An Ernest Conversation

Month 16 Day 7

0032 Hours

Lt Cmdr Facchini

It was possible Smitty wouldn't come tonight. Even though Smitty said he came to see Stinky, it seemed the Englishman had more interest in the redhead. If I had once been engaged to her, I'd find it hard to leave her alone, even if the wedding was called off.

[After the nurses had pulled the curtain between the 2 beds , Stinky had heard an occasional 'ow' from time to time as they worked on the redhead. Half an hour later, the curtain had been drawn back, and a beautiful vision stood beside his bed.]

["Hello, Mr Facchini," she said with a smile. "Mr Smythe wanted me to introduce myself. I'm Colleen MacDowell. May I call you Ben? In private, of course."]

[Surprised, he answered, "In private, you may call me whatever you please."]

["Be careful, Ben. I often morph a person's name into something they barely tolerate."]

[And then she had left—]

"Are you awake or dreaming?"

Stinky pulled himself away from the memory, to find Smitty had shown up after all. "I wasn't sure you'd come," he stated. "What with Red being released."

"It's not a full release," Smitty responded. "She'll be back when she gets tired."

"So, she was the one you were engaged to."

" 'Was' being the operative word," Smitty stated blandly.

"What's wrong with her? How can you possibly let her go? Granted, I've only known her a day, but she seems lovely."

"She is lovely," Smitty agreed. "Intelligent, talented, imaginative, cheerful, sexy... She's got it all in one fantastic package."

"Then what's the problem?"

Smitty grimaced and looked around the room. His gaze seemed to linger on the other bed, despite it not being occupied. "It's complicated."

"Complicated!" He rubbed a still-bandaged hand over his no-longer bandaged face. "Complicated is dating a woman while on shore leave, and then finding out she's the station master's wife! The only thing I've seen about Red that might be considered complicated is that she's pregnant."

"She told you that?"

"She said it to one of her visitors, but I remember hearing it. It was right at the end of my dermal repair session."

Smitty took a look outside the room, but the nurse seemed busy with something at the ACU display panel. He lowered his voice. "Okay, so you know. She's also claiming it's mine."

"Is it impossible?" Stinky whispered back. "You were engaged, for space's sake."

Smitty scowled but kept his voice low. "No, it's not impossible. But how do I know it's mine?"

"Oh." Picked a popular woman. I can see how it happened, but still... "She dates a lot of men, does she?"

Now the Fireball engineer seemed uneasy. He dropped his head to his chest, wrung his hands together, and finally admitted, "Not that I know of. But I don't follow her around all the time!"

"Then ask for a paternity test."

"I can't! She'd think I don't trust her!"

"Well, apparently, you don't," Stinky pointed out.

"You can hardly blame me! The reason I proposed was because she was pregnant! That was 2 or 3 months ago I heard those rumors!"

Stinky stared at his friend in disbelief. Even at the Academy, Smitty scoffed at gossip. Wouldn't put up with it. "You proposed because of rumors?"

Smitty blushed and cleared his throat. "Well, that, and the captain caught us together in my office, so I had to."

"In your office? Smitty, you know better than that!"

"Well, yes," he agreed. "In all honesty, we were only kissing, but it was enough to make the captain explode, so I said I'd proposed."

"You're lucky Red didn't deny that lie."

"We'd been... seeing other. In secret. I had to hope she'd go along with it, at least until the captain had time to calm down. After a week or two, I figured, we'd be able to find a reason why it 'wouldn't work.'

"I see." Stinky didn't like it. Smitty's used the girl and then tossed her aside, as soon as it was 'safe' to do so. I never would have believed it, if he hadn't told me himself. "And what reason did you give for calling the wedding off?" he asked coldly.

"I didn't!" Smitty declared. "She called it off on the very day we were scheduled to get married! When I finally got her to talk to me, she said she didn't like my personal opinion of her. Whatever that means."

"Well, it could be she didn't like that you thought she didn't know or care who the father was."

"Well, the rumors were wrong, because she's just 5 or 6 weeks pregnant now!"

"And you're still wondering who the father is," Stinky pointed out.

"I don't want to care who the father is! But still, there's a little voice inside of me that wonders how I can know it's mine."

"But you can't ask for a paternity test, because she'd know your opinion of her hasn't changed."

"Exactly."

"Do you want her?" Stinky asked. "Do you think you can make it work?"

"I can hardly think of anything else, when she's around," Smitty admitted. "Even when she's not. Yes, I want her as a part of my life. A big part. I'd do everything I could to make it work."

"You'd better convince her of that. And soon, before you lose her."

"What do you mean?"

"I asked her today if you're the father, shouldn't it be you she married. And she said she's not sure she'd accept, if you were to ask."

"How would that come up?"

"It was her visitors. The first one came in just as they finished my dermal healing session. She called him Bugs. Or something like that."

"Lt Bugalu," Smitty identified him. "The B shift helmsman on the Fireball. He's been piloting the shuttle back and forth."

"I listened as a distraction from my pain. She reminded him of that stupid rumor. Then said it had come true, and now she was pregnant. And she didn't think you'd marry her. He said if you didn't, he would. She said a woman doesn't marry her own brother. Then that doctor from the Fireball, the one who's working A shift, he said it made more sense for her to marry him, and listed options that marrying him would give her. So I broke in and asked my question about you."

"They both offered to marry her?"

"Well, it doesn't count if one of them is her brother."

It looked like Smitty was thinking hard, but he managed to utter, "They aren't related."

"You'd better convince her in a hurry to marry you. She's only got about 6 weeks before she gets sent planet-side."

"I thought MacGregor was joking, but Bugalu..." Smitty muttered to himself, still caught up in his own thoughts.

"Did you hear me?"

"Yes," Smitty responded, looking at his friend. "Hurry up. We've only got 6 weeks. I'll see you later, Stinky." He turned away.

"Hey!" Stinky called after him.

Smitty, already half way to the doorway, turned back in confusion. Stinky waved him closer. "Not a paternity test," Stinky said. "Ask for a fertility test." Smitty's forehead crumpled in confusion, and it was plain he wasn't putting the pieces together, so Stinky explained. "If your shot has failed, then you could be the father. Maybe that will help."

"Maybe," Smitty agreed, and prepared to give his old friend a friendly punch on the arm, then stopped. "Thank you, Stinky. Now I've got to get some sleep."

Stinky watched him leave, saw him stop to talk to the Fireball doctor. The 2 of them moved away. Stinky, having nothing better to do, settled down to sleep. Smitty didn't once mention engineering. Well, sometimes, a man's love life has to take precedence. Even for an Englishman.

Argument With a Friend

Month 16 Day 6

0058 Hours

Lt Cmdr Facchini, Engineering, St Elmo

It was the middle of the night, Stinky could tell by how quiet it was. Despite the various departments being open around the clock, they all got extra quiet from shortly after midnight until about 6 in the morning. Even the rec rooms and the gym. As if those who were still awake at those hours worried about waking those who weren't.

Stinky thought about asking for something to eat, wondered about the possibility of getting something a little heartier than a milkshake or a bowl of soup. Some movement at the doorway made him think the nurse had come in, but when he looked, it was Smitty, standing a few feet inside the room, staring at the redhead.

Another man, slightly older, came in and stood beside him. "She's not awake, Smitty," he whispered.

Smitty gave him a sharp look. "I didn't expect she would be!" he declared so quietly that Stinky could hardly hear him. "I actually came to look in on Stinky."

"I hope you don't call him that in front of his underlings."

"Of course not!"

"Good. He is awake."

"Oh. Good." Smitty turned his attention to Stinky's side of the room and approached him. "Good to see you with your eyes open," he whispered.

"I never dreamed if I ever had an emergency I couldn't handle myself, I'd be lucky enough to have you come in to fix it for me." He raised a hand in greeting, but they were both still swathed in bandages, and there was no way they could shake hands. "Now, tell me straight, how bad is it?"

"Well, it's not good," Smitty answered. "All your crystals blew, some more explosively than others. The power relays were all melted to sludge. You were right to be leery of those new relays; the labs say the innermost coating flaked off, and all those layers of materials were free to contaminate the crystals. I sent an order to fabrication to make a batch of old-style relays for us to install. Don't use those new ones anymore!"

Stinky shivered at the thought. "How many of the nacelles did we lose?"

"The north nacelle was the least damaged, but its bulkheads were warped and cracked. The other 2 had actually burst open. We've had to strip them all down and replace the bulkheads entirely. As soon as that's done, we can start going through the nacelle systems and rebuild those."

"And the diflaxibrophine that caught Red by surprise? Where did that come from?"

Smitty's smile faltered, and a glint of anger hardened in his eyes. "The pipes in the warp power alcove hadn't been properly evacuated and one of them ruptured."

"Oh. Bad luck. Especially for Red. I guess Lt Baker got overwhelmed, and evacuating those pipes just... slipped past him."

"Perhaps," Smitty agreed. "He's lucky the cracked pipe didn't rupture a few minutes earlier; it would have caught him full in the face."

Stinky's eyes widened, and he winced at the pain that produced. "You had him working in the alcove with cracked pipes?"

"He wasn't there at my direction!" Smitty declared. "In fact, he was in engineering against my orders! I'd also declared that alcove off limits until I could fix the cracked pipes! Which I did this afternoon. The last thing I told my people to do on my way to med bay with Colleen was to have Security take him to the brig "

"What do you mean he wasn't allowed in engineering? It's a blasted emergency! You need every engineer you can get your hands on! And Baker knows his stuff!"

"I know how much he knows," Smitty shot back. "He tried to transfer to the Fireball a few years back. Knew his stuff, yes, but it was his attitude I didn't like. I still don't like it, so I've got him working the same hours I do. He went to engineering when he should have been off, against my orders, and installed new warp power relays, as if he intended to install crystals and call the job done!."

"That's no reason to send him to the brig!" Stinky declared.

"Is this a private argument or can anybody join?"

Smitty whirled to face the other bed. "Colleen!" His voice was raspy with emotion.

"Yes, I'm still here," she answered.

"Sorry if we woke you, Red," Stinky told her. "I'm afraid we were having a disagreement."

"Yes, about Baker," she summed it up. "I'm sorry to disillusion you, Mr Facchini, but if Baker hadn't wound up in the brig, it would have been me. Well, except that I wound up here."

"Many women do not get along with him." Stinky nodded in understanding.

"I can't imagine why," Red said drily. "He pestered me ceaselessly at the Academy, nearly got me kicked out. He seems to have no understanding of the word 'no'. In fact, he seems to think he has a right to any woman's body."

Stinky remembered many of his female crew's complaints about Baker, and wondered if he should have taken their complaints more seriously. "Well, a young man finds himself with a beautiful woman..." He offered the same platitude he had offered so many times before.

"So, are you saying you condone his behavior, Mr Facchini? Pity. I was hoping I might like you."

"You can't really believe that!" Smitty told his friend. "A man's got to have self control, or he's no more than a beast!"

"But a beautiful woman—"

"Because she's beautiful, it's okay to rape her?" Red asked with acid in her voice.

"No, of course not, but romance—"

"It's not romance, it's rape," she returned, and he could hear anger in her voice now. "Because he wants it. He doesn't care if she wants it or not. His lust is all that matters to him."

"True, that's the attitude I saw in him," Smitty stated. "On a grander scale. All that mattered to him was how he was going to advance himself. Engineering is no place for giant egos. People have to work as a team."

"Everything okay in here?" asked the nurse that came in.

"Everything's fine," Smitty told her. "I'm afraid I had some rather bad news for Mr Facchini. We accidentally woke up MacDowell. But it's all settled now. I'll just leave and let them both get back to sleep."

Stinky raised a bandaged hand to catch his attention, wondered when the other man had left. "You've given me much to think about, old friend."

"I wanted to encourage you to get better," Smitty told him. "I'll check back in on you later."

"Smit," Red said timidly.

He turned to face her. "Yes?"

"I hate to complain..."

Smitty took a step forward. "I see Wilson brought your gravity unit. Are you having nightmares?"

"No. But my feet feel like... they're above me. She couldn't get the unit placed in the middle. I didn't think it would make much difference..."

"It's a matter of making the field form an unbalanced ellipse." He approached her bed, got down to the floor, and soon stood up again. "How does that feel?"

"Thank you. Like I'm actually laying flat. I'm sorry to have kept you from your bed. You must be tired."

"It was something I should have taught Wilson before now."

"If she comes again, I'll explain how you did it."

"You saw it?"

"I watched carefully."

Neither of them spoke for a moment, and Stinky wondered if Smitty was trying to think of something to say. In the end, the other engineer simply said, "I should go," and walked out.

Alone in the dim room again, Facchini wondered if the redhead knew who... "Psst! Red. You still awake?"

"Yes."

"Do you know who Mr Smythe intends to marry?"

There was a long pause before she answered. "Yes."

"He keeps forgetting to tell me. I'm dying to know."

A deep sigh. "It was me."

"Was?" the question popped out before he could think better about it.

"I... cancelled the wedding. Good night, Mr Facchini."

Poor Smitty. I wonder what went wrong between them? The fact that she's pregnant? Surprising, but you'd think he'd be happy about that. Never thought he'd be adverse to having a family.

Intensive Care Unit

Month 16 Day 5

1623 Hours

Lt Cmdr Facchini, Engineering, St Elmo

The redhead in the other bed awoke with a start. "Ouch," she told herself.

"Bad dream, Red?" he asked. His voice sounded tired and hoarse, even to him.

"No. Yes. I don't know. At least I didn't dream I was falling."

"I got caught in a crystal explosion. I'm surprised to find myself still alive. Do you remember what happened to you?"

"Um. Let me think. A cloud of gas washed over me. A cracked pipe must have ruptured. Yellow gas, from the warp power alcove, which would make it diflaxibrophine."

Ah. She knows the name of it. Must be an engineer. "Then you also are lucky to be alive."

There was a short pause before she responded. "Alive, yes. Lucky, maybe."

He let that pass, for now. If she's in pain, she might not feel very lucky. "I don't recognize your voice. Are you assigned to the St Elmo?"

She gave a short burst of hard laughter. "No, I'm from the Fireball. We answered Capt Valentine's SOS."

"Fireball?" I thought I'd dreamed Smitty was here. Well, that's okay, then. Smitty will put things right again. "You must be one of Mr Smythe's, then."

Another pause before she spoke. "One of his what?"

"Engineers."

"Oh. Yeah. For the moment, I guess I still am."

For the moment? Did Smitty pull her from a different department? He's a firm believer in cross-training, but I would expect him to bring his best over with him. He suddenly remembered another dream he'd had, that a woman was pregnant and had no doubt Smitty was the father. Did Smitty say anything about that? No, nothing about being pregnant. But he did say, the Smitty in my dream, that he wanted to introduce me to his protégé. And the woman he would marry. As soon as I woke up. Had he mentioned a name? For either one? "Colleen?"

"Everybody calls me Mac."

"Surely not Mr Smythe." Which one does the name belong to?

Another, longer pause. "No, not him."

He pondered what to say next. Or maybe I should just close my eyes and go back to sleep, let her try to do the same.

"Psst! Mac. They tell me you aren't asleep."

Stinky opened his eyes wide and craned his neck, caught sight of a brownette in a rumpled engineering uniform halfway between the door and the other bed.

"No, I'm not," Red confirmed. "Why aren't you, Ivy? It's not like you're getting a lot of time off today."

"Well, I was in bed, and falling asleep, when it dawned on me that you didn't have the right gravity in whatever bed you were in, and you wouldn't be able to sleep. So I brought the gravity unit to set up for you here." She approached Red's bed, then disappeared from view as she got down on her hands and knees. But she kept talking. "I wasn't sure they'd let me install it, but Nurse Temple, Dr Davis, and even one of the Elmo's doctors thought it would be a good idea, you being a heavy worlder."

"Thanks, Ivy. I've been trying to sleep, but I keep waking up. At least I haven't starting having nightmare about falling yet. I don't think I have."

"Hmm. The base is different on this bed," Ivy stated. "I can't place the gravity unit in the middle."

Med bay beds stand on a pedestal, for a variety of reasons.

"Place it as close to the middle as you can get it, and I'll see if I feel any difference in my feet. If not, it'll probably work."

The 2 women were quiet then, for a couple minutes, then the brownette climbed to her feet. "Okay, are you ready?"

"Do it."

"Computer, turn on gravity unit 1038 to Gaelund normal," Ivy requested, and turned a worried look to her friend when that woman grunted. "Should I turn it off?"

"No," Mac answered. "I'm just extra aware of every little tug on my body right now. The skin on my back is tight."

"Yeah, burns do that," Ivy stated. "I know you're not a fan of healing rays, but burns are the easiest thing for them to heal. You can't even tell where my burn was."

"Well, we'll see," Mac answered. "All I know for sure is I get to wear this blue glop until tomorrow."

"Good. The longer you wear it, the better a job it does."

"Ivy, you should be sleeping..."

"And so should you, Mac," said a blond nurse as she entered the ICU. Stinky didn't recognize this woman, either, so she must also be from the Fireball. The nurse walked over to Red's bed. "Wilson, go back to the barracks and get some sleep. You've had a long day."

"I don't mind..."

"Well, I don't like those dark smudges under your eyes. You have a good reputation with Mr Smythe, and I don't want to see you flub that up. Anyway, I have a flair for barking an order when I need to. Do I need to now? I've been a lieutenant longer than you have."

"No, sir," Ivy Wilson muttered, and stifled a yawn. "I'm sorry, Mac, but I really do need to sleep."

"That's okay, Ivy. Good night." They waited until Wilson left the room, then lowered their voices. "Okay, Beth, what's the prognosis for me?"

"There'll be no healing ray for your back, for fear of introducing unintended complications, given your condition. Instead, they've discovered an old-fashioned ointment to coat the burn with. They'll cover that with sterile bandages, some loose clothing, and you'll be allowed to go."

"To do what?"

"They'll probably tell you light duty."

"Oh. Paperwork."

"You might remind Mr Smythe that the burn does not affect your mouth nor your brain."

"I'll never get into a uniform with my back covered in bandages."

"Leave that to me. Now, do you need something to help you sleep?"

"I don't think so, but the next time I wake up, could you send for a milkshake for me?"

"What flavor?"

"Ohh, pineapple if they have it. Otherwise, chocolate."

"You got it. Have you given any thought to your hair?"

"I've thought about shaving it all off, let it all grow out at the same time."

"Well, that's a little drastic, but you could do that. Or, you could have what you still have cut into curls to frame your face. I think that would be very flattering."

"Shaving it all off would be easier to care for it."

"Sleep on it," the nurse suggested, and then was leaning over Stinky's bed. "Mr Facchini, do you need something to help you sleep?"

"No, but I could use one of those milkshakes that Red mentioned. Strawberry, if you please."

"I'll send for it right away."