Infrastructure: Part Two Hundred and Fifty

Master Seaman Georgi Galezowski's naval career began with three months of duty on Shchuka Boat SB-58, known to it's crew as the War Log for the fact that it was long, low to the water and it's accommodations were hardly better than the flotsom. Afterwards he'd impressed the lieutenant and had been transferred to the Thunderer, the second Hunter class ship which was ultimately a much better craft to serve on. He'd done his job well enough so that he was picked up for the Avatar on her maiden voyage and trial by fire at Daagsgrad. The glory of the victory that he'd had a hand in had yet to fade, even though the Great Ship had been committed to the yards for inspection and maintenance after returning to Borogskov and he knew that there were a lot of kinks which still needed to be worked out. There were plenty of odd sounds on the maiden voyage. The Engineering department had done little but complain about this fact for the last four months as they'd worked round the clock with dock hands. From what he'd gathered the Avatar had been put together too fast and had never gotten a proper shakedown cruise to make sure everything was ship shape. As far as Georgi was concerned it was better she was somewhat ready to fight at Daagsgrad than lying half finished in a yard while Drow Slavers overran the city.

In particular one day he Georgi felt that their complaints about having to fix this or that were being silly. He had several duties aboard his ship, but on that day he was given the task of loading the ship's aft magazine with several other of his fellow sailors. Each of the massive hollow steel projectiles was carefully carried by winch before being secured and locked into place. For safety reasons each projectile was not stored with a fuse. Even so handling the big explosives made him nervous. The fact that if something went horribly wrong he'd never know it was scarce comfort. Even so, with exaggerated care he put the shells into place and secured them firmly.

Most of his faculties were dedicated on the job at hand. Even so somewhere deep in his brain part of his brain realized the consequences of what was going on. The Avatar would soon be returning to the sea. It might be to finish her aborted shakedown, but given the number of shells that were being brought along he had the suspicion that they would be going out on a military operation and in praticular one where they either expected a fight to come to them, or one where they brought the fight to the enemy.

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