Burnt Worlds (32 page)

“Darjeeling,” she repeated slowly. “Thank you.
 
May I also have a coffee to take to the Captain?”

“Yes, ma’am, right away,” said the young man, his voice lower, as he quickly grabbed another mug and filled it from the pot.
 
In a fluid motion he added a dollop of whitener and smoothly passed the mug across the counter to her.

“Thank you again, Mister Thompson,” she chimed, heading for the wardroom door with a mug in each hand.

Turning down the corridor toward the bridge, she stepped around an array of cabling, piping and tools that were piled on the floor along the wall.
 
Coming to a sudden halt, she found herself concentrating on the mugs she held, holding her hands still until the liquid stopped moving and threatening to spill out onto her gloves.

“Sorry, ma’am,” came a voice from above.
 

Looking up, the Tassali saw two members of a maintenance crew, standing on boxes, working on some ductwork above their heads.
 
One of them, his arm jammed into a duct, was looking sideways down at her.

She smiled up at him.
 
“All is well,” she replied, and started off toward the bridge with smoother, more careful steps.

Rounding the corner, she glided onto the bridge.
 
The Captain was facing away from her, talking to the communication console on the ceiling above his chair.
 
Atwell’s voice answered him through the speaker.
 
“...just like the one Cho found on Planet One, sir.
 
Big pile of crystal cubes.
 
Scanner says about four million pieces.
 
We’re setting up to start scanning it all in.”

Dillon must have sensed someone's arrival; without looking, he reached his hand back toward her.
 
She placed the mug in his hand as he spoke toward the console.
 
“Okay then, let me know when you have a time estimate.
 
Anything else?”

“Aye aye sir,” came the tinny voice through the speaker.
 
“And no sir, nothing else.”

“Right then,” he reached his left hand up to the console.
 
“
Borealis
out.”

He took a tentative sip of his coffee as he turned his chair around.
 
“Thank you— oh, good afternoon, Tassali.”

She smiled demurely.
 
“Captain.
 
Have I come at a bad time?”

He shook his head in response.
 
“No, it’s okay.
 
Atwell and Saparun have taken Lee’s squad down to the planet to look around.
 
It’s much the same as Planet One.”
 
Sipping again at his coffee, he peered over the rim of the mug, his eyes glancing about from under a furrowed brow.

“Something troubles you, Captain?”

“We’re in no danger,” he said quickly.
 
“Not that I know of.”
 
He turned to look at her, staring intently into her eyes as if the answers he sought were written there.
 
When he spoke again, his voice was quieter.
 
“Cho mentioned something this morning that, frankly, bothers the hell out of me. “

Amba was about to speak, but stopped herself.
 
She tried again.
 
“Worse than dead planets, Captain?”

He made a face, leaning back in his chair.
 
“I don’t know,” he said.
 
“It’s this…”

Reaching above his head, he poked the communications console again.
 
“
Borealis
to Atwell.”

The Lieutenant’s response was immediate.
 
“Atwell here, sir.”

Dillon kept watching the Palani woman’s eyes as he talked toward the ceiling.
 
“Atwell, everything’s dead on the planet, right?”

“Aye sir.”

“Any bodies?”

“No sir,” came Atwell’s hesitant answer.
 
“No bodies anywhere, nothing… oh.
 
I get it, sir.”

“Yeah.
 
Keep me posted,
Borealis
out.”

He pushed a finger at the console again, and leaned forward in his chair.
 
Holding his mug in both hands, he raised his eyebrows meaningfully.
 
“
That
is the problem.
 
The cities are destroyed, and their wreckage is still there.
 
But there are no remains of the residents.
 
Or animals.
 
Not one skeletal bird, or fish, or insect or plant.
 
Not one shrivelled little bacterium corpse.
 
Nothing.”

The Tassali felt a knot begin to grow in her stomach.
 
“Nothing?” she whispered.

Dillon shook his head.
 
“Not only was all of the planet’s organic life killed, all organic material — alive, dead or otherwise — is
gone
.
 
So that’s two entire planets, no biomass.”

She looked away from him, focusing on the grey and brown planet that filled the view out the bridge windows.
 
Taking a sip of tea, she had to concentrate to keep her hand from shaking visibly.

The Captain’s voice was quiet.
 
“If you have any happy news, I could use some.”

She relaxed a little.
 
“Actually, yes.”
 
Her cobalt eyes looked sideways at him.
 
“My body temperature is up to twenty-one degrees.”

A grin quickly spread across his face.
 
“Thank you.”

Able Seaman Anderson tapped on the display again.
 
It had been several days since Planet Two, and the starboard engine was at it again.
 
It was running perfectly, but a warning message —
 
not even a warning, really, it was more like an informational message — had popped up on the display and refused to be cancelled.
 
He poked the ‘Dismiss’ button, and after several seconds the message came up again.

He looked up from the console, trying to spot his crewmate.
 
Stewart was over by the matter fabricator, looking inside one of the machine’s open access panels.
 
She saw him wave, and began to walk over, wiping her hands on a clean cloth.

“That fab dust gets into everything,” she said, scrubbing at the tip of one finger.
 
“What’s up, Anderson?”

“Well,” he gestured at the screen, “this message keeps coming up.
 
It’s not a ‘critical’ or a ‘serious’ or a ‘warning’, but it still keeps coming up.”
 
He dismissed the window, and it reappeared shortly after.
 
“See?”

“Huh,” grunted Stewart.
 
“Just an error code.
 
That might be the one I saw last week.
 
The number looks similar.”

“What was that one for?”

Stewart looked at the ceiling above, squinting one eye shut to help her think.
 
“It was a message saying that the message log was nearly full of logged messages, and would have to delete old messages so it could log the new message.”
 
She looked again at the console.
 
“I’m pretty sure it’s the same one.”

Anderson shook his head.
 
“A message about too many messages?
 
Who comes up with this shit?”

Stewart shrugged.
 
“Just like everything else in the fleet:
 
built by the lowest bidder, who then cuts corners.”

“Bah.
 
This is bullshit.
 
And all it shows is the message code, which we now have to go look up somewhere.
 
Couldn’t they at least have added the code description?”

Another shrug.
 
“We’ll just look it up.
 
Do you have your datapad?”

“No,” frowned Anderson.
 
“They took it and wiped it clean.
 
Needed it to load all that scanned alien DNA.”

“Yeah, mine too.
 
We’ll have to find Saparun’s.
 
Do you know where he is?”

“Nope.
 
I think he said he’d be back around fifteen hundred.
 
Should we get him?”

Stewart looked down at the display, one finger lazily tapping ‘Dismiss’ as the message window appeared again.
 
She sighed.
 
“Yeah, I guess we should.
 
Start with his cabin.”

-----

“Do I look like some sort of information desk?” asked the Chief.
 
“Am I a message service and—”
 
She leaned back from the bridge console, still holding the handset firmly against her ear.
 
“Did you just interrupt me, Anderson?”

The bridge crew began to smirk as the Chief rolled her eyes.
 
The excited squeak of the voice on the other end of the line came through her handset.

“Yeah,” said the Chief, “yeah.”
 
She met the eyes of Pakinova, who was watching her from the helm console.
 
The Chief frowned at her, nodding meaningfully at the helm.
 
Pakinova got the hint, returning her attention to her station.

“Okay, look.
 
I’m surprised the Head Mechanic never covered this, but with these engines, unless they come and tell you there’s a problem, with a thousand messages all at once, then there’s no problem.
 
It’s just a bookkeeping thing.”
 
She paused, listening to the handset.
 
“Fine with me, Anderson.
 
If knowing ‘for sure’ will make you sleep better, with little dreams of giggling unicorns and shit, then be my guest.
 
Try the wardroom, or the medical bay or—”
 
her eyebrows leapt up her forehead.
 
“So help me god, you did not just interrupt me again.
 
Do you have any idea how far my boot will go up your ass, Anderson?”
 
She smirked at the sudden burst of excited squeaking through the handset.
 
“That’s better.
 
Use your judgement.
 
Chief out.”

Calmly putting down the handset, she looked up to see the Captain watching her from his chair at the other side of the bridge.
 
The pen in his mouth tilted upward, along with one eyebrow.
 
Black gave a small, dismissive wave, and the Captain returned his attention to his datapad.

-----

Sap looked around at the small compartment.
 
“I’ve never been down here before.”

Barely two metres by five, the storage & access level was sandwiched between the Engineering deck above and the hangar deck below.
 
A few medium- and small-sized storage cubes were fastened to the deck and the bulkheads.
 
“I’ve seen it on the ship’s schematics,” said the Mechanic.

Cho, slightly hunched over, made his way to the back of the compartment, sitting himself down on a small storage box.
 
He leaned forward and started working at the opening of the larger container next to him.
 
“Yeah,” he said absently, his attention focused on the container.
 
“I found it on the
Regina
,
Borealis
’s sister, the first time I ever sailed.
 
When I came aboard
Borealis
, I came looking for the same space here.”
 
He briefly glanced around.
 
“I like it.
 
It’s the most private spot on the ship.”

The Head Mechanic sat down on another small container next to Cho.
 
“I see,” he said.
 
“So, you seek somewhere quiet, somewhere to retreat?”

Cho shrugged.
 
“I guess so, yeah.
 
Somewhere I can turn off my game face.
 
Just be me.
 
Somewhere I’m not being watched or judged.”

Saparun watched quietly as Cho reached into the large container and pulled out a glass bottle.
 
“Then I appreciate you sharing this with me, Cho. But I wonder: do you feel you are being judged?”

The young officer turned the bottle in his hand so he could see the front.
 
He gently tilted it back and forth, gauging the remaining volume of blue liquid inside.
 
“Of course I am,” he said tersely, then frowned to himself.
 
“Always have been.
 
Atwell’s watching me.
 
The Captain is definitely judging me.”
 
He held the bottle out to Saparun.
 
“From the Greys.
 
Their version of cider.
 
It’s made from something they extract from Earth cows.”
 
He shrugged.

“Huh,” said the Mechanic.
 
“Contraband.”
 
He accepted the bottle in his red-skinned hands, turning it over to get a better look at it.
 
“Very nice stuff.”
 
His green eyes looked up at Cho.
 
“I know there is friction between you and Atwell.
 
She is your senior, so in many ways she’s competing against you for promotion.
 
But at the same time, you’re both equally needed for this ship to get home.
 
Maybe some of her attention is motivated by the ship, and not by some sort of personal agenda.”

Cho shrugged, watching the bottle in Saparun’s hands.

“As for the Captain,” said the Mechanic, carefully unscrewing the cap, “it’s his job to judge you.
 
It’s not about judging your value as a living person, but judging your performance as an officer.”

Cho tilted his hands up in a gesture of surrender, as Saparun sniffed at the bottle’s open top.
 
He nodded.
 
“I know this stuff.”