Harrison was entirely correct. However; to say Hartman was unhappy would have been like saying the planet Manhattan was bigger than a duck. Correct, certainly, but entirely lacking on the subject of scale. The situation had quickly degraded from merely frustrating to properly infuriating, and Hartman's mood was rapidly following suit. She had come in here to collect one, one, wayward crewman on the way back to her office. Dealing with a breakdown and a medical incident had not been part of the briefing.

Two officers, Graham included, crouched by the crumpled body of whatever unlucky soul had caught Sius' glass with the back of his skull, heedless of the spilled ale pooling around their boots as they hastened to reassure themselves that yes, the fallen officer was still very much alive. Sius had seemingly lost control of his basic motor skills alongside his composure and was, last time she looked, still clutching to his self-pity like a drowning man to a raft, her advice be damned. Always was the way. People asked for help and only cared to listen when you told them what they oh-so-desperately wanted to hear. Wanted to hear the truth bathed in words like sacrifice and honour, twisted beyond all recognition until it slotted nicely into that gap in your conscience. It was a lie, and one that grew increasingly hollow the more you heard it until it didn't do any more good plugging that gap than a sponge damming a waterfall. You had to face the truth of things, unpleasant as it was. That was the job. She'd thought Sius would have seen that. More fool her.

“Sit down and control your damn arms.” She hissed, doubted that Sius heard her through his muttering. If he wanted to wallow that was his own business, but there were a hundred better places for it than a restaurant crowded with subordinates. Least she could do was stop him drawing any more attention to himself. For now, she had another mess to clean up.

“You-.” Hartman rounded on the next problem. Kent was still waiting where Graham had left him, faintly stunned - like a man that had just walked into a combat zone on the way to fetch the morning paper - eyes flickering over the scene as though he had all of a sudden remembered somewhere else he should, urgently, have been. And only a half hour late. “Have a ship to be on, as I recall.”
Harrison muttered something that Hartman had to strain to hear over the low rumble of the bar. She scowled. “Louder, Serviceman.”
“Said I was on leave. Ma'am.” Kent met her eyes, a surprisingly bold move for a man who had just been dragged out of the latrines. “Lieutenant Serin said we'd be on shore leave after the New London -”
“You were misinformed.” The beginning of a headache pulsed into existence above Hartman's right eye. Another well-intentioned, short-sighted officer to look up, another call to a squadron leader. Another damned letter and another delayed transport. For some twisted reason, Hartman found the idea of the first far more frustrating. “Find the corpsman and sober up. Benham leaves in an hour.”
“But the Lieutenant-” Kent insisted. Hartman exhaled, slowly and deliberately, quietly cursing reservists, instructors and the universe at large.
“Doesn't have the authority to issue leave.” Which the rest of your crew seems to know. Under ordinary circumstances, she wouldn't have sent Kent back aboard at all. Not on corpsman issued dry-pills, but what choice did she have? The ship had to have a navigator, and Kent was the only one on station not assigned to another ship. The station was a stopover, not a base. It wasn't as though she could pull a replacement out of thin air, and somehow she doubted any of the officers in the bar were about to volunteer to crew a bison, if they even had the training. Kent had to fly, regardless of how little the pair of them liked it. “To you or anyone else. One hour.” Hartman resisted the impulse to raise a finger and demonstrate the concept of one. That would have been childish.

Kent's brow creased in a way that managed to effectively convey a frown without moving his lips before, finally, he gave a mumbled: “Yes ma'am.” The serviceman marched from the room in a manner that, though it could never be formally described as stamping, had much the same end result. Hartman let him go. Painful though the man was, there were limits to what she could do about it in a bar. You didn't issue reprimands in public. Her eyes flicked to Sius. Not unless you didn't have a choice. Benham would fly and, for now, that would have to be enough.

Two problems dealt with.

Graham and an officer she didn't recognise were still hovering over the fallen officer's body as Hartman elbowed her way through the drifting crowd. Most had gawked their fill and were filing back to whatever conversations or drinks had occupied their attention before Sius had started tossing glassware around. Those that hadn't begun moving quickly did so when they saw the frown on her face and the bars on her shoulder. No-one had thought to clear a path to the door, to move the unconscious officer out of the bar. A room full of damned officers, and not one had possessed the foresight or inclination to help. Somewhere behind her eyes the headache pulsed in time with her heartbeat, keeping step like a sadistic marching band.

“You two-” She jabbed a finger at Graham and the man next to him - another face she didn't recognise, but that was the rule rather than the exception these days. Graham, at least, seemed to be competent when it came to shifting bodies from one place to another. “Move him to the hall. Gently. Get a stretcher and shift him to medical if he don't come around in a minute or so.” She added, nodding at the crumpled figure - and paused at the man's face. Storms, but it's reunion night at the Bar and Grill. “Hudson Ravis.” She breathed. Hartman knew the man, had signed off on his recruitment paperwork, spoken to his brother when a tradelane had left Ravis hospitalised. Hardly mattered right now. One unconscious officer offered about the same conversation as any other. Hartman shifted her attention to the patrons still milling around the door, one group clustered around a high table almost directly between Graham and the exit.

“Clear a path!” Hartman had to shout to be heard over the rumble of the bar, voice scraping out of her throat far more screech than she would have liked. How long had it been since she'd stood on a drill square - really stood on it, not climbing some podium for another damn speech? Six years? Seven? Her second attempt was a little better, directed at the men clustered around the high table. “Are you blind? Get that table out of the way!”

God, it was a relief to move. Bodies parted before her as Hartman elbowed, ordered, and otherwise shoved her way through the bar. Action was a remedy all of its own. It was easy to forget that, trapped between the soulless plexiglass and plastic of her office, and pay grades be damned. Graham followed in her wake, Ravis cradled in his arms like a particularly ugly newborn.

She might not have been able to hold the Logistics Corps together, but pushing aside a crowd? That, that was something she could do and, simple as it was, as much as she yelled and screamed, she revelled in it. Here was somewhere she was an actual, physical, person. Counted for something, instead of being some vague, controlling force on the coward's end of an order's group. Hartman was almost disappointed when she stepped into the comparatively clear air of the hallway, antiseptic tang of the filters slapping at her nostrils. The rumble of the bar faded as she looped an arm under Ravis', helped Graham lower the unconscious officer to the closest equivalent station gravity had to a ground.

Graham tapped at the station intercom, no doubt summoning some medical officer from some urgent nothing or another. Another pair of men pushed their way past her into the hallway, one supporting the other. Seemed Ravis wasn't the only night's casualty. Hartman nodded to their backs as they left, feeling a little lighter in spite of herself. In spite of the fact that half the bar had stood casually by and left Ravis to Graham's tender care. Hartman tugged a loose thread from her pants and let it go. Interfering with soldiers on leave was a whole ocean of hurt that she had no desire to poke a toe in - if only because it was just as likely something would bite it off. Graham was deep in conversation with the intercom, Ravis laid out at his feet in a horizontal mockery of attention. Hartman signed her excuses and left the junior officer to it.

Sius was gone by the time Hartman pushed her way back into the bar, stool sitting empty, the gap that had opened around Ravis just as soon plugged shut again by the pressing bodies of a dozen Seabees, stylised Hornets embroided on their shoulders. Hell, they'd even shifted the table back into place, a trio of drinks already balancing on top of it. Hartman gritted her teeth, the spark of enjoyment she'd felt in the hallway quickly guttering out. Chris, Sius hadn't looked like he was moving any time soon, but for the life of her she couldn't spot a trace of the man in the cramped room.

"Captain!" That was a familiar voice. Hartman didn't smile - not exactly - but the spark in her chest roared back into life. She made a beeline for the voice.

Commander Reginald Lewis leaned against the bar like a cowboy alongside his favorite horse, smoking point of a cigarette hanging loose between fingers callused by the sort of work that most men would never learn had been done - and likely be better off for not knowing. A glass of whiskey lounged on the bar alongside him, the very image of relaxation.

But his eyes gave it away. Killer's eyes. Always roving across the bar behind her, slipping over one face after another, never lingering long enough to draw attention, assessing a dozen threats and assets, tactics and strategies, in the space of a blink. Once there would have been a time that intimidated her. These days she found it strangely comforting. Lewis was the sort of man who was never half as unprepared as he might've given the impression of being, which was likely just as well for the pair of them. If she were honest with herself, it was likely that trait that had secured him a slot in special operations while she was still signing off on cargo releases.

Hartman hadn't contacted him since. Hadn't felt right, calling a soldier from a desk at headquarters. He couldn't have talked about half the things he did and everything she didn't wasn't likely to be more to him than meaningless background at best and an active waste of time at worst. When you got right down to it, Logistics don't exactly make for captivating conversations.

"Commander Lewis, I'll be damned. It's good to see you." And it really was. Void between them or not, Lewis was one of the few friend she had in the Navy. Between obedience to superiors and distance from her subordinates, there wasn't a lot of space out there for equals. Lewis was a rare exception. "Didn't think they'd let you out to mingle with us lowly regulars."

Another man stood beside Lewis, officer's bars on his sleeves and a logistics patch on his shoulder, seemingly unfazed by Lewis' puffing. The tag on his breast identified him as Harrison - a name she remembered faintly from rolls and appointment lists. "And Lieutenant Commander Harrison." She nodded in recognition, flicked her eyes back over the bar. "Captain Hartman. Good to put a face to a name. Ain't a chance you two saw where Sius' got to? He was in not a minute a go. Be a shame for him to miss you." Who knew, maybe Lewis would be able to talk some sense into the man.

"Didn't figure you were the sort to keep count. It'd be right helpful if you called them in now and then." Hartman had given up on keeping track of that particular figure a long time ago. There were supercomputers that would struggle to keep track of favors where Lewis was concerned and Hartman had long since resigned herself to always being one down on that scoreboard. And soft? Perhaps she was. Hartman hadn't flown a combat mission in months, hadn't subjected herself to anything tougher than a freighter burn. She might have argued the point once, but what was the point? Lewis was right and, as much as she hated it, she knew it. There was little point being a hypocrite on top of everything else, so she let the barb pass without comment, glanced away, treacherous twist in her gut be damned.

Hartman remembered Arden, remembered it as one remembered a report - bases, contacts, strategies, each detail as bland and lifeless as the one preceding it. A Corps freighter, attacked by a Los Angeles based smuggling ring to keep their operation under wraps. A few more names for the Roll of Honour - whatever honour they could find among the worms, at any rate. Hartman could not remember their names. Oh you said you would, swore that you would keep their memories alive, and perhaps she had even meant in the first time. The truth was that you buried memories with the bodies and, just like the bodies, time gnawed them away until there was nothing but a hole where a person had been. That was the way of the world and there had been too many like them, before and since, for Hartman to remember names. Heavens knew the living gave her enough trouble.

"That'll kill you, you know." She nodded to the cigarette in Lewis' hands, still trailing faint blue smoke. Nasty, stinking things, cigarettes, and doubly so in the confines of the bar - but there were far worse things in the world. Hartman took half pace back, out of the worst of the smoke, glanced at the patch on Harrison's shoulder. "I heard Teerin's sitting in the chair now. Flew Logistics once too." She added. Commander Teerin hadn't been that long ago, as such things were measured. He'd climbed the chain of command quickly for a former transport jock, considering the Corp's usual reputation as a place careers went to die. That she'd served alongside him, well. There it was again, that familiar damnable lightness, that pride. It was foolish, she knew that better than most, but there it was just the same.

"Command still keeping you locked up in Special Operations, Lewis?" It was a strange thought, that she was closer to the near-mythical blame-magnet that was command now than she was to the troops on the ground, and it was one she tried not to focus on. Looking at Lewis again was almost enough to make her wish for simpler times. If she hadn't already been doing enough wishing for a division.

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OOC: (Highlight to read.) | Terribly sorry to keep you both waiting this long! I've been moving house over the last few weeks. Again. |