Ke couldn’t put down Kessler’s letter to Sajer. She paced around the room, looking from the letter to the file Kessler had left to his Kaptain. She had to tell Akin, she had to alert everyone. She looked at the clock on the wall and wondered if the commander was an hour into his nap by then. She pondered if he would be as sharp as she was without the typically needed sleep. Ke was no typical subordinate, she studies her superiors like kittens watch their mothers, learning and absorbing everything to better understand and please the hand that feeds. She built her own luck for promotions, and ahe swore she would never earn rank on her back.
Being a woman in uniform was always a sort of uphill struggle. Military service tends to attract the more aggressive of personalities, the rawer of human emotions most commonly worn on shoulders and sleeves. She had endured the typical behavior of men at sea with he deep sea construction companies, so the transition to military service felt easy. The men were easy to work along side, it was the other females that she couldn’t handle. At all times the baack biting and the rumor mills could be traced back to other females, always in competitions that Ke had no interest in. As she worked her way through officer candidate school she found herself striving to be in any job where women were harder to run into. Making herself into a venerable unicorn in tasks and billets had enabled her an easy shot at deep sea salvage and rescue.
When she was stationed to Maine, specifically under Akin and occasionally Commadore Cole, she would always endeavor to study the men and their bearing. Akin was quick to react, brash, fumbling with how he used his crews, inept at how he saw small scale issues. Cole was the complete opposite, wildly talented and capable among any number of men, able to see where his small picture meshed into the wide screen image, inherently adept at how he utilized small teams. She spent the weeks under Akin softly presenting details he may have otherwise missed, making herself invaluable to him. During Coles months of leadership she simply carried out any task with as much attention to detail as she knew how.
In the back of her mind she knew Akin had to know what she knew.
As she wandered towards Akin’s cabin she reread the file over and over, scanning each detail Kessler had left his Kaptain. She mused to herself, wondering how much she behaved like this long dead sailor. The fellow was doing everything he could for his commander, building luck for other people. She smiled softly to herself as she rounded the last corner and spied Akin crouched beside his cabin door. The man looked hagrid as he held the steaming coffee cup as though praying. Ke wondered if he was, he was certainly going to want to after she explained what she’d found.