“Do you mind if I join you?”
Kelly looked up, recognized LT Bell, and said, “No, sir, I don’t mind at all. Can I buy you a beer?”
“Uh, yeah, sure, whatever you’re having,” he replied.
Kelly waved the barmaid over to bring another beer.
When it arrived, Kelly took a sip of his and asked, “How did you like the admiral’s party last night?”
“I got a kick out of listening to the admiral’s stories. I understand you and the admiral’s daughter got along pretty well.”
“Candy has a lot of trouble making friends, considering she is the boss’ daughter. I offered to be her friend. The admiral seemed alright about it.”
“Great, she’s a really nice lady, and not hard on the eyes either.”
At that point Kelly’s burger arrived and the topic changed to the Vigilant’s refit.
“So how is the refit going? Are they going to get you done by the end of the month?”
“It seems to be going pretty well. I just spent the morning learning all the systems that are complete. I traced all the weapon circuitry and flight control circuits. It’s easy, now that most of the bulkheads are down. I don’t know if the yard has asked that your crew keep off the ship and out of their way. If they do, make sure your Chief Machinist Mate stays on board. Chief Miller has been very good at keeping the yard crew honest.”
“Watch out to make sure the yard crew follows the wiring diagram. They will misroute the cabling and then wind up with the wires being too short. These guys don’t splice worth a darn, especially with fiber optic cable. If the wiring doesn’t match the schematics, make them do it over. You will be the one tracing down a wiring problem on patrol, not them. That’s why I spent my morning tracing circuits.”
“Chief Miller and our chief have talked. Ours is right in the middle of the yard crew. They were more than willing to have a knowledgeable and free helper. Their experience with your chief helped us to convince the yard crew.”
LT Bell moved over closer. “Can I give you a bit of advice?”
Kelly, thinking it had to do with the refit, said, “Sure, what is it?”
“Be very careful if you are thinking of getting friendly with the admiral’s daughter. More than a few officer’s careers have come to a screeching halt for trying to advance their careers by dating the boss’ daughter.”
“I don’t think I have anything to worry about in that regard. I offered to be her friend. That’s all I’m interested in at the moment. Besides, the admiral had a talk with me about it last night. He was alright with me taking out his daughter, if I wanted.”
“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Okay, I’ll consider myself warned. Thanks.”
Kelly and LT Bell left together and caught a shuttle to the Q. Kelly used the time in his quarters to clean up, change for the party at the O Club that night, and catch up on messages. His message queue contained a video file from Angie. He clicked on it and her face came up on the screen. “How you doing, wingman? I waited to give you time to get settled in with your new unit. How did it go? Who are you with now? Old Bugger Off didn’t screw you too badly, did she? Send me a message and let me know how you are doing. CPT Willis, John, and even LTC Matthews have been asking about you.”
“I have some good news for you. Old Bugger Off is being reviewed for mandatory retirement. Seems she is beyond retirement age and the Fighter Force Personnel Center has her up before a board looking at whether she should be kept on active duty. We’re all rooting for her retirement. There is a rumor running around Flag Country that a number of Flag Officers complained about her and this board is just a way to move her out. You may be famous for being the last officer she cast aside.”
“Send me a message and let me know how you are doing. I miss you watching my six.”
As she signed off, she backed up from the camera, turned around, and was wearing something less than she had ever worn around him on the Bolivar. It was a shame she was several hundred light years away.
Kelly sent Angie a quick synopsis of his current situation, cut and pasted the earlier video of him in his mess dress uniform, and sent it off. He finished clearing out his message queue, looked at his watch, and realized he was going to be late for the party, if he didn’t get a move on. He closed out his terminal and went out to catch the nearest shuttle.
He got lucky again and found a shuttle waiting for him at the nearest lot. He climbed in, punched in his destination, and headed off.
When Kelly arrived at the junior officer’s bar, the party was already going strong. He walked in and Ensign Nielsen called out to him almost immediately. Young male officers surrounded her, but she shrugged them off and came over to Kelly.
She flashed that dazzling smile. “It’s about time you got here. I thought I was going to have to hold off all those guys by myself. Here, let me wrap my arm around yours and maybe they’ll take a hint. It’s a real zoo in here tonight. I forgot that the landing ship crews had arrived to take their ships out of the yard. There must be ten guys to one girl in there. Come on, let me buy you a drink.”
They walked over to the bar, Tammy never letting loose of his arm. Several landing ship officers looked at him with a mix of envy and anger. He wondered how long it would be healthy for him to be here. Tammy asked him what he wanted with a mischievous look in her eyes. He disappointed her by saying, “Just a beer.”
She got them each a beer and they retired to a table away from some of the more boisterous landing ship officers. The gators, as they called themselves, were engaging in some bar games that had the potential to cause major mayhem. One, called Assault Landing, involved two officers each carrying as many other officers as they could the distance of the bar. Two of the bigger male lieutenants were carrying five officers each and waddling to the end of the bar. This was accompanied by yells of encouragement, or derision for the opponents.
The junior officers’ bar was designed to survive such festivities. The bar itself was heavy plasteel. All the alcohol was stored in cabinets under the bar. The fixtures around the room were heavy and washable. The tables were fixed to the floor and the chairs were heavy and hard to lift. Even the gators couldn’t harm this place, designed so officers back from long patrols would have a place to cut loose far away from senior officers’ eyes.
The two large gators that had just done the heavy lifting exhibition saw Kelly and Tammy sitting by themselves and came over.
“Well, look at this. This fellow is hogging the prettiest woman in here.”
Kelly looked up at the two of them and asked, “What can I do for you fellows?” It looked like it was about to get ugly. Kelly figured he might get lucky and take out one of this pair, but not both.
Other gators came over to watch the show. One of them, a Lieutenant JG, seeing the fighter wings on Kelly’s windbreaker shouted out, “Hey Mahoney, Drew, leave this guy alone. I remember him from the Bolivar. He’s like me. He pissed off Old Bugger Off and wound up here.”
The bigger of the two, Drew, asked, “Is what he said true?”
“Yeah, it’s true.”
Drew slapped him on the back, nearly knocking him out of his chair, and said, “Well, let me buy you a beer. Anybody that Old Bugger Off hates is a friend of mine.” A round of further back-slapping ensued.
As the crowd fell away, Tammy asked, “What was that all about?”
Kelly took a sip of his beer and said, “General Bugarov is a senior officer in Fighter Force. She has a penchant for discarding officers. It seems I’m in a rather large and storied group of officers.”
“So tell me. What did you do to get a general pissed off at you?”