Star Keepers: The Captain

Star Keepers

Chapter Five: The Captain

by Paul Adams

The rest of Gavin’s shift went as normally as any other given day on any of Gavin’s previous ships. Once the prisoners had been squared away with the enemy ships in tow, Gavin sent Bardlun and Long Tail to speak with them and alert the Star Keeper Command, while Qarian and Geroff descended to the hold to inspect the drones and laser arrays after the battle. Gavin and Aghri personally got in touch with the local leadership of the attacked planet and assured them that everything would be alright.

Once everything to do with the mission had been dealt with, Aghri retired to his quarters, giving Gavin full command. The Witani looked so very like his uncle, Gavin’s last captain, with his golden eyes and reticent demeanor, that Gavin had a hard time reminding himself that he was the superior officer this time around. After another hour or two, Nikola the pilot handed off her controls to one of the ship’s auxiliary officers, a magenta-furred Mura whose small sleek body slipped comfortably into the grooves of the pilot’s chair, her unique quintuple-jointed hands allowing her to manipulate the steering mechanism in ways no Human ever could.

Finally, half an hour later, Garrison spun in his chair at the far end of the bridge. His screens went dark and his thick glasses lit up with smaller versions of those screens once again. He stood, straightening out his finely pressed uniform and pushing his glasses back up on his thin nose. He ran his hand through his dark, curly hair and said, with an air of a mere officer to his superior, “My shift is up, so I’m going to head to my quarters. I’ve already alerted the other auxiliary to come and take over.”

He ascended the bridge, passing the pilot on the way. As he neared Gavin however, he stopped and looked up at his captain. Through the bright images playing across his glasses, Gavin could see the blue eyes of his cousin James, studying him the way he would have back on Centauri IV whenever Gavin described the adventures he would have someday as a space captain. The computer officer was silent for a moment, his expression blank and unreadable, before he offered a brief “Welcome aboard, Captain” and left the bridge without another word.

“Thank you, Mr. Garrison,” Gavin replied quietly.

Two hours later, Qarian returned and Gavin handed off control of the bridge to her. After that Gavin made his rounds through the ship, inspecting the crew and important areas of the ship. First, Gavin visited the engine room, a massive area that took up the entire back half of the Arrowhead. A miniature sun roiled in the center of the room, encapsulated in a thick transparent globe of nearly impenetrable material, with tubes connecting to the sphere and directing the sun’s energy to the engines and other areas of the ship. Despite the measures taken to keep the engine room as cool and radiation-free as possible, the room always felt uncomfortably warm to Gavin. He remembered his days as an auxiliary officer aboard his first vessel, and being forced to spend entire shifts there helping the engineer. He was glad that he now only had to visit the engine room for brief periods every day.

The engineer, Mikoh Ras, was a Mura much like the auxiliary officer now piloting the ship, except with matted black-and-gray fur rather than magenta. While Gavin watched, he put his species’ special hands to good use, manipulating the machinery making up the room with masterful ease, as if he had been born to work with tools. Gavin found he also had a rather loud and abrasive personality, made apparent when he let Gavin know his displeasure at having had his assistant, the other auxiliary officer Garrison had summoned, called away to do some menial task like keeping the ship’s computer systems up and running.

Next Gavin visited the medical bay, a large room in the center of the ship, easily accessible from anywhere else a crew member might happen to be. One wall was lined with beds, the opposite lined with stasis pods. Both seemed small, but Gavin knew they functioned the same way as the seats on the bridge, able to expand and shape themselves to fit any body type. A third wall was lined with isolation chambers, while the fourth was a long straight wall of cabinets with screens displaying all manner of medical information across their faces. Each bed and stasis pod had a console built into the wall beside it from which medicine or information could be summoned if needed.

The doctor was one of the oldest creatures Gavin had ever met. He had a large, oval-shaped head with a beak and drooping eye stalks, heavy gray wings that didn’t look like they were capable of lifting him off the ground anymore, and thin, pale skin that showed way more of the doctor’s insides than Gavin wanted to see. The old doctor floated around the room on a large square platform, complete with holographic screen and table surface, that allowed him to set down next to any patient who needed his immediate attention.

Currently, the only patient was Geroff, the ship’s weapons officer, who sat on the edge of a bed in one corner, his fur smoking and his face and arms covered in burns, but with a wide smile on his face.

“What happened?” Gavin asked.

“Mr. Latil set off an explosion in his quarters,” the old doctor rasped in beak-variant Ubar. Gavin wasn’t as well-versed in beak-variant as he was in standard lip-variant Ubar, but he managed to translate after only a few seconds with little trouble. Maybe Long Tail had been rubbing off on him after all.

“Wh—Was he hurt?” Gavin asked. His gut reaction was to demand why he would have done such a thing, but he forced himself to remember his training and prioritize his questions.

“Don’t worry about me, Captain,” the weapons officer said simply, his smile broadening. Only now did Gavin realize that the officer had a lazy eye on the left side, which gave him a slightly unhinged look. “We Gyrowans have very thick skin. I’ve been through a lot bigger explosions than that in my time.”

Gavin breathed slowly, inhaling the fumed curling from the creature’s bristly fur. For a moment, he though he caught a whiff of mint mixed into the smoky odor. He moved on to his second question. “Why would you do this?”

“Because it was fun.”

Gavin looked to the doctor for clarification. The old medic sighed heavily and tapped his screen, pulling up the weapons officer’s medical records. “Officially, Lieutenant Latil is diagnosed as a pyromaniac. More specifically, he is obsessed with explosives. He has been known to . . . experiment in his free time.”

Gavin raised an eyebrow. “Why is he allowed service, then?”

“He falls just above the line, sir,” the doctor said. “While he shows little impulse control and an unhealthy obsession for explosive materials, he has rarely harmed a fellow crewmember or done significant damage to any given ship he is on.”

Geroff nodded so quickly, Gavin thought his head might wobble off. “I always make sure I’m the only one in the blast range. Unless they’re bad guys. I blow them up sometimes.” He grinned at Gavin, his lazy eye wandering to the doctor’s console. “Can I go back to my quarters now?”

Gavin bit his lip and looked at the doctor. “All of this is in his file?”

The doctor nodded. “His case has been brought to High Command several times, but he was allowed to remain in service due to his apparent self-control and his particular expertise in the field of, well, explosives.”

Gavin looked back at Geroff. The weapons officer was still wearing the same unhinged grin as before. The whole thing seemed a little fishy to him. He’d have to look into it. “You may leave when Doctor Gollie clears you,” Gavin said. He turned to said doctor. “Send me the information from all previous ships Lieutenant Latil has ever served aboard.”

“Yes, sir.”

Gavin turned to leave. “Bye, Captain!” he heard Geroff shout behind him.

Finally, Gavin’s shift ended and he returned to the solitude of his own quarters. Or rather, that’s what he would have done if he hadn’t found Long Tail there, lounging on his bed while watching a space race on the opposing wall.

“What’s up,” the little lizard said as he came in.

Gavin stared at him for a second. He closed his eyes and breathed slowly. “What are you doing in here?”

“What does it look like I’m doing. Making sure my boy Maxes doesn’t let me down. I’ve got too many bets riding on him this season.”

Gavin shook his head. “First of all, as your captain, I’m not supposed to approve of gambling. Second of all, you’re not supposed to just hang out in your captain’s quarters like they’re your own.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mine aren’t as nice as yours. Now, are you going to join me in the Maxes party, or are you going to stick with Ceriah like you always do.”

“She’s going to win this thing, you just watch.”

“Sure. You only support her because you’ve got a thing for her.”

Gavin rolled his eyes. “Now, if you don’t mind, I need to change.”

“I don’t mind,” Long Tail shrugged.

Gavin tapped a point on the wall and swiped the air between him and Long Tail. A wall materialized between them, splitting the room into two. At first, the wall was little more than a trick of light, but after a few seconds, it developed the same solid consistency as the walls to which it connected. For a minute or so, Gavin simply leaned against the door, smiling to himself. He stared at his ancestors’ pictures lining the wall opposite him, ending with his father, staring back at him with his mane of wild, brown hair and cocky grin. I did it, he thought to himself. I got through my first day as captain. He studied each image in succession, hoping they would all be proud of him.

Gavin stood and stepped across to his closet. He slipped off his coat and slacks, hanging them up carefully on their hooks, placing his badge and insignia on the shelf nearby. He tapped at the wall behind his uniform, which opened and pulled the uniform inside to be washed and pressed. Tapping the wall a few inches to the left, a set of fresh casual clothing popped out, including a white denicotton shirt and a pair of black pants. Gavin quickly got them on and checked his reflection in the mirror. His blue eyes looked back at him from the same young face he had seen earlier that day, but for a second, Gavin thought he might look a bit more mature now. But maybe that was just wishful thinking. He glanced back at his father’s picture. The same blue eyes, but shining out from a lined and weathered face, the face of one who knew combat, one who knew how to be a leader.

Gavin tapped the wall, dispelling it into thin air once again and re-opening the room. Long Tail still lounged on the bed, but he had moved over several feet, leaving enough space for Gavin to lay however he wanted. Gavin flopped down beside the lizard, for the moment no longer captain and communications officer, but the best friends they’d always been.

“Maxes winning?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“How’s Ceriah doing?”

“Hit an asteroid two laps back.”

Gavin cursed. “Fine, put me in on Maxes.”

“Nope, too late. My offer has already expired. Try again next time.”

“Really?” Gavin asked with a roll of his eyes.

“Of course. You’re a captain now. I have no reason to go easy on you anymore. Besides, as a captain, you’re not supposed to approve of gambling.”

Gavin slumped back on the bed. He watched the screen on the opposite wall, as a pair of racers sped neck-and-neck through an asteroid belt. One of them bore the blue-and-silver markings of Maxes Maxone. The other bore black-and-red markings that Gavin didn’t recognize. “Which belt today?”

“Earth’s.”

“Really? We’re that far along in the season already?”

“Gavin, come on, you really need to pay more attention to these things if you want to stand any chance against me.”

“Well, I’m sorry. I’ve been a little busy lately. Has Ceriah won any so far?”

Long Tail flipped casually through a small pad of paper in front of him. “She came in third once.”

“Great. How much am I set back?”

“Only thirty yorei. I guess that’s one advantage to not paying enough attention. As for me, if my boy Maxes pulls through I can be looking forward to a nice seventy-three coming my way.”

Gavin watched the screen for a minute. The race was nearly over, and it looked like Maxes was pulling ahead of his opponent. “I guess there’s no point to keep watching. I should get on those reports.” He got up and crossed to his desk. He sat down and typed up his report for command. Once he was finished, he tapped the tabletop, which projected an image of the document into the air before him. He looked it over, proofreading it for errors, then grabbed it with his fingers. A row of contacts appeared around the document, showing every member of the ship’s crew, his family, and some of his contacts at the station and the academy. With a flick of his wrist, he sent it flying toward the face of Admiral McLustiff.

The document gone, the contact images in the air reshuffled themselves to fill up the space. Gavin leaned back in his chair and watched the swirling images bounce around each other for a moment. He studied the faces of his new crew. First officer Aghri’s golden eyes gleamed at him, his damaged ear visible in the image. Gavin briefly wondered how he had received the wound. Pilot Nikola’s green eyes brimmed with the same youthful excitement she had had on the bridge, and Long Tail still wore his wide grin. Combat officer Qarian’s gray eyes still had their same piercing quality, but her face seemed softer in the image. And of course, James Garrison still wore his thick-rimmed glasses, but no images danced across them, allowing his blue eyes to shine through, fixing Gavin with a gaze of calculating intelligence.

Gavin smiled slightly. He remembered back when he and James were children, laying out in the heath in front of his aunt Jelly’s inn on Centauri IV, picking out constellations like Skywalker and Enterprise, and talk about the adventures they would have someday when they were old enough. He remembered how James would try to explain to him the exact distance between each star and how none of them were really in the order they seemed to be, but Gavin with his ten-year-old mind didn’t care. He daydreamed about zipping from the stars making up the constellation’s fingers to the star at the end of its laser blade so fast, the energy from his ship’s turbines would light up the sword the way it was supposed to. Then he’d fantasize about exploring planets made from the heads of giant spacemen and fighting alien parasites that preyed on unsuspecting miners. James would just roll his eyes and tussle his little cousin’s hair, telling him he’d been watching too many old movies.

Gavin’s eyes wandered to the few images of his family floating around the circle. He wanted to talk to them. He wanted to tell them all about his first mission as a captain. He wanted, well, he wanted confirmation that they were proud of him. He wanted to know, for sure, that he had finally made it into their ranks. But his father, mother, and Uncle Tyler were all surely busy, and James wasn’t supposed to be related to him right now. He tapped on the image of a smiling blonde woman with a round face and blue eyes as clear as his own.

“Oh, Aunt Jelly,” Long Tail said, settling down gently on Gavin’s shoulder. Gavin noticed that the wall displaying the race had gone blank. “You think it’s about dinnertime back on Centauri? I could go for some of her famous flassberry bobcakes right now.”

Gavin blushed. “No,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking about her food.” Though now that Gavin thought about it, he could feel his mouth starting to water imagining all the meals Jelly used to serve back at the inn. “I just wanted to talk to her, that’s all. Um, what happened with the race?”

“Oh, that? Maxes lost. Smacked right into an asteroid half a kilo out from the goal. Better luck next race, I guess.”

Gavin smiled. “Sorry, buddy. Do you really need some bobcakes to cheer you up?”

“I do,” Long Tail said, hanging his scaly head.

Gavin tapped Aunt Jelly’s face again. The image expanded to fill the screen, and a faint buzzing sounded from the desk. After a few seconds, the still image was replaced by the actual smiling face of the woman it depicted. Her expression broke into a glittering smile when she saw her favorite nephew and boarder staring back at her. “Gavin,” she said. “I was just thinking about calling you. And Long Tail, taking care of yourself?”

Long Tail lifted his head, his whole demeanor brightening. “Yes, Aunt Jelly.”

Gavin smiled. Seeing her face always managed to lift a burden from his shoulders. “Hi, Aunt Jelly,” he said. The smell of his aunt’s signature mashed potatoes with gravy and jaffa fruit wafted up from vents on his desk, sensors there duplicating the smells filling Jelly’s kitchen on the other end. He sniffed the air hungrily. “You are making dinner right now,” he said.

Aunt Jelly raised an eyebrow mischievously. “Smell it, can you?” Her boys both nodded eagerly. She held up a plate of the food in question. “As I recall, Gavin, you used to look forward to this every Sunday.”

Gavin licked his lips. Every bit of the plate looked as perfect as he remembered it being. Jelly watched Gavin’s face as he stared at the food, passing the plate through the air in front of his nose just to tease him. Gavin leaned forward, closing his eyes and letting the aroma wash over him. Long Tail licked his lips. Then, she looked down at it curiously. “Have you eaten yet?” she asked.

“No,” Gavin said, acting natural. “Not yet. I was planning on going down to the mess hall later.”

“You know,” she said. “I have plenty for the guests right now. Would you like this plate?”

Gavin was sorely tempted. He watched a trickle of brown gravy ooze across a particularly large jaffa. He could almost taste their flavors mixing in his mouth right now. He forced himself to shake his head. “No,” he said. “No. You don’t have to do that, Aunt Jelly. The ship’s got food. Long Tail could use a bobcake, though.”

“Nonsense,” Aunt Jelly said. “No amount of ship’s food can compete with my cooking, and you’ve earned it. Your first day as captain, and you expect me to just let you eat ship food. Now, I’m going to send you this plate, and Long Tail’s bobcakes,” She grabbed a pair of light green pastries from somewhere nearby and placed them beside the potatoes, “and you’re going to like it.”

Gavin smiled. He just couldn’t say no. “Alright,” he said.

Aunt Jelly grinned. Long Tail bounced on Gavin’s shoulder as she placed the food on a console out of sight before her and tapped at the air. A few seconds later, a red light flashed on Gavin’s table, telling him he had a delivery. The smell was gone. Gavin reached down and pulled a small panel off the bottom of his desk, which glowed a faint pink. He held it up to show his aunt. “Thanks, Aunt Jelly.”

“Mmm,” Long Tail said, grabbing the panel out of Gavin’s hand and rubbing it against his stomach.

Aunt Jelly smiled. “Now, your cousin tells me that you’ve completed your first mission as captain today.”

Gavin rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah, I guess,” he said.

“Well, honey,” she said, “That’s a big deal. You’re finally out there doing what you’ve always wanted. The whole family’s so proud.”

“Yeah,” Gavin blushed, smiling even wider. “How is everybody? Grandpa, Mom, Dad?”

“Oh, they’re all fine, sweetie. Grandpa’s just gone to bed. Getting a bit old, you know. But he was just tickled as a baby Cheqin when James told us. Your dad might see you at the station sometime. He’s there overseeing some change in protocol. Your mom’s on a reconnaissance mission to Raijou, but she’ll be back soon. And Uncle Tyler’s with your—”

“With my dad,” Gavin finished. Uncle Tyler had been Gavin’s father’s best friend in the academy and had served as his first officer in the war. Even to this day, they were nearly inseparable, almost as inseparable as Gavin himself and Long Tail. The only person who seemed capable of getting the two apart was Jelly herself.

“They’re both so proud of you, Gavin,” Aunt Jelly said.

Gavin smiled. “Yeah, I know,” he said.

Aunt Jelly glanced to her left for a second. “I have to go,” she said. “My tenants are getting hungry. Enjoy your food. I’m so proud of you both.”

“Yeah, okay,” Gavin said. “See you.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

“Bye, Aunt Jelly,” Long Tail said. “Thanks for the food.”

The image disappeared, leaving the room darker in its absence. Long Tail held up the small square panel in his claws. “Yes, yes, yes,” he said. “I can taste them now. Come on, let’s get down to the mess hall.” He held it up to his nose, sniffing it as if he could still smell it. Gavin tapped at his table to check the time. About right for dinner. Gavin was about to get to his feet when he notice a flashing red dot in one corner of the display.

“Hang on, Long Tail,” Gavin said. “Looks like we’ve got an assignment.”

Gavin tapped the dot and it brought up a breaking news item with an attached itinerary from High Command. Apparently, a city had been attacked on a planet a few systems over. Whatever it was seemed to be boasting serious firepower and had blown a hole in the city walls, killing one civilian. Authorities feared it had come from off-world, though they had detected nothing in the area. Judging by the map, Gavin figured it would take about a day to get to the planet from here. He tapped the itinerary and forwarded it to the auxiliary officer currently piloting the ship so that she could set a course.

“Guess we have something to do tomorrow,” he said to Long Tail. He eyed the panel Long Tail held. “In the meantime, I’m in the mood for some potatoes.”

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