by M. D. Cooper
A413, Section B, Deck 98.
It was finally her turn to rise and step into the aisle, which Mira managed to do with all the grace of a drunken parrot, though she managed to hold onto her bag until she was able to set it down on the deck to trundle behind her as she walked off the ship and onto Ouranos.
“Welcome to The Double-O!” a voice thundered as she ambled down the umbilical to the civilian terminal. “I’m station manager Jocelyn Pendleton, and I want to let you know that no matter what you’re looking to do today, Ouranos Orbital has you covered. From fine dining to the best starship servicing bays in Bysmark, the Double-O can fulfull all your needs! Not sure what to do first? Dive into our virtual tours on the public Link! Just query the Welcome Tour!”
The spiel continued for another minute, but Mira tuned it out. This wasn’t her first time on Ouranos, and though Jocelyn had only recently been elected to the position of station manager, her speech was all but identical to the prior manager’s.
It occurred to her that the spiel was probably all NSAI-generated, just reworded slightly to match the new manager’s speech patterns.
Way to suck the personality right out of it.
As much as Mira wanted to head straight to her new ship, she first had to check in with Colonel Perez, her new CO. She’d never met him before, but the tales surrounding the venerated man were myriad.
Mira was certain that most were fabricated, but if even if half of them were true, he would make for an interesting commanding officer.
After a short walk through the civilian docking terminal, she reached a maglev station and waited through the arrival of three trains before one heading to the station’s military sector slid to a stop.
The doors opened, and a couple dozen people boarded, some in uniform, most in civilian gear. She glanced down at her dress reds, glad that she’d opted to put them on before flying up. The major’s leaves on her collar were new, but so far as she could tell, she was the ranking officer aboard the maglev.
Not that she’d do anything to abuse her rank. If her father had drilled one thing into her, it was that serving in the military was just that: service. It wasn’t a vehicle to lord her power over anyone else.
“Marines have a tradition to uphold, Mira. Honor, duty, respect, protecting others. Remember those things, and you’ll do just fine.”
She remembered the quote with ease—it and the hundred variations she’d heard growing up. On top of that, her mother had frequently countered her father’s black-and-white thinking with more measured advice about how the wrong thing often appeared to be the right thing, and vice versa.
Usually, those statements from her mother prompted long bouts of reminiscence from her parents as they recounted tales from their youth, and how they went from being on opposite sides of a war to starting an entirely new resistance.
Of course, Mira knew the tales well. They were stories every child learned in school, tales of how the people of Bysmark had left their former homes to build a new life far from the rest of humanity.
Sometimes it was hard to place her parents in the pivotal roles they’d played, but there was no denying that their tales of heroism were what inspired her to join the Marines.
Not that there was much recent action in Bysmark or the surrounding systems. Mostly just patrols to ensure that folks with less than honorable intentions didn’t act on them.
But Mira didn’t crave action and high adventure; just being out in the black, sailing the darkness between the stars, was enough for her. And now she’d be doing it as the skipper of her own ship.
It was a dream come true.
The train came to a stop a few minutes later, jarring Mira from her daydreams. She rose, straightened out her dress reds, and stepped onto the station’s platform. A quick check on the directions to Colonel Perez’s office had her taking the left-most exit off the platform.
A short corridor led her to a security arch and an NSAI that verbally confirmed her appointment before allowing her into Ouranos Orbital’s officer country. She navigated the passages, stopping periodically to salute senior officers as they passed by.
It was always a strange experience, as she knew many of them from backyard barbeques and less formal events planetside. A few congratulated her on the promotion and her command, enough that she was very nearly late to her meeting with Colonel Perez.
His office was set on the outer perimeter of the station, within a gently curving corridor lined with small outer rooms, each with a human aide seated behind a tidy desk, and a door leading to the senior officer’s lair.
All except for Perez’s. An automaton sat at the desk in his office, its smooth, plas face tilting up to acknowledge Mira as she approached.
“Commander Mira, you may go in.”
She nodded in response, placing her hand on the access panel to alert the colonel to her presence. It lit up green, and the door slid aside to reveal Perez sitting at his desk, brows lowered as he glared at a privacy-locked holodisplay that only looked like a blurry mess to her, though it would appear fully legible to the colonel.
“Have a seat, Commander,” Perez said without looking up. “I just need to figure out what these dipshits did with my supply shipment.”
Mira settled into the chair opposite his desk. “Of course, sir.”
That brought the colonel’s gaze up to meet hers. “Oh, don’t start that with me. Not in here. Here, I’m just Perez or Uncle, whichever you prefer. Not sir.”
“Uh…alright, Uncle.” She decided to opt for the more formal of the two options. “Hopefully it’s not a shipment you really need.”
Perez grunted. “We’re Marines. So long as we have air and ammo, we’re in the fight. That being said, food is always a nice touch—especially since it’s your ship’s rations supply that’s gone AWOL.”
“Oh…” Mira was surprised to hear that. “I didn’t get an alert.”
Perez waved a hand. “I got some stuff moved around before it would have been flagged as an issue for you, but I’m still pissed that it happened.”
“I hate to presume, sir, but isn’t that a quartermaster’s job?”
The colonel glanced up at her again. “Mira, I’ve known you since the day you were born. I owe my life to both your parents. If you think I’m not going to take a few extra steps to make sure your first command goes smoothly, well…I’m a little surprised.”
She couldn’t help a laugh. “It certainly doesn’t surprise me that you’d help out, but don’t you have other stuff to handle?”
Perez dismissed the holo. “Really? Like what? To be honest, I’d try to get busted back down to a fun rank like lieutenant if I thought it would still work. I’d kill to get back out in the black….”
Mira winked. “Pretty sure killing is the sort of thing that would keep you from the black.”
“Think so?” he asked with a shrug. “I bet it depends on who you kill.”
She blinked at the casual reference to murder, then reminded herself that Perez was rarely serious, and that he had also killed more than a few people.
It was a hard thing to align with the near-utopian life people lived in the colonies. The Outer Alliance had never known war, Jal Enna had virtually no crime, the only conflicts of any note were small dust-ups between mining interests in the systems’ fringes, and even those were few and far between.
“Don’t give me that look,” the colonel said after a moment’s silence. “I’m not going to run off and go on a rampage or anything, I just miss the action sometimes. I lived in the shit for over a century…It sticks with you.”
Mira nodded. Her father had frequently said similar things.
She didn’t fully understand, but she respected that they were a product of their experiences, and she couldn’t deny another person’s lived reality just because she couldn’t see how it aligned with hers.
“I understand, sir.”
“Do you?” Perez cocked an eyebrow. “I doubt it, and I hope you never do. Now quit callin
g me sir.”
Mira winked. “Sorry, Uncle.”
“Better. So, are you ready to see this ship of yours?”
She nodded. “I’m a minute from clawing my way through your window.”
The colonel snorted, shaking his head as he rose. “Let’s not do that. The station tends to frown on explosive decompression.”
He turned to the window, his gaze turning down. “Come take a look.”
Mira stood, head cocked as she approached. “You shouldn’t be able to see it from here….”
“No, not the ship you were assigned to before. Your new ship.”
“Uhh…I’m sorry, what?”
Perez half-turned and winked. “Well, the supplies that were missing for your ship turned out to be pretty much everything that the environmental system needed to function, plus all the long-term food supplies. At that point, it’s easier to get a new ship—so that’s what I did.”
“A new ship? But I was pretty attached to the Morning Star.”
“Trust me. You’re going to be a lot more attached to this ship.” He pointed to a row of heavy corvettes docked below.
“It’s one of those?” Mira gaped. “I thought I was just getting a little patrol boat.”
“Nope, you’re heading out on something with a bit more punch. Full crew, too. You’ll have five people under you.”
Mira swallowed. It wouldn’t be her first time in command, but she wasn’t expecting to have to manage so many strangers. The patrol boat would have been a total crew of three, with one she knew from a former assignment.
“Which one is it?” she asked after a moment’s reflection.
“Second from the right. The Inquiry. Just back from its shakedown run around the system.”
“The Inquiry,” Mira half-whispered, feeling the word on her lips. “I like it.”
“Good. What are we waiting for, then?” Perez walked around his desk and palmed the door open, gesturing for her to exit first. “You’re going to like it even better when you see the engine ratings.”
Five minutes later, they reached the dock, and Mira sucked in a breath as she took in her ship. At two hundred and ninety meters, it was nearly the size of a small destroyer, but where destroyers were designed to carry troops and their gear—in addition to providing protection for capital ships—corvettes’ only purpose was to hunt prey in the black.
In addition to being longer than she’d expected, the ship was wide, over one hundred meters across, while being less than thirty tall. It reminded her of a stingray: sleek, and deadly if you weren’t careful.
“Weird,” Mira said after she’d been staring at the vessel for a few minutes. “I just realized that it’s not black.”
“It is sometimes,” Perez replied, a smile tugging at his lips. “It has an adaptive polymer on the hull so it can shift between a range of colors. All part of the active stealth systems. Also makes it easier for repair crews—they can actually see the thing they’re fixing.”
She snorted, nodding in agreement. “Yeah, I’ve had my share of EV repair jobs where I couldn’t tell a fuel line from a bolt hole.”
“Well, it won’t be an issue on the Inquiry. Shall we go aboard?”
“Shall we?” Mira nodded while laughing. “Yes. Please. Hurry.”
Perez joined in the mirth and led her to the umbilical connecting the ship to the dock. “Skipper first,” he said, nodding for her to precede him.
“You just don’t want me to bowl you over when I barrel down the passageways, laughing with glee.”
“That too.”
Mira connected to the Inquiry’s shipnet as she walked down the ramp to her new craft. It reported that there were two other people currently aboard, and Mira’s mouth dropped when she read the names.
She turned to her uncle. “Perez! How did you pull this off?”
He shrugged. “Rank has some privileges. Plus, I wanted my son and daughter to have a good CO for their first run this far out.”
“This far out?” she echoed. “I thought we were just jumping to the Regina System for a quick tour before coming back?”
“You get the bigger ship, you get the bigger responsibility. You’ll hop through Regina, then take a spin through Uganda and Isila. It’s all in your orders. Should take roughly forty days, so long as you don’t run into anything interesting.”
“Like pirates?” she asked with a wink as they reached the airlock.
“I was thinking more like an interesting natural phenomenon…like a moon hitting a gas giant or something.”
“You know that’s entirely unlikely.”
“Oh? You want to talk to me about what’s ‘unlikely’? I have a few stories you might be interested in.”
Mira let out a mock groan. “I love your stories, but I don’t think we have the time right now.”
As she spoke, the airlock cycled open, and she came face to face with ensigns Brock and Emma, both standing at attention in the passage.
“Good afternoon, ensigns,” Mira said as she stepped onto her ship’s deck.
My ship.
“Commander Evans!” the pair shouted in unison before Brock flashed a smile and added, “Welcome aboard the Inquiry.”
Mira returned their salute. “At ease. How long have you two been aboard?”
“A few hours, ma’am. Da—the colonel only just secured this ship today.”
“Much to Colonel Green’s consternation,” Perez added. “Well, Commander, you don’t need me hanging over your shoulder. I’ve passed you the command tokens over the Link, and you have your orders. The rest of your crew should arrive in a few hours.”
Mira turned and offered her hand. “Thank you, Colonel Perez. We’ll take good care of the ship, and the crew.”
“Crew first.” Perez’s gaze darted toward his two kids. “We can always make more ships.”
With that, he turned and strode through the airlock, slapping a hand on the access panel on his way out.
“OK, you two,” Mira said, a smile tugging at her lips. “How did we get this lucky?”
Brock cocked an eyebrow. “Uh…our dads are both paranoid and want to be sure we’re safe?”
“If they were paranoid, they’d stick us on some dirtside duty station, not send us off on a four-system tour,” Emma countered. “I think it’s more because they’re both trial-by-fire types.”
“She makes a good point,” Mira said, glancing at Brock. “So, have you two settled in?”
“Of course,” Emma said. “We were already on the bridge when the colonel told us you were coming down.”
Mira nodded. “Well, I’m going to swing by my quarters before I do a walkthrough. I also want to look over the orders to see who the other three crewmembers are going to be.”
“Probably some grizzled old enlisted,” Brock said. “Someone to ensure we don’t stray too far off the beaten path.”
“Probably,” Mira agreed as she glanced down the passage they stood in, suddenly feeling awkward…though she had known Brock and Emma all her life. “Quarters are forward?”
“You bet.” Emma jerked a thumb toward the bow. “Bridge is amidships, one deck up.”
Mira winked. “Well, that I knew. It’s what I checked on first.”
The two ensigns turned aft and disappeared up a ladder shaft, while Mira headed to the bow, pulling up the cabin assignments to see that the largest one on the aft side of the forward cabin was assigned to her.
She stepped inside and set her bag next to the bed before falling back onto it.
“I have command of a fucking corvette,” she whispered.
A part of her was worried there’d be scuttlebutt about nepotism. Most young commanders skippered smaller in-system patrol ships for years before moving to larger hulls. Granted, many of those officers were lieutenants, where Mira had already served as XO on a smaller corvette and destroyer.
Much of the Outer Alliance’s population didn’t see a reason for there to be a military anymore, let alone join it, so it wa
s becoming more and more common to promote officers into senior positions with less and less real-world experience.
That might also explain part of why Mira found herself aboard a ship with her cousins.
But only part.
Having fully memorized the overhead’s nooks and crannies, Mira accessed the commander’s databanks and pulled up the names of her other three crew.
As she expected, a veteran chief warrant officer was to be her head of engineering, a woman named Aqua. The junior engineer was a bit of a surprise, though. Lorra was a dolphin, a smaller bottlenose, who had been in the service for several years and served with distinction in a recent dust-up between miners in the outer Bysmark System.
Lastly, a technical sergeant named Greg had been assigned to the ship as security and quartermaster. He was the only one on the crew who had seen actual combat, gained via policework before he’d enlisted.
Satisfied with what she’d learned, Mira rose from her bed and began a tour of the ship, keeping to the main bays and functional areas. A small starboard docking bay held a three-person pinnace, while the port side of the ship sported a generously sized recreation and fitness room.
The outer ‘wings’ housed weapons and defense systems, while fuel was stored in tanks running down the spine of the ship. Engineering was aft as per usual, and the galley was amidships between the pinnace’s bay and the recreation center.
Though the Inquiry would only have six crew members for its maiden voyage, it could comfortably house three times that number—another symptom of declining military enlistment.
Mira was about to climb the ladder to the bridge when an alert came that the other three members of her crew were approaching the airlock. She doubled back and stopped outside the port entrance, standing arms akimbo.
When the door opened, the three were standing at attention, and Chief Aqua spoke in a level, yet commanding voice.
“Permission to come aboard, Commander?”
Mira returned the salute. “Permission granted, Chief Aqua. Welcome aboard the Inquiry, Warrant Officer Lorra, and Technical Sergeant Greg. I hope you’re looking forward to a successful tour as much as I am.”
The chief warrant office winked. “If by successful, you mean boring and uneventful, then I am as well. Quarters forward?”