twitched wildly. “Did I forget something aboard the Ephraim, Sir?” Inwardly, she winced. She hadn't been allowed to have anything on the Ephraim. If Captain Ayres realized she'd kept a locker in the chiefs' mess for lunches and spare uniform bits, it could cause the chiefs no end of grief.
Captain Ayres just laughed off the suggestion. He wasn't one for detailed considerations and analysis of things. Why should he be? His life must be rather straightforward. It was just the graspers like Claire who would continually try to upset the natural order. It must be something of a continual shock to him that she even kept bothering, but he was here now and this was another opportunity . . . She hit him with her best disarm-unruly-customers smile.
She tried to squelch the doubt that added a tremble to the corners of her smile. The inner voice whispered that ineptness with customers rather than skill with machinery was why Aunt Jezzy had kept the teenage Claire occupied with broken down dishwashers instead of demanding customers.
She gamely fixed the corners of her lips and widened her eyes trying to convince herself of the hope in her own words, “You must have changed your mind then, Sir. I won't be any trouble at all. I was checking the piping diagrams around medical, since AuxO told me about the cost of the women's berthing and lavatory ship alt—”
The captain's face was wrinkling up like he'd just smelled something awful. Claire stumbled a bit, but she pushed on with her pitch, “You know, Sir, and how it wouldn't be appropriate to have a junior officer use the visiting flag officer's lavatory.”
This wasn't working, she realized midstream, but she couldn't just let it die.
Her treacherous mind insisted on replaying past errors even as she blustered on to describe how the ship could be modified in little ways to create a small, private space for one junior female officer to sleep.
Mistakes in customs and protocol with the Ephraim's officers and their wives intermeshed with the memories of Aunt Jezzy keeping her firmly in the back of any restaurant, street cart, or stall, fixing the machinery and managing inventory. Only on rare occasions, like the complete absence of all servers on a shift or an overflowing customer glut, was Claire sent out to interact with customers and attempt to take orders, fill glasses, or bus tables. But never mind the past failures, she had to make the attempt to convince Captain Ayres to take her back—to meet the Test and all that—she had to try in spite of the extra human-imposed traps added to what the divine Tester assigned every man and woman.
Claire concluded finally with, “So, anyway, Sir, I've got the diagrams in my old files in Aux Three, and I figured out a way to make a lav in the supply closet behind medical and fit in a bedrack and locker. And it won't cost many austins at all. In fact, the savings from using that other distributor for our galley supplies that I showed you a couple of months ago would more than cover it.” Claire renewed her flagging smile. Finish strong. That was important; Aunt Jezzy said so. “So, shall I take my things back onboard Ephraim? I wouldn't want to delay undocking.”
Captain Ayres just rolled his eyes.
Looking over Claire's head, he said. “Hey Phin, I just wanted to come out here and apologize to you personally.”
She looked quickly over her shoulder and felt heat pour from her face. A normal-looking master chief with somewhat scraggly hair and a slightly crooked nose stood a few steps away, but Captain Ayres hadn't been addressing him. Ephraim's CO was talking to the commander—tall and well enough muscled for a recruiting poster—wearing the maroon and gold uniform of the Protector's Own. He held a bag with the GNS Manasseh ship's crest embroidered on it, three gold rings encircled his sleeves, giving lie to the fresh face and silky gloss of close-trimmed black hair, and the name plate on his chest read: “Greentree, Phineas.”
Claire gulped. The simply gorgeous officer in the Mayhew colors of Protector Benjamin IX had to be Manasseh's CO.
Captain Ayres accepted Greentree's salute.
“I hope you'll extend my apology to Elsabeta and Annette Marie. I know my Jennie was horrified when Personnel sent a—” At this Ayres waved at Claire but mercifully left out whatever epithet he meant to affix to her. “I told the Station Commander here on Blackbird to keep her chaperoned and away