The Outback Stars

by Sandra McDonald

  “That’s three halves,” Zeni said.

  Francesco said, “I never did like fractions.”

  “We had to wait four whole days at the Alcheringa drop point off Kiwi before they sent us a new SUPPO,” Hultz said. “Then there was the incident with Myell and the girl, and poor Reggie ends up in a big car accident on Kookaburra—so you can see, the Supply Department’s got a reputation for being cursed. Now you’re here—”

  “Clara,” Francesco said sharply.

  “I didn’t mean it negatively!” Hultz protested. “She’ll bring us good luck. She survived.”

  Jodenny stared down at her dinner plate. Survived. Yes, she had survived when so many others had not. But that was a curse, not a blessing.

  “I hear the General Quarters today was a CFP bomb threat,” Weaver said into the sudden quiet. “The captain had to take it seriously. Otherwise why be so crazy to pull a drill right before launch?”

  Francesco said, “It was probably just a hoax.”

  Further conversation was halted as David Quenger strolled in, clad in expensive civilian clothes and smelling strongly of cologne. “Evening, everyone,” he said. He came up behind Jodenny and squeezed her shoulder. “I understand congratulations are in order.”

  She imagined breaking his fingers. “Thank you.”

  “You’re not annoyed?” Zeni asked, mischief in his eyes.

  Quenger didn’t take the bait. “Underway Stores is a mess, and Al-Banna must think Jo’s the gal to clean it up.”

  Maybe she’d break his entire hand.

  Quenger gave a sloppy salute. “Good night, then. Try to keep the noise down, won’t you? The neighbors complain.”

  After dinner had been cleared, Ysten settled in to watch the evening’s ASL soccer game in the lounge, Weaver and Hultz decided to go nightclubbing, and Zeni and Francesco invited Jodenny to play Hachi-Hachi. She rolled a five and became oya. Francesco dealt seven cards to each of them, left six faceup on the table, and put the rest in the stockpile.

  “You’ll have to ignore Hultz and Weaver and all the naysayers,” Francesco said. “Our department’s no more screwed up than any other on the ship.”

  “That’s not saying a whole lot,” Zeni said.

  Jodenny matched two butterfly cards. She couldn’t do anything about Matsuda’s disappearance, nor Greiger’s car accident, but Myell was one of her men, now. “What happened with Sergeant Myell?”

  “It was right after we left Fortune,” Francesco said. “Security found him and RT Ford in the hydroponics forest. She said Myell forced her. Myell was arrested but never charged. This was while Matsuda was still onboard. I wouldn’t say the commander gave him much support. After Al-Banna came aboard, he told Security to either drop it or clear it, and the case died.”

  “Is Ford still onboard?” Jodenny asked.

  Zeni matched two deer cards. “She got to bail out of the deployment at Kiwi. Some said maybe that’s why she said it, just to get out, but you never know. She was dating Myell’s boss at the time, the Underway Stores chief. Big ugly guy named Chiba. You don’t want to cross him or his little Japanese yakuza.”

  “None of that,” Francesco said sharply.

  “What, I can’t say it? Him and Nitta, Matsuda—”

  “You can suspect anyone you want,” Francesco replied. “But if you’re dumb enough to say it aloud, you better have proof.”

  There had been rumors of Japanese mafia on the Yangtze as well, though Jem had told Jodenny to pay them no mind. “Everyone’s in some kind of gang or another,” he’d said. But having a chief and sergeant seeing the same woman in a division was bound to cause trouble, and the situation sounded bad all around.

  “Do you think Myell did it?” she asked.

  “Sure he did,” Zeni said.

  Francesco studied his cards. “The man’s innocent until proven guilty.”

  Zeni won the game after twelve rounds. They wanted her to play crazy-seven next, but Jodenny excused herself, returned to her cabin, and changed into off-duty clothes. After a half hour of staring at the bulkhead she climbed downladder toward the Underway Stores office. The decks were empty at that time of night, with only the hum of the air units to keep her company. As she approached Underway Stores she heard voices, and when she rounded the bend she saw Quenger and a tall man exiting the office. Quickly she pulled back around the corner.

  “Let me know how that goes,” Quenger was saying.

  “Oh, you’ll be hearing lots, I’m sure,” the tall man replied.

  They headed off in the other direction. Jodenny considered confronting Quenger but held back. When she was sure they were gone she pressed her thumb to the lock. Inside the office were two desks for the admin clerks. One was tidy and organized, the other cluttered with paperwork. Windows overlooked Loading Dock G, the heart of the distribution system that moved supplies through Mainship. The Direct Conveyance System connected the loading dock to T6, the laundry, the galley, the Flight Deck, two maintenance hangars, and four issue rooms. It operated twenty-four/seven, and she could see smartcrates arriving and being shipped out again under the DNGOs’ vigilant care.

  She peeked into Nitta’s office, which was neatly decorated with plaques from his previous tours of duty. A gram showed him accepting an award, and she recognized him as the tall man who’d been accompanying Quenger. Reggie Greiger’s office, right next door, resembled the aftermath of a tornado. Jodenny cleared a pile of clutter off his chair and accessed the databases, rosters, schedules, and reports for the division. By midnight she’d read enough to know if Greiger hadn’t driven himself off a mountain, he would have lost his job during the next inspection cycle. She was surprised someone as no-nonsense as Al-Banna had put up with him.

  She activated the comm. “Chief Nitta, please.”

  After two rings Nitta’s agent answered. “He’s not available. May I take a message?”

  “This is Lieutenant Scott, his new DIVO. Tell him to report to my office at oh-seven hundred tomorrow.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Jodenny remembered that she hadn’t set up her own agent yet, but that could wait. She went through Greiger’s desk and discovered a bottle of brandy. The liquor burned the back of her throat. She had the wallvid bring up a live shot of Boyne, Kookaburra’s second moon, and after several minutes the Yangtze began to come around from the dark side.

  From a distance, the ship seemed as beautiful and invulnerable as she had the day Jodenny first boarded her. Only as the ship lifted higher in orbit did the gaping wounds on her starboard side become visible—black, ragged holes where huge chunks of tower shrapnel had slashed through the hull. She imagined herself drifting along the Yangtze’s pitch-black passages, her noncorporeal self passing through bulkheads and decks. Her cold breath sent dust swirling through compartments. The touch of her hand made ice crystals scatter like diamonds. She glided ever so silently to her cabin and to the familiar comfort of her bed. The blankets and sheets held no warmth yet as she wrapped herself up and let the blackness take her—

  Jodenny blinked. She was no longer inside the Yangtze but instead watching it from her new office. She raised her glass. To the Wondjina, who had made the Alcheringa and the Seven Sisters and all things good and beautiful, she asked for release. Hers was no longer a ship of tragedy and doom. She belonged to the Aral Sea now, where men and women needed her.

  She waited for a long time, but felt no peace.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Chief Nitta wasn’t in the Underway Stores office at oh-seven hundred hours. Neither were the two administrative aides. The first one, a gangly woman named RT Caldicot, came in at oh-seven-twelve with coffee and doughnuts in hand. “We’re not open yet, Lieutenant. You want to come back later?”

  “We’re open,” Jodenny said. “I’m your new DIVO.”

  “Oh.” Caldicot didn’t look impressed. “I was expecting Lieutenant Quenger.”

  Jodenny didn’t believe for one second that Caldicot had somehow missed the
news of her appointment. “Where do you usually hold division quarters?”

  Caldicot took a bite of her doughnut and spoke with her mouth full. “In the crew lounge. We had one last week.”

  “They’re supposed to be held daily.”

  “Lieutenant Commander Greiger didn’t see the need.”

  “I do. Page all our people and have them in T6 in fifteen minutes. Anyone who isn’t there will be locked out and earn two demerits.”

  “Ma’am! That’s a little extreme for your first morning, isn’t it? We don’t start work around here until oh-seven-thirty.”

  “Ship’s regs say oh-seven hundred.”

  “If you walk down the Flats you won’t find a soul—”

  “Fifteen minutes, RT Caldicot. Be there.”

  Jodenny left the offices and boarded a tram to cross the gulf. She told herself she wasn’t superstitious, but doubt rode with her. Assembling her entire division at the base of T6 was an invitation to disaster. She hadn’t been in the Yangtze’s T6 when the CFP bomb detonated, but instead up on the bridge turning over duty. The first alarm had started shrieking right after she signed out of the log. Only the luck of the watch schedule had kept her from being vented into space or crushed between steel or burnt alive …

  So lost was she in grim memories that Jodenny almost missed getting off at the first stop on the Rocks. A group of DNGOs was moving in tandem down the boulevard, watering plants and sweeping up litter. Advertisements played silently on overvids and sidewalks. Jodenny crossed T6’s access ring and descended to the base of the hold. She peered up the shaft at the twinkling lights of DNGOs and when she looked down the alleged rapist was standing a few meters away.

  “Good morning, ma’am,” Myell said.

  “Good morning, Sergeant.” Jodenny told herself she was safe, that he’d never been proven guilty. Then again, many guilty people got off scot-free. Casually she said, “I see you polished your boots.”

  “You were right. They were dirty.”

  His gaze was level and, on the surface, untroubled. But there was something about the way he held his hands flat against his legs that made Jodenny think he was nervous about her being there. She asked, “How long have you worked down here?”

  “Since we left Kiwi, ma’am.”

  Since Al-Banna had come aboard. The new SUPPO might have gotten the charges cleared, but he let Greiger shove Myell to the bottom of the tower to do shitty jobs far below his rank. Not much of a punishment if he was guilty, but an injustice if innocent.

  The arrival of four able techs interrupted them. “AT Ishikawa,” Jodenny said. “Start taking a roster. That lift gets turned off at oh-seven-thirty precisely.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” The young sailor unnecessarily saluted. She was a pretty girl, with fine features and neatly braided hair. It took a second for Jodenny to remember the wardroom talk about Ishikawa being a kasai girl. Accepting gifts for companionship was a tradition from old Japan, not exactly legal under Team Space regulations, not exactly illegal either.

  Jodenny turned to Myell. “Show me your spaces, Sergeant.”

  Two DNGOs sat inactive in Myell’s workshop, with tools and spare parts hung neatly beside them. A quick glance at Myell’s maintenance log and she knew she wouldn’t have to worry about him doing his job. One entry did catch her eye, however. She asked, “What’s this about a missing dingo?”

  “A Class III disappeared during the GQ yesterday,” Myell said.

  “Disappeared in the slots?” Jodenny asked. DNGOs were always getting lost in the maze of bins on each level. Sometimes they broke, sometimes they powered down by accident. Jem had claimed they were sneaking off to fool around and make baby DNGOs.

  “No, on the Rocks. I was taking her to Repair. I notified Loss Accounting and they’re coming later to investigate.”

  She would have to follow up on that further. Jodenny inspected Myell’s bench, which was almost painfully neat. The only personal touch was a gram of a tropical beach. In it, a woman with an easy smile held back her long hair and squinted at the camera. She wore a bright yellow dress, and the blue-green surf swirled around her ankles.

  “Is that Baiame?” she asked.

  “No, Earth. Before the Debasement.” He sounded a little wistful. “Someplace called the Gold Coast.”

  “A friend?”

  “My mom,” he said. “She died a long time ago.”

  “I’m sorry.” Jodenny didn’t tell him that her own parents had died when she was a toddler. She studied him in profile. Handsome, yes. He had a faint scar above his eyebrow that would be easy to fix, but for some reason he hadn’t bothered to. Her impression was of an intelligent if not a cheerful man. But who would be jolly, stuck in the bottom of a cold cargo hold for months on end with only DNGOs for company?

  “Lieutenant Scott,” a man said, and she turned to see a dark-skinned sergeant approach. He was shorter than Myell but twice as wide, his immaculate uniform stretching over thick muscles. Maori, maybe, though most of them had stayed back on Earth. “I’m Strayborn, ma’am, your leading sergeant. I’m in charge here in T6. Welcome aboard.”

  “Thank you.”

  “The troops are assembled and eager to meet you.”

  Fourteen people had assembled in ragged rows. Strayborn joined the front line and Myell melted into the back. No sign of Chief Nitta, but Caldicot had managed to get herself there on time. Jodenny checked her watch and made sure Ishikawa shut off the lift.

  “Underway Stores, atten-hut,” she ordered.

  She had seen better military posture among schoolchildren. Half of them were in standard coveralls with scuffed boots, soiled cuffs, or worn elbows. Others wore working trousers and blue shirts that had clearly seen better days. At least two of the men had hair past the edge of their collars and one woman had cascades of blonde curls pinned in a sloppy knot.

  Jodenny began calling names off her gib. “AT Amador.”

  “He’s on watch, ma’am,” Strayborn said. “So are AT Lange and Sergeant VanAmsal.”

  “AT Amir.”

  Strayborn grimaced. “Transferred last month.”

  “AT Barivee.”

  “He’s in the brig, ma’am.” RT Gallivan, standing in the front row, gave her a cheeky smile. “Keeping AT Kevwitch and AT Yee company, no doubt. There’s a bartender in Red Arrow with a beef to settle about some broken furniture.”

  Jodenny continued steadfastly down the list. AT Chang was present and wearing an Alcheringa Soccer League T-shirt under his jumpsuit. AM Dicensu was missing, and at his name someone chuckled. Young AM Dyatt, in the back row, was at least seven months pregnant. AT Nagarajan’s hair was completely out of reg, but RT Minnich could have been a poster boy for a Team Space brochure.

  Gallivan spoke up again. “You forgot AT Lund, ma’am. No doubt at Sick Call again.”

  “Thank you.” Jodenny added Lund to her list and put her gib away. “Division quarters will be every morning at oh-six-forty-five until further notice. Tomorrow morning we’ll have a uniform inspection, blue jumpsuits. That means clean clothes, required patches, and regulation haircuts. Working hours begin here at quarters, lunch is from eleven-thirty to twelve-thirty, and knockoff is at seventeen hundred or until work is done.”

  Ishikawa made a startled noise. Jodenny ignored it.

  “Let me tell you what I know about Underway Stores.” She gave them a steely appraisal. “It’s not as glamorous as Flight Support. It’s not as interesting as Ship’s Services. If you want a steady career, you work in Disbursing. If you like to cook, you work in Food Services. For everyone else it’s a choice between Underway Stores or Maintenance—telling a dingo to retrieve a broom or telling it to sweep the deck. Not very exciting at all.”

  Gallivan snickered.

  Jodenny said, “Sergeant Strayborn. Two demerits for the next person who can’t keep quiet.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Gallivan’s smirk disappeared.

  “Most people don’t realize how cruc
ial Underway Stores is,” she continued. “When our team doesn’t deliver supplies to the galley, people can’t eat. When our team doesn’t issue bleach to the laundry shops, nobody gets clean underwear. Customer service is our first priority. We’re going to reduce our backlog, improve our satisfaction rating, and treat every single customer we get with the utmost professionalism. Is there any question about that?”

  Silence.

  “Let’s get to work,” Jodenny said. “Underway Stores, dismissed.”

  Her new division quickly departed. Strayborn said, “Miz Scott? Thank you for calling inspections for tomorrow. It’s been a while.”

  Jodenny glanced at his shiny patches and spotless boots. “How close are you to being promoted to chief?”

  “I’ve got my hopes set on the ECP—the list should be out soon.”

  The Enlisted Commissioning Program made officers out of sailors who had earned their university degrees through Core. The process was grueling and the standards high. She made a note to check out his application and was giving him more orders when the lift returned with three people onboard, including Chief Nitta.

  “Someone turned off the goddamned lift!” he said, his expression mottled.

  “I did, Chief.”

  “We were on time!”

  “Let’s have a talk, Chief.” Jodenny started climbing the nearest ladder. “Sergeant Strayborn, lock down level one for us.”

  She didn’t look to see if Nitta followed, but after a moment his footsteps rang out behind her. Jodenny checked the indicator lights to make sure traffic on the level was disabled and swung off the ladder. A Class I DNGO stood nearby, paralyzed, a smartcrate in its claws. Behind it, the slots stretched out in dark and complicated patterns. Slot stories had become Team Space folklore—ghosts in the maze, techs who went in to retrieve DNGOs and got lost forever.

  “Do you know what’s on this level, Chief?” she asked.

  “Agroparts.”

  “Uniforms. Do you know our backlog status on uniforms? Three weeks. Three weeks to get some apprentice mate a new set of coveralls.”

  Nitta spread his hands. “Everything’s been backlogged since we deployed. We loaded a thousand uniform items at Kookaburra.”