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protective detail. Letting the drascos sleep outside was good, that way he wouldn’t have to clean up drasco poop if they were cooped up inside. They were housebroken, but there is only so long any person of any species can hold it.
    His dataport buzzed. He stopped, set his personal goods down, and tapped the dataport open. A message said, “Contact CDR Butcher’s office immediately.”
    Stone sighed. Immediate didn’t leave him any wiggle room.
    Tapping open comms, he called up CDR Butcher’s office on the Rusty Hinges. He was sure word had spread around the planet that he wasn’t governor anymore. He could only imagine Butcher knew he wasn’t in charge, even though he hadn’t sent a message to all ships in Allie’s World space, leaving it to Queen Danielle to make her own presence known. He and Butcher had gotten off to a rough start back on Lazzaroni Base, but having the same creatures try to kill you tended to bond people.
    Stone admitted that some of the people he surrounded himself with in his tenure as governor were odd. Butcher wasn’t just odd, but changed.
    Everyone who’d known him for a while said he’d lost his sense of military bearing in the jungles of Allie’s World and even later as the commander of Rusty Hinges during the military’s investigation of the alien technology and the subsequent retrofit of the spaceship. The consensus was that he’d lightened up or pulled the stick out. Either way, Stone liked the man and even if he wasn’t governor anymore, he would see if he could help Butcher until he got his new assignment.
    “Master Chief Thomas here.”
    “Master Chief, this is Ensign Stone returning Commander Butcher’s call.”
    Stone, even without the picture projected by the dataport, could’ve heard the smile in the MCPO’s voice. The man’s welcoming grin was evident. “Congrats on the promotion back into the navy, Ensign. Now maybe we can get a little work out of you.”
    “Master Chief, if anyone would recognize work it would be you. You’ve certainly watched enough other people doing it to identity it when you see it.”
    “Why you young snot! I’ll have you know I was in this man’s navy before you were a twinkle in your mother’s eye.”
    Stone picked up his goods and continued on to the BOQ. He said, “Well, I will certainly let my dad know you’ve been close enough to his wife to know about the twinkle in her eyes. And it’s two eyes, Master Chief. She still has both of hers.”
    “I’m sure she needed two eyes to watch you as a toddler, just to keep your backside out of trouble — sir.”
    “Speaking of trouble, Master Chief — the commander’s message?”
    Thomas tapped a series of files on his desktop. He opened a list of file names and pointed at one. The file size was immense compared to the others near it. Having been read by dozens of people, there was a long list of access codes included. “This is your service file, Ensign Stone. The emperor help us, I don’t know how you managed to get a file that’s twice the size of mine. Vice Admiral Temple has reverted your chain of command back to your last navy supervisor. That is Commander Butcher. He wants to see you in his office at — oh, wait a minute. There isn’t any time on his schedule for tomorrow. No … here. Zero six hundred hours, tomorrow, Ensign.”
    “Yes, Master Chief.” Stone shuddered. Six o’clock in the morning was early for meeting anyone, much less a new — or retread — supervisor. He was distracted enough to trip over a small root growing up through the sandy path. Someone should have reported the tripping hazard and had it fixed. He’d get a detail out — no. Island maintenance was now up to the queen. He would report the hazard, but that would be all he could do. “Is that ship time or my time?”
    “Ship time. Come on, Ensign! You should know without asking. It’s his meeting, in his office, aboard his ship. What other time would you expect?”
    “Yes, Master