“I don't think so, but it's Woolly.”
“Rush At Io, I remember you were part of the vanguard.”
The nafalli nodded and put his head down, his paws crossing over the back of his neck. “I didn't do very well.”
“Everyone has trouble at the start, flying is it's own way of thinking,” the lift doors opened and two of the passengers exited. The car began moving back up, to the relief of everyone aboard. “Stick to it, it'll become more natural as you go.”
“Oh, I will. I've signed on with a team, they won't let me drop out,” the doors opened once more. He and the two maintenance workers with him, both human and much smaller, got off as he said; “thank you, Commander.”
“You're welcome,” Ashley managed as the doors closed. “I'm never going to get used to that.”
“People calling you by rank?”
“Yup, and being asked for advice. It happens all the time.”
“Well, he's right, I've heard almost everyone has tried the Triton qualifier and the word is it's impossible.”
Ashley shook her head slightly. “No, you just can't let yourself slip out of three dimensional thinking and you have to account for a lot more. I mean, a lot of ships this size have a pilot, two navigators and an AI dedicated to the helm all at the same time, especially if the mass of the ship is always changing.”
Stephanie chuckled to herself and shook her head. “You've come a long way since the Samson.”
Ashley shrugged. “Didn't have a choice. I'm just glad this ship has a lot of studying material. I don't think I've ever read as much as I have in the last month. That's actually the only thing that really pisses me off about some of our new pilots and the wannabes; they don't go looking for their own information. It's all right there in the system, you just have to look it up and figure out how it works with your own style.”
“Maybe you should start telling them that.”
“Maybe, though it seems a lot easier to just answer their questions.”
“But they won't learn how to teach themselves that way, you know, learn to fish.”
“Huh?”
“You know, give a man a fish he'll eat for a day, teach him to fish…”
“Oh, right. Guess so.”
“Speaking of which, how is Wooly in the cockpit?”
Ashley tapped a few commands into her control unit and grimaced. “Well, he's getting better, but he's got the third highest collision rate on the ship.”
“Oh, that's not good. I hope he's a good maintenance worker,” Stephanie said as the doors opened to reveal their long awaited destination; the rear of the command deck.
They stepped out and made for Ashley's quarters, they were closer than Stephanie's by just a few doors. Upon entering Stephanie couldn't help but stop and whistle. “You did some work in here.”
The red carpeted floor of the main sitting room was decorated with a long oriental dragon that encircled a low table. There were cushions and low seats arranged around the room, all in an effort to encourage her guests to lounge instead of simply sit. The walls were decorated with oriental fans, masks and beside the door leading into her bedroom was a long tapestry of two silhouetted geisha. Beside the other door was a tapestry of a shadowy samurai. “This goes way past your chopstick collection.”
“I know, I thought if I made the place my own I'd feel more at home.”
“Did it work?”
“Sorta, but to be honest a lot of this stuff was already in the ship materialization database except for the dragon, I had to do that myself. All the materials used were really light, so it only took two days of matter rations. The kotatsu was in storage somewhere though, I had to trade for it.”
“What's a kotatsu and what did you trade?”
“It's the table, I think there's a little heater in it too. I only had to give up the furniture stacked in my side room, wanted to get rid of it anyway so I could put a second bed in,” Ashley said as she undid her gun belt and sat down at the low wooden table. “I'm on the list to get it from ship inventory. Apparently they're waiting for security to finish sweeping the junior officer's quarters before they'll release any more furniture.”
“We're getting there, don't worry. Besides, according to the computer those spaces are fully furnished but were only used for eighteen years so you'll get your guest room bed.”
Stephanie went to the materializer and ordered a green tea for herself. The transparent cover slid down and her order was prepared starting with the tall white cup then the steaming hot water was poured inside as the teabags appeared. “I'll never get over how this ship actually carries and recycles real water.”
“The Samson had water aboard. About six months worth with the recycling system.”
“The carrier I served on had an energy reserve and an emergency store of water and food, I never thought anyone did it any other way, especially on a ship three times the mass.”
“Chief Grady was saying that the Triton doesn't have an emergency store of water, doesn't need one. Most of the water on the ship runs along the walls, it's treated right there.” Ashley opened her container, revealing steaming noodles, vegetables and six white dim sum bulbs. The aroma of the spices filled the air right away and she smiled as she took a pair of chopsticks from a drawer in the table for herself and passed another pair to Stephanie, who was just sitting down. “Now, about the spot you're in, spill.”
Stephanie had the lid to her late dinner half open and stopped, looked across the table to Ashley, who stared back with an upraised eyebrow, chewing through her first bite of sliced carrot and noodle. “You have to keep this to yourself, and I mean it.”
“Promise.”
“Nono, not like the last time when you said you'd keep it to yourself and told everyone else who you thought could keep it to themselves.”
“What, Silver and Price? They didn't spread it,” Ashley replied nonchalantly.
“See? I knew you passed it around. Looks like I'll have to go talk to Chief Grady if I need someone to bounce this off of,” Stephanie concluded as she carefully dug into her steaming pile of noodles and chopped vegetables.
Ashley looked at her friend, trying to read her and at the same time trying to guess what the big issue could be while she picked at a dim sum bulb. “Wow, this has gotta be huge,” she said quietly.
“That's why I don't think you can keep it quiet.”
Ashley thought for a moment and steeled herself. “I'll keep the lid on. I don't care how much it hurts, this one doesn't get out. My lips may pout but they will be sealed.”
Stephanie couldn't help from keeping the corners of her mouth from curling up.
“Besides, looks like you're about to burst,” Ashley teased.
“You're right, but still, this has to stay in the room.”
“I'm all hush, now get with the sharing.”
“Okay. The night before Captain left we got into a big fight, I even told him to snap out of the blue he's in and things got heated.”
“Wow, he threaten to-”
“Not finished,” Stephanie interrupted.
“'Kay, go on.”
“Instead of storming off the Samson I kissed him.”
Ashley's eyes went wide, she froze mid chew, with her chopsticks half way between her mouth and food.
“Finish chewing,” Stephanie advised her.
She hurriedly munched through the mouthful of noodles and swallowed exaggeratedly, filling the room with a gulp. “There's more?”
Stephanie closed the lid to her food and slowly got to her feet, turning away from Ashley. “Oh yeah.”
“How much more? Did it turn into a snogging session? Someone catch you? What happened?”
“We, um, got together in the forward hold, the upper part.”
“With the stasis tubes?” Ashley exclaimed through a shocked grin.
“With the stasis tubes.”
“But you didn't get in that night, I dropped by your quarters-”
“Then we ran to his quarters.”