The big man- Gareth- wasn’t too bad, Jeliah thought. Maybe cared a little too quickly but given the rapidity with which her crew had grown she wasn’t convinced that was a bad thing. He seemed loyal, and verifiably nice. She’d just have to watch out for him, make sure he didn’t snap and kill them all one day because someone he liked got a hangnail. As for the other one, James, if he pulled out of his current dance with death he might be an asset. He had brains, it seemed, though they were hidden behind a mask of stupidity so convincing that even though she was now concerned about a gunshot wound to his throat she’d very nearly put one in his head.
She got back to her quarters and took off her blood-stained coat. The end of that one, probably, though maybe Smee could get it clean. She’d thought maybe she could work it, use the bloodstains as an angle, but in real life bloodstains are a sort of mottled brown, rather than crimson, and it just made her look gross. If she tried to work it from a business perspective it would just make people more ready to panic. It certainly wasn’t a look for the boardroom, and after talking to Gareth she knew that’s where she needed to be. Resources like Gareth and James and Scarface didn’t belong on field crews, and they certainly didn’t need to be jumping through ridiculous hoops to get jobs. Piracy may have been a problem, galactically speaking, but at least she had a handle on her hiring practices and was pretty happy with how her last onboarding had gone from a talent perspective. Now if she could just get her existing crew in line. She honestly regretted having shot Gorge in the foot but the man had a mouth like a black hole with an inverse gravitic field. It was enough to yell at the crew pre-mission to “pump them up,” and the whistle-and-shorts combo he wore did something to counterpoint her own visual authority…but telling a wounded man’s friend- while he was holding the wounded man, no less, and covered in blood- that the friend didn’t matter wasn’t a proactive approach to management. It wasn’t even pragmatic. It was moronic. The shot to his foot was symbolic as much as satisfying, and it was definitely justified.
Coat-shorn she sat on the chair next to the hammock she’d paid entirely too much for and zippered down her boot. The heels were amazing but they were brutal and she’d only planned on wearing them for the onslaught itself- she hadn’t planned to spend the next eighteen hours in them. But once they were on they stayed on. She wasn’t giving an inch to these men. It was hard enough staying in charge as it was- if you started taking off your shoes because they hurt your feet you risked winding up in the kitchen no matter how many intellectual circles you could run around the dim bastards. They were all ready to follow Gorge off a cliff anyway, and she knew his foot injury was going to take some explaining. She tossed her boots in the corner. Next up were the leggings, and they were going to be a problem. Stretchy or not, you cover something in blood and it becomes hard to take off. She decided to go sit in the bath, maybe soften them up before she tried peeling them off and scratching up her legs. It dawned on her that technically she’d be bathing in James’ blood and almost decided against it. Then she thought, well, what the hell’s the point of being a fucking pirate captain if you couldn’t bathe in someone’s blood every once in awhile. The sheer literary gorgeousness of a captain bathing in blood appealed to her, and she called for Smee to open the taps.
While she waited for her bath she leaned back in the chair and leered at her hammock. The Executive, it was called. Not that many people were going to see it but it looked the part of a successful person’s hammock. It had incredible back support which she had been supremely skeptical of, but not only had she not had any back pain since she bought it her posture had improved. The salesman had told her that would happen but she hadn’t thought it possible. It wasn’t easy to surprise her but that had. The men from that work crew had. The Brad kid had. The vice-captain of the Albright had. She was slipping, or maybe the organization just needed some adjustment. She hadn’t been delegating enough, trying to take on too much of the day-to-day as well as the big picture stuff. She hoped that was it, because living in a galaxy in which she was continuously surprised was not something she could live with- even if she still had her fierce-ass coat. If she was going to make it to the Council she had to be able to see around corners, and right now she was running into walls. If that meant a shake-up in the hierarchy then so be it. She made a mental note to talk with Gorge and some of the others about team-building the next day, and to start a couple of the newbies on a management track. There was no reason they couldn’t be prepared just because they didn’t have the same experience. Her old guys hadn’t grabbed it, and after the last raid she could think of a couple new guys who had the kind of initiative she liked. Her mind stopped on one, and she found herself wondering about The Executive’s weight limit. The word ‘lawsuit’ flitted across the front of her brain and she forced herself back to planning the team-building session.
Finally, Smee came in to tell her the bathwater was ready and as she got into the tub- pants and all- she was starting to feel like her old self again. She took off her glasses and closed her eyes. It was going to be an interesting few days.
