Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework (55 page)

As Minh made his way from the rear fighter
bay, he couldn’t help but wonder at how much work was left to do on
the Warlord. Though the ship was fully functional and looked
complete on the outside, more than half the habitation area hadn’t
been finished. While replacing her main support beams, it had been
decided to remove whole sections of deck plating, leaving half the
habitation areas - most noticeably the cafeteria - unusable. He
could hear the sounds of conversations drifting down the narrow
hallway towards him as he passed through a bulkhead door. The new
hatch looked out of place in a hallway with cables lining the sides
of the corridor. It was a work in progress.

So was the Warlord’s crew. He emerged from
the aft-most section of the ship into the only usable large cargo
bay. As instructed, the crew had broken out dozens of mismatched
portable chairs and tables. A bunch of small sealed crates rounded
out their common room furniture. The off-duty crew sat around
leisurely, waiting to watch a large holographic projector, talking,
or just laying back on one of the cots that had made their way down
from the crew quarters. “Commander!” called Joyboy, a pilot who had
become well known for his up-beat nature and big, toothy grin. He
was at a table surrounded by crewmen who hadn’t yet learned that he
was also a card shark.

Minh picked his way across the room to the
table, looking the crowd over. There were over ninety crew in the
hold, several of them waiting for a mechanic to finish hooking up a
large, beaten up holoprojector. He was head and arms deep in the
base of the old machine. “Did you say there was a trick to this,
Commander?” he called over his shoulder.

Minh perked up at hearing his rank being
called, then saw Stephanie answer. “Yeah. When we first set it up
aboard, Ashley tweaked something so it projected a bigger picture
than it was made for.”

“Over-projecting didn’t burn a lens?” the
mechanic asked dubiously. “Because that could be the problem.”

Stephanie stepped over and gave the old
machine’s base a solid kick. She waited a moment before asking,
“no?”

The broad shouldered mechanic shook his
head. “That’s not gonna help, but I think I see the problem.” After
a moment of squirming to reach something inside the machine a
hologram of a talking kitten came on screen with the caption
“KAWAII KITTEN” dancing around it. A child appeared in the air,
opening a small stasis package. Within was a kitten who lazily
rolled over and mewled “hi Mom,” inspiring groans and sounds of awe
from the watchers. “Okay, a word of advice for all the new people,”
Stephanie announced in a surprisingly loud voice. “Captain doesn’t
allow pets aboard, so if you buy a Kawaii kitten, do not open it!
You can’t put the little buggers back into their stasis packs once
they’re out, and they’ll follow you around asking for treats and
other crap. That, and they’re obnoxious, latch on to random people,
and when they grow up they become social maters, so it’s like
having a furry soap opera with lots of shrill yelling.” Most of the
crew seemed to take her seriously, while a few offered boos in
return. “Seriously, I’ll flush it out the airlock if I see it.”

“Hey Ronin, glad you could join us,” Pisser,
a tall, narrow-faced woman with green hair told him as she sat down
at the table. “Everything okay in the rear launch?”

“Locked down tight. Looks like our support
crew gets a break, they’ll be here soon,” he replied, still
distracted with trying to take in the various activities of the
crowd. After being alone for so long, seeing large crowds of people
was still strange. At first they were difficult to take, even
frightening. Thanks to his partially completed therapy, he could
handle a crowd and sometimes found them mesmerizing.

“You gonna sit down?” Joyboy asked. “Maybe
play a few hands? I gotta get something off my chest.”

“I bet he does,” Pisser said. “Joyboy’s been
a baaaaad boy!”

“Gambling is the preoccupation of many fools
and occupation of a few plunderers,” Minh-Chu said offhandedly.

“That’s a no, Joyboy,” interpreted Pisser.
“Ronin knows better than to waste his luck on a card game.”

The mechanic who was working on the
holoprojector noticed him as soon as he stood up and started
walking over. “Sir!” he called out. “Commander Ronin, Sir.”

“That’s me unless you’re about to give me a
reason to wish I was someone else,” Minh replied, shaking the man’s
offered hand.

“I just wanted to say thank you on behalf of
myself and all the slaves you and your captain freed from the
Palamo. My name is David, this is my fiancée, Nerine.”

Before Minh could reply he was embraced
briefly but enthusiastically by a far too skinny young woman with
curly brown hair. “You commanded the fighters who disabled the
Palamo?”

Minh didn’t quite know how to react, but
took a cue from Commander Stephanie Vega, who nodded from a couple
of metres away. “I did. I’m sorry, you must have lost people in
that fight,” he said.

“Almost none,” David said as he took Nerine
under his arm. “Your people managed to disable engines and weapons
without damaging life support in most areas. There were a lot of
burns and several decompressions, but you guys took care of us and
picked up survivors who were lucky enough to be wearing a vacuum
suit.”

“If the Triton and Samurai Wing never turned
up, we’d probably still be on that old carrier,” added a man from
behind Stephanie, who was wearing a grin that made her amusement
plain.

“You’re welcome,” Minh offered. “How are you
getting on aboard the Warlord?”

“I signed up as a machinist and general
mechanic,” answered David with pride. “Nerine here is one of your
new food preps.”

“I prefer cookie,” she corrected with a
playful grin. “Speaking of which, Tom’s probably looking for me.
Gotta go get a bunch of forma protein squares processed into
something that looks edible.”

A few people who overheard her announcement
shuddered at the mention of the processed food.

“Can you make some vegetable Lo-Mein noodles
for two?” Minh asked quietly. “I’m headed to the bridge, and I
don’t think the watch-person has had dinner yet.”

“Comin’ up, Commander,” Nerine said.

“You mean Lo-Mein shaped food with
flavouring mixed in,” Joyboy corrected.

“It’s not that bad,” Minh countered. “I
could think of several things with worse textures. Oh, and you
knocked up my girlfriend,” Minh added, unable to resist.

“And there it is!” Pisser shouted, leaping
to her feet as though her favourite team just scored a goal. “He
brought it up before Joyboy! You slag-brains owe me today’s
pay!”

Joyboy lowered his head as the surrounding
crew burst into laughter or tried to catch up on what they
missed.

Minh-Chu couldn’t help but laugh along as he
waited for most of the commotion to subside. Stephanie looked
openly shocked, despite her amusement. “True?” she asked as she
approached him. “I don’t watch Crewcast like some people.”

“Yup,” Minh-Chu nodded. He turned to Joyboy
who looked like he was ready to beg for his place in the fighter
squadron and put his hand on his shoulder. “Congratulations, one
man’s shrew is another man’s goddess,” he said to him. “Best of
luck with the four AM feedings. I’ll make sure you have plenty of
time planet-side to help out.”

Nerine, catching the barb, approached with
two steaming disposable boxes. Her wide-eyed laughter had a tinge
of sympathy for Joyboy, whose head was down, his eyes closed as he
groaned like a damned man. “Here’s your order, first out of the
kitchen.”

“Thank you very much,” Minh-Chu said,
accepting the boxes.

“Oh, and the texturizer is broken now, we
only got five orders out with it,” she whispered.

“That’s a bad thing? I’ve never had forma
before,” Minh said.

“That means I’m getting two of those
orders,” Stephanie said. “One for me, one for the captain.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Nerine said. “Everyone else’s
food will be firm mush, like really old pudding, no matter what
flavor we put in it. On the bright side, we can make really good
pudding.”

“See you in the morning,” Minh-Chu said to
his pilots. “Get as much sleep as you can, while you can.” He
followed Stephanie and Nerine as they headed to the partitioned-off
section of the cargo bay where they’d temporarily set up the
kitchen. “What is forma, anyway?”

“It’s a specially engineered processed algae
with essential nutrients and protein. At least that’s what the
crate says,” Nerine replied. “I don’t think anyone wants to know
much more than that, though.”

“You’re right,” Stephanie said. “It produces
a lot of food for the storage space it takes, but with the
texturizer broken, dinner will be memorable, and not in a good way.
I’ll get a couple of security people here just to manage the
crowd.”

“Thank you,” Nerine beamed. “I’m sure it’ll
be fine. Do you want the last good meal for Frost?” she asked.

“No, he won’t eat forma,” Stephanie replied.
“He’s on meal bars.”

“Why won’t he eat forma?” Minh-Chu
asked.

“He won’t say, something happened before I
met him. If he won’t talk about it, it was bad,” Stephanie
explained.

“But this is a good batch, I’ve already done
the raw test,” Nerine said, shuddering. “It was terrible, but it
sat well.”

“Thank you again, Nerine,” Minh-Chu
said.

“I’ll see you on the bridge after I deliver
one of these to the captain,” Stephanie said. “He’s working on
something in his quarters.”

“See you there,” Minh-Chu said, moving
towards the main corridor.

When he neared the bridge, he could hear
Finn saying, “Just look at the guide and plug it in.”

Minh quietly entered the bridge and took in
the scene. Ashley was under her console waist-deep and Finn was
standing over her with his fists planted on his hips. Ashley’s new
copilot, Clara Ramone, was watching from her seat with a worried
expression.

“What’s this wire for, anyway?” Ashley asked
from under the console.

“I don’t know, you didn’t let me look at
it,” Finn replied.

“It fell out before you got here, and you’ve
been no help,” Ashley replied.

“What colour is it?” Finn asked.

“Sort of a teal, oh! There’s a bunch of
plugs down here just like it, they’re all empty. How do I know
which one to plug this into?”

“Okay, some of those are redundancies,
others are reserved. You should find a number on the wire you’re
holding that matches one of the terminals.”

“Um,” Ashley said. She didn’t elaborate.

The trio looking on waited long moments
before Finn broke down. “Um… what?”

“Got it!” Ashley declared. A hologram
appeared just above the main pilot’s controls that added all the
status information relative to what they manipulated. Ashley came
out from under the console hurriedly and saw the change. “Okay,
that’s cool, and new.”

“Oh, right, we didn’t activate that because
we though it would be distracting,” Finn said. “It was never
plugged in.”

“Well, I’m glad I did. Every switch has an
info reading and a link to a corresponding log. All the bridge
panels should have this,” Ashley said, manipulating a few of the
small holograms pointing to switches.

“That’s another reason why we didn’t plug it
in,” Finn said, noticing Minh-Chu for the first time. “If they see
that on your console, everyone will want it.”

“Hi, Minh,” Ashley said with a smile as she
made herself comfortable in the pilot’s seat.

“I brought dinner,” Minh-Chu said. “I didn’t
know what you wanted so I just ordered another of what I was
having. Feeling like tasting something from home.”

“What is it?” Ashley asked after checking
and re-locking her controls.

“So, soup’s on,” Finn said. “I’d better go
before that ancient texturizer dies for good.”

“I’ll take the copilot’s station so you can
go too, Clara,” Minh said.

“Thanks, I’m starving,” she said, quickly
logging that she was transferring control to Ronin temporarily. “I
should have chomped something before watch, but I didn’t have
time.”

“No one had time,” Finn said, waiting for
Clara at the door. “But that’s what happens when our time on-world
gets cut suddenly. You’ll get used to it.”

“That happens a lot?” she asked as she
caught up with Finn and the door closed behind them.

Minh-Chu handed one of the recyclable boxes
to Ashley as he sat in the copilot’s seat and punched in his call
sign, informing the computer that he was taking part of the watch.
“How is she?” Minh-Chu said.

“Ooh, noodles,” Ashley said as she tore the
chopsticks off the side of the container. “Thank you, Minh,” she
said. “How’s Clara? She’s good. Not as good as Larry, but she’s
good.”

Minh-Chu tried not to dwell on thoughts of
Laura, who was killed by Larry, but Ashley saw through him.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean
to...”

“It’s all right,” Minh-Chu said, focusing on
pulling his chopsticks off the side of the box without ripping it
wide open. “We can’t guard everything we say because someone did
something terrible. When you mention Larry, I think of Laura, true,
but that’s not a bad thing. I didn’t know her as well as a lot of
people from the First Light, but I always liked her.”

“I didn’t really know her either,” Ashley
said. “But she was always really nice. She seemed smart, too.”

“Thank you,” Minh-Chu replied.

Ashley put her food down for a moment and
pulled Minh’s chopsticks free for him. “Pull from the top, that’s
the trick.”

“Thanks,” Minh said.

“Um, so how are the pilots?” Ashley asked,
digging into her noodles and drawing a knot of Lo-Mein into her
mouth.

“Oh, they’re good. Having a laugh at Joyboy
right now. They’re going to be on him for days.”