Double Share: Solar Clipper Trader Tales

by Nathan Lowell

  “Any favored places for breakfast?” I asked.

  “Over Easy,” she answered immediately. “Looks like a pit, but the coffee is wonderful and he does bacon perfectly.”

  “Sounds ideal. Where abouts?” I asked.

  “Oh-two Deck, two doors to starboard of the lift. Follow your nose. You’ll find it.”

  “Thanks,” I said with a smile. “I’ll be back soon.”

  It only took a tick to get to the lock and Betts had the watch. It looked like he wore the same shipsuit with the stained left sleeve as from the previous day.

  Only a day…it seemed much, much longer.

  “Good morning, Mr. Betts. How’s the watch going?” I asked by way of greeting.

  “Fine, sar,” he replied without standing up.

  That was it. Just the flat statement. I let it sit there on the deck for a heartbeat or two before saying, “I hated brow watch. Long, boring, and the only amusement was watching drunk crew try to get back aboard in the middle of the night.”

  He looked at me, a flicker of curiosity behind his eyes. He didn’t follow up, though, and I left it.

  “I’m going to go grab a bite to eat. I’ve checked out with the OOD. If you’d be so good as to log me ashore, Mr. Betts, I’ll be back in about a stan.”

  The able spacer reached for the keyboard and made an entry in the log. “Aye, sar. Mr. Wang is ashore for approximately one stan.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Betts,” I said and slipped out onto the docks.

  The bite of the dock air was like ambrosia. I found myself breathing deeply, pressing the exhalations as if trying to empty my lungs of the residual smell of the ship. The mechanical and electronic aromas that permeated every dock I’d ever visited seemed somehow sweet and familiar and I drank deep.

  The Oh-two Deck was always redolent with the smells of brew, booze, wine, and food. Throngs of spacers were almost always here, although midmorning wasn’t a peak time. In spite of that, the nature of the spacer’s life meant that somebody was always on liberty. Someone was always looking for something, and almost always that search lead to the Oh-two Deck.

  I turned to starboard and found a hole in the bulkhead place with a smeared plexidoor lettered with “Over Easy” and a stylized picture of a cartoon woman holding a plate with a pair of fried eggs in a strategic position over her chest. Arletta was right. It looked like a pit.

  I pressed through the door and inhaled the aroma of fresh coffee, layered with the scent of fried potatoes, onions, and bacon. My mouth exploded in saliva as I stood there blocking the door and bathing in the fragrance.

  The place wasn’t full, but it was far from empty. One long counter stretched almost all the way across the back. A pass-through window opened to what looked like the kitchen. I saw someone moving back there, head down and back to the opening. A couple of wait staff covered the busy counter and another pair circulated around the herd of square tables between the counter and the door. It was a small place. It felt like a closet, but nobody seemed to mind. A guy in civvies carrying a rack with six cups of coffee elbowed me out of the way with a venomous look as he left, and I stepped out of the traffic pattern and found myself a seat at the counter.

  A young man wearing a spotless white tee shirt, white apron, and denim pants came over immediately. He slapped a coffee cup and napkin wrapped silver onto the counter in front of me.

  “Ya know what ya want?” he asked with a slight tilt of his chin. His name tag read, “Seth.”

  “Coffee. Eggs. Bacon. Toast. Home fries,” I answered.

  With each word, Seth nodded. He reached under the counter and pulled out the pot, pouring before I even finished ordering.

  “How? How many? What kind?” he asked when I finished.

  “Over easy. Three. Wheat,” I answered.

  He grinned at me then. “You’ve never been here before?” he asked as he scribbled something on a lined slip of paper and ripped it from the tablet.

  “First time,” I said. “New to the quadrant.”

  “Welcome.” He turned and slipped the paper into a spinning contraption of clips and metal, then shouted, “Order, Frank.”

  He moved down the counter, filling cups as he went.

  I picked up the crisply clean, heavy china mug and looked into it. Coffee. Real, rich, dark coffee. No swirl of oil on the surface. I stuck my nose into the mug and took a deep breath. I put the cup down, added a dollop of milk from the pitcher on the counter and threw a couple of sugars into it. A swirl with the spoon and the coffee was heavenly. Dark, rich. It tasted like one of the Arabastis. Not Djartmo, but it had the signature after taste of a perfectly brewed Arabasti. Perhaps it was one of the local variants—Djartmo beans grown in a local setting.

  As I sat there savoring the coffee, plates clattered onto the pass-through every few ticks, and a man’s voice shouted a name and the phrase “Order up!” In a surprisingly short time the call, “Seth! Order Up!” came and my breakfast slipped onto the counter in front of me.

  Seth called back, “Thanks, Frank.”

  The eggs steamed. The bacon glistened. The aroma of potato fried with onions and bacon drippings wafted up and grabbed me. The toast was perfect, crisp, buttered, with just the right texture for sopping up the loose egg yolk from the plate. From first fork to last swallow, I never looked up. It was delicious.

  With a slightly regretful sigh, I realized that I’d inhaled my breakfast, leaving only the china, the silver, and the odd crumb of toast. Sitting up, I noticed Seth grinning and watching out of the corner of his eye as he took care of the people on either side of me. He worked his way down the counter with the coffee pot once more and pulled the dirty dishes off the counter and into a tray with smooth, practiced movements.

  “You want anything else? Another one, just like the other one, maybe?”

  I chuckled. “Yeah, but I need to get back to work. That was great.”

  “Glad you liked it.”

  Suddenly remembering the man with the carrier full of coffee, I asked, “Can I get some coffees to go?”

  “Sure. How many? How big?”

  “Large, two…no, three…cream and sugar on the side,” I answered.

  “Comin’ right up,” he said and in just about two ticks he filled three cups, locked lids on them, and put them in a carrier. A fourth cup got a handful of creamers and sugar packets. He slid it onto the counter along with the tab, to which I added a generous tip and my thumbprint.

  I scooped up the carrier, nodded my thanks, and headed back to the ship.

  It really is amazing what a good breakfast can do for your outlook. At the lock, I took a few deep breaths of the cold dock air, then keyed the entry sequence. Stepping aboard, Betts glanced up at me and frowned at the coffee carrier.

  I slipped one of the cups out and stood it on the station. “Cream? Sugar?” I asked.

  “Black,” he said.

  I grinned in reply and headed down the passage. Even the smell of the ship didn’t dampen my enthusiasm.

  From behind me I heard a belated, “Thanks.”

  At the office, I found Arletta alone again when I breezed through the door. Her eyes targeted the coffee carrier as I stepped into the ship’s office.

  I held it out as if it was a silver salver and she looked up at my face like it was some kind of joke.

  “You brought back coffee?”

  “Well, they were just sitting there looking forlorn and they followed me back to the lock. I thought we might give them a good home,” I said.

  I put the carrier down and took a cup, grabbed a few sugars and a creamer from the stash, and popped the lid off long enough to add the requisite modification. I sipped appreciatively and settled onto a side chair while Arletta was still eagerly adding sugar to the remaining cup.

  She lifted it and took a tentative sip of the hot drink, eyes closing in happiness and a beatific smile stretching across her cheeks. “Oh, my”—she sighed—“that’s so good.”

  “Thanks for the
tip about Over Easy.”

  We sat there sipping in silence for a few ticks while I considered my next move. I needed to get into a shipsuit and get ready to take the watch. Glancing at the chrono, I realized I had about a stan before I needed to be back in the office for my watch. I also needed to get a handle on the training dates and the ship’s status. We’d be getting underway in a day or so and I needed to have a firm grip on the ship’s systems before that happened. Green third mate or not, I knew my way around systems. I wondered about the forerunner, and what had been left undone.

  “How long since my predecessor left?” I asked.

  Arletta looked at me strangely. “What?”

  “Oh, sorry,” I said. “I’m having this conversation in my head and I forgot you’re not listening in.”

  “Ah. And do you do this often?” she asked with an amused look on her face.

  “Too often. But I was just thinking that the last update was probably before the last guy left, unless you or Mr. Burnside have done one lately. I just wondered how long ago.”

  “She left when we docked on the fourth,” Arletta said.

  I blinked. “She?”

  Arletta looked at me with one arched eyebrow, “You have a problem with women in systems? Or as third mates?”

  I shook my head. “Not at all. But two things hit me at the same time. One, except for the captain and first mate, all the officers are women.”

  Arletta’s mouth twitched. I couldn’t tell if she was suppressing a smile or a curse. “Yes. Curious that,” she said blandly. “And second?”

  “I was having lunch at The Miller Moth and news of her leaving had already been common knowledge.”

  “When was that?” she asked, a strange look on her face.

  “Day before yesterday. The fifth, I think.”

  “My, my, news does travel fast,” she said, her brows meeting in a frown. “How’d it come up?”

  “I was having lunch and talking about getting the berth, and the waitress made some comment about the ship going through a lot of turn over—something about two third mates in less than a stanyer.”

  Arletta’s eyebrows twitched in surprise. “Interesting. We’re the talk of the dock now, huh?”

  “Well, DST is a local company and this is its hub. It would make sense that the people around the docks would pay attention more to DST vessels than to some of the larger more transient players.”

  She nodded, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Did she say anything else?”

  I shrugged. “Not really. Can I ask—”

  “Why’d she leave?” Arletta interrupted.

  “Yeah.”

  “It was personal.”

  It was my turn to raise eyebrows in question.

  “Personal,” she repeated. “Not my story to tell.”

  “Anything I should be aware of? Just…shipmate to shipmate?”

  She glanced at the open door and said very softly, “You’ve already noted the distribution of males in the chain of command.” She closed her mouth very carefully and looked me straight in the eye. “That’s all I’m sayin’”

  “My appointment must have come as something of a surprise to Mr. Burnside, then,” I commented lightly.

  “Indeed it was.”

  Glancing at the door myself, to let her know I’d gotten the message, I asked softly, “Should I be concerned?”

  At that moment, Ulla Nart burst into the office and whatever Arletta was about to say got side tracked.

  “Beggin’ the OOD’s pardon, sar, but Spec One Otsuka requests your presence in engineering to co-sign for the refueling.”

  “Thank you, Ulla,” Arletta said and stood, grabbing her tablet from the table she headed for the door while Ulla glanced shyly in my direction.

  Arletta stopped at the door and looked back at me. “Yes,” she said, and left, heading aft toward the spine and engineering.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  DIURNIA ORBITAL

  2358-JULY-7

  “So, Ishmael,” Mr. Burnside asked as we settled at the wardroom table, “what do you think you should do for the next twelve stans?”

  We had just relieved the OOD watch and adjourned to the wardroom to grab some lunch. Arletta was undoubtedly heading for a shower and civvies. It was our last night in port. I knew what I’d be doing in her place and wished her luck.

  I sipped some of the execrable coffee to buy some time to consider. I made quite a production of it, but I already knew what I needed to do. I just didn’t want Mr. Burnside to think I did.

  “Well, Mr. Burnside—”

  “David, please.”

  “Well, David, I really need to get up on the bridge and look over the ship’s systems. I’ve been reviewing them on my tablet, but the larger displays and computing power up there should let me get in and give them a good shake down. We’re undoubtedly due for a system back up and I’d like to double check the spares.”

  He nodded, a smile of approval pasted on his face. “Good ideas. I’m not certified in systems myself, but you’re right about the backups. We’ll leave a set here in the corporate office just before getting underway.”

  I kept my expression attentive. I wasn’t sure what the point of an off ship backup might have served in this situation. If anybody needed that data after we got underway, it would undoubtedly not be anybody aboard the ship. A failure of that magnitude would most likely be fatal. It was a common practice throughout the fleet, so I didn’t question it.

  After a moment of shared silence while we ate, he continued, “You’ve reviewed the standing orders for OOD, I assume.”

  “Yes, David, I have.”

  “Excellent. Then, why don’t you relieve me and take over the watch when we get done with lunch. It’ll be good for you to have the watch once before we get underway.” He paused. “You’ve stood bridge watch, I assume?”

  “Oh, yes, many times. Summer cruises are mostly bridge watch.”

  “Well, yes, but if they were anything like my summer cruises, you had an experienced officer on hand so you weren’t actually on your own while on the bridge.”

  “True enough,” I admitted.

  I didn’t contradict him in anything. He was going to have to put me on bridge watch and the only question was who and how much babysitting I’d get before they trusted me with the ship by myself. In a lot of ways, being underway was a lot less demanding than being in port. He knew that, of course, but it wasn’t my place to point it out.

  “Anything else you think we should do in this last watch before getting underway, Ishmael?”

  I thought for a moment before replying, “There wasn’t anything in the standing orders. I’m assuming that the various ship’s stores and services need to be checked and verified…?”

  He nodded. “Excellent,” he said again with a broad—and patently false—smile. “Let’s get on with the watch then, shall we?”

  “Certainly,” I said, then stood, collected my dirty dishes, and placed them in the tray at the sideboard.

  “I told you that you didn’t need to do that, Ishmael,” David said chidingly. “You’re going to make the messmates think you’re taking their jobs.”

  “Old habits die hard,” I said as off-handedly as I could.

  He just tsked and shook his head. “A good officer knows when to delegate.”

  “A sound lesson, David,” I agreed. “Shall we get the watch swapped over, and I’ll go up to the bridge?”

  It was funny, really. I felt so off balance until Burnside signed me onto the OOD watch. I’d had my share of them at the academy and in-port duty held no terrors. Once the mantle of watch stander fell on my shoulders, I suddenly felt centered. I ran through a series of system queries to check basic ship status from the office while Burnside looked on. He soon grew bored watching me flick through screens.

  With an off-hand, “I’ll be in my stateroom if you need me, Ishmael,” he left me to my own devices.

  As soon as he left, I shut down the terminal,
used my tablet to bip the messenger of the watch, Mr. Apones, and asked him to meet me at the brow. Apones and the gangway watch stander, Steven Mallory if the watch roster was correct, were waiting for me. They stopped talking as I approached, and Apones looked as if he’d swallowed something sour.

  There wasn’t a hands breadth between them in terms of physical build—both squat, bull necked, and broad shouldered. Apones looked older than Mallory, although Mallory carried the rank. I wondered if Apones had lost his stripes somewhere along the line. In my brief time aboard, I hadn’t really had time to review the full jackets of everybody on the ship, but I made a mental note that I should do so as soon as I could.

  “Gentlemen,” I said, smiling as I approached the station. “Mr. Burnside has signed the watch over to me, and I just wanted to check in with you both. I’ll be working on the bridge getting the system backups going. Is there anything going on in the ship that I should know about?”

  Apones and Mallory glanced at each other in confusion.

  “Sar?” Mallory asked.

  “I’ve got the watch. I’d like to know if either of you two have seen or heard anything that’s going on in the ship that would preclude my going to the bridge,” I tried again.

  Apones actually sniggered. “You’re the officer, sar. Ain’t that your job to know?”

  I dredged up my best Alys Giggone stare and leveled it at him.

  “Yes, Mr. Apones, it is. So I’ve asked the two crewmen aboard who are tasked with having that information—your report, Mr. Apones?”

  “My report?” he looked confused and a little off-balance.

  Again he and Mallory exchanged glances.

  “Thank you, Mr. Apones, that tells me what I needed to know.”

  I turned to Mallory who was not trying to hide his amusement over his shipmate’s discomfort. “Mr. Mallory? Your report please?”

  “No unauthorized entry or attempts since I took the watch, sar. The captain and second mate are ashore. First mate, chief engineer and cargo boss are all aboard. Crew is at liberty until 09:00 tomorrow,” he rattled off.