s errand?”
“Yeah, somptin daft ta make em feel stupid. Like tellin ‘em to polish a turd, or hold a box next to a grinder ta catch dea sparks. Jus’ dis mornin I told sam o’them to go to Engineering to find Tartan paint.”
Alwen smirked “Tartan paint?”
The Bosun laughed “Yeah, told the daft idjits dat the dry dock got the color for dea gym walls wrong, and we had to paint dea gym deck Tartan. Haven’t seen ‘em since, bastards must still be lookin’.” Bosun nudged Heizer to have him pitch in on his side of the story.
“No, I gave them brushes hours ago” Heizer muttered distractedly as he kept typing on his pad.
The Bosun’s face fell a bit “What?” he asked softly.
“Bunch of recruits told me that we were all out of Tartan paint, so I gave them several sets of brushes and cans of green and red paint.”
Bosun’s face went pale “you did what?” he asked hoarsely.
Heizer finally looked up from huis pad “They were in the way and we had a lot of work to do, so I gave them the paint and brushes before sending them away.”
Highlands face had gone white as a ghost, and for the first time ever Alwen saw fear in the Bosun’s face. “I nid ta go now-” he began before a roar silence the whole officers mess.
“HIGHLAND!” Lieutenant Karega roared as he marched into the officers mess.
The Hellworlders didn’t salute higher ranked officers in passing, nor did they snap to attention when one entered a room. It was a stupid thing to do that often got in the way of real work. But in that moment the entire mess deck stood up and snapped to attention will parade ground efficiency.
The room was absolutely silent as the Lieutenant marched across a room of statuesque officers. He marched right in front of the Bosun, only coming up to his chest but still seeming to loom over the burly man. “Please explain to me why your men have painted the gym in red and green stripes.” The Lieutenant was typically a very easy going sort of man, but right now Alwen could see he was livid.
“I don’ know, Sir” Highland said.
“You don’t know? Because they seem to think that you wanted the gym repainted, they’re even using one of your robes as a pattern guide.”
“They wern’ supposed to actually do it” he said, his accent getting noticeably more intelligible. “Et was a fools errand.”
The Lieutenant quirked an eyebrow “Don’t you know better than to send fools on a fool’s errand? Damn morons will think your serious and actually do it for God’s sake.”
A part of Alwen wanted to laugh at the insanity of the situation, but everything about the Lieutenants demeanor told her that it would be highly inappropriate.
A hand reached out and settled on the Lieutenants shoulder as Captain Astarte entered the conversation. “Now, now lieutenant, no need to blow a vain.” She said placatingly.
He glanced at Astarte as she stepped to his side. “But Sir-”
“There’s nothing to be upset about, because Highland here is going to assemble his division and show the new recruits how its done.”
The Bosun blinked “Pardon?”
Astarte turned to the Bosun, a cat like smile tugging at her lips. “The new recruits are trying their best, but they’re doing an awful job. Their lines are wobbly, and they have the pattern all wrong. I want you to gather your whole division to show them how to properly repaint a room. I want perfectly straight lines, and immaculate authenticity, and I expect it to be done by 21:00. Am I understood?”
Highlands eyes darted to the digital clock that read 17:27, he glanced back to Astarte “right away Sir.” He said before rushing out of the Mess deck to rouse his men.
Astarte glanced to Karega “And that should be the last of the hazing. Good thing Highland gave us a perfect opportunity to head this off before someone was flushed out an airlock in a pink EVA suit again.”
His anger faded away and his carefree demeanor returned. “Thank you.”
Astarte glanced to Alwen “I hope you haven’t sent your new recruits on any fools errands either.”
She shook her head “No, but I did ask Limey to help them integrate into the crew.”
Astarte frowned “well I can’t stop all mischief, especially when Limey’s involved. They will have to fend for themselves.” her eyes glanced down “Is that sorbet?”
“Yes, new recipe Butch made for me”
She glanced at the desert hungrily “Might have to try some myself. As you were” she said to the still saluting officers before walking over to the kitchen window.
Alwen sat back down as well and had a scoop of the slightly melting desert and smiled at the taste. She may be an officer now, and half the crew might have been new, but somethings didn’t change.