Author's note: the Hunters are a small, tightly-knit, military-ish organization in a closed environment. The trick of military organizations is that they require a great deal of support. The so-called "tooth to tail ratio", of combatants to non-combatant support, can be 1-to-10 or even higher in modern militaries. That wouldn't work too well for the Hunters. The Hunters are a huge target, so bringing in humans would be (for robots) unethical; some human presence (at least for oversight) would be unavoidable but the instinct would be to minimize it. Worse, bringing in non-Hunter reploids would be hazardous because of the possibility of them being Mavericks. That means that all sorts of mundane tasks, from equipment maintenance to paperwork and the like, have to be done by the Hunters themselves. Submarines aren't a perfect analogy, but it's probably pretty close: you have to do everything yourself because the only people who could help are a literal ocean away from you.

All of which is to say: what follows is loosely based on true experiences. (Hint: he's an actual falcon.)

"You ready to hear something awesome?"

"Sure, give me a jolt."

"I've got eighteen hours off coming up."

"No way!"

"Way!"

Rondel gave an envious glare at his fellow operator, Blue. "I haven't gotten more than twelve hours off duty at a stretch since… my socialization, maybe. There's always training, or drills, or maintenance, or admin, or some other rusted thing. How'd you manage this?"

Blue leaned back. He laced his fingers together behind his crested head, carefully avoiding his operator's headset. "Some of us are just that good," he said languidly.

"Break down," Rondel scoffed. "You're dropping something. You've gotta be."

"Nope! I've just never, even once, volunteered for something. I only have one secondary duty, and it eats around four hours a month. I don't have any tech certs so I'm not on the maintenance roster. When admin jobs come up, I let you go-getters who want promotions catch 'em. I'm doing everything I'm asked to do… and nothing more."

Rondel frowned. "Is that how I ended up with the liaison job? Are you saying you got offered that one first?"

Blue grinned.

Rondel's hands tightened. "What about training? I know you've at least got to do your Pyrrhus refresher, that due date's coming up fast."

"Not for another week," Blue lazily riposted.

"What about your weapons qual?"

Blue laughed. "Rondel, I'm gonna let you in on a secret: no one checks operators' weapons quals. No one cares. Think about it! We're operators. We direct the Hunters with weapons. They're the ones whose quals actually matter. If we're fighting, we're toast anyway, and everyone knows it, so no one bothers to police us about the quals."

A self-satisfied smirk came over Blue's avian face. "I tell you, I've got this operator thing figured out."

Rondel scowled. "You are awful."

"Awful smart, you mean."

"The work doesn't go away just because you're not doing it."

"Sure," said Blue, "but what good does it do me to do that extra work? How is it to my benefit to bust my bolts? I can just let you weirdos who like that sort of thing handle it."

"We don't like it," Rondel said, scowl deepening, "we just realize that someone has to do it."

"Sure, sure," said Blue, unimpressed, "but I can't think of a single reason why "someone" should be me. This way functions. The work will get done. And I will be off the Floor, enjoying my eighteen hours off. I just hope I don't get bored!"

"There'll be little chance of that."

Rondel was taken aback. His mouth had been open to speak, but those hadn't been his words. Those words had come from behind. Both Rondel and Blue turned. Someone had been working on the console behind them; with the console's maintenance door open they'd never seen who it was. Now, the door went shut. As it did, it revealed a black carapace, red-and-peach flak plating, and shoulder-length blonde robot-hair.

"Alia," croaked Blue. "Didn't know you were back there. So… nice to see you."

"Is it?" the senior operator replied drily. Her expression was very much on the 'stern' side of professional. She reached down into her toolbag and retrieved a datapad. "I heard you're coming into some free time, Blue."

"That's not… er…"

"Well, what do you know," she said. "It looks like you do have a little excess capacity. Curious—no one else does. Let's take a closer look."

Tap-tap went her fingers against the pad. It was a terrifying sound for Blue. "Actually," said Blue, his voice sickly, "when I got off-shift, I was going to work on…"

"…your team reports?" Alia supplied.

"Right," said Blue, nearly collapsing in relief. "I'll be finishing up my team reports."

"Good call," Alia said, nodding. "Those are due tomorrow." Her face hardened. "But your mission reconstructions were due last week."

Blue winced as Alia's trap snapped shut on him. "Yeah, I'll work on those, too."

"And… it looks like you haven't turned in your analysis tasking. It's not delinquent yet, but you're the only one who hasn't submitted by now, so you're holding up the whole project."

"I'll get to it," said Blue, squirming.

"Yes, you will," Alia agreed. "I just locked you out of your recharge tube. It won't unlock until all of that datawork has been filed."

"What?!" exclaimed Blue. "You can't do that!"

His declaration didn't seem to register with her at all. Tap-tap. "You know, I've been meaning to shuffle secondary duties. Now's as good a time as ever. You just picked up OpSec officer and ComSec custodian. Those were Polly's second and third secondary duties—she'll be glad to be rid of them. Then she can take over Workcenter Supervisor from me, and you can take Maintenance Planner from her."

"Don't you need a class for that?" prompted Rondel, whose grin was approaching the limits of his face.

"Yeah," said Blue, but without much hope. "I haven't taken the class, I can't pick up Planner duty."

"It's a twelve-hour class held once a month," Alia said snappily. "The next offering is Tuesday. I've just signed you up for it."

Blue deflated a little more. "Thanks for making it convenient."

"No problem. Pick a technical track."

"Huh?"

"We maintain all our own equipment, you know that. Why do you think I was in that console? You were supposed to have picked a technical track and started your training weeks ago. Shame on me for losing that thread—but we'll fix that. What sort of equipment do you want to specialize in?"

"Uh…"

"Communications gear, you said? Perfect. It's a longer track, but it works well with your ComSec custodian duty. Nice synergy there. You've got three months to get your level one cert."

"But…" Blue objected, trying to remember, "doesn't… doesn't Yoko do our comms gear maintenance?"

"What if she transfers? Or gets promoted? Or dies? Or actually wants a few hours of free time every once in a while?"

No reply.

"Three months to get your level one," Alia repeated, "and six months to get your level two. Get studying."

"Yes ma'am," Blue mumbled.

"Oh, and you'll be taking your weapons requalification test in two weeks. You've been lapsed for too long, so you can't just get a renewal—you need to take the full version."

"What?" said Blue, starting. "I—I can't take the full test. I won't pass it!"

Alia's face held no pity. "Then you'd better find some time to get on the range and put in some practice hours."

"Alia," pleaded Blue, "we're operators! What operator has ever had to use their weapons training?"

"I have."

Blue had no words.

"All of us operators did, during the Second War. Mavericks raided Hunter Base to steal some tech, and they thought they'd make a detour to knock out our command and control. If this had been the First War, they might have succeeded, but we'd learned from that. We operators were able to hold the Watch Floor. We kept the Mavericks at bay until they had to withdraw. It contained the damage. It was a pretty big deal—we all got medals and everything. Hm… maybe I should develop a training product about that incident."

She appeared thoughtful for a moment, then shrugged. "Two weeks until your requal test, and if you fail it, you'll be on the range eighteen hours a day until you pass. Do we understand each other?"

"Yes ma'am," said Blue, defeated. Rondel was trying, and only partially succeeding, at keeping his laughter held inside.

"So!" said Alia, looking over the datapad one last time. "If my calculations are correct, you should have some free time in… June."

Blue stared at her.

She slid the datapad back into her toolbag, hefted the bag's strap over her shoulder, then, on her way out, whispered loudly, "You should probably get started."

When she was gone, a dazed Blue looked back at Rondel, who was shaking with suppressed laughter. "What just happened?"

"Dude!" howled Rondel. "You just got Alia'd!"