Uneasy Truce

Month 16 Day 10

10:53 Hours

Drake MacGregor

Drake led Bugalu from the mess hall to the library, and to the table where Smitty already sat. He set his dinner tray down next to another computer.

"Okay, what are we all doing in the St Elmo's library?" Bugalu asked as he placed his tray on the table.

"I don't know what you two are doing here," Smitty growled, "but I'm here to look for jobs while I eat."

"Same here," Drake stated. "I had a perfectly good pair of jobs located for Mac and me, and she sent it back as a 4, which I understand is barely above 'over my dead body.' I haven't had time to discuss it with her to find out what's wrong with it."

Smitty chewed and swallowed a bite of omelet, then asked, "What type of engineer?"

Drake looked up warily. "Sanitation. Is that dealing with waste water treatment or something?"

"That depends. Who was advertising for such a person?"

"The Fleet has an opening for a Chief Medical Officer at the Queensland Space Station hospital. And they also have an opening for a sanitation engineer."

"In the hospital?"

"That's what it said."

"That's where she heard about it," Smitty muttered. "It's a glorified term for a janitor. Empty waste baskets, mop the floors, and that includes mopping up urine, blood, vomit. It might include some basic machinery maintenance, but it'll be very basic. Not the kind of job I want the mother of my child to have."

"Oh," Drake felt deflated. "Guess I'd better ask for more details about any engineering positions I find."

"Queensland," Bugalu muttered to himself. "Is just the medical facility part of Fleet, or is the whole station?"

"I'm not sure," Drake answered. "Why?"

"Mac's not limiting herself to Fleet jobs. She has me looking in the private sector, too. And she wanted nothing to do with janitorial work or housekeeping when she joined the Academy."

"Well, how do I find out about any private sector jobs that might be on Queensland Station #1?" Drake wondered.

Smitty sighed "I'll contact them and ask. They'll take more notice if an engineer asks. And I'll be able to tell if there's anything suitable."

"Thank you, Smitty. That's very generous," Drake told him.

Smitty frowned. "I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it for Colleen!"

"That's why we're all here," Bugalu pointed out. "We all want her to have the best options to chose from."

Smitty took another bite, studied his computer screen for a moment before turning to Bugalu. "What does she have against teaching?"

"I don't know," Bugalu answered. "Teaching what?"

"Engineering. Of course, she wouldn't be able to start with that, but after a year, I could get her into a teaching fellowship. Working right beside me, so to speak."

"You, teach?" Drake asked in surprise. "Where?"

"The Academy," he answered. "She could be my secretarial assistant until the child is born. But I think I could work it so she wouldn't have to, if she didn't want to. Didn't have time to go into all the details while we were talking, and she told me she gives the idea a 3. Which didn't sound bad, but now I'm not sure."

"You have to remember, she didn't have a great time at the Academy," Bugalu told him. "Men constantly pestered her, especially Baker and his cronies. So she doesn't have a lot of good memories about the place. Plus, unless things have changed, she'd be the only woman there who was pregnant. And she's still young enough that men might pester her for dates."

"And if you don't trust her, that could get ugly real fast, with your jealousy," Drake observed quietly.

"It doesn't help with both you trying to steal her away!" Smitty declared.

"I started this in an attempt to wake you up to reality," Drake told him. "As long as you two are not yet married, I am ready to step in and be the best husband and father I can be. For her sake." He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "But it would be in name only!"

Smitty, surprised, turned to Bugalu. "And you?"

"The same. If she goes back to Gaelund and she's unmarried and pregnant, her family would throw her out. It's the way things are done on Gaelund, and she knows it. I'm the only family she's got that won't treat her that way. But yeah, I expect it to be a marriage in name only. And if you can't accept that... maybe she'd be better off not marrying you."

"It is my child," Smitty stated, and Drake wasn't sure who he was saying it to.

"While we're on this subject," Bugalu said, "Captain Burke spoke to me this morning about 3 requests for permission to marry having been submitted to HQ, and they all have Mac as the bride."

"We all knew we had put one in," Drake commented, wondering where this conversation was going.

"She's worried that HQ will see it as Mac having bamboozled each of us into marrying her. Trying to get the best deal she can, if you know what I mean."

"The best deal would be me," Smitty decided. "I'm in her field, I know her abilities, and I know people. I certainly won't send her off to be a sanitation engineer!"

"Is that what you think, Smitty?" Drake asked. "That she convinced Bugalu and I to volunteer to marry her, so she could get the best deal?"

Smitty didn't answer for a long, guilty moment.

"Blast it, Smitty, I thought you had given up the belief that Mac is a conniving, cheating liar!"

"I don't want to believe it!"

"Well, get that thought out of your mind, and do it fast, or I will do everything in my power to convince her I've fallen madly in love with her!"

Bugalu was also upset. "How can you have a happy marriage if you can't trust her?" He picked up the last bite of his turkey sandwich and munched it down, then got up. "Now, I leave you two to your job hunting. I do mine when I get off for the day; I've got my personal computer back on the Fireball picking out jobs that look interesting. So far, most of what I've suggested she's graded as 2s." He turned and left the library, to take his tray back to the mess hall and then probably to head back for the shuttle, since Mac wasn't off duty yet.

Drake considered Smitty for another moment as the engineer studied his computer screen. "How can we help you get this awful uncertainty out of your system?"