Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework

by Randolph Lalonde

  “Can you make some vegetable Lo-Mein noodles for two?” Minh asked quietly. “I’m headed to the bridge, and I don’t think the watch-person has had dinner yet.”

  “Comin’ up, Commander,” Nerine said.

  “You mean Lo-Mein shaped food with flavouring mixed in,” Joyboy corrected.

  “It’s not that bad,” Minh countered. “I could think of several things with worse textures. Oh, and you knocked up my girlfriend,” Minh added, unable to resist.

  “And there it is!” Pisser shouted, leaping to her feet as though her favourite team just scored a goal. “He brought it up before Joyboy! You slag-brains owe me today’s pay!”

  Joyboy lowered his head as the surrounding crew burst into laughter or tried to catch up on what they missed.

  Minh-Chu couldn’t help but laugh along as he waited for most of the commotion to subside. Stephanie looked openly shocked, despite her amusement. “True?” she asked as she approached him. “I don’t watch Crewcast like some people.”

  “Yup,” Minh-Chu nodded. He turned to Joyboy who looked like he was ready to beg for his place in the fighter squadron and put his hand on his shoulder. “Congratulations, one man’s shrew is another man’s goddess,” he said to him. “Best of luck with the four AM feedings. I’ll make sure you have plenty of time planet-side to help out.”

  Nerine, catching the barb, approached with two steaming disposable boxes. Her wide-eyed laughter had a tinge of sympathy for Joyboy, whose head was down, his eyes closed as he groaned like a damned man. “Here’s your order, first out of the kitchen.”

  “Thank you very much,” Minh-Chu said, accepting the boxes.

  “Oh, and the texturizer is broken now, we only got five orders out with it,” she whispered.

  “That’s a bad thing? I’ve never had forma before,” Minh said.

  “That means I’m getting two of those orders,” Stephanie said. “One for me, one for the captain.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Nerine said. “Everyone else’s food will be firm mush, like really old pudding, no matter what flavor we put in it. On the bright side, we can make really good pudding.”

  “See you in the morning,” Minh-Chu said to his pilots. “Get as much sleep as you can, while you can.” He followed Stephanie and Nerine as they headed to the partitioned-off section of the cargo bay where they’d temporarily set up the kitchen. “What is forma, anyway?”

  “It’s a specially engineered processed algae with essential nutrients and protein. At least that’s what the crate says,” Nerine replied. “I don’t think anyone wants to know much more than that, though.”

  “You’re right,” Stephanie said. “It produces a lot of food for the storage space it takes, but with the texturizer broken, dinner will be memorable, and not in a good way. I’ll get a couple of security people here just to manage the crowd.”

  “Thank you,” Nerine beamed. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. Do you want the last good meal for Frost?” she asked.

  “No, he won’t eat forma,” Stephanie replied. “He’s on meal bars.”

  “Why won’t he eat forma?” Minh-Chu asked.

  “He won’t say, something happened before I met him. If he won’t talk about it, it was bad,” Stephanie explained.

  “But this is a good batch, I’ve already done the raw test,” Nerine said, shuddering. “It was terrible, but it sat well.”

  “Thank you again, Nerine,” Minh-Chu said.

  “I’ll see you on the bridge after I deliver one of these to the captain,” Stephanie said. “He’s working on something in his quarters.”

  “See you there,” Minh-Chu said, moving towards the main corridor.

  When he neared the bridge, he could hear Finn saying, “Just look at the guide and plug it in.”

  Minh quietly entered the bridge and took in the scene. Ashley was under her console waist-deep and Finn was standing over her with his fists planted on his hips. Ashley’s new copilot, Clara Ramone, was watching from her seat with a worried expression.

  “What’s this wire for, anyway?” Ashley asked from under the console.

  “I don’t know, you didn’t let me look at it,” Finn replied.

  “It fell out before you got here, and you’ve been no help,” Ashley replied.

  “What colour is it?” Finn asked.

  “Sort of a teal, oh! There’s a bunch of plugs down here just like it, they’re all empty. How do I know which one to plug this into?”

  “Okay, some of those are redundancies, others are reserved. You should find a number on the wire you’re holding that matches one of the terminals.”

  “Um,” Ashley said. She didn’t elaborate.

  The trio looking on waited long moments before Finn broke down. “Um… what?”

  “Got it!” Ashley declared. A hologram appeared just above the main pilot’s controls that added all the status information relative to what they manipulated. Ashley came out from under the console hurriedly and saw the change. “Okay, that’s cool, and new.”

  “Oh, right, we didn’t activate that because we though it would be distracting,” Finn said. “It was never plugged in.”

  “Well, I’m glad I did. Every switch has an info reading and a link to a corresponding log. All the bridge panels should have this,” Ashley said, manipulating a few of the small holograms pointing to switches.

  “That’s another reason why we didn’t plug it in,” Finn said, noticing Minh-Chu for the first time. “If they see that on your console, everyone will want it.”

  “Hi, Minh,” Ashley said with a smile as she made herself comfortable in the pilot’s seat.

  “I brought dinner,” Minh-Chu said. “I didn’t know what you wanted so I just ordered another of what I was having. Feeling like tasting something from home.”

  “What is it?” Ashley asked after checking and re-locking her controls.

  “So, soup’s on,” Finn said. “I’d better go before that ancient texturizer dies for good.”

  “I’ll take the copilot’s station so you can go too, Clara,” Minh said.

  “Thanks, I’m starving,” she said, quickly logging that she was transferring control to Ronin temporarily. “I should have chomped something before watch, but I didn’t have time.”

  “No one had time,” Finn said, waiting for Clara at the door. “But that’s what happens when our time on-world gets cut suddenly. You’ll get used to it.”

  “That happens a lot?” she asked as she caught up with Finn and the door closed behind them.

  Minh-Chu handed one of the recyclable boxes to Ashley as he sat in the copilot’s seat and punched in his call sign, informing the computer that he was taking part of the watch. “How is she?” Minh-Chu said.

  “Ooh, noodles,” Ashley said as she tore the chopsticks off the side of the container. “Thank you, Minh,” she said. “How’s Clara? She’s good. Not as good as Larry, but she’s good.”

  Minh-Chu tried not to dwell on thoughts of Laura, who was killed by Larry, but Ashley saw through him.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to...”

  “It’s all right,” Minh-Chu said, focusing on pulling his chopsticks off the side of the box without ripping it wide open. “We can’t guard everything we say because someone did something terrible. When you mention Larry, I think of Laura, true, but that’s not a bad thing. I didn’t know her as well as a lot of people from the First Light, but I always liked her.”

  “I didn’t really know her either,” Ashley said. “But she was always really nice. She seemed smart, too.”

  “Thank you,” Minh-Chu replied.

  Ashley put her food down for a moment and pulled Minh’s chopsticks free for him. “Pull from the top, that’s the trick.”

  “Thanks,” Minh said.

  “Um, so how are the pilots?” Ashley asked, digging into her noodles and drawing a knot of Lo-Mein into her mouth.

  “Oh, they’re good. Having a laugh at Joyboy right now. They’re going to be on
him for days.”

  Ashley cocked her head quizzically as she chewed.

  “Oh, you haven’t heard? He and Paula are expecting,” Minh said.

  Ashley choked and coughed, keeping her mouth closed, but her hand up in front for safety and politeness. Minh stood up and patted her on the back urgently.

  “Are you okay?” he said when it looked like she was recovering.

  She finished swallowing properly and nodded. “Yup, gotta give a girl warning when you drop something like that at dinner.”

  Minh sat back down at the copilot’s seat. “Sorry, I guess it’s not as big of a deal to me as it is to everyone else.”

  “Well, you two were together,” Ashley asked. “So it’s a pretty big betrayal.”

  “Who? Me and Joyboy?” Minh-Chu said with a crooked grin. “A passing fancy, at best.”

  Ashley was just about to try a smaller mouthful of noodles when she was interrupted by a fresh chuckle. “Eating is dangerous around you.”

  “Okay, I’ll be more serious while we’re chomping,” Minh-Chu said as he shoved hot noodles into his mouth and wished he had something to drink. He could tell there was something off about the noodles, but the flavouring was so powerful that it could have been easy to miss if he was never told it was processed algae.

  Ashley was quiet until they were both halfway through their takeout boxes before asking, “I gotta know though… you and Paula? Are you okay?”

  Minh-Chu finished chewing. “She wouldn’t leave me alone,” he said. “I don’t know how, but she made it look like we were in a relationship on Crewcast, too.”

  “Really? She doesn’t have the rank to get shower access, does she?” Ashley asked.

  “Nope, not even close,” Stephanie said as she entered the bridge.

  “Shower access?” Minh asked.

  “Oh, it’s what Ash calls Command Level Access, because you can actually check on people while they’re in the shower,” Stephanie replied. “It actually sounds a bit perverted now that I’m explaining it to anyone else. I’ve never used my access for that, just to be clear.” She dropped into the captain’s chair and opened her own box of noodles. “It lets you monkey with Crewcast, too. I don’t like talking about that kind of access because it makes some people feel self-conscious, even though I don’t abuse it.”

  “I don’t really care,” Minh said with a shrug. “People get to know each other really well in a military unit, modesty gets out of the way when you’re taking your first real shower in a month and the public shower rooms are all you can get.” He couldn’t help remembering seeing Ashley ducking down behind a shower stall door when he was in the pilot’s berthing aboard the Triton. The memory brought a little smile to his lips. He cleared his throat and pressed on. “Anyway, I don’t know how Paula did it, but she faked the relationship on my end while I was on patrol for pay.”

  “I’ll have to look into that,” Stephanie said.

  “So that’s all it was?” Ashley asked. “She faked the whole thing?”

  Sometimes Minh-Chu didn’t like his belief in pure honesty; it didn’t always lead to the things he wanted. “Given enough time, a river can turn even a mighty stone to sand,” he replied, shoving a generous bundle of noodles into his mouth.

  Both women burst into laughter that almost outlasted the time it took him to chew and swallow.

  “So there was something,” Stephanie said with a grin. “I should have put money on it.”

  “She wore me down for a bit, and there was snoggery, but the more she talked the less I liked her, so that didn’t last,” Minh said. “That sounded harsh, but she’s just got these opinions about people that are opposite mine. So, any attraction that could have been there died.”

  “Opinions like?” Stephanie asked.

  “I’d rather she spoke for herself on that, you can see it all on Crewcast anyway. I respect her work ethic, but we just couldn’t see eye to eye.”

  “So Joyboy knocking her up is the best thing that could happen for you,” Stephanie concluded.

  “Well, if that kid manages to have a good upbringing, yeah. Joyboy’s not going to be happy though, I’m putting him on shuttle duty once we get back. I know Paula well enough to make sure that kid has a dad.”

  “You never stop thinking of other people,” Ashley said.

  “Care for others and you won’t have to wonder who will care for you,” Minh-Chu replied. “I grew up in a passionate but tight family. Lots of arguments, but we always knew what everyone else was thinking.”

  “Reminds me of the Triton,” Ashley said quietly as she absently dug through her noodles with her chopsticks.

  “What happened there? I haven’t had time to ask,” Stephanie asked.

  Ashley took a bite and finished before answering in an uncharacteristically quiet manner. “You guys can’t share this,” she said. “Not with anyone.”

  “All right,” Minh said.

  “It’s big security stuff,” Ashley reinforced, looking to Stephanie, who nodded. “Okay,” Ashley continued. “It’s a special type of human, that doesn’t look human at all. Its memories told me that Earth used issyrian technology and hundreds of years of research to make his species, and now they breed them in a habitat that I think the Triton really liked.”

  “What’s this?” Stephanie asked. “I missed something.”

  “The ship computer,” Ashley said. “It’s just an interface for this being that took the Triton’s name. It’s like it communicates with the ship so well that it’s just a part of it, even though it uses some kind of impulse or telepathic trick to communicate with the ship.”

  “So it’s a human?” Minh asked.

  “It’s based on us, but it looks totally different. It’s like some cool, wide, eel that is one big, flat fin that can expand and shrink. It can go through all the waterworks in the Botanical Gallery, but was in stasis since Wheeler took the ship. No one told it that Sol Defence let the Triton go so people on Earth could study the galaxy through the people who took the ship.”

  “So it was left there alone?” Stephanie asked.

  “Yeah, but it was asleep the whole time. It was lonely when we found it though,” Ashley said, sympathy in her expression. “Almost the same loneliness that Oz has, I think that’s one of the reasons why they bonded so well.”

  “Wow, you guys really did have a serious sharing session,” Stephanie said.

  “It connected me to Oz, so I felt everything he does, then I saw what the Triton sees.”

  “Through telepathy?” Minh-Chu asked.

  “Yeah, it was amazing,” Ashley said. “Not scary at all, except for when it was scared, like when he was attacked for the first time. I never thought I’d see a ship get frightened, but he was so scared. The Triton isn’t afraid of fighting anymore though, it seems like he likes it a bit. A lot like Oz there too.

  “Triton watches everything on the ship, it likes to help us, to watch children grow, enjoys seeing people get along, too. By watching everyone, it feels connected to us, and it loves having a crew. Eventually it’ll directly connect to its entire command crew, but it’ll take time for it to trust them, because no one out here have really long records, like someone would in the Sol System. For now, I think it’s really happy to be connected to Oz, and it was really glad to meet me. I miss him already.”

  “Oz?” Stephanie asked.

  “Him too, but not as much as Triton,” Ashley said. “I want to be here, don’t get me wrong. I wanted to be here more before Triton connected with me, though. He’s a really cool… thing? Ship? Yeah, he likes being thought of as part of the ship.”

  “Where would you really rather be?” Minh-Chu asked. “If you had a choice.”

  Ashley thought a moment before answering. “Here, I still have a lot to do here. Besides, even Triton thought so. He likes me a lot, I could just tell, but I’m not ready to be part of the command structure there. After what he’s shown me, how big a ship like that really gets when there are thousands of
people aboard, I know I’m not ready. I’d rather be a pilot and mission girl here.”

  “Mission girl?” Stephanie asked.

  “You’ll see, I have a few ideas about what I’ll be doing when we land, already cleared it with Captain. I might need something from that box I left with you,” Ashley said.

  “Oh, you can have all that stuff back,” Stephanie replied. “Now that I know you were only gifting it because you thought you’d have to go on the run after telling everyone about your Triton access info.”

  “Yeah, sorry ‘bout that,” Ashley replied.

  “Don’t do it again, you can always trust me,” Stephanie said. “But I’m keeping a couple of things, just as a lesson.”

  Minh-Chu enjoyed watching the easy exchange between Ashley and Stephanie. It was the best way to get to know both of them, though Ashley captured most of his interest.

  “Don’t worry, Boss, won’t pull anything like that again,” Ashley replied to Stephanie. “Can’t wait to see what you’re keeping, either. I bet Frost’ll be happy.”

  “Later,” Stephanie said, smiling awkwardly as she glanced at Minh-Chu. “And Frost is a very lucky man.”

  Minh-Chu kept Ashley company for the rest of her watch. Different crewmembers cycled through the bridge during the hours that followed. she taught him the finer points of the Warlord’s controls, and they talked about where they came from, focusing on happier moments for the most part.

  He caught himself forgetting that there was an age difference after awhile, and when it was time to retreat to his bunk, he couldn’t stop thinking of stories he could tell her about himself, or the stories she’d shared with him.

  Chapter 43

  Steps Forward

  Ayan’s fingers fumbled with the clips on the extreme environment armour. Tears obstructed her view as she tried to get the second outer layer of her suit to attach to her legs, something she’d gotten used to doing, but she couldn’t find the right connections. “Come on, I just need to get out there, help the effort,” she said. “Just have to get to work.” The lights of dozens of holographic status windows focusing on the settlement outside the Clever Dream made the shadows shift and flicker.