Page 9 of Sway's Peace
Grace frowned. That wasn’t the voice of the dock leader who controlled Twenty-three. The hissing, sibilant accent was actually more similar to Reetak, but masculine. The dock leader wasn’t a ratchi; he wasn’t even reptilian.
The owner of the ship docked there was though.
“I am,” she said, connecting to the dock cameras, making sure her voice stayed pleasant despite her confusion. “Who is this?”
“This is Loyalty,” he said, confirming her suspicion. “I own the ship docked here. The Starship Theelaay?”
“Right, of course. How can I help you?” She asked as she swiped through the cameras until she caught one that showed the comm station within the dock.
Sure enough, there was a ratchi male there. And she started in surprise, because the male on the vid feed had dark violet scales and bright purple quills. It must be a rare coloration, because every ratchi she’d ever known only had scales in green or blue tones. It was strange but beautiful.
However, he shouldn’t be using the dock’s comm station. Or even be in the work area. Ship crewmembers were either supposed to stay in their ship or take the lifts down into the station proper. The public areas of Hir-Fallow would be the bud and stem of the flower shape, and that was where non-employees belonged. Sure, they had to walk through the repairdocks to get to those lifts, but the dock comm station wasn’t near that path.
Where the heck was the crew? Why weren’t they there working? She was already bringing up the job list for that ship and she nearly cursed when she saw that not a single thing had been checked off of it yet. This was the second day that ship had been in dock. It was here because the engine was not keeping power and kept turning off without warning. By now, at the barest minimum, the engine compartment should already be opened and diagnostics completed.
But even those basic steps weren’t checked off the list yet.
Yeah, she had just been begging for a problem like this by thinking such positive thoughts.
Any hope that maybe the dock team just hadn’t updated the list was dashed when the ratchi male said, “I came to check on my ship, and it doesn’t appear anything has been done yet.”
She quickly fixed a smile on her face, though he couldn’t see her. It made maintaining her apologetic, customer service voice easier.
“I am so sorry about that. There seemed to have been a miscommunication with your dock team.”
He made a sound on the other end that was somewhere between a chuckle of disbelief and a simply grunt of acknowledgment. “Yes. A miscommunication.”
“I am truly sorry. I will contact your team immediately, and I will set up a meeting with you to go over what happened in a few days.”
There was a moment of surprised silence. “You will?”
“Of course. Just give me some time to figure out what happened and get everything started properly. I’ll get to work on that right now and set up a meeting time with you once I have more information. Can I help you with anything else in the meantime?”
“Er, no. No, I just want my ship fixed, please.”
“Of course. I’ll contact your team right away.” Switching off the channel, she brought up the comm patch signature for the dock team leader. He picked up quickly.
“Hey, Grace. What you need?”
“Er, for you to do yourjob?You have a ship in dock. Why has no work been done yet?”
He didn’t respond immediately. Which made her eye twitch.
Finally, after a long moment, he said uncomfortably, “Er… parasites.”
“Para…” She cut herself off, taking in a deep breath and praying for patience. “There were no pests found during initial inspection.”
The team lead scoffed. “Don’t know how you missed it.”
“Then, I’ll comm the exterminator! Why didn’tyoudo that? Or alert me so I could?!” She let out a short breath, trying to control her temper. “Forget it. I’m comming them now. Get back in there, and get to work, or I swear, I am putting you and your crew on ancillary duty, and I will be having you mucking grease for the next tenday!”
Ending the comm, she looked back at the cameras. The ratchi – Loyalty of the Line Grass his file identified him as – had gone already, otherwise she would have commed the dockstation back. She really needed to ask Reetak what Line Grass meant because Reetak had a second name, but it was Assalass. However, Grace kept forgetting to do so. Even now, it slipped from her mind as she wrote out a quick message alerting the ratchi male that the crew found a pest problem, but she was dealing with it and the extermination would be done at no extra charge for his inconvenience. She also kept her word and scheduled a meeting for later. It was probably pointless since she had an answer, but customers liked the personal touch and attention. It soothed hurt egos and anger quite well. Then, she put in a request for the exterminator team to come inspect and treat the ship.
As she was wrapping up that business, her proximity alarm on Dock Eleven went off. She brought up the cameras in time to see her new ship – named Humility – maneuvering backwards into position.
Docks Ten and Eleven were her medium sized docks. Honestly, this ship was small enough that it could have been serviced by her small docks, but they were all in use.
The small docks, Docks Twenty-Three through Twenty-Six, were completely enclosed at all times. Ships that came into them were totally encased in a full atmosphere environment. The middle docks, Ten and Eleven, serviced mid-sized ships and could do both fully eclosed repairs or fully open ones. Those docks had the ability to be totally sealed and atmosphere pumped in to surround the entire ship, unlike her largest dock, dock three, which serviced large ships and was incapable of enclosing a ship so all repairs had to be open ones. The Humility was small enough that she could use the enclosed dock features if she wished, but she didn’t think that would be necessary for this job.
