“Oh, he had a wife and little?”
“I am sorry. I didn’t know ... He died saving children.”
“No, I’m sorry I really can’t say what happened … Just that he was a hero.”
“What should you tell his son? Uhm … that he was a hero.”
He’d left a few of Billy’s personal possessions with them and made arrangements to have the rest of his belongings delivered before he made his exit. It had been the longest two hours he’d ever experienced.
The waitress reappeared and set his glass on the table. Carefully.
They called the orange alcohol Starshine because moonshine didn’t work as a name when you were sitting on the moon drinking it. As near as anyone would say, one of the bartenders made it in the back room using pure sucrose and residual heat from a waste thermal processor. Once it had reached sufficient intensity to be just short of spontaneous combustion, he then filtered it through habanero distillate or some other evil, flaming demon juice.
He used to appreciate the drink just because of its brutal honesty. It sent the warning that it was dangerous from the moment she set the glass on the table. It burned the eyes before it got close enough to drink, and kept burning all the way to the pit of the stomach, and then on down through the body as it descended back to the pit of hell where it belonged.
Starshine wasn’t something a person could enjoy as much as simply endure. But it was excellent at providing the mind-numbing fog that he needed.
He gasped as he shot it back and pointed at the empty glass before the waitress had turned to walk away.
“You sure, pa?” she asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow.
“Yes,” he mouthed. He nodded when he realized his vocal chords had gone into early retirement. Or had dissolved.
His second drink hit the table in the same delivery that brought his meal. He pushed it back far enough that his food was out of the fallout pattern and then studied what she brought him to eat.
It was pretty in an odd sort of way, but he wasn’t sure exactly what it was. It appeared that they’d replaced the cooking staff with something like a chem-head refugee from an art commune since the last time he’d eaten here.
There was an asymmetrical slab of something that looked a bit like seared meat protein. It was cut with an oddly sloped top and a waterfall of unidentifiable vegetables cascaded down the wedge into a reservoir of brown gelatinous goo. Shocking white and vivid green ribbons of a sauce-like substance crisscrossed the entire top of the sculpture, while sprigs of some unidentifiable orange leafy weed stuck out of random, sliced holes in the alien landscape.
On the whole plate, the only thing he could identify with any certainty was a yellow yeastcake, and it appeared to be a levee to keep the goo in place. He wasn’t sure he could safely remove it to eat it.
Then to make the whole absurd creation worse, they served it with a single bamboo skewer and a short knife with a blunt hooked end. No fork. No spoon. Not even chopsticks.
He looked up to see if he could find the waitress to ask her for some professionally designed eating tools when an eclipse spread across his table.
“You’re Ethan Walker?” the source of the shadow said. He looked up, a long way, before he saw the face attached to the surly voice.
“I was yesterday,” he said, shaking his head. He recognized the tone of voice and the slur of a couple too many drinks.
“You used to master the Olympus Dawn?” the man asked.
“Still do as far as I know,” Ethan said, shrugging and trying to smile.
“I hear different,” the mountain of flesh said.
“Well then you hear things I haven’t heard.” I am sure you hear different through your ass, he thought trying to let his amusement show.
“CSL pulled your ticket,” he said.
“Not from what I know.” He glanced down at the table and wondered if a bamboo skewer would work as a deadly weapon in a pinch. Not likely.
“The Drydock is a private club for captains and crews,” he said, raising his voice as he looked around the room to see who might agree with him.
“I know,” he said. “But until I know otherwise, I’m still a captain. Why don’t you just leave me to eat in peace?”
“You don’t belong here,” he said, his voice going up another step in volume as he gained confidence in his position. Nobody had stepped in to defend Walker, so he was feeling sure of himself and it showed.
“Look, let me buy you a drink and you can go back to your table and leave me the frak alone. Fair enough?” Ethan said, trying to see if the guy could be calmed down with another drink. Not that he needed it.
“No. Really, you need to be leaving,” he said.
“When I’m done with my food, I’ll be more than willing to go,” Walker said. “I think the air cyclers aren’t clearing out the stink, anyway.” Instantly he regretted that his first drink had given him some artificial confidence and had fueled his mouth to the point of saying something stupid. Looking straight ahead, he put his hands on the table beside his plate. He could see the man tense in his peripheral vision.
“You’re right, it smells like a bloodcase in here ... and, oh look! That would be you that’s causing it,” the man said, idiotic sarcasm making his voice lose some of its power.
Ethan leaned back in his chair and scanned the room. The waitress was watching the situation as were several others along the bar. “Alright, I’ve had the day from hell and you’ve obviously made it your crusade to make it worse,” he said. “I’ve asked you politely to go back to your cave and play with your own food like a good boy. So just get out of my face.”
The man growled and leaned forward onto the table with both hands. “The rules are posted on the frakking door. Captains and officers only. You aren’t either one. You’re a fuck up that got his crew killed and you don’t deserve to eat here. In fact, you don’t deserve to eat anywhere this side of prison.”
“Give it a rest Mackey,” a woman said, walking up behind the idiot and putting a hand on his shoulder. She was tall and moved like a dancer. Or a fighter.
“Back out of this, Ammo,” he said, glancing at her. “This isn’t your problem. Don’t buy yourself a share. Walker here is just leaving.”
“He doesn’t look like he’s leaving,” she said. “I think he was enjoying his dinner just fine up to the point where you landed your fat ass on his table. Why don’t you go buy him a drink as a way of showing him it was just a misunderstanding on your part?”
“Why the hell—” His thought ended abruptly with a grunt as his eyes bulged out of their sockets in shock.
The hand resting on his shoulder tightened down as she turned him away from the table and shoved him toward the bar. It was only when Mackey tried to walk that Ethan realized that she’d pulled about a half meter of his undersuit out of the back of his pants, in the general direction of his shoulder blades.
Slapping both hands over his mouth Ethan tried to hold back a belly laugh so hard that it threatened to make his head explode instead. He wasn’t the only one amused by Mackey’s misfortune, the entire dining room erupted into laughter.
The woman sat down and grinned.
“Thanks,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that particular technique used for bouncing a drunk.”
“I call it wedgie-jitsu,” she said, offering her hand. “Tiamorra Rayce, but my friends call me Ammo.”
“I can see where you get the name,” he said, “but I’m afraid that you might use that word a bit loosely.”
“Which one?”
“Friends,” he said. “I think Mackey called you by your nickname.”
“It’s all relative I guess,” she said. “I brokered him a couple loads to Starlight and now he thinks he owns me.”
“Hmph. Starlight,” Ethan said, feeling a brick fall into the pit of his stomach.
She nodded. “I understand you rescued some kids from there.”
He looked down at his plate and pushed it b
ack. “Yah, thirteen of them.” His voice felt like it was going to betray him, so he shut up and just shrugged.
“In my mind that makes you a big damned hero,” she said, thumping the table with a finger tip to get his attention. When he looked back up at her she winked. Waving to the bartender, she held up two fingers and pointed at his glass.
“Drinks are on me.” She smiled and pushed the plate back in front of him. “That is, as long as you’re willing to tell me what really happened out there?”
Chapter Twenty-Four:
It was day ten and Ethan sat at a table in the back of the same dive bar he and Angel had eaten at their first night at CS-1. He felt like all he’d been doing since all this had begun was eating and drinking. He drank a lot more than he should, but it didn’t matter, because he would not be going back into space any time soon.
He didn’t know it officially yet, but he knew it in his gut. A steady stream of low level intoxication helped to quiet the uncertainty.
“We got in about two hours ago,” Rene said, appearing out of the crowd and landing unceremoniously in the chair beside him. “It took me this long to track you down.”
“Yah, wasn’t feeling much like company,” Ethan said. “You just get back?”
“CSL ordered us to take the Dawn to Ceres Six for an inspection and service,” he said. “They were backed up, so it took a few days extra.”
“We weren’t due for another year,” he said.
“Marti took the opportunity to get some upgrades and spare parts for her Gendyne mech,” he said.
“Seriously, they had you take the Dawn in for an inspection?” Ethan asked. “If Ceres Six was backlogged, it wasn’t just a matter of convenience.”
Rene nodded.
“That’s not a good sign,” Walker said. He poured himself another shot from the bottle he had on the table. He didn’t know if that was three or four but the bottle was half empty.
“You drinking alone or is Angel around here somewhere?” he asked.
“She’s out with one of the security escorts they assigned to me the first night we were here,” Ethan said. “She accidentally flashed her tattys at her, and I think it was love from then on.”
“So you are drinking alone then,” he said.
He nodded.
“You need reinforcements.” Rene flagged down a bot and requested a glass.
“So where do things stand?” he asked as the servobot slipped the glass onto the table.
“Who the frak knows?” he said, filling Rene’s glass for him. “They talked to me for about twenty minutes the first morning, and other than that, they’ve not told me anything even when I comm them.”
“You mean you don’t get to be part of the process?” Rene gulped down his drink and set the glass back on the table with a loud clack.
“Nope,” Ethan said. “They told me that unless they need clarification or something comes up new, they’ve already got enough facts to make a decision.”
“They do?”
“So they say,” he said. “MacKenna had a report in their hands before we got back and I guess they consider anything other than her word on the matter as suspect.”
“She can’t be done already?” Rene asked. He poured another shot into his glass and stared at it for several seconds before he had worked up the courage to slam it down too. He hissed as it hit bottom. “I’m sure they’d have made an announcement about what happened to the colony if they knew anything.”
“I’m sure the Magellan might still be investigating that, but that’s not relevant to the tribunal. All they’re worried about is my misconduct,” he said.
“Then why does it take so long?”
“Bureaucratic crap,” Walker said. “They have to hold a few meetings and a public hearing. It’s probably all about covering their asses against liability. Once they polish the legal turds, then they burn me at the stake and it’s done.”
“What about witnesses?” he asked. “Don’t you get to argue your side?”
“What about them? Basically they work from the idea that witnesses can only interpret facts incorrectly. They didn’t say it quite that way, but that’s the impression I got.” He shrugged. “Facts are facts, and there’s no point in trying to change them. No room for alternative facts in the real world.”
“You’re saying they can convict you without a chance to address the allegations?” he said. “That’s totally foobed.”
“There’s no alleged anything,” Ethan said, snorting. “I got caught doing stupid things, and I should have known better. Plus it’s not a trial, anyway. They told me upfront they won’t send me to prison.”
“That’s a good thing, but why?”
“Because it would stink up their public relations to put a hero in jail.” He laughed.
“I saw the newswave about us rescuing a bunch of kids,” Rene said. “It was short on details, but did make you smell good.”
“Yah. I’m still trying to get that into my head somehow. I get my crew killed because I’m stupid, and then I end up a frakking hero on the 1800 newswave.”
Ethan reached for the bottle, but Rene poured himself another and set it down out of reach. “You are a hero you know,” he said, taking a smaller sip of the rum.
Walker shook his head. “No I’m an idiot. They were right. I could have kept it from happening.”
“No, you couldn’t,” he said, his face showing he wasn’t buying it. “More importantly, if you hadn’t gone down there you’d never have found those kids.”
“Yah. I know,” he said. “But Billy and Preston would be here sharing a drink with me and not … gone.”
He leaned forward and reached for the bottle again and Rene slid it further out of reach. Walker sighed, but pulled his hand back. “I should have stopped Pruitt from getting the shuttle and going down there,” he said. “I knew he could fool Marti, and I didn’t do anything to prevent it. A good captain anticipates problems and is proactive, not reactive. That’s why they’re after my certs. I was too dumb to get in front of the situation.”
“When do you get to hear the final results of their inquiry?” he asked.
“The public hearing was this morning,” he said. “I wanted to go but they wouldn’t let me.”
“You couldn’t even go to a public hearing on your case?” the engineer shook his head and frowned. “That’s not right.”
“I asked about that,” Ethan said. “They told me it was so that anybody who wanted to talk wouldn’t feel intimidated to speak their mind with me being there.”
“So you still haven’t said when you’ll know?” Rene asked again.
“Dono.” Ethan shrugged. “Tomorrow maybe, unless someone said something today that opened up something new.”
“Well then maybe we should get you back to your suite,” he said. “You could use some sleep before morning.”
Walker sighed and nodded, sliding his chair back with a little too much energy and almost knocking the table over behind him. “Sorry,” he said as the man behind him growled.
Rene smiled and held the bottle out to the man as a peace offering. It worked, and he grinned as he took it and set it on his table.
“Let’s go,” Rene said, grabbing Ethan by the arm and steadying him as he tried to help him to his feet.
“Not yet,” Nuko said. She pushed her way up to the table and shook her head. Her face looked like she had been crying. She crashed down into the chair across from Walker and tossed her thinpad on the table. “So you’ve heard?”
“Heard what?” Rene said as he eased himself back into his chair.
“I just got told to post for a new position,” she said. “They’ve sold out the lease on the Olympus Dawn and I’ve got twenty-four hours to vacate or apply to the new owner.” She looked at the two glasses on the table, one empty, and one almost full. Without asking, she grabbed Rene’s and swallowed it in a single gulp.
“So they told you to leave the Dawn,” Ethan said, his heart falling thro
ugh his chest and out onto the table. He felt empty. Drained. “They haven’t notified me yet.”
“They sold it out?” Rene asked. “Not another lease-hold?”
She shook her head. “The orders say the title is in escrow and the new owner will post for positions once transfer closes.”
“I guess that tells me what the decision is.” Walker picked up his empty glass and stared at the bottom. “Then there’s no point in me going home to bed now.”
Rene’s comm notification chirped in his pocket. Pulling out his thin, he glanced at the screen and nodded. “Me too.”
“Time for another bottle,” Ethan said. This time Rene didn’t stop him.
Chapter Twenty-Five:
Ethan didn’t remember getting back to his suite, but somehow he woke up in a bed. Alone and naked, but not smelling like he’d done anything too embarrassing. That was a relief. Or a disappointment and he wasn’t sure which.
He didn’t feel too bad until he tried to sit up and the room spun sidewise while his body did end-overs. It was like somebody had put his brain in a blender and then turned off the gravity.
Obviously, he wasn’t alone although he was alone in the bedroom. He could hear voices coming through the wall. Muffled, but ringing his skull like a bell.
He heard Angel and maybe her girlfriend of opportunity, but there were others too. Rene? Nuko? He didn’t want to talk to anyone.
Especially not them.
They’d have to be leaving to get their stuff off the ship, anyway. Unless they’d posted to the new owner and then … and then, he didn’t want to think about that.
The memory flood gates opened, and he remembered sitting in the bar when Rene got his repost orders. Pieces of the evening from that moment were all he had, and they flashed back into his mind in waves of self-indulgent pity. He flopped back in the bed and pulled the pillow over his head.
Maybe if I lay here long enough, they’ll just go away.
Suffering through the spins again, he closed his eyes and tried to think.
It was over. Everything was over. His whole life, and everything in it, was done.
Echoes of Starlight Page 17