Back to Work

Month 14 Day 28

0726 Hours

Smitty

Smitty walked into engineering and wondered at the oppressive silence that suddenly fell over the place. As he started for his office, Wilson approached, a smile pasted on her face, and concern in her eyes. "How are things going, Wilson?" he asked without stopping, forcing her to tag along with him.

"I was about to ask you that, sir," Wilson answered. "Is there something going on that I should know about?"

"Nope, nothing," he answered, and walked into his office. She paused in the doorframe. "You know how some days, no matter what you do, you always seem to be running late? Well, today, it seems I'm running early." Which will leave Jane having breakfast with only Drake. One of them will probably have words for me later about it. If not both.

"Did you want me to turn the shift over to you at this time?" she asked uncertainly.

"No, I'll just sit here in my office until the clock catches up to me. I've got some reading I can do."

"Very good, sir." She turned and left.

Smitty called up the letter he'd gotten from his old Academy chum, Benedicto 'Stinky' Facchini. He'd tried to read the letter a couple times yesterday, but his thoughts kept wandering, and it didn't make much sense to him. And that worried him, because Stinky might reek of garlic, but he knew engineering, always only a point or two behind Smitty on all their exams. So he set a personal alarm to remind him to relieve Wilson at shift's end, and tried once again to read the letter.

It seemed Stinky's ship, The Blaze, had been chosen for a retrofit of a portion of the hyperdrive's power relays. Stinky, as always, was worried about the crystals that were used to focus the power stream, since the new power relays were made of different materials than the old ones. Stinky's always worried the crystals will give out. Still, he's got one point. There's nothing wrong with the old power relays; they've been used for years, and they get the job done. If something's not broken, don't try to fix it.

He glanced at the personal alarm, then at the clock, both of which seemed to be crawling. So he gave up consulting them, and switched to glancing at the screens that showed him the engineering floor, particularly the one screen that had a good view of the main entrance.

It wasn't long before he gave up all pretense of reading, and was staring at that screen, waiting for a certain redhead to show up. Where is she? It's not going to look good if she's late, no matter what her excuse.

He wiped his hands on his pant legs, for his palms were wet. For that matter, he was sweating, probably in anticipation of seeing Colleen again, at long last, after 2 days of not even a glimpse of her. He couldn't sit here any longer.

He hurried out to the engineering floor, to the very entrance he expected Colleen to come in at any second. He paced back and forth in that large entrance a time or two, but still there was no sign of her. What am I doing? Acting like a fool, that's what! I should go back to my office. No, that would only make it worse. Well, if I must act like something, at least act like the officer that I am!

He whirled and made a circle of the immediate area, stopping at each console to watch over the shoulder of whoever happened to be there, but he had no clue what anyone was actually doing. He was too busy watching the entrance with his peripheral vision. He saw some B shifters come in and meet up with their counterpart, but not the redheaded one that he was waiting for.

And then he saw her, and time stood still.

She approached engineering at a measured pace, her left hand gripping Harris's arm. Smitty turned for a better look, and pain engulfed him. Her hair was pulled back into her usual top knot, making the ugly purple bruise down the right side of her face the first thing an observer would see. It was darkest in a thin line down her forehead and the middle of her cheek, but all told, the entire side of her face was bruised.

She walked with a little bit of a limp, exactly as if she didn't quite trust her right leg to hold her up. If the female uniforms still consisted of shorts instead of long pants, he had no doubt there would be an equally ugly bruise on her right thigh.

Her hands were still bandaged; he had thought those would come off this morning, before she arrived here.

And her right arm was encased in a sling that held the arm tight against her body. That injury had happened after she had left his quarters the other night. If he had made the effort to take her to sick bay himself, it might not have happened at all. All of her injuries were his fault, but particularly the shoulder.

She and Harris stopped just outside the doorway to engineering, to speak for a while. Colleen glanced his way a time or two, but refused to look at him. Harris moved inside, and Colleen smoothed down her tunic, straightened her back and walked forward, straight for him.

Smitty looked at the clock; she was there with 2 minutes to spare. She wasn't late, after all. She walked right up to face him, and he nearly drowned in her green eyes. "Good morning, Mr Smythe. Forgive me, I'm not allowed to salute, but I am reporting for duty."

Very proper greeting, in the circumstances. Don't think I've heard her utter one before this. Not towards me, anyway. What happened to calling me 'Smit'? "Col—" he started, and realized that others were no doubt watching them, no doubt wondering how they would get along, now that she was, in her eyes, no longer his fiancée. She had opted to act formal, distant... cold. Much as he hated it, it would probably be best if he followed suit.

"Yes, I was briefed on your... temporary limitations by Dr Davis," he croaked, and cleared his throat. "3 days of light duty is my understanding."

"Yes, sir."

"That will mean desk duty," he clarified.

"Yes, sir."

"Fine." He started to walk away. "Come into my office."

"Sir?" She managed to put incredulous alarm in that one word.

He turned back to face her. "All the forms for you to work with are already on my computer in my office. I can't see moving them to another computer for that short a stint of light duty. Now come along. I'll show you what needs to be done, and then I'll let you do it."

"Yes, sir." How did she put so much emotion into such a simple phrase? This time, it had been icy cold obedience.

Fine. She wants us to be all proper and official while on duty? That's what she'll get. I'll bet she warms up after shift's end.