[nano] Corsair

[kittydesade]

Remember when I used to write well? I do.


The alarm woke her by telling her it was that hour of the arbitrary morning in ever increasing volume. She didn't want to move. Her back, upper and lower, hurt from sleeping sitting up on the floor all night and part of her leg felt numb. Ran was still half-snoring beside her.

"And you said I snored," she muttered. "I think you just woke yourself up, that's what I think."

He made a half-snort half-sigh noise in response and turned over. She did get some small satisfaction in realizing that he would be even more stiff and sore when he woke up if he continued to sleep in that position.

Morning routines. Bathing and splashing water on her face, just a little. A drink of water and grabbing a protein bar after dressing and before checking her schedule for today, and the status report. Ran was still on the floor. She half-heaved him into the bed before she left, not certain whether or not he'd woken in the time it took her to struggle him onto the mattress. He might have. He said something, but it didn't make sense.

Out to the bridge, now, to check on things. They were towing Ran's ship on one of the docking pads, not that that slowed them down noticeably. A little extra burst of initial thrust and they were back on their vector, cruising and scanning the frequencies. As though nothing had happened. It felt anti-climactic, and Valerie was a little irritated by the feeling that something should have happened and hadn't.

"Captain," Eliot nodded to her, peered at her, and pressed a mug into her hands. She eyed him.

"Just because I show up looking like death warmed over in the morning does not mean I need coffee," she informed him. "Sometimes it just means I need sleep." But she took a sip of the coffee anyway.

"If you need sleep, you shouldn't have taken him into your room last night," he said. It was a reasonable thing to say, but it got him glared at anyway. Half-heartedly. She knew he didn't mean anything by it, didn't judge what she did on her own time so long as it didn't impact the running of the ship. He was practical that way.

And to be honest, she thought he knew her well enough not to assume that just because she took Ran to her room that night she would also take him to bed. For all she knew he meant exactly what had happened. Valerie shook her head.

"He's an old friend, and I haven't seen him in a while. We wanted to catch up. Nothing new on the radar?"

"Nothing." Eliot nodded over at the radar station. "We've got a clear path ahead and someone coming up from behind, but they hail as friendly, from the Marathon Group."

Valerie nodded, thinking that over. They were off Marathon's usual routes, but there had been talk of them expanding recently, and though the competition would be fierce at first they worked more with freight and manufacturing companies than she did, so she didn't think it would be a problem. And she would welcome the company.

"Are they within range?"

Crash looked up at her and shook her head. "Not yet, just the automatic pulses right now, and they don't seem to be speeding up to catch us."

"Pity," Tanner quirked a faint smile. "Could use the company."

Valerie chuckled. Her crew was large enough that the usual isolation sickness didn't strike often, but Tanner was right. They could use the company. Coming in from the fringes of the system was a lonely route, which was why they had the monopoly on it so far. Both ships could probably use the company.

"Which of their ships is it?"

"Ah…" Kedrick checked the beacon again. "The Inglorious Bastard."

Scattered chuckles surfaced around the bridge. Most ship names meant something to the Captain, either the Captain assigned by the company or the one who actually owned the vessel. Valerie owned her own ship, though she and the crew had been hired and were paid by the company, and she had named hers after the idea of being a space pirate. She'd though it was glamorous when she was young and a bit reckless. Ran had also encouraged this. In retrospect it might have been a bad omen of some kind, but she and the crew seemed to like it, so it stuck. She wondered if the Captain of the Inglorious Bastard had had a similar idea or if it was just some sort of strange logic she didn't understand.

"Well, keep an eye on them, see if they want to catch up and have a chat. In the meantime, stay on course."

"Captain?"

She turned. Eliot was giving her the raised eyebrow, which was as close to is there something you want to tell me as he would get in public. Most likely it was something about either Ran or the ship, and in either case she would rather discuss it now than later. "Ask, Eliot. Please."

"Is there anything you want to tell us about Tamerlane's schedule?"

The word he used was 'schedule' but what she heard was 'agenda.' It was hard to tell him with a straight face and a clear conscience when she had been wondering that herself, but she managed. "No. As far as I know…" Was that her out? Was she leaving herself an out in case Ran had something in mind? God, she was getting too old for this, and he had been in that damn company for too long. Valerie sighed. "As far as I know he's heading to Sagan on legitimate, official business. He won't tell me what it is but with the company he works for that's hardly surprising. He isn't asking for any detours." That might have been more pointed if the Tommy was in the room.

Eliot nodded. "I don't believe I need to tell you that I'd be more comfortable with this if he was more forthcoming with the details of his assignment."

"You and me both, friend. But I know him from a long time back, and I do trust him. With this, anyway." Valerie chuckled. "I wouldn't trust him not to throw a party at my house while I was gone, but I trust him with this."

That might have been a smile on Eliot's face there for a moment, but he wouldn't swear to it. "All right. Well, we won't give him the keys to the liquor cabinet, then, shall we?"

"Captain," Crash interrupted her retort, which would no doubt have been witty and perfect. "They've accelerated, and they're giving us a frequency."

"Put them on," Valerie nodded, pointing a finger at him. "We'll talk later."

"Of course." He nodded. She saw the smile in his eyes if nowhere else on his face.

The three-tone chime sounded, alerting them that they were all on air and on record. "Inglorious Bastard, this is Captain Valerie Reynolds of the Corsair, en route to Sagan through points between."

There was a moment of crackle. "Captain Reynolds, this is Captain Noah Brenn of the Inglorious Bastard, en route to [map this] Station, it's good to find someone else out here on this channel."

"Likewise," she chuckled. "We're headed to Papillion and Alcubierre Station next, if you wanted to join us?"

"Sharing route secrets, are we?" he chuckled, too. "We were headed to Alcubierre station as well, and we'd love to fly tandem with you. If you'd like we can pull alongside and dock with you, introduce some new blood into the system."

New blood, hmm? He had an Aileron accent, not from any specific place that she could discern but the sort that they trained you into in the upper class schools, bland and from anywhere in the Empire. New blood also spoke to an upper class education. It wasn't the sort of thing someone without an overabundance of schooling would usually leap to as a verbal expression.

And now Ran was infecting her thinking, him and his parsing down everyone's behavior patterns to the last little microscopic element. Dammit.

"I'd like that," she said, realizing she'd been silent almost too long. "I'll have my pilot send you our speed and vectors, we can match speeds and dock. It's getting almost towards lunch time, standard time, I think?"

"Well, then, I'd take it as a kindness if you'd have lunch with me, Captain."

"I'm sure I can clear my schedule, Captain."

Her crew was kind enough to hold off on the snickering until after she had made arrangements and closed channels with the other ship. "Clear your schedule, Captain?"

"Oh, shut up, Eliot."



She did meet Captain Brenn for lunch in the mess. Not the regular mess but the smaller one, with the observation window and the greater space between tables. The ship's cook, forewarned that there was a visiting Captain on-board, had prepared something special for their meal despite her repeated protestations (and eyerolls) that he didn't have to. His acerbic reply had been that this was representing her and the company, and the ship, to a strange captain and a strange company, and he damn well did. Then he had chased her out of his kitchen.

She sat down to lunch with the man while some of her crew took food from the cafeteria and sat down around her. More, she thought, than usually sat in the observation mess. Trying to catch a word or two of what was going on, no doubt. Then again, if she'd wanted a private conversation, she would have had it in her office or her quarters, or something.

Except Ran might still be in her quarters. Why did things all have to converge on her ship at once?

"You have a lovely ship," the other Captain said, with a smile that was aware of how inane a comment it was.

Valerie went for humor. "Thank you, I built it myself. Out of scraps. On an asteroid mine." Maybe that was a little too much humor. First conspiracy theories and analyzing people, now bad and tasteless jokes. Ran really was infectious.

At least Captain Brann didn't think it was tasteless or bad; he did laugh, shaking his head. "How's the route treating you so far?"

"Mm." She made a noncommittal noise and took the time of chewing and swallowing her food to think on that. "It's all right. It is, as you said, lonely out here. There isn't much going on in the way of freight traffic that isn't on the main routes, and we have to take it somewhat more roundabout…"

"Mail route," he nodded with some sympathy. "I remember."

Her eyebrows lifted. "You used to be a courier Captain?"

"Mm. Courier pilot, actually. I didn't become a Captain till I signed on with Marathon. Saved up to buy my own ship for that…" his eyes crinkled when she laughed. "What?"

"I was wondering. Whether that was your name or theirs…"

Now he laughed, too. "Oh, the Inglorious Bastard? No, that was mine. You should have seen that pile of parts when I first got it. It wasn't always that pretty." There was the faint trace of an accent under the accent. She told herself she was not going to pursue that line of thinking any more than she already had.

"Well, I suppose I got lucky," she smiled a little, poking at her food. Valerie always felt awkward talking about her ship. "I had a benefactor who thought that shoving me into the Captain's chair of a ship was the best way to keep me out of trouble and, provided that I secured a contract with a reputable company, she helped me bankroll this whole operation." One hand gesture that could have encompassed anything and, she hoped, obscured the nature of who this woman was and what she was to her.

The other captain nodded, and Valerie breathed easier. "That always helps, yes. You've been working for Albastrom for how long?"

"Since…" She frowned, trying to think. "It seems like not that long but it's been almost ten years, I think. It wasn't straight out of the Academy…"

"You studied at Campbell?"

Valerie's eyebrows shot up, but it wasn't the tone of someone who didn't believe her. It was recognition and startlement. "I studied… yes. Class of aught-oh-two, you were…?"

"Class of aught-oh-nine, I must have been just after you. Small system?"

"It would be a small system if the Academy weren't one of the pre-eminent and most popular schools for aerospace scientists and pilots out there," she smiled, pointing her fork at him, little bits of salad still clinging to the tines. "That is kind of surprising, though. There's another Academy graduate on board right now, an old friend of mine. We were in the same class together."

He looked interested at the prospect of a reunion, and immediately she regretted bringing Ran up in front of new people. "You work together, or…?"

"No, just doing him a favor. He was going where I was, or at least in the same direction, asked if he could ride with me for a little while. He's a courier too, but for a different company." And please, let this man not ask what company. She wasn't up to explaining who or what Bryce was, not when she wasn't sure, herself.

He only nodded, though. Took it at face value, considering the number of obscure stations and science vessels out on the edges, the amount of space to cover and the few courier companies who serviced all of them. No profit in it, mostly, when they didn't get much in the way of messages, except the companies who could afford a broad-spectrum Sat-to-Sat service. And they didn't need the courier ships.

"What brought you out here to the Edge, anyway?"

She tapped the edge of her fork against her plate a couple of times, then shrugged. "To be honest, I don't know. I go where Albastrom tells me, but I will admit they did give me a choice. The Lorentz-Sagan route was one of them, there was also a quick-trip shuttle back and forth between Sagan and Banning, or Tesla and Sagan. I guess I just liked the idea of being out here with all the science stations, hearing all the gossip before the news feeds pick it up."

He chuckled at that. "You're a closet science fan. You're a closet science fan, and you're out here among all your heroes shuttling their mail."

"Hey, now," but she laughed, too. "I never said that."

"You did. It's written all over your face." He shook his head, smiling. "Don't worry, I am too. I would have been a scientist but I don't have the head for all those chemicals and formulae."

"But you have the head for navigational math? I'm not sure I believe that…"

It was surprisingly nice, she remembered, to be able to talk to someone outside the ship. New people, new folk. Exchanging gossip that hadn't been heard half a dozen times before or didn't involve people who you then had to live with for weeks on end. By the end of the lunch she was ready to invite everyone over so that the crews could mingle and enjoy the breath of fresh air she was getting.

"Shall we?"

"Let's."

A simple command over the intercom. Of course, these days there weren't the reasons for keeping the crews separate that there had been. Everyone, by international treaty, who worked for a company that operated spacecraft was required to have their immunizations up to date, so there wasn't any danger of anyone bringing over any strange diseases. But it was still common courtesy for the captains of all ships involved to sit down to a meal together, get each other's measure before opening up the crews to mingle.

They wrapped up the meal with smiles and handshakes and she sent word to the chef that it was delicious and much enjoyed. One last look out the observation window; it always fascinated and amazed her (and terrified her a little) how they could sit here and eat calmly with only a foot of plasti-glass between them and empty space. Black, empty space. She pushed down the shiver and followed the other captain out to the umbilicus dock.

"How long would you like to keep the ships docked together?" she asked, a matter of politeness, since coasting along a particular vector or course was always easier but there was still a chance that microfragments of space debris would tear through the umbilicus, which wasn't shielded. If a crew member wanted to change over ships it was only a little cumbersome to extend it again.

Captain Brenn shrugged a little, took a moment to think. "Two hours? That should be enough for everyone to share a meal, and we can do it again after the shift change, maybe at mid-rats?"

"That sounds like a viable plan," she chuckled. "The evening shift will appreciate that, thank you, Captain."

"Of course. My wife is on the evening shift of another ship, you understand, so I would hear it from her if I didn't allow the evening shift to mingle as well as morning and noon shifts."

Valerie smiled, hoped it didn't look either as pained or as upset as it felt. Ship captains had a high rate of divorce unless their partner was stationed on the ship with them, or some other similar circumstance, and for good reason. She reminded herself that she didn't know anything about Captain Brenn or his life, no matter how young he looked. Perhaps he and his wife had reached some sort of arrangement, or perhaps they were happy in blissful ignorance each of what the other was doing. And either way, it was none of her business. He wasn't Ran, he wasn't… no.

"Well, I can certainly understand that. I'll make arrangements and have the announcement read over the intercom, and you can send those crew as are on liberty or off duty whenever you like. I think everyone's about to have lunch, anyway, we dined a bit early."

He nodded. Chuckled. "I'll make the announcement on my own ship. What say we have mid-rats hosted on mine?"

"I believe my galley staff will thank you for that, and my quartermaster will thank you even more," she laughed. "That sounds perfect."

"Would you like to join me for dinner, in that case? And bring your friend from the Academy? We can reminisce and talk about old times that would bore everyone else to tears, no doubt. Did you have that Hazing Week streak along the quad?"

Valerie groaned, loud enough to catch the attention of the crew member at the umbilicus station, covering her face with her hand and laughing quietly to herself. "God, we did. I remember that. We did, and… well, I'll let him tell you what he did. If he'll tell you, but he probably will. He has no shame."

Brann's eyes widened. "I think I may have heard some stories…"

"Oh, you probably did," she nodded. "I'll make him tell you all the stories tonight over dinner. I promise. Don't worry, it won't take but a glass or so of encouragement."

"Wine?"

"Whiskey."