To Die Like a Man
by Alcuin Fromm
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3, 4 |
part 2
Raille slept terribly that night. Despite his exhaustion, he kept waking up in fear that something else had gone wrong between his men or that he had overlooked something about the ship. His periodic bouts of slumber were plagued by strange dreams. Underlying everything was a sense of having failed his crew.
The familiar buzz of the comm-link sounded as he lay half-awake. It buzzed again, then a third time. Raille knew it would not stop until he acknowledged it. Twisting in his zero-gravity sleeping sack, he reached over to the dataport mounted on the cabin wall. The ship’s chronometer said 07:23 in the morning. On a normal day, he would have been up and dressed long ago. He pushed a few buttons and the buzzing stopped. A display identified the reason for the notification. Their short-range communication system had received an incoming message. Someone had heard their distress call.
Raille visited the head, washed up with zero-gravity hygienic wipes, which he hated, and put on his flight suit, omitting only the gloves and helmet. Floating through the central hub towards the cockpit, he could smell sweat and ale in the air. There was no other sign of his crew.
The cockpit was also empty. Raille strapped into his seat and quickly scanned the morning diagnostics and status reports. Everything was in the green. Tapping a display, he brought up the communications system. The message had been sent uncoded on an open channel. Raille checked the originating timestamp and performed a rough calculation, estimating that the transmitting ship had been three days away at the time it sent its message. Since then, she could be anywhere between a day’s travel closer or farther away.
Raille began the recording. There was a flash of light followed by a scrambled image, which resolved itself into the bearded face of a middle-aged man.
“This is Captain Brellon Wistill of the Threen. You will find our registration codes attached to this message. At timecode twelve point nine point two-five, we received a short-range transmission from the M.M.S. Callia Mae. Registration codes and message acknowledged. You have my heartfelt sympathy, Captain, for the damage to your vessel and my congratulations that your crew is uninjured and that you are flight-ready.
“The Threen is en route to Hirtho Base for new provisions. We are returning from an unsuccessful mining operation on Asteroid Memm-two-five-B. Our cargo bay is as empty as the stomach of a starving dog. Our flight paths will be crossing in about three days. Navigational data are also attached to this message. Please maintain your course and we can rendezvous at the appointed coordinates and timepoint. Continued success, Captain. I look forward to meeting you. Threen out.”
Raille examined the positioning data that accompanied the message and checked them against the Callia Mae’s own course, speed, and navigation projections. Everything was correct to within a tolerable deviation range. He then looked up the registration codes for the Threen. According to her last public account, she was a privately chartered, medium freighter with a five-man crew. Slightly larger than the Callia Mae, the Threen was essentially the same type of ship for the same type of work. Raille was pleased that they had encountered a sister freighter. He pressed a button for the shipwide intercom.
“This is the captain. First Mate Alloryio and Chief Engineer Uunstet, please report to the mess in fifteen minutes. Over.”
The three men gathered at the appointed time. Alloryio’s cheek was still red. Neither he nor Uunstet looked pleased, and they kept a conspicuous distance from each other. No one spoke. Raille looked at the men, displeased with the lack of camaraderie among his crew.
Ignoring their smoldering discontent, Raille described the transmission from the Threen and gave them orders to keep the Callia Mae on her course and speed in order to rendezvous. He then requested the standard daily reports and updates. Neither the First Mate nor the Chief Engineer had anything of note to relate. The Mae, though injured, flew well. A heavy cloud hung over the entire meeting, and Raille was on the verge of broaching the topic when Uunstet finally cracked.
“Listen, uh, Alloryio... I...” he said. Uunstet stared at the ground and scratched his shaved head absently, then he took a deep breath. “I’m... I’m sorry about last night.”
He held out his hand to the First Mate. Alloryio looked up at Raille. “We’re done here?” he asked.
Raille frowned and Uunstet dropped his hand, his face disappointed. “The meeting is finished, yes, but wouldn’t you like to—”
Alloryio turned, set his foot against the mess table and sent himself floating. The other two men watched him cross the central hub and disappear through the hatch.
Raille sighed and looked at Uunstet. “You know how these things go,” said Raille lamely. “By tomorrow he’ll be his usual self, cracking jokes and being sarcastic.”
“I don’t think so, Captain,” said Uunstet. “He’s not really mad at me... or, at least, I don’t think he’s really thinking about last night. That’s not why he’s upset.”
“No?”
“What I called him reminded him of something. I think that’s what’s gotten under his skin.” said Uunstet with a sigh. “I’m such a fool, I should have kept my mouth shut. Do you speak Old Uulorian?”
“No, I don’t,” said Raille. “I know a few of the famous sayings, but I can’t speak it.”
“The word I used in Old Uulorian is a pretty nasty insult, all right, but it really just means ‘a gambler’.”
“Alloryio’s a gambler?”
Uunstet laughed without humor. “Didn’t you see how he couldn’t even play a stupid game of Solli without betting on it and cheating? He’s a gambler and a very greedy man. And I knew a little about his past, which is why, when I got hot last night, I went straight for the worst thing that came to mind.”
Uunstet glanced back at the hatch, then leaned in towards Raille and lowered his voice. “A couple years back, he got into some serious trouble with the wrong crowd. Racked up lots of debt. He had to make a bunch of hard choices to pay it off and keep his skin. I don’t even know what all. But it ruined his marriage. He’s estranged from his kid. I think that’s why he joined the Merchant Marines in the first place. Just had to get off-world and clear his head... or maybe he’s running from something. I don’t know. He’s not a bad guy. I’ve been on two tours with him before this one. It’s just...”
Raille waited as Uunstet searched for the right words.
“It’s just that he lets his passion get in the way of things. And his passion is money.”
Raille nodded.
“Anyway, maybe you’re right and everything’ll calm down by tomorrow,” said Uunstet.
“Sure it will.”
“Just... just don’t tell him I told you any of that, okay?”
Raille shook his head. “Captain’s honor,” he said.
* * *
Raille sat in the cockpit of the Callia Mae. The day had progressed without event after his conversation with Uunstet. The ship had continued towards the rendezvous point, performing splendidly. At the evening meal, the mood had been somewhat lighter. They had all been able to talk together, and Alloryio had ceased overtly ignoring Uunstet. It did not seem to Raille that the behavior of his First Mate had perfectly returned to normal, but, after thinking over Uunstet’s words, Raille was no longer sure what normal for Alloryio meant. During their outbound flight and the cargo loading, they had maintained a professional relationship, but nothing more. Raille would never have guessed at any underlying tension.
As Raille sat alone, staring out the cockpit window and pondering how superficially he knew his crew, a red light suddenly flashed to life on the console. It was an incoming short-range communication on a private, coded channel. Raille raised his eyebrows. It was also a one-way message, coded by the sender to autodelete upon completion. Pulling it up on his small, console display, Raille identified a priority message destined only for him, sent by Captain Wistill of the Threen.
Raille glanced over his shoulder and saw that the cockpit door was still open. He flipped a switch and the door halves slid shut with a hiss. The comm display was prompting him for his Captain’s command code, which he entered. The red border of the display screen turned green. Wistill’s image appeared.
“Greetings, Captain Raille. The Threen continues on her course and we look forward to our rendezvous in... well, by the time you get this, in about a two days.”
Wistill paused and looked off screen for a moment, as if collecting himself. His polite mien became fraught with fatherly concern, almost worry. He returned his gaze to the center of the screen.
“I was going over the Callia Mae’s ship manifest. Very impressive haul. Thirty-four crates of hythurium is... well... a lot of hythurium. That word, hythurium, kept coming back to me, as if it triggered something, you know? Like a word on the tip of your tongue.”
He snapped his fingers. “Then I remembered. I heard a story once, maybe it’s true, maybe it’s one of those old spacer tales. Way back before the Thallian Wars, there was a freight cruiser that was returning to base after a fruitless mining trip and she just stumbled on an entire shipment of hythurium... just... you know... floating out in space. No one around. No one with a little checklist. Who would think something like that could ever happen? Finding such a valuable treasure like that in the dead of space? The crew of that ship just loaded it aboard and brought it back home. Sold the hythurium to different companies and firms, here and there, not raising any attention. The crew members all divided the profits, of course. Everyone got his share.”
Wistill paused again and leaned in to the camera. “Made a blasted fortune,” he said slowly, savoring the words. He leaned back and continued. “Now, as far as I can tell, the Callia Mae’s holding up all right after that terrible, unfortunate explosion. But, well, the cargo bay is breached and the ship’s computers are half-wrecked. The Captain’s Log has been destroyed, as your damage report states, so anything that happens aboard her after that unavoidable damage is... sort of... off the record, isn’t it? When you come in to port, no one can really verify anything that happened after the explosion, can they? Quite a unique situation.”
He stared into the camera in silence for a moment. Raille felt as if the man were actually present, looking at him.
“It’s amazing how easily those hythurium crates can tumble right out of a breached cargo bay. With all the hull damage and malfunctioning computers. It’s amazing those doors don’t just pop open. Could easily have happened during the explosion, for example. And if that did happen, there’s really nothing to keep the hythurium crates from... just... you know... floating out in space.”
Wistill adjusted himself in his seat. “In any event, the story about that ancient freighter just sort of struck me, and I wanted to share it with you. It’s an amazing story, isn’t it?”
His voice returned to the professional tone with which he began. “We look forward to our rendezvous, Captain Raille. Threen out.”
The message ended and was automatically deleted. Raille sat back in his Captain’s seat and realized that his whole body was tense. Visions swirled through his head. He saw a gigantic, sprawling property crowned by a stately mansion. He saw a new freighter, not a military-owned, Merchant Marine vessel, but his own ship. He saw his wife and their daughter, smiling and laughing with him on a new yacht floating out in the middle of Lake Morsh on a beautiful, summer day. Then the sun set, and the stars came out, and he saw his grandfather on the shore. The visions disappeared.
Raille sat in the cockpit long into the night, alone with his thoughts.
* * *
The next morning, Raille assembled his crew for its daily briefing. The heated animosity between Alloryio and Uunstet had abated, and they had become merely professional. But the distracted Raille hardly noticed anything around him. He felt haggard and exhausted, struggling to concentrate on the mundane status reports and routine updates.
At the end of the regular business, during which Raille could only think of one thing, he told his crew that there was a final, particular point to discuss. Captain Nithan Raille, after a sleepless night in uncertainty and doubt, had come to a decision. He described in detail the message from Wistill and the manner in which it was sent. When he finished, both Alloryio and Uunstet said nothing.
“It is my opinion, gentlemen,” said Raille, “that this man and his crew are, at best, dishonest and, at worst, actual pirates. There is reason to fear not only for the cargo, but for our lives. Perhaps they would cut us all in. Perhaps they would just cut our throats. I have thus decided to alter our course, without informing the Threen, by mark oh-four-four. That will keep us far enough away to avoid a rendezvous, but not so far as to be conspicuous. Once they’ve scanned us, it’ll be too late for them to catch up and we can give them any excuse we wish as to why we changed course. Despite the Mae’s damage, we can and should continue on to Memlock alone.”
There was a long, heavy silence. Finally Uunstet spoke. “That sounds more than suspicious, Captain. Best to avoid trouble. If even half of what I’ve heard about some of these brigands is true, well, I don’t want to have anything to do with them.”
Alloryio darted a quick glance at Uunstet, then turned his eyes to the floor.
“First Mate?” said Raille.
“Yes... indeed,” he said, as if not paying attention.
Raille nodded in satisfaction. “Very good. Alloryio, please make the course correction and keep me informed of any changes. We’ll be showing up on their long-range scanners soon, so we want to be already well on the new course before they have time to adjust and catch up with us. Dismissed.”
Raille and Uunstet set off in different directions. Alloryio stayed back, in silence. Then, after a long while, he floated to the cockpit and made the course correction.
That night, Alloryio excused himself from the evening meal, which Raille and Uunstet enjoyed together with casual conversation. Afterwards, Alloryio floated to Uunstet’s cabin door. He knocked. Uunstet, still in his flight suit from the day’s duty, answered the door, greeting Alloryio with an expression of surprise.
“Hello, Uunstet. I came here to smooth over everything that’s happened.”
“Yeah? Well, listen, I am sorry for what I said. I wasn’t thinking straight and I was annoyed and everything. It was a terrible thing to say.”
“I get it. People say things.” He paused. “Can I come in? I feel kinda stupid just floating in the corridor here. I’ll even bring a peace offering.”
Alloryio lifted a small knapsack he had been carrying. From within, floating glass items bumped together and made a muffled tinkling sound.
“I have a stashed cylinder of Nostian whiskey here. Been saving it,” Alloryio said.
Uunstet smiled. “Yeah, hey, let’s have a drink,” he said, and started moving towards the door to leave the cabin. “We’ll celebrate.”
Alloryio held out a hand to stop him. “I don’t know if the Captain would be all that thrilled if he saw us drinking outside of official rec times. Why don’t we stay here in your cabin?”
“Well, all right,” said Uunstet with a shrug.
Alloryio smiled and nodded. Uunstet floated back into his room, to let in the first mate. Alloryio entered the cabin and the door hissed shut.
* * *
Copyright © 2022 by Alcuin Fromm
