Who Is Willing by M.C.A. Hogarth

Author:M.C.A. Hogarth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Studio MCAH

Her week was mostly quiet—unfortunately, because Wyn was no longer talking to her, and while Sar met her every day, often with the Platies, the mood in the water environment was obviously tense. Alysha kept an eye on the engineering team’s work remotely, as best she could with her security clearances, but all she could gather was that Beringwaite was in fact interacting with the engineers, and that they were logging tests, and that the tests had inconclusive results.

The only excitement of the week came near the end of it, when the Songlance stripped one of Fleet’s Well repeaters and discovered a part in need of replacement. The bridge oversaw the repair, but everyone on the auxiliary bridge was given someone to shadow. Alysha watched “virtually” over the shoulder of the comm technician during the job, admiring how easy everyone made it look. Engineering scanned the part number, checked Stores for a spare, and had a genie create it from the pattern database when no physical part was located onboard. The EVA team swam out to the repeater on the tethers connecting them to the ship, giving the required fifteen minute status updates... nearly unnecessarily, because they needed only twenty to pop out the faulty bit and put in the new one. They stayed by the repeater while the comm tech pinged it, in case it needed a hard restart... but hot swapping the part had sufficed to solve its problem. The comm tech ran the standard tests, received the expected results, and reported the successful repair to the captain. The cables spooled the EVA team back inside, the incident was logged and pushed for archive, and the ship resumed its journey.

That repair was on her mind when she presented herself to Lovelace for her weekly meeting, and maybe a little too obviously because after running through the standard questions, Lovelace considered her and then leaned back, folding her hands on her ribs. “Something on your mind, then, Lieutenant?”

Alysha looked up, guiltily. And then, feeling her expression giving her away, stopped trying to hide it. “It’s easy to trust people to do their jobs when they do them well.”

That won her a cocked eyebrow. “Go on.”

“What if they don’t, though? How do you know if it’s because the task’s more complicated than it looks, or if they’re just not the right person for the job?”

The other brow went up now, joining the first. Not surprise, Alysha thought. Or at least, not shock. “You’ve discovered that managing people who do things you don’t understand is harder than it looks.”

“Is that what it is?” Alysha asked, ears flipping back.

“Yes,” Lovelace said. “And since you’ve opted for command track, that’s going to be your cross to bear for the rest of your career.” She grinned. “But you’re asking the right questions, and earlier than some do. That’s a good sign.”

“Then... there’s an answer?”

“There are as many answers as there are people managing subject matter experts,” the woman replied. “One of them is going to work for you.

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