Captain's Away! Chapter Nineteen
"Who's the Captain, Anyway?"
Captain’s Away! is a long form, weekly serial. New chapters come out every week (more or less). Comments and suggestions welcome as we go along.
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Previously in Captain’s Away!
Yolande and Bertrand Doucette are trapped in an emergency bunker floating aimlessly in space with thirty-four other survivors. Their son, Alain, is missing and presumed dead. An Akkadian military vessel has just rescued one of their fellow survivors, a corpsman named Javad, but has refused to remove anyone else from their floating tomb. They claim additional help is on its way. But power and oxygen is dwindling; it may not come in time.
Unaware of the fate of the rest of her family, as well as the circumstances that left her body comatose, Marie-Josée Doucette’s mind has awoken in another body on board a starship called the Beausoleil. There, a man named Commander Saito believes her to be his captain, Captain Jane Khiboda. Deeply concerned about his captain’s state of mind, Commander Saito has confined Marie-Josée to the captain’s cabin, where she has learned as much about Captain Khiboda as possible, with the intention of impersonating her.
And now, she’s just escaped confinement…
Chapter Nineteen
“Who’s the Captain, Anyway?”
Once she was out of sight of the captain’s cabin, Marie-Josée forced herself to slow to a walk. Instinct told her not to draw undue attention to herself. It should be perfectly normal for the captain to walk the passageways of her own ship. Calmly.
She began to pass crew. Once again brightly lit holograms briefly identified each of them. This would make it quite a bit easier to pass herself off as the captain. If only the holograms included biographical information too. Well, you couldn’t have everything. There were salutes and murmured “captains.” Marie-Josée didn’t know whether to salute back—didn’t even know how to execute a proper salute—so she settled for simply nodding curtly.
She was hoping to get lucky, to spot the device capable of transporting her back to her own body, this so-called Field. But she didn’t have a clue where the device was or what it looked like.
Glancing back, she spotted crew down the dimly lit passageway, just visible behind all the stacked shipping containers. One stepped out from behind the supplies. Ship’s security. Despite the poor lighting she could see that he was armed, though his weapon was holstered. He began walking briskly down the passageway toward her. The others followed. So much for the captain having the run of the ship.
Marie-Josée reached an intersection. She picked a direction at random. It quickly put her out of sight of her pursuers. She forced herself to walk at a normal pace, though every atom of her being screamed “run!” The passageway she had chosen led to the ship’s lift. Lights near the top indicated that the lift had detected her presence. Marie-Josée was afraid the ship would refuse to open the lift door, that the Beausoleil itself would play its part in containing her, but the door opened, and she got in.
“Take me all the way up,” she told the ship, thinking that she’d start from the top of the ship and work her way down.
“Certainly, captain,” the Beausoleil said.
Cooperation from the ship was a good sign. Marie-Josée was suspicious though. The ship could well be feigning cooperation. Still, the door to the lift closed before the security personnel reached her. There were only six upper decks and two below decks. The Beausoleil was not a big ship, it turned out. Marie-Josée was on L2, the second deck. A woman got in on L3. A hologram identified her as Sandy Le Grand, crewman third class.
“Captain. It’s good to see you back on your feet. How are you?”
“I’m fine, Crewman Le Grand,” Marie-Josée said gruffly. She had no choice in the matter—this body spoke either gruffly or not at all. “How are you?”
“I’m good, thanks.”
They lapsed into awkward silence. At least, it felt awkward to Marie-Josée. Fortunately, they did not ride far together. At L4, Le Grand nodded. “Well, we’ll see you.”
She got off and two more crew got on. Crewmen Bouchard and Robichaud, both Class C Maintenance Technologists. Marie-Josée regretted staying in the lift. The Beausoleil had likely informed security of her location. Saito would station guards outside the lift on each deck as soon as possible, if he hadn’t already. She needed to get out.
Bouchard and Robichaud were deep in some technical discussion that was way over Marie-Josée’s head. Either they didn’t register their captain’s presence or (more likely) simply didn’t care that she was there. They got off on L5. She exited on L6, which was as far as the lift went, rounded a corner, and stopped in her tracks. The lighting here was also dim but concealed nothing. Before her, perhaps forty metres distant, a giant observation window revealed a star field. Astronomically themed gear and equipment abounded. Five crew either stood or sat at workstations with heads up holographic displays. Marie-Josée recognized immediately that she was on the bridge. Could they not have labelled that in the lift?
A fusilier stood at attention before a couple of small steps leading up to the bridge proper. Corporal Hinks, according to the holographic display that appeared briefly over his head. Hinks registered surprise at seeing his captain but came to attention quickly. He did not move but his eyes never left Marie-Josée.
Marie-Josée quickly forgot about Hinks as the view through the observation window attracted her attention. She had seen something similar not that long ago, after the destruction of the Evangeline. A similar catastrophe had taken place here. From time to time an object touched the outermost edges of the Thornton Shields to vanish in a burst of colourful light.
“What’s all that?” she asked aloud, afraid of the answer.
The crew of the bridge turned to stare as one. Brief spirited muttering ensued. An older man—early thirties, maybe—stood up from his workstation. Sub-Lieutenant Raizada. He was rather dashing looking. Not Marie-Josée’s type, though: far too old and the wrong gender.
“Captain,” Raizada said. “We weren’t expecting you.”
Marie-Josée stepped forward. Corporal Hinks raised a hand.
“Keep your hands off me!” she spat.
A part of her was surprised at just how harsh that sounded coming out of the captain’s mouth. The rest of her remained fixated on the destruction outside the window. Hinks stepped back with his hands up and his palms facing outward.
“What is that?” she repeated.
“That would be the remains of the space station the Northumberland,” Raizada said.
Marie-Josée felt her hands ball up into fists. She was afraid she might burst into tears. “Survivors,” she managed to get out. “Were there any survivors?” Her parents? Alain? Herself?
“Yes,” Raizada said. “Many of the life pods got away. Most have already reached other stations. And there’s a group of survivors in an emergency bunker.”
Marie-Josée heard a stirring behind her. She didn’t look back.
“Captain.” It was Saito’s voice. “We have everything under control here. Would you like to come with me?”
“No, I would not.”
It was time to get into character, see how far she could take this. She leapt up the two steps onto the bridge, bumping the fusilier on the way. She hadn’t meant to—she was clumsy in this body. Hinks did not respond other than to step aside.
“What’s happening with the survivors?” she demanded. “The ones in the bunker?”
“We’ve notified Akkadian Central Command,” Raizada said. “They’re sending a ship.”
Central Command. Marie-Josée knew enough about the geography of Akkadian space to know that a ship could be days away. “How long?”
“Uh—” Raizada said.
Dashing but dumb, Marie-Josée decided.
Saito was beside her now. “They have enough supplies to last a while. Days, at least. As… our pilot says, we’ve alerted Central Command. Someone is coming for them.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
“When is soon?”
“There could be delays because of the war. But someone will be here for them in a few days.”
Days. Anything could happen between now and then. What if they ran out of air? Whether her parents (or even her own body) were among those survivors didn’t matter—something had to be done for them. Why hadn’t the Beausoleil taken them on board? Marie-Josée felt overwhelmed. She wasn’t the captain. Who was she to challenge these people? These adults? But something didn’t make sense. Could Central Command even get a ship here at all? What if the Realm destroyed any rescue ships?
“You have to get those people on board this ship,” she said.
Raizada looked uncomfortable.
“With all due respect, captain, you should be resting,” Saito said. “You’re still recovering from—”
Marie-Josée kept her voice cool and calm. “I’m fine, Sergeant.”
Raizada’s eyes widened. Someone coughed. Inwardly, Marie-Josée winced—although she didn’t know much about military rankings, she had certainly known Saito’s rank. She just hadn’t cared. She had been deliberately disrespectful. But she was supposed to be the captain now. The real captain, she was sure, would never have disrespected her staff deliberately—or forgotten anyone’s rank. She would have to do better than that.
She turned and addressed the fusilier. “Thank you. You can go.” When Corporal Hinks didn’t budge, she made a flapping “go away” motion with her hand. “Go on. Get out of here.”
Hinks looked uncertain. He looked from Marie-Josée to Saito to Marie-Josée again, then finally left.
“How soon can we get them?” Marie-Josée asked Saito. “The survivors. How soon?”
“Captain,” Saito said. “May I remind you. The mission.”
Mission? What mission? Marie-Josée couldn’t allow any doubt to show. But she couldn’t prevent emotion from showing. “Hundreds, thousands of people have died in the last few days because of the Realm. People I—” she swallowed. “Right now your mission—” she spat the word mission “—is to prevent any more people from dying. Okay?” There was probably a more authoritative way to say that sort of thing. She’d have to work on that.
“Captain,” Saito began—Marie-Josée had to hand it to him, he was persistent— “the Beausoleil doesn’t have room, the mission—”
Marie-Josée interrupted him. “Forget about your stupid mission! Who’s the captain here anyway?”
“You’re—I—” He shut his mouth, obviously swallowing what he’d been about to say. He looked down at the deck, then up again. Marie-Josée could tell that the next words out of his mouth tasted sour. It had been a risk—they had mutually agreed that she’d been relieved of command, after all.
“All right,” he barked to the bridge. “Get them. We’ll figure out the details later.”
Marie-Josée allowed herself to relax, just a bit.
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This has been an installment of the ongoing serial Captain’s Away! A Strange Dimensions book.
Also by Joe Mahoney: A Time and a Place
An unlikely hero travels to other worlds and times to save a boy who does not want to be saved in this unique and imaginative adventure, by turns comic and tragic.
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