Granny found a stone bench and settled on it. Kris took the other end, and Jack settled cross-legged on the grass opposite them.
“So, tell your old granny about this fraternization reg. How’s it changed since my day?”
“I don’t think it has,” Kris said. “No officer can date an enlisted. No senior can date any junior.”
“No, Kris,” Jack corrected her. “No officer can date anyone more than two ranks down. Same for EMs.”
“You’ve been reading up, huh, son?” Granny said.
Jack just shrugged.
“But the big no-no is that you can’t date anyone in your chain of command,” Kris added.
“Ah, yes.” Granny sighed. “I remember that one. There I was, running my own battlecruiser squadron and married to the big Kahuna himself. They told me I was grandfathered in. I told them I was too young to be grandmothered into anything. But there was a war on, and they needed fighting captains and I had a reputation for doing the dirtiest jobs and bringing the most ships back. It was none of my doing, I just had the best damn bunch of gals in space. At least a whole lot more of my crew were gals, and we had something to prove to the boys’ club. There still a boys’ club?”
Neither Kris not Jack offered a comment on that.
“Some things never change,” the old woman said, raising her gaze to watch the wind ruffle the leaves above her.
“Enough of bitching about things that need changing but ain’t never gonna happen. Tell me about your situation, Jack.”
“I command Kris’s security detail,” he stated simply.
“And can lock her in her room if you think it’ll keep her safe,” Granny said with a wide grin.
“I have never done that,” Jack insisted.
“But you’ve wanted to,” Kris said.
“Why not? You’ve done some damn fool stunts. Like running out on your security team and getting bombed.”
“I’ve apologized for that,” Kris said.
“And getting us shot down on that no-name planet.”
“But I saved your precious Marines from flying into a trap.”
“Yes, I know.”
“So, not to cut in,” Granny said, cutting in, “but I take it you two have had a lot of fun disagreeing on just about everything. You ever had much time to talk, I don’t know, say, about how you feel about each other?”
“A few times,” both said at once.
“Ever over a candlelit dinner?” Granny asked.
“No,” again came from both of them.
Granny frowned. “When I was on your ship, Kris, I kept hearing about Captain Drago. Is he a Marine like Captain Jack here?”
“I thought I explained him to you,” Kris said.
“Maybe you did, but once you’re past eighty, you tend to forget important things.”
In a pig’s eye, Kris thought, but she answered like a dutiful great-granddaughter. “He’s the captain of the Wasp. Both this one and the previous one. He retired from the Navy after being selected for rear admiral and was hired by Wardhaven Intelligence to run my ship for me. Besides the hundred or more scientists I insisted on having aboard, he ran the ship with a contract crew, and for most of the last three years, there were only a few Navy types on the Wasp. Just me, Jack, Penny, and Chief Beni, God rest his soul. Then Grampa Ray, ah King Raymond to most, thought I was getting into too much trouble and Jack got a platoon, then a company, then a reinforced company of Marines.”
“Was it enough to protect her?” Granny said through a grin.
“Not even close,” Jack said.
Kris soldiered on. “And the ship’s company took on more and more Sailors as well.”
“How’d the mix of overpaid contractors and real Sailors work?” Granny asked.
“Not too badly. When we got into the fight with the base ship, Captain Drago brought me papers activating all their reserve commissions and enlistments. Every contractor on board was on the retired list. As he said, if they were going into a real fight, they wanted their honest uniforms on.”
“I bet that was something special for you,” Granny said.
“I’ll never be able to put it into words,” Kris said, eyes maybe misting a bit.
Granny let the trees whisper quietly for nearly a minute before she suddenly turned to Jack, and said, “So, Jack, who did you report to?”
“The ship’s table of organization says Captain Drago is my boss. Even after we got big enough to have an XO, I still reported to the skipper.”
“He do your performance evaluation?”
“I guess he would have if he ever did. We never had a sit-down on my performance, but I kept getting 4.0 ratings back from I never knew where.”
“Did Kris sign them?”
“I don’t think so,” Jack said, thoughtfully. “Sal, can you bring up a copy of the latest?” A moment later the standard four-page evaluation was projected onto the dirt in front of them. The first signature on the form was some general at headquarters. The last endorsement was Field Marshal McMorrison.
“Holy cow, I’ve been working at that level and never even bothered to find out.”
“Interesting,” Kris said.
“Very interesting,” Granny said. “Kris, what’s your position in the great chain of command?”
Kris took a second to think about it. “I don’t know how many times I’ve joked that my chain of command was tied up in macramé knots. Nelly, doesn’t Captain Drago have a ship’s table of organization on the wall in his in-port cabin?”
“Yes, Kris. I have a copy. Here it is.”
In the dirt between them now, a chart appeared. At the top of it was a box marked THE CAPTAIN with Drago’s name under it. Below, led to by solid black lines were the Division Officers, including the Marine Detachment.
“This must be before the crew was augmented and we got an XO and a command master chief,” Kris said.
“But Kris, I notice your name in a box off to the right side of the captain’s box. Is that a dotted line between the two of you? It looks like your box is dotted, too.”
“Yes, I think that was Grampa Ray’s idea. Let me give Drago my best advice, but if he didn’t like it, he was to provide what I jokingly called ‘adult supervision,’ and set me straight.”
“He never did,” Jack said, and there was pride in his voice and a vision of her reflected in his eyes that Kris only wished she could live up to.
She sent a kiss in his direction. He sent one right back.
“So, all this time, Kris, it looks to this old ship driver and commodore that you and Jack have never been in the same chain of command.”
Kris liked where Granny was leading, but she knew it wasn’t true. “For the last year or so, I’ve commanded PatRon 10. We took down some pirates. Went exploring the galaxy, blew the hell out of the alien base ship, and got wiped out. I watched two of my ships take on horrible odds, beat them for longer than the law of averages would allow, then be blown to bits. The Hornet went one way so the Wasp could go another. We never heard from the Hornet again, and the Wasp dragged herself into the first human port it could make, and they broke her up in place. As ComPatRon 10, Drago was under my command, and Jack was under his.”
“It doesn’t sound to me like there’s much of your command left. You still ComPatRon 10?” Granny asked.
Jack had the decency to chuckle dryly.
“Nope. Doesn’t exist. Not even the Wasp’s logs, as I understand it. My lawyer tried to get them, but the Navy insisted they had no logs from the Voyage of Discovery. The last job I have official orders for was in East Siberia. ComFastAttackRon 127. I think the leave I approved for myself has run out, so I’m AWOL from that job. Jack was sent to West Siberia, security on HellFrozeOver. I think his leave has run out, too.”