The Jovian Run: Sol Space Book One (7 page)

              “Okay. We can keep our options open. Who knows, right? Maybe this job will just make us rich and we’ll retire. Buy our own island.”

              “Well, it’s sure been great so far.”

Bethany Miller moved between the rows of leafy plants, a waifish shade easily lost in the misty humidity of the starboard hydroponics bay. Her tiny, coffee-colored hands reached out as she walked to brush a leaf here or caress a stalk there. The majority of the plants were grown in nutrient rich water contained in pots and jars of various sizes, depending on the needs of their roots. Excepting where the plant emerged from them, the containers themselves were covered as well as possible with plastic wrap to stop the solution from escaping when the ship was not under the effects of gravity. Even so, the room remained humid, and it made Bethany’s usually straight dark hair curl at the ends. The containers were suspended in the air by metal dowels that allowed the containers to rotate, much like the plastic players in a foosball table. Weights at the bottoms of the jars kept the plants upright.

Like most of the living units, the hydroponics bays were long rectangular rooms running perpendicular to the long axis of the ship. They were also located along the dorsal hull, which allowed panels to be opened so that sunlight could be admitted to the rooms when the ship was in atmosphere. The panels were open now, but as
Gringolet
was headed away from the core of the system, the sun was mostly behind them, and only a few diffused rays made their way into the room. Bethany had turned on the UV lamps when she entered the room to supplement the natural light, and now she made her use of her afternoon off to check on the condition of her plants.

They weren’t her plants, of course. A hydroponics bay was not necessary for a ship of
Gringolet’s
size, but there were a number of advantages to having one. The plants helped recycle the air that the crew was constantly polluting with carbon dioxide. The rooms provided a therapeutic and peaceful space for the crew, though Bethany spent more time in the bays than the rest of the crew combined. The biggest advantage the bay provided, however, was also Bethany’s main reason for being here now. She walked over to the tomato plants on their hinged trellises, looking for the ripest of the fruits, and touched each gently before selecting three to pluck and contribute to tonight’s family dinner. She slid them into the canvas satchel slung over her shoulder.

              She heard the door to the bay open and instinctively ducked behind the tomato plant to hide.

              “Bethany?” She heard a woman’s voice call: Dinah’s. The chief engineer held a certain fascination for the petite pilot. She looked up to the older woman, marveling at her confidence, her abilities, her character, and her occasional demonstrations of whip-crack wit, and yet Bethany was intimidated by her in equal parts and avoided direct contact with her whenever possible.

              She glided down the row of edible plants and peeked her head around the celery. “Yes?” she asked, her voice even higher and lighter than usual.

              When Dinah saw the large eyes with their heavy mascara, she stepped fully into the room and closed the door behind her. She checked her usually purposeful stride and instead sidled, a bit awkwardly, down the row of plants and towards Bethany.

              “I was looking for you,” she said. Bethany did not reply, looking instead at the floor. She did, however, step the rest of the way out from behind the celery to face her would-be interlocutor. “I wanted to talk to you about that conflict with the
Doris Day
today.” Dinah stood in front of her, several inches taller, but Bethany’s silence continued. “You did really well. I mean
really
well.” The dark eyes remained on the floor, and the automated misting spray clicked on as if to fill the silence.

“Hey, look at me, girl,” Dinah finally said, not unkindly. Bethany looked up and somewhat tremulously met her eyes. “You’re a damn good pilot. I’ve seen pilots with twenty years of experience that are no better than you.” Bethany cast her eyes downward again, but this time she smiled at the compliment. Dinah put her fists on her hips. “That move where you backed up into the drone, right on cue: perfect timing. And that catch… not too many pilots could have done that. I don’t know where you learned or who taught you, but you have a really amazing ability, and I wanted thank you. You might have saved my life out there today.” Dinah knew that she was probably exaggerating, but she was determined to communicate with the reclusive pilot.

Another few seconds of silence passed, and finally Dinah nodded, turned around, and headed for the door. When she was nearly there, she heard Bethany’s reedy voice over the spray mechanism. “My dad.”

“What’s that?” Dinah asked encouragingly, stopping and turning around.

“My dad taught me,” the young woman said, a little louder, stepping forward.

“Was he a pilot?”

“Yes.” She paused for a moment. “He flew a transport ship between the Earth and the Moon when I was a teenager, and I did it with him.” She began moving down the row of plants as she spoke. “From when I was thirteen to seventeen, anytime I wasn’t in school, I was on the ship with him.” She stopped in front of a patch of herbs and plucked a sprig of spearmint, tucking it into her shoulder bag.

“What about your mom?” Dinah asked, following her at the distance of a few paces.

Bethany just shook her head, and Dinah thought for a moment that she wouldn’t continue speaking, but then she pressed on. “He drank a lot and did drugs. Sometimes he couldn’t fly the ship, so I had to do it.”

“Weren’t there any other crew members who could fly the ship?”

Bethany shook her head again, continuing to the next section of herbs and selecting two basil leaves that made their way into the bag. “No.”

“What sort of ship was it?” Dinah feared that she was pressing her luck, but she didn’t want to lose the opportunity to get something out of the young woman. As far as she knew, apart perhaps from the captain and the doctor, this was the most Bethany had shared with anyone on the ship.

“Boeing Light Courier, B-233.”

Dinah was shocked. “Bethany, that’s a tiny, two person ship, and a bitch to handle besides. You were flying that by
yourself
at the age of thirteen?”

Again, the pilot nodded and moved onto the dill. Her fingers began exploring the herb’s tender leaves, plucking what she wanted from the small plant. “I was actually nine the first time I had to fly it. He kind of showed me how, ‘cause he was drunk and he wanted to sleep. I knew if we didn’t make the deliveries, we wouldn’t have any money.” Her voice had been steadily approaching a normal speaking volume, unconsciously Dinah thought, as she collected the herbs that Kondratyev had no doubt requested to prepare the evening’s repast. “It was just letters, private letters from companies and stuff, and it didn’t pay that much, but the ship and the apartment was all we had. I missed so much school they wanted to hold me back.” She looked up at Dinah for the first time in several minutes, and her eyes were full of anger. “And I could do the work!  I’m really good at math.” Again, her gaze returned to the plants and she seemed to deflate. “But I just wasn’t there to get the notes, and sometimes… sometimes I was just too sad and I didn’t want to go. I never got to finish.”

A second after she stopped speaking, she looked up at Dinah with shock and fear, realizing what she had given away. Dinah considered letting it pass, but instead she pressed the moment. “If you didn’t finish high school, how did you get into pilot school? How did you get your license?”

Bethany neither moved nor spoke. The misting spray clicked off, and the silence deafened. Bethany’s shoulders rose up and every muscle in her seemed to tense, then suddenly they released and the energy went out of her. “I never went to pilot’s school. I faked my graduation certificate when I took the test.” She looked at the other woman, her eyes wide and defiant. “I passed the test!  I passed the license test with a perfect score.”

Dinah laughed. “I don’t doubt it.”

“I
have
my flight license,” Bethany muttered, despondent.

“But you lied to get it.” It wasn’t a question.  Bethany nodded, doing a fair impression of a criminal just sentenced to the gallows. Dinah closed the distance to her and stopped when she was about a pace away. “Let me tell you something, Bethany. I don’t care how you got your license.” The dark eyes looked up at her in surprise. “I don’t even care
if
you have your license. After what you did today, I trust you with my life. And trust me, I don’t say that lightly. You’ve been on this ship for nearly a year now, and I have always been impressed with you.” Bethany smiled perhaps the biggest smile she had since she first came on board.

“And don’t worry, no one will hear about this from me. I’ve got my own secrets, my own past, you know.”

Bethany impulsively asked, “From when you were in the military?” Dinah stiffened slightly. The smaller woman seemed to retreat into herself, her shoulders hunched and her head down, as if in anticipation of a blow. The engineer wondered what other terrible experiences the girl had been subjected to beyond being forced to fly a rusty old courier ship, but she didn’t want to push too far.

“Yes, from my time in the military,” she finally responded. “It’s not a part of my past I like to talk about.”

“I understand,” she said, and Dinah thought she did, too.

Another moment passed. “See you at dinner,” Dinah said abruptly but kindly, and walked out of the room.

“Yes, sir,” Bethany murmured, smiling, and turned back to her plants.

At about eighteen hundred hours standard Earth time, the crew drifted into the mess hall from all corners of the ship. The dinner that Piotr Kondratyev had prepared sat buffet-style in magnetic bowls on the countertop against one wall. The main course consisted of seasoned chicken in a mushroom and wine sauce, pasta salad, buttered and peppered green beans, and fried potatoes. There was an appetizer of
svekolnik
, one of the cook’s specialties, and even a leafy green salad. Piotr encouraged everyone to eat the salad, as the greens would not keep.

Like the rest of the ship, the mess hall was designed to alter depending on whether the ship was in atmosphere or in space. It was wider than most of the other rooms to accommodate the whole crew and guests if necessary.  As a result, its ceiling was over four meters high. The entrance was on deck two, but the room actually stretched up to encompass part of the deck above, and it had the same retractable skylight slats as the hydroponics bay. When in atmosphere, these allowed sunlight in through the ceiling, though right now they were located on the wall. The eating area consisted of several long tables with benches attached, much like those that might be found in a school cafeteria. In cases where the room was needed for other purposes, the tables could be folded up and pushed to the far wall or even attached to the ceiling if there was no gravity.

By ones and twos, the sixteen crew members served themselves food and sat down at the table to eat. As was traditional, Templeton sat near Staples near the head of the table. The rest of the crew sat where they pleased or where they found room. They did not eat together often enough for people to develop favorite places, though Bethany invariably sat in a corner seat near the end of the table. As the tables filled and the meal progressed, the noise of the individual conversations grew, people talking in groups of two or three, a few eating quietly.

As dinner was winding down and a few scattered crew members were finishing their seconds, Templeton did his fork and cup routine to garner the attention of the others. The talk ceased and all eyes turned towards him. “We’ve got a bit of a tradition on this ship, something we do when we all get together like this, which ain’t that often, admittedly. The tradition is storytelling.”

At this, Staples took over. “As many of you know, I am a fan of medieval literature, of literature in general, really.  One of my favorite stories is
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
.  It’s about one of King Arthur’s greatest knights: Gawain. In part one of the poem, the narrator notes that Arthur doesn’t like to have a meal until someone’s entertained him with a story or some heroics. Now we’ve obviously already sat down and had our dinner. I wouldn’t make anyone listen to a story before eating this great meal. Thank you, Piotr.” She said, turning to the ship’s cook who was sitting several seats down from her.

At this, various people spoke up to thank the large bald man with a heavy brown goatee flecked with grey. He muttered
spasibo
several times and raised his hand in acknowledgment.

“But now that we’ve finished eating, I’d like to hear a story. If possible, please make it full of adventures, marvels, princes, battles, or some combination thereof,” Staples finished.

Several of the seated personnel looked at each other. Some murmured, and a few looked as if they were considering volunteering. Templeton looked expectantly from face to face. The three members of the security team, who were seated together, were quiet as a graveyard. Charis’ arm rested around her daughter.  Gwen was leaning against her mother, and her eyes were beginning to droop. Finally, Yegor, the communications expert who had first found the satellite, raised his hand.