Ships of My Fathers (12 page)

“And do you know why?”

He took a deep breath and answered as calmly as he could. “Because that’s not the kind of discipline Captain Fletcher instilled in me.” He took another breath, proud that he had gotten it out without cracking his voice. He thought a moment and added a belated, “Sir.”

“That’s the proper response,” she replied, leaning back to sit on the edge of her desk. “But for the record, I prefer ma’am.”

He relaxed, his fists finally letting go. “Yes, ma’am.”

“I have some sympathy for your situation, Michael, but have no doubt that I am under your uncle’s orders. If you want us to believe that Malcolm Fletcher was the kind of captain you say he was, it’s up to you to prove it through your actions. Do you understand?”

He nodded, feeling the rage fade. “Yes, ma’am, I understand.”

“The way we do things here is that new crew get rotated through all the departments for the first week. We want you to get to know the ship and all her crew. There will be a test on this in six days. You will not be allowed to hold a post until you can pass that test, and Captain’s nephew or not, I do not tolerate slackers under my orders. Is that clear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“All right then. Take the rest of the day to familiarize yourself with the forward sections. Tomorrow you’ll report to Mr. Feldman for a shift in Systems.”

He blanked. “Mr. Feldman?”

She looked at him. “Yes, you know Mr. Feldman.”

He racked his brain. “Charlie Feldman.”

She nodded.

He looked down at himself. “But what about my uniforms?”

She gave a slight frown. “I prefer to stay out of family politics, but I think if you put your mind to it, you’ll find a solution. Now, you’re dismissed, and don’t let me find you out of uniform again.”

“Aye, ma’am.”

He had to rummage through his stateroom and the small common room at the head of his section, but Michael eventually found what he needed. After a little work, he stood at his sink in front of his mirror and examined his handiwork. He was wearing one of his new utility uniforms, but the offending Schneider on the name tag was covered by a piece of tape, and on that tape he had carefully written out “Fletcher.” The lettering was not nearly as good as the stitched font, but it made the point.

He stepped out into the corridor just as the short woman from last night walked past.

“Hey, new guy,” she said.

He winced, but he turned to look at her. “Hi.”

“You look like you’re doing a little better this morning.”

He nodded. “A little.”

She looked at the tape on his name tag. “Good solution for now, but you should get Harry to fix you up right.”

“I plan on it.”

“Good,” she replied. “But while we’re on the subject of names, have folks started drilling you yet? You’ve only got... what, six days now?”

“Six days, I guess, but what do you mean drilling?”

She smiled up at him. “Here’s how it works, new guy.” She pointed to her own name tag.

“Karen Larkin,” he said.

“Right. Now look at this,” she said, pointing the patch above her name. It showed a green diagram of letters connected by lines, like a molecular diagram. “Environmental. We’re about half of the Systems department.”

He nodded. “Ok.”

“So here’s what you do, when you meet someone new, you look at their tags, read them out loud, and they’ll tell you what shift they’re on or which section, that kind of thing.”

“All right,” he replied. “Karen Larkin, environmental systems.”

“That’s right,” she answered. “Now look at my face. Ok, third shift.”

“Third shift?”

“I work midnight to oh eight hundred. First shift goes from eight to sixteen hundred, and then second shift takes it from there back to midnight. Always report a half-hour before your shift and plan on staying a half-hour after for any changeover duties.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I’m supposed to report to Charlie for first shift tomorrow.”

“Great,” she said, giving him a playful punch to the shoulder. “I’ll be finishing off then.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m headed for a shower and bed.”

“Thanks, Karen,” he said.

She walked away with a wave. “See you around, Michael Fletcher.”

His chest swelled, but he was glad she had not seen it. He was pretty sure he was blushing too.

Quartermaster was his next stop, so he found the ladder and went down one deck. He wandered around through the corridors, turning back from the smell of environmental, and eventually found the laundry. Harry was there, dumping towels into a folding machine.

“Hey, new guy, are you here for your fitting?” she asked, but as he approached, she looked at his name patch and raised an eyebrow. “Well that’s different.”

“Yeah, I was hoping you could help me out on that.”

She bit at her lower lip for a moment. “I heard about dinner last night.”

“You did? How?”

“Shit, Michael, if we could ship cargo by word of mouth, we would set speed records. I’m sure by now everyone has heard about it.”

He sighed. “So, are you going to help me?”

“Well, that’s where I have a little bit of a problem. The captain put you on the crew manifest as Michael Schnei… well, by that other name. He says I’m to make uniforms according to the crew manifest. No fake officer bars for portside liberty, that kind of thing, you see. I don’t want to have to explain to him how I made you an irregular patch because you asked.”

He shook his head. “Then tape it is.”

She shrugged. “Or not. I don’t think I have any standing orders about preventing someone else from making an irregular patch.”

He started to smile. “Ok, how do I do that?”

“The machine’s back here,” she said, beckoning him back into the maze of shelves and crates.

Michael walked into the galley at noon, starving. He had not eaten since the half dinner the night before. It was crowded already with at least thirty crewmembers either sitting or in line at the counter, and the moment he came in, he felt every pair of eyes on him.

It was not as though the room fell silent, but he did notice a momentary drop in volume, as though many of the conversations had shifted to the whisper of “new guy.” The older man in front of him turned and nodded to him. “Michael Fletcher,” he said, reading his newly stitched name patch. He then pointed to his own patch.

Michael looked at it. “Zane Forrester,” he read and then looked to the departmental patch above it. It was a purple swirl. “Tach drive?” he guessed, and looked up the man’s face: thin, dark hair with a hint of gray at the temples.

“Yep, first shift.” He glanced back to the moving line in front of him. “Meatloaf today. Everyone else loves it, but the gravy aggravates my heartburn, so I’m getting a sandwich. You ever do much tach work?”

He nodded. “I’ve sat more than a few shifts,” he answered. He thought better of bragging about his rating in it.

“Good. We could use another good tach man. We’re still one short. It makes a couple of the maintenance jobs a pain in the ass.”

They got to the front of the line, and true to his word, Zane got a turkey sandwich. The woman behind the counter looked up at him. “Mr. Fletcher!” she exclaimed. “I heard you missed out on the dessert last night.”

He faked a smile. “Yeah, I umm, I had to go.”

She put some meatloaf on a plate for him. “No worries, dear. I saved it for you. Find a seat, and I’ll send it out in a few minutes.”

He got some corn to go with the meatloaf and picked up a cup of iced tea at the end of the line, and when he turned back to the array of tables and benches, he saw a hand waving to him. It was Gabrielle. He made his way over, nodding to several smiles and waves along the way, and sat down opposite her in the corner table.

She added a puffy white roll to his plate. “It looked like they were running out before, so I went back and saved one for you.”

“Thanks,” he said, dabbing it into the gravy and taking a bite. It was delicious, a far cry better than Malcolm’s cooking had ever been.

“I’m sorry about last night,” she said. “You know, with my dad.”

He nodded, still feeling the sting. “It’s not your fault.”

“Still, it was a shitty way to welcome you to the family.”

“You don’t like him?”

She shrugged. “He’s my dad, so I love him, but I don’t always like him.”

He chuckled. “That’s a fine distinction.”

She lowered her voice and leaned in. “Oh, he can definitely be a self-righteous prick sometimes, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s been a good father to me. Plus, he makes a pretty good captain, too.”

“Compared to?”

“I grew up on his ships, sure, but I had three other postings at the academy and one since. I only came back here last year when a navigator slot opened up.”

“Oh, that’s not what I meant. I guess… never mind.”

Her eyes went wide. “Oh, you thought I was comparing him to Fletcher?”

He lowered his eyes. “Yeah.”

“Oh, sorry. I honestly didn’t mean to imply anything. I never met your… old skipper. I certainly never served under him, so I wouldn’t know.”

He met her eyes, looking so earnest. Either she was telling the truth, or she was a better actress than a navigator. “Do you believe what he said, about him murdering Peter and my mom?”

Gabrielle reached out and took his hand. “Oh God, Michael, I honestly don’t know. I mean, I was just a kid when it happened. We were on a run into the League of Catai when we got the news. Peter’s ship had been destroyed in some battle, all hands lost, and by then the news was already three months old.”

“All hands?”

“Yeah, it turns out that four people got out. You and the chief steward in one pod, and two of the cargo handlers in another, but we didn’t find out about them until six months later when they showed up at one of our offices.”

“And me?”

She shook her head. “By then the adoption had already gone through, and we had no idea where to find you.”

He nodded, recalling fragments. “I remember a few worlds we saw back in those years. Looking them up later, I can tell you that at least some of them were in the Solarian Union, but mostly I remember we were moving around a lot.”

“A lot? Compared to what?”

He shrugged. “It’s a good point. I guess that’s the life. We’re always moving around, but I don’t think we had much of a regular schedule back then. About the only regularity I remember is Annie.”

He saw the quizzical look on her face.

“A girlfriend of Malcolm’s. She was always sweet to me.”

She smiled at him. “Well, look, I’ve got to get back to the bridge. Jake is watching my station so that I could eat, but I have to spell him now. My advice to you is steer clear of Dad for a while. Give him time, and his temper will fade.”

“Thanks,” he said and bid her goodbye.

She had not taken more than five steps when another woman sat in her place. She was older, perhaps near fifty with a round face and vivid green eyes. “Hi, new guy,” she said, pointing to her name patch.

“Roxanne Collier,” he said, following her finger to the department patch. It was a red wrench. “I’m going to guess systems, mechanical.”

“First shift. I’m the one to call if the door jams or the lift wobbles, that kind of thing. And most folks call me Roxy. So, I hear you’ve got a lifetime of small-ship experience.”

A lifetime? “Sure,” he replied, “seventeen years of it.”

They chatted for a few minutes. She had done twelve years in Confederate survey and then bounced around cargo carriers ever since. She had two daughters, one who was now working for Takasumi Lines as a cargo handler, and one who had gone to dirt and decided to raise pigs with her husband. She got up after a bit, saying she had to investigate a grating noise in the long core shaft.

He started digging into his food again only to see another man sitting across from him. He slid a piece of cherry pie across the table towards him. “Compliments of Maggie,” he said, pointing to his own name patch.

“Reginald Hawthorne,” Michael said through a mouthful of meatloaf. The department patch looked like a crate. “Cargo?”

“Yep, Reggie.”

Behind him, Michael saw four others looming, doing their best to look like they were not. Drilling indeed.