Emerald Flight: “Human Factors” (continued)

Elizabeth studied herself in the mirror, considering, once again, whether she should have her hair cut until a shorter style.

Not as short as the Captain or Hope, she cautioned herself.

She nearly shuddered at the thought of trimming her own tresses to that short a length.

Except for one ill-considered period during her middle school days, when she had, in what she now admitted to as a partial act of defiance toward her father, had it cropped to a spiky style that barely reached down to her shoulder, she had always worn her hair straight and long. There were, of course, formal occasions, proms and such, when she might style and curl it, but she mostly wore it long, brushed down straight, and pulled back into a simple ponytail.

Elizabeth could see the advantages in the commander of a vessel having an easy-to-manage hair style. She also noted that Devereux did manage to wear the short hair style well, at least based on both the male and female attention that the Captain received when she was off the ship. Elizabeth could only guess whether any members of the crew carried similar thoughts as well. At least, none of them had voiced any in Elizabeth’s presence. In any case, the Captain was, well, The Captain.

And I’m the First Officer now.

Staring at her image in the mirror, Elizabeth tried to envision how she might look with some of the alternate hair styles she had considered. It was difficult for her to imagine, for they were all such significant departures from how she had always worn her hair. In her mind’s eye, all she could see was that they all made her look older or, perhaps worse, more mature. She was not prepared for any of that, rank or not.

With a light sigh, she reached back and snapped it back into its standard ponytail, checked the lines of her uniforms, and glanced at the chronometer.

Damn it!

She had two minutes before she was due to report to the bridge for duty.

“Stop the daydreaming,” she scolded herself.

Grabbing her tablet from the desk, she nearly dropped it when her fingers skidded along its surface when she misjudged the distance. Still fumbling to get a firm grip on it, she sprinted for the hatch.

When she arrived on the bridge, Elizabeth saw that she was thirty seconds late for the start of her shift. No one seemed to notice, and most of the other officers and crew members were busy transferring information from their counterparts from the previous shift. She glanced toward the command deck to find Devereux, who was the one most likely to notice her tardiness, even if she did not remark on it, looking uncharacteristically grim.

Elizabeth glanced at the wraparound bridge display the bridge, and then again at the crew members who were present. The level of activity did seem slightly heightened, but she had attributed that to the usual bustle associated with the shift change. She saw nothing that indicated any particular threat to the ship or its crew. Frowning slightly, she headed toward the command deck.

As she passed the secondary Science station, the young ensign there turned and called toward the command deck, nearly colliding with Elizabeth. She hesitated for a moment, and then gave her report to the Captain.

“Captain,” Chien said. “Chief Rayna is on his way to the bridge. I’ve transferred a copy of the cargo manifest to, um, this tablet.” She stared down at the tablet in her hand, her cheeks brightening.

Elizabeth managed to suppress most of a smile. “I’ll take that for you,” she offered gently, holding out her hand.

Chien glanced down at the tablet, then up at Devereux, back at the tablet, and then up at Elizabeth.

“I’ll deliver it to her,” Elizabeth told Chien, smiling and chuckling silently. “I promise.”

“Yes, sir,” Chien agreed, if still somewhat reluctantly.

She released the tablet into Elizabeth’s proffered hand. Elizabeth glanced down at it, unable to read the displayed at that distance.

Cargo manifest?

Her stomach seemed to drop several centimeters. Her eyes turned toward the main hatchway.

The Chief.

She felt her heart sink.

Oh no . . .

Since rejoining the crew since the ship’s refit, the Chief had demonstrated a remarkable devotion to duty and integrity. Elizabeth had never been certain what had fostered the change in him, but she often wondered just how deeply it had taken root.

Reaching the command deck, she waited beside the desk while Devereux completed entering a series of commands into the console. Uncertain whether the Captain was aware of her presence, as unlikely as that might be, she said, “Captain?”

“One moment, Commander,” Devereux cut her off without looking up.

The sharp edge in the Captain’s tone almost made Elizabeth take a step back until she realized that it did not seem have to been directed at her. Both women looked toward the main hatch as it opened and the Chief Engineer strode inside. He paused just inside the bridge with his hands on his hips, sweeping his gaze across the interior of the bridge as it were his own private domain.

He’s got presence, Elizabeth admitted wryly. I’ll give him that.

Rusty turned toward the command deck and waved jauntily, as if unaware of the tension that lay thickly across the atmosphere of the bridge. His strides carried him quickly across the bridge to the command deck, making his way up the ramp and to Elizabeth’s side in less time than she thought she could have managed to sprint across it.

“Forget your passcode again, Captain?” he grinned, flashing wide white teeth at both her and Elizabeth.

Devereux aimed a look at him that could have pierced steel. Rusty appeared unaffected and began tapping at the controls on the command console. The results that he achieved were hardly better than what the Captain had managed to accomplish. Rusty’s expression faded into a frown. Devereux appeared almost smug in return.

“Is that manifest?”

It took Elizabeth a moment to realize that Devereux was asking her. She looked down dumbly for a moment at the tablet in her hand before passing it over to the Captain.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Devereux lifted the tablet, activated its display, and studied its contents closely. Elizabeth watched both her eyes and expression, but neither of them changed much, other than perhaps to convey a sense of even deeper puzzlement.

“It’s locked down tight, Cap’n,” Rusty reported, interrupted the Captain’s reading. ‘Someone’s either scrambled the codes good, or it forgot who ya are.”

His remark earned Rusty a somewhat less scathing look from Devereux. This time, though, Rusty did not attempt to laugh it off.

“Lizzie,” she said to Elizabeth. “Let’s see if it’ll accept your codes.”

Elizabeth looked at the Chief Engineer with mild confusion, wondering why he had not tried his own codes first.

It took her only a moment to realize that he probably had. While he had many years of experience, his actual position in the command hierarchy of the vessel was not all that high. The authority of his command override codes was actually quite low. Aside from herself, other bridge officers had probably been granted higher level authorization than the Chief had.

Even Hawkes had . . .

Elizabeth looked around the bridge, her gaze settling on the Tactical station. The young woman sitting behind the console could in no way be mistaken for the Chief Tactical Officer. Gender differences aside, perhaps the only similarity between the two officers were perhaps in their eye color—and only because Elizabeth could not remember what color eyes Lieutenant [] had. Those belonging to Lieutenant Hawkes were, of course, gray-blue.

Where was he?

Although the shift had officially ended several minutes ago, Hawkes typically stayed at least ten minutes into the next shift to ensure that the transition had gone smoothly. The duty roster for the Tactical and Security teams had changed recently, due to Ensign Cortez needing to be removed from active duty for a few days in order to recover from a tumble she had taken on the Engineering Deck. Hawkes had volunteered to fill the uncoveted slot during the “night” shift, leaving his usual shift to be filled by Lieutenant Karr for the time being. Still, Elizabeth had expected to still find the Chief Tactical Officer present when she arrived.

Devereux’s personal comm unit chimed. Without looking, she switched it into public mode to accept the call.

“Captain,” an oddly flat voice came over the speaker. “The hatch to Cargo One is jammed. It’s not accepting any of our security codes and we can’t get it open manually.”

Devereux swore, quietly, but loud enough that Elizabeth heard her. While the Captain had been known to resort to profanity on rare occasions, Elizabeth was surprised that these circumstances seemed to warrant such an outburst, as subtle as it was.

“Chief,” Devereux said turning toward Rusty. “Get an Engineering team down there.”

“On it, Cap’n.”

“Commander,” the Captain looked toward Elizabeth, her expression tight with frustration. “You have the bridge. Continue to coordinate efforts from here.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Elizabeth opened her mouth again to inquire further, for she had no idea exactly what the situation was. From her perspective, it sounded like a simple malfunction of the cargo bay’s hatch controls.

Devereux regarded at her with a look that ended all further conversation.

“I need to talk to Hope.”

As if that were explanation enough, she exited the command deck and left the bridge.

Elizabeth watched her leave, waiting until the main hatch had closed again before turning back to face Rusty. She remained wholly confused.

“Chief . . . ?”

“Yeah?” he replied, still trying to tap out commands on the otherwise unresponsive surface of the command console.

“What’s going on?”

It took a moment before Rusty stopped what he was doing and regarded her. His initial glance was mildly suspicious, as if she might be toying with him, then his face took on an amused, if puzzled expression.

“It seems,” he said, “that the Ol’ Fossil has finally flipped his lid.”

#

Rusty wished that he could feel as amused as he portrayed himself by the situation. In fact, he more than just a little deeply concerned—not that he would ever let it show.

By the Morris, for all his spit-and-polish, by-the-regs, pain-in-the-ass attitude, the man’s a fine and decent officer. Not too many of to go around.

After attempting to unlock the console with every override code sequence he knew of (including a few that he should not have known) without success, he conceded silent defeat and started to call down to Engineering for someone to bring him a toolkit when he remembered that there were emergency ones stashed at few key locations on the bridge. Mainly, he just wanted to be able to open the console, not completely rewire it—although the latter was definitely tempting under the circumstances.