Kurt gritted his teeth, then started to record a message. It was hard to blame Molly for hiring help — and besides, it sounded as though the new girl was doing an excellent job. Penny would just have to get used to being supervised, at least until she started working up to the standards Kurt expected. Kurt finished his message by promising a reward, as Rose had suggested, then recorded a second one for Percy. At least his son seemed happy with the situation.
At least until it gets embarrassing, Kurt thought, remembering his own youth. A girl more than three or four years older than he’d been would never have given him a second glance. Percy would waste time trying to impress her, then either do something stupid or get over his crush. Kurt briefly considered trying to warn him, before deciding that it was pointless. His father had tried and Kurt hadn’t listened. It was astonishing just how smart the old man had become in the years between Kurt reaching his teenage years and growing out of them.
There was a tap on the door, which opened to reveal Rose. She looked cleaner, Kurt was relieved to see, but she still looked pleased with herself. Kurt waved her to a chair, then spun his own chair around to face her. Rose sat down, looking past him to see the monitor.
“Did you hear anything from your daughter?”
“She’s complaining about the girl Molly has hired as a… babysitter,” Kurt said, loading his voice with as much disdain as a teenage girl could cram into an otherwise innocuous word. “I need to speak to you about the exercise.”
Rose looked thoughtful. “Pushed it a little far, did I?”
“A little,” Kurt agreed, dryly. “You do realise we have reporters on this ship, don’t you?”
“I believe I might have noticed,” Rose said, equally dryly. “One of them wanted me to pose on a starfighter in my underwear.”
Kurt blinked at her. “Why…?”
“I think he saw The Horniness of Khan once too many times,” Rose said. “I told him he couldn't afford my rates.”
Kurt rolled his eyes. That movie had been giving starfighter pilots giggling fits for years, despite the basement production values. Clearly, no one cared about the lack of special effects if the pilots were all attractive women, particularly women who went through everything from group sex to bondage and spanking. He briefly considered demanding the reporter’s name, then decided it was pointless if Rose didn’t want to make an official complaint.
“Glad to hear it,” he said, instead. “I would prefer not to watch our pilots die in exercises in front of a group of lusty reporters.”
“Understood,” Rose said.
Kurt sighed. He understood her need to prove herself, but it was a major headache when they were on their way to the war. Maybe, now she'd done it, she could ease off.
“They may start asking for interviews,” he added. The XO had issued additional orders concerning the reporters. “When they do, I expect you to refuse unless you have prior permission.”
“He did ask me some questions,” Rose admitted. Her face crinkled up into a droll smile that made her look pretty after all. “Most of them were really fucking stupid.”
“Why,” Kurt asked, “am I not surprised?”
He glanced at his monitor, then smiled at her. “Go get some sleep,” he ordered. The timer showed seven minutes until their first jump away from Earth. “Tomorrow, we will be starting more intensive simulations. And I will expect your pilots to be on the ball.”
Rose left, grinning. Kurt watched her go, then turned back to his paperwork. The bureaucrats, it seemed, didn't realise there was a war on. Instead of making time for further exercises, they insisted he submit updated copies of his forms prior to departure. At least they weren't nagging him for another will, thankfully. He disliked the thought of writing out — again — what he wanted to happen to his estate if he died. Molly would acquire most of it, while Penny and Percy would both get the remainder. There was no one else he wanted to mention in his will.
He hoped, desperately, that Molly would send him a message. But, by the time they jumped out of the Sol System, no message had come.
Chapter Seventeen
The days started to blur together as Ark Royal made her elliptic journey towards New Russia. Ted ran endless drills, testing the new starships along with Ark Royal’s new crewmen, while keeping a wary eye out for trouble. The handful of human colony worlds they passed signalled briefly, but received no reply. Ted had strict orders to maintain radio silence, even if they weren't trying to hide completely. Privately, he suspected that someone at the Admiralty was trying to have their cake and eat it too. They wanted to reassure the defenceless worlds that there was still a human space navy, but avoid revealing any compromising details, just in case.
Two weeks into the passage, he finally hosted a dinner for the reporters and a handful of senior officers. None of the reporters seemed particularly impressed by the food, although the more experienced ones kept their complaints down to a minimum. The Royal Navy certainly could have produced tastier food for its crewmen, but senior officers — it was commonly joked — preferred the standard rations in order to keep their crews hopping mad, ready to take it out on the enemy. Ted knew there were some stored rations intended for Admirals; he’d briefly considered sharing them with the reporters before dismissing the idea and insisting they ate the standard fare. Let them get a taste of the real naval experience.
As always, most of their questions were either absurd or unanswerable. Ted had no intention of discussing his non-existent love life with anyone, particularly reporters, and he had great difficulty in believing that anyone would be actually interested. Nor did he have any real idea what awaited them at New Russia. The aliens might have started to build the system up into a springboard for attacking Earth… or they might have started to settle the world with their own colonists… or they might simply have reduced the surface of the planet to radioactive ash. Ted had no way of knowing and no intention of allowing himself to develop preconceptions that could easily blind him to the truth.
“I'm surprised that you’re not serving wine,” one of the reporters observed. “Or is this a dry ship?”
“We’re going into combat,” Ted reminded him, keeping his expression blank. Was that question a jab at him or was it a wild coincidence? “I do not feel that drunken crewmen would help our chances.”
He exchanged glances with Fitzwilliam, who scowled. There was no way to know the motives behind the question. It was quite possible, he admitted to himself, that the reporter wanted something alcoholic himself. They had brought a bottle or two each, according to the crewmen who had helped them unpack, but hardly enough for them to even get a pleasant buzz after the first few days. But Ted had no intention of serving anything alcoholic anywhere he was in command. He didn’t need the temptation himself.