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The Great and The Good (A Great Captain Roberts Tale!!)
Chapter 22 - Address[]
Johnny opened…
…his eyes. white walls…white ceiling…
"Hey."
He turned his head. Amanda Roberts was sitting in a wheel-chair. "Welcome back, Middie." she said. "You took a couple bad hits, I think I need to find out about getting you some armor."
"I'm alive..?"
"I'm not a hallucination, so yeah, you made it." she said. "Doctors say you're going to take a few months to get back to a hundred percent, but they managed to patch the holes and top you up, so you didn't bleed out or drown."
"Hurts." he said.
"Yeah, getting shot hurts. They've got you on the good drugs." she said, and adjusted her position. "Every time." she ran a finger on his forehead. "Thing about the good drugs, is people talk. You talked."
"About…"
"About why you're getting transferred." she said, "When you're up again. Rules are rules for a reason, and one of the big ones, is that a Captain doesn't date her crewmen, but when you're up again? After you've got some time?" she levered herself up, and planted a kiss on his forehead. "The answer will be 'yes', I like you too." she sat back down, and signaled someone from out of his field of view.
A short man, with a large head, stepped into view, gray hair and a Snow Raven uniform.
"This is Captain David Foster, Johnny, he's getting the next ship in the service, the Illusive, you'll be working for him." Amanda explained, "That way we're not tangling personal business with the job. Captain?"
The Aerospace Phenotype folded his arms, "I have heard good things about you, John, It will be several months before the Illusive is complete, so you have time to recover, in the meantime, I have a course of study for you while you recover from your wounds, and I have discussed your physical therapies…Captain Roberts, If I may have some time to brief my new midshipman?"
"Of course Captain." she gripped John's hand, "Get better, okay?"
And then wheeled out.
"I have seven months to get you from dirt-farmer to spacer." David explained, "This is a favor I am doing, you are a project. Do you understand, quiaff? Nod if speaking is difficult."
Johnny nodded.
"We will begin with basic rules of shipboard operations…"
"You were joking…
…right?" Samuel asked as Amanda wheeled back to the elevator.
"No." she said. "I…Mister Samuel, I'm 'The Great Captain Roberts', but I'm also Amanda. This trip taught me that, at least, it's something Larry and Lori and YOU even tried to remind me of over and over again, and Desmond even tries to point out." she sighed, "Means there are personal connections I have whether they're convenient or not."
"The mudfoot?"
"He's cute, close to my age, and has a monster crush." She said, "look at me." she pointed to her face, "This is not the face that launched a thousand ships, Mister Samuel, and seeing me let Desmond out to play didn't scare him off…so that's worth giving him a shot, but I can't give him that shot when we're on mission and I need my officers and crew to be doing their jobs instead of mooning."
"You sound like every spacer Cap I've ever known." Samuel observed.
"Some things have to be universal." she stated, "I can't be making the choice of who takes a stupid risk with me based on feelings or Affection...but I'm human, so, as a human, I need an outlet for that side or I get less effective, which is bad. It gets people killed."
"The attack on the bar."
"I wasn't 100% 'on' and it cost us five civilians dead and seven wounded." she answered. "I should've been able to spot their setup before, but I lapsed, I ought to have had some of the Crew with me as backup, but I acted like I was 'safe' even though objectively, I knew it wasn't safe, because I'd already been abducted from home once before!" she jerked a thumb back the way they came, "Johnny's in intensive care because I was 'off', Sam-he should be walking around whole and they've got plastic substitute organs while regrowing some of his internals because I wasn't on my A-game."
"So there's a little guilt there." he said.
"Maybe more than a little. I got him involved, and I can't afford to see it through personally, which is why I leveraged to get him assigned to Illusive now that he's enlisted…because I know Foster won't be as intensely involved in him, won't have the guilt I have, won't have the feelings...but is committed to the concept and the Letter."
~~~~The End~~~~
Story Continues with the next book in the series, Strategos.