FREE STORIES 2012(12)
Don’t forward. Cecelie would freak.
-Suleia
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[Reposted to Tester’s Blessings on the GSN private forum.]
[August 1921]
Suleia,
Don’t tell the Moms, this first posting is pretty awful. Remember those rich, handsome Manticoran men who would visit Grayson to check on investments and sometimes get invited over for dinner? My ship’s officers (the wardroom, you know) are all completely normal Graysons, but we have this one Manticoran officer on some kind of exchange program. (It is sort of like how we got Rear Admiral Brigham. Except, Brigham is wonderful, and we get to keep her. This guy is not so much, and we get to give him back to the RMN after two more years.)
Think back to those guys in maybe their mid fifties, who looked about twenty-two with all that prolong, and imagine them cleaned up in a nice formal RMN uniform. Got that picture? Good. Keep the uniform. Other than that make it pretty much opposite. He’s ugly, and he’s constantly flirting. Apparently, my ship got a Manty who thinks that because a bunch of our families have multiple wives, every Grayson female would be delighted to have an affair with his married self. Ug. I avoid him. It is making it harder to do my job, but I’ll manage. There are ship systems that I need to learn as a new officer and to prove that I am qualified on them I have to get senior people like him to log in the computer that I know stuff. He has a reputation of giving away those checks easily for the ensigns willing to work with him. He doesn’t press himself on the guys at all, so he’s okay for them.
Maybe he isn’t actually that ugly on the outside. He does have prolong, and my roommate, Claire, didn’t think he was ugly, but then she met him. Claire graduated a year ahead of me, but they had her working on Blackbird at first. I think they had to arrange for us to be on the same ship to work out the staterooms since there are not a lot of female GSN officers in the junior ranks. Claire went to the Manty for a check on system knowledge. He signed, but Claire said she was really glad that one of the chiefs stopped by and stayed in the ship space the whole time. Otherwise, she might have been up on charges for assaulting a senior officer. Obviously, Claire no longer thinks he’s attractive. It was the fastest I’ve ever seen her change an opinion of someone.
The Manty objects to our uniforms being ankle lengths. I hate agreeing with someone like him, but I confess that I have not worn the regular skirts once since we left orbit. Most of the male officers have spent the money on the better-looking smart fabric uniforms, but those aren’t available for women below command rank yet. The split skirts are so much more practical for getting around.
(I know the Moms were so proud of themselves and the other ladies of the Barbara Bancroft Society for the success of their petition to the GSN Uniform Board to add skirts to dress uniforms and split skirts to working uniforms, but sometimes I wish I had spent my uniform allowance on the trouser option instead. I understand that they feel a lady defending her nation like Barbara Bancroft did should be able to do it in skirts like a true lady. It’s just that, well, I admit I have not actually seen Fleet Admiral Alexander-Harrington in a GSN uniform. But, Claire did once, and Our Harrington definitely wore the pants version. Unfortunately, since I’m not a big hero and an admiral and a Steadholder, I kind of need all the respect I can get. Looking like I am not pretending to be a guy helps. I think. Try not to let the Moms or their friends know that Fleet Admiral Alexander-Harrington isn’t wearing the skirts they pushed so hard for her to have. I’m wearing them.)
Even so, the full skirts are absolutely impossible in variable gravities and even the split skirts require some modification. Please, please remember to send more elastic bands and utility tape with the next care package. If you can match the tape to the uniforms, you will be my favorite sibling for the next century. I know our Moms mean well, but they sent elastic cording and a sewing kit. To me! You would think after raising me all these years they would realize that my chromosomes did not start me out as a seamstress and none of their nurture has been able to turn me into one. My uniforms have to pass inspection, and no, that does not inspire me to learn to sew now any more than decades attending temple in my own sack dresses inspired me to sew better then. Thankfully, I have Claire. (Yes, she’s the roommate with the initially poor taste, but she is none-the-less, wonderful.) No, she does not sew either, but better yet, neither did her Moms. It is almost amazing what can be done to make a uniform null gravity safe with the deft application of rubber bands and tapes of the appropriate shades of blue. We’ve almost used her stash up, though. So, again, I need your assistance. There are rumors that the uniform board is going to come up with something that doesn’t require modifications to function or maybe even expand the selection of smart fabric uniforms available, but there just aren’t very many of us yet. It will probably take a good couple decades to get it all worked out and through that bureaucracy.