Amir thought back to earlier in the day. It had started with a grimace as one of the preening Lieutenants, he forgot which one, escorted him on board and to the marine’s quarters. His own modest cabin was adjacent to his Lieutenant of Marine’s tiny one and opposite the large dorm shared by the marines. He shook off the scowl that hadn’t left his face since boarding as he was introduced to his men, by his very green looking subordinate, who were all just returned from morning mess. The marines didn’t strike him as top drawer but neither were they the incompetents you usually found in the solar system, these were at least regular spacefarers.
Amir made his usual introductions, cracked the same tired jokes and retired for a much needed rest. He was exhausted after the early start he’d needed to get to Heathrow in time to board the military space elevator which had the termerity to leave at four in the morning. Something he only found out when his smart watch’s alarm had rung out at two AM, barely three hours since he’d gone to sleep; he’d expected at least six. To make matters worse there was this bloody do tonight, formal dress two days running was not fair, and a nigh on princess to pick up as well. He set his smart watch to wake him up half an hour before the princess’ elevator was due to arrive and collapsed onto his bunk.
He woke up four hours later, he’d just missed midday mess but with a formal dinner tonight he’d get more than sufficient calories and maybe even a small serving of vegetables from the wardroom’s small, and the ship’s only, hydroponic garden, to fancy up the usual varieties of soya and grains. And the booze, damn, the booze. He would have to make sure not to embarrass himself amongst the Honourables temporarily meant to be his peers and equals.
After a very quick shower and pulling on his usual tactical dress of black and grey, and arming himself with the standard low velocity assault rifle and cutlass. He set out to the embarkation deck to receive his charge. On the way Amir realised this teenager was probably the poshest, most powerful person he had ever met, a person who could destroy on a whim his dreams of a pleasant middle age spent as a Freeman. Sighing Amir tried to remember all the rules of decorum he was meant to know as an officer. This was going to be a disaster.
And so it proved, from the moment Amir extended his hand and the look of polite disdain the princess gave him as he remembered decorum dictated a brief bow was the correct way for a Freeman to greet a female member of the Honourable. She was only seventeen but exceptionally tall, especially for a planetsider, she nearly reached his height and Amir stood well over six foot tall, stunning chestnut hair coiled and looped in some elaborate arrangement that offset her grey eyes perfectly. Amir suspected it would soon become a major headache; guessing at the time it would have taken her to arrange it without a domestic servant but he briefly admired the effort that must have gone into creating such a look.
Briefly. The fiasco of her change from one opulent set of clothes, her travelling suit, to another, her dinner dress had made them late for dinner, not a great start, to the inane explanations he had to listen to about the nano-engineering degree she would be studying prior to her conscription into the Corporation's Health Service as they traversed the ship’s corridors. We should all be so lucky, thought Amir, he’d have preferred three years at some university campus to his one at the Company’s Officer Training Academy any day of the week.
However, his attention was increasingly drawn to the girl who sat talking to the Chief Engineer. A pilot, he’d never seen a pilot projecting - in the slip he rarely ventured onto the quarterdeck if he could possibly avoid it. But here was a projection laughing and talking to the Chief Engineer as if they were actually friends. Well Chief Engineers had a status of their own, their technical knowledge making them virtually indispensable to the ship’s officers, they could get away with a lot; while there was no law against interaction with projections socially he had never seen it done before. He watched them leave together as the celebration wound down and other guests began to retire. He was thinking of doing so himself having struggled to find any rapport with the Lieutenants sitting either side of him. When a haughty voice called out, “Captain of Marines, I wish to retire, begging your forgiveness Captain; I am still weary from this morning’s journey.” He swallowed the indignation of being beckoned like a servant; at least this would give him an excuse to leave as well.
“Of course, my lady. Captain, if I may?” He said as politely as anger and alcohol permitted.
“Permission granted Mr Choudary,” she said cheerily. This Captain was definitely not a run of the mill Honourable. Amir wasn’t sure how he felt about that but that was a worry for another day.
He escorted the princess out of the wardroom where the two marines he’d drafted into escort duty joined them as he trudged through the ship’s corridors and compartments. His steps felt oldy light, it always took a day or two to get acclimated to each ship’s slightly different mix of magnetic fields used to simulate gravity on ship, as he remembered his way to the princesses’ state rooms. She had been right though this ship’s design was archaic. Full of dead ends, bottlenecks and loop backs designed to provide tactical advantage against boarders; but now few pirate ships had the capability to pierce the powerful EM fields military ships could deploy these days, a feature he’d been relieved to see had been retrofitted onto the Whittington, and foreign navies were more bothered about obliterating than boarding.
The Honourable Lady Ellis didn’t deign to speak to him for the whole journey from the wardroom to the state room she had been billeted in, guarded by another two unfortunate marines who had happened to be sat closest to the door of their mess as Amir had dashed past on his way to collect the princess. “Well we have arrived Mr Choudary,” she declared.
“Indeed we have, my lady,” he said as neutrally as he could manage, please anything but some forced attempt at conversation now, not when a polite escape was so near.
“In which case I shall bid you goodnight Mr Choudary,” hearing her address him as Mr rankled him, correctly she should have addressed him by his rank. Only naval officers and warrants called him Mr, an infuriating convention apparently instituted to avoid confusion between him and the Captain of the vessel on the quarterdeck but was in reality a slight to a Captain of Marine’s lowly probationary Freeman status. Civilians, however, in that broad term used for non-military personnel, rather than the legal status, should call him Captain Choudary.
“A pleasant night, my lady,” he said.
With that ordeal over, Amir turned back to his own quarters, as he approached the fore lift he suddenly decided to head to the observation deck rather than his own cramped quarters for the time being. The best thing about planets was the view of them from space and he intended to enjoy the view of Earth one more time. To his surprise he found the normally deserted chamber already hosting two visitors. As he stepped off the lift he suddenly realised it was the pilot and the Chief Engineer. Oh hell he thought, when would he ever get another chance to do this.
“Good evening, warrants,” he said as pleasantly as he could muster, “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
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“Good evening, Sir,” replied the Chief Engineer, “I’m Chief Engineer Chloe Liu, and my friend here, well I’ll let her introduce herself.”
“Pilot Sparrow,” the projection said warily.
“And you sir?” questioned the Chief
“My apologies, it’s been a long day if you will excuse me, I am Captain Amir Choudary, babysitter to the great and the good apparently.”
At that both women laughed and seemed to relax. “What’s an old dog like you doing babysitting, fuck up your last job?” the engineer asked with a questioning eyebrow raise before slowly adding, “Sir?”
“Probably that I’m one of the oldest, hoariest, and, I’m now beginning to suspect, the ugliest of all the Captains in the Honourable Company of Marines, no risk of any embarrassing teenage crushes on a dashing young Captain here.”
“I can well believe that Sir,” smiled the Chief
“So what brings you up here Ms Liu, Ms Sparrow?”
“Ms Liu kindly offered to take me stargazing,” the pilot replied unexpectedly and very shyly.
“I would have thought you could see them anytime through the interface?”
“This is the closest I can get to seeing them with my own eyes,” she said quietly. Amir couldn’t help but notice the Chief start to extend a comforting arm towards the pilot’s arm before slowly withdrawing it; there was nothing to touch after all.
“Of course, Ms Sparrow, I meant no offence.”
“And none was taken Mr Choudary,” she replied as decorum dictated.
“Oh come now, we’re all off watch let’s all just use our actual names for a change, please off duty call me Amir.”
“I’m afraid my protocols, won’t allow me to do that Mr Choudary,” the projection responded almost sadly, although that seemed unlikely as most of the projections he’d heard about well a) they had never said more than a couple of words d b) had never imparted any sort of inflection onto their speech, it now struck him as odd that the projection had spoken in little more than a whisper earlier before returning to her usual voice just now. He was even more surprised when the pilot added, “but you are free to just call me Sparrow.”
“You’re not quite like other pilots are you?” Amir said, deciding to risk the question.
“You noticed that, did you?” the Chief said with a grin that Amir couldn’t quite decide whether it invited a shared joke or a threat.
“I assure you I met the required acceptance criteria,” the pilot spoke up, almost indignantly.
“That she did,” agreed the Chief before adding in feigned secrecy, “incredible twitch scores.” She paused, before turning to smile at the pilot, “but that’s all to the good as our pilot here is just right as she is. I’ve run the diagnostics”
“All to the good indeed I’m sure,” he smiled disarmingly. Her twitch speeds must be truly something else for a pilot with this level of personality differentiation to have been deemed acceptable. He made a mental note to review his security protocols for disabling a rogue pilot (not that such an event had ever occurred). That Captain Hernandez permitted the pilot to act like this and actually appear to have a genuine friendship with a crew member suggested she had as much of a personality differentiation as the nervous projection of a young girl stood in front of him. “I must admit you look different from other projections I’ve seen, if you excuse me, you look a lot more distinct.”
“That’s because most pilots don’t know what they look like,” Sparrow replied, “but Ms Liu sees me when I’m removed from my pod for medical review and she told me what I looked like.” Curious, thought Amir, why hadn’t the Chief captured an image to show her?
“She would be capturing the hearts of all the young midshipmen if she was allowed out, don’t you think Amir,” teased the Chief.
“I’m afraid my interests lie in a contrary direction, so I'm not sure I’m the best judge but by my reckoning I’d agree with you.”
“High praise indeed Sparrow,” she replied sarcastically.
“I did warn you I was the grumpiest Captain of Marines in the whole damn company, did I not?”
“Nope, I heard the oldest, the hoariest and the ugliest but I only suspected grumpiness.”
“Well I think once you’re the first three the latter is implied”
“Our Captain of Marines, fancies himself a bit of a card, methinks,” Chloe playfully remarked to Sparrow.
“I think Mr Choudary is probably none of the things he claims,” the girl replied, surprising Amir again, “I suspect Mr Choudary is only grumpy because he dislikes members of the Honourable Class.”
“Surely you’re not a mutineer!” Chloe exclaimed in faux-shock.
“You don’t have to like them to follow orders, you just think of the years to the end of your term of conscription,” Amir answered.
“Five years shorter for you Rupert’s than us Warrants,” laughed Chloe.
“I daresay my own term might be a tad longer,” the projection said with something that sounded like a sigh.
“Yes my dear,” the older woman said, deflating.
“Well we might all get blown out the water long before then,” Amir said, trying to lighten the mood again. “So Sparrow, do you like what you see tonight?”
“Very much so,” she replied, “they’re beautiful.” Amir raised another mental eyebrow.
“I’m here for the planet myself, the only time I can appreciate them is from up here, down there they never live up to expectations.”
“Spacesider I’m guessing then?” Chloe interrupted, lifting herself out of her awkwardness.
“Gave it away did I?”
“You’re all the same about it.”
“Well real gravity hurts if you weren’t born to it.”
“The force is just the same as that exerted on your haemoglobin you know,” the Chief Engineer said mockingly, “you might be anaemic; too much blood rushing to your head.”
“Well whatever, all I’m saying is it doesn’t feel the same,” he said, letting some of his grumpiness back out.
“Ah I’m just taking the piss Amir,” smiled the Chief, “so what do you make of our guest then?”
“How should I know she’s not said more than a half a dozen words to me since she arrived, but perhaps that tells you enough,” he added.
“Usual Honourable then? Well they all lighten up after a few months on ship.”
“Yeah shame this is a six week cruise then”
“Ms Liu, Mr Choudray,” the projection piped up again, “you should not speak about the Honourable lady so, it’s improper.”
“Ah but my dear Sparrow, is it not accurate?” joshed Chloe.
“From my observations to date I suppose it would appear so,” the pilot reluctantly conceded, much to Amir’s continued surprise.
“Well on that note of agreement, I think I shall bid you good ladies a goodnight, I suspect tomorrow will be a long day.”
“Goodnight Amir,” replied Chloe before just a little quieter it was echoed by Sparrow,