Ships of My Fathers Page 17
The couple broke their kiss and looked at them. The woman, presumably Vera, smiled at Fini. “Looks like you got yourself a nice one, girl, but I’m going to stick with my captain.”
The man nodded. “Jimmy Anders,” he said, reaching for his drink on the table.
“Michael Fletcher,” he replied.
The man paused, his hand hovering over his drink. “Fletcher… wait, are you by any chance Malcolm’s boy?”
He felt his shoulders sag, but he nodded. “Yeah, I am.”
The man bounded up from his seat, wiped his hand on his uniform and stuck it out towards Michael. “Damn glad to meet you, son. Your dad and I go way back.”
Two men sat at a table. They were early for the meeting as was their custom. The younger one wore a mischievous grin.
“What have you got?” the older one asked.
“A records request for our old privateer program.”
“And why are you bothering with it?”
“I had some of the records flagged. This request is of particular interest.”
The older one paused, and then a smile crept across his face as well. “Fletcher?”
“You were right, Admiral. His boy Michael requested his war records, with a specific request for all data on one particular battle.”
“Second battle of Tanaris?”
“No, some little border incident.”
“Why? I mean, what was special about it?”
“Well, it turns out the boy isn’t Fletcher’s. His parents were S&W employees with family connections, and their ship was destroyed in the incident. It’s not clear how the kid ended up with Fletcher, but according to the synopsis Fletcher was there at the battle.”
The older man chewed it over for a moment. “Interesting. Maybe it is time to talk to the boy. Is he still out on the border?”
“No, he’s on an S&W ship now, the Heavy Heinrich. Actually, they passed through here three weeks ago.”
The Admiral stroked his beard. “Ok, go pull the records, especially for that ‘little border incident.’ I want to see them after lunch. There may be more going on here than it looks like.”
“And the boy?”
“Don’t pack your bags yet, but start checking Heinrich’s route and look for a courier run you can hitch a ride on. If this is some mess left over from the old program, I think we owe it to Fletcher to pull the boy in.”
“I’ll get on it right after the meeting.”
“No, Commander, skip this. Get going on this Fletcher thing now.”
“Aye, sir.”
Michael and Anders sat in the front room of the suite, drinking coffee. Michael had still not acquired the taste for it, but Captain Anders was an old comrade of Malcolm’s, and he did not want to look like a little boy. At least this brew was not as harsh as what he was typically offered.
“Kaiser’s Folly,” Anders repeated, chewing it over. “No, I don’t remember it. What’s it to you?”
“My mother died on it,” Michael replied. He did not want to get into the whole adoption thing with Anders, especially not with Fini and Vera still asleep in the other rooms. “The old Hammerhead was there when it happened. I’m trying to get the details.”
“Details? Like who killed her?”
He nodded. “Something like that. I put in a records request to the Navy, but I don’t know if they’ve got any more than I do.”
“Well, I’ll tell you who would know, and that’s Malcolm.”
“Yeah, but he’s not here to ask.”
“No, but you’ve still got his files back on Sophie, right?”
“I suppose,” he replied. “But he was on the Hammerhead during the war. I don’t know if he would have kept them.”
“Of course he would,” Anders replied. “Your dad was a data hoarder. I do salvage, you see. That’s one of the ways he and I did business. I recover cargo and parts from old vessels, some of them dating back to the war. Your dad was able to point me to a few of the older ones, and whenever I found one of my own, he always bugged me to get a copy of their data. A man who wants that much old data never throws any of it away. I’d bet you a container of gold that he’s got the full record of every shot he fired on the Hammerhead, all tucked away somewhere in Sophie’s memory.”
“You really think so?”
“Damn straight. It’s a shame though. I bet he’s got a few old salvages set aside that he never told me about. When you get back to Sophie, I do hope you’ll let me know if you find any in there.”
Michael thought about it. There was no harm in it, after all. These were ships that had been long dead for years. “Sure, as soon as I get back.”
“And when will that be? I mean, you’ll be of age pretty soon, right?”
He did the math. It had been four months since Malcolm’s death, or was it five? He would turn eighteen in January. If the Heinrich kept to her schedule, they would be somewhere in the Gemini Basin by then, almost on the other side of the Confederacy. “Yeah, I guess it is only a few months now.”
“Are you going to head back soon?”
He sat back and found he had no answer. He had not thought seriously about the travel schedule since the day Hans had retrieved him. He was stuck on the Heinrich for the time being, and they were hardly going to run him back to Taschin on his birthday. He knew they would circle back through this sector later, but by then it would be May or June, with Sophie accruing docking charges the whole time.
“I’d like to, I suppose,” he said. “But I don’t see how I can book passage on my own until January. My… my captain isn’t likely to let me out of his sight.”
Anders looked around and shrugged. “He doesn’t seem to be watching now.”
“I can’t jump ship.”
Anders dismissed it with a wave of his hands. “All I’m saying is that Malcolm had a lot of friends, and it wouldn’t be that hard to find one heading back to Taschin. Heck, I’d take you even if I had to change my route.”
Michael considered it. It was tempting, but it was not a decision he was going to make while sitting in a station hotel room, wearing a borrowed bathrobe. Still, he realized he did need to start planning his return to Taschin, and the sooner the better. “Well, I can’t do it right now, but you’ve made a good point. I’ll definitely be thinking about it.”
Anders nodded. “Well, I’m off to Latera the day after tomorrow. Call my ship if you change your mind.”
“Latera? We’re headed there, too.”
Anders raised his coffee mug to Michael. “Well then, I’ll extend my offer by a week. Find me at Latera if you’re interested.”
“Thank you, Captain Anders, I may just do that.”
“No more Captain for you, Michael. Call me Jimmy.”
Gabrielle pushed the eggs around her plate. The blue Captains’ Guild logo repeated itself around the edgework of the china. Across from her, Hans scanned over a few documents next to his plate.
“I guess neither of us is particularly good company this morning,” he said.
She sighed. “I guess not.”
Hans set the papers down. “Am I keeping you from something?”
“No, I don’t have any friends in port this trip, so I’m playing the tourist.”
“You could volunteer for a few dock watches, you know. Maybe let Miss Schwartz or Mr. Brookstone have some extra time off.”
She grinned. “No, not Walter. He’s in trouble with the XO.”
“Again? What for?”
“Are you sure you want to know?”
Hans grumbled. “I suppose not, but I swear if that young man doesn’t clean up his act, Felicia is going to bounce his ass out the airlock.”
At least that got a smile out of her.
Hans glanced back at his papers. “So why aren’t you out with another crewmate? I hear Harry’s a riot at port.”
“She’s almost twice my age, Dad.”
Hans shook his head. “Nothing wrong with that in my book, but by the fact that you’re even
awake at this hour tells me you haven’t been out carousing with Mr. Norris.”
“Dad, I am not sleeping with Jake. I don’t do that with crew.”
“I didn’t say you were, but the rumor is that you two have a wingman routine that rarely leaves either of you in your own beds.”
“Dad!”
He held up his hands. “Not judging, though if your mother found out about it...”
“She’s not going to. She’s too busy pestering Alicia. Besides, Jake’s parents are in port, so he’s off being the good son.”
“Then what about Michael?”
Gabrielle crossed her arms. “Do you not enjoy our breakfasts anymore?”
Hans started to answer, paused, and let out a deep sigh. “Of course I do, but they’re not as nice when you’re so sour. Is something wrong? Do I need to be dear old Dad instead of Captain Schneider?”
“No, Dad, it’s nothing.”
“Then if you’re playing tourist, why aren’t you doing it with Michael? He’s still new to the crew. He could use some company.”
She started poking at her eggs again. “Michael and I had something of an argument.”
“Oh?”
She looked up at him, and could see that she was not going to get away with only that. “It was about Malcolm Fletcher.”
“And?”
She shook her head but plunged in anyway. “I’ve been asking some questions at the last few ports. I wanted to find out the truth about him.”
“And you didn’t believe me?”
“I wanted you to be wrong... you know, just to be wrong for once in your life.”
Hans slumped a bit. “I’m sorry, Gaby. From the look on your face I’m guessing I wasn’t.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t look like it. And when I told Michael, he got all upset and—”
“You told him?”
She shrugged. “I guess. It started off innocent enough, but then he got all defensive, and one thing led to another. I said something awful, and... we haven’t talked much since.”
Hans sat silently for a moment. “Gabrielle, it’s easy for me to lose my temper over this because Peter was my little brother, the kid I was supposed to be looking out for, and the loss of him... well, I’m never going to be over it. Never. But Peter was just a distant uncle to you, and now Michael is here, and he needs family. He needs you.”
“But Dad, if Malcolm was—”
“As reckless and evil as I think he was?” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter how bad Malcolm was. It doesn’t even matter how much Michael defends him. Malcolm Fletcher’s crimes aren’t Michael’s. You can’t...” He trailed off with a sigh. “We can’t keep blaming Michael for something he didn’t do.”
Gabrielle nodded, lifted her fork one more time, but ultimately pushed her plate away. “Okay, but I don’t know how to fix it.”
“With time,” Hans replied. “We’ll have a long layover at Callista Prime in a few months. We can go down to the old family homestead, maybe get some of Peter’s things out of storage, and let Michael take in what he can.”
“Do you think that will really work?”
He shrugged. “It’s the best we can do.”
Fini came out of her room, dressed and ready to go. Anders was still in his bathrobe, leering at Vera, but she kept her distance at the other end of the sofa. “You both did very well,” Anders told them.
“It was easy enough,” she said. “How about you, Vera?”
“I just want to get paid,” Vera replied.
Anders pulled a money clip from the pocket of his robe and started peeling off crisp hundred notes. “Seven hundred a piece,” he said, counting it out. “And that’s on top of the three hundred I gave you yesterday.”
Vera reached forward and grabbed at her pile without a word. Fini took hers and counted it out slowly. “So, Captain Anders, why the ruse? I mean, you knew his dad, right?”
“I had my reasons, and you’ve got your money.”
She nodded and tucked the bills into her shirt. It was never comfortable to do that, but she always liked the look she saw on the johns when she did it. “And I do thank you for it, but I’m curious about why it was so important the he find you rather than you finding him. It seems simple enough. ‘Hi, I knew your dad.’ Why not?”
Anders took a step towards her. She had forgotten how tall he was. “You know, you ask a lot of questions for someone who wouldn’t be missed.”
Vera was already at the door. “Drop it, Fini. Let’s go.”
“Listen to your friend, little girl. You don’t want to remember me any more than you want me to remember you. Understood?”
She backed away towards the door. “I’m sorry. I don’t need to know anything, just um… thanks for the cash.”
She followed Vera out the door and made sure it closed behind her before she ran.
Michael lay on his back with Karen’s body pressed up against him, sweaty skin to sweaty skin. It was an act of both intimacy and necessity. In his narrow bed on the Heinrich, there was room for little else. They still did not have much time together in their second shift window, but at least they had been making good use of it, four times since they left Folsom.
She traced patterns on his chest with her fingernail. It was a delicious balance between tickling and hurting. “I want to do something nice when we get to Latera,” she said.
“It’s ok,” he replied. “You don’t have to make special plans for me.”
“No, I really want to this time. It’s a long layover, and we can get permission to go groundside. There’s a string of resort islands near the equator, a couple hours flight from the main spaceport. We could get a little bungalow, sit out on the beach... go diving even.”
“Sounds fun,” he said, “but I hate to see you go to all that trouble.”
She shifted to look up at him. “I want to make a memory with you, Michael, because it’s going to be the last time for a while.”
“Last time?” he asked. He shifted to look back at her, but as soon as their eyes met, she looked away.
“I’m transferring,” she said. “There’s an opening on the Sailing Siegfried, and I’m taking it.”
“Wait, transfer?” He found himself backing away, which did not amount to much in their confined space, but she retreated as well.
“It’s for a department lead. It’s a smaller ship, but it’s a promotion. I’ve got the rating, so it’s the right step for me.”
“But why didn’t you tell me?”
She shrugged, but he could still see some guilt in her face. “I didn’t know until now. I applied for it before you even came on board. Charlie’s a great department lead and everything, but I was going out of my mind sitting that third shift by myself. I did the paperwork as soon as I qualified for the rating, but I didn’t hear back about anything until we reached Folsom station.”
“And now?”
“It’s too good to pass up,” she said. “It may not mean as much to you with your family connections, but this is an officer position. I can start making some real money there, a higher cap on ship shares, the whole deal. Here I’m always going to be third shift watch.”
“And me? Us?”
She reached out to put a hand on his shoulder, but he rolled back in reaction. “Michael, look this isn’t about you. This is about my career. You’ve been on ships your whole life, so you should know that. Crew come and go. Let’s enjoy the time we have left and hope to cross paths again.”
He fought against the truth, but deep down he knew she was right. He had lost count of how many crew had come and gone from Malcolm’s ships over the years. There had been Geoffrey who had taught him to move in zero gravity, Susan of the long black hair who had been his first crush, Nel who had let him sit on her lap for his first engineering watch, and countless others. “I guess I wasn’t expecting it here,” he admitted.
She reached tentatively for him again, and he met her hand with his. “I’m sorry, Michael, it’s
what I have to do.”
“And Latera?”
“I have a layover of three weeks before the Siegfried arrives. You’ll have six days before the Heinrich pulls out. I’m sure there will be some kind of farewell party when we reach port, but if we leave that night, we can still have four or five days before you have to return for duty.”
He sighed and pulled her closer. “Okay, so let’s make good use of our time. You still have an hour before you have to get ready for your shift.”
She let a grin crawl across her face. “If only I had your energy, Michael, third shift wouldn’t seem so long.”
“My Lady?” Bishop asked as he entered the office.
Elsa Watkins sat behind the desk. “Have a seat.” Ideally, she would have had this conversation back aboard the Blue Jaguar, but this office on Latera station was about as secure as she could make it.
She poured two small glasses of wine. “You’re to be commended, Mr. Bishop.”
Bishop eyed the glass but did not reach for it. “And why is that?”
She shook her head and smiled. “You were right about that cargo,” she said, taking a sip for herself.
He reached out and took the glass, sniffing at it but not yet drinking. “The valuable cargo?”
“Yes. We’ve been instructed to divert to Arvin to pick it up.”
Bishop took a sip, swirled the glass around, and then set it back on the desk. “I appreciate the sentiment, Captain, but I believe I will refrain from any celebrations until we have delivered the cargo.”
She sighed and set her own glass back on the desk. “Fair enough, Mr. Bishop.” She knew she had been premature. She simply felt like enjoying the good news, and Bishop was the only person she could enjoy it with. But Bishop was right, and that was one more reason she was going to recommend him to Father Chessman.
“Will we be stepping up our departure?”
She shook her head. “The pickup window doesn’t even open until the seventeenth, and I’m inclined to hang out here for another few days if feasible.”
Bishop cocked an eyebrow. “Anders and the boy?”