Double Share: Solar Clipper Trader Tales by Nathan Lowell

Author:Nathan Lowell [Lowell, Nathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: sci-fi, series, trader tale, nathan lowell, Science Fiction, solar clipper, parsec award
ISBN: 9781937475710
Amazon: 1937475719
Publisher: Ridan Publishing
Published: 2012-05-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

DIURNIA SYSTEM

2358-JULY-19

When Burnside came to relieve the watch at midnight, he was coming off his twenty-four. He hadn’t been on watch since Arletta had relieved him the previous night. I eyed him warily as he climbed the ladder to the bridge and he actually had the nerve to smile at my wariness.

“Come, come, Mr. Wang,” he said. “Discipline administered and over. Lessons learned need no repetition, right?”

I forced myself not to glare at him as he approached to take the watch. He’d have to work much harder to get in striking range. He wouldn’t be taking me unaware again.

“Ship is on course and on target,” I told him, standing up from the watch stander’s chair. “No incidents or actions. Standing orders are unchanged. You may relieve the watch, Mr. Burnside.”

He flopped bonelessly into the console’s chair. “Yeah, fine, whatever. You really need to loosen up a little, Ishmael. With all the hunnies you’ve got hangin’ around, I’m surprised you haven’t started a rotation for your stateroom.”

Ms. Jaxton was just leaving the bridge, and I saw her color rise. I just shrugged. “I don’t screw with crew,” I told him and walked across the bridge to the ladder.

“That’s a shame,” he shouted so that I heard him as I descended the ladder. “That D’Heng is one hot little hoochie.” I was glad that Juliett was ahead of me on the ladder, and I could keep her moving downward.

Her face and neck, already red, went to scarlet as her temper rose. She turned to start back up the ladder, but I had my hands on both rails. She would need to go through me.

“Words, Juliett, just words. Hateful, ignorant, and spiteful though they may be. Just words,” I told her.

“He can’t say that stuff!”

“He can and he did, but we don’t need to sink to his level. He’s trying to goad me into fighting, so he has an excuse to haul me up on charges. If he can’t get me, he’d be happy to have you.”

“He’s—” she started to say.

“He’s the first mate,” I said calmly. “It behooves us to remember that and treat the office with respect.”

She looked at me as if I’d stabbed her.

“I know,” I told her. “But I’m not that kind of person, and I don’t think you are, either.”

She stared at me for another few heartbeats and the tension slumped out of her.

“This isn’t fair, sar.”

“Fair is a weak term. There’s a better construct for this situation, I think.”

I waited for her to bite.

Finally she asked, “Which is?”

I continued down the ladder, forcing her to step off the bottom step. She turned and frowned at me.

“On my old ship, the Lois McKendrick, we had a saying. ‘Trust Lois.’”

“Sar, you did pass your psych eval, right?”

“Barely,” I admitted. “They were concerned that I might be too sane to be an officer at first, but I convinced them I was psychotic enough.”

“But trust the ship?” she asked.

“Well, not exactly, the ship,” I said. See, everybody on the Lois had a kind of belief in the ship’s spirit, its pooka.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.