Pilot's Flask - a bar on LA

[Jane Hartman]

"I take a healthy interest when half the crew of one of my ships turns up looking like they just went eight rounds with a mountain lion." A dry laugh slipped through. "I don't think base medical knows what to do to fill the time anymore,without you there to break noses. Felix says they've almost had enough sleep this past month." Felix Marchant, Chief Medical Officer to the Battleship Missouri, was a minor celebrity in the ranks of the Navy. Rumor went that he'd personally treated half a platoon of Marines, while under fire, when a boarding action went awry.

"Never know with the brass." Even as a senior officer herself, Hartman still harbored an infantryman's distrust of high command. "I wouldn't hold your breath on a reply. It's hard enough getting things through from our side. Not sure they couldn't use some of that 'discipline' of yours." She shrugged and let the matter drop. It wasn't worth brooding over things beyond her control. Not that it had ever stopped her before.

"Shame how Defmir went." Moping in a hospital bed was a poor end, no matter who you were. For a soldier who had spent her whole life in the profession of arms, it was almost insulting. "I ain't too sold on trash-talking, but if it's that or Fuchs, I'll go with Defmir every time." She balled a fist in exasperation. "The man's taken to operating on first name basis with everyone during operations. Hell, if he wants to call his secretary Betty or some other rubbish in the privacy of his own office, that's his business, but when he's prancing about shrugging off compliments and treating the flight deck like the O's club, it's a right pain for the rest of us. I can't go correcting an Ensign when the Admiral's doing it, can I?

Give him another month and it'll be 'Hey, Jane. When you've got a few, could you see about chasing down that destroyer, if it's not too much trouble.' You'd think he'd at least have efficiency covered. Heard the Rheinlanders were meant to be decent at that."

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