Supernova (8 page)

“So
Earth didn’t explode, global warming didn’t fry people? No zombie plagues or
atomic bombs?”

“No
explosions, there has been climate change but Earthlings have adapted, zombies
have never been a problem there, and I don’t know what an atomic bomb is,” he
replied. “The only residents there are shipbuilders and their families. Most of
Earth is too humid to live comfortably. It’s an acquired taste.”

“So we
weren’t as stupid as the hippies predicted,” she said, relief in her voice. She
gestured to the galley and changed the subject. “How do I use those things
again?”

He
demonstrated how to activate the cooking panel and replicator. She generated
some coffee, dispensing it in one of the cups from the cabinet. “Want some?”
she asked, holding out the cup. He declined politely.

The look
on her face as she inhaled the aroma was blissful. “At least some things haven’t
changed,” she said. She tasted it. “It’s really bitter, though. But coffee
makes this whole ordeal a little more bearable.”

Rian
spoke honestly. “You’re holding up really well.”

She
looked in her cup. “Well, ask me how I’m doing when I’m having a meltdown in a
couple of hours. I’ve had a lot of upheaval in the last couple of years, and
that’s how I usually react to disasters. I’m fine at first, then it sinks in.”

“What’s
happened?” Rian asked, surprising himself. He, like all good captains, stayed
out of crew members’ lives. But Lily wasn’t one of the crew, he reminded
himself.

“My
father died just over a year ago,” she began. “We were really close, and his
heart attack came out of nowhere. One day he was there, the next day he wasn’t.”
Sadness crossed her face, and in Rian’s chest, a corresponding ache for her. “I
tried running the family business by myself for a few months, but it was too
much for me handle. I sold our property and moved to Toronto to start over.”
She looked around the cabin, but he knew that wasn’t what she was really
seeing. “I didn’t think it would be here, instead. I’d been thinking about
going into teaching, and I’m qualified to do something other than answer
phones, but I needed something...easier to do, I guess. I had some money from
selling our property and royalties from my dad’s books—he was a sci-fi and
horror novelist on the side—but I couldn’t mope around my apartment forever.
Being a receptionist was easy. All I had to do was tweak spreadsheets and play
Undead
Uprising
.”

“Simulator?”
Rian guessed.

“Computer
game, yeah.” She sighed. “I’m sorry, Captain, I don’t mean to unload on you
like this. You probably have stuff to do.”

Rian
always did, but the
Defiant
wasn’t much more than a glorified trawler at
this point, hauling crap across the galaxy and patrolling a peaceful quadrant.

“I don’t
mind,” he assured her. “Most of the things on my to-do list involve breaking up
crew squabbles and hauling them out of poker games to do their work. I’m hoping
for some crew changes when we get to Rubidge Station.”

“What’s
at Rubidge Station?”

“The
museum where you were supposed to go, the largest commercial presence in
Commons space, and a Fleet military outpost where we’ll be reporting everything
we know of the Nym. And the
Defiant
will be receiving some much-needed
repairs. It’s the oldest ship in Fleet.”

“It’s
not so defiant, is it?” she cracked.

He made
a face. “If I had a credit for every time I heard that...”

“You
could probably retire. Oh, come on, Captain, I’m teasing.”

“Rian,”
he said automatically. She had given him permission to use her given name, he
should offer likewise, shouldn’t he?
Since when do you think like that?

“Okay,
Rian
,
I’m teasing,” she said. She caught his raised eyebrow. “Oh, I get it. You’re
not Rian in public.”

It wasn’t
that, although he nodded as if he agreed with her. He just liked the way she
said his name.

* * *

Captain
Rian Marska had left to do whatever it was spaceship captains did, and in the
hours since he had left, she found herself bored. It was preferable to crying,
although she had done her share of that, too.

She
played around with her cabin’s computer and after a few false starts found a
small library available. Most of it was books about military theory and Fleet
history, which she read a little of, but there was a modest fiction collection
and she downloaded a few serial novels. Reading was a bit of a challenge at
first; the English language had undergone some modifications over the last few
centuries. All of the fiction was sci-fi, but she doubted it would be
considered as such. Space battles really were waged now.

Rian had
issued her a comm badge, which was clipped to her sweater’s collar, but she was
unsure how to use it. He hadn’t given her any restrictions, and if she spent
any more time prowling around the cabin she would lose her mind. She damned her
purse being stuck in a decontamination unit; she’d been halfway through a
drugstore novel and wanted to finish it.

There
had to be somewhere to get a proper meal, at least. Maybe Rian could show her
where, but she didn’t have a clue where to find him.

She left
her cabin and went back in the same direction she and Rian had taken from the
elevator. Stepping into it, she recalled his verbal commands, but she didn’t
know which deck was what, so she looked around the walls for a directory of
some kind. Nothing.

The
doors closed and the elevator began a smooth ascent. Maybe someone would get on
and help her.

It
stopped and the doors whooshed open. A young officer in a rumpled navy blue
uniform stepped in. He looked familiar.

“Mess,”
he commanded. He glanced at Lily and did a double take. “Holy shit!” he
exclaimed.

Evidently
the
Defiant
didn’t see a lot of people dressed for the office. “Nice to
meet you, too,” Lily snapped.

“No, I
just didn’t think I’d see you again so soon,” the officer explained. “Especially
on the lift.” He examined her face. “You don’t remember me. I’m the guy you
scared the crap out of in the cargo hold. I thought you were a zombie and tried
to shoot you? Ring any bells?” He smiled expectantly, as though they were
casual acquaintances who had bumped into one another at a movie theater.

Lily
remembered now and glared at him.

“Ensign
Taz Shraft.” He stuck out his hand and grinned broadly. “Call me Taz.”

He was
younger than her by a few years, in his early twenties, and gangly, as though
he were still growing. His dark blond hair stuck up like he had just tumbled
out of bed and his eyes were an odd shade of lavender, a color Lily had never
seen before.

Lily
shook his hand. “Lily Stewart, but you already know that. As you can see, I’m
not a zombie.”

“I’m
really sorry about that. It’s just a little unsettling when someone you think
is dead wakes up. Just so you know, I think dead bodies in museums are creepy
and disrespectful. I was going to put you in the corner of the cargo hold where
the gravity always works.” He said this as though it somehow justified pulling
a gun on an unarmed woman.

The
elevator doors opened. “Where are you headed to?” he asked.

“Somewhere
I can get some food,” she said. “My cabin has only soup and coffee.”

“You’re
in luck,” Taz said cheerily. Catching her dark look, he backtracked. “Well, not
technically, but I can help you with dinner.”

He led
her through a set of doors into a large mess hall, half its tables occupied. He
waved to a few people and Lily noticed some curious looks in her direction. At
the replicators, he tabbed through the menus. “What do you feel like?” he
asked.

“I don’t
know,” she answered. She looked at one of options scrolling past. “I was
looking for tomato soup in my cabin, but that doesn’t seem to exist anymore.”

“All you
can get in the cabins is basic stuff,” he explained. He flicked through the
soup selections. “No tomato soup, whatever a tomato is.”

“It’s a
vegetable.”

“What
about vegetable stew?” he suggested.

She
would have to get used to this. “Okay.”

He
ordered a bowl of something fragrant and spicy for her and a huge tray of
unfamiliar dishes for himself, helping himself from a pile of dishes stacked
next to the replicator. He didn’t look like he could eat all that, but maybe
men had evolved with an extra stomach.

They
took a table near a window, and Lily was again struck by the stars drifting
past. She saw a large silver cone-shaped structure floating in the distance,
and asked Taz about it.

“Old
satellite beacon,” he explained between mouthfuls. “From the early days of
space travel. They were used for communication way back when. They’re all over
the Commons, but no one uses them anymore.” He stirred a bowl of casserole on
his tray, half of it already eaten. “So you’re really from the twenty-first
century?”

“I
really am.”

“You’re
the hot topic of the day on the
Defiant
,” he added. “I should thank you,
because before you woke up, it was me trying to wine and dine someone who
turned out to be Lieutenant Steg’s sister when we were at Golfell.”

“You’re
welcome, I guess,” said Lily. She had read a blurb about Golfell in her cabin.
Military base and small commercial center

Footsteps
behind her chair halted the conversation. Taz set down the remains of a piece
of bread, stood up and saluted. “Captain,” he acknowledged around a mouthful of
food.

To her
surprise, Lily’s heart fluttered at the sound of his voice. She stood up and
turned around to face him.

“At
ease,” Rian said smoothly. “Ensign, don’t talk with your mouth full.” Lily and
Taz returned to their seats. He turned to Lily. “I see you’ve found the mess.”

“Accidentally,”
she said. “I got stuck in the elevator.”

“It’s
true,” Taz confirmed.

Lily
caught the look of surprise that peeked through Rian’s professional demeanor at
the sight of the two of them. “I remember him,” she said. “He apologized. I can’t
blame him for reacting the way he did.” She smiled. “Want to join us?”

Taz
choked a little and coughed to cover it up.

“No,
thank you,” Rian replied. “I just stopped by for some tea. The replicator in my
office isn’t working again.”

Lily had
heard over and over about the state of disrepair on the ship, and it alarmed
her. “You sound way too relaxed about broken things on board,” she said. “We’re
in space, and you’re
not
freaking about gravity malfunctions?”

Rian’s
mouth quirked up in the tiniest of smiles. “No, we have fail-safes.”

“I once
got stuck in a ditch off a highway with a flat tire,” Lily said. “At night. It
was snowing and my phone died. It scared the hell out of me, but at least I was
still able to breathe outside.”

“The
Defiant
’s
life support is at optimum levels, Miss Stewart.” The tiny smile disappeared
under his professional captain mask. A shame, because a smile would have
transformed his face.

“So
there’s no chance of one of the windows blowing out and everyone being sucked
into space?”

“None.”

“Good to
know.” She searched his face for any sign of the Rian who had spoken to her so
reassuringly in her cabin and found none.

She’d
heard him referred to as an
acting
captain. Maybe that had something to
do with his shift in attitude. Or maybe he didn’t like stupid questions, even
when they came from an ignorant time traveler

Rian
excused himself and Lily watched him get his coffee. “Did I insult him?” she
asked Taz.

“No, he’s
been acting like there’s a stick up his ass since he took command,” Taz
answered. “Although he was never the kind of guy who went out with the crew on
shore leave. He’s not the chattiest officer out there. That’s probably why he’s
almost a captain already.”

“So he’s
ambitious,” she translated.

“To a
fault. Everyone knows he wants a permanent captaincy.”

“Is he
married?” The question slipped out of Lily’s mouth before she could stop
herself.

“Hell
no.”

A thrill
coursed through her at this information, and she immediately chastised herself
for it.

“Hell
no, he isn’t married?” she echoed.

“He’s
thirty-four, thirty-five years old. You don’t make commander, then first
officer on the
Bradlaw
, and then acting captain at that age unless you
have no social life,” Taz explained. He raised an eyebrow at her. “What do you
care if he’s married?”

She
ignored the question. “Dumb it down a shade. What’s the
Bradlaw
?”

“One of
the premier battleships in Fleet. It blasted a couple of Nym ships out of the
star lanes when they were trespassing in Commons space.”