Moving On

Posted on 06/17/2023

The Redemption, Enroute to the Future Location of Defensive Wolf

Viya’s punch landed and she knew that it was a good one, she just knew.  She also knew it would be the last one she would land.  The next kick swept her legs out from under her and rolled when gravity did its thing.  The next thing she knew she was being punched repeatedly in the face as her hands tried to block to raining blows.

A whistle blew.  And the body that was on top of her was gone, she peeked through her gloved hands and saw her opponents gloved hands reaching down to help her up.  She smiled and reached out; her stronger opponent pulled up so easily.

“You tagged me with the right.”  Heng said.

Viya smiled trying not to be embarrassed, a compliment like that when she was a child would be shameful, but she was not in Bharat anymore. “It felt right when it landed.”

Heng nodded. “Now all we need to do is get you a combination that feels ‘right’, then you will be on the way to being ready for a real fight.”

Viya nodded and took a sip from her water bottle.  She wanted to complain and said it felt like a real fight as she would be nursing the bruises on her body for a week unless she could get to an auto-doc before her shift.

Heng spoke up. “You are thinking, ‘that was a real fight’ and then I am going to tell you this was not a real fight and I am going to point out we were both wearing gloves and you fell on a nice soft mat.”

Viya laughed.  “Am I that predictable?”

Heng smiled down at the smaller girl. “No, I am just the good of a teacher, it is just something all my students say, and I have been teaching you for what two months.”

Viya replied. “Two months and two weeks.”

“Leave it to a navigator to be so precise.”

Viya laughed. “Actually, it is two months, two weeks and two days, but who is counting.”

Heng threw one of her sparring gloves at her student which Viya ducked easily. “Combinations in two days, eat more protein you need more muscle.”

Viya rolled her eyes, no amount of muscle was going to get her anywhere near the raw power that Heng had.  Heng was a good foot taller than her and outweighed her by at least thirty kilos.  That is probably why Heng was a Fleet Marine and Viya was only a Navigation Tech.

One hour later Viya slid into her post on the flight bridge of the Redemption, Secondary Navigation. She looked over the tasks on her screen, consolidating the two tasks on the screens onto her main one. There was supposed to be two people in this post but it was just her today.  Max was not coming back, he was gone. Only the gods knew where he was by now.  Viya sighed. It was scary at first, if Max could just disappear than maybe anyone else could just walk away.  Max was the smartest Navigator on her team, he could create routes that took most everyone else an hour to complete he was a shoo in to be the Lead Navigator.  Viya even thought he was kind of good looking in a brainy way.  Then that morning had come when he could not be found, then the search for him.  Finally, Viya and the rest of Navigation Team was told Max had left of his own accord with a couple of others and he was now classified as a renegade.

“Viya.”

“The fifth route is the best in my opinion.” She almost shouted.

“I am glad you are so adamant about that.” Captain McMillian said in her earpiece. “That is my thoughts exactly.”

Viya heard someone giggling at another post, she chided herself for almost being caught distracted with thoughts of The Infamous Missing Max.” She buried herself in her work for the rest of shift not looking up compound her embarrassment.   It was easy to disappear on the Secondary Bridge.  She would not be under the direct gaze of Captain McMillian or whoever was the Bridge Commander.  That was one of the few perks of being on the Secondary Bridge, out of sight, out of mind. The Main or Primary Bridge sat above them with the critical posts surrounding the Command Chair.  Meanwhile the Secondary Bridge was about fifteen feet lower in the large room, so any motion would not be a distraction to the Primary Bridge positions.  The Secondary Posts had a mirror image of Primary Screens plus auxiliary screens so, if necessary, they could slide into the Primary position. The Secondary position were also supposed to do research or create alternate plans to present to the Primary Navigator.

The next day she was again assigned to Secondary Navigation, but this time she had a partner, Thimba.  Thimba was the only person shorter than her, only by an inch, but it was better than when she was growing up, she was always the smallest of her age.

“I can plot a course just as good as anyone else.”

“Oh, course you can.” Viya responded by reflex.

“So why I am always down here at Secondary?”

Viya shrugged.

“I think I am still being punished for Max.”

“No one thinks that was your fault.” Viya said looking over the course Primary Navigation had just plotted. She noted she would have gone around the far side of the moon, saving an hour in transient but saw the note about a launch of sharks.  An hour extra for the Redemption would mean two hours less for the sharks, so she understood the route better.  Wise choice from Pamela who was Primary for this shift.

“They were always stressing looking out for your ‘battle buddy’ and mine just disappears in the middle of then night, I do not see how that does not reflect on me.”

Viya shrugged.  They had had this conversation before. She had also overheard him having this exact same conversation with others as well.

“Viya.” The voice of Captain McMillian came through her comm link.

“Yes Captain.”

“Early lunch, for you and me, lets go to the range first.”

“Yes Ma’am.”

Viya had been expecting this call this week,  Captain McMillian was slowly but surely getting to know all of her bridge crew, sometimes it was a workout in the gym, or a holodeck exercise or sometimes like for her, it was shooting at the range before a nice lunch in the Captains private dining room.

The range went well.  Viya particularly enjoyed the carbine drill, she had even outshot the Captain herself with the short rifle, by three points.  The Captain’s dining room was simple but pleasant in a shade of purple that surprised her when she entered.

“Any questions.” Captain McMillian asked after she had exhausted the normal chit chat, between a commanding officer and subordinate, ‘where did you grow up, what where you doing before the Awakening, do you want to go back to Earth’  the standards questions.  Her friends who had done lunch before with the Captain had prepped her for those.

Kiya had gotten more and more relaxed as the time with the Captain progressed and she felt confident enough to ask a reoccurring question that kept popping up in her head. “How do you choose for Primary posts?”

The Captain smiled and took a sip of her tea.  “Good question and I have several criteria. First skill level. Everyone who is a Navigation Tech on the Fleet Flag ship has in abundance, there is not one person on your team that cannot do the job. Every single one of you can do the Primary position.”

“And the second?”

The Captain nodded and put down her mug of tea. “Ease of Function with other positions.  Who do navigators like yourself work with the most?”

“Helmsman or as some people call them pilot, and the second is probably Operations, typically Flight Operations.”

“Bingo.”  The Captain said. “Very good.” She sipped her tea again. “The third criteria is very nebulous.”  Another sip. “The Captain’s comfort.” Another pause. “Which is completely arbitrary and subjective.”

“That is kind of vague.”

The Captain shrugged. “Do you think my job is easy?”

Viya shook her head. “No not at all Ma’am I meant no disrespect.”

The Captain smiled. “I took none, I know you did not mean anything negative by it, you are a respectful young lady.”  The Captain’s tone went to one of an educator teaching a very serious topic. “You know my job is hard, so occasionally when I can find some way to make my job a little bit easier by putting people closest to me that I work with easier then I take advantage of RHIP.”

A confused look crossed Viya’s face.

“You have not heard of RHIP?”

“No ma’am.”

The Captain nodded. “Rank Has It’s Privileges.”

Viya thought this over for a few seconds. “I see ma’am.”

“Yes, but you know it also stands for something else as well. Rank Has It’s Pain”

Viya thought this over. “So have you picked out who your best Navigators are.”

The Captain made a complicated face, confusion, resolution, and comedy all at the same time. “Like I said, the second one Ease of Function with the other positions.  Some Navigators work great with a certain Helmsman, but not so much with Operations Techs, while some Navigators work great with Operations, but a little bit less than pilots, or maybe the Navigator works well with everyone but has trouble with a certain Helmsman.”

Kiya nodded. “So, it’s complicated huh ma’am?”

Captain McMillian chuckled. “It is a puzzle, but luckily before the fighting starts, we have months of travelling to Defensive Line Wolf to work it all out.”

“I will do my best to gain your trust then ma’am.”

“You are doing just fine Viya, still working on your aggressiveness in fighting skills?”

“Yes, with Sergeant Heng from the Marines.”

“Oh, she is a brute but a great teacher, she knocked me out during a round robin,”  the Captain said shaking her head at the memory.”  I am sure you are getting more ferocious under her tutelage.” The Captain took a breath and changed subjects. “By the way would you be interested in cross training to General Operations, then specifically Flight Operations, with a possible backup position on the Admiral’s Staff.” She said standing up and taking Viya’s tray to the replicator.

Viya was surprised as she stood as well, it had never occurred to her to cross train in another department let alone working directly on the Admirals staff. “That sounds interesting Captain.”

“Very good, talk to your Section Chief getting assigned the basic courses.” The Captain stood by the door.  “It was nice to get to know you Viya.”

Viya came to the position of attention and gave the fist to chest salute which the Captain returned. “Thank you, ma’am.” Viya practically ran back to the bridge and the rest of her shift flew by.  She scheduled an extra workout with Heng after her shift and she came up with a great jab, jab, hook, knee combination while working with the Marine Instructor.  Viya knew it was a good combo because send Heng stumbling backwards one step.