Chains of Command

[Boss]

It was Fred Hamilton who first told me I was on the list, high and proud, of possible new Deputies. Ill admit, it was kind of a shock. I never considered myself command material before, but the prospect was intriguing. I hit the books hard. There's a lot of things a Deputy needs to know that a Captain doesn't, it turns out. Things like who can fly what, and where, and when. I used to get a list of things to assign and complete by the end of a day. Now there was a chance I'd be making the lists.

The stress really sort of got to me in that time. I was trying to keep my head above water with regards to my other duties, as well as observing O'Brian and Agathon, trying to figure out what they did that I didn't and that made the entire LPI run like a well-oiled machine. I studied hard, trying to absorb the information as fast as possible. I got perhaps three or four hours of sleep a night. Circles around the eyes, haggard, pale. I looked like I'd been run over a few times with a transport. I don't know how I managed, but I did, somehow.