Blood Impulse

Part 30.2 - EMERGENCY REPAIR TRAINING

Polaris Sector, Battleship Singularity

He met Ensign Smith again at the end of his rounds. She was wringing her hands beside one of the entrances to the hangar deck. The toe of her work boot tapped an unsteady rhythm on the impact resistant flooring. "You look nervous, Ensign." That was odd for someone usually known for their sunny disposition.

"Admiral," she said, dropping her hands to her sides. "Was everything all right? You left the engine room in a hurry."

"Everything is fine, Ensign." Loathingly, he took the ghost's lame excuse for the repair order change. "There was a miscommunication, but it is nothing to be concerned about."

"That's good." Consciously, she tried to stop her foot from tapping, but the moment she relaxed, it started up again, a barely audible tap, tap, tap.

Admiral Gives had seen a lot of soldiers try to put on a brave face. Often, they thought appearing fearless would make them stronger, but it was rare to see someone fail so spectacularly. It was all too obvious, even by her skittering eye contact, that she was beyond nervous. Habitually, he checked the surrounding deck for a cause, but found none. The hangar deck seemed to be in normal pre-mission operations, if a little less busy than usual. A large amount of personnel were still dedicated to repairs, but the minimum amount had been reassigned to do equipment checks here. They were inspecting and reordering the support craft by towing them around and into ready positions.

Nothing about that was unusual. Even Callie, who was still relatively inexperienced, would have seen this multiple times before. Truly, the only oddity here was her, standing here by the exit. "Is there something wrong, Ensign?"

Her boot began to tap faster, "No, I'm fine."

"You do not seem very certain of that, Ensign." In fact, by the way she kept glancing at the door, she seemed to be waiting for someone. She was distracted, their conversation seemingly background noise. She wasn't trying to be rude, something else had just wholly consumed her attention. Rather than raise his voice, the Admiral simply stepped between her and the door. Predictably, his appearance there snapped her eyes back into focus. "Something is wrong."

It wasn't a question, Callie registered. It was simply a statement, but then, he had always been attentive when things were wrong. Some crewmembers found his steely countenance uncaring, but she found it calming. "Sorry, Admiral. The Chief didn't give me my usual rotation today." Usually, she worked down in the engine room. Her small stature made it easy to slip between the pipes where the burlier engineers couldn't go. "He wanted me to give to give the emergency repair training, but..." She wasn't comfortable with the assignment.

Callie didn't specify any further. The Admiral didn't need her to. The emergency repair training was given to new crewmen when they came aboard, and there was only one new crewman. "Sergeant Cortana."

She tried not to nod, but her body ignored her attempt to still it. "I don't mind giving the training," she insisted. She didn't want to cause an issue. "I know it's important!" Those were the Admiral's standing orders for a reason. "I just haven't been alone with her since..."

"The incident in the starboard bow." When he'd walked in, Cortana had pressed Callie into the floor with a combat boot digging into her back. Anyone would feel unsafe working with their former captor, and he'd seen that discomfort first-hand after repelling the boarders. "You should not have been given this assignment, Ensign." It clearly made her anxious, and Sergeant Cortana was not the type to apologize.

"The Chief was busy. He didn't mean anything by it." Ty just hadn't been thinking when he'd assigned her this duty. "I'm going to have to get comfortable with her eventually. I can't avoid her forever if we're all stuck aboard ship." It was just a matter of time before she met the Marine by the barracks, in the mess or in the lounge.