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RICHARD PURVES WAS tired. Not just standard procurement-officer-of-Her-Majesty’s-Navy tired, but bone-deep-half-way-through-the-tricky-stage-of-a-complicated-procurement kind of tired. What he really wanted was to lay his head down on the long oak committee table and nap. Instead, he smiled weakly and refilled his water glass. He could feel the stares from the other committee members boring into him.
His arm pad vibrated, telling him he had a personal message. He could read the header on his implant without even moving his eyes. A message, from his sister Rachel: Remember Lena’s Birthday! He dismissed the icon to read later. It was his niece who had got him into the mess with this sodding ship in the first place.
“Purves!”
Richard started.
“About a replacement Captain?” the chair of the committee, Admiral Jeremy Burleigh-Hall, was notorious for his inability to suffer fools. Richard had spent most of his career avoiding being one—until this ship. This sodding ship. Two captains had quit and it was only sea trials. Well, space trials, but in the British Navy it didn’t matter if your vessel sailed in the ocean or the vast void of interstellar nothingness, to Her Majesty’s Navy, a ship was a ship, terminology, ritual and all.
“I have a suggestion, if I may?” Rescue from Richards’ left, someone who he hadn’t noticed when he’d come in—a thirty-something woman, hair tied back in a tight bun, looked a bit like Rachel. “There is a candidate I’ve suggested before?”
“The Indian girl?” said the Admiral.
Richard had a coughing fit.
The woman-who-looked-like-Rachel swept her com stylus like a wand, painting a picture that could only be read from her perspective. “Her family is from Oxford. She graduated top of her class at Dartmouth. Her first degree is in Classics from Cambridge.”
“Oh, she’s a classicist!” the admiral bubbled.
Woman-who-looked-like-Rachel dropped her com-stylus. It clattered onto the shiny top of the massive antique mahogany table. Richard went to pick it up and then thought better of it. He put his hands either side of his face like blinkers on a horse and stared at the surface of the table. He wondered if someone from five hundred years ago would have stared at the same table, discussing ships built of wood.
“Richard, do you know this young girl?”
“I’ve not met Lieutenant Commander Varma personally but her service record is exemplary.”
“This would be her first ship...”
This was a yawning gap for Richard to fall into and he knew it. An untried captain in this role could cause all kinds of trouble. Especially with the newfound sensitivity of the mission. But so far, one experienced and one retiring captain had quit what was becoming a ‘problem job’, his choices were limited.
“Well—"
“Good,” said the admiral, “let’s make this one work, eh? You’ll meet her today, of course.” Not a question. The Navy had a way of doing that. “The Admiral requests...”
Richard gazed imploringly at Woman-who-looked-like-Rachel. She was focused on the next display she’d wanded into existence in front of her and was staring right through him, presumably requesting and requiring poor Lt Com Varma. “All sorted, you meet her at the international docking station at sixteen-hundred hours. I’ve sent her a briefing.”
Another message beeped on Richard’s arm pad. Don’t forget you’re taking Lena shopping this afternoon and she’s meant to be staying in Greenwich with you tonight as a treat.
Today was just getting better.
