With Colonel Webster gone, Porter Byrns’s mean side came out. Porter looked Violet over from head to toe. Disdain spread across his face as if he was viewing a particularly unpleasant species of insect or something similar.
“Mmm…So what now?” Violet asked.
Porter Byrns ignored her question, instead walking around her in circle as though inspecting a new vehicle he was thinking of buying. “What do we have here?” he asked. “A new breed of street urchin dredged up from the depths of some faraway mining station?”
Violet didn’t oblige him with a reaction. She knew the shakedown he was performing, and she wasn’t all that impressed by it. She’d gone to high school with Becky and company. The aide before her didn’t have shit on those bitches.
“We don’t have to be friends or anything, but do you mind showing me where to put my stuff?” Violet held up her bags, and when the aide remained unresponsive, she added, “Or I could start yelling for the colonel if you don’t know where that is? I’m told I have quite the singer’s lungs…little pitchy on the tone, though.”
Porter’s bright, pink lips turned up in the slightest of smiles that, coupled with the flaring of a nostril, came out more as a sneer.
Bitch recognizes bitch, Violet thought.
“This way,” he hissed before walking down the hall leading away from the bridge.
Violet watched his strutting stride and wondered if everyone on board was as touchy as this guy. He must have felt her not following him because he stopped and spun around, hip cocked out to the side like he was a model walking the runway. “Are you coming, or should I yell for the colonel and tell him you’ve changed your mind about joining us?”
Violet tilted her head in recognition of his parry. “Touché… Lead on, good sir.” She offered a mock bow that was more curtsey than bow and then followed him.
She watched the sway of his hips from side to side as he pranced down the hallway. Definitely a touch of the queen in this one, Violet thought. “What’s it like?” she asked him.
“What’s what like?”
“Being gay on a military ship? Get much action up here?”
He studied her face, deciding whether or not to trust her with his response, and finally responding with slight shrug and a smirk. “We get by…”
With that exchange, the cold front between them was breached, and Porter warmed up to her, giving her the grand tour. “The Remus is a frigate class cruiser. She’s armed to teeth, but we mostly rely on stealth. I’ve been with her for almost two years now and we’ve yet to see any kind of action besides sneaking about.
“There are forty-three crew members aboard, and a handful of other guests,” he seemed to almost choke on the word, “yourself included. You’ve seen the command deck where the bridge is located. I should warn you not to attempt to return there without permission or an escort. Security doesn’t take intrusions to the bridge lightly.”
“They didn’t seem all that concerned to me.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“That’s because you were hiding behind the colonel’s petticoats. Try that shit again without him standing next to you and you’ll be sleeping in the brig faster than you can say, ouch, ouch, you’re on my hair.”
Violet’s face wrinkled at his choice of words. “Okay, point taken.”
By her best estimation, they were close to the center of the ship.
“This is the commons area,” Porter explained. “Feel free to visit whenever you’d like. There is entertainment, the mess hall, and a limited capacity fabricator for any specialty items. Though I have to say, the selection is shit. But whatever. Moving along… This is general crew quarters,” he led her down a long hallway with familiar looking doors packed in tightly, much like they’d been in her sector of Tryptek Station. It was the first familiar feeling she’d had since saying goodbye to her parents this morning.
They reached the end of the hallway and then descended down a narrow spiral staircase. “And this is the cargo hold, your bunk is just through here.”
Violet stopped following for a moment and took in the sight. The cargo hold ran the entire length and breadth of the ship. The center floor was bare and stacks of boxes and shipping containers lined the sides of the hold, secured by cargo netting. At the far end, the door took up the entire side, sloping from the floor all the way to the ceiling.
Her study was broken by the sound of an exasperated sigh.
“Are you eff-ing kidding me?” Porter drawled out slowly. “This is what you’re taken aback by? Well if you think the cargo hold is neato, just wait until you see your accommodations, you’ll be thrilled.” The aide’s voice dripped with cool sarcasm.
Violet fought the urge to explain that she wasn’t taken aback by the cargo hold, she’d just never seen one on a ship this size before, and she was just acclimating herself to her surroundings. Instead, she offered a quick apology and told him to lead on.
Porter walked her past the cargo hold and down a small hallway that turned right. There, at the end of the hall, just before it dead-ended into the wall, was a door on the left-hand side.
The colonel’s aide walked up to it, turned around, and held his right hand out like a game show host revealing the mystery prize that was behind door number two. “Here you are…”
Violet walked up and peered inside. The door was completely open to the hallway without so much as curtain to separate it. The room was completely dark inside, illuminated only by the light from the hallway, but even with the small amount of light, she could see the far wall was no more than two steps deep.
She gave Porter a look that said, you must be joking?
“I know it doesn't look like much,” he responded, almost kindly, “but all of the other guest rooms are taken. At least you'll have the place all to yourself.”
“Is there a light switch at least? Or are all those taken as well?”
Porter stuck his head and shoulders in, almost as if he were afraid that if his whole body entered the room he would be swallowed up forever, and reached his hand down along the wall adjacent to the hallway. Violet heard a click as a lightbulb cast a pale yellow shine across the walls.
The feeble glow did little to remove the claustrophobic feel of the room, if anything, it made it more apparent.
The room itself was barely wide enough to stand in. It spanned the length of the hallway that it shared a wall with. Bunk beds, stacked three-high to the ceiling, lined the long closet-like room with just enough space for a full-grown person to edge by them if they turned completely sideways.
Violet sat down with a sigh on the first bunk and was not at all surprised at the rock-hard cushioning she found. Likewise, there wasn’t enough head room for her to sit upright. She stood back up, wondering if maybe one of the engineers had slipped up and accidentally made one of the other bunks passably comfortable. She wouldn’t bet real credits on the chance though.
“Well, if that's all,” Porter said. “I’ll leave you to it.” He spun without waiting for a response, and the smug bastard walked off, leaving her alone to contemplate her new position in life.
She lowered herself back down on one of the bottom bunks and crossed her hands behind her head for a makeshift pillow. The sassy aide had one good point, she mused. At least she had the place to herself.