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“WHERE THE HELL IS MY Comms Officer?” Lena heard the captain’s voice before she got through the door of the bridge. She’d taken extra-long so she could finish her tea prior to her arrival. She knew Fazar would find any way he could to bully her, but she wasn’t going to give him ammunition. She slipped onto her seat quietly and hoped no-one had noticed.
“They’re still in their pit, captain, since we’ve not been doing any communicating, they’ve just been doing their watch shifts,” Lyn, at the helm, replied to the captain but winked at Lena.
“Well, now our Dream Pilot is here, do us all a favour, Ms Lee and go and get them on duty.” Lena jumped. Fazar’s voice came from right behind her. What did her mother say about people who hid behind doors?
Lyn looked at the captain, who nodded. “Aye sir,” she said, saluting on her way out.
The captain frowned across the floor at the impressive stack of monitors and devices currently being pored over by a dark-haired sailor Lena didn’t know all that well. The ratings, which was what Lyn called the junior staff, seemed to keep themselves to themselves, and had an odd relationship. A lot of boys in the team too. So much so that there was only one female rating, a deckhand who worked for the bosun, and she slept in the same bunk room as the junior officers like Lyn. The young man had short dark hair and wore a pair of headphones. The captain caught his eye, and he removed a muff from one ear and sat up straight, “Aye, captain?”
“Anything?”
“No, nothing yet, except background, m’am.”
“Keep listening,” the captain said and tapped her arm pad. “All hands, this is the captain speaking. Comms officers to the conference room in ten, please.” Fazar moved from his corner as though he was ready to join in, when the captain added, “The bridge is yours Lt Fazar, Lena, you’re with me.”
She breathed a huge sigh of relief and hopped down off her plinth, ignoring Fazar’s stare, and trotted along at the captain’s side. When they had rounded the corner from the bridge, the captain smiled at her and said, “You doing okay?”
“Aye aye, captain!”
She smiled again, but this time it didn’t quite reach her eyes, “You would tell me if it wasn’t, right?”
Lena stared at the floor, “Yes, captain.”
They reached the door of the conference room and met Lyn Lee coming out, “Midshipman Cento delivered as promised.” She saluted and went on, “I thought I’d bring them here and not to the bridge when I heard your announcement captain.”
“Well done, Lee. Thank you. Back to the bridge with you, Lieutenant Fazar’s in charge.”
The habitual smile on Lyn’s face stretched very thin as she left.
The captain frowned but placed a kind hand on Lena’s back. “Right, you go in, the others are there, I need to get the mess to bring some refreshments. This could take a while.”
Lena looked back quizzically, but the captain was gone. She shuffled nervously into the briefing room, which had water jugs and glasses, the shared projection screen in the middle of the table showing Lena’s favourite image of the star map of where they were, and people—Engineering Jenny and the young Irish guy from her team who she couldn’t remember the name of, Betty Jones the science officer under her crazy curly mop of brown hair, Addison Johnson the bosun, and someone new glaring at the empty coffee machine, presumably the much-mentioned Midshipman Cento.
“Sit down you two,” Bosun Johnson’s deep voice poured across the table, “You’re making the place look untidy.”
“Why are you here again?” Betty said from behind a digital clipboard.
“Oh Betty,” said Johnson, “I thought you’d be pleased to see me?”
“But why are you here?” she whined.
“Well, the captain thought you might need some of my toys for this new endeavour, since I am also technically weapons officer, QM and Master at Arms.”
“You have a lot of hats.” Lena poured herself a glass of water.
“That I do, young lady, that I do.”
Jenny gazed over her own clipboard, tucked her stylus into the tight ginger bun on the back of her head that firmly locked her baseball cap onto her head. “Jeezus Ash, sit down, the captain’s bringing coffee.”
The midshipman sat opposite Lena, and she had a chance to size him up. Then she corrected herself. Ash Cento was slim, elfin-faced and not a him at all. Their slouching gait said boy, but their face said softer than that. Ash tilted a glass over with one finger until it went past its point of balance and then caught it before it smashed into the brushed stainless steel of the conference table. Everyone except Lena looked on quietly. Lena gasped as the glass fell.
“Don’t encourage them,” Jenny said, finding something she’d missed to prod at on her clipboard.
They seemed to need little encouragement, and filled the glass from the jug with a flourish and then proceeded to rotate the glass through three hundred and sixty degrees under their arm without spilling any. Jenny sighed and shook her head slowly.
Coffee smells and the cook accompanied the captain. The cook flourished a tray of pastries and dispensed plates and napkins. Everyone’s hand shot in as the tray touched down.
“Ohh, Cookie, you’ve outdone yerself here!” Jenny snagged an inviting-looking Danish.
“Thank you, chef,” said the captain, as much a polite dismissal as a thank you.
“Need anything else?”
“No thank you, chef we’re good here.” When the door closed behind the cook, she went on, “So if you would please, Jenny.”
The chief engineer reached down to something by her feet, it made a loud click and the room filled with pressure, and the air filled with static. Jenny signalled a cheerful thumbs up. Was it a jamming device? “Good,” the captain said, “to business.”
