The Kestral Voyages: My Life, After Berserker

by Steven Lyle Jordan

  “Good lord, no!” Kestral fairly goggled at him. “Um… how much space do you need?”

  “One of the upper flank holds in there will do it,” Shakra stated. “I can maintain it, cook, and do my other mate duties, as long as it’s understood that the food comes first, with me.”

  Kestral considered only briefly, glancing again at the aromatic beans in his hand. “Pick out some quarters. We’ll discuss wages after I try your first meal.”

  “Breakfast, tomorrow morning at local nine,” Shakra smiled, and shook her hand. “Thanks, Captain! You won’t regret it, Ma’am! I’ll go get my gear right now!”

  Shakra headed quickly for the platform, waving once more at Kestral as he started to descend. Kestral waved amiably back, and started into the Mary. She glanced at the drone, still hovering nearby. “Those were real coffee beans, right?”

  “Authentic Terran coffee beans, grown aeroponically.”

  “If he can brew them as good as he can grow them, I may never sleep again,” she mused aloud.

  Kestral found Tirri on the bridge, standing over the ops console. She was about to ask where Sarander was, when she heard his disembodied voice ring out. Tirri started to respond to Sarander’s voice, when she noticed Kestral. The feathered hairs on the nape of her neck stood up slightly, a sure sign to Kestral that she had surprised her.

  Kestral took a few steps forward, silently craning her neck about the bridge. When she was around the Captain’s station, she saw a pair of legs protruding from underneath the ops station. She smiled at Tirri, and leaned forward. “Everything ship-shape down there, Sarander?”

  “Captain?” Sarander quickly shoved himself out from under the console, saw Tirri first, then Kestral standing next to her. “Oh, hi. I was just doing a bit of... rewiring.”

  “To a brand new ops console?” Kestral cocked an eyebrow, and looked at Tirri, who seemed disinclined to respond to the question. “May I ask why you would do that to my ship... without asking me about it first?”

  Sarander pursed his lips and averted his eyes a moment, looking like a child with his hand caught in the cookie jar. “We... wanted to surprise you?”

  “Mission accomplished,” Kestral said sarcastically. “Now give me a good reason not to tell you to undo whatever it is you just did.”

  “Ops locks.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Ops locks,” Sarander repeated, standing up slowly. “See... the Quicksilver uses a customized telemetry system designed to allow the drones to function outside of the ship during C travel, and which allows the drones to control ship’s systems remotely. It’s tied into the Tesser system to compensate for field variations outside of the ship, which—”

  “Ops locks,” Tirri cut him off.

  “Ops locks,” Kestral emphasized.

  “Sorry,” Sarander said. “Uh, Quicksilver systems can be tapped into from outside, through the drones and... all of that... and the ops system can be hacked into and controlled remotely. It’s a design flaw. I’m installing a lock that will prevent an outside signal sent through the drone from hacking into ops. The drone will still be able to remotely control ship’s systems, but only on orders from recognized controllers... us.”

  “I see,” Kestral said, after a moment. “And exactly how did you get past the Mary’s security systems to apply those locks?”

  Sarander responded by holding up a small device, about the size of his closed fist.

  Kestral stared at the device, then at Tirri, and back to Sarander. “Let me guess: An omni broadcaster?”

  Sarander replied quickly, “You only need it to start the process—”

  “You hacked into my brand new ship!” Kestral snapped.

  “Yes!” he blurted back. “But now no one else can!”

  Tirri finally chimed in, trying to support Sarander. “It really does work, Captain, I’ve seen it done on—” She stopped speaking when Kestral held up a finger in admonishment.

  The bridge was silent for long moments. Sarander slowly lowered the hand that held the hacking device. Tirri regarded Kestral hopefully, but did not move otherwise.

  Kestral lightly cleared her throat. “You know how much trouble I could get into, if anyone finds out that thing is aboard?” She eyed the device in Sarander’s hand critically. “If I get asked, I’m going to deny that I even know you two. And two seconds after that, you’re both walking home. Is that clear?”

  “As a vacuum,” Sarander replied.

  “Good.” Kestral glared mock-seriously at each of them once more, before her eyes softened. “Carry on. Tirri, set aside an upper flank hatch for Angel Shakra, our new cook. Prep it according to his needs for life support systems. I’ll be in my quarters.” With that, she turned and strode off the bridge.

  Tirri and Sarander continued to stand as she left. When she was out of sight, and well out of hearing, Tirri whispered, “‘Don’t worry, hon... this’ll get us in good with the Captain. Just you watch.’” She glared at Sarander.

  Sarander winced. “I guess we may be delaying our…celebration of our first joint gig for tonight… honey?”

  “Possibly for days,” Tirri said drily.

  3: On the Wrong Foot

  Waking up for the first time aboard a new ship was one of those sensations that, for Kestral, never got old. It always felt like the beginning of a new stage of life for her, one that she had always relished. And even now, it made her unintended new profession a bit more bearable than it had felt the day before.

  She dressed (having bathed, as was her habit, before going to bed) in a working jumpsuit not too dissimilar from the one-piece overalls she had worn in countless years of Ranger service, but sporting a light green tone with orange piping… much more colorful than the boring white of Ranger uniforms. Then, gathering up her personal tablet, she headed out of her quarters.

  The first thing that reached her, immediately upon opening her door, was the unmistakable aroma of real, fresh Terran coffee wafting through the corridor. Kestral took a deep whiff of the stuff, grinned, and instantly turned in the direction of the galley.

  The second thing that reached her was the voices of Tirri and Sarander, from inside their quarters. Kestral had nothing against married couples aboard her ship... but placing at least one set of quarters between hers and theirs had been no accident. After all, the walls of ship’s quarters were never completely soundproof, and she knew from experience how... distracting the activities of married couples could be. She expected Doshu May would take the quarters between hers and theirs, a single bunk room, or the next single on the other side of the couple. Either way, she didn’t expect to hear much commotion out of them, which would be fine with her.

  Continuing on down the corridor, Kestral turned to the wing that accessed the common. Half of the common area included a living area with numerous built-in chairs and sofas, various table games, and access terminals to the ship’s memory and processing systems—its brain. The galley took up the other half of the common area, itself divided into the food preparation area and a table large enough to seat ten. The galley lights were on, and she found Angel Shakra busy at the preparation station. The coffee brewed in a pot on the stove.

  “Good morning, Angel,” Kestral greeted him brightly as she entered.

  “Morning, Captain!”

  “Carolyn is fine. We’re not formal here.”

  “Okay. Help yourself to some coffee. It’s only eight, but if you want me to hurry breakfast—”

  “No, nine is fine,” Kestral replied. “I’ve got plenty of things I can take care of first. I’ll want to see how you’ve got everything stowed for takeoff tonight, after dinner.”

  “I’ll have everything stowed two hours after dinner’s done,” Angel said. “No problem.”

  “Okay. See you in an hour.”

  Actually, Kestral reflected, she didn’t have that much to do before breakfast. She just wanted to take the time to familiarize herself with as much of her new ship as possible, and the hour be
fore breakfast was another hour she could use in simply wandering around.

  This time, she ended up in the bulk storage hold, above the occupied levels of the ship. Kestral felt a particular need to familiarize herself with every part of the Mary that was significantly different than her former Ranger ships, and this area was that different.

  It wasn’t that Ranger ships didn’t need to carry their own supplies... of course they did. But Ranger ships had matter compilers, capable of creating most basic elements, and even many compound elements, directly from the atoms of which they consisted. Even water was broken down to stores of hydrogen and oxygen, and recombined as needed. Once elements were used and discarded, they were broken back down into their component atoms and stored for later use.

  But a civilian ship rarely carried such elaborate and power-hungry equipment as matter compilers. For the Mary, raw storage tanks, bulk waste processing tanks, pumps, filters, septic systems, recyclers, and quality monitoring equipment, were the technology of the day.

  And that was only one of the things that were so different from being on a Ranger ship. Kestral felt that, to be a good captain, she needed to instinctively know these differences. It may not be a matter of life and death, the way it could be on a Ranger ship. Then again, they would be alone in space, without high tech and dozens of Ranger technicians backing them up... it might indeed make that much of a difference someday.

  Everyone met in the galley at nine for breakfast (with the exception of Doshu, who wasn’t expected for a few more hours). To everyone’s delight, Angel delivered as promised, preparing a delicious breakfast of hash browns, vegetable omelettes, and fruit salads. “You think this is something,” Angel told them. “Wait ‘til I get my farm going.”

  After breakfast, and Kestral’s agreement to deliver on her promise of good wages based on Angel’s performance, the four of them discussed the day’s work. There was a lot of preparation that went into the maiden voyage of any ship, and the Mary would be no exception. There was much checking and testing that went on before she could even lift off, most of which had to be done manually.

  Kestral had studied the manuals, and taken a lot of notes, but she found herself relying on Sarander to cover all the systems she had not thought of, including a few that were not in the manuals, but were known by someone who knew the ship. Sarander proved to be that person, simply judging by his encyclopedic knowledge of Quicksilvers and their needs, and he quickly put Kestral’s questions about his expertise to rest. Between Kestral and Sarander, they quickly organized an outline for the prelaunch tasks, and Kestral divvied those tasks out for all four of them.

  Work progressed smoothly throughout the day, giving Kestral a chance to evaluate Tirri and Angel as they ran their assigned tasks. She was more than satisfied with Tirri’s ability to work with Sarander, as the two of them apparently had a close rapport, but did not waste time in idly socializing while working. Angel’s work was good, as well, although clearly he deferred most of his responsibilities to his “farm,” as he called it, where he had brought in an incredible load of hardware and had begun to set up his aeroponic gardens. Still, he hustled when told to hustle, so Kestral could not complain.

  Even with Angel’s prelaunch work outside of the galley, he still managed to get dinner on the table right on time. The four of them rejoined in the galley, where they ate heartily and went over the day’s progress. As Kestral had planned, everything would be ready for the morning launch of the Mary.

  “Hey,” Tirri asked as they worked on dessert, “weren’t we supposed to have a pilot by now?”

  “Yes, we were,” Kestral admitted sourly. “Doshu May… he was supposed to be here hours ago.”

  “Not a good way to start your first day on the job,” Sarander commented.

  “A fact that hasn’t been lost on me,” Kestral stated flatly. “I’m going to have to find out what—”

  At that moment, a call came in. “Incoming message for Captain Kestral.”

  “Is that Doshu May?” Kestral called out. “If it is—”

  “It is not Doshu May,” the Mary responded. “A prospective client.”

  “I see,” Kestral said, looking meaningfully about her crew. “I’ll speak to him in my quarters—”

  “The client is waiting at the crew hatch, Captain.”

  “Oh. In that case,” Kestral said, standing, “tell him I’ll be right out.”

  Kestral headed directly for the hatch, and palmed it open. The man standing just beyond the opening hatch was human, though his slightly greenish-bronze tan marked him as someone most likely raised on Palin’s Planet. He was not as tall as Kestral, but he was far from slight. In fact, despite his immaculate business suit, Kestral imagined that he seemed a very physically-capable man.

  The man looked up when the hatch opened, and waited until he could see Kestral’s face. “Captain Kestral?”

  “That’s me,” Kestral said, stepping down and offering her hand.

  “My name is Gellen So.” The man shook her hand in a very business-like way and smiled curtly. “I am in need of a cargo transport, and I am told you are looking for an assignment.”

  “Sure,” Kestral smiled. “What have you got?”

  “Just a small load of ores going from here to Terra212. About five tons.”

  “Just five tons? That is a small load. Anything special about the stuff?”

  “No… just inert ores,” So shrugged.

  “Well…” Kestral paused, not sure why this man was bringing her such a small load to transport. “Pardon my saying so, but this sounds like something more suited to a small cruiser or hauler, not a freighter. Why—?”

  “Well, our usual transport is down for repairs, and we can’t upset our schedule… I’m sorry… don’t you want the job?”

  “It’s not that,” Kestral replied. “It’s just that, for the cost of operating a freighter—”

  “We’re in a hurry. You’re here. We’ll pay 20 million odds for the run.”

  “Sold,” Kestral said quickly, and shook his hand again. After all, she mused, business is business. And 20 million in Oan Dollars easily covered her operating costs. “Um… when do we leave?”

  “As soon as you can pick up the crates and go… they’re ready now, stored on the southwest corner of the spacedock.” Gellen So handed her a small data chip. “This is the cargo manifest data, and it includes the storage column number. As soon as you can get there, you can load it and go.”

  “Okay…” Kestral did some quick thinking. “Tell you what… we were just starting to secure things for the night. Would first thing tomorrow morning work for you?”

  To her delight, So nodded. “Yes, that will still give you time to make our schedule. First thing tomorrow, then.”

  “Great!” Kestral beamed. “We’ll see you in the morning, bright and early!”

  They shook hands again, and Gellen So turned and left. Kestral waited until he was out of sight before saying under her breath, “Assuming we can actually fly…”

  ~

  “I’ve got good news and bad news.”

  Kestral had just rejoined the crew in the galley, where they were starting to clean up from dinner. She had surprised them, breaking into their casual conversation. So they all paused and focused on her.

  “I hate hearing that from a new boss, my first day at work,” Angel said as casually as possible. “We’re not fired, are we?”

  “No,” Kestral replied. “You’re all still hired, and we’ve got a job.” Sarander, Tirri and Angel all gave appropriately enthusiastic responses, and Kestral waited for them to finish. “That’s obviously the good news. The bad news is, we’re expected to pick up our cargo tomorrow morning, and we haven’t even gotten this hunk of metal off the ground yet!”

  “Hey, we’re ready to fly!” Sarander insisted. “All the checks were perfect!”

  “Well, you’re going to have to prove it. We’re taking a test orbit inside of two hours.”

  “But our pi
lot—”

  “I’ll worry about finding May,” Kestral assured them. “You all just get busy… Angel, stow your gear ASAP and help out wherever you’re needed. Sarander, start prelaunch. I’ve got some calls to make… I’ll be on the bridge.”

  Kestral spun on a heel and headed for the bridge at a trot. Sarander quickly gathered the last of his dishes and utensils and deposited them unceremoniously in the sink. “Well, that’s it! Tirri, do me a favor and check the rear load monitors while I heat things up. Let’s go, guys! Work work work!” Tirri followed Sarander, tossing her dishes more at Angel than at the sink. Angel deftly caught them as she rushed by and disappeared down the corridor. Angel stood a moment longer, watching Tirri depart, then taking in the remains on the table to be cleaned and stowed.

  Then he shrugged, smiled, and got to work.

  Within eighty minutes, the Mary was as ready for her initial flight as she would ever be: Sarander had the engines cycled up, taking them through every pre-launch checkpoint by the book, and in record time; Tirri had sealed and secured the ship, and run all possible ground-based pressure tests; Angel had secured the galley, and was doing a miscellaneous check throughout the ship for loose tools and other items; and Kestral had split her time between assisting Sarander with his system checks, and trying to locate Doshu May.

  So far, Doshu May was the only part that hadn’t worked out.

  “I don’t believe this!” Kestral hissed to herself. Tirri, working at the ops station in front of her, glanced back at her, but said nothing. Kestral returned the glance stonily, and continued to work at her console. “Who thought I’d have to tie a bell around his neck just to find my own pilot—”

  Sudden activity on the com cut her off. “Hailing the Mary. Hailing Captain Kestral of the Mary.”

  Kestral slapped at the com’s reply button. “Doshu, is that you? Where have you been? Listen, I’ve got a job lined up, we’re ready to go, and you’d better have a good reason that you’re not here in front of me right now!”

  “Sorry, Captain… I’m not flying with you.”