Inadvertent Adventures

by Jones, Loren K.

  “No, I asked for permission to come up here and get a new suit for myself. I only have three, and this one,” he paused to gesture toward the worn-thin areas of his suit, “is just about dead. I really need to replace it.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Katrina said in a soft voice that betrayed her confusion. No one treated her like an adult at home, and it was a surprise to find herself being treated like one here.

  “No problem. I’m Bart Roberts, Quartermaster on the Admiral Ann’s Revenge,” he said, extending his hand toward her.

  “I’m Kat Rubinstein,” Katrina replied, taking his hand firmly.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kat. I think you’d look great in this red,” he said as he pulled another suit from the rack.

  “No, not red. Red makes my face look splotchy. What about the violet with blue sleeves?” she asked, holding the uniform up to her neck and looking in the mirror.

  “It looks good. That’s the uniform of the Lanthrop Line.”

  “Is there a problem with the Lanthrop Line or wearing their uniform?” she asked as she bundled the suits together.

  “No, not with Lanthrop. Sometimes you have to be careful, but Lanthrop has a good reputation. You see, some lines have, well, nasty rivalries.” He pulled out a red suit with yellow sleeves and another red suit with green sleeves. “This one is from the Karave Cargo Line while the second one is from the Jovan Cargo Line. You very seldom see these two together unless the wearer of one is beating the crap out of the wearer of the other.”

  “Oh!” Katrina exclaimed, shocked both by what he said and by how casually he’d said it. “I could be assaulted just for wearing the wrong uniform?”

  “Sad but true. Now me, I like basic black.” He struck a pose and said, “Black goes with everything,” in a stuffy tone that made Katrina giggle again.

  “Then I’ll take a black one as well,” Katrina said with a grin. “That should satisfy the captain. Why did she insist I get them, though?”

  “In case you have to don your suit in a hurry.”

  Katrina frowned. “Shimmying out of this and putting on a suit liner would take longer than getting out of what I’m wearing,” she said, still puzzled.

  Bart looked at her with a strange expression, then laid her black suit out over the rack. “You don’t take it off. You just,” he grabbed the portion of the suit that formed the horribly named ‘diaper’ and pulled it off, “take this off and you’re set to hook up your suit plumbing. The coverall is your suit liner.”

  “They’re crotch-less?” Katrina asked in a loud voice. She looked at Bart and her eyes darted down to the midsection of his ship’s coverall, and then snapped back up to his face. Bart nodded, but frowned as she burst out laughing in a nearly hysterical manner. “Oh, Mother of God, that’s just too funny! Crotch-less coveralls! I never would have thought of that!”

  They took their selections to the counter and fed them through the register. Katrina was openly surprised by the price. “That’s all? I pay more than that for a pair of pants.”

  Bart laughed. “That’s ‘cause you dress in fashion. Utilitarian clothes tend to be durable, unfashionable, and affordable so we working stiffs can afford them.”

  She gave him a suspicious look, then smiled and led the way out of the store.

  Chapter 15

  THE ADMIRAL ANN’S REVENGE PULLED AWAY from the dock on schedule with everyone aboard. Ann had, against her better judgment, invited Katrina to sit up in Control during the maneuver, and the girl actually seemed impressed by the amount of work it took to get the ship away from the space station and on her way.

  Katrina waited until everyone seemed to relax before asking Ann a question. “Excuse me, Captain, but is it always like that? I always thought it was just shoving off and you’re on your way.”

  “This was actually fairly easy, Miss Rubenstein. New Frankfurt Space Control was very helpful and there was little in the way of other traffic for us to avoid. In some of the core systems, where there is more space traffic, it can take several hours to achieve what only took forty-five minutes to do here.” Ann smiled at the surprise on Katrina’s face.

  “But you—I didn’t think it was that hard, and you think that was easy? Oh, Thor, I wish I could be like you,” she all but gushed. She pronounced the ancient Norse God’s name with the hard “T” of her Germanic ancestors. Her expression was as close to hero-worshiping as Ann had ever seen, and she couldn’t help but chuckle.

  “Miss Rubenstein, I’ve been in space for more than half my life. This is the fifth ship I’ve commanded, and, until about a year ago, I was a two-star admiral in the CSS Navy. Sterling is my husband, and he’s commanded two ships. Denise was the captain of a freighter until just recently. Every member of this crew is ex-Navy, except Denise.”

  Ann watched Katrina’s expression as she looked at the other members of the control room crew. “That must be so exciting.”

  “No, not exciting. Boring as can be most of the time,” Denise corrected without turning to face the girl. “Exciting tends to be dangerous.”

  “But you get to do stuff all the time. You go places and see things that I can only read about.” Her face fell and she looked at the deck. “I couldn’t afford to travel like that.”

  Ann and Sterling exchanged glances. “I thought your father was the Chairman of DA-CC,” Ann said.

  “He is. He could afford to travel like that, but not—” She paused and took a deep breath. “My father disowned me because I insisted on going my own way. I want to see the galaxy, experience life among the stars, visit different planets! He wanted me to go to university on New Frankfurt and marry some junior executive.”

  “And this trip to Nepal?” Sterling asked.

  “Is supposed to teach me a lesson about what the rest of the Confederacy is like. Father thinks seeing a back-orbit planet will bring me to my senses.”

  “He may be right. How will you get home if you change your mind?” Ann asked. Stranding the girl on a distant planet didn’t appeal to her very much.

  “All I have to do is go to a DA-CC office and ask to go home. Father has that trip planned as well.”

  Ann nodded. “Very well. Sterling, you have the con. Miss Rubenstein, let’s go down to the wardroom and see what Carrie-Marie has made for lunch.” She extended one hand as she approached Katrina and the girl turned to let herself be shepherded out of Control.

  Carrie-Marie was in the galley when they arrived and smiled at the young girl standing beside the captain. “Hi. I’m Carrie-Marie, or CM. Mandy said you prefer to be called Kat. I have lunch ready, Captain: Sterling’s chili recipe and Mandy’s cornbread.”

  “That will be fine, CM. Grab a bowl, Katrina. We serve ourselves here. With just CM in the galley, it’s that or wait until she doesn’t have anything else to do.” Ann smiled at the young woman, then grabbed a bowl and put a piece of cornbread in it and spooned a generous portion of chili over it. Katrina copied her and followed her to the table.

  The rest of the off-watch crew members drifted in soon afterward and everyone joined them at the captain’s table. Ann introduced Katrina to the people she hadn’t yet encountered as they ate, and Katrina paid close attention to the conversation around her. It was mostly about the ship and she didn’t understand it, but it was fascinating for exactly that reason: It wasn’t something that she’d heard a hundred times before.

  “Hi, Kat,” a deep voice said and Bart sat down beside her.

  “Hi, Bart,” she replied demurely. “You’ve got quite a place here.”

  All other conversation stopped and every eye turned toward Bart. “Mister Roberts, what did I tell you?” Ann asked in a severe tone.

  “I’m just being friendly, Ma’am,” Bart said in his own defense.

  “We met at the uniform shop you sent me to, Captain,” Katrina added. “He helped me pick the colors.”

  “Did he indeed? Very well. But I warn you, young lady,” Ann said as a hint of humor made her eyes glitt
er, “Bartholomew Andres Roberts can be a scoundrel when he isn’t being charming.”

  “Ma! I mean, Ma’am! That isn’t fair,” Bart cried.

  “Call me ‘Ma’ again and you’ll have garbage detail at every port we hit,” Ann replied, but there was no humor in her eyes now.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Bart whispered.

  *

  The planet Nepal was the only habitable planet in the Tibet Systems, a globular cluster of five stars less than a light-year apart. The planet was nothing special to look at. It did have the large oceans and moon that made most earth-like planets habitable by humans. There were some large lakes that would have made Old Earth’s Lake Superior look like a puddle, but they were few and far between. Most of the planet’s land was covered with deserts or high mountains, and only the silt-filled mountain valleys allowed for agriculture: the rest was too dry. The reason for the settlement of Nepal had been the desire for a religious retreat that no one else wanted for any other reason. That in itself was rare: habitable planets weren’t that common.

  The Tibet Systems did have resources that people wanted. The rocky planets tended to be high in metals that were precious for their utility in the space-going civilization of the Confederacy. Several orbital shipyards hung over uninhabitable planets in the systems. Those shipyards provided ships to the entire Confederacy. The Admiral Ann’s Revenge had been built just one system over.

  Ann was supervising the unloading of the cargo when Katrina approached her. “Ma’am, I,” she began, then hesitated, “I wondered if I really have to leave?”

  “What do you mean?” Ann asked. Katrina was still wearing her ship coverall, and her luggage was nowhere in sight.

  “Ma’am, Captain, I was wondering if you’d take me on as an apprentice spacer?” Katrina finally managed to ask. “I learned a lot on the way from New Frankfurt, and I thought I was being helpful.”

  Ann looked at the girl as she thought. Katrina had indeed been helpful on the trip. After the first day she’d begun shadowing either Amanda or Carrie-Marie, and had even helped in the galley several times. She hadn’t complained about anything on the ship, and, perhaps more importantly, no one had complained about her.

  “I thought you wanted to go to Nepal? You said you wanted to see the galaxy.”

  Katrina studied the toes of her shoes carefully. “I did. I do. It’s what I told my father. But I told you the truth: I want to see the galaxy and visit different planets. Nepal was just going to be the first. But he was right, too. Nepal is a back-orbit planet. I don’t want to stay here, and I don’t want to admit defeat and go home.” She didn’t beg or plead. She was simply admitting her mistake, and asking to be allowed to move on with her life.

  “You won’t get equal shares like the rest of us,” Ann said as she reached her decision. “You’ll get half what we do until you can handle a watch station by yourself. It’ll probably take a year or two. Can you accept that?”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Katrina said with enthusiasm, coming to attention and smiling like her face was about to split in half.

  “You’re going to have to spend a lot of time studying ship systems. You’ll have proficiency checks to make sure you can do the right thing in an emergency before we leave you alone in any portion of the ship,” Ann continued, but the girl didn’t bat an eyelash. “I think we can get the most out of you as cook while you’re learning. It’ll give you the time between meals to study. Besides, the food has been a lot better since you started helping CM.”

  Katrina giggled, then said, “Yes, Ma’am. What should I do now?”

  “Unpack—if you bothered to pack, that is. Then report to CM and tell her that you’re her apprentice now.” Ann smiled serenely. “I owe her that.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Katrina said brightly and spun away, all but dancing into the ship.

  Ann muttered, “Yes, indeed, I owe Carrie-Marie for not telling me she couldn’t cook when I hired her,” then turned back to the business of unloading her ship.

  *

  Katrina returned to her stateroom with a huge smile on her face. Should I tell Dear Old Daddy? she thought, but shook her head and giggled. He’s already mad enough. If I rub his nose in his failure to break me, he might get off his ass and do something about it. She giggled again and spun around in her first truly free moment, then headed toward the galley and CM.

  *

  The stay in Nepal was dismal. There were no cargos going out that the Admiral Ann’s Revenge could hold. Worse, because of the size of the ship, it was costing them a thousand credits a day to stay hooked up to the station, so they’d had to move to a remote anchorage.

  “We may as well face it, Ann: We’re going to have to take a loss on this trip,” Sterling said as the whole crew gathered at the wardroom table for a brainstorming session.

  “This happened on the Jane about twice a year, Captain,” Denise put in. “There’s nothing to do but use the ship’s account for fuel and go somewhere more prosperous.”

  “We could make a short hop to Karnack. New Kingdom usually has medium sized shipments of spices going out,” Olaf suggested.

  “Twenty-three days of fuel on a maybe,” Ann mused.

  “Captain?” Katrina said, raising her hand like a school-girl.

  “Yes, Katrina?”

  “There are a lot of pilgrims on the station.”

  Ann looked at her and tilted her head to the side. “And?”

  “The Revenge can handle a hundred and sixty-something more people than we have on board,” she pointed out. “The pilgrims are waiting for ‘steerage’ space on the large freighters. It’s all most of them can afford. What’s ‘steerage’ anyway?”

  “The cheap seats. No-frills passage, in horrid conditions,” Denise said. “I did it once. I’d rather sign onto a tramp and work my way.”

  “Could we do it?” Sterling asked.

  “I think so,” Ann said as she scanned the room. “We’d have to take on additional supplies. CM, what about cooking for a hundred and fifty?”

  Carrie-Marie looked back at her with wide eyes. “I can hardly cook for ten, Captain! I’d need help.”

  “You have help,” Ann said, nodding to Katrina.

  “More! Lots more! Captain, cooking for a hundred or so people is way different than cooking for ten. I wasn’t a Mess Specialist, but I saw how hard their job was. I couldn’t do it.” She sat back and shook her head as she almost gasped for breath.

  “She’s right, Captain,” Balder said, speaking up for the first time. “You’d have to hire more people. At least four more cooks.”

  “And I can’t. Or rather, I won’t. A passenger or two once in a while,” she said, looking at Katrina, “is one thing. Turning into a tramp liner is something else. We’d also have to come up with mattresses for everyone. The crew’s quarters only have unpadded bunk-pans.”

  Sterling nodded. “Then I don’t see an option. We have to—” The tone indicating a message directed at the Revenge sounded just then, interrupting him.

  Ann and Sterling both went to the communications station and Ann hit the receive button. “Captain Stevenson of the Admiral Ann’s Revenge speaking,” she announced. “Identify, please.”

  “Captain, I am Anthor Kareem, of the Katmandu Ship Yard. I understand that your ship is capable of carrying over fifteen thousand tons of cargo. Is this correct?”

  “Yes, Sir, we can handle nineteen thousand tons. What cargo do you have?” Ann answered, smiling at Sterling.

  “We have a shipment of parts going to the Newberry Shipyard in orbit around Greater Montreal. It is only fifteen thousand tons, but is urgently needed. None of the big ships will take it unless we have a full load for them.”

  “Understood, Sir. Where do we make pickup, and what is the payment?” Ann asked as her crew moved to their stations.

  “Pickup at the Yard Office in orbit around the moon Llama. The paperwork will be ready for your immediate loading. Payment will be one hundred seventeen thousand Confeder
ate credits on delivery. And Captain, that is after delivery.”

  “You heard about that, did you?” Ann asked.

  “Gossip is the only FTL form of communication known to man, Captain. The wording of this contract is very precise.”

  Ann took a deep breath. “Understood, Mister Kareem. We’ll be at the yard in about three hours.”

  “We will be waiting, Captain Stevenson.”

  *

  The parts were loaded and the Admiral Ann’s Revenge was on her way eight hours later. It was going to be a long trip, thirteen days ship time in hyper, and everyone was in a hurry to get it over with.

  The Admiral Ann’s Revenge slipped into hyper just before a radio message could catch up with her. It was from Mister Von Frankel of DA-CC and addressed to Captain Stevenson.

  “Where is Katrina Von Rubenstein?! What have you done with the Chairman’s daughter?!”

  Chapter 16

  KATRINA WAS QUICKLY BEING TURNED INTO a good spacer by the simple application of a good example. Her initial hero-worship of Ann was in no way diminished by familiarity. If anything, it was being reinforced by Ann’s easy-going, calm, and friendly way of dealing with everyone. It was nothing like home, where her father ruled his home like his business.

  Brandon Eric Von Rubenstein was all business, all the time. Nannies raised his children: One born every two years, on schedule. He was never seen as a kind or loving figure in his family’s eyes. He was Father: never Dad. Katrina’s mother was his third wife, and, while she was far warmer than her husband, she obeyed him like an employee, and her children were raised as he decreed.

  The camaraderie of the crew was something new to Katrina. It was almost like a holo-drama family, the kind Katrina had believed only existed in fantasy.

  Carrie-Marie had taken charge of Katrina immediately. “Well, Kat, I see she went for it,” was all Carrie-Marie had said when Katrina had all but danced into the wardroom galley after getting permission to stay on board. Now, five days later, it seemed like she’d always been there.