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“WHERE THE HELL IS FAZAR?” The captain shouted.
Lena lay on her dream pilot couch fully awake, but peripherally aware of Rowie performing a scan of the planet. The captain never shouted. Certainly not like this. It was a truly terrifying thing to behold. If Lena had had her eyes open.
“Dunno, skip,” PO Jones was at the controls this morning. The crew all called him Davey for some reason, though his name was really Donald.
“Hmm, quiet from our friend, is worrying,” Varma said. “Then turning to the centre of the room she said, “Dream pilot, are you with us?”
“Aye, aye captain,” Lena replied. The novelty of saying that was never going to wear off.
“Can you get the ship to have a little look in the hold for me and see what’s going on?”
“Sure,” said Lena. She held her hands to her temples, more out of habit than any change in effectiveness to her communications to Arohirohi. “Oh.”
“Yes?”
“They seem to be warming up engines on the marine’s ship. Rowie says that it seems like they’re planning to leave.”
“Are they now? I wish I could say I was surprised.”
“Rowie wants to know what you would like her to do?”
“Can she prevent them from doing so?”
“She says as long as you don’t mind her doing a course correction. She plans to use a field to hold the ship to the deck and then bubble the exhaust from the engines out into space.”
“Or there’ll be a cargo bay full of rocket exhaust?”
“Just that.”
“Mr Cento, hail the cargo bay please.”
“Aye, captain.” The wireless comms system peeped loudly. “All yours.”
“All hands in the cargo bay, there’s a change to standing orders. No-one leaves this ship, until further notice. Any questions I’ll be in my ready room. Thank you, Varma out.”
“Clear,” said Cento after another beep.
“Thank you. Let’s see what kind of a hornet’s nest that stirs up, shall we? Last thing, before I retire for a cup of tea. Hail me the bosun please.”
Cento turned to do just that as Addison Johnson entered the bridge. “I hear you wanted to see me, captain?”
“Only if you’re receiving transmissions from the future Mr Johnson,” said the captain.
“Nothing would surprise me any more on this voyage, skipper,” he said, smiling grimly.
“Well, quite. However, you’re here now, however fortuitous your timing was. I require your services in the capacity of master at arms. Please issue all of my sailors with sidearms immediately and pick two of them to be stationed outside my door please.”
“Consider it done. Expecting trouble, captain?”
“Hope for the best, but expect the worst, my nanni used to say.”
“Wise woman,” said the bosun and left.
“That she was, that she was. Lena, with me. Mr Cento, go find Lena’s uncle for me please and send him to my ready room. Shall we?”
Lena found herself grinning from ear to ear as she left in the captain’s wake.
The bosun seemed to have selected the two pilots as guards to the captain’s room. Davey Jones stood at attention on one side of the door, looking every inch the sailor, the proper uniform. Janice Coots, the oldest of the able seamen on the ship, at least by appearance, wriggled awkwardly in hers. Both saluted crisply when they saw the captain. Both had belts with holsters, which were unbuttoned, revealing the handle of whatever gun they used. Lena thought about them in a whole new light. They both seemed as though they could handle a gun.
“Come in and sit, Lena, I need to know our tactical situation, privately, and I hoped you could ask Arohirohi to secure this cabin.” The captain waved to take in the walls of her cosy ready room.
“Oh like soundproofing? Yeah sure, Rowie does that for me all the time!” The captain raised an eyebrow at that. Lena flushed, “I snore.”
“Can she prevent us being monitored from outside by other means, too?”
“Oh, yeah, when she says soundproof, she means spy-proof.”
“Good,” Captain Varma said, then made a twirl at the ceiling with her finger. Lena gave a thumbs up, thought at Rowie and then the room lit up with green. “Is that what normally happens?”
“No the green thing is a special touch for you, I think.”
“Err, thank you?”
The cabin lights dipped and brightened again; the captain’s smile was stretched thin. Lena thought she must find the whole sentient ship thing unnerving still.
“Has Rowie made contact with the surface yet?”
“No, and Ash would know as soon as I did, they’re monitoring all the communications in and out.”
“Okay, good. Has she found a decent landing spot yet?”
“No to that either. She needs a better view of where we are. From here she’d just be guessing.”
“Hmm, I may have a solution to that.”
There was a tap-tap-knock-knock at the captain’s cabin door, “Come!” said Captain Varma. The guards ushered Uncle Richard into the room. Lena gave him a huge hug before he’d even had chance to greet the captain.
“Hello, Lena, captain.”
“I’ve not seen you for ages,” said Lena.
“Well as you can imagine, the reports I’ve been writing on your friend Rowie are quite time-consuming and need updating every day. She’s rather keeping me out of trouble in my quarters.”
“Are you finding the admiralty’s new discovery satisfying?” said Captain Varma.
“Oddly, not one of the words I’ve used in my report,” Richard said.
“Well, I may be able to distract you momentarily from your paperwork, if you brought on board the case I asked you for?”
“I did, it’s in my room, since I didn’t know what security in the hold was like.”
“Would you like to go and get it and bring it here? It’s a drone, I’d like to get it set up and find someone to pilot it, that way we can get a better look for potential landing sites.”
Before Richard could answer, a noise like a thousand buildings blowing up all at once echoed through the room. “Captain?”
“Ah, belay that order Lieutenant Purves, things in the hold may be coming to a head! Let’s wait for our friend down there to notice.”
