Jethro: No Place Like Home (Wandering Engineer Jethro's tale) by Chris Hechtl

Author:Chris Hechtl [Hechtl, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Self
Published: 2014-04-16T04:00:00+00:00

When Jethro woke he felt remiss, he frowned. He'd toured the whole ship but he knew he'd forgotten something, something important. As his sleepy mind probed the sore spot like a tongue probing a bit of meat stuck between his teeth, he got up and got himself squared away. Finally he realized what he'd forgotten and felt like kicking himself. His tail flicked in annoyance as he stood there near the unused bed. He closed his eyes and pulled up the ship's net and the TOE.

Oasis's Table of Organization and Equipment was depressingly short. There were four squads of Marines on the cruise liner to go along with the twenty enlisted and six officers including the two Marine officers. PFC Hart had it right; the Veraxin Lieutenant J.G. Tr'j'ck was their acting Captain. He had three other naval officers with him; one frocked from a chief petty officer from Firefly. CPO Evans was now an acting Ensign and department head of ops.

That left Jethro as senior ranking noncom on the ship. Also, apparently doing double duty as chief of the boat. Joy, Jethro thought. And apparently Spitterman was left on Firefly to deal with the noobs. Jethro wasn't sure if he should pity the good Staff, or the people under him.

He snorted at his train of thought and then got back to reading. The other two naval officers were also department heads, both former noncoms frocked to the rank of ensign. One was Ensign Winter, a small pale human female with blackish purple hair. Her skin was almost iridescent, changing in color from a pale off white to a bluish depending on her mood. Scuttlebutt said she had some water chimera genes in her history. She was their chief navigator and helmsman.

The newl- minted Ensign Rofl was a Neo chimp, a nice guy, but quiet. He'd served in various departments on Firefly and other ships, or so the grapevine said. He loved to learn but hadn't wanted officers rank; it had been thrust upon the simian. Hopefully he didn't let his new rank go to his head. He was filling in a variety of roles, but he was listed as acting XO for the ship as well.

As senior officer Lieutenant Valenko was the head of the Marine contingent as well as the ship's acting security chief. Technically the grizzly outranked the other officers on the ship, but he was a Marine, therefore he wasn't supposed to command the ship. Jethro had expected that; after all, the bear's calling was the Marines. But to his surprise he found out that each of the senior officers, including the Marines, had to man a bridge watch. He frowned. That probably had them a bit nervous, and it showed just how strained they were. He checked the other department heads and then snorted.

Ox as their most experienced engineer had been pressed into acting chief engineer, much to his amusement. Ox's squad was the second squad on the ship; half were helping the big Tauren in engineering or manning life support.

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