No Man's Space 1: Starship Encounter (7 page)

Several of my men had landed minutes before us on other shuttles. Kozinski and York took their hands to invisible hats and tipped them to greet me, a formal naval salutation generally reserved to pretty women, governors, and officers they admired. Not bad for a green officer who was merely the lesser of two evils, huh?

The port was like a small floating city. It had a long central street with high ceilings and holographic effects that emulated open skies, and shops and houses everywhere. Traditional functional designs of spaceships and orbiting starbases had disappeared and transformed into comforts for the wealthy investors who wanted to move away from the Earth’s contaminated air.

We headed for the town hall, a large and imposing building made out of composites that emulated stone. Inside, marble floors and golden lamps hinted at the inhabitants’ wealth.

Banner was waiting just inside the town hall beside a tall and stylish young woman. She was slim, with black hair tied up neatly above her head, intense green eyes and red and luscious lips. She wore a bright red dress that reached her ankles and highlighted her curves. It was as if she’d been designed to be physically perfect. Well, she’d probably been designed artificially through genetic upgrades, but she still had merit. She was like a goddess.

Banner kept glancing at her with respect and admiration. Flanagan exhaled loudly, equally impressed.

Kozinski nudged York. “I didn’t know women could rule a space port, but I’d gladly live under her rule. Can we have women captains?”

She’d had the same effect on the men.

No woman had ever ruled a spaceport and I doubted that she’d be the first. She was either the governor’s daughter or his new wife. In either case, she was representing the governor because he wasn’t available to greet us or because he considered his time too valuable to waste it with us.

When she moved, her dress flowed freely over her figure, marking each of her long legs. I caught myself staring at her, mesmerized. I cleared my throat and shook my head; I was the acting captain, and I was supposed to talk to her.

I don’t mean to brag, but I’ve broken many hearts. One of my recent conquests, Kat, compared me to Greek sculptures. She said I had perfect proportions, a square jaw, and intense black hair that highlighted my iceberg blue eyes. Banner and the others stood no chances with her.

Banner bowed curtly at me and gestured at the woman. “Lady Elizabeth McMurdoch, this is James Wood, the North Star’s
acting
captain.” He marked the word acting more than I would’ve liked.

Lady Elizabeth curtsied and I bowed. She looked at my black double-breasted jacket and her smile became more forced. Her eyes moved down to my well-worn boots. She didn’t like my appearance.

Okay, I might’ve exaggerated about my looks. I’m fine, but I’m no sex symbol. And Kat had turned out to be a thief who stole my car in the middle of the night, so her agenda might have influenced her words.

Take my word on this, though: I’m nowhere near as unattractive as Lady Elizabeth wanted to show.

“Captain Wood,” she said with a very diplomatic voice. “I’m so pleased to meet you.” She took out a black fan and fanned her face, even though it wasn’t a warm day. She was trying to seem distressed, and she was after something.

She didn’t wait to tell me.

Lady Elizabeth was the port governor’s daughter. Her father wasn’t busy or traveling. A ship had attacked them less than a week before, and her father had chased after it. He hadn’t returned, and she’d assumed his duties in his absence. Their supply ships had also suffered many attacks, and the people aboard the port were starving.

She wanted someone to rescue her father and eliminate the ships that blockaded them.

“We’ve asked for help a thousand times, but nobody has listened to our distress calls.” She fluttered her eyelashes at Banner, and he bowed back at her. Was he offering our help? That was
my
call.

“We can’t leave them on their own.” Banner’s voice sounded deeper, more serious than before. He was trying to flirt with the woman, and he was ready to risk our ship for her.

“We’ve lost too many men and half of our systems don’t work.” I tried to sound diplomatic, but I wasn’t going to lead a suicide mission. The North Star wasn’t going anywhere until we finished the repairs. “We can’t help them right now.”

Lady Elizabeth turned to me and fluttered her eyelashes again.

Didn’t she remember that she’d used the same trick on Banner just a minute before?

“Is there something in your eye?” I said.

Don’t grin. Don’t grin. Don’t―

Too late.

She gasped in disgust and strode away indignantly.

Banner looked at me. “What the hell’s wrong with you, Wood?”

“I’m not risking my ship so that you can sleep with anyone,” I said.

“You’re jealous!” Banner shook his head, feigning disappointment. Every expression in him was fake, and he was just trying to make me feel bad for not socializing with people in his class. “Know what? I’m not interested in her. Women are just after money, and I’m not going to waste it unless she’s really worth it. She’s all yours. Have fun.” He winked at me and hurried after Lady Elizabeth.

Was it an official challenge? He couldn’t get captaincy so he wanted to make a fool of me in everything else? I didn’t care about a rich girl who ignored me and considered me inferior, but I was going to do everything in my power to flirt with her and beat Banner in his own game.

“She’s beyond your reach, Mr. Wood.” Hatfield, the surgeon, had arrived at some point during the introduction, and he’d decided to become an annoying voice inside my ear.

“Is she?” I sounded resentful. My ego was wounded because the only woman I’d seen in months had ignored me, and now everyone told me that I wouldn’t do anything with her in a thousand years.

“She is, but not for the reasons you think.” Hatfield took his white handkerchief out of his pocket and dried invisible drops of sweat from his forehead, then neatly placed it back in its place. “Wealthy women can smell class and manners. You might wear a uniform – too worn-out for my liking – but everything about you is so charmingly unrefined that she might adopt you as her new pet.”

“What do you mean, unrefined? And do I
smell
?”

“My dear acting captain, you’d need a thousand lifetimes to get a rich woman to notice you.” Hatfield tapped my shoulder condescendingly and headed back to town.

What did he mean? A thousand lifetimes? I’d gone to college! I’d enlisted in the Navy! I was an officer, an acting captain! Why did everyone perceive me differently? Was it because I wore a black jacket?

Flanagan’s squad entered the town hall with muddied boots and eating several apples. They’d left the meeting to the officers and explored the area… perhaps too much. We were guests; we couldn’t soil their public halls. I ran to shoo them back outside.

“Don’t worry about the lady, sir.” York winked an eye at me.

“You’ll always have us.” Flanagan tried not to burst out laughing.

Kozinski let out his classic
who, who, who
.

“Shut up.” York hit Kozinski’s chest. “He doesn’t need us to poke fun at him.”

“You can always resort to
other
ladies.” Flanagan winked twice at us.

Kozinski didn’t follow.

“The
friendlier
ones we’ve just seen,” York told him.

“Oh, the
friendlier
women.” Kozinski nodded understandingly, and then turned to me. “They mean the women who charge for treatin’ you like a lord, sir. But these two like to talk like sphinxes, they do. There’s no way of followin’ them.”

Awesome. I wasn’t just an outcast for the local aristocracy, but I was also the court jester.

My manners weren’t that bad! And I didn’t
smell
unrefined! Really! I showered often enough to keep my natural body odor at bay.

The following day was no better. I went for a walk with Lady Elizabeth, Banner and Hatfield. I could barely talk to anyone, though, because the crew kept interrupting my thoughts and asking me to micromanage everything they did. We lacked senior officers, so I couldn’t tell them to approach the midshipmen instead. And besides, we were performing repairs and I was the only engineering officer. I had no other choice but to help them.

“Sir, we need extra parts for the engines,” one of my engineers said through the intercom. “I’ll send you a memo with the list.”

I tapped on my intercom to reply. “I’ll take care of it.”

“And we can’t take care of the core unless we improve our vacuum pumps,” someone else added.

“I know,” I said. “It’s scheduled for next week.”

“We’ll need a couple extra hands to―” another voice said.

I double-tapped on my intercom to mute it. I needed to take a break, and the men needed to learn to work by themselves without asking every single question. Captain O’Keeffe didn’t spend his days answering everyone’s questions, did he?

I finally breathed and focused on my three companions.

Lady Elizabeth giggled and looked around playfully before continuing her story. “And when my father saw the hole in his garden fence, he said, ‘
Release the dogs!
’ and my brother and I had to run away from our own dogs.”

Ugh. I hadn’t slept in the whole night, I hadn’t had time to do anything but fix the ship, and I really wasn’t in the mood for silly and superficial stories. I didn’t want to act as though I was interested in talking to anyone. I was an engineer; I didn’t like conversation for the sake of it.

Banner chuckled and congratulated her for having such a unique family. Hatfield laughed and requested another family story.

I’d lost track of the tale half way through the story. Breaking a fence and running away from dogs? It’s a typical childhood story. The dogs that chased after me and my friends weren’t my father’s, and they didn’t stop once they’d bitten their prey.

Banner and Lady Elizabeth understood each other perfectly, and Hatfield belonged to their world too. They spoke my own language, but I was missing part of what they said. I ended up walking after them and nodding whenever they looked in my direction, almost as if I understood them.

Hatfield slowed down to walk alongside me. He shook his head and tried to smile politely at me, but the wrinkles on his brow reminded me of everything he’d said before: I’d need a thousand lifetimes to become one of them.

“So, Mr. Wood,” Hatfield said loudly so that the others turned around to look at us. “Do you have any childhood stories to share with the rest of us?” He wasn’t trying to humiliate me or to make me feel bad; he was trying to convince me to stop wasting my time with them. The upper classes were beyond my reach. At least to him.

“Yes, please.” Lady Elizabeth clapped her hands excitedly. “Share some childhood stories with us. I haven’t visited Earth in ages.”

“I’d like to hear them too,” Banner said. “I’m fairly curious about your past.”

All three of them looked at me eagerly for different reasons. Lady Elizabeth liked gossip and listening to the poor officer who’d been given the chance to spend a while amongst the upper classes. Banner wanted to prove that his origins were better than mine. Hatfield was amused and had an agenda of his own that I couldn’t follow.

I didn’t know what to tell them. I’d had a happy childhood and it had shaped my character, but whatever I said would eventually be used against me.

“Um…” I began. What could I say?

“Dear,” Hatfield told Lady Elizabeth. “Why don’t you tell us another story while Mr. Wood thinks of his tale?”

Lady Elizabeth giggled and quickly thought of something to tell us to continue being the center of attention. Banner didn’t pay further attention to me; he’d already won without even trying.

Curse them. I’d have to enjoy the surroundings rather than the company.

The main shopping district aboard the spaceport was like any shopping street on Earth. Access was limited to workers and potential shoppers, and the rest of the populace were kept out of the gates. The region didn’t need any guards; they had tech access controls in every door, and the populace wasn’t dumb enough to risk their freedom to get to the shopping regions. Accessing a restricted area generally meant being placed inside a transport ship and being sent to one of the mining colonies. Nobody wanted to jump a gate if the rest of their life was going to be affected.

Spaceports generally had a strict class system. On Earth, most people were allowed to roam freely as long as they didn’t break into any of the wealthier neighborhoods. Aboard spaceports, space was more limited and properties belonged to a handful of families, so it was cheaper and easier to limit normal people’s movements than to increase the expenses in security personnel.

Hatfield reduced his speed to match mine. Before I’d realized, the happy couple was no longer within hearing range. Hatfield was the surgeon, but I didn’t know on whose side he was. He wasn’t supposed to be as wealthy as career officers. I’d thought that he didn’t hate me, but I was starting to doubt it.

“Why do you want them to get rid of me?” I asked him without thinking. I was blunt, but I didn’t care.

“
You
want them to ignore you, to despise you, and to consider you inferior. I’ve been young too, and I know how I’ve treated engineers. Their clothes didn’t make me ignore them; their manners did. I wasn’t always a doctor, you see?” Hatfield spoke slowly and with a polished English accent. He barely showed his expressions, just like Banner. “You won’t get anyone to consider you their equal if you continue wearing old boots, using odorless deodorant, and being yourself.”

I didn’t follow. Was he telling me that they’d accept me if I changed my deodorant? Banner would never consider me his equal. I barely knew him, but he made it clear whenever he addressed me. I was his acting captain, but he considered me no officer.

“Will they like me better if I smell different?” I asked.

“
They
were brought up amongst deceit and hypocrisy,” Hatfield continued. “They can praise each other and smile without believing a single word they say. You speak your mind. It might help you amongst your gadgets, but it limits you when talking to someone like Lady Elizabeth. They scorn and criticize those who don’t behave like them. If you want them to treat you like an equal, you must become a slimy and two-faced creature who spends his days giving empty praise and laughing at humorless jokes. Personally, I’d recommend you against it, but you won’t listen to me. You’re only after credibility with women, respect from peers who don’t deserve yours, and promotions.”

Wait, could I get promoted for acting like Banner? I liked the idea.

Hatfield told me about an old play he’d watched years before, where a bored gentleman taught two lower-class twins to act like someone from his class. It took them a long time, but he eventually made them pose as aristocrats and they helped him rob a bank.

Hatfield claimed boredom now that he was close to retirement age and lacked the interest in fighting for promotions. He was tired of the superficiality of the upper classes and their disregard for those unlike them, and apparently he wanted to train me and laugh whenever I tricked a few of them to accept me as one of their own.

I wasn’t interested in the perks or the social respect; I was after beating Banner in his own field. He didn’t want me to feel at home as a captain, and I was going to feel at home as both a captain and a nobleman.

“I’m in,” I said. “When can we start? Today?”

Hatfield smiled with some pity towards me. “No,” he said. “Unfortunately, important people always have complete schedules every single day.”

I could always adjust my schedule to add something new, and I was the captain. Did it make me unimportant?

Hatfield looked at the holographic skies and begged for patience. “If you don’t have anything to do, you invent it. You can’t act as though you’re desperate for social action. Today we’re having a walk with two of our dear friends, and I have a very special romantic dinner with Lady Elizabeth’s aunt. She lost her husband last year, and I wouldn’t want her to feel lonely while we’re here.”

Was he talking about seducing the lady? The thought of an old couple letting out their passion didn’t sound accurate.

“Do you mean…” I began.

“Yes, I’m speaking about extramarital activities,” he said as if he’d read my mind like an open book, “but politeness doesn’t let me mention it explicitly. And anyway, we need to do something about your appearance. Unless you’re planning to get a role as Oliver Twist, you need some new boots. If you can’t afford them, clean yours. How long since you last cleaned your shoes?”

Did people clean their shoes?

“I don’t have time to clean my shoes,” I said. “There’s too much stuff to do.”

Hatfield raised a forefinger in the air to stop me from speaking. “Don’t you have a steward, Mr. Wood? All captains, acting or not, have a steward who takes care of cleaning their clothes, cooking their food, and teaching them manners. God, where do officers learn their protocol these days?”

“I can’t afford a steward.”

“Then tell one of your men to act like a steward during one of his shifts. I was under the impression that you were acting captain.”

This didn’t look well. I was an engineer; I’d been an engineer all my life. I wasn’t going to turn into an aristocrat. Lady Elizabeth would never consider me an equal, and neither would anyone else.

“On second thought,” I said, “I don’t think I need anyone’s acceptance.”

Hatfield either didn’t hear me or preferred to ignore me. “And dust off your jacket. The dust clings onto you and is giving everyone severe allergies.”

Banner and Lady Elizabeth walked back and stopped beside us.

Lady Elizabeth addressed Hatfield as if there were three of them instead of four. “Why have you abandoned us?” she said softly. “We’ve missed you.” She smiled sweetly at him. Sometimes, when she wasn’t looking disdainfully at me, she was pretty and elegant. When she did, the coldness in her heart sent shivers down my spine.

“Mr. Wood and I were chatting,” Hatfield said.

Lady Elizabeth was about to look at me and curl her lower lip as if she’d just seen a roach running down the street, but several shouts caught our attention.

A group of men, dressed in rags and well-worn clothes, had jumped one of the street’s main gates and ran along the street with several security guys chasing after them.

Lady Elizabeth gasped and stepped back. Banner stepped in front of her, trying to look heroic.

The men ran in their direction and threw several rotten eggs at us, but they didn’t stop running in case someone caught them. I ducked and dodged the eggs.
Whew
. I didn’t have any clean uniforms.

Banner looked down at his chest and looked at his clothes’ new style: double-breasted jacket with white and yellow spots and a rotten smell.

I couldn’t deny it; the locals knew whom to attack.

“Revolts again,” Lady Elizabeth said. “We’ve tried to control them, but the blockades are only affecting our security.” She held onto Banner’s arm to keep him in front of her.

Banner’s jaw was tense as he looked at his expensive, ruined jacket. He could buy a hundred more, but he wasn’t going to let anyone ruin his clothes. He was pleased with Lady Elizabeth’s attentions, though, and he nodded at her. “I’ll take care of them.”

The men were too many for us, and we were a group of two lieutenants and two civilians. The lady wasn’t going to fight, and we needed to keep the North Star’s surgeon alive. It wasn’t the time to play heroes; we couldn’t risk leaving the ship at the hands of a group of midshipmen. It was our duty to keep our ship safe, but not to crush a class revolt.

And what if it was only a distraction? What if the men were throwing rotten eggs at us to attack Lady Elizabeth when Banner and I went after them? I’d read the best authors in military strategy and that’s what I’d do: distract the officers and attack the target later on.

The men could be planning to snatch her, or maybe to outright kill her. Desperate men sometimes acted stupid, and I wasn’t going to allow anyone to trick us.

“We should leave,” I said. “This might be a diversion strategy. We can get reinforcements and let them take care of this.”

“I’ve been trained for this,” Banner said flatly. Was he implying that engineers were cowards? He took out his electric gun and increased its power to its maximum level. It wasn’t lethal against healthy men, but anyone with minor heart conditions wouldn’t stand it. He was overexaggerating. He tapped on the intercom in his ear and asked for reinforcements from the bridge. “I’ll handle. You can stay here and
protect
the lady.” He emphasized
protect
, implying that I was scared.

If I’d been a coward, he’d still be locked up in a Cassock frigate. I didn’t help him because I wasn’t driven by pride and because I didn’t need to prove that I was the bravest and most capable officer in the world.

I turned on my intercom too and told Flanagan to take a squad and help us escort Lady Elizabeth back to her room. Chasing after rebels was the port’s responsibility, not ours. Helping Lady Elizabeth was common courtesy.