Chancerian Gambit: Two Tales From the Chancerian Universe, Page 2

  “Thank you, sir,” she said, taking his hand and matching his grip. She was surprised to notice that his large hands were callused, which meant that he worked with his hands often. It was motivating to her to see the only captain in the Chancerian Fleet to survive four decades in space without touching ground on any Terra under Chancerian control. She began to wonder just how many alien worlds he sniffed the soil of before her thoughts were interrupted by his next words.

  “Strong handshake for a female.” His gruff voice held no mockery. Perhaps he expected as much from someone arriving after a fifteen-year stint on Ukrainias, she thought. The gravity there is enough to lay you flat on your ass if you aren’t prepared for it. Or maybe he hasn’t experienced enough females in the Navy to overcome ancient stereotypes. Either way, she was pleased that she was able to make an impression. To answer his question she gave him nothing more than a smile.

  “I assume you know your way around the ship?” The captain changed the subject as he placed her file under his arm and began walking down the passageway. Calibri noticed that the deeper they went into the ship the brighter and wider the passageways became. She wondered, as she followed the captain to wherever it was he was leading them, how the crew was able to maintain the ship with such limited resources in the darkness of space.

  “To be perfectly honest, sir, this is my first time on a ship in my career.”

  He canted his head, and looked down his nose at her as he quickly walked down the passageway. He said nothing, but Calibri had the sinking sensation that he was not impressed. “Though, due to my previous position at Headquarters, I reviewed the schematics for the ship and I’m familiar with the upgraded systems currently being installed. They should mark a vast improvement in asteroid detection while traveling blind.”

  She took a deep breath and hoped that her knowledge of the ship, despite never having been on one before, might impress the old man. It was an expectation that every officer report to duty fully prepared for the position they would be assuming. This ship, however, was an oddball ship. It wasn’t typical because not every ship of this class had the power capabilities to travel just under light speed. She supposed she was lucky to be ordered to the Krylex; the first of its kind.

  Captain Tyrone stopped in front of a real hardwood door and the Commander Reese. “This is my office, why don’t you come in?”

  Calibri nodded and said, “Yes, sir.” She followed him in and noted his office was much smaller than she would expect for a commanding officer. He took a seat at his desk and gestured to an open seat to his left as he placed her file onto his desk. “I admit that I was not aware this would be your first trip,” he said. “But I am assuming that you’ve read our governing policies?” This question caught Calibri slightly off-guard.

  “More or less, sir” she replied. It wasn’t exactly like the regulations manual was a vast hall of “shall and shall nots.” The unstated truth in the fleet was that all guidelines were simply adhered to at the convenience of whatever ship they were on. But she did not want to give the impression that she was not one to follow rules.

  He scoffed, tossing a lot of scrap paper into the waste bin next to him. “Well, Calibri, maybe it’s a good idea for you to start walking around, see what you can learn about ship life.” The fact he used her first name did not go unnoticed. He eyed her from his chair, looking down his nose as if he was studying her, trying to find out if he was getting under her skin by breaking professional protocol. She returned a steady stare. “We live in a society where thievery and sexual endeavors carry a heftier sentence than murder, what with all the oxygen taxes and other bullshit.”

  Calibri could agree that the laws were getting out of control, otherwise she would not have been forced into military service to begin with. Before her parents passed, her family resided in a small planetary system where overpopulation was a real threat. Coupled with the hardship of providing oxygen and water to human refugees from other systems, it was a wonder any families were allowed to procreate. The laws tended to make the government seem like an overbearing parent, and punishment was far more severe than infractions warranted.

  “Oh, you mean the no human contact policies? I don’t imagine it being a problem, sir. I’ve never been one for intimacy,” she said. The truth of that statement would’ve broken the heart of a much younger version of herself; the woman she was before the military, the one who had hopes and aspirations to one day have a family. But fifteen years later, she recognized the fact she was a shell of her former self. She wondered if she would one day regret that.

  He smiled. “Very well, I guess it’s time for you to get to work.” The abrupt end to their conversation was more than unsettling to Calibri, but she was not one to rock the boat. She knew, as the new executive officer, she would spend much of her time communicating with the captain. Calibri knew that he was busy and had other things to deal with, and that it was up to her to get settled in to her new responsibilities. She watched as he looked down at his desk while his computer illuminated, the screen appearing out of nowhere on the desktop. His fat fingers began typing commands, controlling parts the ship from his private quarters. She knew that driving the ship was not his primary responsibility, but despite that fact she felt the thrust settle into something she assumed would be considered a more leisurely speed for the ship to travel in the darkness. He said nothing else and she assumed that his moving on to other tasking was her cue to leave.

  “Yes, sir,” she said with a salute. He did not look up, so she turned to leave his office and their awkward conversation behind. She noticed for the first time as she stepped out of his office that, despite the cold air of the ship, she was sweating.

  Three

  She was never one for show and tell, but knew the quickest way for her to learn was to meet the crew and, in so doing, learn the truth about how the ship operated. The technical manuals she read before reporting were nothing more than Cliff notes for how things should be done—nothing more than fire fodder—as the men and women on board did what was needed in order to carry them across the universe. She wasn’t naive, but for every procedure put in place by the Navy, there were at least a dozen other ways that the people who worked on the ship did things in order to keep themselves alive. That meant she would be placed in a precarious position; uphold the standards of the Navy in which she served, or support the crew to assure they were productively efficient and well supported.

  “How long have you been on board?” Calibri asked as she sat across from Luke, the engineering officer. They were in his office and the decor was essentially nonexistent. Instead, his style seemed to be more functional with pull-up shelving in a wall full of screens monitoring the engineering spaces. From her point of view, it seemed that he was more hands-on with his division than any of the other department heads. That says a lot about how much he cares for his people and for his job, she thought.

  “About three years, give or take. I got here a few months after Captain Tyrone. I actually followed him over here from the Roxtire.” All the information he was giving her she had already read in his file, but she thought it was better hearing it from his own perspective.

  She smiled and considered a new question. “So, you followed him from the Roxtire because you found him to be a favorable leader?” The question fell from her lips with more ease than she anticipated and she wondered if he would’ve been taken aback by that line of questioning.

  With his arms stretched out over the top of his couch, he gave a wry smile. “No, the bastard had me order-modded to report under his command, again. Apparently, he liked my leadership on the Roxy and wanted men he knew he could trust to get the job done. Even if we don’t necessarily get along on a personal level, I guess he has the kind of respect for my work to want me to do for him on his ship as I had done on the Roxy.” He brought his glass up to his lips and took a sip, setting it back on the coaster when he was done. Calibri looked at the drink and the condensation forming on the glass. They were tech
nically off shift, but she still felt uneasy about the fact he was drinking in his office. Then again, where else was someone supposed to go in order to take the edge off when trapped on a ship so far away from home that the only means of communication was a severely delayed video message?

  She pondered his statement for a moment and wondered why she might have been recruited, since she had never worked for Captain Tyrone before. The method in which she received her orders was not typical, nor was she even up for deployment. She had always assumed she would spend her entire career at headquarters doing the same job over and over again each year. That made her ask, “Is this a common practice of his? You know, to recruit previous personnel under his command?”

  Luke looked at her and just shrugged, not answering her question. She wondered if he didn’t know or didn’t care to speculate. Either way, it wasn’t all that important. And she could assume, she supposed, that the only person who could answer that question was the captain himself.

  “Well, I appreciate your time, Luke.” She felt awkward saying his first name, but she noted that the engineering officer did not wear his name on his uniform like the rest of the department heads did. She supposed she could just call him commander since that was his rank, but he seemed to be intent on being called by his first name, as if his identity was more important to him than his job title. “It’s been a long day and I suppose it’s time for me to head back to my quarters.”

  Luke rose from where he sat on the couch and extended his hand to her. “I appreciate your coming down to check out my department,” he said. “I hope you like what you saw.” He smiled, and she noticed how the white light of the office reflected off his cobalt blue eyes. She was caught in his gaze for a moment, but nothing more.

  “Thank you and good night,” she said, shaking his hand with a firm grip and heading out of his office.

  On her way back to her quarters she thought about all the encounters she had with the other six department heads throughout the day. All of them the same rank, all commanders, but none of them seemed as comfortable in their own skin as Luke had. She wondered why there was a self-confidence Luke portrayed that none of the rest of the department heads seemed to reflect. Maybe it’s because he knows that he’s good at his job, she thought as she climbed the ladder well leading up to the next deck.

  Air recyclers blew cold as she opened her door. The only light illuminating the space was the dim red lighting used during darken ship. It served no real purpose on a spaceship, but it was another tradition dating back to the Earth’s ocean navies of the past. If anything, it let people know if it was day or night back on Ukrainias. The red lighting cast shadows against the bulkhead as she made her way to the center of the small quarters. “Video message,” she said. “Carter.” The wall-mounted display illuminated with a video feed and when she looked towards the screen she saw herself looking back at her. “Lights on.” How she appeared on the screen changed as the lights illuminated around her, and a part of her was embarrassed by how tired she looked. It’d only been three days since she reported to the Krylex, but the lack of sleep was starting to take its toll. “Hi Carter,” she said with a smile. “I hope College is going well. I’m sorry I waited so long to send you a message, but I’m just settling into life on the Krylex and have been very busy. The ship is much bigger than I thought it would be, but you probably already knew that. I miss you and I hope you get this message. I love you.” She thought about saying something else, thinking that the short message might come across as too impersonal. The truth was, though, that she and her brother had a very strained relationship. There was resentment there. It wasn’t intentional, but it was there nonetheless. A part of her blamed his existence for her having to suffer through military service. The cost for Calibri was that serving prevented her from being able to have the only thing she ever desired growing up: a family. Her eyes lingered on the screen as the video feed sat paused and grainy despite the high-tech camera projecting her image. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and scratched her neck softly. “Send,” she said, unable to come up with anything else to say. The monitor blinked once and the video disappeared. She knew it would take several hours before reaching Carter, but she felt better knowing that the initial message was sent. Whether he would respond was up to him. She hoped he would but knew there was a higher chance that he would not. If she knew him well enough to truly love him; that small fact might hurt more. But if there was anything she learned in the military, it was that human connectivity was harder to understand than the physics involved in jumping a spaceship from one end of the system to the next. Perhaps I’ll never understand, she thought. And if I ever do it will probably be too late.

  Four

  The galley on the Krylex was a common space for both officers and the enlisted crew. That wasn’t how it always was on fleet ships, especially back on earth when the vast ships had more space and a lot more crew members to service. But with only twenty or so officers on board and only one hundred enlisted crew members, there was no need to have separate dining facilities on the ship. As Calibri made her way to the line, she noticed how different the food was on the ship compared to being on shore duty. Despite being under thrust, was the food was still presented in packages that would allow crew members to eat in zero gravity. She supposed it was because they didn’t want food floating off of trays if the ship lost thrust. She found Luke sitting in a corner booth by himself and made her way over to him. She was slightly embarrassed that he was the first person that she thought of when she woke up this morning, other than the fact that her brother had not responded to her message. He only looked up when he realized she was standing there. “Do you mind if I take a seat?”

  “Sure,” he replied after swallowing a bite of food.

  “How are you settling in?”

  She pulled the packaging from her lips and wiped her mouth before speaking. “I’m getting the hang of things all right,” she said. She supposed it was the truth. She couldn’t deny the fact that she felt lonely, being away from the friends she had served with for the last fifteen years. Despite the bustling crew living throughout the ship, she did feel a bit of isolation. It doesn’t make things any easier, knowing that Carter still hasn’t responded, she thought.

  “It took me a couple weeks to get completely settled when I was on my first ship,” Luke said. She noticed he was still wearing coveralls that had only his rank and his name stitched into the cloth. The funny thing, she realized, was that despite reading his file, she couldn’t remember his last name.

  “I know your name is Luke,” she said. “What’s your last name?”

  “Lorenzo,” he said.

  “Really? You don’t look Hispanic,” she said. She didn’t intend to sound like she was stereotyping him, but sometimes holding her tongue after realizing something was impossible for her to do.

  He smiled and shrugged. “I was adopted,” he said. “The Lorenzo family is Hispanic, but I was born into a white family. I never knew them, though, because they died when I was a few weeks old.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she replied, feeling foolish for bringing up something that could have upset him.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Luke said. “The Lorenzo’s loved me as their own, and, never having known my birth parents, I never felt the pain of loss. I imagine the most difficult part is not knowing them, but it’s nothing all that upsetting.”

  His words made her feel better, though only slightly. She couldn’t help but feel he was telling her what she wanted to hear so she wouldn’t feel bad. It’s not working that well, she thought. “So, tell me which planet are you from?” She hoped she could break the ice in a less intrusive way.

  “I grew up on Jhont, and I joined the Navy at sixteen.”

  “Did you go through the Academy?”

  “No, I enlisted first and went through the Reactor school. I had a natural inclination for the fusion drives, and after a couple of years, I was commissioned. I guess I have my first captain to t
hank for that. He didn’t want me to get out of the Navy and figured a commission and better pay might keep me around a bit longer. I guess the old man was right. I hit my sixteenth year as an officer next month, nineteen years overall a couple of months after that. It’s been a wild ride.”

  “Wow, I didn’t know we commissioned junior sailors.”

  “It was a fluke, I think. I figured Captain Royette knew some higher-ups and they owed him a favor. My paycheck reflected the commission, so something panned out.”

  Calibri laughed. “I imagine so. I went through the Academy and most of the officers I’ve met have all been alumni. I’ve never met a P.E. before now.”

  “A P.E.?” he asked, making a sour face as if she had said something that bordered on strange.

  “Prior enlisted.”

  “Oh,” he said with a grin. “We usually go by the moniker Mustang. It’s an old term from Earth having to do with a horse or something. I don’t imagine anyone in this system has even seen pictures of a horse, much less seen one with their own eyes, but the name stuck.”

  “I’ve seen pictures,” Calibri replied.

  “Really?” His eyebrows shot up.

  She smiled, holding in laughter. “No, and I have no clue what one even looks like.”

  Luke grinned and sat back in his seat, running his hand in his hair. “You know, you’re cute when you laugh.”

  His words hit her dead in the stomach, making it hard for her to breathe. It wasn’t the first time a man had complimented her looks, but it was the first time in a long while, and especially considering the man was also military. “I—”