Running With Argentine

by William Lee Gordon

The chief stepped forward and quickly pulled the tiara from Argentine's head.

  "I can't get the ship to accept you as Captain," Sami said. "I don't understand. I'm doing exactly what Paula showed me to do, and it's the same thing she did with me…"

  "Are you sure?" Argentine heard himself ask. "Maybe we should try it again?"

  Sami was shaking her head…

  "The ship is being very clear… I'm sorry. But the Roosevelt just won't accept you as its Captain…"

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  A Solution

  Aboard the Roosevelt

  "But, it's perfectly clear… Don't you see?"

  Sami was shaking her head…

  "Mandi, I like you… You've been the first girlfriend I've had in… Forever! I know you mean well, but I can't cut the Captain out of it like that."

  "But that's just it, Sami. You're not cutting him out – the ship is! This isn't your decision; the ship’s already made it…

  "Look, I can understand your loyalty to Argentine. Heck, I even respect it. I wish I had people in my life that I shared that much loyalty with… But there's a reason this is happening. Paula has more right to the ship than any of us, and I think this must be her doing."

  Both women were in Sami's new cabin. After the morning fiasco Argentine had changed the plans for the day. The exploration parties would still go out, but the officers wouldn't meet again until this afternoon.

  Hopefully, someone would come up with an idea.

  Sami knew it wasn't her fault, but she still felt bad that the morning had turned into disaster.

  Once it became clear that the ship wouldn't accept Argentine as its Captain, everybody stepped forward. It wasn't just Mandi…

  The chief felt that since he'd been designated second it should be automatic for him.

  Barry suggested that it might be something genetic; he was certainly willing to give it a try.

  Even Marco Petulengro pointed out that he'd been running a big family for a long time…

  He was very good at hiding his emotions, but Sami knew the Captain well enough to know this was affecting him. She knew it wasn't her fault, but she did take it as her responsibility to find a solution…

  "Mandi, I don't think this has anything to do with Paula. I know she was your friend, but she told me some things…"

  "What things?"

  "Things that make me think that she felt we were all in good hands with the Captain."

  Mandi curled her lip and Sami laughed…

  "Look Mandi, I need your help; I need to figure this out. You know more about the way computers think than anybody on the ship… So tell me, why would the ship reject installing a new Captain?"

  Both women sat silent for a moment until Mandi finally spoke…

  "Reasons for rejecting someone… It could be that he failed some kind of test...

  "Maybe the computer detected psychotic tendencies?"

  Sami frowned.

  "Maybe he's not smart enough?"

  Sami narrowed her eyes…

  "I don't know! Maybe he doesn't have the right eye color! It could be anything!"

  "Or, it could be something else altogether," Sami continued. "What other reasons would there be?"

  "I suppose it would reject the new Captain if there were already an existing Captain, but that's not the case…"

  "Maybe the ship doesn't know that it's old Captain is gone?" Sami said hopefully.

  "No, that's not it. It knew that the former lead astrogator was no longer available, that's why it permitted Paula to give the position to you. If it knew that there's no reason to think it wouldn’t know that the Captain's gone also…"

  Mandi continued musing…

  "Maybe he doesn't meet some interior protocol?"

  "Like what?"

  "I don't know… Maybe to be the captain you have to serve as a department head for a while first… Again, it could be anything."

  "So if that's the issue, maybe there's a way around it," Sami mused.

  Now it was Mandi's turn to go quiet in thought. Finally, she spoke…

  "I can't believe I'm suggesting this, but… But if there are certain protocols for being a captain, I think there would be fewer protocols for being first mate. And even fewer for second mate, etc."

  Sami's eyes got wide.

  "So we don't make the Captain the Captain," Sami said. "We make him the First Mate and put everyone else underneath him!"

  "And if that doesn't work you can lower him down to second mate, etc. Eventually that should take care of it… If that's what the problem is."

  "Can you think of anything else it could be?"

  Mandi shook her head, "No, not really."

  Sami leaned forward and gave Mandi a big hug…

  "Thank you Mandi… I knew you could do it. I knew you had superpowers too…"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Your mind! Your superpower is your intelligence!"

  Sami jumped up and bounded from the room, leaving a confused redhead behind her…

  ΔΔΔ

  Argentine had a lot on his plate.

  It seemed that all the gods of the universe were conspiring to keep him from ever getting that mountain cabin…

  They were incredibly close to being able to cash in on their discovery; he just had to hold everything, and everyone, together long enough to make it happen… Which was much easier said than done.

  He wasn't worried about the chief.

  The chief was the chief. He might be vocal and even a little impulsive, but in the end Argentine was confident that they wanted the same thing.

  If Argentine couldn't Captain the ship, he certainly wanted the chief to.

  As a last resort he was pretty confident that he could command the ship through Sami. Since she was already in the system she would be the highest-ranking officer and she would follow his lead… Probably.

  If it came down to it, did he trust Lieutenant Stark to hold to their agreement? He didn't have any reason not to think he would, but control of a ship like this would be powerful motivation to question one's priorities…

  He certainly didn't trust anyone else on board with that kind of power. They all might be good people, but that kind of trust only came with long experience.

  And he certainly didn't trust Mandi…

  Or did he?

  Argentine knew that was a strange thought to be having. She had given him absolutely no reason to place any trust in her, let alone for something of this magnitude.

  He didn't consider himself someone that could be swayed by simply a pretty face. The chief's ribbing aside, he had navigated the ranks of the Chezden Navy by successfully identifying and avoiding the manipulative sexual advances of both women and men.

  That's not to say he'd always been celibate, but he'd always been capable of keeping his emotions sufficiently detached to see objectively.

  So, he was selective, but if someone was trying to manipulate and use him for their own advancement he'd felt little compunction about using them back. If they were later surprised to learn that their manipulations had garnered no effect on his actual decision-making process… Well, that was their miscalculation.

  If he ever decided to write a book on philosophy, his age-old question would be, Is it wrong to use the user?

  At any rate, he didn't think Mandi fit into that mold.

  He was sufficiently self-aware to know that he was attracted to her. Hell, he'd known that since the first time they'd set down for coffee…

  So his defensive radar was fully functioning. But even so, there was a lot about her to admire…

  She was smart; there was no question about it. If her hacking and programming abilities weren't enough testament to that, you only had to look at all the deceptions and rolls she'd played to know it was true.

  There was a certain confidence that had also been critical to her success, and Argentine suspected it was the most attractive thing about her.

  She acted arrogant, but he sa
w through that immediately. It was a role she played just like all the others…

  No, the one single thing that kept him from pigeonholing her as a Bad Person To Avoid, was her heart. Everything she had done had been for good reasons, even if she sometimes pretended otherwise.

  As hard as he looked, Argentine couldn't detect any blackness in her.

  But that didn't mean she would hesitate to take command of the ship and use it for her own 'good' purposes – and those purposes may or may not coincide with his.

  He shook himself from his reverie to focus on the more immediate issues…

  Everything would've been so much simpler if they'd found the ship a derelict, he mused.

  But it wasn't. Even after two hundred years she was obviously still active and, apparently, in good condition.

  He'd been at first startled when Nicu had commed him earlier that morning to report that Paula's body was no longer in her cabin bed. He'd realized quickly, though, that this was simply more evidence that the ship was functioning properly. It obviously had a protocol for disposing of dead bodies…

  That was the reason Nicu had reported that the only thing they'd found was her uniform, neatly laid out on the bed.

  "Can I come in?" Sami asked, sticking her head inside his cabin door.

  She had an excited expression on her face and that was a pleasant relief to the dark thoughts he'd been having…

  "Of course! What's going on?"

  "We think we've got the answer!" she said excitedly. "We think we’ve figured out how to give you command!"

  ΔΔΔ

  Once again they were all gathered in the neural mapping room inside the hospital complex.

  Argentine donned the golden circlet.

  After Sami's announcement, they’d all dropped everything to return.

  Sami explained to the group her and Mandi's idea of designating the Captain as first officer, and then ranking everyone else below him.

  "The only downside," Mandi elaborated. "Is that there might be some emergency command functions that only the Captain has access to. But unless anyone has any better ideas, this is the best we've come up with."

  No one said anything and most shook their heads…

  "I just need to check a couple of things first…" Sami's voice trailed off.

  "I thought you had this figured out?" Argentine asked.

  "I do, I mean I will, but…"

  "Let the girl do her job," Mandi interjected.

  "What we figured out will still work… It's just that I found something funny."

  "Funny as in, Ha ha? Or funny as in, Oh shit!" the chief asked dryly.

  Ignoring him, Sami continued…

  "Before I submitted our Captain as a first officer, I wanted to check the status of the previous First Officer. The computer clearly marks him as being deceased.

  "So, just to cover all the bases, I checked on the ship's previous captain, Captain Ramires… He's marked as being on medical leave."

  "Maybe he was a bit lurgy when everything went down?" Barry suggested.

  "Yeah, maybe,” Mandi interjected. “But that brings up another thought… Sami, why don't you see if you can designate Argentine as the Acting Captain."

  She didn't hesitate; she started typing immediately.

  This time, inside Argentine's head the universe really did open up…

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  Misty Dreams

  Aboard the Roosevelt

  Argentine was dancing.

  The room was full of people. He somehow knew that he and the crew were celebrating a special holiday. The ship’s ballroom was decorated in a way he'd never seen before – it was elegant.

  Across the dance floor, he spied Lieutenant Higgins doing her duty as first mate, primarily keeping up good relations with the scientific crew and their spouses.

  Melissa, the ship's lead astrogator and, as of recently, his sometimes mistress, was entertaining a group of younger officers at one of the many tables. It'd taken two years for the light to come back into her eyes after the death of her husband…

  The captain, of course, had a duty to dance with the spouses of his officers. It would be physically exhausting to dance with every single one and, fortunately, most of them were sophisticated enough to understand and rotate the courtesy through a number of formal functions.

  Even so, the captain was looking forward to the last dance…

  "Captain Ramires, I know I'm not supposed to ask… But would you dance with me?"

  The captain looked down at young Paula Silva. If losing her husband had been hard on Melissa, it had been crushing for Paula losing her father. How old was she now? Eight or nine years?

  "Of course, milady…"

  ΔΔΔ

  "I think he's coming around," he heard someone say.

  He opened his eyes and realized he was in one of the hospital beds, surrounded by his officers.

  "Are you all right?" Sami asked anxiously.

  "Yes, I'm fine…" And he realized he was. There was no hangover, headache, or other ill effects… Just a crazy memory.

  "What happened," Mandi wanted to know.

  "I'm not really sure… I think you'd better tell me."

  She frowned and said, "You just suddenly got very sleepy. You mumbled something about needing to lay down and would've hit the floor if we hadn't held you up."

  "Oh, well… thanks for the assist. But I really think I'm fine now. How long was I out for?"

  "Probably less than a minute; we just got you into the bed."

  "Really? It seemed like so much… Longer."

  ΔΔΔ

  The chief had, kind of reluctantly, gone next.

  In a weird twist, Sami hadn't been able to install the chief as both the first mate and the chief engineering officer. After some discussion, they’d decided to install him in the engineering billet and simply rank him higher than everyone but the Captain.

  Argentine figured they could do without a First Officer. After all, they were planning on cashing in as soon as possible…

  Except for yawning a few times, the chief had shown no ill effects from the integration. After that, the procedures went smoothly. All of the officers receive their billets, and even the youngest Petulengro family member above the age of seven received Crewmen, Third Class status.

  Argentine used the time to think… And experiment.

  He found himself knowing certain things about the ship; information that he was sure the ship was providing him. But it was very hit and miss.

  For example, he now knew where the Captain's quarters were… not far down that broad hallway that connected to the bridge…

  On the other hand, the forward section of the ship was the only section he could remember anything about. He vaguely knew there was more to know… The information just wouldn't come to him.

  It had taken most of the day to cycle everyone through. Argentine ordered them all to get some rest and be ready for a big day tomorrow.

  They needed to make this ship spaceworthy. Or, in other words, they needed to make sure they could maneuver the ship without accidentally turning off semi important things like gravity and life support.

  Finding one of the mess halls at all operational would be a big plus.

  It took him a long time to go to sleep and he wasn't sure how much time had passed when he suddenly woke – there was a girl standing at the foot of his bed!

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  The Haunting

  Aboard the Roosevelt

  "I swear; it was real!" Argentine said to the chief.

  It was the next evening and he and the chief were both in the Captain's suite.

  It'd been a long day.

  Argentine had made the decision to house all of his people in the officer’s quarters that lined Broadway (that was apparently the name of the super-wide corridor that extended back from the bridge).

  They had discovered three kitchens that were close enough to service the team…