Captain's Away! Chapter Twenty-Four
"A Bigger Problem"
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 refugees after escaping the destruction of two space stations in the opening salvos of an interstellar war. Their son, Alain, is missing and presumed dead, and their daughter Marie-Josée is comatose for reasons they don’t understand.
After being rescued by the Akkadian starship Beausoleil, Yolande and Bertrand Doucette settle into the ship’s gym with the rest of the survivors. They’ve just been addressed by the Beausoleil’s XO, Commander Choki Saito, who has raised just as many questions as he’s answered, especially about the Beausoleil’s destination.
Saito himself has questions. Why is the captain of the Beausoleil behaving so strangely, and what can be done about it?
Chapter Twenty-Four
“A Bigger Problem”
Immediately after addressing the survivors, Saito summoned Javad to the briefing room. The Beausoleil’s corpsman had discernible bags under his eyes. His hair was a mess and his beard looked even more unkempt than usual. The Beausoleil did not rate a physician, but Javad was the next best thing. He had considerable advanced training, many years navy practice, and as a young man he had completed two full tours of duty in the Souris campaign during the robot rebellion. Javad was probably better in the field than many full-fledged physicians. To lose him would have been quite a blow.
“I’m glad to see you back, Doc,” Saito said sincerely.
“It’s good to be back.”
“How are the survivors doing?”
“Settling in.”
“Good. Because we have a bigger problem on our hands.”
Javad raised an eyebrow.
“Something went wrong with the transfer. The captain’s not herself. When she first woke up, she told me that she was the girl Marie-Josée Doucette. Now she denies that. I tried to relieve her of command, but it didn’t take.”
“I did get some inkling of this before I initiated the transfer,” Javad reminded Saito.
“Did you do it right?”
Javad shrugged. “There isn’t much to do. The Field does all the heavy lifting.”
“Never in a million years would the captain I know have let these survivors on board. Not with what we’re facing.”
“How bad is she?”
“Put it this way. When I first saw her, she acted like a little girl. Now she’s still acting like a little girl but barking orders. I was afraid we’d never get her back. That would have been bad, but this might be even worse.”
“I get it,” Javad said. “As long as she exercises her command prerogative, she’s in charge. Unstable but in charge.”
“Correct. Officially she has executive authority. Any attempt to undermine that will constitute mutiny. The crew worship her. They’ll never feel that way about me.”
“Oh, I don’t—”
Saito held up a hand. “I’m not being modest. I know I don’t have the common touch. I have my strengths and dealing with the crew isn’t one of them. And some of the crew can’t handle reporting to someone so much younger than them.”
“What are you again? Fourteen?”
“Very funny.” Saito appreciated the corpsman’s attempt at humour. “Still, I think I could handle this mission on my own if it came to it. If we didn’t—”
“Need the captain for the rendezvous,” Javad finished. “A rendezvous that in the captain’s present state she probably doesn’t remember.”
“The question is, what’s wrong with her, and what can we do about it?”
Javad mulled it over. “According to my understanding of the science involved there’s no actual transference of consciousness. The T’Klee would say our brains are simply mediums, that consciousness itself originates elsewhere, beyond you or me.”
“Where?”
Javad shrugged. “God? The universe? Some metaphysical place beyond all that? Who knows?”
Saito waved a hand in the air. “Whatever.” He was briefly dismayed to hear himself sound like the captain in her damaged state. “Anyway, according to the T’Klee, all this Field of theirs does is point consciousness elsewhere. Like an aethercom signal coming out of one receiver instead of another.”
“Correct.”
“What if you messed up somehow? Redirected the girl’s consciousness instead of the captain’s? No disrespect intended.”
“None taken. The device is supposed to possess safeguards to prevent that sort of thing from happening.”
“According to the T’Klee.”
“According to the T’Klee,” Javad confirmed.
“Who didn’t build the thing. Who just sold it to us.”
“Right.”
“So, they could have it all wrong,” Saito said.
“That’s what I need to determine.”
“Please do so as soon as possible.”
“Of course, Commander,” Javad said. “It’s my number one priority.” He coughed politely into his hand and left.
On the way back to his cabin Javad cursed under breath. He had been hoping to be done with the Field. That after the Captain’s mishap he’d never have to use it again. It was having an impact on his health, his was sure of it. He felt terrific every time he used it, but terrible afterwards. At first the unpleasant sensation had lasted an hour or so. Then a day, then a couple of days. He had felt run down after using it on the Northumberland. The feeling had yet to go away. It was as though he was coming down with the flu, except that it never quite turned into the flu. If he used the Field again, he was afraid that what he was feeling would turn into something worse than the flu.
The T’Klee hadn’t mentioned this when they’d sold the Field to the captain. Not exactly a selling point, Javad supposed. Maybe they hadn’t known. Maybe they’d never actually tried the Field. Maybe they knew better than to do so.
Now he would have to use it again to fix the captain and the girl. Those were his orders, and that was his job: to fix people.
He hoped that afterwards somebody would be able to fix him.
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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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This story is getting more intriguing with each chapter! Look forward to it every week.