Ha this is the part where James pissed Jade off... I think.

Sixty Two

By the time they climbed down the forward staircase and approached the dining room, it was well into twilight and the air conditioning had finally started making inroads into cooling the ship down. Jade felt comfortable in her short sleeved shirt and jeans, and after their improbably shared shower she felt refreshed and ready to take on the night.

Trotting along beside her. Tori appeared to have recovered her energy as well and was in a good frame of mind as they crossed the threshold and entered the dining hall. Instead of jeans, she'd chosen a pair of carpenter's pants complete with a hammer loop that Jade found almost too cute for words.

A buzz of sound made them both look up, and they realized they were joining a larger crowd than anticipated, in surroundings that almost upheld the ship's tarnished glamour.

Jade slowed, and looked around, mildly surprised. The huge room was in better condition than she'd expected, its ceiling reaching up through two decks and the back wall entirely made of glass windows that showed a nice view of the receding Port of San Francisco behind them.

The carpet was new, apparently freshly installed, and the tables were covered with linen and neatly set with silverware. Along the back side of the room a large buffet line had been set up, and behind that the caterers were busy setting up to serve the food they'd brought with them.

The room was filling up with crew, most of them fairly young, all of them dressed casually and the atmosphere was relaxed and far more friendly than it had been up until now. They had been treated with courtesy while they were onboard, but the crew had made it obvious that they were encroaching on their space.

The WesTrek staff were in small clusters, mingling warily with the crew and attracting the attention of the women especially. Jade nudged Tori as Sinjin was surrounded by a pair of blondes and brunettes. "Think we should rescue him?"

Tori chuckled. They started walking towards the small group, but then they were spotted and the WesTrek team started heading towards them at the same time.

It was interesting. Tori watched the eyes of the crew follow the techs, detecting a touch of envy there. In a way, she could almost see a parallel between the two groups – like the ship employees, her techs had their own hierarchy and like the officers of the ship, her team looked to their leadership for direction, protection, and reassurance.

The big difference of course was that the ship's senior officers were all men. She and Jade were decidedly all women.

"Everyone get settled all right?" Jade stopped on the last step down into the hall, waiting as all the techs gathered around her.

"Yeah, pretty much." Sinjin answered for them. "It's pretty cool. We all got windows." He sounded agreeably surprised. "But man, those bathrooms are tiny! If you had your family with you, showers would freaking take all morning."

Jade looked at him, and cocked an eyebrow. She glanced at Tori, who studiously gazed off into the distance. "Ahem. Right." She cleared her throat.

"Anyway, it's all cool." Sinjin assured her.

"Good." Jade put her hands on her hips. "Here's the plan." She said, "Everyone get a good dinner, relax, and then we start distribution."

"We've got everything lined up in the lobby." Sinjin agreed.

"Atrium."

They turned to see Tori's old friend Talley standing there. He coughed and blinked self deprecatingly. "It's the atrium. We don't have a lobby." He explained. "We don't have bathrooms, we have heads, and we don't have rooms, they're cabins or quarters."

Some of the crew had drifted over, and were listening.

"Okay, the atrium." Sinjin amiably corrected himself, then returned his attention to Jade. "We unboxed everything before we went and changed."

"Um.. excuse me." Talley interrupted again. "Can I ask a question?"

Jade leveled her gaze at him. "Sure. Shoot." She said, "But if you want to have a jargon contest, I'm willing to bet I can beat you at it, especially since I grew up on a Navy base and know more names for the gear on one of these damn things than you have short hairs."

Talley blinked at her. "Uh."

"You had a question?" Jade pressed him, raising both eyebrows meaningfully.

"Jade." Tori bumped her gently. "What is it, Talley? Jade's just grumpy because she hasn't been fed." She ignored the outraged look from her partner.

Encouraged, Talley turned to her instead. "What is all that stuff for?" He asked. "It looks like a CompUSA warehouse in there."

Tori laughed softly. "Well, it's for you." She said, "It's new computers for the ship."

The crew glanced at each other. "For real?" One of the women asked. "Even at reception? We've used manual manifests for twenty years. You're saying we're getting one of those too?"

Tori nodded. "That's what they asked for." She said, "A lot of things will change."

"Wow." Talley murmured.

A clatter of footsteps behind them made Jade turn, to see the ship's officers entering the hall. Unsurprisingly, her father was accompanying them, with Ceci strolling along beside him with a very droll expression on her face. "Hi." Jade issued a general greeting as they stopped on the top landing with them.

The captain paused, regarding her briefly before producing a thin lipped smile. "Ms. West, good evening." He replied. "I see you have kept your end of the bargain."

Jade glanced at the food line, and the rapidly being set up bar, and half shrugged. "It's not the Waldorf, but it beats McNuggets." She ignored the glare from the staff captain. "Shall we?"

The captain gestured towards the buffet graciously. "Please." He said. "You have met my officers, I take it? Some of them, anyway?" His eyes fell on the staff captain, and a faintly amused twinkle entered them. "And you also know, I believe, ah.." He glanced at James. "Commander.."

"Oh yeah, we've met." Jade drawled.

"Heh." Her father snickered. "Yeap. A few times."

Ceci rolled her eyes. "Obvious who genetically contributed to that sense of humor." She observed. "Can we eat now? I hear coleslaw calling my name."

They walked down the steps and into the room. The crew quickly separated to let the officers proceed unhindered, but as they approached the food line, several of them shyly joined up again. "Sir, may we take your plates?" One asked the captain respectfully.

"Certainly." The captain nodded. "We will be using that table, there." He pointed to one a little aside, with conspicuously finer service on it. "Please have a bottle of red wine, and a bottle of vodka taken there."

"Sir." The man who had spoken ducked his head, then turned and walked purposefully towards the bar.

Sinjin approached Jade. "Uh… boss?"

"Don't you even think about it." Jade thrust her thumb over her shoulder. "Get in line, all of you."

The techs scuttled over obediently, muffling grins as they joined the growing string of bodies waiting to hit the chow.

Tori craned her neck, then turned to Sinjin. "Tell you what.. I'll grab your roast beef if you find a couple of bottles of Corona." She offered. "Deal?"

"Deal." Sinjin headed off towards the bar, with a grin.

"We brought on a case." Jade eyed her partner.

"Not taking any chances." Tori put her hands behind her back and rocked up and down on her heels a little. "I know at least our part of this crowd."

"Mm." The line started moving, as the captain finished perusing his choices, and Jade ran her eyes over the buffet critically. Given the short notice, the caterers had actually done pretty well. Besides the roast beef, they'd gotten hold of a roast pig, several turkey breasts that were being carved, some legs of lamb, what looked like pans of broiled white fish of some kind, pans of lasagna, some miscellaneous parmagiana, and tubs of assorted vegetables.

There were also mashed potatoes. Jade licked her lips in satisfaction, and nodded. She was hungry, and she knew Tori was also, since neither of them had brought along any protein bars to snack on and they'd just used up quite a bit of energy with each other.

"My goddess, is that asparagus?" Ceci remarked. "Honestly I thought I was going to have to troll for seaweed."

Tori chuckled. "Mom."

"Well, I did. I've been on ships visiting where they thought meatballs were a vegetable because they had chopped parsley in them."

"I see lots of vegetables." Tori observed. "Look – there's carrots." She looked again. "Or maybe they're sweet potatoes."

"Long as they aren't barbecued pig livers." Her mother in law sniffed. "So, are you feeling better now?"

Tori took a plate and handed one to Ceci, Jade having similarly equipped herself and James. "Huh? Oh.." She cleared her throat. "Yeah, I had a chance to relax for a while up in our cabin." She virtuously placed a piece of bright green broccoli on her plate. "Sorry I was so grumpy before."

"I've got Sinjin's beef." Jade turned her head to advise Tori. She had two plates, and was dexterously juggling them while adding items, something Tori wouldn't have dreamed of trying.

"Okay. Thanks." Tori bumped her gently with one shoulder. "Careful."

Jade chuckled and continued her balancing act.

Ceci piled her own plate with flora. "Well, to be perfectly honest, Tori, if I'd found out I'd been lugging hundreds of pounds of gear up a set of metal stairs when there was a perfectly good elevator to ride instead, grumpy would have been the least of what I'd been."

Mildly vindicated, Tori merely grunted, as she served herself a little of everything, saving space for a few grape tomatoes before she followed Jade towards a nearby table. She took a seat next to her partner, who neatly delivered Sinjin's plate in front of him before she settled gracefully into her chair, setting her own plate down at the same time.

Ceci sat down next to James, eyeing his plateful of meat and potatoes with wry resignation. "Thought they had peas."

"Ah do believe they did." Her husband allowed. "Did you want some of them?"

Ceci sliced off a bit of asparagus and bit into it. Of all the differences she had with Jim, this one usually caused the most need for workarounds in their daily lives. In the years he was in the Navy, she really hadn't had to worry about it since he ate in the mess, or was aboard ship, and she pretty much was left to her own vegetarian devices and could cook as she wished.

Or not.

So, of course, she'd been chagrined when her daughter, who after all had more experience eating her cooking than the Navy's, turned out to hate vegetables just as much as her father did.

Genetic? Ceci seriously doubted it, but there were two plates on the table, pretty much identically laden and neither her husband nor her child had ever seemed to suffer physically because of it. Tori, on the other hand, was much more vegetable friendly and in fact she kept cutting off bits of her flora and depositing it on Jade's plate when Jade wasn't looking.

Jade, of course, carefully navigated around the intruding bits of color. Ceci could have told Tori that was a lost cause, since she'd tried it along with every other trick she could come up with. However, she noticed Tori kept at it, and eventually Jade ate one of the chunks just to get it out of her way.

Hm.

Maybe she just hadn't tried hard enough. Ah well.

The boat moved gently under them, and slowly the line cleared the buffet and the low rumble of conversation started up around the room. The bar was getting good action, and everyone seemed happy with the food selection.

Some of the WesTeck techs had mixed in with the crew, and Ceci watched the reactions as the two very different groups mixed. Given their ages were pretty close, she figured they'd be able to find something to talk about, especially since though the crew had been on the ship for a while, they weren't quite seafarers in the sense that Jim's shipmates had been.

They were still a little civ. "Hey, Jim?"

"Yes, ma'am?" Her husband peered at her.

"We should go on a cruise."

One grizzled eyebrow rose. "We live on a boat." He said. "Ya'll want to go o a bigger one?"

"Mm." Ceci nodded. "One of those huge floating monstrosities where they put mints on your pillow and you can play golf on the top deck."

Jim winced.

Well, maybe not. Ceci went back to her vegetables. Or maybe she could find one where they'd let you fish off the fantail. Jim'd like that.

Now that everyone was seated, the captain stood up at his place and tapped his knife against his water glass. The room quieted, and all eyes went to him. "I am glad we have this opportunity to enjoy a good meal together." He said. "You all have been working very hard, and it is good that we have seen progress, and that we have an evening free of the sound of jackhammers, yes?"

The crew clapped immediately, but said nothing.

"So get a good rest tonight. Our guests will unfortunately be working, but I am thinking they do not make as much noise as the metalworkers, is this not true?" The captain looked at Jade.

Jade was glad she'd just taken a sip of beer to clear her mouth out. She swallowed it quickly. "We can make noise if we have to." She said, "But we generally don't."

"Excellent." The captain turned around. "And let us hope the government finishes their investigation quickly, as we cannot return to port until they do." He sniffed. "However long that will take. So enjoy this meal as best you can."

Jade blinked, and looked at Tori.

The captain sat down, and picked up his wine glass, sipping from it with a calm expression.

Ceci scratched her jaw. "I hope I didn't just throw us into a bad Flying Dutchman nightmare."

"Yikes." Tori covered her eyes. "I've got a bad feeling about this."

"Wall." Jim continued plowing his way through his dinner. "Ain't life just one little kick ass after t'other."

Wasn't it just? Jade almost started laughing. Wasn't it just.

Tori leaned against the granite fountain in the center of the atrium, checking off items on her clipboard. It was very quiet around her, since it was well after midnight and her team was all out delivering gear to various parts of the ship.

She could hear the faint slap of water against the outside of the hull, and she could feel the motion under her legs, but the silence around her otherwise leant a timelessness to the moment.

The ship creaked, a little. Metal plates under long strain from holding back the water protested the surge of the waves, an old woman of the sea indeed very apparent to Tori as she stood in her solitude.

The crew had vanished after dinner. To their quarters, or to some other place on the ship, she figured, someplace they weren't welcome. Which was fine with her, since they had a lot of work to accomplish and it was much easier without everyone underfoot.

And yet, the emptiness gave the ship a ghostly quality she wasn't entirely comfortable with. Another creak made her look quickly around, and then she mentally slapped herself for being over-imaginative. "Okay." She spoke aloud. "So that takes care of all the pc's. Now we have the POS systems to do. Right?"

"Right."

Tori jumped, unable to stop herself in time even though her ears readily recognized the voice. "Yow."

Jade sauntered down the central steps, brushing her hands off against her dust besmirched jeans. "We are talking."

"Ah." Tori put a neat check on her checklist. "Got the satellite going, huh?"

"Yeap." Jade seemed very satisfied with herself. "Took some persuasion, but we got it going. They're surfing the web up there."

"Oh really." Tori said. "Bet that's a new experience for them."

"Mm." The dark haired woman leaned against the marble column next to Tori. "It's slower than hell, but it's something." She peered at Tori's list. "Not bad… all the pc's out there?"

"Yep."

"Hm." Jade pulled out her phone and keyed it on, watching as its wireless card picked up the signal from one of the devices she'd installed. She started her analyzer and observed the results. "Servers are up."

"Finally." Tori groused. "Have I mentioned lately how much I hate picky whiny server OS's?"

"No."

"I hate picky whiny server OS's."

"Hm."

"Can't you write a better one?" Tori asked, tucking her clipboard under her arm and giving Jade an inquiring look.

Jade's eyes opened up wide. "ME?" She asked. "I haven't finished writing your network security robot yet." She bumped Tori with her shoulder. "Why don't you write one?"

"Uh uh." Tori thumped her back against the column. "I'll stick to messing with your gopher, thanks."

Jade snickered.

Tori looked at her. "You know what I mean."

"I do." Jade agreed. "But anyone else around probably doesn't."

Tori peered around the vast emptiness of the atrium. "There's no one here. But even if there was, I bet no one would ever question me about your gopher, Jade."

Jade snickered again.

"Jade."

Slowly, Jade slid down to the ground, snickers evolving into almost silly giggles.

Tori only hoped the tech team wouldn't come back for their next assignment for a few minutes. She slid down next to her partner and stuck her legs out, tapping her pen against her thigh as she waited patiently. "Jade."

"Ahh. Sorry." Jade stifled a last chuckle. "It's just too damn late."

After midnight, in fact. Way too damn late. Tori slid over and pressed her shoulder against Jade's. "Want to stop for tonight? We can put out the POS systems tomorrow."

It was very tempting. Jade was tired. She knew Tori was tired, and she suspected the rest of the crew was equally tired though none of them would admit it in front of their bosses. Could they risk waiting? They didn't know when the ship was coming back in, and while they were out here, they had the advantage.

But it was also true that the later they worked, the more tired they'd be, and the more mistakes they'd make. Now that all the computers were delivered, really the major part of the work was done and the delivery of the dumb POS terminals could be performed early in the morning, couldn't it?

Jade gazed at the dark sky visible in the windows on either side of her. She acknowledged silently that her decision was being influenced by her own desire to break off, but as she looked up and saw the first of the techs coming back, weary and dust covered, she bowed to her gut inclination and gave Tori a brief, decisive nod. "Let's can it."

"I love you." Tori rested her cheek against Jade's shoulder. "Have I told you that lately?"

If she needed an exclamation point to that decision, well, she'd gotten it. Jade clasped her hands together and rubbed a bit of adhesive off her index finger as she waited for the crew to finish trudging up to them. "Time to take a break, folks."

Mutely delighted eyes fastened on her. The crew looked exhausted, and to top it off the ship had started moving a lot more, pitching a little and rolling from side to side. More than a few faces were a touch green. "Boss, those are magic words." Sinjin said. "But hey, we got a ton of stuff done tonight. All that's left is to dump those things out there and run them up."

Jade nodded. "Right. So we do that in the morning." She said, "Go and get some rest."

"Everyone did a great job." Tori added. "You guys are superstars."

Their eyes brightened, despite the late hour. "IT was pretty cool." Carlos said. "Especially with everybody out of our way.. man, I was tired of tripping all over those guys with the welders."

"Yeah." Several nearby techs agreed. "We should work at night all the time."

"Hey!" Sinjin objected. "Speak for yourself, dude! Some of us have a life!"

Everyone started to chuckle. Jade got up and extended her hand down to Tori, hauling her up as well. "I don't know what the story's going to be tomorrow, if we're going back in, or what. So let's meet here at nine, and play it by ear."

"You got it,JW." Sinjin was covered in IT grunge and dust. "Man, I wouldn't care if that bed were a plank, I'd sleep on it right now."

"Hell yeah."

The group dispersed, heading off towards their assigned cabins. Jade and Tori strolled along behind them, taking their time in mounting the stairs and climbing up to the level where their relatively palatial digs were located.

"Wonder where your folks were all night?" Tori commented, as she nudged the door open and they went inside. "I didn't see them after dinner."

"Maybe they went to bed." Jade suggested.

"They went to sleep that early?" Tori seemed skeptical.

"I didn't say that."

Tori turned from where she was peering out the closed balcony door. "Oh, this is one of those 'think of that and go blind' things, isn't it?" She slid the door open and walked outside, surprised at the force of the wind. "Whoa."

Jade joined her, the balmy night air now tasting only of sea salt and a whiff of diesel. As they leaned on the balcony, the moon came out and painted a stripe across the tossing waves, showing up whitecaps as the ship ploughed through them. "Hm."

"Rough." Tori noted, grabbing hold of the rail as the ship pitched sideways. "Jade, you didn't.."

"In my bag." Jade said. "You feeling it?"

"No." The brunette said. "Just a precaution. The one time I got really seasick was on the Staten Island Ferry."

Jade looked at her. "You're kidding."

Tori shook her head solemnly. "Calm day, barely any waves, Statue of Liberty in the background, me sick as a dog over the railing. Pathetic."

Jade chuckled. "Figures." She poked Tori and pointed back inside. "C'mon. View from our aft deck is better, and it's hot out here." She herded her partner back inside, where the air conditioning had grudgingly reduced the humidity and provided a relatively comfortable temperature for sleeping.

Around them, on this upper deck, they could really hear the creaking. Tori listened for a moment as the ship rolled and groaned, and then she turned to Jade. "Is this thing going to fall apart? It sure sounds like it."

Jade peeled her t-shirt off, examining the stripe where her sleeve had been. "Nah." She turned the shirt inside out, and then folded it neatly, setting it to one side. "It'll last… at least another night or two." She removed her jeans and did the same thing to them, rolling her socks up in a ball and setting them on top of the folded clothing. "Now."

"Now." Tori had been leaning back enjoying the show. "Shower?"

"Mm."

"Bed?"

"Mmhm." Jade extended her hand. "Get the duds off, Yankee. Been a long day."

Yes, it had. Tori agreed, pulling off her shirt. But now it was over.

Jade winked at her.

Well, almost over. Tori shed her jeans and joined her partner at the door to the incredibly small bathroom. "If the ship rolls over, does the shower go sideways?"

Jade turned on the shower and pulled her inside.

"Just a question."