Unexpected Visit & Checking Out the Gossip

 

Unexpected Visit

Month 12 Day 24

2355 Hours

Bugalu

“Lights.”

Bugalu sat up and blinked teary eyes as his bedroom lights came on and woke him. He stared in incomprehension as Mac reached deep into the depths of his closet. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m late for work,” she answered.

“You should go home and—” he stopped as she pulled a purple communications uniform from somewhere, followed by her boots. “What the—”

“Della had a date. I dropped these off earlier, but I thought I’d be here to get them before you went to bed. Sorry for waking you.”

“That’s—” He stared in surprise and then remembered to look away as she stripped down to her panties and then started putting her uniform on. He almost looked back at her when she started cussing in her home tongue. “What’s wrong?”

“I forgot a bra.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t have one. That would fit you.”

“No, of course not. And I don’t have time to go home for one.”

He looked around in alarm, saw her twisting her hair into a bun and somehow fastening it into place with a pair of ornamental chop sticks he kept in his top drawer. “You can’t report to work without a bra! You’ll be written up!”

“I’m going to be written up anyway for being late,” she stated, and turned away from the mirror, started for the door.

“Hey, wait!” He jumped out of bed and grabbed her arm to turn her around just as she was walking through the doorway.

“What?”

“You’ve got to get that tunic fastened better than that,” he told her and deftly unfastened it.

“Hey!”

“Breathe in and hold ‘em up high,” he instructed, then started the fastening at the bottom and worked his way up to the neckline. He frowned in disappointment. “You’re a lot bigger than she is. The uniform alone won’t hold them up as well. But that’s the best we can do right now. You’ll probably be written up twice.” He considered the bun, which already had curly strands trying to escape. “Maybe 3 times.”

“Can’t help it. Gotta go.”

 

 

Checking Out the Gossip

Month 13 Day 1

0832 Hours

Smythe

Smitty realized he’d gotten absolutely nowhere with reassigning Addams to another shift while Colleen was working with Wilson on A shift 2 days a week. He abhorred gossip, and usually gave a royal chewing out to anyone he heard spouting it. But was it gossip if they actually saw something happen?

On his way from the mess hall to engineering this morning, Smitty had overheard a clearing technician say, “I saw it with my own eyes. Mac came tearing out of Bugalu’s bedroom only half-dressed, and he followed, mostly undressed, and stopped her. Ripped her tunic wide open and then refastened it tightly, his hands all over her. It still didn’t fit right, but I’m telling you, those 2 are not ‘just friends’.”

Smitty had been so surprised, he merely walked past the 2 technicians and came straight to his office. Where he’d not gotten anything done.

When did it happen? How did it happen? Even more important, what happened? Well, it’s plain what the cleaning technician thought had happened. But Colleen only wears her uniform when she’s on duty; otherwise, she wears civvies. She would have had to be in uniform when she got to Bugalu’s quarters, and that didn’t seem likely. So... Unless...

Unless she’d had a uniform in his quarters? Had she moved in with him at some point? It’s frowned on, officially, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

And the uniform—a brand new uniform—hadn’t fit right? Could she be showing already? If she is pregnant, that is. That was, after all, hearsay.

Not that he’d done anything about that piece of gossip, either.

I’m not getting anything done. He got up with his notepad and left his office to consider the duty rosters posted on the screen outside his office. This placed him squarely in the middle of the mild hum of engineering, a place he found comfort in, a place where he could think.

“Looking for someone in particular?” asked a female voice.

He turned to find Harris working at a post nearby. “Trying to find a place to put an engineer temporarily to get him off A shift while Co— your roommate is getting cross-trained.”

“Well, that’s considerate,” Harris stated brightly. “Mac will be thrilled not to have to put up with Adams while she’s training.”

“I didn’t say it was Adams.”

“No, but it makes sense. Problem is, wherever you put him, he’s likely to be a problem, without a strong person in charge to keep him in place.”

“You don’t think Wilson could keep him in place?”

“Well, yeah, she could, after she made him aware exactly who was in charge. But how long would that take, and would she manage to get any training done while she was doing it?”

“So I need to get him off A shift completely.” It’s what I intended to do.

“Well, at least for 2 days a week,” she answered, finished what she was doing and moved to another post to conduct diagnostics.

The bridge! I’ll move Adams to the bridge to handle communications for the 2 days a week that Colleen is down here getting cross-trained! Having found an answer to his problem, he almost returned to his office to make those arrangements. Instead, he followed Harris to her new post. “How do you feel about your roommate getting cross-trained in engineering?”

“That’s a loaded question, isn’t it? Do you think I’m going to tell you she won’t fit in? Well, I’m not going to. I think she will throw herself into it whole-heartedly. She’ll want to know every nut and bolt in this ship. Because that’s the way she is.”

“So you still get along with her, even after more than a year of being roommates?”

“Sure. Now that I’ve slowed down my dating, she doesn’t mind letting me have the place for a date for the entire evening. I used to get the feeling she disapproved. Not anymore. She just takes her uniform to the gym, I think, and puts it in a locker until she needs to get dressed for her shift.”

“In a gym locker? Are you sure?”

“Well, no. But where else would she put it?”

Maybe in Bugalu’s closet? But that’s pure conjecture. “You’re right. Where else would she put it, if not in a locker in the gym?” He moved on, back to his office, to assign Adams to communications on the bridge for 2 A shifts a week for the foreseeable future. The lad could use some experience there.