Randolph Lalonde - Spinward Fringe Broadcast 08 - Renegades (62 page)

“I knew it!”

“Liar,” Moira
laughed.

“I should have,”
Frost replied. “The name suits the ship, or what she’ll be in two
weeks, and it suits you.” He sat down at the first officer’s
station and it came to life, showing the position of the ship. The
Sunny Shifter was hard docked to the new fabrication and repair
facility, a sprawling latticework that could service several smaller
ships the size of the Sunny Shifter or the Warlord while building a
new one and performing work on a vessel the size of the Triton.
Watching the facility unfold for two hours from the relatively small
box the Lorander ship brought with them was something Frost would
never forget. It was as though someone packed a puzzle within a
puzzle, and all they had to do was build the station that would
reside in the centre of the articulated metal web. “Don’t know if
the captain will ever trust me again, but I know what I’d like to
call my ship if I ever captain one in this great fleet.”

“What’s that?”

“Union Song,” Frost
whispered only loud enough for her to hear. She’d forgotten that he
was a superstitious man. That he would believe an aspiration declared
too loudly could be denied by fate.

“Beautiful name,”
Moira said. “I’m sure you’ll have a ship, there will be a few
extra to go around by the end of the year. The fleet will need
captains.”

“You’re probably
right, but if I get a command it’ll probably come from Commander
McPatrick,” Frost said, “never turned against him.”

“You’re going to
have to tell me that story, the time you left Valent,” Moira said.

“Some other time, but
for now let’s just say I didn’t feel like I’d found my place
until all this fighting started. Seems like I was made for war times,
and there are days I wish I were made for the opposite. I see people
building down there on Haven Shore and think, ‘God would it be good
to settle in to a place there and just take time with Steph.’ Maybe
I’d have a few boring days, but it would be so good.” She watched
him think for a moment before he went on. “Not for me though, maybe
someday, but I doubt it. I love building a machine and sending it
into a fight too much. It feels like the whole Triton Fleet is doing
just that, putting it all together from scraps of metal and a bunch
of bolts then running full-on into the fray. God help me, I love it.
Signals are coming in from ships telling us they want to sign up
since the report on our last mission went public, and I can’t wait
to see a flotilla of ships ready to rush in.”

“I’ve got no head
for peace time right now,” Moira said. “We’re alike. I don’t
have to tell you how I’m feeling, and I know it’s taken a lot of
us to a bad end. There’s something I’ve learned about war,
though,” Moira said, standing and walking to the engineering
station beside Frost. The bridge was too sparse for her liking; there
was room for twice as many stations, something she’d have to keep
in mind as she was working on converting the heavy hauler into a
combat vessel. “There’s almost no upside to war for soldiers like
us, but there is something. You go to war, you lose friends, you lose
family, but if you survive, you’ll come back with friendships that
last the rest of your life. It’s no fair compensation, but it’s
something.”

“It’s something,” Frost
replied.

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