John Ringo - Cally's War

“Now remember, to access the transmitter, you need to go to your photopak icon, open it, select help, then transmitting a photo. The application will let you transmit anything on your PDA or in the cube slot,” he said.

She helped him clean up the scene quickly, getting the now nameless woman squared away under the trash. She had to work carefully to avoid further mussing the uniform. The wet patch would look bad enough until it dried. And it felt clammy. Ick. It probably won’t even be dry by the time we get up to the ship. I’m definitely going to need to stop in my quarters and change before I do anything else.

“See you on Titan.” She gripped his hand quickly and was gone.

Cally left the women’s room and walked past Gra — the other cleaner, wishing him a nice day. The purple vinyl seats and purple and oatmeal carpet of the departure lounge showed the influence of a decorating fad that had been current seven years ago. Makepeace had left the laptop next to her seat. Her eyes scanned the lounge for a few seconds. There it was, next to the clumsy bald man, bless his heart. He was looking at her, and she tugged her right ear gently before looking away, dropping the hand.

As she walked, her left hand came up and brushed at the side of her hair, as if she wasn’t used to wearing it up. The seat had empty seats on either side, even though the lounge was starting to fill up with outbound passengers. She sat down and opened up her laptop. Getting into that now while she had a few minutes was the first thing. The clumsy bald guy got up and walked away.

Booting it showed her it had an old operating system. Good. First thing to try is to see if it’ll boot from the cube reader. She powered it down and back up with a test cube. Nice. It didn’t fry it. Time to go for the cracker cube.

As she was rebooting again a guy came up and stopped by the chair next to hers, clearing his throat nervously. Not now, you loser. I am not in the mood for pick up attempts. Aha! Right to the cracker cube window.

“I — Is this seat taken?” he asked.

“Unless you can lick your own eyebrows, it is,” she snapped, using the cube utilities to reset the laptop’s password and file permissions.

To her great annoyance, he settled into the seat anyway and she had just turned her head to tell the pushy jerk off when he interrupted her.

“How do you think I do my hair?” he said.

Her mouth hung open for a minute before she snapped it shut, returning his salute a little dazedly. He was a slight man with straight dark hair. A lock of it looked like it would tend to fall down into his forehead. He had warm brown eyes you could fall right into, and he was way too young. But what really surprised her about him was that he was the kid shown in her briefings as General Beed’s aide. She kept the recognition out of her eyes with an effort.

“I’m sorry I was so crabby. I guess I’m a little nervous. Can we try that again? I’m Sinda Makepeace.” She offered her hand.

“Joshua Pryce. Is this your first time off Earth, ma’am?” His hand was warm and dry.

She realized abruptly that he still had her hand and that she was staring. She snatched her hand back, flushing. A blush? Me? What the hell is that all about? I haven’t blushed in years .

“Uh… why yes, it is. My assignment’s on Titan Base. I suppose I’m a little uncertain about flying in space. You know, all that space around you and no air to breathe.” She shuddered. “It kinda gives me the willies.”

“Your name sounds familiar.” His forehead wrinkled and he flipped open his PDA, pulling up a list. “Did you say your name was Sinda Makepeace, Captain?”

“Why, yes, I did,” she smiled, tilting her head at him curiously.

“I thought I’d seen the name before. We’ve got the same boss on Titan. I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up working in the same office, ma’am.” He pulled his eyes away from hers. For a second there it had seemed almost like he was staring into her soul.

“Oh, you’re working for General Beed, too?” she asked, smiling brightly.

“Yes, ma’am.” He looked at her earnestly, “Would — would it make you feel less nervous if I arranged to sit next to you on the flight up to the ship, ma’am?”

“The company would be very pleasant, Lieutenant Pryce.” She stretched slightly, straightening her back. Like those, do you? Dammit, girl, behave!

The nature of Federation space travel was that most of the travel time between stars was spent in normal space, “sublight” to laymen, reaching the ley-lines or paths between stars where access to hyperspatial regions was much easier. While it was possible to access hyperspace from anywhere, it was much more power-intensive, maximum speed was less, and exit point was somewhat random. That would allow in-system jumps, but the potential for losses in a crowded environment like the vicinity of Titan Base was prohibitive. The upshot was that where it would take only about six months to get from Earth to one of the inhabited planets in a relatively nearby system, travel in-system to Titan Base took a good eight days, or more, by Federation courier ship. It was their good fortune that presently Earth and Saturn were on the same side of the Sun. At maximum separation, it was nearly a month’s voyage because of the need to detour around the Sun.

The Galactic Federation tried to keep enough ships in transit between Earth and Titan that there was a minimum of one flight a week. This was not out of any particular love for Earth or humans. On the contrary, humans, being the only carnivorous sophonts in the Federation, were generally regarded as useful barbarians. Their usefulness consisted primarily in their ability to throw the Posleen off of conquered bits of real estate that the Galactics wanted back. The frequency of the ships was more to ensure that Fleet and Fleet Strike could move critical personnel around as needed between larger troop shipments than anything else.

Fleet discouraged carry-on luggage on the shuttle. They preferred for anything that could shift around to be secured with the checked baggage. When Cally boarded with Sinda’s purse and laptop, the pilot at the door, a Fleet captain in black, gave her a rather cold look. Whether at the state of her uniform or at the not one but two loose articles she didn’t know. She responded with a sunny smile that shined out of her eyes, whispering over her shoulder to the lieutenant once they were past.

“Bless his heart, the captain looks as if he could have used another cup of coffee this morning,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.” Pryce tripped, whether over an uneven place in the floor or his own feet she wasn’t sure, but as he landed against her and used her shoulder to straighten himself, she got a whiff of clean male scent underlain with a hint of rut. Her nostrils flared as he apologized profusely. She told herself to ignore the slight clench of her belly.

He’s a baby. Remember the last one? The last thing you need on this mission is to give yourself away as a juv. Makepeace is not a juv. I’m twenty-three. Still, hands off the baby — no matter how good he smells.

The interior of the shuttle greatly resembled that of a small airliner, with the exception that the seat belts were more functional — five point restraints rather than the airlines’ pro-forma lap belts. Also, there was actual webbing overhead to strap in the few loose articles as needed, rather than overhead baggage compartments. The seats looked similar, although they were built to support the body for an hour or two, rather than a long flight. They did not recline, to the great relief of long-legged passengers. They did, however, have footrests at a convenient height to support Indowy personnel when the shuttle was used to transport them. Where first class would have been in an airliner, the shuttle had a few seats configured for Darhel physiques. The seat configuration and lighting was subtly different from that in the human section.