Ion Trail 12: Moments in Time

Getting underway was the first painless thing about this strange journey. Spirits were high aboard the ship, despite the still present dangers, and it was hard not to feel optimistic. We’d ditched our pursuit and had enough provisions to eat like real people on the jump to Bekter’s Rim. Our most serious injury was on the mend and we’d more than replenished our medical supplies. For the first time since we’d escaped, I overheard people talking about the future and what it meant for all of us. Some people just wanted to go home, but for many, Kestrel Station had been home. Friends and family had been lost, and there were quiet moments of shared mourning as well; we finally had time and safety enough for healing and recovery.

We’d gotten out far enough to clear the mining station’s modest interdiction field and I’d initiated the jump. We had a bit more than a week on this trip, but gone was most of the tension from before. I still spent a lot of time in my cabin or the cockpit, but it was just cherished solitude rather than a refuge from my responsibilities as Captain. I’d grown used to the responsibility and when I was alone with my thoughts I’d even come to accept the fact that I enjoyed it, if only a little. The anxiety of being in the midst of so many people was still there, waiting every time I thought maybe I’d somehow overcome it, but it was balanced by the feeling of pride I got when someone smiled at me or acceded to my requests; As the second youngest of five kids on an overpopulated can colony, I’d rarely been accorded anything like respect, or even attention most of the time; I’d earned a little bit of respect in training, but even then I’d known I was just a highly trained wage slave. This was different.

I’d been binge-watching one of my favorite holovid series for a few hours, so I decided I’d take a break to walk through the ship and see how everyone was doing. My first stop was into the engine room where it turned out that Caroline, the concierge, was on nanite watch. I’d largely avoided her since the first meeting; she’d noticed that her looks had an effect on me and didn’t seem averse to using them to get what she wanted. This time though, we just chatted briefly before I moved on. I was on my way to the galley when I heard raised voices.

“Damnit Craig!” this voice was a woman’s, definitely not happy. “Just back off, okay?”  I picked up my pace as I heard a deep rumbled reply before the woman cut back in. “Look, I appreciate you looking out for me since I was mugged, but enough is enough! We only dated a few months, two years ago-”

I burst into the room in time to see Shanna turn away from Craig, who’d backed up to the wall, looking confused. He looked at me and the anger that had started to show on his face faded into embarrassment.

“What the hell is going on in here?” I demanded, though I had a good idea. Shanna spun around, her face going red as she saw me.

“Captain,” they both started at the same time, her voice still tinged with anger, and his just a deep mumble. They both stopped speaking when they realized, but Craig recovered first.

“Captain, she’s being unreasonable,” he said. “I was only telling her that she’s not recovered her strength and she needs to rest.”

“And who exactly are you to tell me that, Craig?” she spun, pointing her finger up into his face. “Where’d you get your medical degree? Where did you do your residency, doctor?” I decided to intervene before she really got her steam again.

“Whoa,” I said, stepping forward with my hands up. “Stop. Let me make myself clear about something.” Shanna stopped and looked at me and Craig, who’d obviously been about to retort, turned to me with his mouth still open to speak. When I was sure I had their attention, I continued.

“Aboard this ship, there is only one person who gives orders,” I said, glaring from one to the other. “That person is me. Is that clear?” I waited until both of them indicated understanding. “Shanna has made it very clear that she doesn’t appreciate your concern, Craig. Medic Harper has been keeping me well apprised of Shanna’s condition, so I’ve got it from here. She said back off, so I suggest you do exactly that.” The shock on his face was quickly replaced by a stubborn glare, but I stared right into his eyes, despite the fact that I had to crane my neck upward to do so. When he didn’t yield, I stepped forward, bringing my face even closer to his. I didn’t blink. After several seconds, he did.

“Yes, Captain,” he said stiffly, then tried to edge his way around me. I didn’t step back to give him room, just stared until he stalked out of the room. Only once he was gone did I let myself relax, though not enough to start shaking like I wanted to. Instead, I turned to Shanna who was still staring at me with the same stunned expression.

“Is this going to be a problem?” I asked with a little more fire than I intended. She flinched and I had to step back and moderate my tone. “Sorry, I mean, is he going to respect your wishes, or will I need to deal with this further?”

“No,” she said, deflating a bit, though I could tell she was still on edge. “He’ll be fine. He’s just been overprotective since I got mugged a few months ago. I think he thinks that if he keeps taking care of me, we’ll get back together.” She sighed and dropped into a chair. “Truth be told, I let him take care of me for a while because the mugging really shook me up. I just didn’t feel safe after that.” She gave an irritated one-shouldered shrug. “Since all of this happened, it just feels stupid to spend all this time being afraid anymore, you know?” I waited until I was sure that it wasn’t just a rhetorical pause in the midst of a rant before I slipped into the chair opposite her.

“You know, I kinda do.” I smiled at her, a bit sardonically. “I’ve spent a lot of my life being afraid and I still am sometimes, but this whole situation has kind of put everything into perspective.” I looked at her more closely. Her color had improved dramatically since the surgery, and while she was still pale, she was looking a lot better. “How are you doing, really?” I asked. “I exaggerated how much Harper’s been telling me, but if you’re supposed to be in bed, don’t think I won’t put you there.”

“I’m okay,” she said with a small smile. “I have to take it easy, but Lorna said that walking around a bit is good for me, so long as I don’t overdo it.”

“Well, see that you don’t.”

Shanna was as good as her word and Craig didn’t cause any other problems, though he did cast reproachful looks in my direction for the next day or so. Carla had picked back up her presentations, having moved on to the history of NeoTerra, the first Earth-like planet we’d found after we’d left our own solar system. Despite being Earth-like, NeoTerra was definitely not Earth and the original colonists had faced some serious, although very engaging in hindsight, challenges while claiming the planet. Omar, new to everything, had become a regular and active participant in the presentations and was getting to know and be known by the rest of the contingent. Around day three, I caught up with him after one of the presentations.

“Hey Omar,” I said, falling in beside him. “How are you settling in?”

“Hey Captain,” he replied easily. “Settling in okay. It’s a bit more populous than my typical day back on the mining station. And to be honest, I could use some work to do.” There was a touch of frustration in this last statement, and I smiled sympathetically.

“I hear you,” I said. “The enforced idleness isn’t anyone’s cup of tea, but these ships, like your station, were largely designed to be largely autonomous.” I considered for a moment. “You know, you mentioned something, an off-hand comment before we left about the mining drones possibly being useful?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, I don’t know, but maybe? Diaz was telling me about your comm disc still being broken. The drones could possibly give us a chance to take a look at it, even while we’re in hyperspace.” I stopped walking abruptly and he didn’t notice until he was a couple steps ahead of me. When he did, he turned back to look at me, quizzically.

“You think they can do that?” I blurted. I hadn’t wanted to risk sticking around any longer than necessary so we could attempt repairs in Proxima Tau, but if we could get the comm disc working, that would give us access to information that we were sorely lacking.

“I could try, at least, if you have a decent technician on-board to help with the connection.”

“Hah. We’re a random bunch of refugees, but I’ve got a couple guys who might do in a pinch. I’m no slouch myself,” I replied. “Talk to Clinton first, he’ll be the best person to start with.”

“That’s, uh, the guy I held at gunpoint, right?” he asked uneasily.

“That’s him,” I replied with a wink and a grin. “You’ll be fine.”

=+=

A couple days later I was sitting down with Diaz in the galley, eating dinner. I’d been telling a story about a funny incident early on in my training with this guy who just couldn’t seem to figure out the basics.

“This dude looked like the spitting image of Dion, too,” I said. “When I first met Dion I had to swallow a laugh. If the dude would have had half of Dion’s business sense, he’d have done alright for himself, but he was box of rocks. Dull rocks.”

“Dion was a hell of a boss, but you want to know a secret?” Diaz replied, smiling.

“What kind of question is that?” I asked. “Dirt on Dion? Spill.”

“It’s not really dirt, just a funny thing you reminded me of,” he said. “But nah, Dion? He was all educated and stuff, right, but any math that didn’t have to do with credits was like a foreign language to him. I tried to explain some problems with a bill of lading, about how the weight distributions didn’t seem right from the report, I was really getting into it because I was pretty sure they were trying to stiff us, and I look up and he’s just got this glazed look on his face.” I tried to picture that; Dion was anything but glazed, he’d been one of the most expansive, animated people I’d ever known. “I tried several times, but it occurred to me that he just didn’t get it. I mean, you know me, I’m not the brightest knife in the box, but this sort of math was my thing, you know? But Dion was just lost. I had to bottom line it for him.”

“What’d he do when you explained it?” I asked, curious.

“He canceled the contract,” he said. “Didn’t ask to have anyone else verify it, just canceled it. Said if I didn’t think it was right, then he trusted that.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Dion had a reputation among the pilots as being a great customer. Didn’t overmanage or treat you like trash just because you worked for him.”

“He really was a great boss,” Diaz agreed with a fond smile that slowly faded. “I really miss him, man.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I didn’t know him well, but I liked him.” We were quiet for a while, eating, but I could tell that Diaz’s thoughts were on his former boss. The look on his face was one I’d seen a lot over the last several days, loss and fondness and the beginnings of a burgeoning anger. We’d all lost something we couldn’t get back, even if it was just our innocence.

A while later, as dinner was breaking up, I ran into the girl with the broken arm. I had barely exchanged a dozen words with her on the whole trip, so I just kind of stared at her awkwardly for a second, until she tried to slip past me.

“Um,” I said, thinking furiously. “Patel, isn’t it?” She stopped and fixed her intense brown eyes on me, waiting for me to get on with it. “Uh, how’s the arm?” I felt like an ass. I hadn’t been this awkward with any of the passengers since the very beginning, but here I was umming and uhhing at a teenage girl.

“It’s fine,” she said briefly, then added quickly, when I didn’t immediately let her go, “the medic looked at it yesterday.”

“Good, good,” I said. “Getting enough to eat? Sleeping accommodations are better?” I couldn’t have said why, but I just couldn’t accept that I didn’t know anything about the well-being of this particular passenger, and I was determined to make some sort of connection.

“Food’s better,” she admitted grudgingly. “Sleeping is the same. I like the maintenance access.” I blinked a few times at her admission that she’d been sleeping in my maintenance access tubes and she took advantage of my shock to slip past me out the door. By the time I recovered I realized that I wasn’t going to try to chase her through the ship, so I let her go.

“Good talk,” I muttered to myself as I walked toward my cabin. I guess so long as she was fed and healthy, my responsibility to her was met. It still seemed wrong to me, but there wasn’t much I could do in the face of such obstinate avoidance. I was just about to go into my cabin when I heard my name.

“Captain Rickard!” I turned and saw Omar hurrying toward me, his hand raised to catch my attention. He looked excited. “Captain, I think we’ve got it figured out.”

“It?” I asked. “The drones?” They’d been trying, with my encouragement, to wire the drone control console into the ship’s systems, but hadn’t had much luck so far.

“Yes!” he said, “but that was yesterday. We’ve been busy since then.” I found that I felt a bit disgruntled that I hadn’t been told of their success immediately, but I was more curious as to what had him so excited. I inclined my head in acknowledgment, hoping he’d continue. Instead he just smirked and said, “Come see for yourself.”

“Lead the way, then,” I conceded and followed him to the engine room, where they’d installed the console next to the diagnostics terminal. When I got there Clinton was sitting at the console, waiting for us with a big grin of his own. I started to feel more annoyed that they were taking so long getting to the point, but I made myself smile back at him. “So what’s the big deal?” I asked, finally.

“This,” Clinton said, and turned so that I could see the drone’s remote feed on the console; the heavily filtered image showed the underside of the ship, and more importantly, the comm disc, which appeared to be more or less intact. “Ta-da!” he said with a melodramatic flourish.

“You fixed it?” I asked dumbly.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” he said. “Care to do the honors, Captain?”

I turned quickly to the diagnostics console, where I’d routed control of the sensors and some other key systems, and slid into the seat. I checked the comm disc status, which read “Inactive” instead of the previous message of “Unresponsive”. I rubbed my palms on my shipsuit, suddenly nervous. It’d been nearly two weeks since the Kestrel attack; it was likely there’d be some news by now. I reached over and hovered my finger over the activation button and took a deep breath. I wasn’t sure how ready I was to know, but I needed to. I tapped the button and watched it switch from amber to green.

“Do you wish to retrieve messages?” the screen displayed after several seconds. I reached out and tapped the affirmative and another second passed before the display changed. “One new message.” I raised an eyebrow. I expected I’d either have none, being assumed dead, or I’d have dozens as my employer tried to find out what I’d done with their ship and the cargo. One new message seemed ominous. I checked the sender, then furrowed my brow. There was no sender; that shouldn’t be possible. Subject line was blank too, so the only thing for it was to ignore it, or open it. I glanced at Clinton and Omar, both watching me with concerned expressions; they didn’t seem to be trying to read over my shoulder, but my own expression couldn’t have been confidence-inducing. I opened the message.

“Congratulations on surviving,” I muttered, reading the first line, which sent a shiver down my back. I read the rest.

CONGRATULATIONS ON SURVIVING

YOU’RE NOT SAFE

DON’T SYNC YOUR DATASPHERE AT ANY STATION THAT’S HOW THEY GET YOU

IF YOU WANT HELP GO TO STROIKA I WILL KNOW AND CONTACT YOU AGAIN

STYXRATT

“Well, fuck,” I murmured and leaned back in my chair. That wasn’t a message that inspired calm and comfort at all. I looked at Omar and Clinton.

“Boys, it looks like things are going to stay complicated for a while longer.”