Voyage of the Wanderlust, page 2
“How small?” Lt. Cmdr. Vossie asked, always one to pin down exact numbers.
“She can be run by a crew of six in a pinch, but she’s designed for a crew of twelve to eighteen.” Captain Bataille stopped walking and gestured at an open airlock with one of his large paws.
Through the airlock doors, Carroway could see the central hall of a standard-design TGN ship. No clues about the ship’s capabilities could be seen here, just closets for spacesuits, maintenance tools, and other supplies kept near an airlock.
A head popped out of a door farther down the hall—the head of a short, very pretty dog, approximately the same size as Lt. Cmdr. Vossie. The orange fur on the pretty dog’s ears was so long and draping, it made his face almost look like a butterfly with the white sploosh down his pointed nose serving as the butterfly’s body. Carroway recognized his breed immediately as Papillon.
“Captain Bataille!” the Papillon squeaked, clearly surprised by the group’s arrival. “I wasn’t expecting you for another hour.”
“I’m sure the ship’s fine, Ensign Lee,” Captain Bataille woofed. Turning back to Carroway and Vossie, the German shepherd added, “This is Ensign Barry Lee, one of Nexus Nine Base’s finest. We’ll be sorry to see him go.”
“You’re part of my new crew, Ensign Lee?” Carroway asked, trying to strike the right note between coldly commanding and warmly welcoming. She didn’t want to let any members of her new crew get the wrong idea about her being too soft. She didn’t need them arguing with her about whether they needed to follow the orders of a cat. On the other paw, this pipsqueak of a dog didn’t look too intimidating, and she did want to be on good terms with her crew. A ship works better when the whole crew gets along.
“Yes, captain!” Ensign Lee yipped while executing a smart salute with his paw. “I’ve been working with the engineering team on Nexus Nine Base for the last few months, retrofitting The Wanderlust for her upcoming mission. I know this ship inside and out, and while she’s an older model, we’ve spiffed her up good as new. Better than new!”
With a sinking feeling, Carroway realized that The Wanderlust must indeed be the heavily armed ship Vossie had pointed out to her during their approach. The ship’s name might carry connotations of peaceful, meandering missions of first contact, science, and diplomacy... but it was an old name. The blazor canons and electron torpedoes? Those would be the retrofits. She was sure of it. She’d distinguished herself during war; she was being given command of a war vessel. She feared learning what their first mission would be.
The Tri-Galactic Union wasn’t at war with anyone right now. Except for the Archidopteran skirmishes over a year ago, the TGU hadn’t been at war for a long time. But there are always dangerous patches of space—places where you can’t trust your allies not to turn on you or aggressive newcomers to arrive. Like the Archidopterans. Carroway shuddered at the memory of fighting those insectile aliens, whose queen had been intent on conquest. Similarly, until quite recently, the Reptassans had been at war with Avia, the planet orbited by Nexus Nine Base. Even if the Tri-Galactic Union hadn’t officially been involved in that conflict, there had been plenty of room for dangerous missions and the loss of life.
Captain Carroway had no interest in taking lives, but sometimes, it was necessary when another military attacked a peaceful target. She had never meant to become a war captain during a time of peace, but it looked like that was what the Tri-Galactic Union was going to want from her.
Ensign Barry Lee led Captain Carroway and Lt. Cmdr. Vossie through The Wanderlust, from stem to stern, an extremely thorough tour. The ship had two barracks rooms, each capable of housing a half dozen officers comfortably. There were individual quarters for both the captain and the first officer—meaning Carroway and Vossie—which were equipped to be shared with an additional two officers, in the case where the ship took on a fuller complement. According to Ensign Lee, the ship had only been assigned six officers so far, including himself, Vossie, and Carroway. An extremely minimal crew. A fact that should have seemed reasonable—why not leave room for the new captain to pick a few officers of her own?—but somehow set off alarm bells between Carroway’s fluffy ears.
In addition to the barracks and quarters, there was a small multi-purpose room with a synthesizer where officers could eat and do minimal exercise, and of course, there was the engine room.
The tour of The Wanderlust ended on the small ship’s bridge where Captain Carroway reverently walked a circle around her new captain’s chair, right in the middle where she could keep an eye on all the other officers who would serve in this room. Serve under her. Serve her.
It wasn’t a ceremony where her previous captain and crewmates celebrated her excellence, saying nice things about her and her accomplishments, and ending with the ritual addition of a captain’s rank pin to her collar. She’d have to synthesize one and add it to her collar herself, later...
But sitting down in her own captain’s chair for the first time... It did feel like an accomplishment. Even if everything had been done wrong, in ways specifically designed to hurt her, and it was the wrong kind of ship... It was still her ship.
As soon as Captain Carroway’s fluffy tail curled around her seated self, fluffy tip landing on her lap, all twitchy, Lt. Cmdr. Vossie whispered, “Congratulations, Captain. You deserve it.”
Captain Carroway smiled fiercely, pointy fangs peeking out and whiskers rising. It felt good to be a captain.
Carroway’s previous captain may have given her criminally negligent orders, tried to court martial her for disobeying them, and then spent more than a year punishing her for being better at his job than he’d been. But that buffoon of a dog still hadn’t stopped her from earning her own captain’s chair.
“How’s it feel?” Captain Bataille barked from behind her. “I know my first captain’s chair felt like...” He paused, stepping around to where he could make eye contact with the newly minted Norwegian Forest cat captain. “...like I was finally home, and I’d been searching for home for a long time.”
Captain Carroway’s smile softened, becoming no less real, but less savage, and her green eyes glazed, like she was looking at herself from a distance in her mind’s eye.
“Yes,” Carroway agreed. “That’s exactly what it feels like.” Though, she thought, it would feel even more that way if another captain—a dog, no less—weren’t standing on her bridge, waiting to brief her on the orders for her ship’s first mission. No worries. Captain Bataille wouldn’t be on her ship much longer, and whatever horrible mission the Tri-Galactic Union had planned for this overclocked warship, she’d find a way to make the best of it. She’d have Vossie at her side, and they’d pick a few more officers they could really rely on. It would work out. She’d prove herself, and she’d get better missions after this one. Maybe even—one day—a better ship. But this would do, for a start.
CHAPTER 3
THE UNSAVORY NATURE OF THE MISSION
Captain Shep Bataille whirled around the pilot’s seat at the front of the bridge and sat down, his brush of a tail still wagging behind him. His positive demeanor made Captain Carroway almost hopeful about the nature of the mission he was about to assign her. But deep inside, a quiet nagging part of herself knew better: he was a dog. He’d have looked at the bright, optimistic side of even the worst situations.
“I bet you’re ready to hear about your mission,” Captain Bataille barked.
“Yes, I am,” Carroway answered, tail tip twitching uncontrollably in her lap. She swished her tail around behind herself where the twitching would be less obvious.
Lt. Cmdr. Vossie took a seat at one of the scanning posts to the side of the bridge where he could listen. His long ears were standing tall, but his bunny nose was twitching about as furiously as Captain Carroway’s tail tip.
Ensign Lee was still standing, looking a little awkward, paws shuffling like he wasn’t sure what to do. Captain Carroway was about to invite the Papillon to take a seat next to Vossie at one of the scanning stations, but Captain Bataille beat her to the punch.
“Alright, then,” Bataille barked. “First thing’s first. Ensign Lee, you’re dismissed.”
Carroway’s nose wrinkled, and she felt twitches crawling all over her back, rankling her with the impudence of this dog who thought he could order around her officers on her own ship. Sure, it had only been her ship for about twenty minutes, and she’d only just met Barry Lee... But was she captain, or wasn’t she? Maybe things would never change, even if she did have a senior rank.
Ensign Lee saluted smartly, his delicate paw briefly touching the tip of one of his butterfly-wing ears. Then he scurried off the bridge.
“I thought Ensign Lee was one of my officers,” Carroway hissed sharply between her fierce fangs.
“He will be,” Bataille answered smoothly, unbothered by the angry Norwegian Forest cat glaring at him with green eyes as sharp as broken glass. “Technically, though, while this ship was yours from the moment you stepped paw aboard it, Ensign Lee and the other crew members you’ll be taking from here don’t transfer from their posts on Nexus Nine Base to The Wanderlust until the beginning of first shift tomorrow.”
This news soothed Captain Carroway’s raging heart some. The German Shepherd wasn’t slighting her or impugning her rank. He was simply following protocol to a strict degree. Honestly, if her previous canine captain had been so precise, she would have liked him better. It also would have stopped him from messing with her nearly as much.
“Tell me about the mission,” Captain Carroway meowed, trying to make her voice as pretty and palatable as possible. As if that had any chance of changing what mission this dog had already been told to assign her. It didn’t. But she couldn’t repress the urge to act placating to him in that moment anyway.
“You’re familiar with the Reptassan situation in this arm of the galaxy, yes?” Captain Bataille asked.
Both Norwegian Forest cat and Morphican cyborg nodded.
“It’s a bad situation,” Bataille woofed, a grimace crossing his long muzzle.
The Reptassans, a spacefaring species of cold-blooded reptilian aliens, had occupied several less technologically developed worlds in their region of space for years, oppressing those planets’ native peoples, including the deeply religious, bird-like Aviorans whose world Nexus Nine Base orbited. Both Carroway and Vossie had known about that. But neither of them had heard about the wolf-like Lupinians whose world orbited a neighboring star until Captain Bataille filled them in now. The Lupinians’ world had fallen into a region of contested space until recently when the Tri-Galactic Union had signed that space over to the Reptassans as part of a highly politically charged peace treaty.
The Tri-Galactic Union had offered to help any individuals living on Lupinia—which included the native wolf-like Lupinians, a colony of Arborealist squirrel settlers, and even a splinter colony of Aviorans—to a new world safely within the limits of union space, if they wished.
Very few of the people living on Lupinia had wished to leave the world they were living on. The world they knew as their home. A world that now legally belonged to the Reptassans who also had a colony there.
According to the Tri-Galactic Union and the Reptassan government, Lupinia was a world whose situation was peacefully, legally, and bindingly settled. According to the mishmash of colonies living there, it was a world at war. By and large, the colonists themselves weren’t fighting. They were living their lives, but under the constant threat of attack from Reptassan retaliation against an illegal group of freedom-fighters who called themselves Anti-Ra, short for anti-Reptassan.
“So, we’re dealing with illegal freedom fighters,” Captain Carroway mused.
“Freedom fighters who deeply believe in their cause,” Lt. Cmdr. Vossie added, pensively.
“Yes,” Captain Bataille agreed. “They believe they’re defending their homes. Except...”
“It’s not their home anymore.” Captain Carroway’s tail lashed behind her.
“I mean, it is,” Captain Bataille corrected. “If they want it to be. They just have to live under Reptassan rule.”
“Not the easiest stricture,” Lt. Cmdr. Vossie said drily. “From what I’ve heard.”
“No,” Captain Bataille agreed. “My first officer is an Avioran. She grew up under Reptassan occupation of her world, and she has a lot of sympathy for the Anti-Ra. Regardless, we can’t let them threaten the peace between us and the Reptassans.”
Captain Carroway drew a deep breath between her fangs. “So, what is The Wanderlust supposed to do about all this?”
“There’s a small, dense nebula near Lupinia. It’s called the Dirt Cloud, because it’s such a mess to fly through. The Anti-Ra forces have been hiding out there. We need you to fly The Wanderlust all the way to the white dwarf star in its center—you can barely even see that there is a star in its center from outside—and use a vacuum bomb to ignite the white dwarf.”
Lt. Cmdr. Vossie blinked. On him, that was an expression of absolute shock. “A vacuum bomb?” he asked.
“Yes,” Captain Bataille agreed, grimly. “It’s already loaded into The Wanderlust’s canons.”
“Those are extremely rare,” Captain Carroway said, slowly, measuring out the words. “Highly regulated.”
“Into a white dwarf?” Vossie continued.
“Yes,” Captain Bataille agreed again.
“Inside a super dense nebula?” Vossie pressed.
“Yes. Is there a problem?” Bataille asked, his muzzle twisted into an expression of confusion.
“No,” Vossie said, firmly. His nose had stopped twitching, and somehow, that was much more disturbing to Carroway than when it had been keeping pace with her nervous, restless tail tip. “I’m just making sure I understand the mission properly.”
“Well, it sounds like you do.” Captain Bataille grinned wolfishly. It wasn’t that he looked predatory, just that his face had a wolfish shape to it. He looked happy. He’d done a good job of briefing the new captain and her first officer on their upcoming mission.
He didn’t seem to have seen beneath the surface of that mission. He was a dog, and he tended to take things at face value, like most dogs did. But Captain Carroway could see the gears turning in her Morphican compatriot’s head. Not literally. Though, sometimes, the little lights on the computer implant in his brow flickered in a way that suggested to her that it was processing data. Those lights had been flickering a lot during this conversation.
“Captain,” Lt. Cmdr. Vossie said, speaking directly to Carroway, bypassing the German Shepherd entirely. “I’d like to suggest that you request Timothy Melbourne be added to The Wanderlust’s crew as our main pilot.”
“Done,” Captain Carroway said without hesitation. She could ask the Morphican about what he was up to later. She trusted his judgment implicitly; a request from him was enough for her to take immediate action, even if the name Timothy Melbourne only rang the weakest of bells in her brain. “Captain Bataille, you heard my first officer.”
“Yes... I did...” Captain Bataille equivocated, looking oddly nervous for such a big dog in such a safe position. “Isn’t Timothy Melbourne the cat who was stripped of his rank and arrested for—”
“Yes,” Vossie agreed, pleasantly, not waiting for the end of Bataille’s sentence. “We need him. He’s the best pilot in the union.”
“Well...” Captain Bataille frowned. “I can put in a request to my higher ups, but it’s really not my decision. He’s still in jail, serving his sentence on that penal asteroid.”
“Yes, please, do put in a request,” Captain Carroway said. “That’s all I’m asking.”
“Very well,” Captain Bataille agreed, looking placated. The question would be out of his paws, so he didn’t need to worry any more about it. “Then I guess we’re done here. Unless there’s anything else you need?”
Captain Carroway gazed levelly at her Morphican first officer, watching the flickering lights on his computer implant settle down to steady green before answering the dog. “No, I think we’re good, Captain Bataille.”
“Excellent!” Captain Bataille stood up, straightened his uniform and said, “You’re both welcome to enjoy the amenities on my station until The Wanderlust is prepared to embark. The rest of your crew will report to you, here, first thing tomorrow. You’re welcome to review their manifests, and if you’d like to request any changes or any additional officers be added to your crew, I’ll review those requests immediately. As I understand it, this mission is of the utmost importance, so I expect you’ll want to get underway as soon as possible.”
“I suppose we will,” Lt. Cmdr. Vossie said with such an acerbic tone that it brought both captains to a stop.
After an awkward moment, Captain Bataille barked a laugh. “You’re a funny one, Lt. Cmdr. Vossie.”
The very tip of Vossie’s left ear twitched, giving him a skewed, skeptical look. “Morphicans are not usually known for their humor,” he said. The acid hadn’t left his voice, but it had curdled, turning flat and toneless.
“Thank you, Captain,” Carroway said to the hesitating German Shepherd, hoping it would hurry him on his way, so she could talk to her first officer in private. She wanted to know what was bothering him so badly. The mission hadn’t sounded too bad to her, but she was clearly missing something. “I think we have all that we need for now.”
Placated, Captain Bataille took his leave, and as soon as he was gone, Carroway turned to Vossie, green eyes asking him to spell out what he’d seen without any need for her to say the actual words.
Vossie watched the hall leading to the bridge for several beats longer than Carroway felt was strictly necessary. However, his long ears could hear Captain Bataille’s canine tread walking down the hall, and he waited until the German Shepherd was all the way off their ship before speaking.
When Lt. Cmdr. Vossie finally spoke, his captain felt like her feline patience had been stretched well beyond its natural limit. The Morphican said, “It’s a suicide mission.”
