On the way Katla ends up in the medical bay

After the first jump, Katla found herself down in the medical bay far sooner than she would have thought. Fortunately, it was for a rather mundane purpose. Her damn collar wasn't syncing. Unlike their ground-based counterparts naval collars were more than just a simple means of marking ownership. They were how a human was able to make a meaningful contribution to combat without the extensive AI that had proven so problematic during the Great War. They were a more personal item and Katla had brought her's with her. In theory, it should have been easy to wipe the Viking software and install Avalon's in its place. The problem was that like most major fleets Avalon's collars were a generation out of date. Katla, of course, knew why a full upgrade had been deemed too expensive for the benefits offered by the latest variant. The only reason she had one of the new ones was that the smaller size of Viking fleets made that small edge worth it. Plus the need to buy it for fewer people while still being able to complete a bulk order made it affordable for Vikings in ways that the larger fleets couldn't match due to exceeding the economy of scale.

Which was how Katla found herself watching an engineer and medic bicker over how to get it to be compatible with the rest of the ship. Essentially focused on the compatibility mode it was supposed to have.

At first, they had asked her just to consider taking an Avalon collar from the ship's stores but she'd grown rather attached to the piece of metal which could one day take away her freedom. Plus it wasn't like there were any major challenges facing the respective departments so early in the trip. As the medic and engineer continued their argument the door opened. One of the ship's ensigns walking in eyes locking on Katla. Seeing that there wasn't any emergency the other two occupants of the room resumed their bickering.

"Commodore? Sorry, that it took me so long to find you. Your tracker wasn't on." The young woman said, clearly regretting that for some reason Katla had yet to understand. She had no idea who the young woman was or why she might have been seeking her out. Without her collar, she couldn't even do a query without grabbing her tablet. Which happened to currently be beside the collar as the sync issue was worked out.

"Its no issue..." Katla broke off.

"Dame Jaclyn Oanbrook, Commodore. At your service!" The ensign supplied, so from one of the lower-tier nobility. Fortunately, she was astute enough to realize that her commodore had no idea why she was there. Learning to read body language was something taught from birth for even the lowest quarters of Avalon's nobility.

"Captain Foxley noticed that you didn't have an aide. My family is linked to her house so I was selected to fill in until you had time to pick one up.." Katla could detect no malice from the words, the young noblewoman clearly didn't think anything unusual of the posting and Katla didn't know if that in itself was a red flag. In any case, it was clear the young woman was eager to be given an assignment. For now, that would have to be enough. Just rejecting her outright would likely be a good way to get on a lot of nerves that didn't need prodding.

"Glad to have you. Once I'm finished here we've got a bit to get started on. First off I need you to schedule a shuttle to the Fury I've accepted an invitation to dine there." Each Captain had sent that invitation. Fortunately, it was one of those things that weren't rude to refuse. "I'll need another to the Nightsong on the day after." Katla could see that the ensign was using the collar around her neck to take notes, a slight twitching of the eye the only indication. "Finally we will be paying Captain Kane a visit."

That seemed to surprise the ensign. "Really? Why would we do that?"