“Ah Mr Gnash, so good of you to join us at last,” Captain Keene drawled mockingly. He was a spare man, six feet and with slightly pudgy features that belied his preference for heavy diet and the lessening of physical activity that came with his rank. His retreating scalp and bulbous nose gave him a vaugle canine look that matched his personality perfectly. Keene was an older man in his late forties who had spent the entire war out here in the outer territories while other officers gained promotion and acclaim in the central theatres. He resented fate, he resented the navy and most of all he resented his two Lieutenants, both of whom had seen action enough during the war to earn themselves postings in the much downsized peacetime fleet. Though his remak suggested they had been waiting for some time, Mave had only preceded Gnash by a few seconds. 

The bridge of the Maddie, as the crew nicknamed the ship, was ten meters wide and roughly circular. A raised dais with ring of consoles surrounded it save for the foremost section which housed a high definition holographic display. A star ship had no need to see the space infront of it, as manoeuvring room was theoretically unlimited and the sensors provided better data orders of magnitude greater than what the naked eye could hope to gather and naval architects saw no need to expose a ships COC behind so flimsy a shield as glass or transparent steel. The holographic viewport was remoting the feed of one of the sensors and displaying a pixel perfect replica of the view from the dorsal A sensor battery that was located directly above the bridge. It showed the harbor of Paradise and a section of the town beyond, twinkling with lights that rippled off the sea between the quay and the docked starship. 

A trio of officers were at their stations, though all save the XO, a sour faced man named Halberstadt, at least pretended to be preoccupied with their duties. They were in a safe port with a developed harbor and a rudimentary orbital watch, so those duties likely consisted of catching up on paperwork or personal reading, mostly they were just there because the regs required the ship have at least a minimal anchor watch. Halberstat was an unpleasant man, though his hatred was more general and thus somehow more bearable than Keene’s.

“Well I see we have a spacer pretending to be a marine and a marine pretending to be a spacer,” Keene drawled, evidently very pleased with the jibe. Mave bristled at the barb but kept her face professionally impassive. She had started out her military service with a vacuum commando unit, an elite force intended to board ships in orbit, or to undertake other sensitive zero-g operations. Vac commandos had alot of the same technical skills as spacers, though they tended towards the technical side for sabotage and capture of enemy vessels. Mave had been good at the job, good enough that she had been given a slot in an advanced OCS designed to fill the leadership vacuum in a rapidly expanding war time fleet. Mave had jumped at the chance, hoping to return to the Vac Commandos as an officer, but her scores at OCS had shifted her into a signal intelligence program that pushed her onto a career track in the regular fleet. Despite a number of conscious and unconscious attempts to get busted back the VC, here she remained. Keene certainly knew that and was using it to twist the knife of his own petty grudge. 

“Sir,” Mave and Gnash spoke at once in an the identical fleet response, the refrain of the put upon junior officer dealing with the abuse of their superiors.  Keene looked slightly disappointed at the lack of reaction.

“You are my operations officer are you not Ms Cyckali?” he asked, abruptly beginning to pace back and forth in front of the two Lieutenants.  

“Yes Sir,” Mave responded, keepng her eyes locked on the hatch combing of the starboard entry port rather than following the stalking Captains progress.

“Ah, I see, and as my operations officer is it not your duty to inform me of any operational developments?” Keene sneered triumphantly.

“Uhh.. Yes Sir..” A sinking feeling was very rapidly balling up in her stomach. Keene produced a hard copy sheet and waved it around like a victorious battle flag.

“Then how does it come to be that I learn that an AU citizen has been taken prisoner on Lout Shai, from the officer manning the comms station!” Though he had started the sentence in a reasonable tone, he was screeching by the end of it. Mave very deliberately told herself that whatever she did, she should not say she was in the infirmary.

“I was in the infirmary sir,” her traitours mouth declared without missing a beat