Hecate

by J. B. Rockwell

  Henricksen sat there, glowering, as the sympathy cards disappeared, taking the simulated flowers with them. Unbuckled from his seat and followed Sikuuku into the debriefing room—a twenty-by-twenty square attached to the monitoring room, equipped with a lectern at the front and a video system projecting images on the wall.

  Rows of those odd little chair desks crammed inside it, facing the front wall. Crew slid in looking exhausted, staring dully at the wall as the first of the vids started.

  One for each run—all the runs, for all of the crews. The lot of them critiquing each other, providing analysis and commentary on what went right and what went wrong.

  Plenty to work on in that later category. All of them flubbed something, not just Petros and Baldini, those two loudmouthed Sosholo boys. Good crews overall on this project, but young and inexperienced. The RV-N chassis like nothing any of them had ever flown before.

  Three hours Henricksen kept them there, staring at the flickering images from the simulation runs. Three hours in that debriefing room before he took pity on them. Noticed Fisker sitting glass-eyed at his desk—half-asleep, but pretending not to be—while Taggert leaned against a wall, unabashedly snoring as the last video played out.

  “Get,” he ordered, shutting the vid off.

  Taggert woke with a snort, blinking blearily as he looked around.

  “Grab a meal and hit the rack. No drinking,” Henricksen added as crew stood and shuffled toward the door, eliciting a chorus of groans. “Yeah, yeah. Boo-hoo. I need you rested, not hung over and stumbling about in the wee hours of the morning.” He caught Mahal’s eye as Nunez stepped in behind her. “That means crew in their racks—alone. No carousing after hours.”

  Mahal’s face darkened, but she wisely kept her mouth shut.

  “Curfew’s at 2200.”

  More bitching at that announcement. A whole chorus of put-upon groans.

  Crew never did like curfew—universal fact of the military—and normally Henricksen didn’t bother. But Kinsey had pretty much given the RV-N crew the run of the place the last two weeks, and from the sim results, it was obvious they needed a little structure.

  “It’s 2100 now,” he said loudly, silencing the last of the complaints. “Which means the chow line’s about to shut down. Grab a meal, get a shower. You can relax in the rec room after that. But come 2200 I expect everyone in their racks. We’ll start back up again at 0600 tomorrow. Dismissed.”

  Crew left grumbling—Petros and Baldini the loudest among them, giving Henricksen the stink eye as they walked by. Pissed off at the curfew and kybosh on drinking. Egos wounded by the criticism he’d doled out.

  Academy boys—delicate temperaments. Didn’t like being called out in the debriefings. Being told they’d fucked up.

  Henricksen stared them down—stony-faced and entirely unapologetic. Watched Mahal and Nunez follow Petros and Baldini into the monitoring room, noted the way they bowed their heads together, hands reaching, fingers entwined.

  Slid a frowning look toward Sikuuku, called Fisker over and told him to make sure Mahal and Nunez kept it clean and slept in their own bunks for once.

  Fisker, typically, didn’t seem all that comfortable with the assignment. “Um…” He licked his lips, shifting nervously, touching at the ensign’s bars on his collar. “How, sir?”

  Sikuuku flashed a smile, eyes twinkling with mischief. “Tell the lovebirds the Captain’ll be checkin’.” The smile widened, turning distinctly evil. “Finds ’em breakin’ curfew he’ll roust ’em out in their birthday suits for a little midnight trainin’ in the hangar bay.”

  Fisker’s eyes widened, shifting to Henricksen’s face. “Naked, sir?”

  Henricksen shrugged, face deadpan as ever. “If that’s the way I find ’em.”

  Fisker snickered, coloring, glancing guilty around.

  “Get outta here, Ensign.” Sikuuku flicked his fingers, waving Fisker away. “Grab some food and a shower, and then get your ass in bed.” A glance at Henricksen, giving him a considering look. “Got a feelin’ it’s gonna be a long day tomorrow. You, the rest of ’em,” second nod, this time to the crew crowding around the door, “you’re gonna need all the rest you can get.”

  Fisker sobered up, freckled face turning thoughtful. Glanced to one side, eyeing Janssen and Adaeze huddled up, talking quietly in a corner, replaying a section of Adaeze’s run. A nod and he saluted, spun on his heel and chased after Mahal and Nunez.

  Janssen and Adaeze finished up soon after, stepped into the hall still discussing Adaeze’s vid. Ugly bit of flying in the middle of it—bobble similar to Henricksen’s, though the end result hadn’t been quite as bad.

  He waited until the two pilots left, slid behind the lectern and pulled up the feed from his last run. Set it to play as he sat down in the front row, nodding to Sikuuku as he settled into a seat beside him. “Lucky I didn’t kill us again.” Henricksen froze the feed, parsing through the associated data.

  “Partial pass on that second run,” Sikuuku reminded him. “Nothing to crow about under other circumstances, but not all that bad, honestly. For a first day.”

  “Maybe,” Henricksen muttered, watching the video from their third run. He ran it through and rewound it, replaying the bobble that cost him the ship again and again. “Sloppy. God damned sloppy.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself.” Sikuuku slouched in his seat with his legs stretched in front of him crossing at the ankles, folded his arms, letting them rest on his stomach. “Ten years since you sat in the pilot’s seat. And the last one was what? A Titan?”

  “Aurora,” Henricksen corrected, eyes never leaving the screen. He watched the RV-N blow for the tenth time, swore softly and wound the feedback to the beginning.

  Sikuuku tapped him on the shoulder, pointed his chin at the door. “So, whaddya think? About the crew?” he explained at Henricksen’s puzzled look.

  “Solid, for the most part.” Even Petros and Baldini, loudmouthed and obnoxious as they were. “First rate skills, the lot of them, but they need focus. Don’t know how to work together as a team yet, much less a squadron.” Henricksen sighed, shaking his head. “Kinsey’s let them have the run of things too long.”

  Sikuuku grunted, slouching a little bit lower, watching the sim feed as Henricksen rewound it, playing the entire thing from start to finish this time. “Damned odd,” he muttered.

  Henricksen glowered in disgust. “Shit, is what it is. Rusty doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

  “No. Not that.” Sikuuku sat up and leaned forward, twirling a finger in the air. “Start it up from the beginning.”

  Henricksen looked at him and at the blank wall in front of them, shrugged and queued the video feed, watching Sikuuku out of the corner of his eye as the images started: simulated ship jumping into hyperspace, bumping clumsily through the trough.

  “That.” Sikuuku pointed a thick finger at the images in front of them as the ship shuddered, violently skipping about. “You’re rusty but you’re not that rusty.” A flick of his eyes to Henricksen, eyebrow lifting in question. “Ship pretty much runs on autopilot once it hits the trough, doesn’t it?”

  Henricksen frowned, nodding, wondering where this was going. “More or less. Once you pass through the buckle…” He shrugged again, shook his head. “Hard to explain, but the trough sort of pulls the ship along. Pilot’s almost redundant at that point. Don’t really need to make any course corrections. Don’t really want to make course corrections, honestly. Too many twitches and you’ll spin the ship out of the trough entirely.”

  “And this?” Sikuuku touched the miniature panel built into the half desk connected to his chair, ran the feedback to the start of the trough run and let it play through. “Lot of skipping and drifting.” Another look at Henricksen. “Was that you?”

  “No.” Henricksen’s frown deepened, eyes locked onto the feed displayed on the wall. “Like you said, I’m rusty, but I’m not that rusty.”

  “Sim?” Sikuuku asked him, eyebrows
lifting.

  “Maybe.”

  Hated to blame the sim because it felt like an excuse. Then again, software had its own problems. Never quite recreated the real thing.

  Henricksen chewed his lip, thinking that over, sighed and waved a hand. “Problem for another day,” he decided, killing the video, shutting everything down. A check of the clock showed it was going on 2130—late and late after a long and grueling day. “C’mon,” he said, crooking a finger. “Let’s see if we can find some food before the mess hall closes for the night.”

  “Leftovers at this point. Chow line must’ve shut down.”

  “Better than nothing. ’Sides,” he said, flashing a grin. “I’m sure your lady friend set something aside.”

  Sikuuku brightened noticeably. “She did mention something about pie.”

  “You and your pie.” Henricksen rolled his eyes as he stood and stretched, wincing at a twinge in his back.

  “Sore?”

  “A little.”

  Sims did that. Hours and hours in a cramped space eventually took their toll. Younger crew likely wouldn’t notice until morning. Shrug it off once the blood got flowing. But the abuse added up over the years. Body like Henricksen’s took longer to recover.

  “Getting old, old man.” Sikuuku’s smile widened, disappeared as he grunted, wincing himself, rubbing ruefully at his neck.

  “We’re both getting old,” Henricksen said, lips twisting in a wry smile. His stomach rumbled loudly, reminding him it was empty, complaining about the delay. “C’mon, old man.” He clapped Sikuuku on the shoulder, led him across the room. “Let’s see if we can scrounge up something to eat.”

  Mess hall was quiet when they arrived, and mostly empty. Civ engineers long gone, a few of the hangar deck crew huddled together at a table—empty plates shoved to one side, data tablets passing between them—Shaw herself ensconced in her favorite corner. Taggert and Abboud sitting with her, a slim woman with a heart-shaped face that Henricksen remembered as Ogawa—Engineering Officer, on Janssen’s crew at the moment.

  Intense conversation going on in that corner. Passionate discussion centered around a couple of data readers resting on the tabletop, a third making the rounds of the table’s occupants.

  Taggert doing most of the talking—no surprise there. Abboud interjecting now and then, pointing to one reader and another as Shaw listened and frowned, swapping one device for another, scrolling through the contents of everyone.

  Ogawa watching everything, eyes flicking everywhere.

  Quiet, that one. Observant. Eyes and ears drinking in everything, analyzing the information on offer before interjecting herself.

  Damned smart, from what Henricksen could tell. Most of the quiet ones were.

  Ogawa spotted Henricksen and Sikuuku as they stepped through the mess halls doors, nudged at Taggert and leaned close, murmuring in his ear. Pointed, causing the entire table to turn, hands lifting, sketching quick salutes before the lot of them resumed their conversation. The three readers laid out like playing cards between them, the table’s occupants huddled around them, arguing this point and that like the world’s most ardent group of gamblers.

  “Whaddaya suppose is goin’ on over there?” Sikuuku asked.

  “Probably complaining about the sims.”

  Shaw’s deck gang maintained them, along with the RV-Ns in the hangar bay. Someone—usually Taggert—always seemed to be complaining about something related to the sims.

  “Taggert was bitching about the randomization routines before we started that first run.”

  “Hopefully he’ll talk to her about the seats in those pods. Hard as rock,” Sikuuku grumbled, rubbing his behind. “Ass feels like it went three rounds with an angry buffalo.”

  Henricksen gave him a look. “I have absolutely no idea what that means. Not sure I want to either,” he added, when the gunner started to explain.

  He set off across the room, winding through the mess hall’s tables, angling for the chow line at the back. As expected, the food was pretty picked over—congealed leftovers gone mostly cold by now, line cooks shuttling warming trays between the chow line and the kitchen, clearing away what little food remained.

  “No pie,” Sikuuku noted, sounding distinctly disappointed. “Think I’ll just skip—”

  “Oh, no you don’t.” Henricksen grabbed a plate and shoved it into the gunner’s hands. Filled it before he could refuse and grabbed another for himself.

  Nodded to a table by the wall—close to where Shaw held court in the corner—and guided Sikuuku over, dropping into the chair across from him as the gunner plunked down, yawning widely. Scooped up a fork and just sat there, staring at his plate.

  Dog-tired, from the look of him. Exhausted as Henricksen himself. Long time since either of them ran sims for hours at a time. Plenty of combat experience—always exhausted after a fight—but sims were different. Live fire maneuvers were all about instinct and adrenaline—high level plans and reacting on the fly, an experience the sims attempted to copy but never quite got right.

  Different challenge, working in the sims. Intense levels of concentration required. Anxiety amped up by the fact you knew—just knew—there was a way to beat this and claim a win.

  Nothing at all like live fire combat. No redo in real life. No restarting the mission and trying again.

  And yet, for all that, Henricksen hated them. Despised the sims with a deep and all-encompassing passion. Couldn’t wait to finish up basic training and get into the real thing when they sent him to that OCS combat school. Sims there were killer—pounded hell out of the trainees who ran them—but they had nothing on the RV-N sim.

  Rough one, that trainer. Required just about everything he had. Daunting, imagining what the real thing would be like after suffering through that virtual ride.

  “Eat,” Henricksen ordered, taking a bite himself.

  Wasn’t all that hungry, but the body needed calories. And experience told him skipping meals was a seriously bad idea for crew in training.

  Sikuuku blinked and shook himself, dipped his fork into the mound of food in front of him. Scooped up at bit and sniffed at it, grimaced and upended the fork, returning the contents to the pile. “Smells like shit,” he said, pushing the plate away.

  “Eat. That’s an order.” Henricksen shoved the plate back, glaring at the gunner until he picked up the fork and scooped some food into his mouth.

  “Tastes like shit,” he mumbled around a mouthful.

  “Curry, supposedly.” Henricksen waved at the lump of yellow goo piled in front of him. “’Least, that’s what the sign said.” He frowned doubtfully, examining the toxic yellow sludge on his plate.

  Didn’t look like curry. Or any other recognizable form of food, for that matter. And the smell of it…well, curry meant spices, but the odor wafting from the meal in front of him did indeed remind Henricksen of an animal’s backside emissions.

  Tastes like it, too, he thought, choking a mouthful down.

  He grimaced and kept shoveling, chasing mouthfuls of curry with some protein and electrolyte-infused juice until he cleaned his plate. Made sure Sikuuku did the same, ignoring the grumbling along the way. Skipped the beer he wanted because tired and beer was a seriously bad combination, especially since he’d banned drink for the rest of the crew.

  Sat back still sipping at his juice, idly scanning the mess hall while his taste buds puzzled over the taste of his drink, trying to give it a name. Noticed a couple of Raven crew partaking of the bar’s offerings—Petros and Baldini, predictably—but decided to leave it alone since they seemed to be taking it easy. Nursing their drinks over a subdued game of cards, skipping the pool and vids tonight.

  Muted chatter in the mess hall this evening, now that he stopped to notice. Even the discussion with Shaw in the corner starting to wind down. Tired, the lot of them—he read that in their faces. The snatches of conversation he picked up.

  Chatter about the day’s training, mostly. General consensus indicati
ng that everyone had had a severely bad day.

  Actually made Henricksen feel a tad better, that. Might be old and rusty but even the young bucks were having a rough time with this chassis. Feeling their age, as it were.

  “Kinsey’s been soft on them.” Sikuuku caught his eye, nodded to the crew scattered around the mess hall as he scraped a last mouthful off his plate.

  “Just thinkin’ that,” Henricksen nodded, leaning back in his chair. A sip and he lowered his drink, couching the glass against his stomach. “Hate to tell ’em, but it’s gonna get harder from here on out. A lot harder.”

  And that was just the sims. They still had the RV-N to deal with. The real spacecraft, not the virtualized environment of the software-based faux chassis.

  Sikuuku’s head swiveled, eyes considering the bar. A look from Henricksen convinced him to steer clear—that and the fact he might have to interact with Petros and Baldini—so he settled for the purple-red juice instead. “Pomegranate?” he guessed, taking a sip.

  “God only knows,” Henricksen said, the murmur of conversation in the corner drawing his eyes to Shaw again.

  Interesting woman, Shaw. Tough as nails from what he’d seen, the bits and pieces he’d picked up from the flight crews. Not masculine, as so often happened. More the kind of woman who’d pair a ball cap with a ball gown and see nothing at all strange about it.

  Liked that kind of woman, as it so happened. Liked that kind of woman a lot.

  Enlisted though, which came with its own set of complications. Fleet frowned on officer and enlisted fraternization. And Shaw…not a direct report, but technically she lay somewhere within his chain of command.

  “Not many of her mech gang here.” Henricksen gestured with his glass at the half-empty room. “Wonder what that’s about.”

  Sikuuku shrugged his shoulders and sipped at his drink, lips twisting at the tart yet sweet taste. Smacked his lips after, like he didn’t know if he liked the juice or not. “Engineers aren’t here either,” he noted, eyes flicking to the corner the civvies typically claimed. “Kinsey wants the RV-Ns running. Got you and me whipping the crews into shape. Expect he’s got the civs and the mech crews working overtime getting the chassis ready to fly.”