She was wearing short pants and a T-shirt. He took a deep breath, and couldn’t help but look at her cute legs. She snapped to attention: “My apologies, Sir. I wasn’t aware there was going to be an inspection.”
Just then the head of engineering, an old fat salt named Franklin Barthelme, came cursing down the tight corridor mumbling to himself. He had on the black coveralls from his days in the bowels of the older Galaxy Class Fed Destroyers. He looked up, saw the captain and saluted, his long sleeves had burn holes which revealed a mechanical arm, a gift from the Vellosi after an early battle with the BG.
“Appreciate if you’d hold off a sec, Cap’n,” he said.
“Everything alright? We’re going to jump soon.”
“Be fine in ten,” he said, glancing at Voss in her shorts as he passed.
“Ensign Voss, general inspections are, by design, unscheduled,” said the captain, sounding like an officious ass, he thought. But it was all a show for the chief. The big man passed out of sight and the captain relaxed.
“But I’m not here for inspections,” he said. “I wanted to give you something.”
She starts to step into the corridor, but he pointed inside.
“It’s kind of a mess,” she said.
“That’s okay.”
She stepped aside and he entered her quarters. It was a small cube, tight, but comfortable, with everything an enlisted person would need: in one corner a bed recessed into the wall, a vid screen laying on the table, another corner full of tools and half built engine components. He eyed the mess and she apologized. “The chief’s got me constantly working on something. He’s calls them projects.” They stood there for a moment just looking at each other, trying to think of something to say. Finally she saved them both. “Do you know the moment right before a Gunboat jumps, there’s that slight hesitation? You know?” she said.
“Yeah,” he says. “Calculation time.”
“No, that’s what everyone thinks. That’s old-school thinking.” And then she realized who she was talking to. “Begging your pardon, Sir.”
“Speak freely, Ensign Voss,” he said.
“Well, the old Fed frigates couldn’t jump out fast enough if they were attacked by a stronger force. So they’d launch out those old escape pods, you know, the ones with rudimentary flight controls.
But recent boats have faster computers. The calculations are made literally the moment the order comes in. So they are much better, but they’ve still got the hesitation. The hesitation is this.” She’s looking at him intently, holding a round ball of wires and logic chips. “Its the dampeners from the jump drives. They have to warm up. Chief says if we can remove that .5 second delay it may save lives in an emergency.” And she went on passionately for awhile about dampeners and he just stared at her, smooth skin and large, dark eyes. The curve of her neck. He wanted desperately to reach out and touch the side of her face. He imagined it. To hell with regulations. But then he realized she’d stopped talking.
“Captain?” He snapped out of it, but all he saw was her brown eyes.
“Yes, sorry, I was, uh…” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small box. “I heard you liked to read the old stuff. I wanted you to have it.”
She opened it and drew in a deep breath. “Is it?”
“Yes, it’s real paper. It’s Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast. He was an author long ago in Old Earth. The cover is torn off but the back has a nice picture of him in France. Just keep it in the stasis box and it will last. But when you read it you should hold it in your hands.”
“You mean, like, turn the pages, manually?”
“Yeah, it’s a wonderful, visceral experience.”
“Captain, I can’t take this. It’s got to be worth more than this boat.”
“Naw, I’d say, more than the shuttle, but not this ship.”
She reached out and touched his arm. “Thanks,” she said. “If someone asks, I’ll tell them my boyfriend on Markos sent it to me.”
“You have a boyfriend on Markos?” he said. Like a school boy, he thought.
“Yeah, and one each on Centauri IV and Plethos.”
“Oh,” he said, his head dropping just a bit. “Right, of course.” He turned abruptly to go, once again, the captain of a Federation gunboat. I shouldn’t have come, he thought.
The door slid open and he stepped back into the corridor.
“Captain,” she said, smiling. “I don’t have a boyfriend on Markos. Or anywhere.”
He perked up. “Can I see you again?”
“Sure, but what about regulations?”
“I’ll be checking on the progress of your dampener project.” He smiled.
“Of course. I look forward to it.” He started back down the corridor. “Captain,” she said. “If it’s not against regulations, in quarters, you can call me Jaylen.”
He awoke in the blackness to a rhythmic, steady sound that comforted him. The sound wasn’t mechanical--did not oscillate. It was organic. And then he realized the pod had gone quiet and he was listening to his own breathing.
Oh, shite, he thought, is the nav control slowing us down, or are we dead in the water? Computer, diagnostic! he commanded.
Functions beyond simple query logic unavailable, came the reply.
And then he felt his skin, still smooth, not tight and dry as if the life support functions had gone down. He rolled his tongue around in his mouth. Still moist. And he wasn’t cold, either. So he must still have power,
