Shadowydreamer’s Scribbles
A Place where a Dreamer throws up stories.
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A sea-side Tale.
The waves splashed up against the concrete of the wall. Sanda leaned against the metal bar of the fence stuck into the wall and stared out into the shifting waters. A wind was whirling around, driving her hair every which way. She could see one of the old fishing boats turned patrol boat turning to approach the docks. She couldn`t even get on with a sea crew.
Mutiny was a dirty word, and no matter how good your reason for it, no matter what had caused it and that the whole crew was against a Captain, the officers were branded with that word ever again. She`d been let go from Earth Patrol with a hearty pension and wished luck. Luck to find another job, she supposed. She`d drifted home to the island, tossing ideas about what to do. She`d never been one to stay in one place long, and it was starting to gnaw at her she had no where to go and nothing to do.
“Holding the fence down?” a voice asked from behind.
Sanda turned to look up at an old childhood friend smiling down at her. Aran sweater, jeans, work boots were standard uniform, but Chi stuck out like a sore thumb being so tall and lanky. “Still can’t find a boat you fit on?” She asked stepping forward to embrace him in a hug.
Chuckling the Asian man hugged her in return, “The last Captain offered to fold me in quarters with the sail. I’ve decided best to stay ashore and just teach.”
Sanda took a step back, pulling auburn hair out of her mouth in a futile attempt to bring it under control. She should go back to shorter than short. “You? Teaching? Teaching what, artistic pride on protest signs?” she teased.
A few years younger than he, Sanda had been gone before he’d graduated. The stars had been in her eyes. He smiled and took her arm to guide her back towards the town square. “I, young lady, am in charge of middle form.” The school rarely had more than sixty students, they tended to be broken into large age groups. “It’s just me and Ms. Mac-K these days.”
“What happened to Mr Stevens?” She didn’t care she was more than of age to call her previous teachers by their first names, it still didn’t feel right. Sanda allowed herself to be guided towards the pub. At least it would be out of the wind.
“His wife passed of a heart anurism, he went fishing and never came home.” Chi explained, seeming relieved to get out of the wind and autumn cold. He followed Sanda to a table, seeming grateful that she remembered to take the booth by the fireplace so he’d have room to stretch out. “To be honest, your brother sent me searching for you fearing you were going to try and do the same.”
Sanda gave a short bitter chuckle, “That would require me being able to set foot on any sort of ship. Mutineers aren’t allowed that, you know.”
Meela, a daughter of one of the previous waitresses plunked down a coffee in front of Chi and an O’Keefe’s in front of Sanda. She then said “You wanting to eat today?”
“I’m good.” Sanda said with a shake of her head, her stomach was in knots.
Chi gave the waitress a rueful smile, “I was having lunch when I got shanghai’d.”
Meela rolled her eyes and gave Chi a pat on the shoulder, “Well, if you need refills giver a holler.”
Chi waited till Meela was out of ear shot, stretching a leg out. “What happened?”
Sanda sighed, “I was serving as ship’s medic and cook, lowest ranking officer on the ship. I was taking night watches so I was sleeping on first day shift when suddenly the ship’s alarms started ringing.” She could remember waking up the red strobe effect, head already pounding from the unholy noise. “I ran to the bridge to find the door locked at our XO pounding on the access hatch trying to get Captain Lesof to open up. Hartley, our engineering officer returned with a cutting torch, apparently this had been going on for a while.”
She took a swig of the beer, not giving it the proper attention it deserved. Chi just sat, listening. “Well, it seems our Captain had decided to explore a black-rated system.” Chi cocked an eyebrow, something she wished she could do, “It means someone, sometime, considered it dangerous as hell and don’t go near it.” He nodded, and she continued, “Well, the Captain decided that the system hadn’t been looked at in over two hundred and thirty years and there might be prime estate going to waste.. and changed course to investigate. When the XO and engineer protested this, he kicked them off the bridge and locked them out of the computer. What the alarms were wasn’t a mutiny alarm, but gravitational alerts. The system was black-rated because it had an unexplained gravity well that had eaten a few early ships.”
She stopped and fiddled with coaster.
“Then?” Chi finally said over the murmur of voices in the pub.
“Then the XO and Hartley realized I was there and I could remove the Captain from command pending medical review.” She chewed her lip, “The fact of the matter is, I only had their word to go on, I *should* have called up to the Captain and gotten his side and THEN made a decision, but.. I didn’t.” She sighed and looked up at Chi, “I just ordered the computer to turn over the ship to the XO. That probably saved our lives if not careers, but..” she shugged and turned to look out the window, back towards the sea. “But.. it was mutiny all the same.”
“The whole crew got washed?” He asked, brow furrowed in concerned.
She waved a hand, “Just us officers; the enlisted had no clue. They were just broken up and sent to other ships. I got cashed, try to find a berth on a private vessel, failed miserably and came home to regroup. Then I couldn’t even get on a harbour crew, and I’ve been moping ever since.”
“Seems a bit rough to punish you for one bad choice.” Chi said.
“Captain is captain, the law is the law. He could have had orders we didn’t have, he could have had information we didn’t. As it was he’d gone bug nut crazy for whatever reason, I wasn’t exactly in a position to get a copy of his eval, but.. I should still have followed the book. Even if I had never thought to need the proper procedures, I still knew what they were. ” She took another mouthful of beer, this time appreciating it properly. “And I don’t even know what all the danger was about.”
“The gravity well?”
“Yeah. It’s not that Earth-far, I’m surprised it hasn’t been investigated long before this. I’m damn curious as to what’s going on in that system.”
“Maybe you should just hire your own ship and find out,” Chi teased.
Sanda looked up at him with a smile, “Maybe I should.”