Inadvertent Adventures (15 page)

"Yes, Ma'am," Katrina answered and moved toward the ship, her baggage obediently following in her wake. She returned just ten minutes later on her way out.

"Don't be too long," Ann said as she passed. "We are departing in three hours. Don't be late or you'll be left behind."

"Yes, Ma'am," Katrina replied in a tone that said how tired she was of being polite.

* * *

Bart Roberts edged up to Ann's shoulder and asked, "Who's she?" in a tone Ann knew all too well.

"Down boy! Heel!" she snapped as she smiled up at him. "She's our passenger. Her daddy could probably buy the
Revenge
with his pocket change, so keep your hands to yourself and be polite. Surprisingly, she doesn't seem to be that spoiled."

"Cute kid," Bart said as he gazed after her. "Can I--?"

Ann rolled her eyes and said, "Go ahead. She's headed to a uniform shop up on Delta ring to pick up some ship's coveralls. Make sure you're both back in time for departure, Bart. I won't wait for you. Especially for
you."

Bart laughed as he left the ship. He could still see their passenger ahead, and he hurried to catch up with her. He didn't get too close as they boarded the elevators. He just hung back and watched her. She looked like she was about nineteen, in spite of the outfit. She moved with a confident air about her, one that said she was comfortable rather than snobby. At the Delta ring he followed her out of the elevator and toward the shopping plaza.

* * *

Katrina stopped in the middle of the station shops and looked around. There were at least fifty clothes shops here, ranging from the trendy to the utilitarian. Taking a deep breath, she headed for one of the uniform shops like the captain had suggested. She noticed the young man following her, but she ignored him. Guys like him always followed her.

The uniform shop carried every imaginable color and pattern, and some patterns and color combinations that showed no imagination at all. She was looking at a saffron yellow suit when the young man approached her.

"I wouldn't buy that one," he said in a deep, melodious voice. "That's the color of the Amberson Cartel. Besides, it'd make you look like someone dipped you in mustard."

Katrina giggled in spite of herself. "Oh, and what would you suggest?" she asked as she looked up at him. He was much more handsome up close than she had at first suspected.

"Blue. Something to go with your eyes," Bart replied, pulling out an electric blue suit and handing it to her.

"My eyes are not blue. They are hazel."

"It's still a good color for you," he said, smiling down at her.

Katrina had to agree. "I only have to have enough for five days in space," she said as she picked up a deep burgundy suit.

"Three should do. There's a laundro-bot on the
Revenge,
so that's all most of us have," he said casually, but Katrina caught the reference immediately.

"The
Admiral Ann's Revenge?
You're from the ship? Did the captain send you along to watch over me, like I'm some irresponsible child?" she snapped in an angry tone.

"No, I asked for permission to come up here and get a new suit for myself. I only have three, and this one," he paused to gesture toward the worn-thin areas of his suit, "is just about dead. I really need to replace it."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Katrina said in a soft voice that betrayed her confusion. No one treated her like an adult at home, and it was a surprise to find herself being treated like one here.

"No problem. I'm Bart Roberts, Quartermaster on the
Admiral Ann's Revenge,"
he said, extending his hand toward her.

"I'm Kat Rubinstein," Katrina replied, taking his hand firmly.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Kat. I think you'd look great in this red," he said as he pulled another suit from the rack.

"No, not red. Red makes my face look splotchy. What about the violet with blue sleeves?" she asked, holding the uniform up to her neck and looking in the mirror.

"It looks good. That's the uniform of the Lanthrop Line."

"Is there a problem with the Lanthrop Line or wearing their uniform?" she asked as she bundled the suits together.

"No, not with Lanthrop. Sometimes you have to be careful, but Lanthrop has a good reputation. You see, some lines have, well, nasty rivalries." He pulled out a red suit with yellow sleeves and another red suit with green sleeves. "This one is from the Karave Cargo Line while the second one is from the Jovan Cargo Line. You very seldom see these two together unless the wearer of one is beating the crap out of the wearer of the other."

"Oh!" Katrina exclaimed, shocked both by what he said and by how casually he'd said it. "I could be assaulted just for wearing the wrong uniform?"

"Sad but true. Now me, I like basic black." He struck a pose and said, "Black goes with everything," in a stuffy tone that made Katrina giggle again.

"Then I'll take a black one as well," Katrina said with a grin. "That should satisfy the captain. Why did she insist I get them, though?"

"In case you have to don your suit in a hurry."

Katrina frowned. "Shimmying out of this and putting on a suit liner would take longer than getting out of what I'm wearing," she said, still puzzled.

Bart looked at her with a strange expression, then laid her black suit out over the rack. "You don't take it off. You just," he grabbed the portion of the suit that formed the horribly named 'diaper' and pulled it off, "take this off and you're set to hook up your suit plumbing. The coverall
is
your suit liner."

"They're
crotch-less?"
Katrina asked in a loud voice. She looked at Bart and her eyes darted down to the midsection of his ship's coverall, and then snapped back up to his face. Bart nodded, but frowned as she burst out laughing in a nearly hysterical manner. "Oh, Mother of God, that's just too funny! Crotch-less coveralls! I never would have thought of that!"

They took their selections to the counter and fed them through the register. Katrina was openly surprised by the price. "That's all? I pay more than that for a pair of pants."

Bart laughed. "That's 'cause you dress in fashion. Utilitarian clothes tend to be durable, unfashionable, and affordable so we working stiffs can afford them."

She gave him a suspicious look, then smiled and led the way out of the store.

T
HE
ADMIRAL ANN'S REVENGE
PULLED AWAY
from the dock on schedule with everyone aboard. Ann had, against her better judgment, invited Katrina to sit up in Control during the maneuver, and the girl actually seemed impressed by the amount of work it took to get the ship away from the space station and on her way.

Katrina waited until everyone seemed to relax before asking Ann a question. "Excuse me, Captain, but is it always like that? I always thought it was just shoving off and you’re on your way."

"This was actually fairly easy, Miss Rubenstein. New Frankfurt Space Control was very helpful and there was little in the way of other traffic for us to avoid. In some of the core systems, where there is more space traffic, it can take several hours to achieve what only took forty-five minutes to do here." Ann smiled at the surprise on Katrina's face.

"But you--I didn't think it was that hard, and you think that was
easy?
Oh, Thor, I wish I could be like you," she all but gushed. She pronounced the ancient Norse God's name with the hard "T" of her Germanic ancestors. Her expression was as close to hero-worshiping as Ann had ever seen, and she couldn't help but chuckle.

"Miss Rubenstein, I've been in space for more than half my life. This is the fifth ship I've commanded, and, until about a year ago, I was a two-star admiral in the CSS Navy. Sterling is my husband, and he's commanded two ships. Denise was the captain of a freighter until just recently. Every member of this crew is ex-Navy, except Denise."

Ann watched Katrina's expression as she looked at the other members of the control room crew. "That must be
so
exciting."

"No, not exciting. Boring as can be most of the time," Denise corrected without turning to face the girl. "Exciting tends to be dangerous."

"But you get to do stuff all the time. You go places and see things that I can only read about." Her face fell and she looked at the deck. "I couldn't afford to travel like that."

Ann and Sterling exchanged glances. "I thought your father was the Chairman of DA-CC," Ann said.

"He is.
He
could afford to travel like that, but not--" She paused and took a deep breath. "My father disowned me because I insisted on going my own way. I want to see the galaxy, experience life among the stars, visit different planets!
He
wanted me to go to university on New Frankfurt and marry some junior executive."

"And this trip to Nepal?" Sterling asked.

"Is supposed to teach me a lesson about what the rest of the Confederacy is like. Father thinks seeing a back-orbit planet will bring me to my senses."

"He may be right. How will you get home if you change your mind?" Ann asked. Stranding the girl on a distant planet didn't appeal to her very much.

"All I have to do is go to a DA-CC office and ask to go home. Father has that trip planned as well."

Ann nodded. "Very well. Sterling, you have the con. Miss Rubenstein, let’s go down to the wardroom and see what Carrie-Marie has made for lunch." She extended one hand as she approached Katrina and the girl turned to let herself be shepherded out of Control.

Carrie-Marie was in the galley when they arrived and smiled at the young girl standing beside the captain. "Hi. I'm Carrie-Marie, or CM. Mandy said you prefer to be called Kat. I have lunch ready, Captain: Sterling's chili recipe and Mandy's cornbread."

"That will be fine, CM. Grab a bowl, Katrina. We serve ourselves here. With just CM in the galley, it's that or wait until she doesn't have anything else to do." Ann smiled at the young woman, then grabbed a bowl and put a piece of cornbread in it and spooned a generous portion of chili over it. Katrina copied her and followed her to the table.

The rest of the off-watch crew members drifted in soon afterward and everyone joined them at the captain's table. Ann introduced Katrina to the people she hadn't yet encountered as they ate, and Katrina paid close attention to the conversation around her. It was mostly about the ship and she didn't understand it, but it was fascinating for exactly that reason: It wasn't something that she'd heard a hundred times before.

"Hi, Kat," a deep voice said and Bart sat down beside her.

"Hi, Bart," she replied demurely. "You've got quite a place here."

All other conversation stopped and every eye turned toward Bart. "Mister Roberts, what did I tell you?" Ann asked in a severe tone.

"I'm just being friendly, Ma'am," Bart said in his own defense.

"We met at the uniform shop you sent me to, Captain," Katrina added. "He helped me pick the colors."

"Did he indeed? Very well. But I warn you, young lady," Ann said as a hint of humor made her eyes glitter, "Bartholomew Andres Roberts can be a scoundrel when he isn't being charming."

"
Ma!
I mean, Ma'am! That isn't fair," Bart cried.

"Call me 'Ma' again and you'll have garbage detail at every port we hit," Ann replied, but there was no humor in her eyes now.

"Yes, Ma'am," Bart whispered.

* * *

The planet Nepal was the only habitable planet in the Tibet Systems, a globular cluster of five stars less than a light-year apart. The planet was nothing special to look at. It did have the large oceans and moon that made most earth-like planets habitable by humans. There were some large lakes that would have made Old Earth's Lake Superior look like a puddle, but they were few and far between. Most of the planet’s land was covered with deserts or high mountains, and only the silt-filled mountain valleys allowed for agriculture: the rest was too dry. The reason for the settlement of Nepal had been the desire for a religious retreat that no one else wanted for any other reason. That in itself was rare: habitable planets weren't that common.

The Tibet Systems did have resources that people wanted. The rocky planets tended to be high in metals that were precious for their utility in the space-going civilization of the Confederacy. Several orbital shipyards hung over uninhabitable planets in the systems. Those shipyards provided ships to the entire Confederacy. The
Admiral Ann's Revenge
had been built just one system over.

Ann was supervising the unloading of the cargo when Katrina approached her. "Ma'am, I," she began, then hesitated, "I wondered if I really have to leave?"

"What do you mean?" Ann asked. Katrina was still wearing her ship coverall, and her luggage was nowhere in sight.

"Ma'am, Captain, I was wondering if you'd take me on as an apprentice spacer?" Katrina finally managed to ask. "I learned a lot on the way from New Frankfurt, and I thought I was being helpful."

Ann looked at the girl as she thought. Katrina had indeed been helpful on the trip. After the first day she'd begun shadowing either Amanda or Carrie-Marie, and had even helped in the galley several times. She hadn't complained about anything on the ship, and, perhaps more importantly, no one had complained about
her.

"I thought you wanted to go to Nepal? You said you wanted to see the galaxy."

Katrina studied the toes of her shoes carefully. "I did. I do. It's what I told my father. But I told you the truth: I want to see the galaxy and visit different planets. Nepal was just going to be the first. But he was right, too. Nepal
is
a back-orbit planet. I don't want to stay here, and I don't want to admit defeat and go home." She didn't beg or plead. She was simply admitting her mistake, and asking to be allowed to move on with her life.

"You won't get equal shares like the rest of us," Ann said as she reached her decision. "You'll get half what we do until you can handle a watch station by yourself. It'll probably take a year or two. Can you accept that?"