NOVEL NEXT 8. Dinner, Interrupted
As if on cue, as we set down our drinks, the curtain that gave the table privacy was pulled aside in order to allow two waiters to reveal the platters that held our meals. The smell was divine and quite obviously proved the authentic ingredients that had been shipped all the way from Sol III. It was expensive to do so, but made for a culinary delight.
All of us were quiet for the next few minutes as we began eating our meals. As expected, the prime rib was amazing, tender and juicy and full of rich flavour. Mumbled appreciations for the food emitted from the table, but things were otherwise silent.
A very unwelcome (in my book) voice broke the companionable and tasty silence. “Captain Erickson! What a surprise to see you here!” Having drawn the curtains back, a well dressed man stood next to the table, a snake’s smile adorning his face.
“Harvey Kruger, President of the Telemachus branch of the Torgal Corporation. We met briefly over a communications link some days ago to confirm your time of arrival. My deepest thanks for delivering my new manipulator arm! My teams in the yard are still getting it set up, but it will be a major boon to operations here once it is ready, I assure you! I must say, I very much look forward to hopefully working with you in the future. A new slipspace gate in this system would be an excellent way to bring in new business for us both, I'm sure you can see! Once again, Telemachus can be the gateway to the frontier! Profit would flow like rain!
Kruger motioned to an empty seat. “Do you mind if I sit for a moment?”
Marcus looked distinctly annoyed but nodded. “Of course, Mister Kruger. Join us. We were just celebrating the completion of our latest job. Soren here was a consummate professional and performed superbly according to all of the crew involved. He has even played ambassador with my protégé, Callisto. This is quite the station, considering the current state of things.”
The man’s voice carried no hostility or trace of his annoyance, but his face betrayed some, though my boss apparently made no notice of that or the looks of near hostility shared by the first officer, cargo master, or the aforementioned protégé.
Kruger sat down quickly and straightened his collar. “Yes, yes, of course. We do our best to present a well maintained station for all of our partners in business. Soren is but one of many excellent pilot contractors we employ here.” I felt snubbed by his near dismissal of what I had done. It only served to heighten my annoyance at his presence.
“Telemachus was once a bustling colony, and now serves as the largest trading outpost in the next twenty lightyears. We also are the last slipspace gate with full station services before reaching the mining outposts along the Coalsack Nebula, as I’m sure you know. The Torgal corporation is proud to operate here as the largest business partner of the entire system.”
As if actually thinking it over, Kruger took a second to catch his breath and prepare his next words. “Indeed, if we were able to provide resources and a labour pool for the construction of the upcoming gate project, I would think that Torgal would be able to provide significantly better rates than any company that might need to bring in their own crews and equipment. We are after all, an already well established presence here in the system.” He nodded thoughtfully to close out his statement.
It took a great deal of restraint not to tell my boss to fuck off. His interruption to our dinner had been rude and uncalled for. Him attempting to ingratiate himself and the company to Marcus in this manner was frankly disgusting to me. The captain had booked a private dinner table and invited only a few of his crew along with myself to it. Kruger had never been on the invite list, I was sure. It all only served to cement my opinion of the skunk in human form.
I was not the only one carrying thoughts on the matter obviously, as Mikaela spoke up. There was a distinct lack of humour in her restrained voice as the woman showed a breadth of control many could only dream of.
“Mister Kruger, while I am sure that the captain would love to discuss terms of a potential contract, and I am also quite sure you intended no offence, my family and friends here were having dinner. The chefs prepared an excellent array of food for us to indulge in and I would hate to insult them by allowing it to go cold before we had our fill.”
The look on Morik’s face showed that he agreed wholeheartedly with the underlying message, despite his fondest wishes to give said opinion in a significantly harsher manner. Echo shared a similar look, though she held a degree of inspired awe at the restraint shown by the older woman.
Even I nearly had to whistle at the carefully curated way she had told him to go sit on his thumb and spin. I mentally applauded her.
Kruger seemed to finally realise that there were others at the table and straightened his collar once more. “Well, I’m sure the captain appreciated the opportunity to meet face to face with a potential business partner in such a casual setting before meeting at the negotiation table.”
Before the captain could respond, Kruger continued. “No matter, I shall not intrude upon your event any longer. Though do keep in mind, if you wish to dine with a true representative of my company, feel free to put in a message directly to my desk. I would be honoured. Good evening, Captain Erickson and guests!”
He stood and left without bothering to return his chair or close the curtain behind him.
“I have to remind myself far too often that a company should not be judged by the merit of one member,” Marcus said through clenched teeth. “I will admit that there are significant points in Torgal’s favour given the project, but I find myself unsure if working with that particular specimen would carry the same value.” The man took a strained breath. “Soren, please don’t be offended by the question, but is he always like that?”
Alarms sounded in my head as my better judgement warred against my frustrations over the man in question and my job under him. I finally settled on: “He is a shrewd businessman and misses no opportunity to apply his certain skills in order to increase his profit margin. Respectfully though, sir, I wouldn’t wish to further colour your opinions of him with my own.”
The tension eased from his face at my comments. “At least some Torgal employees have a sense of respect. I understand your hesitation. Thank you for being honest. Perhaps we will have to further discuss his unique business acumen at a later time in a less open setting.”
Morik’s gruff voice chimed in. “He seems like a right slimy bastard to me. Good riddance.”
I nearly snorted my drink.
Mikaela shushed him like a mother to an unruly child. “Well, on a much more pleasant topic, Echo has regaled us with tales of your ship. She says you built a lightspeed-capable ship out of wreckage and salvaged parts?”
I cleared my throat. “Well, Ma’am, it isn’t really quite jump ready yet. I don’t have a functional stellar navigation computer yet. All the parts are there and installed except for the computer and the nacelles, though.” I scratched my neck and tried to play it casually.
Echo jumped in on the conversation.
“That little ship of yours would be a major asset to any company that could get it contracted. Do you think that the manipulator arms are strong enough to withstand carrying something through a jump? Just think what that could do for a long range tug or salvage ship. Small enough to be efficient, potentially powerful enough to grab some object and drag it wherever.”
She paused a second and then shook her head, continuing. “I mean, damn, think about how much a mining rig would love to be able to grab a rock and bring it to the rig with a jump instead of an hours-long impulse drag.
The cargo master, who had physically seen my little ship in action more than anyone as he coordinated the workers, nodded in agreement. “Echo wasn't kidding when she said it was a helluva thing. You took a dedicated construction bee and welded on a type twelve interstellar military transport aft end without sacrificing a lick of capability or manoeuvrability from either element. I can’t imagine a computer for it is going to be cheap. Flying solo for longer trips won’t be easy, though. Too much hands-on management for one person to do reliably for any real length of time.”
A hint of my earlier pride crept up again even as my face flushed lightly at all the compliments.
“I have a personal A.I. that was originally intended as a ship-based assistant. The earlier iteration that I took my instance from performed as the A.I for a large mobile repair vessel. I served under the captain of that vessel for six years, learning everything I could. Old man Jay was a remarkable engineer and I learned a lot.”
For reasons I was unsure of, Marcus took a pause after my last few words, and a look of creeping suspicion and curiosity took to his face. “By any chance, would your captain have been more appropriately titled Captain John Thompson Blackburn?”
I let out a sound of surprise. “Yeah, actually! Why? Did you know him?”
“It really is such a small universe…” Marcus shook his head in disbelief. “I never knew him well myself, but my father, the founder of Erickson enterprises, and your Captain Blackburn served together in the old United Federation fleet before the trans-govs took over about forty years ago. They were good friends. Still are as far as I know, though their jobs don’t allow many meetings any more. He saved our butts a couple times when the very first ship of the Erickson Shipping Company, a dilapidated old freighter, got us stuck out in interplanetary space.”
He laughed. “I’ll be damned. I’m going to have to call Dad when I get back to the ship tonight; need to tell him I met a student of his oldest friend. I’ve got to say, that explains a lot of how you cobbled together your ship, the Oxide, was it?”
“Yeah, that's it. Wow! Small universe indeed!” I couldn’t believe I had made such a random connection. Marcus wouldn’t be the only one that made a call.
“How in the void did you end up with Captain Blackburn, anyways?”
The captain's question was valid, but I didn’t often talk about that particular story. I decided to make an exception due to the circumstances.
“My supposed father was a fighter jock running escort for cargo ships out in what was the frontier beyond Luyten’s Star. Piracy was a bigger problem in that area at the time and Alliance law even still frowns on freighters being armed. Anyways, my mother was a, well, a working woman and they spent time together several times on the MacNair Gateway station whenever he was in port. Somehow, despite mods dear old Mom had installed, she ended up pregnant and for equally unknown reasons, decided to let it go to term.
“I was born on the same station, but my genetic material donor had no interest in a child and my giver of life decided after a while that she didn't want a baby either. She jumped in with a recreational ship not long before my first birthday, leaving me in the care of the social worker on the station.”
A sigh escaped my lips. I didn’t think much of either of my so-called parents and it showed plainly.
“Growing up, I had little supervision and got into a lot of trouble, but, at age thirteen, I was finally put to work in the shipyard as a parts runner just so I would be out of people’s way. I worked my way up through there until the boss finally let me learn to actually fly.”
I took a drink.
“I was sixteen and flying tugs in local space when the Forge jumped into the system, towing a hulk that Captain Jay couldn’t fix in the field. I found out through the gossip mongers that he was looking for a couple new crew members. I saw that as my chance to escape. I ended up pestering him and his crew constantly, trying to ingratiate myself. I was an angry and confused kid back then; still don’t know why he took me on, really. But I wouldn’t be where I am otherwise.”
Everyone was quiet for a moment as they processed my tragic background. Conversation picked back up, but it was just small talk in comparison. We chatted about places Ratatosk had been recently and about various engineering challenges associated with large scale construction and the logistics of moving so much material through backwaters like Telemachus. I was quite pleased to be able to be a contributing member of those conversations due to my particular background.
All told, we sat at the table in the lounge for nearly another two hours, enjoying the food, drinking and talking. We were all getting worn down by the end of it and it was nearly my usual bedtime when Marcus finally announced that he needed to head back to his ship to call his father. Judging by the growing frequency of yawns from the rest of the gathered crew, they were in full agreement with the notion of rest.
The three senior crew shook my hand and thanked me again for coming and helping them that morning before they’d left and Echo gave me a kind smile and told me that she would be seeing me again soon, hopefully. I tried very hard to hide my blush at that.
Crawling back to my quarters took nearly as much time as the walk to the lounge, not because of traffic, but due to my own sluggishness and possible slight drunkenness.
Sleep was taking me before my head even hit the pillow. The last thing my conscious mind processed before total shutdown was Vox saying “Good night, Miss Adresta.”