The Outback Stars

by Sandra McDonald

  Their gazes locked. Jodenny tried not to think about the vacation they’d spent at a tropical resort on Kiwi, how it had been to wake up in his arms in a sunlit bed. He had a swimmer’s body, long and lean and made for distance. He’d given her snorkeling lessons in the ocean, their bodies spooned together in the warm current, his knees nudging her legs open.

  No, she wasn’t going to think of any of that.

  Osherman nodded abruptly, said, “Good day,” and moved on to sit at another table.

  Gunther asked, “That’s the new guy in Data, isn’t it? Do you know him? You look like you know him, that’s why I ask—”

  “We were on the same ship.” Although Jodenny wanted to flee, she forced herself to stay for the next twenty minutes to spite Osherman. Let him think she was settling in fine, the belle of the ball. When Jodenny finally returned to the Underway Stores office, Mrs. Mullaly was studying the division roster.

  “Why do they call them able technicians and regular technicians?” Mrs. Mullaly asked. “It doesn’t sound glamorous.”

  “In the old Australian navy, the ranks were called able seaman and leading seaman. ‘Seaman’ was changed to ‘technician’ when we moved into space, and ‘leading’ became ‘regular.’ Now people start out as apprentice mates, move up to able techs, go on to regular techs, and then get promoted to sergeant, which was more of an army designation.”

  “Is everything based on the old Australian military?”

  “Not everything. The Australians got first dibs because they discovered the Little Alcheringa near Mars.”

  “Yes, but Americans reached the moon first,” Mrs. Mullaly said. “We started it all.”

  Jodenny was fairly sure the Russians had started it all, but she wasn’t about to start debating history. “If anyone needs me, send me a ping. I’ll be back in a bit.”

  She went directly to Issue Room 4, which was closed even though the hours of operation were clearly posted and eight techs were waiting in line. Jodenny used her thumbprint to enter the compartment. She waded past a stack of fallen bedsheets and jerked the gate open.

  “What do you need?” she asked AT Abagli, the first tech in line.

  He blinked a few times. “Medium coveralls, ma’am. But I can wait.”

  The last person to use the deskgib had been playing Izim. Gritting her teeth, Jodenny cleared the game and keyed in her request. RT Mauro came down the passage just as she was searching through a messy shelf.

  “Miz Scott!” he said. “You shouldn’t have to do this!”

  “You’re right, but no one else was here. Where did you put the medium coveralls?”

  “I’m all out. The issue log’s out-of-date.”

  Jodenny went back to the counter. “AT Abagli, someone will deliver your coveralls to your cabin before dinner. Will that do?”

  His eyes widened in surprise. “Er, yes, ma’am.”

  Several minutes later, after the passage was clear of customers, Mauro said, “Honestly, ma’am, I couldn’t help being late—I was up in Disbursing.”

  “You were up in Disbursing while people were in line for you?”

  “I had to get my pay cleared up!”

  “I see you were also playing Izim.”

  Mauro winced. “I was only looking—”

  “Games are for your rec time, not work time. Who else works here with you?”

  “Barivee, ma’am. He’s in the brig.”

  “Then you’ll have to carry on by yourself, and do the best you can,” Jodenny said.

  She went to IR2 next, up in officer country, where Gallivan and Chang were standing bright-eyed at the counter with no customers in sight. Jodenny asked, “Slow day, gentlemen?”

  “No, ma’am,” Gallivan replied. “We’re just very efficient.”

  The two of them were much more organized than Mauro, although they couldn’t produce a current F-89. They didn’t think that was a significant deficit on their fault and neither did Jodenny. She asked them how long they’d been onboard and learned that Chang had recently passed the one-year mark. Gallivan was at the end of his contract, and would rotate off the Aral Sea when they reached Warramala.

  “I’m going into music.” Gallivan drummed his hands on the counter. “My band plays on the Rocks every Friday.”

  “How hard has someone tried to talk you into staying?”

  “Very hard. Extremely hard. Can’t be done, ma’am.”

  Jem probably could have done it. Jodenny made a note to try and persuade him herself, congratulated both of them on doing good work, and trammed over to T6. Strayborn and Hosaka sat clustered in the command module. Three upsynching DNGOs hovered in the zero-g outside.

  Strayborn popped out of his chair. “Ma’am!”

  “How’s it going, Sergeant?”

  “Absolutely fine,” Strayborn said.

  She couldn’t tell if he truly meant it or was merely exhibiting a can-do mentality. Hosaka, with her platinum-colored hair and dark eyes, peered intently at her datastream. Jodenny said, “I need a set of medium coveralls delivered to AT Abagli in Ops berthing within the hour. And make it known that playing games is not acceptable while on duty. I’m going to take away the gib of the next person I catch.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Who else is working with you on this inventory?”

  “Myell and Ishikawa are up in the observation module. Su and Lange are down below.”

  She had wanted to talk to Myell about AT Ford, but would rather they get the inventory done. “Carry on,” Jodenny said. On the tram back to Mainship she checked her imail. Twelve new messages had arrived, including a friendly note from A. J. Francesco asking how her day was going. Jodenny decided to swing by the Supply Flats and see if she could drop in on Lieutenant Commander Wildstein. She arrived in time to see Dicensu, who was hurrying down the passage while scribbling in a notebook, plow into the perpetually unhappy Ensign Ysten. Both men crashed to the deck.

  Ysten shoved Dicensu off him. “Why the hell don’t you watch where you’re going?”

  “Sorry, sir!” Dicensu’s face screwed up as if he were about to cry.

  Jodenny grabbed the AT’s arm and hauled him up. “It’s all right. No one’s hurt.”

  “Fucking baka,” Ysten spat out, climbing to his feet. “You’re a goddamned menace—”

  Jodenny swung on him. “Mr. Ysten! That’s enough.”

  “He shouldn’t even be—”

  “That’s enough!” Jodenny turned to the techs who had gathered to watch the spectacle. “Everyone back to work.”

  Ysten stalked off. Tear tracks marked Dicensu’s cheeks and blood streamed from a cut on his lip. Jodenny picked up his notebook and steered him into the nearest dual-gender head.

  “Minor injury alert,” she called to the medbot perched high on the bulkhead. The unit, no larger than her fisted hand, swooped down with a series of beeps. “Check patient’s mouth.”

  Dicensu giggled as the medbot scanned his lips, teeth, and gums. Jodenny told him to hold still while the medbot sprayed a tiny amount of sealant on a lip cut.

  “No further medical attention necessary,” the medbot said.

  Jodenny said, “AM Dicensu, why don’t you go back and ask RT Caldicot for something to do.”

  “Okay, Miz Scott.”

  “Don’t forget your notebook.” As Jodenny started to hand it back, a drawing of a DNGO caught her eye. “Did you do this?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Do you want to see some more?”

  Dicensu flipped through the pages for her, and Jodenny saw manga sketches of Caldicot, Strayborn, Loading Dock G, the plant on Bartis’s counter, and a small gray cat.

  “These are very good,” Jodenny said. “Can you draw something for me?”

  “Sure, ma’am. What?”

  Jodenny told him. Dicensu promised to do his best. Once he was gone, she went down to the Admin office and saw Ysten sitting in a chair outside Al-Banna’s hatch. The glower he was aiming at the bulkhead switched focus to her.
He said, “You had no right to reprimand me in front of those techs. Dicensu is a menace.”

  “Dicensu is a member of this crew who deserves to be treated the same as everyone else.”

  “He’s more trouble than worth.”

  “That’s what they say about ensigns. If you’re thinking about crying on the commander’s shoulders, remember that what happened reflects more on you than on me or Dicensu.”

  Ysten’s cheeks turned red. The hatch beside Jodenny opened. Lieutenant Commander Wildstein, a stocky brunette with a Fortune homeworld patch, gave both Jodenny and Ysten a stern look. “Don’t either of you have work you could be doing?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Ysten scampered off.

  Jodenny squared her shoulders. “Good afternoon, ma’am. We haven’t met yet—”

  “I know who you are. RT Bartis will get you on my schedule.”

  “Thank you, Commander.”

  “I heard you couldn’t find your lifepod.”

  Would it have killed the Wondjina to give her a supportive superior officer? Jodenny said, “I know where it is now, ma’am.”

  Wildstein didn’t look impressed. “How reassuring. You’re excused, Lieutenant.”

  As Jodenny walked through the Flats reconsidering her decision to stay in Team Space, she saw Nitta talking with Master Chief DiSola and the notorious Chief Chiba. DiSola was a lanky man with bushy eyebrows and an easy smile. Chiba was tall and wide, not quite bald, and looked strong enough to bench-press a birdie.

  “Miz Scott.” DiSola had a deep voice and a strong handshake. “Welcome aboard.”

  “Best ship in the fleet,” Chiba said, squeezing Jodenny’s hand a moment later. She had no doubt he wanted her to feel how strong he was. So this was the man who’d made Myell’s life miserable. Part of the ship’s yakuza, or so Zeni had said.

  “You work for Lieutenant Quenger, don’t you?” Jodenny asked.

  “Lieutenant Commander Zarkesh is the DIVO. Lieutenant Quenger and I work side by side.” Point made, Chiba gave Nitta a smirk. “Too bad you’re stuck with the lot you’ve got. Underway Stores was a much different division when I ran it.”

  Jodenny bit back a retort and asked, “How’s the inventory going, Chief Nitta?”

  “Looks good,” Nitta said. “I was just at T6.”

  “So was I. Too bad I missed you.”

  Nitta took a judicious sip from his coffee cup. DiSola said, “I’d love to sit down and chat with you, Miz Scott. Is now a good time?”

  Jodenny had known that was coming. “Now’s great, Master Chief.”

  DiSola’s warm, cozy office had been grammed to look like a wood-paneled cabin of an old sailing ship. Nautical charts and reproductions of brass antiques hung on the bulkheads. He said, “I’ve been on this ship for three years. Since coming aboard I’ve seen two SUPPOs come and go, as well as twenty officers and three hundred enlisted. Our turnover rate is thirty percent. Helluva way to maintain a status quo.”

  “I don’t think there’s such a thing as a status quo.”

  “But it would be nice to have a little stability once in a while, don’t you think?”

  “‘Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm,’ Chief,” she said.

  DiSola laughed. “I prefer Epicurus over Syrus: ‘Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.’ May I offer some advice? There’s lots of personalities in this department. Lots of inflated egos. It’s real easy to annoy the wrong people. You might want to get a feel for how things work around here before you start making big changes.”

  “That’s good advice. When you have the benefit of calm weather.”

  “You’re going to liven this department right up, aren’t you, Miz Scott?”

  “It’s not my goal, but I don’t think I can avoid it.”

  DiSola lifted his coffee cup. “To be honest, neither do I.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Myell had known Lieutenant Scott was in T6 because Hosaka had left the comm open. He and Ishikawa heard her order Strayborn to deliver a set of coveralls to some apprentice mate and marveled at how enthusiastically Strayborn snapped, “Aye, aye, ma’am.”

  Ishikawa asked, “Are we doing home deliveries now?”

  “Lieutenant’s a big believer in customer service,” Myell replied. And Strayborn was a big believer in sucking-up. Granted, Team Space wasn’t usually kind to Maori and Strayborn was notoriously ambitious. Myell suspected much more ass kissing to come.

  “This is boring.” Ishikawa plopped into a chair and spun around lazily. Outside the observation module’s windows, a DNGO was busy uploading its data. “How much longer is it going to take?”

  “All day and maybe half the night.” The Class IV and Vs could upsynch from wherever they were in the slots. The other classes had to be retrieved and plugged into Core so that their data could be downloaded to the master database. Once the comparison was run, all discrepancies had to be corrected or justified. If the job had been done daily, per regulations, the task would have only taken a few hours.

  “I can’t stay half the night.” Ishikawa slumped dramatically. “I have a date.”

  Myell wondered if it was kasai. He realized that he and Ishikawa were alone in the module without anyone else to observe them and remembered Timrin’s lecture on proof. Ish was an okay kid but like Ford she could make any accusation she wanted and people would listen. With a slight flick of his left hand he turned on the recording log.

  “The dingoes can’t go faster,” he said. “The reconciliations are to make sure no one’s stealing anything. Everything that comes in or goes out has to be accounted for.”

  Through the comm they heard Lieutenant Scott warn Strayborn about people playing Snipe or Izim. Ishikawa asked, “Can she really take away someone’s gib?”

  “Sure she can,” Myell said, although it would be a drastic step to take.

  Lieutenant Scott departed. Strayborn sent Hosaka off to deliver the coveralls while he and Myell resumed pulling DNGOs from the slots.

  “Sarge, you know my roommate, right? Shevi Dyatt?” Ishikawa asked.

  “Sure,” he said. Dyatt worked for VanAmsal over on Loading Dock G. She’d transferred from Ops back on Fortune, already three months pregnant.

  “She’s having a problem with Joe Olsson.”

  “What kind of problem?” he asked, against his better judgment. Olsson had been in Underway Stores until he transferred with Chiba to Maintenance. He wasn’t as bad as Spallone, but he could cause trouble when he wanted to.

  “I think she wants to break up with him, but he won’t take no for an answer.”

  “She should report it to Sergeant VanAmsal. Or to Security.”

  Ishikawa pushed her black bangs away from her eyes. “She doesn’t want to make it official. Could you talk to him or something? Guy to guy?”

  “VanAmsal’s her boss.”

  “You could tell him—”

  “No. I’m not getting involved.”

  Ishikawa sulked for the rest of the afternoon. Myell concentrated on retrieving the DNGOs and gathering their data. By seventeen hundred hours they had most of the job done, but a Class III named Circe failed to respond when summoned.

  “Myell, go in and get her,” Strayborn said over the comm.

  “How about you, Ish?” Myell asked. “Want to have a go?”

  “No, sir.”

  Myell said, “That’s ‘No, Sergeant.’ Watch your attitude.”

  “You hear me up there?” Strayborn asked.

  “We hear you.” Already he could tell that Lieutenant Scott’s attention was going to Strayborn’s head. “Give me five minutes.”

  Myell started pulling equipment from the gear locker. He kicked off his boots and zipped himself into the EV suit. Ishikawa, apparently done with her sulking, helped him check the oxygen supply, heating unit, and maneuvering thrusters. The bubble dome gave him a wide range of vision but made him feel as if his head were in a fishbowl.

  Ishikawa said, “I hate zero
-g. Doesn’t it scare you?”

  “No,” he said, but he wasn’t mad keen on it, either. As he waited for the airlock to decompress, he decided the worst part was always looking down from the ledge at a thousand meters of horrifying emptiness and forcing himself to step away, in defiance of all logic and self-preservation, from the haven of safety.

  Ishikawa said, “Radio check. Can you hear me?”

  “No problems.” Myell’s voice sounded unnaturally loud in his own ears.

  “The tower’s all locked down,” Hosaka said. “Not a creature stirring, not even a mouse.”

  Myell demagnetized his boots, squeezed his eyes shut, and pushed off. One pulse-pounding second passed, then another, and when he was sure he wasn’t going to plummet to his death he opened his eyes again. He used his thrusters to maneuver toward level forty-six. Over the commset Ishikawa asked, “Why do all the dingoes have strange names?”

  “That was Chief Mustav’s idea,” Myell said. “He named them after ancient Earth goddesses.”

  Ishikawa said, “Oh.” A moment later she asked, “Can we send out for dinner? I’m dying of starvation.”

  Lange, down at the bottom of the shaft, chipped in with a sour comment. “I bet the lieutenant’s enjoying her dinner.”

  His friend Su added, “How come officers never do any of the hard work?”

  “Shut up,” Strayborn said. “This is our job, not hers.”

  Myell reached the level he wanted and peered inside the slots cautiously. DNGOs could sense each other but weren’t as good with soft human flesh. One could easily crash into him or crush him against a bulkhead.

  “You’re sure everything’s locked down?” he asked.

  From the command module Hosaka said, “Absolutely.”

  Myell pulled himself inside. He coasted along on momentum for a few seconds and then used the thrusters to propel himself past the bins. The headlights on his helmet provided illumination in the cold darkness. Among other things, level forty-six housed weapons and ammunition in case the Security Department was ever needed to augment local Team Space forces in times of civil unrest, like they had during the Separatist uprisings on Warramala. He could feel the weight of violence and death surrounding him, the never-ending prospect of war.