“I warned you. Did you forget all portable pads are linked to the main com center? I was alerted the moment you opened a game.”
“Fuck off, you warned me about this,” she cursed. “And Minesplosion is hardly a game. It’s basically a tactical simulation, which has applications…”
“Bend over the bed and lower your undergarments,” Atlas ordered curtly.
“What?”
She felt her face flush red with unexpected heat. Yes, corporal punishment was a thing on the Audacity, and no, she had never been subjected to it, at least, not for more than a few half-hearted swats from Taylor. She did not think Atlas would do anything half-heartedly. If he struck her, it was going to hurt. She wasn’t entirely sure she’d survive, emotionally if not physically. Jerri was not the sort of person to tolerate an abundance of discipline.
“Bend over the bed,” he repeated. He was becoming impatient and growly, and reaching for the belt that was not necessary to keep his uniform in place, but necessary for whipping a female subordinate.
In that instant Jerri forgot about being on an Authority starship and being an ensign and having to answer to superior officers. In that moment she was nothing more than a girl afraid of a thick leather lash, and she was going to do everything she could to avoid feeling it. Fortunately for her, evasive maneuvers were literally all she knew.
Jerri dived off the bed head first and rolled across the floor. Time in the holobay having lights shot at her had made her senses ultra keen and her rolls ultra roll-y. She was at the door before he’d even turned around.
Dashing down the hall, she first made for the elevators, then reconsidered and dived into a maintenance hatch instead. The entirety of the Audacity was trammeled with maintenance tunnels, a veritable warren of possible escape routes.
Atlas sighed inwardly. This was already ridiculous. Leave it to a human to turn a simple order into a disciplinary matter, and then a disciplinary matter into absolute chaos. She knew she was supposed to take her punishment with decorum. But Tessil didn’t do anything with decorum. She was the most unruly little wretch he had ever encountered serving on an Authority starship, and there was no way he was going to let her scamper away from her punishment.
“Computer, where is Ensign Tessil?”
“Ensign Tessil is cowering under a table in the secondary mess hall,” the computer replied within a matter of seconds.
“Seal the doors to the mess hall and ensure that the maintenance tunnels are shielded in that area. I want it completely locked down.”
“Yes, Commander Atlas,” the computer simpered willingly.
He took his time walking to the secondary mess hall. There was no rush. Now that he knew she was a flight risk, he’d take appropriate measures to ensure he didn’t let her get out of hand again.
“Unseal this door, then seal it behind me,” he ordered the computer when he reached the door to the secondary mess hall.
The computer complied. It was a small mechanistic thing, but it did make him feel better. This ensign was unpleasantly chaotic. How she’d managed that rank was, at this moment, a complete mystery to him.
“Ensign Tessil, come out from there this instant,” he ordered.
“I can’t,” a nearby table whimpered plaintively.
“Why not?” He was not amused by being forced to address the furniture.
“I have never been punished,” the table explained. “And you… you’re fucking scary.”
“Not scary enough for you to have obeyed when I first gave you the order to refrain from using entertainment devices,” he observed. “Nor scary enough for you to stay in the room rather than running away like an urchin in a Dickens novel.”
There was a pause. “What’s a Dickens novel?”
Atlas had quite an interest in classical human works of art and literature. It was part of the reason he had taken a commission on this mostly human ship. But he was increasingly discovering that humans did not share his interest in their history. This one was no different.
“Come out from there and bend over the table,” he ordered.
“I can’t!”
“Ensign Tessil!” He snapped her name so aggressively he saw the table flinch.
“Don’t yell!”
“What are you hoping to achieve? Do you think if you stay there long enough I’ll forget about your disobedience and belay the punishment you have very rightly earned?”
“Getting out of trouble is what I do. It’s literally all I am paid for. It is why I am on this ship. Evasive maneuvers are my life. I can’t help them. They’re in my blood. It’s like, my marrow produces them. So I can’t help this.”
“Come out from there. Now.”
She did not come out. Atlas knew it was not a good idea to give orders you could not enforce. It was an even worse idea to not enforce them. He lifted the table up in both hands and tossed it to the side. Jerri scrambled away, quick as a mouse.