Rogue Galaxy, Episode 1: The Captain and the Werewolf

by J. Boyett

  Rogue Galaxy, Episode 1: The Captain and the Werewolf

  Rogue Galaxy

  J. Boyett

  Published by Saltimbanque Books, 2016.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  AFTERWORD

  AN EXCERPT FROM IRONHEART

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  Also By J. Boyett

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  This is the first “episode” of the literary serial Rogue Galaxy, which will run six installments per “season”—I plan on putting out a new installment every six weeks, or faster.

  We begin in the middle of things, a hundred years after the Thaumaturgic Revolution made interstellar travel feasible. The starship Galaxy is in rebellion against the government back on Earth, the rest of the Fleet has gone into hiding within a Bubble of Fakkalohn (a mystical pocket of space), and Lieutenant Jennifer Summers, lover of Captain Terry Farraday, has been bitten by a werewolf and transformed into a member of that pan-galactic meta-species.

  Backstory will be sprinkled through the first few installments, so if you have questions at the end of this one, simply download future episodes for the answers. To be sure not to miss any, please consider signing up for my mailing list, at www.jboyett.net

  PROLOGUE

  Jennifer Summers couldn't sleep. She turned to look at her sleeping lover, Captain Terry Farraday, and studied his face in the bluish near-dark. Even in sleep, his eyebrows were drawn toward some point of tense gravity that lay between them.

  She got up and sat at the small table a couple of meters away from the bed. She knew where the bottle of wine and the plastic cups were well enough to find them in the dark, being careful not to make too much noise. There wasn't any real alcohol in the wine, of course, but Fleet regulations had been so kind as to allow the manufacturers to add a light soporific.

  She sipped at the wine. It tasted close enough to the real thing. She took stock of her life. It had been eleven months and eighteen days since the Galaxy, starship of the Democratic Empire's Space Fleet, had shipped out from Earth. As of midnight, today marked the five-week anniversary of her having been infected and transformed into a werewolf on Cygnus VI. It marked six weeks and two days since the Provisional had overthrown the Democratic Empire in a coup, and five since the rest of the Fleet had disappeared into the Bubble of Fakkalohn (the same day as her infection), retreating into folded space in the hopes that when they emerged they'd be better able to fight the Provisional; the Galaxy had been too far away to join them. It was four weeks and four days since the Galaxy had reconfirmed for the final time their refusal to give allegiance to the Provisional Government. It also happened to be four weeks and five days since that same Provisional Government had ordered Captain Farraday to toss Jennifer's werewolf ass out the airlock.

  She reached up and ran her hands through her wavy chestnut hair. At thirty-two she was still youthful, although she'd been told all her life that she had sad eyes and she could only imagine that in these last weeks that had become more true than ever.

  She thought about Lieutenant Fallon, the officer she bunked with. Whenever they saw each other, even without speaking Fallon made it clear what she thought of Summers spending so many nights in the captain's bed. You'd think she would just be grateful to get the room to herself so often, but no.

  Another mouthful of wine went down smoothly. She held the glass under her nose and inhaled luxuriantly—then imagined that the scent was intensified by her heightened were-senses, and found that the idea sucked away most of the smell's pleasure.

  Ever since the Thaumaturgic Revolution of a hundred years ago had permitted humanity to leave Earth and reach for the stars at faster-than-light speeds—which remained an impossibility according to the laws of physics, and so could only be accomplished with magic—humans had had to face dangers such as werewolfism. It was one of the risks that came with exploring the universe.

  Jennifer finished her wine and sighed. She gazed at the bulkhead as if she could see through it to the brain-bending hyperspace beyond. What would happen if one day they came out of hyperspace only to find a moon nearby, lit head-on by the sun and hence full? How many of her shipmates would die because the captain didn't have the heart to control his lover, and she didn't have the courage to do it herself? What harm must it be doing to his reputation, to morale, if the crew assumed it was mainly because of their sexual relationship that he gave her the run of the ship?

  Terry started to lightly snore. Jennifer looked at him and softened. Maybe that tense spot between his eyes had relaxed, maybe it was just that she was seeing him from a new angle and from further away, but right now he looked, not merely boyish, but truly like a little kid. This, despite the fact that he had ten years on her.

  He was a good captain, Jennifer reflected. Better than certain people gave him credit for, and she wished they could know him the way she knew him. Well, except maybe not biblically, she supposed.... It was a nice thing they had, it really was.

  Even so, something was going to have to change.

  ONE

  The rogue starship Galaxy had been in hyperdrive for four days, and the crew was restless—in hyperdrive there was nothing much to occupy them, and they got caught up in ship's rumors, petty dramas, doleful introspections on their mutinous state, and disputes on the likelihood of the rest of the Fleet ever rejoining them. Even two of the ship's most dedicated officers, Commander Val Blaine and Lieutenant-Commander Roy Miller, ran out of ways to keep busy. So they used the leisure time to get together for some beers in the cantina. They claimed a quiet table over in the corner, fairly private—there was a rowdy bunch crowded around a vacuum-hockey table a few meters away, but not close enough to be able to eavesdrop.

  Not that Blaine planned on talking about anything classified over their beers.

  Synthetic beers, of course. Miller took a mouthful, savored it, then grimaced. “I almost wish they didn't do such a good job replicating the taste,” he said. “It just makes it more depressing that there's no alcohol in it.”

  Blaine smiled in commiseration. She was the Head of Engineering and the XO; Miller was Security Chief. He was a bulky six-foot-tall man with his thinning brown hair cut close to the scalp; she was a solidly-built redhead, five and a half feet. “I think we've had enough intoxicants for a while, don't you?”

  Miller grimaced his agreement. During their last stop, exploring the planet Kimball, a certain Ensign Dobbler had discovered something the natives called the Weed of Wonder—that was the humans' best translation of it, anyhow. Dobbler had seen fit to sample the Weed, and had enjoyed the effects so much that he'd shared it with some crew-members, which had made for at least one chaotic day aboard ship. Worse than the headache of a few mildly drug-addled crew-members had been the administrative and disciplinary aftermath. Back before their rebellion, the Galaxy would simply have held all the offenders in the brig until they could drop them off at an Imperial starbase. But there were no friendly starbases anymore, and a couple of those partakers had been essential personnel that they couldn't easily replace (like that Ensign Tracy Fiquet, down in Sickbay; Blaine had noticed that when they'd brought the Weed in to Sickbay to get it analyzed, Fiquet had made herself scarce awful fast).

  Dobbler was non-essential, though, or the closest thing to it in a cr
ew of only eighty-eight; he was reputed to be a computer genius, but they had no immediate need of such expertise. Having him locked up in the brig all week had caused little operational drag. But Blaine knew the question of what to eventually do with Dobbler weighed heavily on Captain Farraday's mind. On hers, too. They couldn't simply give him the run of the ship, as if he'd done nothing serious. But his crime didn't merit leaving him locked up the rest of his life, or stranding him on an alien world.

  It frustrated Blaine that Dobbler's fate hadn't been decided yet. She'd privately noted many times her captain's troubling penchant for procrastination, when it came to the hard questions.

  “I wish we'd stayed in orbit around Kimball longer,” Miller was saying. “Captain Farraday was in such a hurry to get out of there, after the fiasco with Dobbler. But Dr. Carlson and Witch Walsh keep crying over what a pharmacologically rich ecosystem the place had. And we really need to be developing new drugs, for when Lieutenant Summers becomes a werewolf again and we need to control her.”

  Blaine kept her eyes on her frosted mug, thinking of how to handle the criticism of the captain implicit in Miller's remark. In the end she decided to pretend not to have noticed it, for now. “I'm sure this quadrant will be full of new drugs, once we start poking around.”

  “Yeah, but Kimball was a complex, life-supporting ecosystem with a moon that is never full in the northern hemisphere. A pretty rare commodity, and a pretty valuable one when you're traveling with a werewolf.”

  “Roy. What do you want me to say? Ease off.”

  Miller sighed, and looked around to make sure nobody was within earshot. Uh-oh, thought Blaine. He leaned in close to her, across the table. “Listen, Val,” he murmured. “You're my superior officer, but you're also my friend. And I would love to sit and have a friendly chat with you. But I do have serious concerns I need to talk about.”

  “Something specific?”

  “Mainly of a general nature.”

  “I see. Should the captain be involved in this conversation?”

  “Not yet, I don't think.”

  “All right. I'm listening. But let's be careful what we say.”

  “Val. You know me. I'm loyal. I do my duty. But my duty is to protect the security of this ship, and between you and me that's not easy when decisions are made in an irrational manner.”

  “That's not for us to say, Miller.”

  “The problem is that other people are going to start saying it. Morale is hard enough to maintain on a rebel ship. The crew feels adrift, aimless....”

  “They shouldn't. We're not aimless—we're waiting for the rest of the Fleet to emerge from the Bubble. And we're waiting for the enchantment the Provisional practiced on the population of Earth and the Empire to wear off. Besides, our aims are spelled out right there in the charter. The charter the crew swore an oath to. The one that the new so-called government has betrayed.”

  “Sure. I believe in the charter. I have faith that continuing our exploratory mission is worthwhile, that when the legitimate government rises again they'll thank us, and that we will gather intelligence and forge alliances that will be useful with the Fleet returns. But, hey, Val, speechifying aside, you and I both know that the whole situation is a little ambiguous as far as the rank-and-file is concerned. They need their orders to come from a clear source. Captain Farraday doesn't have the force of the government behind him anymore—only the ideas and ideals it stood for, and his own perceived character to back them up. The crew needs a strong leader to go with those ideals. More so than when we had the whole Space Fleet with us, the crew needs to see an impeccably just, honorable, tough, fair person at its head. They're smart enough to know we may not see the Fleet again.”

  “We don't pick our CO's, Miller.” There was the hint of a warning in Blaine's voice.

  “Commander. All I'm saying is, maybe you should talk to him.”

  “About what?”

  “I'm not sure yet. Maybe we should think of ways to help the captain become the type of leader I'm sure he already wants to be.”

  Blaine didn't bother to stifle her laugh, which came out as a quick snort. That kind of diplomatic talk was not natural to Miller; he must have been practicing this spiel.

  Miller held his hands out, appealing to her across the table. “I'm serious, Val. I'm worried about the stability of our mission.”

  The smile vanished from Blaine's face. Suddenly those ensigns laughing over their vacuum-hockey seemed much closer than they had before. “Have you been hearing things, Roy?”

  “Nothing treasonous. Just grumbling. People asking the same questions that, frankly, I've been asking myself.”

  Blaine looked aside a moment, gazing at the bulkhead, wondering if she really wanted to ask her next question, or shut the conversation down instead. She went ahead and asked: “What questions are those?”

  “Why up and leave Kimball, a resource-rich planet? That's for starters. It felt like an emotional, knee-jerk reaction.”

  Blaine sighed. “Okay. Strictly between us? I think Captain Farraday was afraid that the crew was going to insist on abandoning Lieutenant Summers there on Kimball.”

  Miller scowled. “Who?”

  “To some, it might seem like a humane solution. Plenty of food growing from the trees, friendly-ish natives, and no moon to get full and bring the wolf out. As long as she doesn't walk south of the equator, anyway.”

  “Well, yeah,” said Miller, and Blaine realized that he himself had considered the possibility of leaving Summers there. “What I mean is, did he get wind of someone actually planning that?”

  “Not as far as I know.” Blaine held her body still, but most people feeling the way she did would have squirmed. “I think he was just worried people would think of it. I guess it was a little....” She trailed off, not wanting to use the word “paranoid.”

  Miller took another slow draw off his synthetic beer, holding her gaze all the while. Then he wiped his mouth and said, in a still lower tone than before, “Val, the captain's relationship with Lieutenant Summers is not good for the ship.”

  “Who the captain fraternizes with is his business,” said Blaine. Traditionally, an officer pursuing a romantic relationship with one of his or her immediate subordinates might have been grounds for getting busted back down in the ranks. But forty years ago the law had changed to allow it, in the Fleet. Most military folks looked down on the law, since it had been a diktat from the political class. But the Fleet had always been something of a hybrid, with a strong non-military strain—magic and military discipline didn't always mix. And besides, the law was the law.

  The law was the law, even if it only still existed on the Galaxy.... At least until the rest of the Fleet emerged from the Bubble of Fakkalohn. Of all the service branches, only the Fleet had refused allegiance to the Provisional, on the basis that their seizure of power was illegal and that they had raised support by casting emotionally manipulative spells over much of the Earth. On the verge of being destroyed by the formerly Imperial, now Provisional Space Marines and Infantry Dreadnaughts, the other fourteen Fleet ships had taken refuge in a Bubble of Fakkalohn, hastily conjured by the combined might of their astro-mages. The Galaxy had been too far away to join her fellows, the only Fleet ship this side of human-explored territory. Before the rest of the Fleet disappeared into the mysteriously folded space of the Bubble, Fleet Commander Admiral Bayonne had sent Farraday a subspace message ordering him to keep Galaxy out of harm's way until the rest of the Fleet emerged from the Bubble and they could join forces against the usurping government. Not that Farraday was likely to go over to the Provisional's side, anyway, especially not with that kill order hanging over Lieutenant Summers.

  Blaine knew that Miller was worried about what might happen if the Fleet didn't come out of the Bubble soon ... or ever. The spatio-temporal exit point of a Bubble of Fakkalohn was extremely difficult to predict or control, even for expert mages, and the fact that it had been more than a month without the Fleet rea
ppearing was nothing to be surprised or alarmed by. Then again, if the mystical calibrations had been a bit off and the Fleet didn't pop back into existence for another ten thousand years, despite having subjectively experienced no passage of subjective time whatsoever, that wouldn't be particularly shocking either. But it wasn't the kind of possibility they wanted the crew brooding over.

  “I know who he fraternizes with is his business,” replied Miller, “but you know it's also ours. It damages the captain's credibility. There are people aboard who don't believe we're in rebellion entirely as a principled stand against the illegitimate government on Earth. And who aren't convinced the rest of the Fleet will ever emerge from that Bubble. They believe we're withholding allegiance from the Provisional because they ordered Captain Farraday to blast that werewolf out the airlock.”

  Blaine didn't want to ask if Miller was one of those people. “Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Isn't it?”

  “If it had been the legitimate government who ordered him to kill her, he would have rebelled just the same. Against the Democratic Empire and against the rest of the Fleet as well. And that makes our rebellion seem like a personal thing. Makes it seem that way, not to me, but to certain elements of the crew. Hypothetically. And that makes them less likely to be willing to spend who knows how many years drifting through uncharted interstellar space.”

  He finished and sat looking at her with an oh-so-innocent face, as if naturally he himself would never be part of those hypothetical, dissatisfied elements. Blaine returned his gaze. From the way his face suddenly blanched, she knew he realized he'd gone too far.

  “Lieutenant-Commander Miller,” she said. Her words were crisp, low, and clear. “If you should hear any seditious talk among the crew—among any of them—you will inform myself and the captain. And then, I trust, we all three will do our duty.”

  “Aye-aye, ma'am,” he said, rigid and stone-faced.