Coffee was life.

Literally.

This morning it might actually be the difference between life and death, especially for the hapless ensign in Mads McGowan’s sight.

She sighed, resisted the urge to throttle Ensign Lane and thought longingly of the espresso that was in her immediate future. An espresso she wasn’t going to get if she throttled said ensign and got thrown in the brig. And, more importantly, if she got herself arrested, her cargo transport schedule would be screwed six ways to Sunday.

“Ensign, can you explain to me why the crates for catering with the real eggs for the fancy cakes for the Admiral’s ball that should have been there before eleven this morning have been delivered to main engineering?”

She somehow managed to keep her voice level as she tapped away on the ever-present padd in her hand, working the transport schedule like a Tetris master. She also managed to limit herself to one baleful glance up at the ensign.

“While I’m sure engineering would have been delighted had the delivery been actual cakes instead of the raw ingredients, they’re not going to be able to do much with five thousand raw eggs. Not unless something significant has changed in engineering or maybe the laws of physics that I was unaware of.”

Ensign Lane squirmed, then managed a smile. He had the sunniest disposition she had ever had the misfortune to come across. One that irritated her daily. Especially today.

“It was the number three, commander.” He nodded offered a brighter smile.

Mads blinked, finger hovering over the padd, ready to commit the changes she’d just made to get the eggs to catering where they belonged, the degreaser engineering needed from medical back to engineering, and then put in a search query to find the two missing crates of medical supplies.

“The number three?” She asked. Perhaps she’d slipped into some kind of alternate reality where all of a sudden words didn’t mean what she thought they meant.

“Yes! Exactly! It wasn’t where it should be.”

“The number three… wasn’t where it should be? Did it move from between two and four?”

The sarcasm was completely lost on Lane, who nodded so hard she thought his head was going to fall off.

“Yes! Well, no—”

Mads bit back a second sigh. This was going to be a long day.

“What I mean is, the shipment for engineering ended four-four-three, and the shipment for catering was four-three-four. The three got put in the wrong way around when the shipments were put into the system.”

Mads stabbed the confirm button on her padd with more venom than usual. She had broken screens before. Today was getting near that level.

“Right… And no one through the various different handling points or the final transport point thought to check the fact the transport crates had ‘fragile organics’ painted on the side were being delivered to eng—“ She cut herself off and shook her head. “No, don’t answer that. The number three, right?”

Brig… no coffee, she told herself. Remember that.

“Yes, ma’am.” Lane looked at her again. “You look stressed, ma’am. Would you like a coffee? I was just about to head down there on my break… I can bring you one back?”