by Reiter
“And Hansel,” Llaz said to Hansel, “it looks like the lady has other things on her mind. The Captain is many things but–”
“Patient isn’t one of ‘em,” several people said in unison as they walked out of the Mess Hall. Hansel Giruek did not need another hint and he scampered from the room, turning down the corridor and running after the Captain.
“Thanks for taking the time to talk with me, Captain,” he said as he slowed to a walking stride.
“Not taking any time, Hans,” Jocasta explained. “Until my Chief Engineer develops point-to-point teleportation, I gotta walk to the Bridge. No law against you walking in the same direction at the same time. What’s on your mind?”
“The crew and how I’d fit in,” Hansel replied.
“Hard to say without Z being here,” Jocasta replied.
“You let your First Mate leave the ship along with your Chief Engineer?”
“Didn’t really have much choice there, Hans. Seeing as how they’re the same person.” Hansel stopped walking which forced Jocasta to stop. She was curious what had overcome the young man so powerfully as to put him in a near comatose state. “Problem?”
“Your First Mate is your Chief Engineer?”
“I know,” Jocasta replied, resuming her path. “It sucks, right?! Oh, it’s not too, too bad. I still have the Brain Trust, that’s the name I give to the smart sections of the crew. The scientists, the engineers, the wannabe Jockeys, the Rippers… all of that we call the Brain Trust. They’ve been holding their own in his absence. But then again, we haven’t had need to build another fighter or make major repairs to the ship.”
“Build another fighter?” Hansel asked as he followed. He did not walk well. His concentration was fixed on what he had heard and it caused him to stumble.
“I thought I told Llaz to give you the tour,” Jocasta said, looking back at the dumbfounded young man.
“He did… well, as far as he could. We told him about the trackers the Field Marshal loaded us with and he–”
“Took you to the Rippers to get cleaned out,” Jocasta sighed as she remembered the particular plight of the two latest additions to the ship’s passengers. “And that took time.”
“All kinds of time,” Hansel added. “But it didn’t hurt, not like when they made the installations.”
“I’m sorry,” Jocasta said as she stopped, putting her hand on Hansel’s chest. “Did you mean to make that sound plural because you were including Xaedra, or was that made to sound plural because you had more than one tracker?”
“The second choice,” Hansel replied. Jocasta maintained eye contact, making sure she had heard what he had said. She sighed in disgust and started walking again.
“Might regret that going-away present,” she muttered. “It’s not like I was taking out his people, so much as his slaves.”
“Oh, not everyone gets the implants,” Hansel stated. “Only the shanghaied crew gets those. The grunts you had to take care of… they line up to fight for the FM. My boss was a volunteer too. She loves, or rather loved, making weapons!”
“A female weapons engineer?!”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. That is a particularly haunting thought,” Jocasta shuddered as she reached the lift pole. “… letting someone who has cramps make weapons!
“So you got cleaned out,” she said as took hold of Hansel and pulled him close so that they stood on the same pad. “What’s on your mind now?” The lift pad started its way up and Hansel stumbled, but he did not fall. A quick hand had taken a tight hold of his belt and kept him from moving off the pad. Hansel was impressed with Jocasta’s strength and took hold of the pole.
“I want in!” he finally said.
“Tell me why.”
“Why?”
“That’s what I said, echo boy, why?” Hansel looked away from Jocasta but she moved her hand from his belt to his chin, applying nearly the same strength of grip. “My eyes are here! When you speak to me, when you speak to anyone, you should be looking into their eyes. The obvious exceptions are for when you’re plotting and scheming, but that comes later. I’ll ask one more time: why?”
“Because!” Hansel nearly shouted. “The chairs.” Jocasta squinted, lightening her grip. It was not the tears welling up that had caused the change, it was the pain she could see in his face. Hansel was slender of frame, but he had some pretty broad shoulders. She would allow him a moment – encourage a moment – where he would let his shoulders take a rest. “Everybody sat in chairs,” he continued. “The Second Mate stood in the corner! Not me… not your Brain Trust people… the guy in charge!”
“The corner position gave him a better view of everyone else, Hans,” Jocasta explained. “And I think I know how that bastard of yours came up with all of his nicknames. He’s pretty much rank and file, isn’t he?” Hansel nodded, wiping his eyes. Jocasta stepped off the pole and brought Hansel along with her. “Don’t read this the wrong way, because I am Captain of this ship and I’ll go to the hilt on an ass quicker than you can blink. But even with that, there’s a line. I’ve never had a crew of my own, Hans. It’s been me saying ‘aye sir’ or ‘aye ma’am’. After that I was alone and then I was with Z. Oh, and one thing you should know about Z: he’s the smartest person you’ll ever meet. What’s spooky about him? He’s also the one you’d have to convince he’s the smartest person you’ll ever meet. Nothing spookier than humble power, boy. If you don’t remember anything else, remember that!
“When he told me I needed a crew and I told him to get stuffed, he said when you’re in charge, you face the challenge of time. Somewhere in your mind you will recall every moment you were working for an ass-hat that was dumber than you, not as skilled as you, or less humane than you. The challenge comes when you ask yourself whether you’re going to add to those numbers. I tell you right now, if I had ever served under a Captain that does what I do, I’d never be a Captain. But it didn’t work out that way for me, so I do what I can to not add to the ass-hat count.
“Boil all of that down, I own this ship!” Jocasta declared, walking onto the Bridge. “The First Mate makes sure the entire ship runs the way it should. Big freakin’ bonus that he’s the one who made the ship! The Second Mate sees to the crew… so that the First Mate can see to the ship… so that the Captain can say ‘go to where X marks the spot and let’s do some damage’! There’s all kinds of little points in-between that, but that’s the overview of it all as I see it. You want in… I can use another engineer, especially one with a good head,” she said, touching her index finger to his forehead. “… and a better heart!” she added, placing her palm on his chest. “But you should know there is one universal law on my ship: never piss off the engineer!”
“Really?!” Hansel asked, his eyes flaring wide in wonder.
“Really!” Jocasta assured. “You keep me flying, I will never piss you off!” She paused, a smirk finding its way to her face. “Well, at least not on purpose.”
“Permission to report to the Brain Trust, Captain?”
“Negative, recruit,” Jocasta said as she took her seat at the controls. “Report to Boss, and tell him to get you into Basic Training. Not going to have a brain that can’t fend for himself. No, sir, not on my boat! You get through Basic, Boss will hand you off to Shotgun who will rate your aptitude. If he says you can man a lab, then you can go to work. If not, you go to class and then you’ll man a lab.
“How does that suit you?” Jocasta asked as she sent commands to bring the drives online.
“Permission to report to Boss, Captain?”
“Granted, Hans, and best of skill.” Hansel quickly turned and ran out of the room. Jocasta was amused by his haste and his energy.
“He’ll forget, but I won’t,” she whispered. “I was locked in a powered-down battle suit, completely at his mercy… at least, as far as he knew. He took care of me. Yeah, some pretty broad shoulders on that one!” Jocasta started to plot a course, but decided to pilot for a while.
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br /> The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
(Rims Time: XII-4203.27)
From outside appearances, the Xara-Mansura was a quiet ship, moving silently through space; now fifty-one hours from the Onyx Barony, one hundred fifty-four before she would reach the outer markers for the Pearl Barony. With the exception of the observation deck, the windows were situated only along the corridors of the mammoth vessel. One would have to step inside to see the tempered chaos that kept the mettle of the ship and its crew.
For only if one had eyes on the firing range could they see Mel, in his armoured hoverchair, moving quickly through the obstacle course, lining up targets with his rifle, firing as he used his body weight and verbal commands to pilot the vehicle, change weapons and tools, and exit the course having scored center mass or head shots on all but one of the targets… that target fell with a neck wound from a hurled bolo that wound around and constricted, eventually removing the head.
In the Simulator Room Nielsen Feldspar sat at the control console, monitoring the workouts of Cilrus Cliye who had placed himself back in the arena, facing off against six other gladiators, though none were armed with simple archaic weaponry.
In the neighboring simulation pod, Olreye was commanding a strike mission to retrieve the First Mate. It was his third time in this challenge scenario. Fighting against the computer-generated images, he smiled. At least this time, he was still alive. Dungias was once again dead and the mission was a complete failure, but Olreye had managed to escape the estate with fierce tree-like creatures in close pursuit.
Synh Dayami walked around the perimeter of the padded floor of the dojo, sweat falling from his body. He walked, watched, and waited, looking for the perfect time and place to take his wooden sword and attack Pristacia as she defended herself from a hard-pressing Llaz. Synh had never seen such a rapid increase of skill, strength, and perception in his life… and to see it in more than one person made him question the means by which this improvement had been achieved. But he would not speak of it. At least, not yet. Words would have to be shared with Dungias first, as he was the closest thing to a samurai aboard the ship. JoJo was the Empress, and in his mind she was above such things. His thrust was late and Pristacia was more than ready for him. He wound up nearly striking Llaz and withdrew to keep from being struck by Pristacia.
“Everything all right?” she asked without taking her eyes off of Llaz.
“A lapse of concentration,” Synh admitted, distracting Llaz who was caught by a fast jab from the woman. “It will not happen again!”
“You think you’ll get the chance!” Pristacia charged in behind her jab, landing another. She moved to grapple Llaz, but he spun and landed a blind palm thrust to her ribs.
Panting deeply, but steadying himself from the landed blows, Llaz smiled and nodded. “Yeah, because you’re going to be out in just a couple of seconds!”
The members of the Pinion Project were engaged in training of another nature. Deolun looked at his brace-com as the countdown clock approached zero. He looked at the others as they rushed about the hangar tossing tools and equipment to each other making repairs to a wounded ship. When the timer reached zero, a loud buzzer sounded and everyone stopped working.
“I can tell you right now this one’s far from green,” Deolun said as he leveled a hand-scanner at the craft. “Blood red!
“Not bad,” he said with a bright smile as he moved to the next spacecraft. “You managed to get the primary generator online.” Cheers came from the pilots and gunners as they congratulated each other. “Whoa there, wild feathers! I said the generator is online. But because you guys forgot the capacitors, all of that energy is flowing, unchecked, right into the cockpit. Congratulations. You’re cooked before you could even taxi to the launch deck! That’ll be three laps!” Deolun fell in at the rear of the line and ran with the rest of the group. He barked orders to increase the pace whenever he heard a complaint. He smiled at the way the group was coming together, having fully expected that his approach to teaching the more technical aspects of maintaining special equipment would be scoffed at or ridiculed. Only the gods knew how long it had taken to convince Bruveia and Hennix, and even they were only beginning to take the lessons seriously. Silnee, however, had surprised him. She had started to nod even before he was done explaining himself. It had been her idea to make him the instructor of the lessons, and to add a teamwork element as well as a time limit to the process.
Willis Siekor continued to shake his head in disgust as he stirred the large pot. Roc kept only a cursory eye on the young man’s progress, feeling that the young pirate hopeful needed a break. It was not every day that a man had the good fortune to roll five sixes on the last pass; of course a person would double their bets with only one roll left to the game. To have that bet taken though, such was the very definition of gambling. It did not help matters that the player had never rolled bones before. Feldspar had warned Siekor about beginner’s luck to no avail. The wage had been tripled in credit count and saddled with even more chores. Siekor had taken the bet… and now he was stirring the lumps out of the gravy. As soon as he was done with that, the potatoes had already been cleaned and were awaiting his peeling tool. After this meal, which included serving and clean-up, he only had four more meals to work in the kitchens.
“Six aces,” Siekor muttered. Roc bit down on his bottom lip to keep from laughing. The cook could still see the look of shock and awe on Siekor’s face when the last die stopped rolling. It looked as if the life behind the young man’s eyes abandoned him. Roc turned his back to Siekor, fearing he was going to lose in his struggle at any moment.
Without a work or training detail to report to for at least five hours, Obanyo and Thomasine were allowed to spend time together in the arboretum. Theirs’ was a relationship of a very different perspective. Thomasine was taller and generally accepted as the better driver, pilot, and fighter when compared to Obanyo. That did not stop her passions for the young man, and it was hardly an unrequited love.
“What did you do?” Obanyo asked as they walked past a rather exotic collection of wildflowers. A picnic blanket had been laid out with a decanter of wine, two glasses, and a picnic basket with a loaf of bread jutting out from one end.
“Saying ‘thank you’,” Thomasine replied as she knelt down on the blanket and patted a clear spot next to her. “Boss has turned it up a notch since we left the Garnet Barony. I think there was a point where Nightingale actually stepped in to suspend some of the work details.”
“Knowing Llaz, he was testing the medics to see if they would speak up on behalf of the crew,” Obanyo said as he sat down beside Thomasine. “Amos has been to the edge and back. He squared off on Llaz with a quickness! But you didn’t have to go and do all of this!”
“Yes I did!” Thomasine quickly argued. “Scamps, why do you want to keep it lidded?”
“No one needs to know,” Obanyo said as he looked off at the blue trees. Thomasine took hold of his face and made him look at her.
“Well, I know!” she said softly before kissing him. “I moved too soon and damn near blew the whole thing.” She ran her fingers through his thick red hair and Obanyo closed his eyes at the sensation. “That skinny bitch almost had my number and you took out three! Well, maybe more wiry than skinny, but damn if she couldn’t take a punch! You saved our part of the mission and more importantly my life, Scamps. I can’t thank you enough. You’re my he–”
“Uh, Thomasine?”
“Yeah?”
“Could you just shut up and keep thanking me, please?” Thomasine’s hazel eyes shined as she smiled. She nodded and kissed Obanyo again, only slower and with more passion. He was more than receptive as he put his hand on the side of her face. Thomasine quickly moved both of his hands to her chest and she depressed a button on her brace-com that locked the door to the arboretum. She slowly l
owered her back to the blanket and Obanyo’s lips remained pressed against hers. With one move of his right hand her blouse fell open and their lips parted as Thomasine looked down, amazed at his handiwork.
“I keep forgetting how good you are with locks,” she cooed.
“There you go talking again,” Obanyo whispered before kissing Thomasine who giggled as she surrendered to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and allowed herself to melt into his advances.
He waited in the corner, nervously going about the business of trying not to look nervous. He could not say what was taking so long, but Hansel did not know how much longer he could stand it.
“I wonder if I missed Number Five,” he thought as Culshee looked up at him before returning her attention to the group. “Well that didn’t look good!”
“Do you think we should make a decision without Centerpointe and Boss?” Amos asked and Hansel rose up on his toes, stretching his neck as far as he could.
“Boss left the final decision to me,” Kryltane explained in a voice that was a little louder than Amos’. “And what would it matter? It’s not like we’re adding to anyone’s roster.”
“Kot!” Hansel stepped back, fearing the worst news.
“We’re not?!” Amos returned and Hansel took a step forward.
“There’s always room in the grunt lines,” Kryltane concluded and Hansel’s body shuddered.
“Shotgun, you think you might want to keep it down?” Culshee asked.
“Is he still in the room?!” Kryltane asked with no one opting to give him an answer. “You think he can hear us over here trying to make him suffer?!”
“Wha–” Hansel said, with his eyes getting a little wider.
Kryltane turned around with a smile on his face. The emerging Jockey threw his arms out from his sides and chuckled. “Hansel, the only thing you’re missing is a crew name. I was just giving you a hard time.” The two embraced and only then did the mech-tech allow himself to relax. “JoJo said you were good, but I don’t think she has a handle on everything you know… which is always a good thing. Barring the Captain’s objection, welcome to the Brain Trust!”