Free Stormy Waters: Book 10 in The Dar & Kerry Series by Melissa Good Page A

showing me around."
    She gave her new buddy a grin. "And watching me shock the pooters out of the construction guys."
    "Hi." Tally gave Dar a brief smile. "Um, Kerry...listen, you really, really, really got the stripes mad about this room here." He indicated the space. "It's the Purser's office."
    Kerry perched on the corner of one sad old desk. "And?"
    "Ah." Dar scratched her jaw. "Pursers kind of run everything, Ker."
    Tally turned on Dar with a grateful look. "You've been on ships?"
    "Not this kind." Dar managed a half grin. "But yeah, enough to know the politics." She got up and put her hands on her hips. "But the problem is Kerry's right. We'll need about this much space for the system your owner wants."
    Tally looked just aghast. "But the old system just fit under Drucilla's desk there." He pointed. "Honest!"
    "Okay, let me give you some idea here." Kerry stood up. "First, we're going to put in two big switches about like this." She spread her arms out to either side, then raised one and lowered the other. "And like this."
    Obviously lost, Tally merely nodded.
    "And then, two racks of computer equipment about twice the width of a refrigerator and about that tall." Kerry added. "And that doesn't even include all the space for cables."
    Tally sighed and sat on the desk. "I don't know what we're going to do. They won't give up this space; I'll tell you that right now. They've been talking for a month about how it's going to be redone." He looked around in a worried sort of way. "It's the biggest office on the ship."
    Kerry paused in mid-step and peered around her. Then she looked at Dar.
    "Okay." Dar said. "Then we'll give you the space this stuff's going to need, and your people can tell us where they want us to put it. We can't shrink any of it. It's just the size it is." She walked to the wall, glancing back to see another figure in the doorway. She took a marker from her pocket and drew an X. "The racks are from here." She made another mark. "To here. That's for the servers. Then the network core is here." She drew a large box on the wall. "To here."
    "Why do we need all that?" The newcomer asked.
    "Oh, hi Drucilla." Tally said.
    "Your boss wants it." Dar told her. "Add this for consoles and monitoring stations. And you get this much space." With a flourish, she drew on the rest of the back wall, and then took six big steps into the center of the room. "Out to here."
    "That's ridiculous." Drucilla came into the room. "We don't need all that! We work just fine with what we have, that NCR register system and my machine." She pointed at the drawing. "We don't have room for all that! What's it for, anyway?"
    "Point of sale. Email. Computers for everyone. Interactive television, IP phones, and internet." Kerry ticked off things on her fingers.
    "On here? You surely are joking."
    "Nope." Dar went over to Kerry and leaned her arm on the smaller woman's shoulder. "I'm not. We've been asked by your company to put that," she indicated the wall, "in here. Now, if you don't want to give up this space, you need to get together and decide where you want to put our stuff."
    "Oh, my god." The woman put her hand on her head. "This is insanity. I have to go." She turned and left.
    Kerry and Dar exchanged glances, and then they both looked at Tally.
    "Internet?" Tally's eyebrows quirked up. "Really?"
    "Now, here's a guy with the right priorities." Kerry chuckled. "C'mon, Dar. Let me show you the rest of it."
    Dar stepped carefully over a piece of rotted, rolled up carpet as she followed them out, suspecting the rest of the tour was only going to roll rapidly downhill.

    "SO THAT'S IT." Kerry stood on the very back deck of the boat alone with Dar after their tour. It was dark now, and the less than soothing cantaloupe colored lights of the pier lit everything around them and washed the stars almost clean out of the sky. "What do you think?"
    Dar cautiously tested the railing before she leaned against it. "I think it's going to be a