Ships of My Fathers (10 page)

Chapter 8

“You’ll meet a lot of new folk as the years go by, son, but don’t think all of them are gonna be your friends.” — Malcolm Fletcher

T
HE WOMAN WALKED INTO THE
Solid Rock on Ballison station and scanned her eyes across the various patrons, the dancers on the stage, and the tattooed bouncer. Her gaze settled on one man sitting at the far end of the bar where he could watch the entrance. He raised his glass to her and took a sip.

She crossed the room, winding her way through the tables. She waved off a waitress trying to help and settled herself on the seat next to him. “What do you have for me, Jimmy?”

He slid a data card across the bar to her. “Wreckage of the
Argus Twin
. I already salvaged the cargo, but her drives and one reactor are still intact.”

She took the card and tucked it into the inside pocket of her jacket. “And the computer core?”

He shook his head. “The whole forward section was slagged, so I doubt it, but you can always have your boys try for it.”

The bartender approached, but she waved him off. “All right. Standard fifteen percent finder’s fee, and if we manage to pull any data, I’ll try to get you a copy. It’s what… four years old?”

“Something like that, but you never know what you’ll find in those records. You should know that better than any, Elsa.”

She stiffened. She hated when anyone used that name. “Anything else?” She had places to be.

“A bit of good news. You remember Malcolm Fletcher?”

“Wish I didn’t,” she replied. “I only wish he could forget about me.”

“Then your wish is granted. He’s dead.”

She turned to face him. “You’re serious?”

He downed the rest of his whiskey. “Got squished last month loading cargo out at Shorthorn.” He made a pinching motion with his fingers.

A smile crept across her face. “That is good news, good enough to drink to.” She waved the bartender to come back. “Two of whatever he’s having.”

He nodded and turned back to get the bottle back down from the shelf.

“Pity it didn’t happen sooner,” she said.

Jimmy shrugged. “I suppose. He was a decent fence, you know, for salvaged goods. Discreet.”

“I’m sure you can find someone new. What about his old crew, his ship? Maybe one of them.”

“Maybe,” he replied. “I think the ship might be going to his boy.”

“I don’t need to tell you that that’s a computer core I’d like to get my hands on.”

Jimmy gave a little grin. “It had crossed my mind. I may head on down to Taschin and check it out.”

The bartender returned with their drinks, and Elsa threw a couple of bills on the bar.

She raised her glass. “To Malcolm Fletcher, not just a mother-fucking bastard, but a dead mother-fucking bastard.”

Jimmy clinked her glass and slammed his back. “Ahh! I’ll be sure to take a piss on his grave if I get the chance.”

She poured her whiskey back more slowly, savoring it. “Send me the location. I know a lot of people who would want to have their turn as well.”

The dinner was served in the officers’ wardroom on deck two. There did not seem to be a kitchen, only warming trays, so Michael gathered that the stewards brought the food up from the galley on deck three. The table was set for twelve, but it looked a little cramped.

Charlie was there again, as was Karl Roth from the docks. An attractive young woman stepped forward and introduced herself. “Gabrielle Schneider,” she said with a smile. “I’m your cousin, first cousin actually. Peter was my uncle.”

He shook her hand. “So you’re the captain’s daughter?”

She nodded. “Yeah, but don’t think that’s how I got the alpha navigation slot. I earned that rating one year out of the academy, but Dad made me qualify again under his own test.”

He smiled in amusement. Malcolm’s tests always seemed unnaturally more difficult than the official exams in the book. “I completely understand.”

The introductions continued. It seemed like most of the watch leads were present, including two of his second cousins, one of the first cousins once removed, and a woman named Terri Schwartz. “I married in,” she explained, “so technically I’m an in-law.”

A few others introduced themselves as being no relation, and he kept looking back and forth between faces and name tags. The assurances that he still had a week to learn them all kept up until they were all saying it in unison. One of them, a man in his early thirties, arrived in his dress uniform, complete with the shoulder braids and the gold-embossed name pin reading Walter Brookstone.

Gabrielle knocked his hat off when she saw him. “Wally, the XO said no dress uniforms. Michael doesn’t have his yet.”

Wally shrugged. “Sorry, Gabby, I didn’t get the memo.” He glanced around and spotted Michael. “Even then, I had to show young Mr. Schneider how fabulous he’s going to look when his is ready.”

“Then you should have gotten a prettier face to demo it with,” Terri shot back at him. “Right, Michael?”

Michael managed a weak smile at them. “Actually, it’s not Schneider. It’s Fletcher.”

The door opened and his uncle Hans walked in followed by a red-headed woman. A round of “sir” and “ma’am” swept through the room as they came in. Hans went right to the head of the table, while the woman took up position on his left. She looked around the room and settled in on Wally.

“I like your utilities, Mr. Brookstone,” she said. “Remind me to assign you some special duties in them.”

Wally swallowed audibly in the silence. “Yes, ma’am.”

Hans gave a chuckle. “I think we can dispense with the discipline tonight, Felicia. It’s a night to celebrate. Michael,” he motioned him over. “I’d like you to meet my first officer, Felicia Corazon. She keeps all the wheels turning for me so that I can keep an eye on the larger picture.”

She extended her hand across the table, and Michael took it. “It’s a pleasure, Ms. Corazon.”

She gave his hand a firm shake and released it. “I look forward to working with you, Mr. Schneider.”

Michael set his jaw. This time he said it more clearly. “Actually, it’s Fletcher, not Schneider.”

Hans shot him a brief glare, his nostrils flaring in a quick breath. He cleared his throat and announced to the room. “Places everyone. Let’s enjoy ourselves.”

People began to shuffle, and Michael looked down at the table. Right before him was a formal name card with the
Heavy Heinrich
logo in a light gray background. The name on it read Michael W. Schneider. The rest of the diners started settling into their seats, and it became clear that swapping was not allowed. He bit back his response and sat to the right of his uncle, directly across from the XO.

The stewards stepped forward from the corners and began to fill the wine glasses with an amber bubbling liquid. Michael sniffed at it. It was seemed light and sweet, not at all like Malcolm’s celebratory drinks. He was about to take a sip when a foot poked at him under the table. Gabrielle glared at him from across the table next to the XO. He set it back down and she nodded with a smile.

When all the glasses were filled, Hans stood with his glass and faced Michael. “To Michael, in remembrance of lost family and in appreciation of joyful returns.”

Everyone else stood and raised their glasses. “To Michael,” they said.

He felt rather self-conscious from the attention, but he knew enough to stand and nod. “Thank you,” was all he could think to say.

They drank, and he sat back down and took a discreet sip for himself. It bubbled across his tongue and down his throat, the scent wafting back up into his nose. It almost tickled. “What is this?” he asked.

“You’ve never had champagne before?” Gabrielle asked.

He shook his head.

Hans patted his arm. “I imagine there are a number of luxuries our young cousin has yet to sample.”

“Of course, it’s not technically champagne,” Wally chimed in. “That only comes from a certain region on Earth.” He took another sip. “I suspect this is from the vineyards on Latera, north of Stonefall.”

Hans nodded. “That’s a good nose, Wally. I actually have some true champagne back at the home office. I only wish I’d brought it with me.”

The stewards came in with a soup course, and Michael fumbled through the spoons, keeping a keen eye on Corazon across from him, and the conversations began to flow. Eventually, the champagne was switched out with a red wine for the main course, a mouth-watering rib-eye with crisp green beans still steaming.

The talk at his end of the table predictably turned to his own past, and he did his best to glamorize his own spacer life. He recounted many of those trips deep into the frontier, his first space walk at seven, the near-fatal accident when old
Hammerhead
’s tach drive blew out, his first time piloting
Sophie
, and of course, the time he and Malcolm had been arrested on Nestor.

“It was all a case of mistaken identity,” he assured them. “The man they actually wanted was some local, a gambler’s thug.”

“And you?” Charlie asked from down the table.

“Well, I was only nine, but it turned out the thug had a midget for a partner, so there you are.”

Hans smiled at him blandly. “It’s a shame you didn’t have Peter looking out for you. You would have had a much less turbulent childhood.”

Michael shrugged. “I don’t know. I kind of liked all the excitement.”

“Oh, I’m sure you enjoyed it. I was only saying that Peter would have focused you more on your school work and less on gamblers and midgets.”

Michael set his fork down, the green bean dangling limply. “I think Malcolm Fletcher did a good job. He was a good captain and a good father to me.”

Hans screwed up his face tightly and seethed for a moment, his breath hissing out through his nose. “Your father was Peter, my brother, and he was a good man.”

Michael became aware that the rest of the conversations had stopped. “I’m sure he was, Uncle, but at least Malcolm Fletcher was there for me. Your brother wasn’t.”

Hans made a fist and pounded it once on the table. “My brother…” he trailed off and lifted his head up to the ceiling with closed eyes. He took two breaths and returned his glare to Michael. “Look, Michael, I don’t know what that man told you about your mother and father, but you’re back with your real family now. Peter loved you very much, and this is the life he wanted for you. You’re a Schneider, and the sooner you accept that, the better.”

Michael looked away, down the table at all the eyes looking at him, cousins of all stripes that he never knew, and finally his gaze landed on the name card before him. Michael W. Schneider. He picked it up and held it out in front of his uncle. “My name is Fletcher,” he said, and tore the card in two. “And Malcolm Fletcher is not ‘that man’. He was—”

“Your father?” Hans finished it for him. “Your father was Peter Schneider.” He pushed back from the table. “He was a good man, and he loved your mother very much, and she loved him. This colorful father figure of yours had always been a no-good ruffian with no family and no breeding, tossed aside by your mother’s good judgment. A better man would have accepted it and moved on.”

“But—”

“No buts,” Hans cut him off. He shook his head twice, struggling with his words before turning to stare him right in eye. “The unpleasant truth is that Malcolm Fletcher was nothing more than a pirate with friends in high places, and when he couldn’t have your mother, he murdered her right along with my brother. That’s right, Michael, murder. You can think of him what you will, but you are never to speak of him to me again.”

Hans stood, pulled his napkin from his lap, and threw it onto his unfinished dinner. He walked from the room in silence.

Chapter 9

“Don’t like the new guy? Too bad, because he’s the one who keeps you supplied with oxygen.” — Malcolm Fletcher

M
ICHAEL BOLTED FROM THE ROOM
after a few more seconds of silence, but Hans was nowhere to be seen, already lost around one corner or another. He paced back and forth for a few moments, but decided he had had enough for one day. He went back down the corridor, past the lift, and started down the ladders.

Two decks down, he wandered down one hall, then another, and then backtracked to the correct turn. He found his quarters, now with a name plate slid into the bracket. Michael Schneider. Again.

“Dammit!” he shouted, and pried the name plate out with his fingers.

A head popped out from two doors down towards the bathrooms. “You ok?”

He shook his head. “Long day.”

The head was followed by a body, a short muscular woman in a tank top and sweat pants. “You’re the new guy. Michael, right?”

He sighed and punched the door’s button. “Yeah, but I’ve had enough introductions for one day.” He walked in before she could remind him that he had a full week before the test.

Inside, a double-wide crate blocked access to his bed. He flipped open the lid and found his new utilities. Harry worked quickly. He lifted up the top shirt and looked it over. It seemed a bit trimmer than the one he was wearing now, and this one had the name tag.