Incursion Vector

015

Having spent the past ten minutes trying to use her disappointed motherly stare to get her attention, Calli finally slammed her hand over the top of Nim's computer to force her to recognize her presence. "Hi there. Stop calling Vic 'replacement guy'. He thinks you hate him."

"Hate's a little strong-I'd stick with indifferent."

"Well your indifference is annoying the hell out of me. And Karda. And Damien. But they're too nice so I'm calling you on it."

"I don't do it out loud," Nim retorted, stealing her computer back from beneath her palm so she could continue memorizing the layout of the SIF's backup power systems. "When he's around."

"What're you going to do after we pick up the new Proteus pilots we're supposed to be assigned when we join the new battle group? Are you just going to start labeling them Alpha through Zulu?"

"What's wrong with that?"

"It makes you a bitch, that's what."

"We were fine how we were."

"You can't operate a strike carrier during war with a skeleton crew; it's tactical suicide. And we were down to half a skeleton crew after they had to redeploy all the sub-fives to Clarke and Herbert."

She sighed and looked across the table at her friend. Calli's off-blue eyes rimmed by the quicksilver-colored implants that allowed her to process the visible light spectrum were staring right back at her with a hard angry shadow around them. "I'm coping with it, all right? Get off my back."

"No, I'm going to cling to your back like those monkeys they have at Damien's place until you grow the fuck up. Don't think I won't."

"That's... really creepy." She flashed the Athena pilot a sneering grin. "But you're short enough."

"A short Y-axis makes it easy to snap space sticks like you in half when they piss me off." She leaned forward with both elbows on the table, not carrying over any sort of ill will about the snipe at her height. Calli had known her too long to take any insults like that seriously, particularly when they came from Nim any time she had her face in a technical manual. "Did you see the little white and black one Damien's sister had on her shoulder all the time? It was adorable-but can you believe we evolved from things like that?"

"I know," mused Nim, slouching back in her chair and slinging her arms over the back. "Evolution screwed us. Do you know what I could do with a prehensile tail?"

From then on the two engaged in a heated and almost scholarly debate about how useful and useless prehensile tails would be to spaceflight and CIC operations. When Damien, Karda and Leo walked in after their showers they gave the two women looks that said they clearly believed their fellow pilots had descended into insanity. They got the same apprehensive stare from the replacement guy when he joined them a half hour later, but eventually he joined in and offered his two bytes. Apparently Vic's parents were exobiologists off studying the blue four-armed space monkeys that had been discovered in the Centarus Arm a decade ago. He knew a hell of a lot about evolution for a guy who, according to his records, barely passed every biology and chemistry class he'd taken on the Niven.

"Attention all hands this is the Captain," came Michael's voice over the shipwide com. Immediately their entire animated conversation ceased and everyone stilled themselves to listen. "Prepare to exit bridgespace and rendezvous with the Tiaha Migrant Fleet in zero five mikes. Assume damage control state two condition Bravo." The source of his voice switched over to their personal computers instead of the ship speakers. "Flight Methuselah, Flight Errant, mount up for load out. Captains Yutani and Shalimov, secure com Juliet with me."