The Bosun watched her superior officers bicker while she brewed another pot of coffee over the open flame. She and the Engineer had made good time earlier, wading waist deep through the receding lakewater to maximize time on the ship, and she’d been able to secure a few treats.
Were they treats if they were usually just parts of everyday meals? Well, they’d had a week of breakfasts on shore by now with only rehydrated emergency rations, and real toast felt very special after that. Flame-toasted toast, even. Fancy.
The Bosun thought of herself as the ship’s mom, which was the only time she ever had any interest in parenting, thankyouverymuch. She liked doing the daily cleaning, keeping meals on schedule, nagging everyone into doing their laundry properly. It was the best job she’d ever had.
Ship life had been pretty new to her, but old dogs learned new tricks all the time, and if it was going to be camp life for a bit now, well, she wasn’t particularly worried. They’d get some basic food testing equipment off the ship soon and then this moon would be her oyster.
She handed the frozen loaf to the Stowaway, who deftly sawed it into thick slices with a mean looking knife that the Captain really wasn’t sure they should have access to. “That kid’s too good with it for my comfort,” she’d said. The Bosun found a lot of comfort in knife skills.
As soon as the bread started toasting properly on the stove, the smell gathered everyone together. The Engineer even emerged, clearly not having slept since the ship run, raw wires tucked into her braid. The Stowaway flipped a slice, revealing a golden crisp, and they all sighed.
Tomorrow night she thought she’d try and crack open the deep freeze. The whole storeroom was going to feel like a treasure trove, honestly, if the Engineer could find her blow torch and finally tear open the crumpled door.
She couldn’t stop thinking about all the leftover curry she’d packed in there; she wasn’t sure how old it was, but maybe being outside time meant that didn’t matter. The Bosun had found that thinking too much about the Orb and time and such was useless; she’d just check by smell.