The Outback Stars

CHAPTER


FOUR





T

-minus thirty minutes. All off-duty personnel and passengers report to quarters.”



Sitting on her rack with her knees pulled to her chest, Jodenny tried to empty her mind of fear and doubt.



“T-minus ten. Towers secure. Engines to speed.”



Somewhere back at Alice Training Base, Matt Lu was probably cursing her name. Going over Campos’s head to Admiral Cartwright had probably made the commodore an enemy as well. Though she’d only been on the Aral Sea a few hours, Jodenny had already managed to annoy her boss, make a less than favorable impression on the cap-tain, and embarrass herself in front of countless members of the crew. The Yangtze dead, lying in row after row of tidy graves, bitterly watched her from their dark repose.



A slight, almost imperceptible jolt beneath her. The thrill of in-creasing acceleration. No other fanfare, no blast of trumpets, but the deed was done. Jodenny closed her eyes just as the comm came to life with,

“Attention, attention, this is the XO speaking. We have departed Kookaburra and bid farewell to those we leave behind. Resume nor-mal operations.”



Jodenny didn’t move. She could venture forth from the cabin and do her check-in rounds, but what was the point? The ship had de-parted without incident but in five days they would reach the Alcheringa and the horror would begin all over again. Maybe she should find some broken glass and lay waste to her wrists again—



No. That had been a onetime aberration, a dark time she barely remembered. She would not succumb again. And to fear that the Aral Sea was doomed when it reached the Alcheringa was foolishness it-self. Team Space would have never authorized the next leg of her journey if there was a serious threat from CFP fanatics.



Someone pinged the door. The wallvid flickered to life. “Lieu-tenant Scott? I’m from the chaplain’s office.”



For a moment she considered pretending she wasn’t in, but then she wiped her face and opened the hatch. Her visitor was slim like a willow, with commander’s bars on one collar and a chaplain’s pip on the other. She held a large wicker basket in both hands.



“I’m Kath Mowaljarlai. Call me Kath or Chaplain Mow. Can I come in?”



Jodenny stepped aside and let the chaplain enter. Mow handed her the basket and said, “The official welcome-aboard kit from the Reli-gious Service Office. Flowers-in-a-jar, two movie passes, a copy of our religious activities schedule, and a vid of me giving inspirational sermons. No, just kidding about that last bit. Chocolate biscuits. Much better than sermons.”



“Chocolate’s always welcome around here.” Jodenny took the jar out, opened its lid, and watched a handful of fresh daffodils spring to full flourish. They reminded her abruptly of funerals and she stepped into the head.



“Sorry.” Jodenny splashed water on her face. “Allergies.”



“I suffer from them myself.” Chaplain Mow favored the flowers with her full attention but didn’t remove them. She let Jodenny com-pose herself and then said, “The Aral Sea isn’t what you’re used to, but I hope you’ll learn to like her. We’ve got some good people here. People who’ll listen to whatever you want to say.”



Jodenny knew this game, and was relieved Chaplain Mow had slipped into it without wasting any time. “Alice was full of people who wanted to listen. Doctors, therapists, grief counselors, chaplains—they were lined up outside our doors. I’ve done more talking in the last three months than in twenty-eight years.”



Chaplain Mow smiled. “You never know when the urge might strike again. My office is up on C-Deck. Come by tomorrow and I’ll sign your check-in sheet. Should I put you down as Unitarian, Gagudjun, New Denominationalist, Muslim, Mormon, Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist, agnostic, atheist, or something else altogether?”



“Something else altogether.”



“Can do. And remember, you’re not alone here. Have your agent call my agent and we’ll have lunch, okay?”



After Mow left, Jodenny mustered enough energy to take a hot shower. The prospect of dinner depressed her all over again. Walking for the first time into the sea of strangers that had been the Yangtze’s wardroom had been nerve-wracking enough, but at the time she had been merely a new ensign. Now she carried the weight of tragedy and the day’s humiliations on her shoulders. She rubbed away a smudge on her shoes, buffed the gold buttons on her jacket, braided her hair, braided it a different way, changed her earrings, and changed them back. Maybe she could plead a headache and prolong every-one’s inevitable discovery that she wasn’t fit to be back in space, never mind in charge of the Supply Department’s worst division.



The ship’s bells rang at eighteen hundred but Hultz didn’t appear. Jodenny paced the cabin and passageway. Five minutes later, just as Jodenny was about to strike out on her own, Hultz rounded the corner.



“You’re late,” Jodenny said.



“No one ever goes on time,” Hultz said. “Is it true you’re in charge of Underway Stores? Al-Banna must really like you.”



“Liking me has nothing to do with it. Let’s go.”



On her way down the passage Jodenny wiped her sweaty palms on the sides of her uniform.




Hultz squeezed her arm. “Relax. Everyone’s great. Here we are.”



Jodenny followed Hultz through the hatch and stopped. The sup-ply wardroom had the same design and layout of the one on the Yangtze, but where she expected to see plaques and trophies she saw only empty shelves. The bulkheads were smooth gray parasteel, un-marked by anything as sentimental as pictures or murals. Empty stools stood against the darkened bar. The dining table had been set for ten people.



“—and the guy next to me in the pod had the worst farts ever,” said a swarthy, dark-haired man on the sofa. “Clara, you’re late.”



Hultz said, “Since when? Jodenny, this is Mike Zeni.”



“Pleased to meet you.” Zeni wore sub-lieutenant’s bars, and his cologne smelled strong and clean. “Did you like our friendly welcome-aboard alarm?”



Obviously he hadn’t heard what a fool she’d made of herself.

“Im-mensely.”



Beside Zeni was Lieutenant A. J. Francesco, who was slender and dark-skinned. They both worked in Ship’s Services—Francesco ran the Disbursing Division and Zeni was in charge of Colony Berthing. Ensign Leanne Weaver, with extremely short hair, worked in Flight Support. Jodenny had already met Kal Ysten.



“Let’s eat,” Weaver said. “I’m starving.”



“Shouldn’t we wait for everyone else?” Jodenny asked.



“No one else is coming,” Ysten said gloomily.



Francesco pulled out his chair. “Congratulations on your new job, Jodenny.”



Zeni lifted his beer. “And good luck. You never hear anything good about Underway Stores.”



“You’ll do fine if you can get along with Chief Nitta,” Weaver said.



Ysten grimaced. “That’s if you can get a single moment’s work out of him.”



On the Yangtze, no one had dared miss wardroom dinner unless they were on watch or in Sick Berth. Jodenny sat down reluctantly and shook out her napkin. AT Ashmont, the lithe young steward, started the soup course.



Weaver said, “Chief Nitta’s the least of the problems in Underway Stores. Dicensu’s dumber than a rock. They say that new girl, Ishikawa, she’s doing kasai. And don’t forget Myell.”



Jodenny remembered the handsome sergeant with the scuffed boots. “What about him?”



Ysten said, “He raped a girl.”



Raped? On the Yangtze Jodenny had supervised a sailor accused of trying to kill his roommate, but she’d never worked with a rapist. She tried to imagine Myell pinning down a woman and forcing himself into her, but the idea didn’t make sense.



Francesco said, “Shut up, Kal. You don’t know what happened.”



A no-good chief and a purported rapist. No wonder Al-Banna de-spised her division. The conversation moved on to the gossip about an ensign in the Navigation Department who had been seen, of late, sneaking in and out of chiefs’ berthing.



“Let the captain catch wind of that, and she’ll be out an airlock,”

Weaver said.



“It’s probably nothing,” Francesco said.



Weaver downed more of her wine. “They say that’s where Matsuda went, you know. Airlock. Not on a birdie at all.”



“Idiot talk,” Zeni said.



“I don’t understand,” Jodenny said.



Francesco told the tale. “Commander Matsuda was our SUPPO. He was two years into a three-year tour, and I won’t say he was pop-ular or good at it, but we were getting the job done. We left Fortune as scheduled, no problem. Got to Kiwi, some people take shore leave, Matsuda says he’s on his way to visit family. Forty-eight hours before launch, he’s due back, no one can find him.”



“Disappeared completely,” Hultz said. “No trace whatsoever. No one could even prove he went down to the surface.”



“Not true.” Zeni waved his fork. “Data showed that his flight pass had been used as scheduled on one of the birdies.”



Weaver shook her head. “Anyone could have used it. The security vids were all corrupted up, none of the other passengers remembered seeing him, and Kiwi Customs couldn’t prove he passed through. Even his family said they hadn’t seen him.”



“Half the ship believes he deserted, for whatever reason, and his family was covering for him,” Francesco said. “There are rumors he was under investigation for dereliction of duty, but no one knows much about it. The other half think maybe he stayed onboard, hid-ing, until we reached Sundowner—he always said he wanted to retire there. Maybe he got off there. And yet another half think maybe he was a victim of foul play.”



“That’s three halves,” Zeni said.



Francesco said, “I never did like fractions.”



“We had to wait four whole days at the Alcheringa drop point off Kiwi before they sent us a new SUPPO,” Hultz said. “Then there was the incident with Myell and the girl, and poor Reggie ends up in a big car accident on Kookaburra—so you can see, the Supply Depart-ment’s got a reputation for being cursed. Now you’re here—”



“Clara,” Francesco said sharply.



“I didn’t mean it negatively!” Hultz protested. “She’ll bring us good luck. She survived.”



Jodenny stared down at her dinner plate. Survived. Yes, she had sur-vived when so many others had not. But that was a curse, not a blessing.



“I hear the General Quarters today was a CFP bomb threat,” Weaver said into the sudden quiet. “The captain had to take it seri-ously. Otherwise why be so crazy to pull a drill right before launch?”



Francesco said, “It was probably just a hoax.”



Further conversation was halted as David Quenger strolled in, clad in expensive civilian clothes and smelling strongly of cologne. “Eve-ning, everyone,” he said. He came up behind Jodenny and squeezed her shoulder. “I understand congratulations are in order.”



She imagined breaking his fingers. “Thank you.”



“You’re not annoyed?” Zeni asked, mischief in his eyes.



Quenger didn’t take the bait. “Underway Stores is a mess, and Al-Banna must think Jo’s the gal to clean it up.”



Maybe she’d break his entire hand.



Quenger gave a sloppy salute. “Good night, then. Try to keep the noise down, won’t you? The neighbors complain.”



After dinner had been cleared, Ysten settled in to watch the eve-ning’s ASL soccer game in the lounge, Weaver and Hultz decided to go nightclubbing, and Zeni and Francesco invited Jodenny to play Hachi-Hachi. She rolled a five and became oya. Francesco dealt seven cards to each of them, left six faceup on the table, and put the rest in the stockpile.



“You’ll have to ignore Hultz and Weaver and all the naysayers,”

Francesco said. “Our department’s no more screwed up than any other on the ship.”



“That’s not saying a whole lot,” Zeni said.



Jodenny matched two butterfly cards. She couldn’t do anything about Matsuda’s disappearance, nor Greiger’s car accident, but Myell was one of her men, now. “What happened with Sergeant Myell?”



“It was right after we left Fortune,” Francesco said. “Security found him and RT Ford in the hydroponics forest. She said Myell forced her. Myell was arrested but never charged. This was while Matsuda was still onboard. I wouldn’t say the commander gave him much support. After Al-Banna came aboard, he told Security to ei-ther drop it or clear it, and the case died.”




“Is Ford still onboard?” Jodenny asked.



Zeni matched two deer cards. “She got to bail out of the deploy-ment at Kiwi. Some said maybe that’s why she said it, just to get out, but you never know. She was dating Myell’s boss at the time, the Un-derway Stores chief. Big ugly guy named Chiba. You don’t want to cross him or his little Japanese yakuza.”



“None of that,” Francesco said sharply.



“What, I can’t say it? Him and Nitta, Matsuda—”



“You can suspect anyone you want,” Francesco replied. “But if you’re dumb enough to say it aloud, you better have proof.”



There had been rumors of Japanese mafia on the Yangtze as well, though Jem had told Jodenny to pay them no mind. “Everyone’s in some kind of gang or another,” he’d said. But having a chief and ser-geant seeing the same woman in a division was bound to cause trou-ble, and the situation sounded bad all around.



“Do you think Myell did it?” she asked.



“Sure he did,” Zeni said.



Francesco studied his cards. “The man’s innocent until proven guilty.”



Zeni won the game after twelve rounds. They wanted her to play crazy-seven next, but Jodenny excused herself, returned to her cabin, and changed into off-duty clothes. After a half hour of staring at the bulkhead she climbed downladder toward the Underway Stores office. The decks were empty at that time of night, with only the hum of the air units to keep her company. As she approached Underway Stores she heard voices, and when she rounded the bend she saw Quenger and a tall man exiting the office. Quickly she pulled back around the corner.



“Let me know how that goes,” Quenger was saying.



“Oh, you’ll be hearing lots, I’m sure,” the tall man replied.



They headed off in the other direction. Jodenny considered con-fronting Quenger but held back. When she was sure they were gone she pressed her thumb to the lock. Inside the office were two desks for the admin clerks. One was tidy and organized, the other cluttered with paperwork. Windows overlooked Loading Dock G, the heart of the distribution system that moved supplies through Mainship. The Direct Conveyance System connected the loading dock to T6, the laundry, the galley, the Flight Deck, two maintenance hangars, and four issue rooms. It operated twenty-four/seven, and she could see smartcrates arriving and being shipped out again under the DNGOs’ vigilant care.



She peeked into Nitta’s office, which was neatly decorated with plaques from his previous tours of duty. A gram showed him accept-ing an award, and she recognized him as the tall man who’d been accompanying Quenger. Reggie Greiger’s office, right next door, re-sembled the aftermath of a tornado. Jodenny cleared a pile of clutter off his chair and accessed the databases, rosters, schedules, and re-ports for the division. By midnight she’d read enough to know if Greiger hadn’t driven himself off a mountain, he would have lost his job during the next inspection cycle. She was surprised someone as no-nonsense as Al-Banna had put up with him.



She activated the comm. “Chief Nitta, please.”



After two rings Nitta’s agent answered. “He’s not available. May I take a message?”



“This is Lieutenant Scott, his new DIVO. Tell him to report to my office at oh-seven hundred tomorrow.”



“Yes, ma’am.”



Jodenny remembered that she hadn’t set up her own agent yet, but that could wait. She went through Greiger’s desk and discovered a bottle of brandy. The liquor burned the back of her throat. She had the wallvid bring up a live shot of Boyne, Kookaburra’s second moon, and after several minutes the Yangtze began to come around from the dark side.



From a distance, the ship seemed as beautiful and invulnerable as she had the day Jodenny first boarded her. Only as the ship lifted higher in orbit did the gaping wounds on her starboard side become visible—black, ragged holes where huge chunks of tower shrapnel had slashed through the hull. She imagined herself drifting along the Yangtze’s pitch-black passages, her noncorporeal self passing through bulkheads and decks. Her cold breath sent dust swirling through compartments. The touch of her hand made ice crystals scatter like diamonds. She glided ever so silently to her cabin and to the familiar comfort of her bed. The blankets and sheets held no warmth yet as she wrapped herself up and let the blackness take her—



Jodenny blinked. She was no longer inside the Yangtze but instead watching it from her new office. She raised her glass. To the Wondjina, who had made the Alcheringa and the Seven Sisters and all things good and beautiful, she asked for release. Hers was no longer a ship of tragedy and doom. She belonged to the Aral Sea now, where men and women needed her.



She waited for a long time, but felt no peace.



* * * *