Grayson Navy Letters Home by Joelle Presby

Author:Joelle Presby [Presby, Joelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-02-27T10:45:01+00:00

[Reposted to Tester’s Blessings on the GSN private forum.]

[December 1921]

Suleia,

We had to put in to a Masada station today. It wasn’t the planet itself, of course. It’s just a miserable excuse for an orbital yard to pick up some parts from the Manty post and drop off a few Manty ship riders we had been carrying. It was a complete disaster. This is still supposed to be a Star Empire of Manticore protectorate, but unfortunately they let some Masadans run parts of the station.

I didn’t cry in public. I want credit for that first. And second, do not let the Moms know that there has been any crying what so ever. I don’t want to hear it about all the better career options they’ve got for me. I signed a contract. I have to live with it, even if sometimes it is awful. That is extremely important, and I can’t underline that enough, Suleia. You can never ever cry in uniform or let any of the uniformed guys see you red-eyed. Please send eye drops, by the way. I had a stock of them from Saganami Island, but after this visit, I need more. I can’t get them from medical, because then I would have to explain why they are needed. I don’t think covering up embarrassing emotions which if seen limit my ability to do the job would be something this man’s navy would be willing to subsidize anyway. Naturally, the ship’s store does not carry anything that can be gotten from the medic.

Now writing this, I just sound stupid. Quite literally nothing happened, and that nothing is what makes me so absolutely furious. I did nothing my whole watch. I had memorized all the usual docking procedure so carefully, and the station just refused to respond to me. The skipper got his back up once he realized that it was a Masadan on the orbital comms not a Manty with us having technical difficulties. He wouldn’t let anyone replace me. So I just kept parroting his announcements of what we were doing and how we were assuming clearance to dock and all this other stuff. It was really extremely rude. And my over-instruction on the comms section (the guy who was there to take over if I messed up since this was my very first time), changed our broadcast to copy to the clear, so absolutely everyone was listening.

A ship like ours is supposed to dock easily at a place like this. It should have taken about a half hour with docking connections coming out a little to meet us and a couple little robot arms with fine motor control. We did it completely without assistance. It took hours and hours, so I stayed way past my regular watch length. I’m pretty sure I scratched up the side of the docking station. When it was all over, some other GSN captains on the pair of ships already docked got on the channel and laughed it up with our captain, again, completely in the clear.

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