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  “I would be honored, Allie. I would respond in kind, except my first name is Blackmon, so I kind of prefer Stone most of the time. If it is okay with you, we could just drop the rank or the mister.”

  Allie nodded. She shook her hair back and wildly exaggerated fanning her face with fluttering fingers. “Come on then, Stone. I am wasting away to nothin’ here. If I don’t eat soon I will catch the vapors and just faint dead away.”

  Stone followed her into the wardroom and then angled away to the ice cream station. He felt almost decadent for taking a second small scoop. He ate ice cream at almost every opportunity, which hadn’t been often before coming on board the Ol’ Toothless. Grandpa did not like ice cream so it was not stocked in their ship’s freezers except for special occasions. Grandpa always said that ice cream lost its flavor after the third spoonful anyway, so no sense in scooping out more than that.

  Stone stood politely near the end of the buffet line waiting for Allie as she built a small salad near the beginning of the line. He looked around the large wardroom. There was seating for a hundred or more officers with everything from large communal tables, small private booths and even quiet glassed off meeting rooms. The room was about half full with officers coming and going, eating and working, and just plain goofing off.

  He didn’t see any marines, so he assumed that either Allie’s friends had not arrived yet or they were not coming. He was hoping they were not coming. Allie was scary as women go, but she was definitely attractive. Stone knew she was not interested in him in any romantic fashion, but he still thought it would be nice to sit alone with a pretty woman for a while. He glanced back at Allie and was shocked.

  She had moved beyond the salad. Her tray now held a small mountain of steaks, roast, chops and green vegetables. She was eyeing the dessert table as if calculating how much more she could balance on the tray. She finally shook her head and moved beside Stone.

  “The cake looked good,” Allie said. “Stuff like that goes right straight to my thighs. And Stone, you keep your eyes up here. You don’t be ogling my thighs, hear? Now, where…there they are! Follow on, Stone.” She spun and moved across the wardroom.

  Stone followed. He tried as hard as he could, but he was unable to keep his eyes from dropping to her waist and then to her hips and thighs. Her utilities were baggy, but not enough to hide that she did not have any extra baggage in her hips and thighs. She moved as if she were all muscle and coiled springs.

  They stopped at a large table occupied by a navy full commander sitting at the head of the table with a half dozen second lieutenants and ensigns scattered along both sides. Everyone at the table was raucous, as loud talk, laughter and buttered rolls flew back and forth.

  Allie turned and leaned down to whisper in Stone’s ear. “You checked out my backside on the way over here, didn’t you?”

  Stone immediately blushed to a deep red. He started to stammer a reply, but nothing came out of his mouth.

  Allie took that exact moment to turn to everyone at the table and shout. “Okay. Shut it, you navy types. This is Stone, a particularly good friend of mine. Be nice to him or the wrath of the Empire’s marines will come crushing down on your puny, underfed navy bodies.” She turned to Stone and in a formal voice introduced the commander. “Full Commander Danielle E. Wright, may I present Midshipman Blackmon Stone. Stone, this is the Goat-girl.”

  Stone stared at Allie. Had she really dared call a commander ‘Goat-girl’?

  “Pardon me?” he managed to ask.

  Commander Wright glared at Allie in mock indignation. “Insults, that is all I get. Insults.” She looked over at Stone. He was attempting to stand at attention, but he was not sure what do with his ice cream. She pointed at the seat next to her, directly on her left.

  “No pardons, Mister Stone. That is not my department. Religion is on deck 13 and legal on decks 24-29. Sit next to Skippy there and dig in before your ice cream melts. Of course, I like my ice cream all melty, but that’s just me.”

  Allie put her boot against the chair of a second lieutenant sitting on Commander Wright’s right. She gave a shove, sliding two lieutenants and two ensigns far enough down to make room for a chair. She grabbed an unused chair from a partially occupied table and plopped herself down. Without comment, she began to eat.

  “Well, sit down, Midshipman,” Wright looked up at Stone. “Skippy won’t bite. He really is quite docile after he’s been fed. I will admit that he does smell rather bad right now, but then most of us do.”

  “Busy day, Danielle?” Allie glanced up from her plate.

  Wright shook her head, “Busy yesterday, busy all last night and still busy. We are just taking a break. We have to hit it pretty quick. That is why Skippy still smells. Normally, we all shower and clean up before going out in public, but we just didn’t have time. I thought about having lunch sent over to tower one, but we just needed to get out for a change of scenery.”

  “Change of scenery!” Allie snorted. “You run the prettiest part of the whole ship and you need a change? If you want a change, then just drop by the marine transient barracks. It is so ugly and so smelly they make this bunch smell like fresh mowed grass.”

  Wright smiled. “I said change. I didn’t say better or worse, just a change. And don’t think I forgot about you calling me Goat-girl in front of my crew. I just got them stopped calling me that from the last time they heard you. By the way, how do you like the roast goat you are shoveling down with such wild abandon?”

  Allie pointed her fork at her plate. “That’s goat?” She speared a chunk of the meat, sniffed it and popped it in her mouth. “Hunh, well, I definitely ate worse. I remember one time on Avalon where we ran out of rations and had to eat three day old-”

  She was interrupted by a chorus of moans and a hail of buttered rolls. She snapped a hand up and caught one of the rolls and took a bite. “Philistines! Danielle, you should have left these animals to graze and brought your goats with you. The goats have better manners.”

  Stone dredged up enough courage to ask, “Commander Wright? You really have goats on board? And people eat them?”

  “Yes, Mister Stone, the goats are my particular favorites, but we have cattle, water buffalo (the Asian kind, not the African ones), bison, horses, sheep, tardles from Tenchion, gammoths, chicken, ducks, turkeys, hardoms, wardins from Thrisbeeye, rabbits, dogs, and…what am I forgetting?”

  “Pigs, Doc. Lots and lots of pigs,” Skippy answered.

  Wright nodded, “Too damn many pigs for my taste, pun as intended. If it weren’t for the bacon, ham, spareribs, pork loin roasts, sausage, tenderloin and the chops, we could get rid of the pigs altogether.”

  “Yeah, what about the snout sandwiches, chitlins and the pickled pig’s feet?” Allie asked.

  “You mentioned them, you can eat them. That’s just disgusting,” Wright said. She turned back to Stone. “Speaking of pig’s feet, Mister Stone, when you walked up I noticed that you had your socks on the wrong feet.”

  Stone looked startled and slid his chair back from the table to check his socks. A roar of laughter around the table brought him up short. He sighed as he realized socks do not fit on specific feet. He blushed, but joined in the laughter.

  Allie laughed and said to Wright, “See, I told you he was cute, especially when he blushes.”

  “You told me…?” Wright said. “Oh, this is the Stone that single handedly backed down a gaggle of combat veteran marines?”

  A round of applause broke out around the table. Skippy pounded Stone on the back.

  Stone shook his head. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but-”

  “Never mind what we heard,” Wright said. “Allie tells that story every chance she gets, especially if Second Lieutenant Heller is round. Strange thing is, the story gets better every time I hear it.”

  Allie slammed her fist on the table. “It’s the truth. I swear. I was there and saw it all.”

  Wright laughed, “Sure you did. I believe you, but le
t’s wait for a month to see how this story grows.” She turned back to Stone. “And a question for the man-who-eats-marines-for-breakfast, how did you like your goat, Mister Stone?”

  “All I had was ice cream,” said Stone, looking confused.

  “Did it taste good?” Wright asked.

  Stone nodded, “Yes, not quite as sweet as some I have had on board, but the best flavor I have tasted so far.”

  “It’s not really ice cream,” Wright said with a grin. “It is a sorbet made from goat’s milk. This is the closest officer’s wardroom to the cross tower corridor near my office in tower one. So, we come here a lot. The head chef is a senior chief petty officer that grew up on a farm somewhere. He really knows how to use what we grow.”

  “What you grow, Commander? This is vat grown substitute?” Stone asked.

  “Heavens no, Mister Stone,” Wright replied laughing. “You must not have been over to tower one yet. I am really just a commander in name only. I am a veterinarian and all of tower one is my farm.”

  Stone looked startled. “The whole tower?”

  Wright said, “Yes, Mister Stone, the whole tower from top to bottom. Well, except for the command bridge at one end, the emergency engines in the backend, the hanger decks and a few gun emplacements here and there. Where do they have you working, Mister Stone?”

  “I am in tower three, whiskey deck, Commander.”

  “Whiskey deck? I imagine that sounds like more fun than it really is. Then you know that the central tower is broken down into decks and offices with enough corridors to keep a person busy full time just trying to map it out. Six of the seven outer towers are broken into various warehouse components depending on storage requirements. Well, my tower is all hollow in the middle with the artificial gravity set so the inside of the cylinder is down. Most of the deck has six to ten meters of rocks, sand and soil planted with grass, except where we have planted crops. All figured in we have a huge amount of farmland. As a midshipman, you are still working your studies, correct? So we have a sixteen kilometer long cylinder with an eight kilometer diameter. What is the surface face of the interior of the cylinder?”

  “Um, sir, well…math is pretty much my weakest subject, but isn’t it pi times the radius squared times the height?” Stone tried to answer.

  “Don’t ask me, Mister Stone,” Wright laughed. “I am a vet. I can tell you which end of a pig to feed and which end the fertilizer comes out of, but I don’t know math. That is why I have a whole staff of officers and a whole office full of computers.”

  Allie shook her head. “Stone, you are close, but that is not quite right. That equation will give you the volume of a cylinder. You want an equation that gives you the lateral area, although in this case, I believe there is a negligible difference between interior and exterior surfaces. Try two times pi times the radius times the height.” She looked at Wright. “I assume you were asking about the sides only as the ends are taken up in storage, offices, bridge space and the aft docks.”

  “Wow. I knew they grew them big in the marines,” Wright grinned. “But, I didn’t know they made them into math whizzes.”

  “I received a teaching degree in math,” Allie shrugged. “But teaching didn’t allow me the opportunity to kill anything, so I joined the Empire’s marines.”

  “They frown on killing your students where you come from?” Wright asked with a laugh.

  Allie nodded. “Strange isn’t it? That was frustrating as all get out on some days.”

  “I get 80,384 square kilometers,” Stone said.

  “Not even close, Stone,” Allie said. “I got enough spare time I can help you if you are having math issues. What say you to a bit of special tutoring?”

  Skippy whooped. “Hey, Vedrian, you can tutor me any day.”

  “Skippy, you wouldn’t last the day,” Allie replied with a snort.

  Wright said, “Allie, if you and Mister Stone need a quiet place to study you can come by my office. We’ve got plenty of spare space. Hey, there is nothing like studying math under an open sky.”

  Stone shuddered involuntarily at the thought of open sky.

  “What, Stone? You don’t like open sky?” Allie asked him.

  Stone shook his head. “No. Not so much. I grew up on ships and stations. I haven’t had much to do with being outside without a deck over head.”

  “Well, tower one really doesn’t have open sky,” Wright said “It just looks that way to keep the goats from going crazy, and some of the marines we have on board too.”

  Allie smiled, “Goat-girl has been letting us bring over some of our transient marines for exercises in the open farm air. It does them good, rather than keeping them cooped up. It would be good for you too, Stone.”

  “I’ve got an opening on my staff. How about I wrangle a transfer for you, Mister Stone?” Wright asked in agreement.

  A smile leapt to Stone’s face at the thought of getting away from tower three-whiskey deck and Lieutenant Vaarhoo. Grandma said the navy would help him broaden his experiences. After all, he had grown up on freighters and had been doing warehouse work for as long as he could remember.

  “Commander Wright, I think I would like that very much. However, I don’t know anything about working with live animals or doing any farm work,” Stone replied.

  Wright laughed and pointed at Skippy. “Neither did he when he came to us, but he spent most of last night shoving his arms up to his shoulders inside a cow’s backend to help with a breach birthing.”

  Stone had a sudden urge to brush the back of his uniform where Skippy had patted him on the back.

  “I’ll teach you to farm,” Wright continued. “And Allie can teach you math, because if you can’t figure out how much grass you have then you can’t figure out how many goats you can put on it to graze. And with that lesson, we have got to go.” She raised her voice. “Okay, children, saddle up. We got chores to do and only so much daylight left to do them.”

  Stone stood, came to attention and said, “Commander Wright. It has been my pleasure to meet you. Thank you for the invitation to join your table.”

  Wright smiled, “Thank you, Midshipman Stone. You are always welcome at my table.” She raised a quizzical eyebrow at Allie.

  “Yeah, yeah, Goat-girl. What he said.”

  After nodding in acknowledgement to each of the other officers that had been at the table, Stone watched until the group was out of the room. He sat back down and looked across at Allie. “Please excuse me, Allie. I don’t mean to sound rude, but I have never seen anyone eat so much as you just did and still keep an attractive figure.”

  “It is really a matter of math,” Allie answered with a smile. “It is calorie intake minus calorie output. We just have to balance them. I do have a large frame to carry plenty of bulk.”

  “Large is nice. I think I like large,” Stone said.

  “Thanks Stone. I think you are nice, too,” Allie replied.

  “And you have nice friends.”

  “Yeah, I think so too. Of course a marine has to be careful who she is seen with. Goat-girl isn’t really very navy-like so I guess she’ll do.”

  “Do you really think she will ask to have me transferred to her tower?”

  Allie nodded. “Absolutely, if Full Commander Danielle E. Wright says she will do something then you can bet your last dollar that she will do it. Not me, though; seems I am a terrible liar.”

  Stone looked crestfallen. “You really won’t help tutor me in math?”

  “That? Hell yes, I am gonna do that. However, I was supposed to meet a group of marines in rec-area one-wts-3159 for a going away bash. We have a couple of transient officers passing through that are departing when we get to Willet Station tomorrow.”

  “So what is the lie?”

  “I said that I would go to this bash, but now I don’t want to. I think I would rather spend the time with you. I am awful, aren’t I?”

  Stone stood as his mother had taught him. He was really glad she had made him p
ractice over and over again. Now that he was out in public it seemed that using manners made communicating much easier.

  He said, “Allie, I wouldn’t feel slighted in the least if you fulfilled a prior obligation. Believe me, the pleasure in dining with such a charming and lovely companion has been all mine. I am grateful for what time we have had and grateful to the max for your willingness to tutor me.”

  “What?” Allie laughed. “Sorry, I quit listening after ‘charming and lovely’. How often did you practice that little speech?”

  Stone dropped heavily to his chair. “Um, well, honestly Mother did make me stand up and say things like that for practice at every meal. But, hey, that doesn’t mean I didn’t mean it.”

  “I know Stone. It sounded practiced, but very sincere,” Allie smiled.

  “Practice is good, right? Just because I practiced doesn’t mean I was forced to say something I didn’t want to say. It just means I was better able to say what I mean when I meant to say it…I think.”

  “You should have been a marine. That is exactly why marines are always training and it is what we try to teach the F.N.G.s. Just because we train you to kill doesn’t make you a killer. But, when you are in a kill-or-be-killed situation it gives you the skills to survive. Same thing.”

  “I kind of see what you mean, but really, I don’t think I would ever equate killing to a beautiful woman,” Stone said.

  Allie shook her head. “That is hard to say. Have you ever killed something?”

  Stone looked horrified. “No. Certainly not.”

  “Well then, I don’t see that you are in the position to judge the comparison.”

  Stone looked thoughtful for a minute. “Point taken. I bow to the argument I don’t know about killing. But, you must agree that I am in a position to judge a beautiful woman.”

  “You just keep sweet talking me like this Stone and you are going to be the best tutored midshipman in the fleet,” Allie said.

  Stone said, “One thing before you leave for your going away party-“

  “Who said I was going?” she interrupted.

  “I did,” Stone replied. “Grandpa always says ‘face time is the down payment on money in the bank.’ We always listen to Grandpa.”