"Willful Ignorance"

[Col. C.E. Harper 0]

"Willful Ignorance"

Harper Log 03.14.07

August 6, 2397

Perseus Arm

 

Harper ignored the insistent comm coming not over her suit's systems, which were linked into the holoprogram, but over the shipcomm, which meant it emanated eerily from the space-darkness around them, as though the stars were speaking. If the stars spoke with the tense voice of her second-in-command, anyway. Why was she being bothered with this? At what point had her job description turned into 'hand-holding mommy'? The crew knew their jobs -- or they had better -- and they could very well do their jobs without her giving them step-by-step instructions.

 

And if they couldn't, well, perhaps it was better to know now rather than in a real crisis. If the barnacles couldn't handle something as simple as subduing a doctor (barely a step up from civilians, really) having a snit over an obnoxious civilian, then divinities all forfend the Agincourt find itself boarded by real hostiles. The Marines would just have to teach them how it was done. And if they were good, she'd even let them visit the doctors after class.

 

The image made her smile fiercely behind her helmet's faceplate, even as she made contact with the station's smooth outer hull, scrabbling for a hand-hold. Yes, it would be good to educate the barnacles in real combat; let them go long enough with soft brig-watch duty and softer token reception guard duty and they forgot what it was like to have people shooting at you. To say nothing of putting on a little pudge 'round the middle. We'll have to run them around the deck a few times first, she mused, or they'll never last through the exercises.

 

In the meantime, if Apple should happen to pick up a bruise or two, well - what harm in that? It wasn't as if they were still constrained to twenty-first century medicine; she could be healed in moments. It wasn't as if she didn't deserve a little discomfort. Mouthy little taHqeq. Welcome her to the current century with a bang; it'd be good for her disposition. And they could all just stop intruding on the first decent rec-time Harper had gotten in an age. The gym and the target range had nothing on the adrenaline rush of a full combat scenario.