Thrust 8.

Sponsored by Redshirt, Ensign Marsupials du Paddon. And he's going to regret it!

---

Daisy Jones admired the results of the Premium Perfect Chiselling Centre, noting that they spelled everything funny in the Manliance. "Holy Preventative Signage, what is that?" She pointed and what appeared to be a group of circus tents.

"I think, and only think since I haven't got my glasses and can't read the script, that that is he Navy Eternal Recruitment Tent Show. It's how the bigger ships stock up on redshirts for those perilous episodes. Like musical chairs only bigger." Captain Seymour DickLogic checked his pockets just in case, no glasses, no script just a pair of laser nun-chuckers with a flat battery.

A banner proudly declared:

Please Employ Redskirts Today!

It glowed just the right colourt oo. A couple of redskirts were waving flags that contained only the initials. They tried not to stare at the trouserless redskirt with blue hair because she was with a captain. He glanced at them and they swooned so hard their uniforms started to melt, he was so manlificient and he was holding a redskirt's hand!

"So will our ship have a stand?" She asked, she almost said your, but as she was now in the family way, what was his was hers and what was hers, was hers too. She wondered what she was going to call their child. Was Locker really a girls' name like the Omniwebulator had said? Why were those flag girls struggling to take their uniforms off?

"That's a good question. The First Officer usually organises them, he knows how many redshirts we need per episode and our stock levels." He felt pretty silly holding hands with a medium-lolly redshirt, but there were benefits. For one, he could smoulder manlificently without having to worry about drowning in half-naked redskirts desperate to have his baby right there and then. For two, when accompanied thus, he could indulge in chocolate fudge sundaes without feeling silly. Two was a definite winner.

"The handsome rogue that Camel likes sitting on?" Daisy mused, "I hope he shaved that silly beard off." She didn't like the beard, it made him look like he was hiding an unchiselled chin or something, "no growing a beard darling."

"Sopwith! Arg, you! WHat are you doing here!" It was a maid. Not just any maid, but a most maidelicious maid, A genuine Maid Centurion in full frilly mode.

"Why are you in my novel, Maid Centurion?" Daisy asked, wondering just how she had materialised like that, she was pretty sure that the Hive Collective's transporter beam technology was unsafe at any speed. The Manliance didn't do Transporters at all, they took up too much space.

"The First Officer dragged me along to this show and made me wear special Manliance Frillies. I mean look-" Maid Centurion Sopwith twirled around and lifted her skirts.

AZURE HUE!

"I think you'll have frightened off half our readership right there," Daisy Jones lamented, "both of them."

"Don't be silly, there were three readers," the maid smoothed her skirts, for some reason they were red, white and blue. "HMS Upskirt is the only Research Ship with maids. And classic manspreader drives. And those big twirly things in the engine room."

"So..." Captain Seymour DickLogic prompted manfully.

"Our uniforms are 27.5% more glorious. Look, we even got Communications Playbeing Slime Dispenser into maid mode." The maid seemed unnaturally cheerful, both the Captain and Daisy Jones suspected mints.

"How?" They both asked.

"Trade secret. It wasn't easy though. Ran out of lube twice."

"Hello, sir?" Another maid asked. It really did appear to be Communications Playbeing Slime Dispenser, or at least her head and torpedoes.

"At ease, no heavy breathing in that." Captain Seymour DickLogic advised. "Hang on though. This is a novel, no censors to freak out about the zeppelins coming out to play."

"It's not the zeppelins per se, it's the detonators," The Maid Centurion explained. "I read the rules once, got busted twice. Did you know you can fit three censors into the research problems and two script writers?"

"How?"

"Well, it doesn't need as much lube for one." The Maid Centurion beamed at the Captain.

"Hi," Daisy Jones essayed, being medium-lolly she was face to detonators with the maidified Communications Playbeing.

"Hello miss. Would you like to join HMS Upskirt on our five year caper into the Dangerous Zone? For Science!"

Daisy Jones had never seen weaponised bosoms before, "gosh, those are remarkable. No wonder the Science Officer likes you." This was not actually correct, the Science Officer loved the Communications Playbeing because she was opaque and the sensors' azure hue had no chance making it through her and her frillies. Or even her space onesie but that wasn't voluminous enough to cover all the blinkenlighten.

"Glasses young lady, glasses." Captain Seymour DickLogic warned.

"They fell down her cleavage and were crushed." The Maid Centurion apologised.

"Hey, stop ruining my fun. I'm with him." Daisy Jones indicated the chiselled manlificence she was standing next to. Unaware that if she hadn't been holding hands she'd have been buried alive in half naked redskirts desperate to procreate. For science!

Something in Communications Playbeing Slime Dispenser's costume went SPUNG! Whatever it was, it was serious, it ricochetted off several tents and AZURE HUE! followed. Fortunately not nearby.

"We have married quarters for officers miss. How with?" Communications Playbeing Slime Dispenser followed her script, which she had memorised. Complete with all the sound effects.

"Expectant mother," Daisy Jones answered.

Steam came out of Communications Playbeing Slime Dispenser's cleavage as she turned bright red and overheated.

"Slime Dispenser, this is Daisy Jones," The Maid Centurion explained.

"Nice to meet you, Miss Jones."

"The future Missus DickLogic." The Maid Centurion supplied helpfully. She was beginning to think that the Communications Playbeing was on some sort of illegal drugs, possibly even the legendary Manliance Mints.

"Nice to meet you, Missus DickLogic. You have the same name as our glorious captain. He's so manly that he has his own novella!"

The Maid Centurion had had enough, "right! Who gave her what mints? Now or I'll show you my frillies!" While this might not have sounded like a threat to the uninitiated, it was sufficiently serious that many people were checking their Space Navy issue peril-sensitive sunglasses.

"Calm down Camel. You can't possibly recruit two hundred redshirts like that."

"It's Sopwith! Why can't you get it right?" The Maid looked likely to detonate.

"F.O. Give that maid a hug, now." Captain Seymour DickLogic ordered with such manliness that some fifty or more redskirts swooned instantly, but not those that were adjacent to him for some reason.

"Sopwith, stand still!"

"Yes, sir!"

HUG, AZURE HUE!

Instantly the HMS Upskirt stand was surrounded by two hundred redshirts and redskirts desperate to sign up right there. Communications Playbeing Slime Dispenser nearly ran out of Omniforms and crayons!

"Impressive, we're lucky it's such a small venue." Daisy Jones noted, she was now sitting on Captain Seymour DickLogic's shoulders and blissfully unaware that two hundred redshirts could see her not-approved-for-ensigns stripy panties. They moved out of the way of the applications, being handled by the Astrogrator. "Darling, put me down." She dismounted around the corner and hid from the Maid Centurion.

"Missus DickLogic, would you like to sign up?" Communications Playbeing Slime Dispenser warbled cheerfully. Her script called for bribery next. "We have strawberries♥"

"Oo, bribery," Daisy Jones chimed cheerfully.

"Daisy, how many of your maids are on my ship?" Captain Seymour DickLogic asked the blue haired medium lolly. He wondered who the blonde redskirt she was dragging along was too, the tears in that redskirts' eyes suggested helmsman to him.

"A surfeit. Some of them are dangerously insane," she thought about this, that was probably what they called an understatement. How many of the maids were even remotely sane, say, merely bat guano level instead of the far more serious jet-engine wombat or Pellucidar. "Hello Master-at-Arms Tiffany Lotsofexplosions. Did you stock up on enough science?"

"Who!"

"Daisy Jones. Soon to be Daisy DickLogic," The blue haired woman smiled her best disarming smiled, the one she used when consigning offenders to the flesh pits. The blank look took a few seconds to reform into one of understanding. She decided she was keeping her maiden name except for special occasions.

"Why are you a redskirt?" Tiffany Bangbangbangbangkaboom asked. "No trousers."

"It's the only medium-lolly they had. Besides, it doesn't show the stains. Anyway, about that science?" Daisy wondered, "this has trousers?"

"We have so much science that every redskirt gets a pair of research probes to hug." Tiffany Bangbangbangbangkaboom admitted, "every single one, no exceptions. Even the space latrines have huggables."

All the redshirts surrounding the HMS Upskirt cheered. For some reason there were quite a lot of them with cat-ear hair bands.

"These recruitment fairs are such fun," Daisy Jones chuckled.

"Hello miss, we have strawberries♥" Communications Playbeing Slime Dispenser reminded her. The blue haired woman looked strangely familiar.

"SO, how many mints did she have?"

"Just the one, between her knees like the Doctor ordered."

"Look♥ Strawberrie panties! Whee!"

STRAWBERRY HUE!

"Holy shit♥" Daisy dived for cover.

Helmsman first class Nier Miss burst into tears. Someone gave her a form to sign so she signed it with no actual idea what was going on. Her quad damage ensign nappies beeped sadly.