The Girl in the Tank: Galactic Consortium, Season 1

Episode Eight: Escape to Shin ch.5

Dan typed away on the ancient desktop computer in his new office. He paused and reread what he'd just typed. Not seeing any errors, he hit print and stood. He stretched and looked out the tiny office window across the Norfolk shipyard.

The others, long conditioned to office work, looked uncomfortable by his standing. He blushed and went to retrieve the papers he'd printed with a sigh. He sat back down and started reading them again, scanning for typos and errors before he decided to submit them for inspection.

He'd been on this new job for less than a week and he was already bored. His new CO, Senior Petty Officer Larson, was what his dad always called a glad hand, an overly friendly sort. He was overjoyed to have Dan in his department. And yes, they had a job for him, an important one at that. And he was perfectly qualified for it.

It didn't matter. This was the military and they didn't need to justify their actions, but the logic of his new assignment made it harder for him to complain.

His current assignment was to update the protocol manuals. Most were hopelessly out of date. Dan remembered from his own orientation onboard his first ship, nearly ten years ago now. The ship's protocols manual blossomed with notes in the margins. He was frequently told to ignore this section or that. Technology had changed. Mission parameters had changed. New orders and protocols had been issued. Keeping the old manuals up to date simply wasn't high enough priority.

So why not have the sailor who had just come off an active assignment as a gunner officer update that manual? It was the perfect excuse to not put him back in a ship, or let him see any top secret material. Madsen had been right, or so it appeared. Dan had talked to a few of his old crew since they got back, and it was the same everywhere. About a half dozen were working the shipyards in one capacity or another. A dozen or so had been transferred to Pensacola and at least that many were on one of the West Coast bases. Jensen was in Corpus Christi, which suited him fine since he had family nearby. Not one had an active duty assignment onboard a ship. Not one had the same classification as they had onboard the Cambridge.

Dan shoved the thought down. He tried to focus on the manual he was editing but his mind kept drifting to his new room on the base barracks. In the top drawer of his dresser was his consortium slate, waiting for him at the end of the day. It had a new feature, a bright metallic purple band, heliotrope, across it's back.

They had seen a smattering of banded slates onboard the Corelean, mostly carried by tech workers. He hadn't understood until his final day on Shoshone Station that these were anything other than decorations. Bakala had presented him the purple band, a thin strip that attached under the lid and ran across the back, as a final parting gift. It was a hyperspace relay, allowing his slate to connect to the consortium system regardless of wherever he was, anywhere in the known universe according to Bakala.

Command would probably flip if they knew he had such a device on base, but it was the only way he could stay in contact with Bakala and he wasn't about to give it up. So he kept it quiet and used it only in his off hours.

He shook his head and looked at the clock. Off hours didn't start for three more hours. Three more hours of typing a couple pages, printing it, editing it, retyping it. He rose and went to the coffee pot. He wasn't a big coffee drinker, but he had a suspicion he was likely to become one before his next enlistment period was up.

He watched the other petty officers working at their computers, their bellies showing. He wondered how they passed PT every year. As he sat he thought, when my next enlistment period is up and they ask if I want to re-enlist? He was starting to suspect the answer to that.