Captain's Away! Chapter Twenty
"Crazy"
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.
After escaping her confinement, seeking the tool capable of returning her to her own body, Marie-Josée finds herself on the bridge. There she sees the aftermath of the destruction of the space station Northumberland, including the emergency bunker floating in space. Assuming the role of Captain Khiboda, she orders the refugees rescued.
Chapter Twenty
“Crazy”
Saito deliberately avoided the captain after the confrontation on the bridge. Attempting to deal with her while he was essentially apoplectic would not have been a good idea. He needed her. But, dammit, he needed her well. Not like this.
Unable to concentrate on anything else, he visited the ship’s gym and forced himself through a vigorous cardio workout. Saito didn’t enjoy exercise, but he valued physical fitness. He was disciplined enough to make it a regular part of his life. He did enjoy how it enabled his mind to run free. He used the time now to evaluate his predicament. The captain was no longer fit to lead the mission. But it would be difficult—if not impossible—to complete the mission without her. He considered (not for the first time) contacting Fleet Captain Desjardins. But he already knew what Desjardins would tell him: figure it out. Carry out the mission, no matter the obstacles, no matter the captain’s condition.
He felt calmer after his workout. At least, sufficiently in control to grab a bite to eat and then visit the captain.
“I see that I’m not your prisoner anymore,” she said, after the Beausoleil let him into her cabin.
Saito thought she sounded sulky. He had never heard the captain sound that way. It was deeply unsettling. “We did that for your own protection.”
They sat at the table in the tiny eating nook.
“Are the survivors on board yet?” she asked.
“The transfer should be in progress soon. We still have to figure out where to put them. We have no available living quarters.”
The captain got to her feet though she’d just sat down. Saito could see that she was even more agitated than she’d been earlier. He resolved to tread carefully.
“My—” She bit back what she’d been about to say. “I need to know—who—”
Saito got it. “Ship. Do we have the names of the survivors in the Northumberland’s emergency bunker yet?”
The Beausoleil’s avatar appeared before them. “We do.” It began reciting names. When it got to Bertrand, Yolande, and Marie-Josée Doucette, the captain made a small noise and sat back down. She had just spent a month posing as the Doucette’s daughter—of course she would be relieved to hear that they’d survived.
When the ship stopped talking, the captain asked, “Is that it?”
“That’s it,” the Beausoleil said.
“What about Alain Doucette?”
“Alain Doucette is not listed among the survivors in the emergency bunker. I’m sorry, Captain.”
“Oh no,” the captain said. “I—”
It was all she could get out. Saito sat motionless while she composed herself. He had never seen the captain cry before. Heck, he had rarely seen her express emotion of any sort. What the devil was the matter with her? Saito had researched the Doucettes. He knew who Alain was. Could the captain have become that close to these people in a month? Or was it just the idea of the boy’s death?
“Many others escaped in the Northumberland’s life pods,” the Beausoleil added. “I don’t suppose you’d like me to list those.”
“Is Alain Doucette one of them?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Then no, thank you.” The captain wiped her eyes. Her gaze settled on Saito. “What?”
Saito regarded her questioningly.
“You’re going to yell at me for what I did on the bridge. Go ahead. Get it over with. Say what you have to say.”
Saito shifted in his seat. “I’m not going to yell at you. You’re the captain. If anyone is going to do any yelling around here, it’s you.”
She looked relieved. “Okay. Good.”
“That’s not to say that taking the survivors on isn’t going to cause problems for us,” he added.
For one thing, they did not carry infinite supplies. And there were questions around safety. A ship like the Beausoleil could be a dangerous environment for someone who didn’t know their way around. Taking on the survivors meant children and babies on board. To top it all off, there was the Beausoleil’s mission, its ultimate destination. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
“Leaving them where they were would cause serious problems for them,” the captain said heatedly. “Don’t you think?”
Saito refused to take the bait. “There’s something else we need to discuss.”
She looked suspicious. “What?”
“Your future. The future of this ship and everybody in it. Maybe even the future of Akkadia.”
“What about it?”
Saito’s heart sank. That tone again. “I’m going to be frank. I don’t understand what’s happened to you.”
“That makes two of us.”
“You told me you thought you were a seventeen-year old girl.”
The captain laughed. It made Saito’s blood run cold, that laugh. Sometimes the captain smiled. Once he’d heard her chuckle. She never laughed. The laugh faded away, leaving behind a haunted expression. “Crazy, right? I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Do you still think you’re seventeen?”
“No. That would be silly.”
“If I may say so, you still don’t seem quite yourself.”
Now her expression was guarded. “How don’t I seem like me?”
“You don’t talk the same, for one thing. Now that Doc’s back, we could have him look at you. Do those tests I mentioned before.”
“Mm hm.”
“Captain, forgive me, but I need to ask. How are you? Really?”
She had trouble meeting his eyes. “I didn’t want to say anything, but—ever since I’ve been back there’s been something wrong with my memory. Certain things I don’t remember.”
She looked genuinely distraught. Saito almost took pity on her. Almost. He couldn’t afford to do that. There was too much at stake. He needed her sane and he needed her strong. He wasn’t going to get sane—that much was clear—but maybe she could do strong. He had seen her on the bridge. She could be strong.
“You think I’m crazy,” she said.
“You’re definitely crazy,” Saito said.
She looked even more upset.
Filters. He needed to remember filters.
But she was crazy. She didn’t fool him. Despite her efforts to convince him otherwise, Saito knew full well that the captain still believed she was a teenaged girl. She was just shrewd enough to know that it was not in her best interest to insist on it. Within her delusion lurked sanity. This, along with the qualities she had exhibited on the bridge, suggested a vestigial functionality. Saito had no choice but to work with that. “What all don’t you remember?”
She stared at him, probably trying to decide whether to be honest. “A few things.”
Saito grimaced. “What things?”
“Things with the ship. The crew.”
“Do you remember me?”
“Of course.”
“My rank?”
“If you’re talking about what I said on the bridge, I’m sorry. That was a jerk thing to say.”
“Do you remember my rank?”
“Stop grilling me. You sound like my mother.”
“I’m going to tell you what I think. I think that what happened with the Field has injured you somehow.”
“The Field,” the captain repeated in a way that suggested she had no idea what he was talking about.
True, it was classified technology. But it was technology that the captain herself had procured from the T’Klee months ago. That the Beausoleil had been charged with evaluating. The captain damn well knew about the Field.
“Tell me about it,” she said. “This Force.”
“Field,” Saito corrected.
“Force Field?”
“Field, Captain. It’s just called the Field.” Saito drew a deep breath before speaking again. “At least, that’s what we call it.”
“Well, what about it?”
“You really don’t remember?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault.” Though thinking back on the sequence of events he wasn’t entirely sure about that.
The captain waited.
“Okay. As you know—or as you would know, normally—we’ve been testing the Field for months, ever since you managed to get it from the T’Klee. We tried it first with animals—”
“Animals!” the captain interrupted. “We do tests with animals?”
“It’s better than starting with humans.” Saito had to remind himself to be patient. “We didn’t hurt them. We just took a couple of mice with measurably distinct characteristics, and transferred the consciousness of one to the other—”
“How is that not hurting them?” the captain asked.
“—and then confirmed that the characteristics had been transferred. Then we switched them back again. No harm done.”
The captain grunted noncommittally.
“We ramped up the tests from there. Larger animals. Short distances, transferring to other animals on board the Beausoleil. Everything worked perfectly, just as the T’Klee said it would. It was amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it. If we could send someone’s consciousness into the brain of an enemy, and then control that enemy, the possibilities are staggering.”
The captain didn’t look impressed. She looked aghast. “So that’s what you did to me.”
“We needed to test humans. At distance. Beyond the ship. You didn’t want to risk any of the crew. You insisted on doing it yourself.” Strictly against protocol. Saito had expressed his misgivings, but the captain had overridden his objections. “You arranged a target in Miscouche, a volunteer. Doc initiated the Field, you made the transfer, but you never made it to Miscouche. We thought we’d lost you. But we hadn’t. Somehow, you’d wound up in the body of a seventeen-year old girl. Marie-Josée Doucette, of the Evangeline.”
The captain frowned. “How did you know for sure?”
“The Field told us.”
“It did?”
“Yes. It knew where it put you. According to Doc, it was too risky to attempt another long-distance transfer. So, we came to get you. It took a while, almost too long. Especially having to chase you from the Evangeline to the Northumberland. We were awfully lucky to get you in time.”
Saito reflected on this briefly. It was a big universe out there. The captain could have wound up anywhere. What were the odds of her winding up on the Evangeline and the Northumberland just as they were being attacked by the Realm? Saito could not discern how it could be anything other than a coincidence, but he filed it away to reflect on later. “And now here you are. But—forgive me for saying so—not quite yourself.”
“How long has—how long have I been away?”
“About a month. Took that long to get to you, even via the aether. It wasn’t easy.”
“I bet. So, where do we keep this Field again?”
Saito regarded her appraisingly. She knew perfectly well where it was. At least in her right mind she did. Saito would not tell her. Not when she was like this. God only knew what she might do with it.
He decided to get down to brass tacks. “Look. We have a problem.”
“That’s for sure.”
“Where we’ve been ordered to go, what we need to do, we need a functioning captain.”
“Hello? You’re looking right at me.”
“Yes. The problem is, as we already agreed, you’re not fit to command right now.”
“Well, whatever. I thought we agreed that you’re in charge now. You’re a commander, aren’t you? So, command.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“How? How is it not simple?”
Saito didn’t answer right away. Instinct told him to play his cards close to his chest. Yes, he was a commander. He’d even seen action planet-side. But he was new to this part of the war. New to ships like the Beausoleil. Something else the captain obviously didn’t remember.
“You don’t remember our orders,” he said.
She shook her head.
“They’re to proceed to T’Klee space and rendezvous with Task Force Meynard Four. As you know, the T’Klee are a difficult species. We do not currently have diplomatic relations with them.”
She raised her eyebrows. She did that a lot now. He didn’t recall her doing that before. “Okay.”
She wasn’t getting it.
“Captain, the only way to get to T’Klee space quickly is through the Rapids.”
This obviously meant nothing to her, so he went on. “Second of all, assuming we even make it to T’Klee space, which is not a foregone conclusion, the T’Klee aren’t going to want to talk to me. They’re not going to want to talk to anyone. They may, if we’re lucky, talk to you, because of who you are: Captain Jane Khiboda. If you don’t talk to them, Akkadia doesn’t talk to them. So you see, you’re going to need to keep doing your job for at least a little while yet.”
“Whoa.” She leaned back in her chair. “Why me?”
Saito shook his head. It was as though her memory had been entirely erased, forcing him to seriously consider the possibility that what she’d originally claimed might be true, that she really was the girl Marie-Josée Doucette. That somehow the Field had executed a swap between the girl and the captain. If so, then the real captain might be trapped in the body of the girl, currently en route to the Beausoleil. If so, it would be Doc’s job to figure out how to swap them back.
If Doc couldn’t swap them back, or if this really was the captain sitting before him, just—injured somehow—it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like they had a choice. Regardless of who she actually was the captain needed to be the captain.
“You saved that ship full of T’Klee three years ago, remember? They gave you one of their highest honours. You’re a hero to the T’Klee.”
“Oh. Right. That.”
“Yes. You’re the only one they might listen to.”
“You think?”
“Captain, can you do this?”
He saw her confidence—her false bravado—falter. “I don’t know.”
“I need you to know.”
“I don’t know if I can be your stupid captain, okay? Or if I even want to.”
“Don’t talk like that. Have some respect. And while we’re on the subject, stop using the word stupid. It makes you sound stupid, not the other way around.”
Saito couldn’t believe he was talking to the captain this way. Without even consciously realizing that he was doing it he had begun treating her like a child. In her right mind she’d have him up for insubordination. But she was far from in her right mind, and this was what was required of him right now. Still, he needed to be respectful. The person before him was the captain. A very sick captain, maybe—one who needed his help as much as he needed hers—but still the captain.
“What do I have to talk to them about?” she asked.
How much to tell her? “We need their help. Desperately. We need their fleet, as much of it as they can spare. Without it we could lose this war. It’s that important.”
He opted not to tell her the rest. This wasn’t the appropriate time for that. There might never be a good time for that.
“I have some ideas how to handle the problems with your memory,” he went on. “You’ll need to keep a low profile. Keep your appearances to a minimum. Say as little as possible. I’ll provide you with the information you need. Coach you. The pretext for your low profile will be that you’re still recovering from what happened. It helps that it’s the truth. You see, it’s more the idea of the captain we need than the actual captain.”
“Why should I do this?”
“Because if you don’t, the Realm will destroy what’s left of Akkadia and I will personally throw you out an airlock.”
“Those are pretty good reasons.” The captain stewed over it a bit. She screwed up her face in a most un-captainly way. “All right. On one condition.”
“What?”
“That you help me.”
“I will. I promise.”
He meant it. It would mean pulling the wool over the crew’s eyes, trying to convince them that the captain wasn’t seriously ill. It was probably against protocol, maybe even illegal and possibly even begging for a court martial, but he would do it because it served the mission and the war effort. It was in all their best interest. It was what the captain would do in his place. At least, he hoped so.
“Okay,” the crazy woman across the table from him said. “You have a deal.”
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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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