“Begin,” Morgan said, looking over at Gertrude to indicate she should start.
“Hi, Sweetie,” Gertrude said, giving the camera the biggest smile Morgan had seen in months, one that looked completely genuine. “We have some news for you, and wanted to be sure to get you this message as quickly as we could send it.” Gertrude’s smile faded a bit. “It isn’t great news, Honey, but it really isn’t all that bad either. A small thing on the ship broke, and it means we need to be careful about how much energy we use for a bit, so this is going to be our last message for a while. Maybe even until we get back.”
Gertrude looked a bit at a loss for words, so Morgan jumped in.
“I was glad to hear in your last message that you’re enjoying learning about dinosaurs in school. I never learned about them when I was young. Can you tell me a little bit about them every time you record a message for us until we get back? What was the one with the big horns on its head called again? That one sounded really cool.”
Gertrude tapped Morgan’s leg where the camera wouldn’t pick up, and she finished with a smile of her own, so Gertrude could speak again.
“Listen, Haru, we can’t make this message very long. There are lots of other parents that want to talk to their kids right now, too. I just wanted you to know how much I love you, and that even if you don’t hear from us for a bit, that doesn’t mean I’m not thinking of you. We’re still close by, and once we drop off the stuff at the station out there, we’ll be jumping right back. And like Morgan said, I want you to keep recording a message for me each night. I will watch each and every one, I promise.”
“I’ll watch them all too, Haruhi,” Morgan added, “And I love you, Imotou-chan. We’ll be back before you know it.”
Gertrude nodded.
“Computer, end recording and send,” Morgan said.
They waited a few moments, to be sure the computer had complied, then slumped back against the cushions.
“I don’t like lying to her,” Gertrude said.
“Where did you lie?”
“I said it wasn’t a big deal.”
“But it isn’t, G,” Morgan insisted. “Sure, it’s going to be very uncomfortable, but we’ll get there just fine. In the meantime, if anything else goes wrong, we can just jump back early, delivery or no.”
“Morgan, if things go well we’re looking at almost 45 degrees C before we get there. Most of the crew is used to things kept on the chilly side to help the computers; they’ll be melting.”
“We’ll have everyone used to hydrating before it gets that high,” Morgan pointed out, “And we won’t be doing much work by that point either. Besides, it got even hotter than that at times, back home.”
“For months at a time?”
“Well, no, but it won’t be that long here, either.”
Gertrude groaned.
“Honestly, I could stand the heat, if I could just talk to my baby.”
Morgan could only sigh.
“I know. It’s going to be rough. Just focus on the end, when we get to go home.”
Morgan stood up.
“It’s going to be at least forty minutes until we can get any reply. I’d better get ready for my shift.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea. I’m just going to wait here until she responds or…”
Or time runs out, Morgan finished.
Grabbing her boots, uniform trousers, and some clean underwear, Morgan retreated to her bathroom, having to force herself not to rush through her routine despite the fact that doing so would just leave her waiting long minutes at the end for a message that might not come.
As she dried off, she looked herself over, trying to remember how she’d looked back when she’d met Gertrude, a few short years and a lifetime ago.
Still down a bit of muscle from then, she decided, but given that she’d only recently been able to get back to the gym regularly since the attack on the Fate of Dawn, on top of living at a lot lower gravity, she was doing quite well to only be down a little bit of muscle tone. A bit taller, though not as much as I’d have liked, and yes, a bit filled out. I can still see that scared little girl in my eyes, though.
Sighing, she got dressed and finished by doing what she could with her short hair. It was funny, she’d preferred it short for so long, but now that it was short because of the actions of others – namely the idiot terrorist who’d bashed her in the head to ‘knock her out’ – she was annoyed at its length.
Well, I won’t be cutting it before we get home, so it should be at least a decent length by then.
Leaving the dirty clothes on the sink for later, she returned to find Gertrude still in the same spot on the couch, hardly having seemed to move at all.
“Just sitting there won’t make the time pass any faster, you know,” Morgan said.
“Nothing else I could do would, either,” Gertrude replied.
Morgan didn’t have a response to that, opting instead to sit back down as well.
The silence as the minutes passed was almost unbearable, but what could Morgan talk with her about at a time like this? Work matters seemed hollow and inappropriate, as they were the source of Gertrude’s distress, and there wasn’t much in their personal lives to talk about besides Haruhi herself, and Morgan certainly didn’t want to bring up the topic Gertrude had been teasing her about earlier with only a few minutes to fill.
Well, maybe I can cheer her up, at least a little?
Morgan took in a deep breath before starting.
“Haru seems to be settling in really well with the other kids of her school group. They all seem to get along, well enough anyway, and there aren’t any problems with bullying.”
“That we know about,” Gertrude said heavily. “You know how kids are, they rarely tell adults that kind of thing.”
I don’t, not for that kind of thing, actually, Morgan thought, but she pushed aside the thought and instead said, “Maybe, but the teachers in this case are also among the people watching after them the rest of the time too. They’d be the first to notice any bullying because they see the kids so much.”
“More than I do…”
“G, don’t start that. This is just a temporary issue, and will soon be just an unpleasant memory. You’re the best thing in Haru’s life, and the biggest thing as well. What’s five months against the years you’ve been there for her? The many years you’ll be there for her? It isn’t fair to yourself to compare how things are to some perfect ideal, because that can’t exist.”
“The perfect is the enemy of the good,” Gertrude muttered, her tone making Morgan think it was a quote.
“What?”
“Just what you’re saying. We’re supposed to be striving for perfection, but also recognize that we’ll never actually get there, that the real goal is improvement.”
Morgan blinked a few times, trying to follow Gertrude’s logic.
“I’m not sure that’s quite what I was saying, but I think I get what you’re going for.”
“Something else you reminded me of, something I was reading this morning. ‘It is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength.’”
“Now I know we’re straying from what I was talking about,” Morgan said, trying to dredge up a definition for the word ‘requisite.’ She thought she knew, but it really wasn’t a word she had encountered much, if ever.
“I mean to say, you’re right. Of course I’m sad I won’t be able to talk with her for a few months. I’ll be sad until I can see her again, hold her again. But obsessing about it won’t help me, or her, nor will second guessing my decisions. When I decided to come on this trip it was because all the information I had said it was the best choice, including when I meditated and prayed on it, and it isn’t my fault that I didn’t anticipate a scenario where we’d be coasting along at minimum power for months. Even then, this will still be worth it. Especially if I can start working toward getting an engineering slot on the station itself.”
Morgan hadn’t ever co
nsidered such a position – the whole point of this was to see the stars, after all – so she didn’t know offhand what was required for that, but she could guess it was hard. Even with how many people a station as big as Takiyama needed, the competition would be fierce, given the obvious advantages it had over working on one of the freighters.
If someone didn’t care about the money so much, they could even live on the planet below and commute up each day. It’d be a few hours each day on shuttles, but to have a high paying job and still have a nice house somewhere? Again, not something Morgan had considered before, but she could see why it would be very enticing for some people.
“There you go. Focus on your goals, and the time will just fly by.”
Morgan’s uplink beeped, letting her know there was an incoming message.
“It’s already working, no more waiting for Haruhi’s reply.”
Morgan had the uplink bring up the holographic message on the room’s system so they’d get a sharper, larger image, and they got to see a larger than life still of Haruhi, seated at what Morgan recognized as her desk in her bedroom in the dorms, looking cheerful. Mostly cheerful, anyway. Morgan could tell it was a little bit forced.
“Begin playback,” Morgan ordered the computer.
“Hi Mom, Hi Aunt Morgan! The teacher tells me I have to be short, but that it’s okay, because that’s better than not sending one at all.”
She got a look of concentration on her face for a moment, and then nodded.
“I think Teacher is right! I’m sad to hear your ship broke, Mom, but I’m sure Morgan and you can fix it. You’re both really good at that. We’re almost done studying dinosaurs, Aunt Morgan, but I’ll keep reading so I can tell you all about it.
“School is fun, I have so many friends now!
“Oh! I should tell you about church! Motoko and Beth have me sit with them the whole time. Sometimes it is hard to be reverent, but we can do it.”
Haruhi’s face broke out into a little guilty grin.
“Mostly.”
From beyond the field of view someone said something, probably the teacher, as Haruhi nodded and looked serious again.
“I gotta go. I love you, Mom. I love you, Aunt Morgan. I’ll send you messages every day, and when you get back, you can tell what you liked about each one.”
Haruhi waved vigorously, and then the message ended.
A quick glance told Morgan that Gertrude wasn’t up for talking just yet, so she quietly closed down the video and instructed her uplink to send a copy of the message to Gertrude’s.
“She’s a great kid,” Morgan said, hopping up and heading to the cabinet where she kept her tools, both mechanical and firearm. “I have to get to work, G. Just about time for shift changeover. Thank you so much for including me.”
“Of course, Morgan,” Gertrude managed to say, and Morgan nodded as she headed for the hatch.
“You’re set to have access, by the way, G. You can leave whenever you’re ready.”
Chapter 14
The example of a leader can be a powerful motivator on people. In many ways, really, not all of them positive. Sometime I’ll have to elaborate on how spite can be one of the strongest motivators in the galaxy. That, however, is a different discussion. A leader striving to set a good example can pull the best from their followers, while a leader setting a bad – or especially a lazy – example can encourage much apathy and lack of drive from those same people. There is an old, old quote that says if you “treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.” I would suggest that you can add to that how a leader treats himself is how his followers will treat themselves.
- Admiral T. Weisskopf, Fleet Commander, Navy of the Free Peoples of Bane.
THE LEATHER of the command chair stuck to Morgan’s neck, arms, anywhere her skin was exposed. Where her skin wasn’t exposed, it was still a hot, uncomfortable mess, with sweat soaking through her undershirt, and standing out in great beads on her head.
Just a few more hours and I can get back to my room. At least there it is only thirty degrees centigrade.
It had been a month since they’d found the leak, and while the captain’s plan was working, there were wrinkles no one had anticipated. One of them being that while the environmental plant had been able to establish an equilibrium where it could maintain the temperature below truly dangerous levels, it wasn’t able to do so evenly. That the engineering spaces were among the hottest on the ship wasn’t a surprise, being directly next to the fusion reactor and all. That the bridge was the hottest spot on the ship had come as a shock. Figuring out that its position behind so much armor acted as additional insulation, trapping any stray bit of waste heat, was cold comfort indeed. Pun intended.
I’ve gotten weaker than I realized, Morgan thought as she wiped some sweat from her forehead. It has to have been hotter than this back home, and with all the padding, our coveralls were hotter still.
She surreptitiously checked the display on her uplink, laid over an arm of the chair rather than on her wrist as her sole concession to the heat, and saw that while only ten minutes had passed since she’d last checked it, the hour had arrived and she at last had something to do.
“Midnight hour. Anything to report?” she asked the room in general.
“Nothing new out there,” the navigation officer reported. “At least not that we’re detecting.”
One by one, the rest of the crew reported in with similar tales of nothing, until the communications tech chimed in.
“Nothing incoming, of course,” she started. “Some reports of shouting matches in the mess, a couple engineers taken to the sickbay with heat exhaustion, and uh…”
“Yes?” Morgan asked after a moment.
“Reports that the mercenary officers broke up a group of theirs who had turned off gravity in one of the empty cargo bays and were playing some kind of sport.”
“Really? How’d they pull that off? That entire section should be sealed off, physically as well as for any airflow.”
“I think they were in their skinsuits, ma’am,” the comm tech replied.
Morgan rubbed her forehead with one hand.
“All… all right. Confirm with the Aegis Lieutenant on duty right now that the section has been resealed, and put a note in for the captain. We’ll let them discipline their own.” At least that’s one thing I won’t have to deal with.
The lift made its telltale whooshing noise as it settled into position at the back of the bridge. She leaned over to look at who was arriving, two hours early for the next shift and in the middle of the ship’s night, only to jump to her feet as the Captain strode out of the lift. Or at least, she tried to jump to her feet. The actual process was painfully, and somewhat noisily, slow, as she essentially had to peel herself out of the command chair, leaving behind a distinctly Morgan-shaped imprint in the cushions, one that was more than a little damp.
“Captain on the bridge,” the crewman closest to the lift announced as he shot to his feet. His chair was bare ergonomic polymer, and was probably more comfortable than hers was just then.
“As you were. Black, a word,” Captain Rain said, disappearing into his ready room.
Morgan couldn’t help but feel nervous at the terse and abrupt summons, but tried to settle her nerves by pointing out to herself that he hadn’t been in uniform, and usually when she screwed up, it was Lieutenant Bill reaming her out, not the captain directly.
Then again, maybe I did something especially bad this time and didn’t even realize it.
She pushed the thought aside so she could respond.
“Right away, Captain. Williamson, you have the conn until I get back.”
As she headed towards the ready room, she noted with a mental sigh that Williamson sat himself down very gingerly on the edge of the command chair, carefully keeping his body from touching the backrest.
“I’d ask you to sit, but right now you’d probably be less
uncomfortable just standing,” he said as she entered. Notably he wasn’t seated either, but was standing to the side of his desk, looking into the fake window… that right now just showed a black screen, as it was among the many, many things powered down to reduce energy usage. “You’re probably right,” Morgan agreed.
Rain glanced over his shoulder, looking her over, and then grimaced.
“Relax, Black. You’re not here to get your head bitten off.”
“That is a relief,” she admitted. “So, why am I here?”
“Just a bit of friendly advice,” Rain said, turning around after he’d said it and plopping himself down in his chair without any apparent grace or elegance. “I know you come from a hot planet, but I just don’t know how you do it.”
“Sir?”
“You have to be roasting in that uniform, don’t you?”
Morgan shrugged.
“It isn’t that bad, honestly.”
“Why subject yourself to that when you don’t have to, though?”
Morgan took a moment to consider the question before answering.
“Because I can, I guess? Because I want to prove myself that I haven’t gone soft.”
Rain snorted.
“That’s the kind of answer I expected out of barely adult men fresh out of boot camp. Not something I’d expect from a responsible woman with a solid head on her shoulders.”
“I didn’t follow all of that, sir,” Morgan reluctantly admitted, “I’m also not sure what ‘boot camp’ refers to in this instance.”
“Morgan,” the captain said, dropping all pretense of formality, “There are times when knowing you can do something is sufficient, you don’t need to demonstrate it, to yourself or others. If I had to, I could march over to the weapons deck and field strip a railgun myself, but that doesn’t mean I should. This is especially true when our actions not only reflect on ourselves, but affect how others act.”
“Others?”
“Morgan, if I went out on the bridge how would I find your crew attired?”
“In their uniforms, why?”
Running Black Page 12
