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Ch6 Ship Life

First Job

They were not, just like every hangover the crowd of men and women crammed onto the sick beds looked like the living dead. One man had four different shades of vomit stained onto his clothes. Doctor Bachir passed her a medical mask that was thankfully scented which helped the smell. Terrans didn’t get temporary blindness but were supper hypersensitive to light, which was why the med-bay and a dimmer switch to lower the brightness of the room. Doctor Bachir gave her a quick soft-spoken review on how to test for Terran alcohol poisoning, liver failure, and how to find Terran veins. Which was difficult for the crew with fur and differently shaped arms.

The first man she tested was a huge black Felinoid like Alice, or so she thought at least. He looked a lot like Alice, but with a bigger head and paws. His arms bulged with hard ridges of muscle even under all his fine black fur, and his chest and abs were built like a pile of bricks. His eyes were very unfocused, and he reeked of really strong alcohol. He was upright, which was a good sign despite his apparent level of consumption. However when she tested his blood she found that he had three times the minimum levels for alcohol poisoning. She was about to test for liver failure when Bachir tapped her shoulder and signed “G-a-t-o-is-a-j-a-g-u-a-r-stop-very-high-tolerance-he-just- needs-that-green-juice-and-a-s-n-i-c-k-e-r-s” he signed, spelling out the Felinoids name and species, before pointing over to a cart where bottles of light green liquid and chocolate covered candy bars were laid out. “then-send-g-a-t-o-out-stop-need-space” HE signed before then handing her a chart with many different species listed with body weights and their tolerance levels. She glanced over the list and saw an entry for Jaguars, and then below the Jaguar entry was a separate one labeled Gato. Obviously this Jaguar man had a much higher tolerance than normal jaguars and needed a separate entry.

Like that the morning passed with her checking up on the bleary eyed and confused sailors. Some of which needed immediate intravenous fluids. Others just need a few extra strength ‘tic tacs’ or at least that’s what the bottle said, she suspected it was really acetaminophen or ibuprofen. Halfway through the morning more and more crewman trickled in, and a small brigade of ‘deck apes’ were assembled with mops in hand outside the med-bay. They were glaring pure venom at anyone who looked a little nauseous and shoved a bucket into their hands before they could ruin their clean floors. At about 1100 the Captain’s armored figure walk in with a large mountain of a human male with bright orange hair on his head and a wilder mess of hair growing from his chin. The orange haired man was wearing the ugliest set kimono she had ever seen, it was a mess of red, green, and black stripes that covered his massive frame in a sort of checkered pattern.

Doctor Bachir took one look at the orange haired man and immediately held up a paw and pointed him and the Captain back outside the door, Bachir quickly finished his work and placed a paw on Alwen’s shoulder and brought her outside with him.

He made sure the door was firmly shut “I wont have you shouting in my wardroom again Bosun” he growled to the large man.

Alwen then realized that this mountainous man was Highland, the infamous Bosun she had heard about. Alwen felt herself grow timid in the man’s presence, as his arua of pure murderous rage overwhelmed her. She looked around noticed that all the deck apes that had been loitering around had surreptitiously vanished from sight.

“Mibbe sam’ yellin’ wuild dea’em weel, ey” the Bosun boomed, his voice was so loud that it rumbled in Alwen’s. His accent in galactic common was so thick she could barely understand it, and it took a moment for Alwen to figure out what he was saying. “Aye mibbe ‘e shuild joos work et out’o’em. Caple laps o’round the ‘ship shiuld do, mibbe o’ hunnert. O’ mibbe ay could beat sam sense into dea sloshed gits!” He grumbled raising a fist threateningly

“You will do nothing of the sort!” Alwen heard herself say before she could even really think about.

The burly orange haired man glared at her, “Oh, an’ hoo ar’ ye lass?” he asked menacingly.

Part of Alwen wanted to shrink back, but the rest of her felt indignant at this man threatening her patients, and that indignant side of her pushed back all her fear of the man who was twice her size. “I am this ship’s doctor; in other words I am in charge of those men and their health as long as they are on one of our beds. You will not run these men ragged or beat the alcohol out of them until I say their ready to leave. What they need right now is rest and medical attention, not some overgrown bully” she shot back at the skohtmahn, the words just tumbling out of her mouth before she could really think about what she was saying.

The huge man who dwarfed Alwen visibly shrunk back and become almost sheepish. His change in demeanor surprised Alwen. “ai meent after they were betta’, nea afoor mum” he said, much less boisterous now, and also marginally more coherent. He almost seemed ashamed of his earlier tirade as he looked at Alwen.

Alwen blinked a few times in surprise and looked over to Bachir who was hiding a slight grin.

Captain Astarte who hadn’t said a word yet smirked “I can handle this Highland.” She said while placing a hand on the taller mans shoulder “I need you to put together a shore party to track down the ten or so men who haven’t checked in yet”

He perked up a bit and faced the Captain “Aye yere’re reit, ai’ll dea tha” he rumbled softly before turning to the empty hall and roared so loud that Alwen felt her knees tremble “Eeny wan o’ ye clarty basturt’s oo’ can ‘ear mea, line ‘ap” and twenty deck ‘apes materialized out of nowhere and lined up before the Bosun.

“Bosun” the Captain called. He looked over his shoulder at her “A little further away please, we don’t keep hearing aids onboard and I need to listen to ‘Bones here.” She said with a smile.

“Aye ‘Ser” he said and pointed down the hall and the twenty or so deck apes jogged away, new apes running up from the corridors to join them as they left

The captain turned back to Alwen “that was impressive Bones” she said with a look of contemplation in her eyes.

Alwen felt her cheeks flush “I see Adela is spreading that nickname around” she said as evenly as she could, not wanting to make a big deal of her earlier outburst. She had been afraid of the man seconds before, but the moment he threatened her patients she felt some long suppressed anger well up. she wasn’t a violent or wrathful person so she didn’t know where it came from, maybe it had been building up for some time and she never knew.

“Butch is the center of all shipboard gossip; and she takes a personal pleasure in seeing that it reaches every corner of the ship. In my case she drafts a formal letter in her best calligraphy and sets it next to my meal in a wax sealed envelope at 1800 every night. How she has the time to do that and man her station is beyond me.” The Captain said with a belwidered shake of her head.

“So I’m stuck with Bones?” Alwen asked hopelessly.

“Most definitely. It’s not really that bad of a nickname either, could be worse. They could be calling you after your skin color, something like Purp, or Bluey, Blues, and pinky.” She said with a shrug.

“But I’m violet.” Alwen complained.

“Like I said, could be worse. Karega did point out to me that Bones is an old nickname for any doctor. Something about how popular amputations were back in the day. Now the ship has a ‘Doc and a ‘Bones, it all works out.”

“Do you have one?”

“Of course, I’m the Cap’n.” she said with a grin “Now onto more important matters. As fun as that was to see, cut the Bosun some slack. Part of his job is making sure this ship and her crew are always ready to leave port. Having close to forty sailors with alcohol poisoning is unacceptable, and the rest being almost too groggy to work has drastically effected this ship’s readiness. I’m happy to see you were capable of telling him off without a shouting match. The only reason I joined him was to prevent another fist fight between him and ‘Doc.” She gestured to Bachir.

“Yes, thank you for that doctor Djani” Bachir said with a nod of a head.

“That said” the Captain continued “these men will have to face punishment as soon as they are able. Part of Highland’s job is to put the fear of god into these men anytime they step out of line, and to do that he needs to be the meanest looking thing onboard.”

Alwen despite not knowing how she had bullied the massive man felt a little embarrassed. Her first impression of the man was of a tyrant who abused his position for sadistic glee. But maybe that was an unfair assumption, still if he came back and tried to start something she wouldn’t hesitate to fight back. “Yes Sir, as soon as it is safe for them to leave I will alert the Bosun.”

“Good, and how long will that be?” she asked, turning to address Doctor Bachir now as he was head of this department.

“We’ve already had to pump three stomachs and put others on fluids. Some need time with liver regenerators in their system, and others are in danger of both dehydration and room temperature hypothermia. I’m not sure if they were chugging alcohol or jet fuel.” He intoned disapprovingly.

“Any heavy narcotics detected.”

“None so far. The crew are usually very clean in that regard, but sometimes these alien bars will add a little extra to try and hook cliental. We’ve made good headway in finding and banning all of those establishments on this station.”

“Good, I know long missions like the last one can be tough on the crew but try and impress on them that even with whatever space magic miracle medicines you pump into them to avoid liver failure, I cant have my crew drinking themselves blind every time we come to port. It’ll catch up to us one of these days” she said resting hand protectively on her sword hilt.

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Doctor Bachir frowned for a moment before grinning evilly “Doctor Djani, lower the dosage of every patient by about ten CCs. Enough to heal, but not enough to alleviate.”

“Thanks ‘Doc” the Captain said before giving them a nod and left.

Aster marched away from the med-bay feeling confident that Alwen ‘Bones’ Djani had exactly what it took to be a part of the Hellworlder fleet. Aster had known Highland her whole life, he was a dear friend of her stepmom’s, and she had never seen him so thoroughly defeated by anyone other than Saint Mary the Maiden. It was hilarious considering the size difference between the two.

Might complicate the chain of command a little though. The Bosun wasn’t officially an officer, and any attempt to promote him would leave him sullen and aggrieved, but in all real intents and purposes he was third in command, only behind herself and Karega in terms of authority.

They made an effective trio really. The Captain couldn’t or shouldn’t run up and down her ship shouting and cursing her way through authority, neither could she wander around making small talk and building a relationship of trust with the crew, that’s what the Bosun and Lieutenant were for. She as the captain should remain aloof, and respected. She was able to effectively command her ship of strong willed hyper capable sailors because they saw her as strong, levelheaded, and intelligent, and because she commanded fear and friendship through Highland and Karega.

It was the reason she worked so hard to lose her crude patois of slum slang, and learned words like patois. She had always been a self-taught girl before, scrounging for Plato, Poe, and Voltaire. But now she was an educated woman who knew the ins and out of human history and philosophy, could quote Dante, Hobbs, and Milton word for word. Not because she necessarily needed too, but because it added to the crews own personal fiction of the captain. And lent her great authority and respect when dealing with Martian aristocracy who took great stock in that sort of thing.

She hoped that Bones would learn to keep her strange authority over the Bosun strictly restrained to the med-bay and medical matters, otherwise people might try to take advantage of the new girls kindness to hide from the Bosun’s wrath.

Astarte arrived on the command deck to check in with her system techs in the combat information center located just below. They ran the whole digital show and E-warfare, the ship wouldn’t be nearly as good if it just had automated programs. But having them clutter up the main deck had been a major problem with the original command deck, the techs needed to talk back and forth and needed space to work out whatever strange problems a high performance vessel like the Astaroth had. But also needed to be near command to receive instructions and alert her to anything that needed immediate attention. They could have done that via internal ship comms and had the sub-deck far away, but Aster liked a manual flow of information. Part of her growing up poor. Besides simple conversation was a lot faster and more efficient than sending short messages back and forth, something about inbuilt social cues that allowed for a clearer understanding of things when said verbally rather than read on a screen. A wonderfully Terran foible.

Samuel ‘Data’ Seamus informed her that the Astaroth was at peak efficiency and the third reactors overdraw problem had been fixed along with a few other small items.

Highland arrived shortly after she had and waited for her to finish with Data “Laddys ar oot an’ lookin” he said, much quieter and more coherently than he would have in the ships halls.

“I might be able to help with that” Karega said walking out of their shared private hall “just gave station security a call, they say they have ten Deathworlders all in lockup”

“The feckin’ ell’, them’s are officers” Highland growled.

“It was the officers?” Aster asked. They had done a head count to determine how many were missing, not who.

“Yup. The good ole’SS said that these wild deathworlders caused a huge scene at a very fancy restaurant.” Karega said scowling.

SS was presumably station security shortened, but knowing Karega’s mind and unsubtle sense of humor and word play he meant to imply that the station security were like the Schutzstaffel.

“Did you hear their side of the story?” Astarte asked.

“According to Chief Heizer they just went out for a nice meal, the restaurant owner refused to serve them and called the SS on them. He said they tried to explain what happened, but they were clapped in titanium cuffs as soon as the SS walked in. Heizer and the other ashore officers were supposed to keep everyone in line, meaning SS just delayed our departure and unfairly imprisoned our officers without telling us.”

“Daft tubes! We’ve been enport for fife days, didn’ey think ta call”

Aster scowled, ever fucking time they made port in Femeri the damned SS invented a problem to harass them with. Them tailing her and her lieutenant was one thing, this time they went too far in arresting her officers “Assemble the Four Horseman” she said. Referring to the small group of lawyers the ship kept on hand. “And a squad of marines, full armor. They are to escort me and the Horsemen to Femeri’s first precinct, we’ll hammer this out with the chief of security. And if this ship has to stay in port and throw millions of credits at this problem then we will.” She growled, double checking all her armor straps, and making sure her blades were clear of their scabbard.

Armored Terrans were a terrifying sight to see march through a station, it would drum up lots of drama and gossip amongst the populace. But she knew that the SS really only feared the ship’s lawyers. The last station chief had wrongfully impounded the Astaroth three years ago on suspicion of smuggling. Not un-true, but they had no evidence, and the warrant was obviously fake. The Horsemen had descended upon the station security and acted as a beachhead as the rest of the Hellworlder fleet came to port and added their own retinue of lawyers. The legal slaughter only ended when the previous chief was canned and blacklisted from any Union posting and a huge amount of credits was paid to the Astaroth for lost business, quintuple what they would have made normally.

The whole incident drew more attention than Astarte or the other clan captains would have liked. But if they backed down then their crews would lose a lot of respect for their captains.

Weapons and armor checked, the captain and her assembled ‘raiding’ party parted the massive crowds in a massive b-line for the First Precinct.

Alwen only had time for a quick working breakfast/lunch as she had to spend most of the day rehabilitating hungover sailors. Strangely Alice never came by to see what was up, maybe she hadn’t made that great of a first impression on the woman.

Several people had gotten sick, and she had to learn how to quickly sponge bathe fur. She wasn’t unfamiliar with medical drudgery like cleaning patients who couldn’t do it themselves, in fact it had been a majority of her job while working at her sisters hospital. Despite the fact that Alwen had graduated top of her class with several different kinds of medical and surgical licenses. But with Bachir she could tell he wasn’t just unfairly dumping this work onto her, it’s just that they both had a lot to do and she wasn’t trained to use the same equipment he could.

Eventually the evening, or at least evening by the ships reckoning, rolled around and Bachir ordered her off to the mess deck. They would need to split the night into observation shifts and hers was last.

“Eat, Sleep, and relieve me by 0200” he ordered her before he went back to work.

It was stew night on the mess deck to help with any remaining hangovers, or so ‘Butch had said as Alwen got her bowl. She had just sat down when a cheer rung through the mess deck as twelve enormous and fully armored men and women walked in, behind them was the ashore party of ‘apes the Bosun had assembled, and four pale scholarly men who had the slimmest Terran physique she had seen so far. The armored Terran reveled in the glory before breaking up and joining their friends. One fully armored warrior with a strange snarling face plate had crouched to the ground and leapt across the mess deck to Alwen’s table in the middle, the Terrans heavy landing didn’t even shaking the sturdy floor. The Terran rerached up and undid the seal on their helmet and Alwen saw the familiar black and white furred face of Alice.

“Save my spot for me” she said setting her helmet firmly on the table before dashing over to Butch who was excitingly chatting and laughing with what must have been the marreens Bachir had mentioned before.

Alice talked with Adela and did a few goofy poses before she got her food and then strolled back over to Alwen. A bowl of stew in each hand, with a couple other tall marreens in tow. “Sorry to cancel on lunch ‘Doc, idiot ess-ess arrested a bunch of officers, had to go bust them out of holding”

“Its fine, I was too busy to leave. And its ‘Bones now I guess, Doctor Bachir is Doc” Alwen said, somehow of the course of the day people just unconsciously decided that Dr. Bachir was Doc while she was Bones.

“Cool nicknamed already, did you have to amputate someone on your first day?” she asked now shoveling spoon full of meat and vegetables into her fanged mouth.

“It’s for the bones on my face” Alwen explained.

One of the marreens cleared her throat “hooz’yer nuu frend gohst?” she boomed in what must be native Terran. This one was tall with light brown skin and short black hair and brown eyes.

“Thee nuu dohkter, shee’duzent speek een’glish yeht” Alice answered back in native Terran.

“Oh sarry, how’s this?” the tall marreen asked in common so that Alwen could understand.

“Much better thank you” Alwen said as she scooted aside for the women to sit next to her.

Alice ladled four more spoons into her mouth before piping up again “Alwen this is my fellow testosterone poisoned meathead Isabela Gomez, her call sign is Sussuro though. That mam behind you Gabriel and Wraith” she said pointing just behind Alwen.

Alwen turned to see that completely without her noticing two armored men had snuck up on her and was taking the seat next to her. “Bwaynoss dee’as sehn’yorrah” one said, he had similar features to Isabela so Alwen assumed they might be related.

“Oiyah haybree’el, aiya noh a’blass esspahnyoll,” Isabel/Sussuro said in the same strange language.

“Ah, loh see’entoh. How’s this?” he asked copying his sister.

Alwen giggled with Sussuro and Alice “Much better thank you” she said with a snort. Getting control over her laughter took a minute, made worse by the confusion on Gabriel’s face. Alwen evewntually looked past him to look at the other Terran man, he turned her way and waved but didn’t say anything. Alwen turned to Alice “so why are you guys wearing heavy metal armor to the mess deck?”

“Ugh” Alice groaned. “For the dumbest possible reason, Station Security arrested ten officers when they were refused service at the ‘Polished Plate’, a fancy ass restaurant in the upper reaches of the station’s center. The reason they cited was ‘the deathworlders could have gotten offended and torn the wait staff and other patrons apart before station security could stop the carnage.’ So they immediately arrested all the officers who were supposed to go check on the off-duty crew, that’s why you probably had one hell of a first day. Normally the officers keep the lads in line when we’re ashore.”

“And the worst part is that they’ve been stuck in solitary lockup for five days.” Isabela chimed. “I mean they’re not wrong really, a determined group of Terrans could have dealt with that whole restaurant easily. But they were standing there in their suhn-day best just trying to enjoy the evening. God those poor man had sweat through all their good clothes by the time we got to them.”

“That’s awful!” Alwen exclaimed. She’d been on board for long enough to know that the people here weren’t a bunch of psychopaths, that made their treatment unacceptable. Was this how they were treated at every station, would her people receive the same? “But what about the armor?”

“Mmm” Alice said through another spoon full of stew “show of force. They arrested our crew on the mere thought that they might have done something bad, so the Captain wanted them to see how bad things could really be. We were really just arm candy for the horssmun over there” she said with a point of her spoon.

“Who?”

“Our lawyers, we nicknamed them after the four bringers of the apocalypse, Death, War, Plague, and Famine. We keep them around for all the normal business deals, but when station security gets uppity they bring a tidal wave of paperwork and lawsuits down on them.”

It seemed that lawyers had a universal reputation, or at least a cross species one. Lawyers of the lawgiver were often likened to evil spirits bent on misery back home.

“The last time something like this happed the good ole’ess-ess had impounded the ship, so our lawyers called in more lawyers and they brought some more as well. By the end of it the old station chief got canned, and we received a very large payout” Isabela added.

“Um, who are the ess-ess?” Alwen asked, really regretting her lack of Terran.

“Oh right, no een’gliish. So in our language station security both start with the same letter, ess. So we just shortened it to ess-ess.” Alice explained dismissively.

Wraith cleared his throat and spoke for the first time, his voice was liket the soft wispers of ocean waves “there were also these people once called the shu-“ was all he got out before a meat cleaver flew out of nowhere and stuck into the table only a fingers length from Wraith.

“New rule” Butch shouted from across the room, iconic cleaver mysteriously not in hand. “No one gets to tell Bones about the not’seez, Sombra bring me back my cleaver”

Gabriel barely batted an eye before he pulled the knife out of the linoleum surface and walked off toward the kitchen. Wraith glanced towards Butch and nodded his assent before returning to his meal.

“She is strangely protective of your innocence” Alice commented.

“Yeah, has she made a pass yet?” Isabela asked

“First thing she did, seriously what’s up with this ship and sex”

“Confined space, far from home, , and the most of us are in shape and hot.” Alice answered with a wave.

“Yeah, you’ll learn this sooner or later. When one crewman develops an STD, the rest of us soon follow.” Isabela said.

“Except the captain” Gabe added as he sat back down.

Alice nodded “Yeah, that woman’s a rock. Ohkay enough of this boring talk, I need to hear the real news” she said excitedly, staring deep into Alwens eyes.

“What?” she asked, feeling a little flustered by all the attention.

“I heard from an ‘ape that you ripped the Bosun a new one on your first day, tell me everything” Alice said excitedly, the rest of them leaning in a little to listen.

And like that Alwen passed her dinner in comfortable conversation and laughter. And as she laid her head down for a little rest she made a decision. Despite the strange crew, bad Terran reputation, gross difficult work, and whatever else life through at her. She liked it here, and could see herself making a good life here.