“My reports say you are about ready to switch over from Navigation to some more in-depth engineering training next week.” said the Admiral once Casey had seated herself at the conference table.
“Yes sir. I have basic reactor operation under my belt, but I have hardly touched on anything else.” Casey confirmed.
“I’m going to need to send up some technical specialists for crash courses for a train-the-trainer program. They will be civilian nuclear specialists, and while they are not Navy they will follow your orders and otherwise stay out of your way. Peggy tells me they will be supervised by an additional Squiddie, who will also work to minimize interference in your operations.”
“Lee and I are rattling around in here by ourselves at times, so it will be good to see some new faces.” Casey enthused. “How many are we talking about here?”
“I have about a dozen who are reviewing contracts right now.” Admiral Klein confirmed. “We are looking at a year of training to get them to a point where they can conduct classes and then two years as an instructor before they can take what they have learned back to the private sector. We are expecting 100% turnover though, so there will be more specialists cycling through on an ongoing basis while we are getting Navy personnel up to standard.”
“Sounds doable. Anything else right now?”
“No. Your performance evaluations say you are doing well, and I don’t have a reason to jog your elbow and disrupt that.” Admiral Klein determined.
“Well then. With your permission I’ll get back to it.”
“Dismissed.”
Casey saluted and headed back to the Mess to spend some time with the other pilots. She didn’t really feel a connection with any of them, but it wouldn’t do to be seen as unapproachable. After about forty five minutes the Admiral was finished interviewing everyone and they gathered again in the hangar bay to see him off. The princesses and their pilots departed right after and she could finally return to her studies.
“Lee is going down the well this evening to have dinner with his family.” Peggy told her as she propped her feet up on the writing desk in her quarters. She had an ottoman that matched the nicely cushioned chair in her room, but sometimes she just wanted her feet up higher.
“It is Friday, isn't it? Tell him I said to have a nice weekend.” She hit the page advance on her tablet.
“Are you going to be going down this weekend?” Peggy asked.
“No. I am turning twenty four next week, and I know the boys will have something special planned. I can wait until one of them invites me down for something innocuous and unrelated in the attempt to surprise me.”
“So can I convince you to take Allegro shopping?”
“Peggy, are you trying to get rid of me?”
“To be honest, the ship is due for some scheduled inspections and I don’t want to distract the technical teams by having a human on board.”
“I turn heads, eh?”
“More like you are a one person riot. They are going to be nervous enough with me on board, but I can't leave until I get back to Not-Moon. That would be a very boring weekend for you unless you got a serious upgrade to your augments.”
“OK, fair enough. I assume you have had a drone toss my go bag on a shuttle and preflight it?”
“Yes, and Allegro is waiting for you.”
Allegro waved as Casey walked into the hangar.
“What’s the plan, Captain?”
“What do you think of heading down to Patrick and meeting up with Lieutenant Brinks to show us around Titusville?”
“That sounds fine.” She skipped up into the cargo bay. Casey followed her up to the pilot’s compartment.
“So what are we shopping for?” Casey asked as she reviewed the instruments.
“Decorations, clothes, anything else that catches our fancy. Our quarters are looking pretty bland right now.”
“Honestly I am not used to the concept of personalizing our spaces on a ship.”
“Well, we are in the practice of having significant downtime for mental health reasons. Our crews are also bigger for shorter crew rotations and we have larger crew spaces since we don’t spend any real volume on them. So don’t feel guilty about putting up a picture or putting pretty things on your shelves.”
“What do you mean larger crew spaces? You don’t have live crew on your ships.”
“Our virtual crew quarters are palatial though, I can’t wait to show some of them to you.” Allegro enthused. “The only physical space requirement is the computational hardware.”
“Peggy, are you listening?” Casey asked, as she began the startup sequence.
“Of course.”
“Can you dial up Ben for me?”
The phone started ringing, but it went to voicemail.
“Ben, Casey. I am bringing a friend down for a shopping trip to Titusville. We will be landing in about an hour. Call me back.”
“Lieutenant Brinks has responded with a text. He is in a meeting and will call you afterwards.”
Pulling the ship out of the hangar, Casey found the projected track on the hud and started down.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Allegro, would you call up ATC at Patrick for me?”
Allegro put on her helmet and started fiddling with some controls on her interfaces. After a few minutes of muttering quietly she pulled her helmet back off.
“Alright, they know we are coming and are clearing a spot for us. We should talk to them when we get to one hundred miles.”
Fifteen minutes later Ben called back. He agreed to check with ground control and meet them when they landed, which he did a half hour later, although Allegro kept him cooling his heels in the cargo bay while the two changed clothes. Casey dressed an understated classy but she was pretty sure whatever Allegro was wearing involved petticoats.
“Ben, good to see you again. I would like to introduce you to Allegro, a real life extra-terrestrial.” Casey presented her with a flourish.
“Hi!” exclaimed Allegro.
“So uh, I am not sure what I expected a space alien to look like, but you are not it.” temporized Ben.
“I had some work done.” joked Allegro. She posed. “Do you like it?”
“My compliments to the…” he looked at Casey. “What specialty would even be involved in that?”
“Geneticists, probably.”
The trio headed to Ben’s sedan.
“So I heard through the grapevine that someone in one of your ships did some embarrassing things to some ‘22 pilots over the Pentagon the other day. Do you know anything about that?”
Casey looked over to Allegro.
“Yeah Allegro, do you know anything about that?” She asked as they reached the car.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” mumbled Allegro as she dove into the back seat.
Casey more sedately got in the front and looked over her shoulder.
“No one is hurt?”
“I only rotated them a little.”
“That was you?” exclaimed Ben.
“Remember how Peggy told you not to play with her when she was flying? You think F-22 pilots took the warning?” Casey asked Ben.
“A valid point.” Ben considered. “So where to?”
“Where-ever we can get cute stuff. Casey needs to make her quarters pretty!”
“I’ve never threatened to punish you, but you are making me want to start.”
“OK, so let’s stop in at a few furniture and home decor stores. Anything else?” asked Ben.
“Cute clothes!” declared Allegro.
“I’m detecting a theme.”
“We don’t decorate our bodies with clothes out in the hive. It is really fascinating.” Allegro explained. “You make yourselves all colorful without even changing your pigmentation.”
Ben took the two first to the big Swedish store. After taking only a perfunctory look at the showrooms they skipped ahead to the decor. Allegro grabbed two sharks off of a shelf.
“Why the sharks?” asked Ben.
“Because I rotated those F-22s. It’s a meme. I’m going to get one for every pilot I have to take to school.”
“You know that that particular brand of shark has some significance to the trans community, right?” asked Casey.
“Well, she transitioned into a whole ass human, so I don’t really see the issue.” shrugged Ben.
“It isn’t an issue, I’m just making sure she knows.” explained Casey.
“And I am standing right here.” fumed Allegro.
“Did you hear something?” joked Casey.
“Wind maybe? Let’s find Allegro and go get some meatballs.”
After lunch they went to two other home stores, but didn’t find the cute things that Allegro was after.
“We may have to resort to online shopping to find you the things you are after.” recommended Casey.
“I’ll put a request in with your friends in Chicago. They can find cute things for me.” decided Allegro. “Clothes? Ought to be able to find more cute things.”
“Yeah, I can think of some places we could go.” mused Ben. He looked at his watch. “May have to wait until tomorrow for the smaller boutiques though. All that is going to be open past another hour or two are going to be the big name stores.”
“Well, I do want to pick up some casual things to wear in quarters.” remarked Allegro.
“Let’s stop in to this one here.” pointed Ben and turned the car into the parking lot.
Allegro didn’t like anything she saw there.
“This seems like a great time to stop for dinner.” pitched Ben as they headed back out to the parking lot.
“This is a great time to stop for dinner.” agreed Allegro as she made a beeline for a hovering car that came around the corner at the most opportune moment.
“Allegro, what are you doing?” asked Casey.
“I am going back to the ship for the evening. What you two are going to do without me is between two consenting adults and none of my business.”
“Allegro! You… You set me up!”
“I am leaving you to spend an evening with someone you find attractive… the horror!” Allegro stage-whispered dramatically while clutching at her chest. “And scene!”
She dived head first into the car, which abruptly departed straight up.
Ben looked up after it as it went.
“I don’t think she’s wearing her seat belt.”
“Well, if an F-22 pilot couldn’t pull her over, I don’t think a po-po in a Dodge Charger is going to manage it.” countered Casey.
“As awkward as that was, however, it leaves us with an interesting conundrum. Restaurant and hotel, or my place?”
Casey just looked over at him.
“I believe we had a conversation about this the last time we talked.”
“And I went and I thought about it, and I agree with your terms and conditions. We both like a bit of familiarity and security, and neither is particularly looking to put a ring on it.”
“And did you get tested recently?”
“I love it when you talk dirty.”
“Jackass.”
“Yeah, so my place then?”
“Can you cook?”
“Well enough not to disappoint.”
The next morning Casey spotted Allegro’s car waiting for her in the drive way next to Ben’s while she was getting coffee.
“Is mom here to pick you up?” Asked Ben as he walked up behind her.
“No, I think she is just being considerate so you don’t have to drive me back to the base on a Saturday.”
“Coming back to town any time soon?”
“Could go either way. Nothing stopping you from meeting me halfway though.” Casey scooped her purse up off of a nearby chair and fished her communicator out. “Here.”
“I’m not going to start getting all of your calls, am I?”
“Nah, the Hive is smarter than that. They will probably route all your calls to Tempo until more of these find their way into general circulation. At any rate, I’m not going anywhere until Peggy tells me that she has brought my ship back from the yards. I don’t have a pressing need or desire to find my pants just yet.”
