Claire forced every muscle on her face into blank stillness as her mind twitched wildly. “Did I forget something aboard the Ephraim, Sir?” Inwardly, she winced. She hadn't been allowed to have anything on the Ephraim. If Captain Ayres realized she'd kept a locker in the chiefs' mess for lunches and spare uniform bits, it could cause the chiefs no end of grief.
Captain Ayres just laughed off the suggestion. He wasn't one for detailed considerations and analysis of things. Why should he be? His life must be rather straightforward. It was just the graspers like Claire who would continually try to upset the natural order. It must be something of a continual shock to him that she even kept bothering, but he was here now and this was another opportunity . . . She hit him with her best disarm-unruly-customers smile.
She tried to squelch the doubt that added a tremble to the corners of her smile. The inner voice whispered that ineptness with customers rather than skill with machinery was why Aunt Jezzy had kept the teenage Claire occupied with broken down dishwashers instead of demanding customers.
She gamely fixed the corners of her lips and widened her eyes trying to convince herself of the hope in her own words, “You must have changed your mind then, Sir. I won't be any trouble at all. I was checking the piping diagrams around medical, since AuxO told me about the cost of the women's berthing and lavatory ship alt—”
The captain's face was wrinkling up like he'd just smelled something awful. Claire stumbled a bit, but she pushed on with her pitch, “You know, Sir, and how it wouldn't be appropriate to have a junior officer use the visiting flag officer's lavatory.”
This wasn't working, she realized midstream, but she couldn't just let it die.
Her treacherous mind insisted on replaying past errors even as she blustered on to describe how the ship could be modified in little ways to create a small, private space for one junior female officer to sleep.
Mistakes in customs and protocol with the Ephraim's officers and their wives intermeshed with the memories of Aunt Jezzy keeping her firmly in the back of any restaurant, street cart, or stall, fixing the machinery and managing inventory. Only on rare occasions, like the complete absence of all servers on a shift or an overflowing customer glut, was Claire sent out to interact with customers and attempt to take orders, fill glasses, or bus tables. But never mind the past failures, she had to make the attempt to convince Captain Ayres to take her back—to meet the Test and all that—she had to try in spite of the extra human-imposed traps added to what the divine Tester assigned every man and woman.
Claire concluded finally with, “So, anyway, Sir, I've got the diagrams in my old files in Aux Three, and I figured out a way to make a lav in the supply closet behind medical and fit in a bedrack and locker. And it won't cost many austins at all. In fact, the savings from using that other distributor for our galley supplies that I showed you a couple of months ago would more than cover it.” Claire renewed her flagging smile. Finish strong. That was important; Aunt Jezzy said so. “So, shall I take my things back onboard Ephraim? I wouldn't want to delay undocking.”
Captain Ayres just rolled his eyes.
Looking over Claire's head, he said. “Hey Phin, I just wanted to come out here and apologize to you personally.”
She looked quickly over her shoulder and felt heat pour from her face. A normal-looking master chief with somewhat scraggly hair and a slightly crooked nose stood a few steps away, but Captain Ayres hadn't been addressing him. Ephraim's CO was talking to the commander—tall and well enough muscled for a recruiting poster—wearing the maroon and gold uniform of the Protector's Own. He held a bag with the GNS Manasseh ship's crest embroidered on it, three gold rings encircled his sleeves, giving lie to the fresh face and silky gloss of close-trimmed black hair, and the name plate on his chest read: “Greentree, Phineas.”
Claire gulped. The simply gorgeous officer in the Mayhew colors of Protector Benjamin IX had to be Manasseh's CO.
Captain Ayres accepted Greentree's salute.
“I hope you'll extend my apology to Elsabeta and Annette Marie. I know my Jennie was horrified when Personnel sent a—” At this Ayres waved at Claire but mercifully left out whatever epithet he meant to affix to her. “I told the Station Commander here on Blackbird to keep her chaperoned and away from my boys. Willard did it for a while, but I hear that some of those foreign-headed men in the Protector's Own got to him. No offense, Phin, I know you aren't like those foreigners. They just happen to be wearing your uniform.”
The master chief stilled in not quite parade rest and held the fixed gaze of a long-time military man who clearly intended to ignore a conversation between officers that, from the slight flare his eyelids, did not fit his view of military courtesy and customs.
Captain Ayres barely even paused for breath, “Pleased as punch to be a straightforward GSN officer myself these days.”
Claire mentally ran through the lists of GSN and Protector's Own ships memorized while she was at Saganami Island. The Manasseh like Ephraim was definitely a normal Grayson Space Navy ship and not one of the elite squadron directly under Protector Benjamin Mayhew. That made Phineas Greentree one of those exceptional officers requested by the GSN from the Protector's Own to fill command slots.
Commander Greentree listened with a calm, controlled smile as Captain Ayres continued to apologize for Claire's transfer, or possibly for her existence. There had been a Grayson Midshipman Greentree at the Saganami Island Naval Academy a couple years behind her, and Claire gritted her teeth at being sent to yet another ship commanded by an officer with a family interest in preserving tradition.
The Bedlam family had been beaten with the stick of tradition too many times to have developed the reverence for it that imbued so many naval families. Egalitarianism in the service was a beautiful Saganami fantasy, but Aunt Jezzy had taught her better than to believe in fairytales.
Captain Ayres said often enough that women were not meant to serve in uniform. His family had been in service with Captain Hugh Yanakov himself on the founding voyage to colonize the Planet Grayson, so an Ayres could be counted on to know. Of course, every Grayson's lineage went back to that colony ship, and it had been run mostly by automated computers, with the colonists and crew in cryostasis for the trip. Claire hadn't argued. She'd learned not to.
Captain Ayres finally wound down with, “And don't take her blather just now too seriously. I had her watched closely. She never once coupled up with any of my boys, though a number of them did offer for her. Not the officers, of course, which might be what she's been holding out for, though some of them would have had some fun if she'd been willing. The girl's naive is all. You heard her describing building a love nest behind the infirmary on my ship just now, innocent as the dawn, thinking that anyone would want to allow a midshipwoman some out of the way cubby for a sleep space where no one could keep a proper eye on her activities.”
“Midshipwoman?” Commander Greentree glanced from Ayres to Claire with a tight-lipped question, “Are you out of uniform, Ensign or is it Midshipwoman?”
Claire was certain that she was scarlet by now. “I—uh—” She looked to Captain Ayres. He had the grace to flush.
Captain Ayres shrugged in a decidedly unmilitary way waving his hands at Claire. “She kept asking, Phin. I wasn't going to allow her onboard or anything like that, but it was about the time that most of the middies get bumped up to ensign. That and the Office of Personnel was asking, too. They wanted a Letter of Instruction to file in her record as to why she wasn't made an ensign after the first T-year.
“I gotta tell you that I put together a draft of the letter. I figured that if all of us in the fleet just stood strong and didn't promote the poor girls that got pushed into this mess—Well, their families would have to take them back to do right by them. My XO had this idea, though, you see, if she were just to stay on Blackbird she could be laterally transferred to the yardbirds, but they don't take transfers for middies. Only officers.
“So—” Ayres shrugg
ed. “I'm sorry again, Phin, I don't know what to tell you. You could strip the rank, I suppose.”
“Your XO. Right.” Commander Greentree's lips had thinned even more. “Sir.”
Claire felt like throwing up. Manasseh's CO looked almost as angry as the ATO had been.
“Did you at least do a board?” In one small mercy, Commander Greentree stopped looking quite so much like a vid star when he was furious, but Claire flinched at his lack of honorific for Captain Ayres. Then she remembered that the Ephraim CO's second wife was Jennie Greentree Ayres, so they were family, surely that meant it was all right.
Captain Ayres appeared not to notice the slight at all.
“A board? Of course not, it was just a paper promotion! I had no idea that she'd refuse to sign the transfer paperwork and push to get put on a ship.”
Claire blinked trying to remember refusing to sign anything. She hadn't even made her initials on anything in the Ephraim XO's office that morning. What had the XO told him?
“Any sane woman,” Captain Ayres continued, “would realize that we just can't allow our own women to run wild like the Manties do. But sometimes they get ideas you know. Fun, when they're in your bed. Not so much when you try to command one.”
Commander Greentree finally got Captain Ayres to wind down. Ayres repeated sheepish apologies for passing on his problems to a brother-in-law when he had intended to pass them off to Willard, the stuffed shirt running the Blackbird maintenance division, who properly deserved Claire since he was an advocate for the Protector's outlandish social engineering.
Ayres dipped his head in a final apology and walked off.
Commander Greentree turned to Claire. His quick up-down look focused a bit too much. She force relaxed her jaw to keep from gritting her teeth or letting a change of facial expression escape. So maybe she was plain to the point of near ugliness, and maybe the slight mottledness of the skin spoke of skin cancers caught late and treated without much concern for the aesthetic impact on the patient. She looked well enough for a not so wealthy steader from Burdette who had never had enough marital prospects to make it worth her family's while to mortgage their lives for beauty treatments.
Claire's new CO welcomed her with: “Why aren't you at least wearing makeup?”
Of course she was wearing makeup. It just wasn't very good. Claire was sure her smile had slipped into the mulish blankness that the Burdette Ladies often chastised her about. “No excuse, Sir.”
Commander Greentree shot a glare at the departing back of his brother-in law. “At least get yourself over to base medical and have a skin treatment. Jennie is constantly writing Elsabeta about them, so I know they've got a spa dermatologist up here, for all that Jennie claims the service in the waiting room isn't what she's used to back on the Steading.”
Claire opened her mouth to object, but Greentree talked right on over her. “Any way, we can't have the Manties thinking that we let our service members walk around with untreated service injuries so easily corrected. What did you do anyway, get sloppy at the engineering depot?”
Claire blushed furiously at that implication of negligence. She'd been four or maybe five the last time she'd had a skin cancer.
Greentree shook his head. “Nothing for it. You've learned. I see that. But get it fixed now. Wearing your mistakes on your face helps no one. You hear?”
“Aye, Sir.” Claire could do that much. She gave up a half formed line of explanation to spell out his mistaken assumptions, and instead she grasped for the glimmer of opportunity. “Sir, when should I report for my board?”
“What board?”
“For ensign.”
Commander Greentree's nostril's flared. “You're wearing the rank. I assume your pay's already been adjusted. If not, my exec will see to the admin details. Regardless, the orders your Captain Ayres signed on his honor as a commissioned officer say you are reporting as an ensign. You'll just have to learn as you go along. Try not to fall on your face too often in front of your people. You'll be having requalification or,” at this he grimaced again, “I suppose your first qualification boards for the watches. That will have to do.” Almost under his breath, Commander Greentree muttered his brother-in-law's name like a curse and then added in a voice used to issuing commands. “Don't expect empty promotions from me.”
Claire kept her face carefully still and boarded the shuttle to Manasseh as Commander Greentree waved her on with a final grimace. Master Chief Wallens joined her for the return flight. Without the two COs present, Claire introduced herself and asked who she should see on the ship about getting assigned a place to sleep. The master chief presented her with a stateroom assignment, ship patches for her uniforms, and a new ship's comp filled with study material and ship system schematics. Claire barely held back the urge to hug him.
* * *
On the relaxed ride up to the ship, Master Chief Wallens told Claire anecdotes about the crew and asked after her family and steading, Claire skipped over explaining about Jezzy and Noah and told him about Steadholder Burdette instead.
Claire gave the master chief points for not flinching at the oblique reference to the late Lord William Fitzclarence, Steadholder Burdette. That Lord Burdette, in the most extreme case of steadholder bad behavior in recent memory, had challenged Steadholder Harrington as Protector Benjamin's champion to a duel and lost. Fatally.
The new Steadholder Burdette, Nathan Fitzclarence, had chosen to send female midshipmen candidates to Saganami Island for his steading's Academy nominations as a peace offering to Protector Benjamin IX and, in a less direct way, to Steadholder and Admiral Harrington. He'd made it quite clear to the three women he'd nominated that he didn't expect actual graduation from Saganami. The Academy curriculum would be far more advanced than a women's finishing school, and of course they would be wanting to start families in short order. He took it as a personal favor that their fathers had allowed the attempt and that the girls were willing themselves. Claire, at Aunty Jezzy's advice, had not mentioned that with her father dead and most of the Bedlam women unmarried, her head-of-household was actually her younger cousin, Noah.
Lord Burdette had rationalized that one couldn't expect mere Graysons to be Harringtons after all. The Harrington woman was a marvel beyond her sex, an admiral in both the Grayson Space Navy and the Royal Manticoran Navy. Likely no other woman would ever be able to fill her slippers. She was even a steadholder. Lord Nathan had said the words with a reverence of one bred to honor the steadholder position. Even years later, he still seemed stunned to be holding that exalted position himself.
It was only at Saganami that Claire understood the duel. The single combat broadcast on live, planet-wide HD ending in the steadholder's shameful death had been a steading-wide embarrassment and not something explained to children. Better recordings existed, but in the way of students of war unaccustomed to actual carnage, the favorite at Saganami was the most gruesome. It showed a bad angle with not much audio except barely muttered curses by Lord Burdette directed at Steadholder Harrington. The vid wouldn't have caught the attention of midshipmen at all, except for the final seconds. Burdette's back obscured the view just long enough to fill the screen with a solid twelve inches of steel sheering through the wet meat of the man's neck from Harrington's killing blow.
The other two Burdette midshipwomen dropped out of Saganami Island as soon as their families arranged other options for them. Claire vaguely remembered meeting one later with her husband, an older wife, and several children. Claire had stayed. She hadn't dared do otherwise.
The initial application was for a position that promised full Grayson Space Navy health pension and dependent aid benefits in exchange for arduous space duty. When Claire found herself nominated for an appointment to Saganami Island, with a position as an officer to follow if she could complete the course of study, Aunt Jezzy and the extended family had lost no time in sharing their feelings on whether or not it would be acceptable to demurely resign her position should the Academy prove
too arduous for her gentle sensibilities. They were agreed to the woman. She could quit if she liked, but if she did, Claire could find some other family to come back to.
The Tester gave a steader family an opportunity like this but once every seventh generation or so. Had they realized just what Claire was applying for, they'd have sent . . . Well, maybe there wasn't anyone better in the family to send, but by All That Was Holy, she had better not blow this.
There hadn't been a Bedlam to attend, let alone finish, an advanced school as far back as they could remember. There may have been a Lecroix or two a few generations back, but Claire's father had died in an industrial accident when she was nine. Like most steader families, there just weren't that many men. When he'd died, his sisters were already married into other families.
The Bedlams weren't a good family anyway, and it didn't help that Claire was an only child. Her mother had, at least in Claire's memory, been attempting one fertility aid after another. At least three times that she knew about, something had actually worked, but her would-be brothers were all miscarried or stillborn. Some medicines, and fertility spas, and even technical surrogacy worked for those with the funds, but those sorts of benefits did not come with a farm technician's pay on Burdette Steading.
They came standard, Aunt Jezzy was quick to point out, with the Grayson Space Navy's pay and benefit package. One didn't even need to be in the elite Protector's Own. Everyone got it. The Bedlams spent some time poring over the details and admiring the wonder of it all. Even Noah had been drawn in by the excitement.
Claire had heard indirectly that her family had tried to push Noah to enlist in the GSN at eighteen, since he hadn't achieved a nomination for a Saganami Island appointment. He had balked. Claire didn't blame him, much. The GSN was work. Noah was nice enough in person, but he didn't care for doing more than he had to. And besides, Noah liked having his toes on the floor, as he put it, without all that vast nothingness between him and good solid earth. Claire was just as pleased to have gotten some space between herself and the heavy metal poisons of nature.