Spinward Fringe Broadcast 0: Origins

by Randolph Lalonde

  “Aye sir, time for you to get your beauty sleep.” She turned to me as I switched my command unit off. “We've finished our daily meeting and we have nothing new to report, Captain.”

  “How are you finding the night shift?”

  She tried to suppress it a little but she was all smiles. This would be her third shift as acting captain. “I'm still getting used to sleeping on an opposite schedule, but I'm enjoying it. It's been quiet since we're still in hyperspace, but I've been taking the advanced command training and engineering primers.”

  I stood and stepped aside. “Well, I'm glad you're doing something with your time. Hyperspace bridge shifts can get pretty long. Your reports have been well done.”

  “There really hasn't been much to report,” she said as she eased herself into the captain's chair. “Except for some of the problems I've been having with the advanced math in the engineering training,”

  “Well, once the refit is over you can have someone on the night engineering team come in and give you a hand when they're not busy.”

  “I'd help, but it's been years since I did the engineering primer,” Oz said with a shrug.

  “I'm sure I'll find something you can help me with sir,” she said to him over her shoulder.

  “Well, we'll get off your bridge, Acting Captain Ashbey,” I teased with a smile as Oz and I started walking towards the door.

  “Sir, can I ask you something?”

  She was half standing and looked anxious. “Anything.”

  “When we're out of hyperspace will you still need me on the night shift?”

  She wasn't just asking if I'd need her on night shift, she was trying to ask if she'd still be needed as a shift captain. “You'll be mentored by myself and Lieutenant Nichols, the other night captain. You'll have the chair three nights a week, and you'll serve at a station we assign you to on the other six nights, until we can promote you.”

  As I gave her the details of our plans for her she slowly sat back down and smiled.

  “That is if you're interested,” I offered quietly with a smile. Glancing around I saw that her bridge staff were quietly grinning, trying to look like they weren't listening in. A number of them were new as well, though they were all qualified at their stations.

  “Yes, of course sir.”

  “Well then, I'll see you in the morning. Oh, and keep working your way through the training. As you finish modules we'll be able to give you more opportunities for practical experience.”

  Oz and I walked out into the hallway and the door closed behind us. “She'll do fine. I would have expected you to choose someone else though,” Oz said as we started walking down the hallway.

  “Someone with a higher rank?”

  “I'd think. Maybe from the military pool.”

  “True, but we're already demanding a lot of the people we have. If I could just choose a commander from Fleet, I would, but out here I could be crippling a department by taking one of their most experienced staff and sitting them in the chair for a few shifts a week. Besides, Sergeant Ashbey had already been chosen by Lieutenant Nichols as her first officer based on her simulation scores. Her learning curve looks more like a road bump.”

  Oz laughed and shook his head.

  “What?”

  “Sounds like a captain, looks like a captain, even acts like a captain. I don't think there's anyone on this ship that would second guess you.”

  I just stared at him for a minute then burst out in a whisper. “What do I say to that?” Completely blindsided. It was a compliment, but not one I expected. Oz was one to react to what was going on, not normally in the habit of commenting.

  “When we started this tour you'd ask someone on your staff before making any decision unless we were in real trouble. Now you make the call unless you just need more info. You just seem to know the answers, even department heads are just taking your word for it now.”

  “Well, I'm glad the crew has faith.”

  “Something happened to you while Vindyne had us canned up.”

  “Something happened to everyone in there. Most of us are still escaping in our own ways. I still sleep with the lights on.”

  “Yeah, I know. I have my problems too, but I think you found faith in yourself.”

  We had arrived at the doorway to my temporary quarters. I waited for a crewmember to walk by and down the hallway before replying. “You're one to talk, I couldn't ask for a better First Officer. When I was thinking of who to put in that chair at night, you were at the top of my list for a while, but then I didn't want to break up our bridge staff. You're good at this Oz. I've learned more from you here than anyone else. You didn't need seasoning, I think you were ready for this when you first came aboard. I'm surprised you weren't the one who got us out of there. You might have, if Alice and Ayan's team did most of the work on our rescue.”

  “I had no good ideas while I was canned up in that overgrown ship. I don't think I'd be the key to getting us out. Besides, the crew knows Alice was your personal AI, that she had been with you for years. My AI can play a mean game of chess, sort things out and predict what I need most of the time, but Alice was like a spare brain or a smart little sister with a steel trap memory.”

  “Definitely more of a little sister. She would have been the brat of the family.”

  “My point is, if you hadn't had her for so long, if she was learning from someone else all those years -- like me -- it wouldn't have been the same. As far as the crew are concerned you and Ayan got us out of there. Now you've got their trust and respect. Before they had hopes for you. Now they have faith in you. It's all real, and I bet this trip would already be over if we had a captain who sailed by the book.”

  “Well, that brings me back to not knowing what to say,” I shrugged. I pressed the OPEN button on my door and the lights came on. For a split second I saw Ayan slowly stretching her legs out as she floated free in zero gravity. In the next second the grav unit reactivated. She fell a meter and a half with an “Oof!” as she hit the floor.

  I rushed over and gently helped her to her feet. “I'm so sorry! Are you all right?”

  She rubbed her hip and rolled her shoulder. She wasn't wearing her regular vacsuit, but a more basic light blue version that stretched more with her movements. “I'll be a little bruised, but I'm okay. I should have left you a message that I'd be in your quarters or made sure that the gravity controls weren't set with the door. I thought it would chime if someone was in front of it, but I guess these temporary quarters aren't as well set up as the Officer's quarters were.”

  Oz laughed and waved. “I'll see you kids later. If you need me, I'll be in my bunk.”

  “I would have been here a lot earlier if I knew you were waiting.”

  “That's okay. I had a chance to do some yoga while I waited. I was just finishing up. There isn't enough room to do it in the quarters I share with Laura.”

  I retracted my vacsuit gloves for the first time in days. One of the advantages of having quarters in the core of the ship was the added safety. You'd have to cut the hull completely in half to expose the space we were in to vacuum. I caressed her cheek with a feather touch and she wrapped her arms around me. “You could stay with me. There's enough room.”

  “Only because you don't keep anything personal around. I think you're the only person who doesn't even have extra clothing.”

  “I have a spare uniform in case the power drains on my command unit and I can't make another,” I replied with a smile.

  “That doesn't count.”

  I traced her chin lightly. “I have everything I need right here.”

  “I want to stay,” she whispered.

  We sat down on the edge of the bed. “Then?” I invited, stretching the word out.

  “I'm so tired, and I have to be up in six hours.”

  I kissed her temple lightly. “It's all right.”

  She shook her head slowly. “Those are just excuses.”

  I was never good at reading women. An
y explanation would have been good enough, the last thing I wanted to do was to make her feel pressured. “Is everything okay?”

  “Better than,” she looked up to me then, and smiled softly. “I know what would happen, if I stayed the night I mean, but I just don't want it to happen here. In a few days, maybe a week, these won't be your quarters. Someone else will be sleeping in this bed. There's nothing personal in this space. It's not you, it's not us.”

  It was amazing how she could fill in the blanks. In just a few words, all the right words, she could just make me understand what she was thinking completely and all I had to do was close my eyes and nod slowly.

  Her lips met mine and we kissed slowly, holding each other in the artificial light, cradled in the safety of the ship she had rebuilt and left in my care.

  Time drifted on as we talked about each other's days. She was having trouble balancing the power output for the new shield designs. The plans for the upgrades on the ship were getting more complicated by the hour and there wasn't any time for her to train any of the maintenance personnel to help with the upcoming refit.

  I told her about the promotions on the bridge and a few disputes between departments over some of the salvage. As we went on talking, I couldn't help but notice how she was leaning against me more and more as time went on. She was so tired that her eyes were half closed.

  “I'll bring you coffee tomorrow morning,” I said to her, caressing her cheek again. She was almost asleep.

  She opened her eyes and smiled up at me, a little embarrassed at being caught in a light snooze while I talked about my day on the bridge. “I'll bring you yours. A Captain shouldn't have to worry about getting his own coffee. Besides, Laura might not like you walking in to wake me up. We don't sleep in our vacsuits, you know.”

  I chuckled mildly and nodded. “Ah, right, that could be awkward. You should get some sleep,” I whispered.

  She nodded. “With everything going on--” A yawn interrupted her.

  “We haven't had much time together, I know.”

  She nodded and stood hesitantly, it looked like it took real effort. I stood with her and took her in my arms for a moment. “That'll change soon, Oz and I are looking for the nearest opportunity for leave. Now go and get some sleep.”

  “Yes sir.” She said with a smile before going off to her temporary quarters down the hall.

  I couldn't wait to emerge from hyperspace, perform the refit and give the crew some time to catch their breath. No matter what I did, my thoughts kept wandering back to rebuilding my quarters. I was getting tired of the temporary cabin. My old apartment on Freeground was roughly the same size, but the lack of a window or large screen anywhere made it feel like I was still in a cell.

  Chapter 3

  Safe Harbour

  I woke before my alarm went off and lay there thinking about my old apartment. The temporary quarters felt very much the same. I still wasn't comfortable out of my vacsuit, the lights were on and I was letting the hygiene mechanisms in my suit do the work people normally did in a shower stall. Even most Freegrounders didn't spend all their time in their contained suits. They wore more fashionable clothing, or simply made parts of their suits transparent, or extended the material for skirting and such. At home, people in more secure, more expensive quarters normally changed out of their vacsuits entirely.

  I sat up and rolled out of bed. “Good morning Captain.” The wooden sounding female voice said from my command unit. I nodded in return. It was hard to get used to the basic artificial intelligence frame program I had added to my command unit. There was no replacing Alice. There were programs that came with different personalities and greater amounts of development but they just couldn't stand in. Not that a bare artificial intelligence was any better, but at least it wouldn't have any personality development that was created by someone else. This one would learn from me as Alice did, and was already trying to predict what information I would need and aid me in general tasks. But it was still completely different. Alice developed through my early adolescence and into my early adult life. She was also based on an operation system designed for civilians, while the new one had been designed by the military for the military. I found myself thinking about how attached I was to the technology I wore as I started my morning stretches.

  I grew up in my vacsuit. My family were never overly wealthy so we were almost always dressed securely. Everyone I knew as I grew up was the same. It was a staple of the neighbourhood. We could see outside of the station, watch the ships go by in the outer hallways of our apartment blocks, but that came at a price. Being so close to the outer hull was more dangerous. Before the All-Con conflict, times of turmoil and sabotage or terrorism were not unheard of. In the older sections of the station, like our home, explosive decompressions were a common form of attack from within or the goal of an attacking fleet. Thousands of lives were saved every year because people who lived in less secure areas wore their protective vacsuit all the time.

  After being stripped of my suit and put in a cell by Vindyne, I didn't want to take it off for anything, especially in my small, more sterile new quarters. They were effectively much safer than the officer's quarters, but it still felt too cramped. The door chimed and I checked the time. It was still over an hour before I expected Ayan to come by before our duty shifts started. I popped an oral hygiene tablet, checked myself in the mirror briefly and hit the button to open the door as it chimed a second time.

  Doctor Anderson stood there. “Good morning, Captain. Care to join me for a pre-shift run?”

  I must have looked as tired as I felt, he just shook his head and put his hand on my shoulder. “Having some trouble sleeping?” he asked.

  “You could say that. Ayan's supposed to be bringing coffee.”

  “She's scheduled to report to medical before her shift this morning.”

  “An appointment with medical is more important than my morning coffee. Is it anything serious?”

  “Just routine,” Doctor Anderson said offhandedly as he added an appointment reminder to Ayan's wake alarm with his comm unit. “There, now let's go get some coffee.”

  A couple decks down and a few sections forward took us to the temporary galley, right behind the seriously damaged observation sections. It was busy. Much busier than I would have expected. I took a good look around as Doc and I found a seat in the simple open space. The maintenance crew had opened up several storage rooms to create an open space large enough for forty to sit down at basic metal tables and chairs. Sound carried with a hollow characteristic and half the room cringed whenever someone scraped a chair across the metal floor. There were very small transparent sections on one side, but most of the view was obscured by the port side RAD scoop. I already couldn't wait until the observation sections were properly repaired and not just patched.

  “It never ceases to amuse me how some crew members are bound by the concept of day and night while others can just let it go,” Doc said as we finished sitting down. He had a cup of dark, steaming hot tea and what looked like a thick, chewy brownie.

  I had gotten myself two cups worth of coffee in a safety mug. “I can't help but notice it. Everyone's profile has a notation stating whether they're better suited to AM or PM duty shifts.”

  “Oh? I thought Commander McPatrick handled all the crew assignments.”

  I smiled at the sound of my first officer's proper name. It just didn't seem to fit him as well.

  “I'm sorry, Commander Oz. Where does that nickname come from anyway?”

  “His full name is Terry Ozark McPatrick.”

  “Ah, I thought it came from the classic holomovie, which didn't make much sense really, considering that would make his namesake a wizard.”

  “I've never seen it.”

  “You should, in fact I think it would be hilarious if the whole crew saw it.”

  “Hilarious?”

  “Let's just say that the Oz in that movie doesn't have much in common with your First Officer.”

 
; “Ah.” I replied before taking a sip of coffee. I couldn't help but look around the room at the ninety or so crew members who had just gotten off the night shift. We sat in silence for a few minutes. “They look tired,” I said quietly.

  “Everyone is. You know better than most there's a lot of preparation to be done for the coming refit.”

  “There is, but most of the preparation is finished. For the most part we just have to make connections from the power plants to new systems then install them while repairing the hull.”

  “A lot happening at once there.”

  “Ayan believes the crew works well enough together to get it done.”

  “She's right. I watched the crew perform emergency repairs from the bridge. I've never seen a new crew coordinate that fast.”

  “I forgot you spent time in the captain's chair while the Vindyne had us. How did it fit?”

  “It brought back a few memories, but I'd rather be in medical.”

  “You like being there more?”

  “Much. When I'm in the captain's chair my decisions are always made as a doctor who is temporarily the captain. When I'm in medical I can just be a doctor and the administrator of my infirmary. It's like running a ship within a ship some days.”

  “I never thought of it that way. I guess I'm just glad I don't have to fight you for the bridge.”

  Doctor Anderson sat back in his chair and chuckled. “You don't have to worry about me assuming command. I've already seen you take actions that I wouldn't have. I bet they'll work out in the long run too.”

  “You mean with The Incinerator.”

  “Right, I would have tried to find a way around, a way to pursuade them to let us and a few escaping ships go. In the meantime that Marauder Corvette would have been getting in position to wipe out a few dozen of the fleeing vessels. Hundreds, thousands could have died if you had done it my way. Instead you made an example of one of the hardest targets in the area so the only logical option the Marauder had was surrender.”