Arrival (2 page)

“Here you are,” Tony replied with a broad smile.

Adia stared at him for a brief moment, taken aback by his wide, genuine smile. But the moment soon became uncomfortable and she felt the need to retreat. “Excuse me,” she dismissed politely, quickly lowering herself into the tube.

Tony watched as she descended, her long ponytail swaying about unnaturally in the microgravity environment. He positioned himself for descent, then noticed Will was still in the passenger space. “You coming, Will?” he asked as he dove down the tube.

“In a moment,” answered the quiet geologist.

“Pitch over complete. Pitch attitude zero relative to course. Maneuvering thrusters off,” Frank reported.

Jack unlocked his seat base and pivoted to face Lynn. Frank winced, knowing what was coming next.

“Good work, Lynn,” Jack praised her calmly. “But the next time we’re in a maneuver and you don’t agree with my orders, I suggest you keep it to yourself.”

Frank was surprised that Jack had delivered the line so sedately. He knew that Jack was angry. He had been putting up with Lynn’s disrespectful questioning for some time. And although Jack could be aggressive in his decision making, Frank had complete confidence in him. Jack had been training for this mission far longer than anyone else on board, and had spent countless hours immersed in simulations, reacting to every crisis scenario the programmers could throw at him. No one knew more about the overall mission than Jack, not even the mission designers themselves. Yet Lynn had questioned his decisions nearly every step of the way, ever since they had awakened from suspended animation.

“I was only trying to help,” she responded.

“There’s a time and place to offer an opinion, Lynn,” Jack advised her, again biting back his anger, “and there’s a time and place to follow orders…
Without
question.”

“And I suppose,” Lynn shot back, “that if you were about to make a dangerous error in judgment, that would not be the time or place?”

“I’ll tell you what, Miss Blakely,” Jack seethed, “once you have two years in command training, three upper-level degrees in mission-applicable disciplines, and fifteen hundred hours in the simulator,
then
you can question my judgment. In the meantime, I suggest you shut the hell up and follow orders, or I’ll toss you out the airlock and fly the fucking ship myself! Is that understood?”

Lynn recoiled in her seat, her mouth agape. “Yes, sir,” was all she could say in response.

Frank stared at his console, calling up routine diagnostics and trying to stay inconspicuous and out of harm’s way as Jack passed by him.

Jack entered the airlock just aft of the flight deck, nearly colliding with Will as he dove headfirst down the access tube, all without saying another word. Will, who was already nervous around Jack, turned around and retreated into the passenger compartment.

Frank, upon witnessing his friend’s rapid exit, turned his attention back to his console, letting out a long sigh.

Lynn just stared at her forward console in shock, trying to find the nerve to speak. “Well, you’re the engineer, Frank,” she finally said. “Was I right or wrong?”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Frank sighed. “It’s not a question of who’s right and who’s wrong. It’s a question of responsibility. Jack is the one who is responsible…for
everything
. It’s his decision, Lynn, not yours.”

“I
am
second in command, technically…”

“Technically, yes, you are. But that doesn’t mean that you are anywhere near as qualified,
or
experienced as Jack.”

“
And
I’m a lot younger than he is.”

Frank shook his head in amazement. “You really need to stop beating that drum, Lynn. Age has got nothing to do with it. It’s about experience and training, and you know it.”

“I’ve got quite a bit of sim time, too, you know.”

“A few hundred hours is nothing,” Frank replied. “And there’s more to being in command than just time in the simulator.”

“It’s not my fault that I was added to the crew at the last minute,” Lynn protested.

“Yes, you were,” Frank agreed. “And no, it’s not your fault. But you’d be better off just following Jack’s lead. You might even learn something.”

“So I shouldn’t say anything, even if I think there’s a better way?”

Frank stared at her for a moment. He wasn’t sure if she didn’t understand the extent of her transgression for lack of maturity or because of the rapid fashion in which she had been trained. Lynn had been called to serve as mission pilot and second in command, after Dorrel Ishkin had passed away from complications of radiation exposure. The poor girl had been tossed into a simulator only a few days before their launch date. “Your job isn’t to suggest alternatives,” Frank explained. “Not unless you’re asked for them, and especially not in the middle of a mission-critical maneuver.”

“I was told that Jack
welcomes
advice from his crew,” Lynn said.

“Of course he does. Jack knows his stuff, but everyone is capable of forgetting something now and again. You just have to develop a little tact…and better timing.”

“I see,” she responded somewhat half-heartedly.

“Command is a lonely business, Lynn.” Frank turned back to his console. “Someday, you’ll understand that.”

Lynn turned back to her station and began silently running down her post-maneuver checklist. Frank had said a lot, maybe even too much. She was young, and her ego bruised easily. But she had bent the rules too far, and had been punished for her sins.

Frank knew that both his and Jack’s words hurt her. He wanted to offer her a shoulder to lean on, but understood that her ego wouldn’t accept that. She needed the truth, and that’s what he had given her.

* * *

By the time Jack got to the midship airlock, his anger at Lynn had subsided. He was sorry he had yelled at her, but she had cost them several seconds of time during which the reactor could have been running hotter, maybe getting their speed down even further. Then he might not have needed to burn those last few extra seconds, wasting precious propellant.

“Hey, boss,” Mac greeted him from the food prep area along the port side of the galley. “You want some of this?” he offered as he pulled the spout of the feeding tube off of the blender’s transfer spout.

“No thanks,” Jack declined as he floated through the galley on his way aft.

Mac squeezed the tube and forced a large globule out of the tip. It filled the room with a foul stench as it floated in the air, quivering like a small handful of pudding before being sucked into his mouth. “Ya sure?” Mac tempted, smacking his lips. “It’ll put hair on your chest.”

The nauseating aroma reached Jack’s nose, causing him to recoil. “Oh, jeez, Mac. What the hell is that stuff?”

“I call it a ‘Protein Cream Dream’,” Mac boasted. “It’s the most complete food source on board.”

“And the smelliest,” Jack added, holding his nose. “I’m definitely going to pass.”

“Suit yourself,” Mac shrugged, not the slightest bit offended. “But you don’t know what you’re missing.”

Jack pulled himself along the handrail, heading into the wardroom. The entire crew habitat was designed as a long, flattened, octagonal tube, with overhead rails that ran along either side of the ceiling for the entire length of each compartment. There were shorter runs of railing placed strategically along the sides of the compartment, making it easy to navigate along any of the eight walls. Hand and footholds were set generously, along with fold-out anchoring arms that could attach to one of four sockets on a crew member’s belt to hold them in place while they performed tasks.

Laura and Maria had become quite adept at using these devices. They were both anchored to the wall opposite the view screen. Between them, a plastic container, constructed by Maria, was also anchored to the wall. It held various snacks inside plastic bags that they could push their hands through to access the contents within. With food and drink handy, Maria and Laura appeared to be spending their free time as usual, anchored in place, eyes fixed on the view screen, chatting away. This time, however, rather than old Earth movies, they were watching their most recent video-mail from their families back on the Daedalus, getting one last fix before going down to the surface.

Jack passed through the aft hatch of the wardroom, traveling into the berthing corridor. This smaller octagonal passageway had berthing tubes on each side: four on the right and five on the left. Each tube was two and a half meters long by one and a half meters in diameter, giving a person just enough room to squat or lay down. Each berth had plenty of small lockers and storage pockets located strategically in every nook and cranny. There were climate controls, ventilation fans, overhead reading lights, a fold-out desk, and a zero-gravity sleep sack. There was no room for clothing storage inside the berths, but larger lockers accommodated that necessity near the bottom of each berthing tube’s entrance. Such close quarters had led to less modesty among the crew of the Icarus, and the berths had been designed as a sort of hideaway where the occupant could be guaranteed some private time. Of course, Adia had been the exception to that rule, being the most bashful of the group. She was also the most petite, and probably the only one who could change her clothes inside a berthing tube without bruising or dislocating something.

Jack continued aft, requiring only one pull at the forward end of the compartment to give himself enough momentum to travel its length, arriving at the door to his cabin on the port side. It was the only truly private cabin on board, and more than three times the size of the standard berthing tubes. But it came with a price, as it was right next to the bathroom.

He drifted past Sara’s cabin, where she was busily preparing her belongings for transfer to the LRV.
Typical
, Jack thought.
Always waiting until the last minute
.

She saw him pass by, and stuck her head out of her berth. “When are you going to say something to that ape, Jack?”

“Right after we get down to the surface,” Jack replied, as he drifted by. Across from Sara’s berth was Will’s, the mission’s Planetologist. Will spent most of his time in his berth, and had been somewhat reclusive for the duration of the mission. He was a brilliant scientist, but Jack wondered if Will lacked the motivation and can-do attitude required for such an assignment. Jack was also curious about what Will did in his berth. He sometimes spent full days in there, only coming out to eat and use the bathroom. Jack knew from the ship’s logs that he had downloaded many books from the ship’s digital library onto his data pad. But that was a hell of a lot of reading, even for someone like Will. Jack had once overheard Maria telling Laura that Will had some sort of journal that he wrote in. A physical journal, with actual paper. Even though they all knew how to write by hand, and occasionally used a stylus on data pads, no one had used paper and pen for centuries. Jack couldn’t imagine where Will had gotten any paper to begin with. It certainly wasn’t manufactured on board the Daedalus, and he was sure that their predecessors hadn’t brought any with them when they left Luna Station.

Jack opened the door to his cabin and floated inside, pulling it closed behind him. At first, he had wondered why the designers had felt it necessary, in a vessel that maximized every cubic centimeter of space, for the captain to have a larger berth. But now, after months of dealing with equipment malfunctions, calculation errors, childish pranks, petty crew squabbles, and other minutiae, he appreciated the designers’ wisdom.

Jack reached the port bulkhead opposite the door and pulled down his fold-out desk. Swinging out the small seat from the forward bulkhead, he assumed a sitting position and placed the restraining belt across his lap. He slid the keyboard out from under the view screen, which came to life automatically, and began typing. As many as ten times a day, Jack would venture back to his cabin to record entries into his log, lest he forget an important detail of that day’s actions, operations, and decisions. It was an annoyance, but one that he shared with the ship’s engineer and the ship’s medical officer.

Just as he was finishing his log entry, a familiar knock came from his door. Jack knew what was coming. “Enter.”

“Can I speak with you a moment, sir?” Frank requested rather formally, probably for the benefit of anyone listening from the corridor.

“Of course.” Jack gestured for him to enter.

Frank closed the door behind him, and suddenly dropped his formality, wedging himself into a corner above the cabinet that ran along the aft bulkhead. “How’s the hand?” Frank asked.

“Fine. Maria says the closures can come off in about a week.” Jack rubbed the bandage wrapped around the palm of his right hand. “Still can’t grab anything very well, though.” He looked at Frank. “But you didn’t come in here to ask me about my hand, did you?”

“Well, not really,” Frank admitted.

“I suppose
you
think I was too hard on her.”

“Yeah, a little, maybe.”

“You know she deserved it,” Jack said, his tone raising the statement to a question.

“I’m not saying she didn’t,” Frank agreed. “I just think you could’ve been more, uh, what’s the word I want here…”

“Tactful?” Jack suggested.

“Then you’ve heard of this word?” Frank teased.

“Yeah, smart-ass, I’ve heard of it.”

“Just checking.”

“Point taken,” Jack conceded. “It’s just every damn time I make a decision, she’s spouting off against it. How much of that am I supposed to take, anyway?”

“Like I said, Jack. She had it coming, no doubt about it.” Frank let out a long breath. “She’s just young, you know. And she knows that she didn’t come to this mission through normal means. She’s just trying to prove herself to you.”

“What am I, her big brother or something?”

“More like a father figure, I would guess,” Frank corrected.

“Great, I have to be a father figure, as well,” Jack lamented. “That’s all I need.”

“You know, Jack, when she got the position, it really upset her father. He wanted her to follow in either his or her mother’s footsteps, just like everyone else has always done. It was pretty difficult for her. I mean, she’s only the fifth person who didn’t follow in their parents’ footsteps in choosing a career. It’s been our way for over sixty years. The council takes procedure seriously. Hell, they all but caused the Luyten movement.”

“Yeah, I know.”