Starship Armstrong - Season 3

Part 19 - Mitzner's Card Game (VI) (Gul's Story)

"Why are you looking at me like that?" asked Gul.

"Because you're the next victim," said Takahashi, grinning.

"What? Why? Chen hasn't gone yet!" insisted Gul. "And what about Mitzner?"

"I'm going last so that I don't completely overshadow everyone with my tales of epic greatness," said Mitzner.

"Just get it over with," said Solarin.

"I don't like being volunteered for things," said Gul.

"Are you going to go on about this all night?" asked McAfree. "Do you think there's a magic combination of words that will make us stop pressuring you to tell a story?"

"Fine," said Gul. "For the record I hate you all."

"Duly noted," said Mitzner. "I'll be sure to add it to the logs."

"My story also takes place on the Armstrong," began Gul, "just before the Second Battle of New Jove."

"Boo!" said Takahashi, who retained her people's complex ancestral hatred of New Jove.

-Gul's Story-

I was crewman first class at the time, not an officer, no plans to ever become one. I was just hoping to make it through the war. I wasn't exactly drafted but the colony I was living on was bad enough that I couldn't possibly say no to an alternative so I signed up under some duress.

Keep in mind this was before Exploration Fleet was spun off from Military Fleet so we were all military at the time for all intents and purposes. Black uniforms, rank grades, recruitment drives, sidearms, all that stuff. They still called it a Science Fleet but remember at this point in history the Foundation was also insisting it wasn't a government.

The Armstrong had a dozen Boudica Fighters and the ability to keep maybe eight of them in the sky at once. We weren't a carrier or anything it's just they were hastily glueing fighter bays onto anything with a relativity drive during that part of the war.

We had just gotten refitted for the fighters, refits were common as dirt then. As soon as we got these fighters in I was transferred from Engineering to the Fighter Bay. This was back when the Armstrong had a Fighter Bay. Take the Shuttle Bay, pull out the second gardens and the guest suites, and allocate all that space to one giant Fighter Bay and you have an idea of what the layout was.

Since we hadn't ever used fighters in the past all the fighter pilots were new to the ship. Nobody knew any of them. So we're in the Bay working on the ships, minding our own business, and in walks this woman in a civilian clothes. She has an extinct hair color and she's so tall the top of my head only comes up to her chin. She's visibly pissed.

She's not even in a flight suit and right away I know she's a pilot. It was a safe bet any woman in the Fighter Bay who I didn't recognize from the engineering team was going to be a pilot anyway. For some reason like 90% of all fighter pilots are women. And that's a low estimate. I have no idea why but it's just true. Trust me on this.

"It has to do with how reaction speed when switching tasks is exacerbated in an AI-assisted fighter," said Mitzner. "Women on average tend to have a fraction of a second advantage over men in this area so this means the elite of the elite are almost all women."

"Hey," said Takahashi, "this is supposed to be-"

-Gul's Story-

She might actually have some insight into the story because I'm sure I don't have to tell you that pilot I'm talking about was Mitzner.

So like I said she's pissed off and she's coming right for me. I'm under the fighter changing some module or other, who remembers, so I slide out and stand to greet her.

I started to say "Can I help you?" or something like that and I don't even get it out before she's tearing into me. Who do I think I am? Do I have any idea what I've done? I've ruined a bespoke fighter that might not be replacable before the end of the war... She's laying the lives of the people who will die in the battles we will lose beacuse her fighter is crogered at my feet. I'm basically a war criminal, I should be spaced for sabotage, etc. etc. etc.

"Did they really used to space people for sabotage?" asked Wagner.

"Oh yeah," said Mitzner. "Sabotage on a starship threatens the lives of everyone aboard. Spacing is too good for them."

I choose to believe that Mitzner was just being hyperbolic and didn't actually want me killed.

So it's the worst chewing out I've ever had in my entire life. Things were said that I won't repeat in polite company. It got dark. Weirdly personal and dark. So I'm like, wow, I just have really borked this up for her to be this mad at me. I'm worried what my superior officer is going to think. So I ask her to show me the damage and I'll see if there's anything I can do to fix it.

Well she leads me over to a shiny new Boudica in perfect running order. Better than perfect. They don't come out of the factory tuned up this well. It was even clean, inside and out. I can't find a thing wrong with it.

So I ask her what the problem is, and this just enrages her further. I'm incompetent, how did I ever get certified as an engineer, so on and so on. So eventually it comes out that she's upset about the sensitivity of the controls. So I get in the fighter and flip it into test mode. I try the controls. They're calibrated perfectly just like everything else.

I point this out to her and she loses her mind. They're not perfect they're not nearly sensitive enough. It's like trying to fly a blindfolded elephant. It takes special facilities to re-calibrate the controls to be sensitive enough for the model S. This thing was as clunky as a Type II.

So I say this is a Type II. And she's like what?

I repeat myself. This is a Boudica II. We moved the Model S because whoever was assigned to it kept parking it in the wrong spot.

She turns the color of a cheap artificial apple. Starts apologizing profusely. I had a lot of respect for that. I was really expecting some kind of face saving move. Instead she insisted on buying me a drink.

And that's how Lieutenant-Commander Mitzner and I became friends.