John Ringo - East of the Sun, West of the Moon

The first that came to mind was getting the poor girl a husband or a lover or something. Someone who was trustworthy. If he’d ever seen the type to land on her back with her legs open, that was Shanea and she clearly wasn’t getting any here. Neither was he, come to think of it, which led quickly to thoughts he shied away from.

He wracked his brain for a moment, repeatedly pulling it away from the entirely pleasant image of escorting her around himself, and then hit on a face. Not the brightest officer he knew but one that was solid, dependable and trustworthy. Now if he could just remember the guy’s name.

“I’ll see about setting something up,” Herzer said. “What we need to do is get you an escort; someone to show you around town and make sure you stay safe. You’re going to need nearly as much security as Megan, you know. But we’ll make it so you can get out and spend some of your pay.”

“What’s that?” Shanea asked, picking up another slice of cheese.

Herzer froze as he was about to take a bite out of his sandwich and lowered it.

“You’re not getting paid?” he asked, frowning.

“I don’t know,” Shanea said, suddenly wary. “What is it?”

“You know that shopping requires money, right?” Herzer asked.

“Yes,” Shanea said. “I guess.”

“So if you go shopping, you’ll need some money,” Herzer explained.

“I guess,” Shanea said. “The times I’ve gone out it’s been with Megan or Meredith. They do that.”

“Oh,” Herzer said, shaking his head. “Shanea, can you add and subtract?”

“Oh, sure,” she said. “One plus one is eleven. Two plus two is twenty-two… I get kind of confused after that,” she admitted, taking a bite of cheese.

Herzer bit into his sandwich thoughtfully. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Before the Fall there had been no need to have any skill in mathematics or reading and the number of people who had the skills were, therefore, vanishingly small.

However, since the Fall, people had started picking up the skills quickly. There were still vast groups that were illiterate and unable to add but not like before. It was impossible to do most highly skilled jobs in the UFS without some moderate academic training.

Shanea, however, had clearly gone from the pre-Fall condition to some position that didn’t require those skills in Ropasa to Paul’s harem and then into Megan’s care. She’d never had the need to be able to read or do math and obviously didn’t care to pick it up on her own.

Clearly he’d have to ensure that Ensign Whatsisname could do simple math. No, he wouldn’t, he’d had him as a student and knew his mathematical skills, what there were of them, to an instant. Okay, the guy could probably make change.

He pulled out a pad and made a note, then considered some other needs. He needed someone to handle the information flow on this project and one name came to mind. Unfortunately, it also called up some negative history that would not fit in well with this crowd. Van Krief would be the perfect assistant for this mission but he wasn’t sure he wanted her and Megan in the same city much less the same room. What was the other ensign’s name? Destrang. He’d been one of three that Herzer had tapped to accompany him and Edmund on what turned out to be a very long field trip. They’d been given credit for Officer Basic course based upon the fact that they’d been aides to an admiral during a major ship battle and a general during a major land battle. The third one… Tao, that was his name, still couldn’t add worth a damn. But he had good common sense skills and was fairly charismatic.

He scribbled a long oval on the paper that had become his standard mental image of the ship and began filling in details. Trying to seize all the shuttles was inviting defeat in detail. Just holding the control room wouldn’t ensure either controlling the fuel or destroying the ship. If he could think of using the shuttles to adjust its trajectory, so could Chansa or Celine or whoever was in charge of this mission on the other side. New Destiny was not stupid at the tactical level.

The big battle would be for the control room, he was sure of that. But he was pretty sure it was possible to… disable some of the shuttles and just leave the remainder under guard. But he had no idea what numbers or type of fighters the enemy would bring. One of those Changed elves, for example, could go through a squad of Blood Lords like it wasn’t there. But Megan was sure they didn’t have many of those, yet. The ones they did have were actual elves that had been tormented into something… different. Evil was the only word to use. Most of the force would be more normal than those. They were unlikely to be able to fit many ogres into the ships and once you knew about them they were easy enough to kill. Celine would probably come up with something monstrous. No dragons on either side, no room in the shuttles. What would Celine come up with? What monster was she going to produce from her labs? That was what had him worried.

He looked up and saw Shanea watching him like a cat.

“What?” he asked, carefully.

“I was just thinking about when you came to rescue us on the ship,” she said, nibbling at her cheese.

“I thought you were out cold?” Herzer said.

“I was playing dead,” Shanea said. “And terrified. But when you pushed through the door I half opened one eye. I’ve never seen anything like that. It was horrible but you were… it was amazing. I thought that the little guy, Baradur, was fast. You were amazing.”

“It’s one of the things I’m good at,” Herzer said, shaking his head. “I don’t make too much of it, don’t you. It’s just butchery.”

“Well, I never said thank you,” Shanea said, frowning. “I know you came for Megan, not me. But I wanted to say thank you, anyway.”

Herzer opened his mouth to reply, paused, took a bite of his sandwich and chewed for a bit.

“You’re right, I came for Megan,” he finally said with a shrug. “Rescuing Key-holders is a mission, rescuing damsels in distress is sort of a sideline,” he added with a grin.

“Have you rescued many?” Shanea asked, her eyes wide.

“A few,” Herzer said as his grin changed to a frown. “And failed to rescue at least one too many. It’s one of the reasons I tend to try harder these days.”

“You were right about something,” Shanea said as the silence extended out into awkwardness.

“What?” Herzer asked, taking another bite.

“We hadn’t seen you when you were in shape,” Shanea said. “You’re looking… really good.”

“Uh… thanks,” Herzer said, swallowing against a dry throat. He poured some water and washed the mouthful down carefully.

“Hello, Herzer,” Megan said from the doorway, coming over and sitting down next to him. “Having fun?”

“Shanea didn’t want to eat alone,” Herzer said, hastily, then looked down at the remnants of the huge sandwich in his hand and over at the morsel of cheese in Shanea’s. “June Lasker turned up with the records of the people they could find with technical skills. We were going to go over them over lunch, but there weren’t enough to bother.”

“Oh,” Megan said as Meredith softly entered the room after dropping off her files. Meredith raised one eyebrow at the tableau and silently picked up a slice of meat, sitting on one of the chairs and nibbling at it.

“You won’t believe who one of the techs is,” Herzer added after a moment.

“Don’t keep me guessing,” Megan said, pouring a glass of water.

“Courtney.”

“You’re joking!” Megan snorted, blinking her eyes.

“You’re getting the same image I did,” Herzer said, laughing.