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Chapter 4 - The Advisor[]
Visiting Officer's barracks"
Durna Naval Shipyard
Durna System
Lyran Commonwealth
3155
Lt. Hallwell was the assigned medical officer for the Federated Suns observer team, and she took the job seriously for a host of reasons. One of them, being flight Lieutenant Francois LaFayette, whose habits mirrored his 'Mechwarrior father and 'Mechwarrior grandfather rather enough to require regular checks for venereal disease, as well as frequent treatments for hangovers.
"You didn't catch anything from her, at least." Hallwell said, laying the test paperwork, "But yeah, you should definitely avoid the green stuff around here. That was about one forty proof, practically rocket fuel."
"How would you know that?"
"I had some." she said, "Not as much as you did, but I had some. You'd be safer drinking engine-bay slash-at least that stuff doesn't taste good or leave borderline toxic residues in the digestive tract."
She finished her examination, "So...struck out, huh?"
"How-"
"Because we all knew it would happen sooner or later, Frankie-your aviator wings failed to pry her legs apart, didn't they?"
Not the story she told.. he pushed the thought down, because the story she told was actually more humiliating.
"Just...didn't click." he said. "It happens."
"Yes, it does." Halwell said, "However, now I get to meet the only other woman I know of who didn't fall for your good looks and roguish charm. She didn't like girls, did she?"
"No.." he said, "The timing was just...poor."
"Hmm...likely story." Hallwell remarked
wait, waitaminute..."What do you mean you 'get to meet her'?"
She tapped a stack of file folders, "Shot records, vaccinations, medical stuff." she said, "Lieutenant Commander Anh C. McCoy will be returning with us to the Federated Suns as part of the diplomatic party. I guess you can try again. Her files make interesting reading."
"May I?"
"You most certainly may not, you naughty boy! I'm sure you'll get the copy you can read before we embark for home...now get out of my office, you're clean. Stay that way!"
He took his dismissal in style, and left the office.
A few meters down the corridor, and he was in Captain Gracie's office.
"Oh, good, Lieutenant, I was about to call for you. Here, some light reading on your little...misadventure." the Captain handed him a thick file folder. 'I would say you ****** up but, you didn't ****** her." Gracie added with a sharp laugh.
He opened it. The first page was a summary of Lt. Commander Anh C. McCoy's service awards.
A career extending from Coast Guard ground forces service in the Quarantine Zone, including; Notations and citations from roles ranging the gamut from fighting forest fires to putting down riots on three worlds, a brief transition to Shipboard service, notes on education as something called an RTO, engineering officer...navigation officer, a note that made no sense recognizing her for a nine second transition jump..."What is this?" he asked.
"That means she pulled a ship through a transitory jump point that only lasts nine seconds."
"That's not possible-"
"It's possible. rare, but possible." Gracie assured him, "Those points are measured in meters, not kilometers. To do it, you have to disable all the safeties and the navigation computer...and you have to be really good at hyperspace mathematics."
"but...that means she's...intelligent." Francois said, "I mean, really intelligent."
"Gets better, read the after-action reports in the lower file. She took on a Clanner warship with one of those tinker-toys we've been looking at...and got credit for the kill. You've got, what? Six, seven Drac fighters in dog fights? They're giving us a fekking Ace as an advisor. Three pocket warships, one Aegis class cruiser, a dozen dropships...I don't honestly know why they'd let that kind of talent out."
"She sounded so...crude." he couldn't piece together the person described in the file, with the (admittedly pretty) young woman in the bar, or the grumpy (but still pretty-ish) hillbilly in the drunk tank.
"Yeah, an Arlunan." Gracie told him, "From a backwater on that backwater. See these notes? she's proficient at writing in four languages-English, German (obviously), Spanish, and Vietnamese. A kid like this, from a world like yours? would be teaching at the academy with a record like this...and she's getting a staffer tour off of a glorified torpedo boat."
"You are showing me this for a reason."
"Yes, yes I am. You're going to be her French Tutor and help her with that atrocious accent with her English on the trip home, because she doesn't speak French, and BARELY speaks English. Most of our officers back home have zero chance of comprehending Hillfolk dialect and nobody outside the Capellan March has a chance of grasping Vietnamese!"