“I’m no use,” Miriam said. “I’m no use to anybody. Just ask the captain.”
“Ma’am, we really need your help,” Gants said, swearing mentally at the new CO and his stupid order. “Ma’am, if we can’t figure this out, we’re all going to die.”
“Everybody dies sometime,” Miriam said.
Oh, maulk, Sub Dude thought.
“Ma’am,” he said, carefully, looking at the cat stretched across her lap, “Tiny’s got to breathe, too.”
Miriam glared at him for a moment, then frowned, her brow furrowing.
“There’s not supposed to be build-up on the covalent shearers,” Miriam said. “The only way that you’d get that is if molecules with polar bonds were getting through. The covalent shearers can’t break polar bonds. Check the polar corpuscle. It’s probably detuned. Check the point and dwell settings. As to repairing the covalent shearer and the carbon cracker, you can’t repair them perfectly. But you can take them and cut them up and run it through the fabber on a recycler setting. The parts will come out clean. Use a melder to join them and you’ll get about ninety percent efficiency. See if that works.”
“Damn, Gants, you are a genius,” Bill said, looking at the humming recycler.
“The efficiency’s high enough I recommend tearing down the other one and repairing it, sir,” the Eng said.
“Concur,” Bill replied. “Good job, Eng, Machinist. Damned good. How’d you figure out the polar corpuscle was screwed up?”
“Oh, it was pretty obvious, sir,” Gants said, sucking his teeth. “I mean, that’s the only way you could get build-up on the covalent shearer, right sir?”
“Point and dwell settings?” Bill asked, shaking his head. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Not your job to figure everything out, sir,” Gants replied.
“Point,” Bill said. “Now I have to wonder what’s going to screw up next…”
“Well, that was different,” the CO said, setting down his fork.
Captain Prael felt it important that the ship’s officers have at least one meal together each week. It was an opportunity to talk shop and cover the minor stuff that might not be getting the attention that it deserved.
Normally, the meals were fairly good. Admittedly, shipboard fare was never exquisite; after a few weeks all the fresh food was gone and it pretty much came down to three-bean salad and chili-mac. But the sub service was well known for the quality of their meals. With nothing to see but steel walls, twelve on and twelve off, day in and day out, keeping up morale could only be done with good food. So if it wasn’t four star, it tended to be the best that was possible.
But there was a vast range of difference between a four-star meal and…
The current meal was listed as “Spinach Fandango.” Bill had never previously heard of spinach fandango and if this was spinach fandango he never wanted to hear of it again. He picked up some of the greenish-gray glop on a spoon and held it upside down. Despite repeated attempts, he could not, in fact, get it to fall off. No matter how hard he shook it. “Stick-to-your-ribs” was an understatement. This stuff could be used for spackling.
“I’ve been hearing some rumblings from my department about the quality of the chow,” the Eng said. “Since it hadn’t been all that bad up here, I just put it down to the usual grumbling. If this is what they’ve been getting consistently…”
“Sir?” the gunnery officer asked, diffidently. Like children, lieutenants junior grade were meant to be seen and not heard and he knew it. “Shouldn’t we still have some fresh vegetables? We were on Cheerick three days ago and I thought we got a shipment of fresh stuff.”
“Yes, we should,” the CO said. “And I’m beginning to wonder if this isn’t some sort of prank. But I know how to find out. XO?”
“Sir?” Bill said, diffidently tasting the stuff. It didn’t taste nearly as bad as it looked, but that was just because it looked so very, very, very bad. It only tasted very bad. Filling, though. One taste was all it took to kill his appetite.
“In addition to your other duties, you will take random meals in the enlisted mess,” the CO said. “Morale of the unit depends, among other things, on the best possible food, all things being equal. I wouldn’t describe this as the best possible food, would you?”
“No, sir,” Bill replied. “And aye, aye, sir. I’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“That wasn’t what you was supposed to have,” Chief Petty Officer Duppstadt said. “You was supposed to have the spinach salad and goulash. I’ll find out where that went, instead, sir.”
The ship’s galley was not, admittedly, the most amenable compartment on the Blade. A steamy hell of boiling pots, sizzling pans and ovens running full blast, it recalled the Harry Truman expression. And Bill admitted that he was ready to get out of the kitchen the moment he stepped in.
“That’s not, in fact, the point,” Bill said, patiently. “Was the spinach fandango the meal for the enlisted mess?”
“Yes, sir,” Duppstadt said. “It’s a favorite.”
“It’s a disaster, Chief,” the XO said angrily. “The stuff should be used for vacuum sealer! It’s a noxious glue.”
“It’s one of my specialties, sir,” the CPO replied, his face tight. “I’ve been making my spinach fandango whenever I got fresh spinach for over twenty years, sir!”
“Wait, you used fresh spinach for that… that… glop?” Bill snarled. “You used precious fresh food for that indescribable, unholy mess?”
“I ain’t never had no complaints,” the chief replied, mulishly. “Captain,” he added, sarcastically.
“Was that an insult to my rank, Chief Petty Officer?” Bill said, quietly. “Because if you think you can be insolent because I’m not a ‘real’ Naval officer then you’d better think twice, chief or no chief.”
“No insolence intended, Captain,” the chief said.
“Then you’ll refer to me as ‘Sir’ or ‘XO,’ ” Bill said. “ ‘Captain’ in a surly tone of voice will not do, Chief. Now do you seriously think that that mess you just slopped up is a palatable meal?”
“This isn’t DC, sir,” the chief said. “There ain’t no four-star chefs on no sub. And I ain’t had no complaints in over twenty years.”
“Then consider this your first,” Bill said. “And you are about to receive orders, which you will abide by, chief or no chief. From here on out, the officers will receive the same food as the enlisted tables. No difference, Chief. I will be eating with the enlisted ranks by the order of the CO, who is your second complaint in ‘over twenty years,’ by the way. And you had better start cracking the books, Chief, because if this is your best dish, you’re going to find yourself sorry and sore by the end of this cruise. You are not going to poison this crew as long as I’m the XO. I’ve got enough troubles on this ship without having everyone down with a case of the ‘I’m dying from Chief Duppstadt’s so-called food!’ ”
“Jesus Christ,” Weaver swore under his breath as he left the mess compartment. “What else can go wrong?”
His eyes crossed momentarily and he shook his head.
“Tell me I didn’t just say that,” he muttered as a mess specialist walked by.
“You okay, sir?” the mess specialist asked, looking at him askance.
“Just fine, just fine,” Bill replied. “Carry on.”
“XO’s talking to himself,” the mess specialist said, shaking his head and spooning up something called “goulash” that Duppstadt said was a “speciality.”