Deja Vu

by Guerin Zand

  “What do you want?” I said to her as I continued my work in the galley.

  “I missed you, Papa.” Gamma replied while looking up at me with her sad little eyes.

  “Well, maybe you should have thought about that before you joined the mutiny, Gamma?”

  “Maria made me, Papa.” Gamma said with a pout. “I told her we shouldn’t do it.”

  “I bet you did.” I picked her up and gave her a little peck on the cheek as I sat her on the prep table where I was working. “I heard you giggling in the background, so don’t tell me Maria made you.”

  “I’m sorry, Papa. Maria said you’d have fun.” I raised my eyebrows as I looked at my youngest daughter. Maria had obviously been working on her while I was away. “Are you going to make me a cheeseburger too?”

  “Shouldn’t you be the one making me a cheeseburger, Gamma, to make up for your part in the mutiny?”

  “But you always make the best cheeseburgers, Papa. Mine aren’t as good.”

  “So, you just came back to get me because you wanted a good cheeseburger?” Gamma didn’t have an answer for that. I simply shook my head. “Go get the bacon, ok?” That made Gamma smile. She jumped off the table and headed over to the food stasis unit. That’s when Maria walked in.

  “What are you doing, Dad?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing, Maria? I’m making a cheeseburger. Besides Alpha, it’s one of the few things I‘ve missed. Speaking of Alpha, that was pretty low taking my dog on top of everything else. That sort of shit doesn’t even happen to the loser in some crappy country and western song.” I avoided Maria’s glare and tossed a few burgers on the now heated grill.

  “Alpha is Gamma’s dog, not yours.”

  “Oh, really?” I glanced over my shoulder at Maria and then turned my focus back to the burgers. “Who always fed Alpha, took her for walks, brushed her fur, gave her baths, and trimmed her nails? Why did Alpha come bolting out of the ship when she sensed I was near? Don’t think I didn’t notice that Alpha was the only one of my ex-crew who came running out to greet me.”

  “That’s not true. I came out to greet you. I walked all the way down to that lake to find you.” Maria crossed her arms and gave me her “so there” look.

  “You walked all that way to annoy me, not greet me. You didn’t even so much as say hi, did you?” I had her on that point and her smug look turned into more of a scorn as she let out a “humph” and she dropped her arms.

  “So, that’s it, Dad? That’s all you have to say to me? Don’t you want to know what we did or if everything is ok?”

  “Why should I care? It’s your ship now, Captain Traitor.” I simply shrugged my shoulders as I placed some cheese on top of my burgers. “I’m just here for a quick bite. I’ll send my girls over to unload some supplies. I don’t want to be stuck eating replicator food while I wait for them to finish up my new starship.”

  “They're building you a new starship?”

  “Yes, they are. The new Zand lightning class is a bit smaller, it only houses four comfortably, but my new crew won’t need much in the way of amenities.”

  “Your new crew?”

  “My fembots. They’re quite helpful, and they don’t whine and complain. They just do whatever I tell them to do. I’ll have to make a stop on Earth to get a decent pizza oven, but the new galley already has a space for it.”

  “Don’t you think you’re being a little bit childish, Dad?”

  “Me? I’m not the one that stormed off in a huff, and stole her daddy’s wheels to boot just because she couldn’t have her way.” I removed the burgers from the grill and placed them on the buns that Gamma had prepared on a couple of plates. I was in the middle of adding all the fixings to my burger when Prima walked in. I guess the smell of burgers on the grill was a dead giveaway that I was onboard.

  Prima came up to me and gave me a hug and a kiss. I sort of brushed it off and went back to my meal. “What’s wrong, Guerin?”

  “Nothing. I’m just grabbing a quick bite and gathering up a few supplies, then I’ll be on my way.”

  Maria flapped her arms in exasperation. “Can you try and talk to him, Prima. He’s being totally unreasonable. He says he’s building a starship and he’s going to go off with his new girlfriends when it’s finished.”

  “They’re not my girlfriends, Maria. They’re my new crew.”

  Maria started to say something unintelligible under her breath and Prima cut her off. “Maria, I thought we talked about this?” Your guess is as good as mine as to what they might have talked about.

  “But he’s not even giving me a chance, Prima. I’ve tried to apologize but—”

  “Oh, so that’s what you’re doing? Apologizing? I must have missed that part, like the part where you said hi.”

  “SEE!”

  “Guerin, do you have to give your daughter such a hard time?”

  “Are you even serious, Prima? Somehow I'm the bad guy here? If I remember correctly, it was Maria who led the crew to mutiny, a mutiny that you were also part of might I add. The only one of you that didn’t join her mutiny was Alpha.” I looked down at Alpha who was sitting next to my feet and tossed her a piece of bacon. “And Alpha is the only one who actually seems happy to see me.” I just rolled my eyes at the whole lot of them and sunk my teeth into my cheeseburger.

  “I’m happy to see you too, Papa.” Gamma smiled for a brief second in between bites of her cheeseburger.

  “You’re just happy I made you a cheeseburger, Gamma.” She giggled a bit, but it was kind of tough with her mouth full. “Was your sister trying to turn you into a vegan without me here to protect you?” Gamma nodded. “I thought so.”

  I finished my cheeseburger and tossed Alpha another piece of bacon. I leaned down and petted her. “Good girl, Alpha. You want to go for a walk? There’s a lot of little critters to chase out there.” Alpha jumped up to lick my face and started to get all excited. She loved our walks. “Let’s go then.”

  “You’re just going to leave, Guerin?” Prima asked with a confused look. Her expression quickly changed as she attempted to unleash her superpowers on me. “I thought maybe we could talk in private for a bit?”

  “Nice try, Prima, but I’m not falling for that old trick. You think you can just get me alone and make everything alright? That’s not going to happen.”

  Prima wasn’t one to give up. “I was just thinking that maybe since you’ve been alone for so long you might…?”

  “I haven’t been alone. I’ve had the girls here to keep me company.”

  That seductive look on Prima’s face quickly changed. “You’ve been cheating on me and Scirla with those fembots?”

  “You can’t count what might, or might not have happened, between me and a few machines that run on batteries as cheating, Prima. That would make most human wives cheaters as well.” I simply chuckled. “Come on, Alpha. Let’s go.”

  Alpha and I were enjoying our walk. It was rare for her to get off the ship on most planets due to the varying rules on off-world animals. You could tell she was happy being able to run free and chase all the little critters. We walked down the path I had created to my swimming hole using one of the grav-shuttles. See, while on Hell I wasn’t just slacking off. I’d figured out how those crop circles on Earth were made by those prankster aliens who used to visit. Using the ships drive you could alter the gravity on the surface in a very precise manner to crush the plant growth in specific locations. With a little creative programming you could pull up any pattern and translate that to drive outputs and, voila! I hadn’t done anything that fancy, but I had made several paths through the tall grass to make my walks a little easier.

  Like I said, Alpha and I were having a lot of fun and Scirla had decided to track us down. I hadn’t seen her when I was on the Ryvius earlier. I figured she was probably smart enough to stay out of the way, or at least a smart wife would have. When Alpha saw her, she went running over to Scirla.

  “Your such a traitor
, Alpha!” When your dog sides against you, you know you’re fucked.

  Scirla knelt down to greet the charging canine and gave her a good ear scratch. Scirla stood up and continued to head in my direction with Alpha in tow.

  “Hello, Guerin.”

  “Hey, Scirla.”

  Scirla took my hands and gave me a nice kiss. “Are you ok?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Then why are you acting this way.” The look she gave me really reminded me of one that I used to get from my mother. I know, I was a grown man and all of that, but your reaction to these motherly looks is sort of instinctual. So it was only natural for me to respond as I used to do to my mother.

  “WHAT?” I whined in response.

  “You know what, Guerin.” Now she threw that stern motherly look in my direction. “Did you have to be so mean to Prima and Maria? Prima is upset, Guerin. I just got done talking to her and you hurt her by the way you acted.”

  “I don’t know why she’d be upset. I hardly said anything at all to her.” Alpha had brought me a stick and I tossed it out in the tall grass for her to find.

  “Exactly. Did you even consider that she might have missed you while you were gone?” Scirla’s expression was starting to remind me of my wife Anna. I was obviously in for a lecture, which was odd coming from Scirla.

  I turned back towards Scirla and crossed my arms. “You act like I was the one who left her. Did you forget as well that it was all of you who left me?”

  Now Scirla simply sighed. “Do you expect me to believe that you’re actually angry about that? You know it was just a joke. You’re just acting like a spoiled little child, and you know it.”

  “I AM NOT!” I pouted.

  Scirla raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Everyone wanted to give you a break for your birthday. You always had to be in charge, and youmade every problem your responsibility. You needed a break, and you know it. To be honest, you were getting a bit snippy with everyone, and we needed a break as well. So, do you think you can get past this pettiness and get serious. They ran into a problem and they need your help, not your attitude.”

  “Well, why didn’t they tell me what was wrong?”

  “It’s not like you gave them a chance, Guerin.”

  “Ok, so what happened?”

  “They were attacked on the planet Gleauratz.”

  “Is everyone alright?”

  “Kevin was seriously wounded, but Senri was able to treat his injuries.” Kevin Frye was one of the Ryvius’ able spacers, a junior position in the crew. He worked as a cargo hand as well as medic. He was also the Frenchie that the women on the ship found attractive for some reason I could never quite figure out. Maybe I was being a little petty, but at the time I thought to myself, hey, if it had to be someone. At one point in our travels, I wanted to assign uniform colors to the crew just so I could justify forcing Kevin to wear a red shirt.

  “Is he alright now?” I had to at least show some concern.

  “Yes, he’s fine.” It was obvious from her look that Scirla had seen through the layer of sarcasm that encapsulated that last question of mine. Yea, she was one of those women who thought the Frog was handsome as well. “Why don’t you come back to the ship with me and you can discuss this with the crew?”

  “Ok.”

  As we made our way back to the ship I used the comm network to contact Senri, Maria, and Kelly. I asked them to meet me in the Captain’s office. I knew that running an errand for Julie was a mistake, but Maria just wouldn’t listen to me. For whatever reason, my daughter looked up to Julie. I think she considered her as a mentor of sorts. I never figured out how that had happened. When I left her with the Collective, I had asked Julie to look after her. I thought Maria would rebel against Julie’s authority and I’d have a partner in my ongoing war with the Bree leader. I guess I was wrong.

  The Captain's office was basically a small conference room. There was a large oval shaped table in the center of the room that I used as my desk. It had several chairs set around it on the side opposite my seat for when I held these little meetings. Senri was seated directly across from me with that stupid smile on her face. She knew she’d fucked up, but Senri was a lot like me and really didn't give a shit. She seemed to enjoy getting me pissed off, a trait she seemed to share with my daughter Maria. Kelly was seated to her right and her expression was blank. She had violated the trust we had been building between the two of us over the years and she knew it. Maria was to the left of Senri. She was pouting with her arms crossed in defiance.

  “Scirla told me that you were attacked on Gleauratz, so I guess I don’t need to tell you that you fucked up. That’s goes without saying.” The only reaction came from Kelly who lowered her eyes as I looked at her. “What I need is for you to tell me exactly what happened, so we can see about un-fucking this mess.” I waited a while but no one spoke up. “Maria?”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “I want you to tell me exactly what you did. You went to Klantzu, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, what happened there. What did you do?”

  “We just landed the Ryvius at the spaceport and then went to speak to the port master. We gave him the registration information for the Klantzuian ship we intercepted running slaves and asked to have the owner identified. The port master didn’t want to cooperate until I mentioned that we’d find out on our own if he wouldn’t help. I also hinted that it might get out that he, and perhaps Klantzu, were working with the slave traders if we had to bring the situation to the attention of others.”

  I refrained from pointing out the problems with what they had done at that point. I wanted to hear the whole story first. “So, did you find the owner?”

  “Yes, a real slimeball called Haur something or other. He tried to tell us that the ship must have been seized by the border pirates and this was the first he had heard of the ship since it went missing. He had the ASTN report to show he had reported the ship missing earlier this year, prior to our seizing the ship of course.”

  “And you didn’t believe him, Maria?”

  “Not at all. Like I said, he was a slimeball and we could all see that when we first met him. We could tell he was involved, but we just couldn’t prove it.”

  “How did you end up on Gleauratz?”

  “Well, we knew he was involved but there was no evidence on Klantzu. We had scanned the planet earlier and we found nothing suspicious. If they were housing slaves somewhere on the planet we assumed they would have been all located together, but there were no signs of that. So, Senri hacked into the spaceport records. We noticed a rather large cargo vessel owned by that slimeball Haur had left Klantzu, heading for Gleauratz, while we were outside of the system on our initial approach using the stardrive. We thought they might have been tipped off about our arrival.”

  “Hmm. So, tell me what exactly happened on Gleauratz.”

  Kelly decided it was time to step up. “It wasn’t her fault, Captain.”

  “I didn’t say it was, Kelly. We’ll get to all of that once I hear the whole story.”

  “Ok. When we arrived at Gleauratz, there was no sign of the cargo ship we were looking for. We landed on the planet and started to make inquiries about the missing cargo ship. It became obvious that the flight plan they had filed on Klantzu was meant to lure us away from where ever they were actually headed.”

  “I figured that much, Kelly. How was it that the crew was attacked on Gleauratz, and who exactly attacked you.”

  “Well, since we were on the planet already, Maria, Prima, and Gamma wanted to go, hmm, well, they wanted to go shopping.”

  All I could do was roll my eyes and shake my head when I heard that. Go figure. In the middle of an investigation, on a planet none of them had ever visited before, they decided to go shopping. I’m sure if I was a woman it would have made perfect sense to me.

  I looked over at Maria and said, “Well, did you buy anything nice?”

  “Actually,
Gamma got these really cute pair of boots…”

  I twisted my head, sort of like Alpha often did, and gave Maria a stupid look. She got the message and stopped mid-sentence. All I could do was stare at the table as I signaled Kelly with my open hand to continue, like a traffic cop signaling a car to drive on.

  “Per your protocol, Kevin and I were armed and accompanied them for security. Maria was armed as well.” Maria shrugged her shoulders as if they should at least get credit for that. Kelly continued the story. “We had finished shopping and we were back at the spaceport when Senri sent us a warning. A ship had just come in hot, and our sensors indicated Alacians on board the ship. I ordered the rest of the team onboard the Ryvius to suit up, come meet us, and escort us back to the ship. We were getting close to the Ryvius when I spotted four men heading at a rapid pace in our direction. The team hadn’t reached us yet, so I got us to a covered position, and, well, that’s when all hell broke out.”

  “They were Alacians?” I asked.

  Kelly nodded. “Two of them. The other two were Trogan agents, humans.”

  “What do you mean, humans?” That was something I hadn’t been expecting to hear.

  “I’ll get to that.” Kelly held up a finger. “Anyways, bullets and energy blasts were flying all around. We were pinned down until the rest of the team appeared behind them. Senri had decided to use a portal to get the team in position since they would have been sitting ducks if they had just come out through the loading ramp. Kevin got hit in the initial exchange, but the team was able to easily take out the attackers. Both Alacians were killed as well as one of the humans with them. The other human was wounded and we captured him for interrogation.”

  “So, where is this human. What did you find out?”

  “We turned the human over to the port authorities on Gleauratz after we interrogated him.” Senri finally joined the conversation. “I patched up Kevin, and after that we treated the Trogan agent’s wound and questioned him. He said that Heesa sent them.”