Free Ride The Rising Tide (The Maxwell Saga) by Peter Grant

standing beside her. “There goes the quiet day I was hoping for,” she murmured.
    “Goes to show — no peace for the wicked!”, Steve teased her sotto voce .
    “ Quiet there!” Garza snapped. “Maxwell, I’ve got a dirty job for you, too. Yesterday evening the dockyard took away four of our eight lifeboats for overhaul, and installed four refurbished lifeboats in their place. The new boats need to be checked and cleaned, and have their life support systems charged and activated, before we bring them online. I know they’re supposed to arrive spick–and–span from the dockyard, but we all know better than that , don’t we?” Hollow laughter rose from his audience.
    “ This isn’t one of our normal responsibilities,” Garza continued, “so you can’t use our cleaning gear and supplies. We don’t have enough for ourselves, let alone other departments! Explain that to Stores, and ask them to issue you what you need for the job. See if you can’t ‘lose’ some of it in our direction when you finish with it!” More laughter. “Our cleaning locker’s getting low on the good stuff, and our department budget doesn’t have any slack in it right now.”
    Steve came to attention. “Aye aye, PO.”
    “I’ve got far too much on my plate this morning to check on you all the time, so get the whole job done before you call me to inspect your work, OK?”
    “ Aye aye, PO.”
    As Steve relaxed into the rest position, Smith murmured, “That’s a bit much! Cleaning even one lifeboat would occupy half a dozen spacers for an hour. Even with their robotic systems to help, you’ve got to deal with four of ’em!”
    Steve shrugged. “You know what they say — ‘you shouldn’t have joined if you can’t take a joke!’ This isn’t the first time that’s happened to me, or to you either, and it won’t be the last.”
    “ True. I reckon he’s picking on you, though. You work hard, and do a good job, and don’t complain, so he’s taking advantage of that to pile the difficult and dirty jobs on your back.”
    “ Hey, I’m the most junior pilot aboard. That makes me low man on the totem pole, and the low man always gets the shitty jobs. That’s just the way it is. Besides, Garza’s having a tough time. His slot should be filled by a Chief Petty Officer, according to our Table of Organization and Equipment. He’s trying to do his job without either the rank or the experience usually needed for it. He’s doing his best — and it’s a pretty good best, most of the time. Having to ride herd on a bunch of boisterous pilots isn’t the easiest job in the Fleet!”
    “ Yeah, we’re not exactly backward in coming forward, are we?”
    Garza finished making the last assignment and closed his electronic clipboard. “You’ve all got your jobs for the day, so why are you still here? Ten– hut! Dis– miss!”
    Steve changed into an old set of work coveralls, then headed for Stores, trying to beat the rush from other departments as their people received their assignments and figured out what they’d need to accomplish them. He managed to be first in line with his requirements as the clerk opened his counter’s security shutter.
    “Dammit, you’re supposed to have most of this stuff already!” the clerk groused as he scanned Steve’s list.
    “ We do, but only for internal use in our department. This isn’t part of our normal responsibilities. We’re just helping out, so PO Garza won’t let me use our supplies for it. If you won’t give me the gear, the job won’t get done. That’ll get back to the Engineer Officer in no time — and you know as well as I do what he’s likely to say about that!” They shared a mutual grimace.
    “ All right. Why so much concentrate?”
    “ Lifeboats are shipped with their internal systems purged. I’ll have to charge their tanks before we can bring them online. At the moment they’re plugged into the ship’s environmental systems, which is great while they’re