by Gary Martin
SUNSPOTS
Gary Martin
Copyright © 2015 by Gary Martin
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted without the express consent of the author.
Cover artwork and ship blueprints by Gary Martin
ASIN: B013KPXQAM
for Cheryl
Acknowledgements
My thanks to Fraser, Polly, Claire, Nathan, Dave, Stella, Adam, Ben, Jon, Julie and Colin for letting me rope them in as test readers.
A big thanks to Oli, who edited the hell out of it, and taught me a thing or two in the process.
Also, a massive thanks to Karen Ballantyne for the final proofread and fine-tune.
1
I always thought that if you were in charge of a crew on a ship, you were the Captain. It was as simple as that. My name is John Farrow and I’m in charge of a crew on a ship. Annoyingly for me, I'm not the Captain. I'm just a shift manager, and only in charge of half the crew. The other half I don't really see except for on changeovers, and then it's only for a few minutes.
This wasn’t a job that I wanted, and I certainly didn't earn it by standing out or trying hard. I was working on the forklifts at the loading docks when it was offered to me. Nobody wanted it, and I wasn’t given a choice.
I've now been in this position for three years. The money's pretty good and I don't really do much except for the paperwork, assigning the odd duty, and reading a shit-load of books. My crew pretty much manage themselves, which saves me a lot of time and hassle. I only really step in if there's an issue, or someone throws a tantrum. It rarely happens, but when it does it always seems to blow over quite quickly.
We work on a two-crew system: there are four people on each shift, with a payload specialist, or dump tech, straddling both. The shifts are twelve hours, Monday to Sunday, for three solid months. It’s a long slog, with no time off until we get back.
Our ship is called Sunspot 2. Her crew section has four decks. Deck one is the bridge and shift manager’s (Captain’s) office. Deck two is the habitation deck, with wash facilities and a small, rarely used sickbay. Deck three is the recreation deck, the cargo bay and escape pods, and deck four is the engine room. There's a ladder that joins all four decks: it goes from the bridge straight down to the engine room, with hatches between each deck in case of decompression or fire. Each deck also has an escape airlock. The entire front three quarters of the ship is a massive hangar bay that's constantly filled to the brim with old storage containers, full of anything and everything horrible you can think of. Any redundant space on the outer hull is covered in a patchwork of solar panels, put there by hundreds of energy companies wanting to exploit our proximity to the Sun. This probably makes the company more money than the waste disposal does.
There are two ships in the Sunspots Waste Disposal fleet, if you can call two ships a fleet. Sunspot 1 works the three months we're back home and vice versa. Both ships are old Mercury IV-class cargo haulers, about the size of small super-tankers. They’ve been converted with heavy-duty heat shields so we don’t burn to death when we reach our destination. We transport waste from all of Earth’s colonies, taking it from a massive depot on the Moon to be incinerated in the Sun’s corona. We're basically bin men.
This is my sixth three-month stint, and we're on day thirty-two. Everyone has settled in after his or her three months off, but no one is in the zone, and probably won't be for a while. At least the ship is working as well as it usually does, which is only just. Everything in the engine room clanks and grinds and buzzes at alarming levels. I'm not anywhere close to being mechanically-minded, and have been told many times that everything is fine, but it really doesn't sound happy. Nothing gets replaced if it can be bodged back together, and everything has been bodged back together so many times I'm surprised anything works.
2
I'm sitting in the office behind the bridge waiting for Tom, the manager on the opposite shift, to take over from me. I finished everything I had to do hours ago, and have been trying my best to look busy ever since. I've made sure everything is tidy and as close to the way he likes it as I can. I don't really fancy being the brunt of one of his reports again, but until I get any sort of official reprimand from up above, I'll continue to do just enough to get by. It'll do.
The door opens and Tom comes in yawning.
“Hey John, anything interesting to report?” he asks.
“No, nothing interesting at all,” I reply and move from behind the desk.
“I hear that. Anything to actually report though?”
“Nope, just Robert bitching and moaning about everything.”
“The usual then,” he says and sits down in the chair I’ve just vacated.
“Afraid so. Don't think that'll change anytime soon. See you in twelve.”
I walk out on to the bridge and see Kerry getting up from the pilot console. Her opposite slides in without a word. Mark is sitting at the navigation and communication station, and still waiting for his.
Kerry looks at me with glassy red eyes. The pink hair framing her face is beginning to look unkempt and slightly greasy after the twelve hours.
“Why do we have to have the night shift?” she asks.
“Good question,” I reply, squinting through the small tinted viewports at the Sun ahead of us.
“Well … the Sun is always shining out here, and it’s also constantly dark. I don’t really think it makes a lot of difference either way.”
She looks at me for a few seconds.
“A shit answer,” she says.
“Thanks.”
I move to the ladder and climb down to the habitation deck, and open the door to my quarters. It's a tiny room with a bed, a wardrobe, a toilet, a sink and just enough room to stand.
I sit on the bed and wonder if I should go to sleep now, and have a few hours’ free time before my next shift, or go to the rec deck now and have some food. That would mean listening to Robert or Mark go on and on about how awful they think the company is, or their take on the various wars happening on Earth or Mars, but at least it would be sociable. I stand up and leave my quarters. I'm hungry anyway, and there are far too many things to be thinking about by myself.
I climb down to the rec deck. The room's about ten metres by twenty, with two large tables set up in the middle, and a pool table where the third should be. There are some snack and drinks machines against the far wall and a large door into the storage area. There’s an old holobox in the corner, which has relatively good signal until we get to about Venus, and then it quickly craps out. There are three large rectangular windows on the long wall facing aft. The main meal dispenser is next to the ladder I've just climbed down. The only people down here at the moment are Kerry and Tim. He’s standing by the coffee machine, his uniform immaculately ironed as usual, and his black hair slicked back with some sort of product. He looks around as my feet hit the deck plates.
“Do you fancy a hot or cold beverage, John?” he asks in his odd accent.
“No thanks. I have my own card for that.”
“Okay, maybe next time then,” he says.
“Yeah, maybe I will.”
He nods, and then walks past me without a drink of his own and climbs the ladder.
“I think he was waiting for you,” Kerry says.
“Fucking dump techs. They’re only ever with us for one trip, and without fail every single one of them tries too hard to fit in. It always makes me feel awkward,” I say and look down at what she’s eating. It’s something brown from a plastic tray, and she’s not looking entirely happy about it. She looks up.
“It's amazing to think they take a huge chunk of our wages for this fucking slop,” she mutters.
I look closer at her tray, and
then shake my head.
“Why do you always choose the worst thing on the menu then?”
“The picture looked good,” she says and smiles.
“And it kind of reminds me of the sort of shit my first husband used to cook for me and the kids. When I was back at home long enough to eat with them, anyway. He was a fucking terrible cook.”
“Your first husband?” I ask. I didn’t realise she’d been married more than once.
“Yeah, he was the nicest person you’d have ever met. Probably would have got on well with you actually, John. He looked after our little girl and boy and kept the house up together while I was out piloting commercial jet liners on fucked-up shift patterns,” she says and continues eating.
“You have kids? So what happened? Did you guys split up?”
“No. One night, his brain just popped in his sleep.”
“Oh shit, I’m really sorry,” I say, feeling really guilty that I’d asked.
“Don’t be, it was about ten years ago. I miss him still, but it almost doesn’t seem real anymore. Like a fucking idiot though, I married someone else about six months later, mainly to mask the pain, I think. But he turned out to be a bastard, and my kids pretty much disowned me for it. My life sort of fell apart after that, and after more than a few bad decisions I ended up working here, possibly the worst-paid pilot position in the whole solar system.” She shrugs her shoulders and continues with her food.
“… I’m sorry …” I say again, not knowing how else to respond.
“You really don’t need to keep apologising,” she says. “I love this job. It got my life back on track.”
“Well, thanks for that. But why are you telling me?” I ask.
“It was his birthday yesterday, and I’ve been feeling a bit shitty because I forgot about it. This is between us, okay?”
“I didn’t hear nothing.”
“Anyway, weren’t you supposed to be choosing something disgusting from the food dispenser?”
“I guess I was.”
I look at the machine and the choices available. There are only seven and, to be fair, the carefully shot photos next to each selection do look quite appetising.
“The pictures don't quite do the meals justice, do they?” I say.
“I've tried all seven, and this is the best one. And it's fucking horrible.” She grimaces, but has now almost finished.
I insert my card and choose the chicken fricassee; it's one of two I haven't tried so far this trip. I've never had much of a problem with the microwave meals from this machine, and they change them every voyage to stop you going mad. I hear the whirring noise as it's being nuked, and a clunk as it drops into the dispenser. I take it over to the table and tear off the plastic film and take a mouthful.
Fucking hell.
The chicken tastes like it’s been soaking for days in bleach. If it wasn't for the fact that your card only lets you have three meals a day, I'd have spat it out, set fire to it, and ejected it from the airlock. I walk to the drinks machine and get a coffee, hoping that if I drink some of that rancid piss after every mouthful, it might wash away the taste of the fricassee. It does, to a degree.
“I think you've hit the fuckin' jack pot there,” Kerry says with a smile.
I look at her and stick my tongue out.
Robert comes up the ladder from the engine room, only just squeezing through the hatch. His tattooed dome, face, blond beard and boiler suit are smeared in black marks. He walks over to the holobox and turns it on.
“What a bastard shift. Seriously, if I have to sort out anymore of Sam’s repair jobs I think I'll explode,” he says to the room. I start to feel sorry for Sam, as she now has to spend the next twelve hours fixing whatever it is Robert has sorted out. I wish I had her on my shift. She’s really friendly and actually knows what she’s doing. And if I’m honest, there’s something about the way she wears her boiler suit undone to her waist, with a tight vest top that’s always smeared in oil marks, that makes me smile guiltily. Robert often sports a similar look, but it’s the opposite of sexy when he does it.
“If we’d had anyone like her working in the engine room of the QE7, my dad and I would have booted her out for being completely incompetent,” he continues.
Kerry looks up at him and sighs.
“Yes, we’re all very impressed that your dad is the head engineer on the QE7, but I can’t help but notice that you’re here, and not there anymore. Any reason for this?”
He looks at her for a few seconds.
“I wanted to make my own way, and not live in my dad’s shadow,” he says defensively.
“That’s a pretty good reason, but why the fuck did you end up here? I mean it’s a pretty big drop. Luxury liner to a garbage ship?”
Robert is beginning to look a little red and flustered; luckily Kerry seems to notice this and pulls away. Robert has the habit of going into sulks for days if he doesn’t get his own way.
“Sorry Robert, just busting your balls. It’s been a long shift,” she says.
“That’s fine,” he says flatly. He then looks up and starts to smile slightly as he hears footsteps coming down the ladder from the bridge. It’s Mark. The one person on board he spends most of his time with on and off shift. He now has an ally.
“That’s the last time. I’m sick of it,” Mark says as his feet hit the deck plates.
“I’m not doing the jobs of two people anymore, and then get forced to wait fifteen minutes to be relieved by Ian. He’s always late, it’s completely unprofessional.” He’s clearly annoyed, and his sharp features combined with his red cheeks seem to make his white hair look more like a wig than usual.
“You probably shouldn’t have tried to be the hero and agreed to do communications as well as navigation in the first place,” Robert says.
“You’re right, but I never for one minute thought it would be permanent.”
“Two jobs for the price of one, they’ll never change that now. That’s what you get for being a jobsworth. All the work and none of the glory.”
“I’m not a jobsworth, Bob, I just like to do things properly.”
“You bloody well are. All that overtime you do on our time off? For standard pay as well,” Robert says and shakes his head slightly.
“I get forced into it. I have no choice, I don’t want to do it,” Mark protests.
“No one is forced into overtime, Mark. You can either say yes or no.”
“Whatever,” Mark says, then waves hand above his white hair and that’s the end of that conversation.
“Is there anything interesting on the holobox?” he then asks.
“No, not for your depraved tastes anyway,” Robert replies.
“I guess not. But then, I'm pretty sure my viewing tastes have been warped by the films you've let me borrow, Bob.”
Kerry shakes her head.
“If this conversation ends up going where I think it might, you two can just fucking stop now,” she says.
“Come on Kezza,” Robert says smiling. “You absolutely love it! I bet you even starred in a few in your prime, what was that, about sixty years ago?” He looks over to Mark for a reaction.
She looks at him with daggers and raises an eyebrow.
“Fuck you, Robert,” she says slowly and calmly, but Robert continues to plough on.
“I mean, you've been around a bit ain't ya? You've probably been in hundreds of 'em. Though at your age, it's probably been a while now since you've had a real man, eh, Mark, eh?”
He looks again to Mark for support, but Mark says nothing, and just looks out of the viewports and then at the holobox.
“I think I've seen enough real men in my time, Robert, and none of them were that impressive,” Kerry says, still calmly.
“You obviously haven't met an actual real man like me, then,” Robert points at himself and smiles.
“Now I am impressive. I'm a young virile male, with an above-average-sized appendage,” he says, now pointing down at his crotch.
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She looks at him and sighs.
“It may well be above average, but I doubt anyone could find it under all that disgusting blubber. I mean for fuck’s sake, have you ever actually looked at yourself?”
Robert stares at her, and looks genuinely shocked.
“No need to get so personal, I was only joking around with you,” Robert says indignantly.
“Too bad you're not funny then,” Kerry says.
Robert looks to Mark once again for support. When none comes, he looks at me.
“John, you can't let her talk to me like that.”
“I'm sorry, I’m off duty. And to be fair, you did start it,” I reply.
“I didn’t, Kerry started it when she said I was kicked off the QE7,” he shouts. There are a few seconds of silence, and I look at him.
“She didn’t say that, Robert,” I say. He looks around the table. I’m feeling a little bit uncomfortable.
“You can all go fuck yourselves,” he snarls, then pulls a face that I guess is outrage and stomps to the vending machine, chooses something, grabs it and awkwardly climbs up the ladder to his quarters.
When we hear the door slam, everyone bursts out laughing.
“What a prick,” Mark says while wiping his eyes.
“I think that's enough entertainment for me for one morning; time for bed,” I say and stand up.
“You do realise he probably won't talk to anyone now,” Mark says.
“And you think that's a bad thing?” I say. “Anyway, I thought you guys were quite close.”
“Yeah, but he's way too much work sometimes,” Mark replies.
“All the time,” Kerry says.
“True. See you guys later. Nighty night,” I say and climb the ladder to my quarters.
3
I splash my face with water and look at myself in the mirror. I'm getting old. The receding hairline isn't too obvious yet, but there are a lot of greys going on. Not too many lines on my face, but I've constantly got bags under my eyes.