'Not particularly XO, why?' I asked, although I already knew.
'You know why.' I think we were about to have a spat, and we aren't even a couple yet.
'Let me guess, does it have anything to do with Cassandra's smile?' The tempest deflated from her sails.
'Well...' She started to say something, but quit halfway. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'It's just that Tomi...' She blanched and did not finish her sentence.
Now I see. 'Seki, since when have you ever taken advice from Tomi?' she did not answer. 'More importantly, Tomi's dead. Dead people don't give good advice.'
I love Tomi deeply still, but her advice would be to go get him. The thing is Seki and I can't do that, too many depend on us. We can't give in to our whims; chaos would be the result. It's not Seki's and my time, yet.
'Besides, I'm sure you find Cassandra as hot as I do.' She said nothing, but her face turned a brighter shade of pink.
'That has nothing to do with this,' she said.
'If you say so. But you admit she'd be a catch for any guy or girl.' I was not letting go of this till she admitted Cassandra was attractive.
She attempted a change of subject. 'That's not important, let's return to the matter at hand.'
'I agree, XO, I think it is important to discuss the fact that we haven't even got on the launch pad yet.' I was enjoying this.
'Uh... what? You fight dirty.' She said.
'Just letting you know what you're in for.' Yes, I can fight dirty.
'Fine, I give up, I give up, you win.'
'Great! So you admit Cassandra is stellar?'
'She's attractive, okay, now can we move on?' Yay, I did a victory dance in my head.
Seki's eyes were aflame, and if looks could kill, she would have spaghettified me already.
Knowing that I'd probably reached the limit of Seki's tolerance, I changed the subject.
'Alright, XO, have you spoken to Haberkorn about the situation yet?' I asked in my captain's voice.
'I haven't given him any details, he just knows that we have a meeting at ten o'clock.' Seki's voice in an instant changed to her professional one. Great, she's still in command of herself.
'Did you set it up for virtual or in-person?'
'Virtual. Are you okay with that?'
'Yes, I am, as I'm not on duty yet.'
'When will you return to active duty?'
'It will be another twenty-four hours at least.'
'Understood. I need to confirm something about SG personnel.'
'Right XO, dismissed.'
Seki saluted. I returned her salute, and she vanished.
Where was I? Then my bladder prompted me. Oh, bathroom. So I quickly tiptoed into the bathroom and emptied my bladder; I then followed this up with a crap and shower. A long shower...
After a long relaxing and wasteful shower, I stepped out and dried myself, only to remember that I have ruined my uniform from yesterday. It turned out my fears were unfounded, as there was a new set waiting for me in the tiny change room, along with a breakfast tray.
Oh, Alice. I smiled at her thoughtfulness for a moment, then began dressing. I fought on the bulky uniform and suited myself in two minutes. Two minutes was too long, as the regs said that you should be in these things in ninety seconds. Sometimes I think young people or, worse, Spec marines wrote the regs.
As soon as I had the uniform on, a suit app icon appeared on my display.
Hmm, this is new. I selected the icon, and the suit's app opened. In the application, there was a display of the suit functional units. It showed that everything was in -the green-. I searched through the app's settings to customize the suit's fit. There was a preset already stored in the app. I activated the preset, and the suit adjusted itself and fit me perfectly.
All dressed, I retrieved the breakfast tray and left the surgical unit. At the main desk, there were a few medical staffers on duty. They saluted me as I walked past, and I returned their salutes. A few steps later I was out of Main Medical and headed for the closest transport hub, which was a mere twenty seconds away.
I arrived at the transport hub and requested a pod to the officer's quarters. The system gave an ETA of five minutes, so with time to kill, I sat in a waiting alcove and ate my meal.