IMP67

==Chapter 67 - Important People==
The Oak Cudgel
Tharkad Anchorage
Tharkad Star System
Lyran Commonwealth
February 11th, 3098
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After the reforms in the fifties the practice of Officer's and Enlisted clubs on-base had redeveloped.  Not merely canteens (though in some stations that's really all they were), but actual functional clubs for Military Personnel restricted (for whatever reason) to base.
With that redevelopment had come a certain concession to irreverence.  Most post officer's bars throughout the Commonwealth share pun-based names, and the most common one is 'the Oaken Cudgel': literally a pun on 'O-Club', an English language term for such recreational sites.
Lieutenant Simon Hogarth's orders put him in 1st Squadron, Lyran Commonwealth Navy.  His uncle, Thomas, had opposed his career decision vociferously.
The Navy is no place for a Hogarth! was a view shared by his mother Abigail, and his legal father Derek.
In Simon's opinion this made his decision as valid as physically possible. Distancing himself from a famous General officer, in a service where he could rise or fall on his own merits.
Even if it meant his entire family looked at him as a glorified bus driver.
Now, to give you some understanding of the sort of lad Simon was. Husky and tall for his age, with a family tendency toward a certain sort of roundness.  Hogarth men were big boys, with a shock of blonde-to-brown hair, and if left unshaven. A tendency to grow thick red beards to cover a relatively weak looking chin set into a blocky-round face.
Big boned, as his mother would say.  Simon didn't put much stock in that.  His own estimation was 'big assed', and he spent a lot of his young life in gymnasiums and running on tracks to try and convert that extra flesh into muscle.
It didn't make him look any more like the idealized triangular shape you see in fitness magazines.  His build was more akin to a shaven grizzly bear with a pencil moustache and strictly regulation helmet-cut hair.
This didn't make him the most popular lad in the Academy, especially since he took the Warship courses instead of majoring as a Mechwarrior.
The prematurely receding hairline didn't help there.  He was, in all ways, the very model of a satirist's overweight rich kid.
Just like his famous uncle.
"Barman, two Bitters and a water chaser, please." he said.
"Aye, suh."  The bartender didn't glance twice at him, just filled the bulbs and passed them on a serving tray.
Simon put his money down, pulled one of the pints off the magnetic plate, and downed it without taking a breath.  Today had been a fairly good day in the repair of the LCS Frederick Steiner.
"Heya, forklift."  A voice at his elbow got his attention after finishing the first of his heavy dark beers.  Simon looked over and down.  Terry Nghien was the closest thing to a physical opposite he had in the Engineering section of the LCS Frederick Steiner.
Terry was for starters, female, short, and thin.  She was also successful with both men, and women. Where Simon tended to strike out, mostly by becoming tongue-tied and embarrassed.
"Heya Nghien," he responded.  "Good day we've had ja?"
"Ayeh.  Word's coming down we're getting our Navigation officer back."  Nghien told him.
"Oh, that's nice I suppose." Simon said quietly.  "I was on Gallery when she showed up the first time, how is she?"
"Oh, well, she's a hardass, but in the good way." Nghien mused.  "Amanda's a Proper Spaceah. She probly take on a lookit you, an' larf her helmet full." Terry teased.  "Or she'll slosh when she walks."
"What?"
"Paddy Ngo looked over your suggestions to the Core controllers.  He likes 'em." Terry explained.  "They wanna implement.  You're not what's expected, there's a brain in that oversize meatsuit."
Simon chuckled a little.  "Fat lot of good it does in port for me." he commented drily.  "You're the only gel even talks to me off-duty, and you're explicitly uninterested."
"Guys like you needa go offa post, Simon.  Or date infantry."  Terry speculated.  "If you were a nanzie you'd be a cub's wet-dream but you're into double-ex girls, and with the fitboys and jocks available, an engineering snipe what can't put ten words in a row and looks like a flesh-blanket pillow an what ain' gots no game gettin nowhere, sabby?"
"No shit."
''
"Your biggest problem, is that you're oblivious." Terry continued as the barman handed her a bulb of something violet-purple.  "Case in point, look to your seven o'clock."
He turned his head to look in the indicated direction.
"See the tall blonde there?" Terry asked from his shoulder.
"Aye?"
"I'm taking her to quarters tonight... but you're getting looks from her friend there... and say hello to our second-shift nav officer." Terry patiently explained.  "If you can't score with Amanda Ngo, You're flepping hopeless.  She's smart and scuttle sez she's into big lads like you.  if you can't, you can at least distract her so I can chat up Van Oosten, sabby fatboy?"
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FINI
The Important People has ended, however the next story arch continues in You swore to carry on
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