Junior Officer Rocia Monero wasn’t sure if she hated Lieutenant Maxwell or not.
It’s because of him that she gets to work with the prestigious Lancer Unit 02. It’s also because of him that most days she felt more like a personal assistant than an officer. This isn’t really how she thought her career would progress.
It started after Unit 02’s first expedition into the Corcosan mines. Colonel Lupata had pulled Monero aside while she was on base, handed her a stack of papers and asked if she could summarise them as soon as possible. Monero had never seen a needlessly detailed and verbose post-mission report. It didn’t just describe the results of the mission - it included musings on the effectiveness of certain political systems, references to niche beliefs and philosophies from off-world, and more. Most notably, it also had a strange lack of actual names of people involved in the mission, instead opting to use nicknames for everyone. This was Monero’s first exposure to Lieutenant Maxwell.
She worked all night to condense what felt like a novella’s worth of words into an easily understandable executive summary. After all, when Colonel Lupata gives you work, you get it done. Hoping to stand out, Monero had even gone the extra mile and left some commentary as she went through the report, and also included a glossary for any pseudonyms and terms Maxwell had coined. It was not a fun experience, but then again, no military work really is. When she handed the colonel her work, instead of the praise she was expecting, Lupata told her to go find the lieutenant in the library and bring him to the meeting.
Monero should have given some excuse about needing to do some other work, or maybe even just needing to go to the bathroom. She was a Junior Officer, not an errand girl. But one look at Lupata’s stone-faced glare and Monero crumbled. One salute and a half enthusiastic “yes, ma’am” mumbled, Monero briskly walked towards the library.
“Just this one time can’t hurt.” Monero mumbled to herself. “Once the colonel reads my report, she’ll see how good I am at my job. After that, I’ll get placed on intel for the Lancer teams full time, and once I excel at that, I’ll get a promotion and be able to laugh about the time I had to go wake up a soldier like I was some kind of frat mother.”
Monero eventually found Maxwell, slumped over and sleeping at a desk, surrounded by books of all different sorts of topics. As she woke him up, she was struck by how different he was from the soldiers on base. He looked generally dishevelled but not dirty, and definitely lacked military conditioning considering how he didn’t immediately wake up and stand to attention. Monero had heard about how… eccentric Lancer pilots could be, but she at least thought they’d have the habits of someone who’s done basic training.
As she watched Maxwell stumble through the library, hunched over, she could definitely see how a man like that could write the report that he did. Just what did Colonel Lupata and Director General Isaacs see in someone like him? Surely, there should be dozens of personnel on base who could do what he does.
Still, her efforts had paid off and Colonel Lupata had commended her for her excellent report writing and handling of the lieutenant. The colonel then informed her that she had done such a good job, that she would be joining Lancer Unit 02’s staff and would now be the go-to officer for all things Maxwell. Monero felt an overwhelming sense of dread come over her. She should have been proud to join the staff, but the idea of managing the bumbling academic was not what she wanted. She swallowed her feelings, saluted the colonel, and tried to focus on positive thoughts. It might not be as bad as she thinks it’ll be.
The unfortunate thing was that it was kind of as bad as Monero thought it would be. She continued to have to corral Maxwell when he was off mission, making sure he showed up to meetings and filled in whatever documentation or mech licensing agreements he was committing to. He was a bit more proactive than she would have expected when it came to organising mech upgrades and repairs with the engineering staff, but his astounding lack of knowledge meant that Monero had to often fill in the gaps behind the scenes with them. It was frustrating work, and Maxwell never seemed to notice all the effort she put in on his behalf. His nickname for her, “Runner”, was just as annoying.
The worst time she had with dealing with Maxwell was when she had to pick him up from Lieutenant Vuelo’s house. Colonel Lupata had been even steelier than usual when Monero received the request, and she knew better than to put up a fight against the colonel when she was like that. When she arrived, Maxwell said that someone had to stay at the home until the usual carer for Elena would be there, and he had looked at her with what she had to assume were the closest thing to puppy dog eyes a man like Maxwell could muster.
Monero reluctantly agreed to stay behind, suppressing the silent rage as he replied with a simple “thank you, Runner.” She could not believe that he would remember a child’s name before hers. The real gut punch was when he turned to her right before he left and said that he hoped the army would stop pushing her so much soon. How is it that a man who is clearly intelligent could be so dumb?
On the bright side of things, she was making a name for herself at the Chateau. People knew how hard she worked, and when Maxwell was on a mission, she was able to fully devote herself to the intelligence work she was passionate about. She even got a smile from Colonel Lupata every now and then. She just had to keep working hard. Sooner or later, she’d ask for a transfer to the IBC and get as far away as she could from Maxwell. That thought alone was all the motivation she needed to keep dealing with him.