Massoud (Massoud Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  2. Voyage

  O n the tenth day out from Denison, Massoud was summoned to Engineering. She approached along the narrow corridor that gave access to the engine compartments, separated from each other by fire- and radiation-proof barriers. Takei stuck his head out of a distant door and called to her.

  “Well, the superiority of your small size is needed, girl. When they scaled down these engines to fit Class C ships, they forgot that engineers don’t get scaled down too. I can’t get under this conduit because of Elsie’s cooking.” Takei placed a hand on his round tummy, which he liked to blame on his wife’s abysmal culinary skills. “And the captain’s shoulders are too wide. Same for my people. So, we’ll have to see what you can do.”

  The captain slid out from under the equipment, wearing white coveralls. In theory, their fleet uniforms were stain-resistant and ultimately flexible, but Engineering always seemed to prove that false. Every engineering section smuggled the officially unnecessary coveralls.

  “So, what’s the problem?” she asked.

  Takei opened a schematic. “It’s the reflux control valve. It’s operating outside its design parameters. It needs to be manually adjusted, and it’s at too odd an angle for the robot to reach.” He switched to a visual. “It looks like this, and it’s located under here. Unfortunately, transverse conduit runs right through the access-way.” He rolled his eyes in criticism of the designers. “But I think you can squeeze past.”

  They were both on their knees now, looking under the equipment. “Just past those coolant lines?” Massoud asked.

  “Yup. Think you can get in there?”

  “No problem.”

  Massoud stripped off her tunic and pants and picked out a coverall. At first Takei was following fleet etiquette and looking directly at her face, but before long he was glancing distractedly over her shoulder. She followed his gaze to find McKenzie and Chen openly evaluating her exposed flesh. Takei frowned, and the captain’s voice issued a terse, “Gentlemen, have you no duties?”

  Massoud suspected that this impertinence was a lingering result of her public inebriation which had abraded the respect that the junior engineers once had for her. However, there was no point in fretting about that now. Pulling on protective clothing, she crawled under the equipment and wormed under the obstructing lines. Takei handed her the adaptable wrench, and she proceeded on her back, squirming to the location of the control valve.

  “Hey, Chief, there’s an issue with the bonnet—some kind of yellow gunk is seeping out. Reflux fluid?”

  “Maybe. See the small hole on the top? Vent it. There should be nothing in there.”

  Massoud flipped the tool around and found the right key. Applying pressure immediately released a spray of liquid, splattering her face shield with a thin yellow pattern.

  “It’s reflux fluid alright. The valve is shot. I’ll seal it up for now and come back out.”

  “Sodding shoddy design!” the chief hissed. “That’s going to be a headache. Yes, come on out. We’ll get you decontam-ed.”

  She reset the vent and clambered out. The robot went in to clean up the mess, while she was directed to the decontamination unit. The conversation continued while she placed her clothing in the recycle chute and allowed the system to scan for, and neutralize, the chemical. Takei handed her fresh underclothing, adaptive of course; it fit itself to her perfectly.

  “The only thing we can do is shut down the engines,” Takei grumbled. “The engines are all intertied through the same reflux line. It’s a really stupid arrangement.”

  “What loss in efficiency do we have now?” asked the captain.

  “About five percent. We could live with that, but a sudden failure could lead to a major outage. Best to deal with the valve before it busts.”

  “You are correct. We have the part available; I trust?”

  Takei nodded. “It’ll have to be done at night when the power usage is minimal,” he sighed. “I’m getting too old for these odd hours, you know. I’ll preplan the shut down and then get some rest. Let’s say twenty-three hundred hours. You available then, Massoud?”

  “I will cover your bridge watch, Massoud,” the captain stated. “I will let the crew know about this work, while they are still awake. Power outages tend to be unsettling.”

  This was a major understatement. Taking all but emergency systems offline and letting a ship drift in space, blind and powerless, was petrifying. Ventilation would cease except in the mess, bridge and sickbay. With limited heating, the cold of space would creep through the hull, fingering the unnerved crew.

  Just before midnight, life support, the last system to be shut off and locked out, went dead. Massoud was already in protective gear and already clambering through the nest of conduit she had traversed earlier in the day. She had been fully briefed on her task and had practiced in a simulation. Chen and Mackenzie had been markedly respectful during her training. Takei had likely had words with them. The new valve and a selection of tools were already placed at the work location. No comforting, idle chat was to be heard between the men in the control room. The engines’ hum was sickeningly absence, as if the ship was holding its breath and waiting for an opportunity to gasp in fresh air.

  The valve coupling was more resistant to movement than expected. Massoud stretched the length of her tool’s handle, to the extent the adaptive material would allow, and applied the extra leverage to the task. The thin handle of the tool curved ominously under the stress, and just as she was lamenting her lack of strength, there was a little give. The muscles in her arms were trembling and shaking, due to more than just physical exertion, which made it difficult to place the new valve. She inhaled deeply to steady her nerves and oxygenate her muscles, tried again, and the couplings slipped into position correctly.

  She called out: “I’ve got the couplings tightened to the same torque as we used in the simulation, but that’s a lot less than they used on the old valve. Are we sure the torque is right?”

  The engineers discussed her concern and reassured her that all was well. Massoud was stupidly happy to hear voices. She hated a silent spacecraft; silence was what lay beyond the hull, like death. Finished with her task, she crawled out. As soon as she emerged, there was a flurry of activity. Chen and McKenzie rushed to restart up the ship’s systems in accordance with standard procedures, and Takei supervised her decontamination. Clearly, he was babysitting her. One of the junior engineers should have been assisting her, while the chief dealt with the more critical tasks.

  Within a few minutes, the reassuring hum of the engines had returned. However, the engineering crew and Massoud still waited anxiously in the control room. They distrusted the system’s reported status, and were waiting for a bang, or rattle, or a waft of vapor from under the conduit as a sign of trouble.

  “We’ll watch it for an hour or thereabouts,” the chief noted, “and then we should trust it’s okay. You’ll stay nearby, Commander, in case you need to go under again?”

  “Of course, Chief.”

  Takei wandered off, likely to get more coffee. He looked weary and aged, his shoulders stooped. Massoud sat on a bench in her undershirt and uniform pants, with new coveralls at hand in case they were needed. The two younger men sat at the far end of the bench, separated from Massoud by the not inconsiderable space that had been vacated by the chief’s rotund frame. That same space was now occupied by a distinct sense of social discomfort. The young men could not apologize for ogling her, without admitting they had done it, and she had no desire to remind them of it. Neither party wanted to discuss the unmentionable, but Massoud was the senior officer. It was her responsibility to take the initiative, and so she broke the silence.

  “That valve was really stuck. I had to go to the full limit of the handle length to get it off.”

  The engineers leapt on the topic. “Reflux hardens like rock,” “I bet,” were the near simultaneous replies. Another uncomfortable silence followed, but Massoud did not let it linger.

&n
bsp; “You spent your shore leave with your brother, Chen?”

  “Eh, yeah. I’m still subsidizing his artist’s lifestyle by renting a room from him. I wish he’d keep it clean while I was gone, though. Never know who’s been sleeping there while I was away.” He shuddered in apparent disgust.

  Brightening, Chen added. “He actually sold one of his sculptures, a weird green thing representing ‘Nature’, or something, to a big corporation. They’re going to put it in their lobby...or somewhere.” He returned to an uneasy silence.

  “Congratulate him for me,” Massoud answered.

  She was going to have to work hard to mend her relationship with the crew. Her first task was to overcome the self-consciousness that both she and the crew felt. But then again, maybe she was the only one who felt it.

  “McKenzie got engaged,” Chen offered after several moments.

  “Really? Congratulations. To that girl you’ve known since you were a kid?” Massoud asked with empty interest and some irritation. McKenzie shouldn’t have been eyeing her if he had a girl on Denison. It was even more irritating that McKenzie was her type, compact and muscular with broad good humor, and his appreciation of her earlier that day had been uncomfortably interesting to her.

  “Yeah, she’d been after me to propose for ages. Hope she knows I won’t be home much.”

  “I’m sure the chief will give you some pointers on handling that.” There was a tone of dismissal in Massoud’s comment. She was becoming increasingly perturbed by other people’s happy unions. The chief was unusual to have wed a fleet career to a long marriage. In contrast, Massoud had concluded marriage would never work for her or with her career. She simply did not want to hear about McKenzie’s upcoming nuptials. She stood up.

  “It’s been forty minutes. I’m going to the mess. If you two need me, I can be back in a moment,” she said as she headed to the exit.

  She was not surprised to find a half dozen people in the mess, despite the late hour. The mess had probably been full of spacefarers, seeking company while the engines were silent, and in the knowledge that the mess had the best emergency life support. The stragglers were of the type that needed to see the chief engineer retire to his cabin before they felt secure enough to do the same. Massoud joined the chief, who was nursing his cup.

  “Any problems?” he questioned.

  “No. So far, so good.”

  “I’m going to stay up a bit longer, make sure nothing happens.”

  “Let the others do it, Chief. Get some sleep. You can be fetched in an instant if they need you. In fact, they’ll need midget Massoud, not you, and I’m going to be up anyway, doing leak checks. Go to bed.”

  Takei gave a little laugh. “I might just follow that order. I’ll do a final check, and then hit my bunk. Thanks again for your help today. It was definitely outside your normal duties. This is the first time my team has been all male and such sturdy boys too. I’ll have them send me a little girl next time.”

  “I think that request would sound a little odd, don’t you?”

  “Well they should stop designing the access-ways for mice then,” he grumbled as he lifted himself from his seat.

  A few minutes later, Massoud was pulling Speck from his bunk with some difficulty. He was constitutionally unimaginative, and the eeriness of dead engines had not affected him in the least. He had been deeply asleep.

  He uttered something that may have been offensive, but low and under his breath, and crawled out from his covers wearing only one garment. Speck was not shy about presenting his person to the world. Massoud averted her eyes. “You have five minutes. Meet me in the aft compartment, in uniform, if you please, Mr. Speck.”

  After an unscheduled deceleration and acceleration, regulations required an additional leak inspection for ships of the Constance’s vintage. It was a good regulation. Massoud and Speck quickly found three pinhole leaks. “Wake Detzler,” she ordered. “We can use her help with the repairs.”

  “Ditzy doesn’t have a clue. She doesn’t know how to do this,” Speck pronounced.

  “Detzler is here to learn. You can teach her. Show her how to prime and spray the surface. I want to get this barge sealed up as quickly as possible. I’ll continue to identify leaks while you two do the repairs.”

  “But two people are supposed to do leak checks. If you do them by yourself, we’ll have to walk the ship again,” Speck complained.

  “The primary objective is to get the ship leak tight,” she said tersely. “We will focus on doing that as quickly as possible and, yes, we will have to walk the ship again for the formal, recordable, leak check. Do you have a problem with that Mr. Speck?”

  He shrugged.

  “Pardon?”

  “No, ma’am,” he responded a little more briskly. It was common for Speck to question orders. However, he needed to understand the chummy woman in the bar was gone and the commander was back.

  “Fetch Detzler—and teach her well,” she snapped.

  Massoud continued with the checks, wandering through storage compartments, utility chases and cabins. By the end of her search, she had found a total of thirteen leaks—an unheard of number for the Constance. She reminded herself that this quantity was not uncommon for an elderly ship, but, as each pinhole was found and marked, it sent a twizzle of insecurity along her spine.

  Once finished, she joined Detzler and Speck to check on their progress. She was mildly surprised to find they were working well together. Perhaps the large number of leaks had encouraged Speck to focus on the task in hand and to cooperate with the ship’s cadet. The repairs were soon completed, and the formal, two-person, leak check began. They found another two leaks in the larder where supplies were constantly being shifted around, hitting the outer hull. Someone, long ago, had installed a robust mesh behind the supplies to limit the impacts, but that early history of bangs and bumps was now becoming apparent in the aging membrane.

  “We’ll fix these two leaks now, Speck. But I think it’s time to ask the chief to fully re-seal this section of membrane. I’ll speak to him tomorrow. You can get back to bed now.”

  “But my normal watch has just started.”

  “Is it that late? So it is. Ask Long if he can spare you for a few hours’ rest. Good work tonight.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Massoud’s bridge shift was over too. She checked with the captain who was still on watch, and he instructed her to rest while he continued on duty. It was generally believed Gnostians only needed four hours sleep each day, but she couldn’t remember if the source this information was reliable.

  Her own sleep was unsatisfying, and she dreamt vividly. She was in the engine control room again, in her undershirt and underpants. Takei wasn’t present this time and, when she looked over her shoulder, only McKenzie was there, close to her. He smiled and placed his hands on her waist, sweeping them forwards and towards her belly. The touch was so real that she woke with a start.

  Swiping her slate, she saw it was almost fourteen hundred hours. She pulled herself up and stood over the small sink that came as a privilege of her rank. Looking at her grey face in the mirror, she wondered, “What’s going on with me? Why am I having these thoughts? Why am I even thinking about men? I don’t really feel like a woman, I barely look like one. I’m colorless, and vacant, and shouldn’t be troubled by things I decided not to need anymore. I’m just an officer, nothing else. Not a woman really. I barely exist planet-side. I’ve no life there. This is all I am. This is all I do. There’s no point in wanting what I can’t have and can’t tolerate.” And then the bitter question: “How is it fair that he’s getting married and I have nothing and no-one in my life?” She regretted the pettiness of her feelings. She wanted to be a better person than that.

  Massoud had concluded, long before this point, that her half-formed heart could not support intimate relationships. She didn’t know how to be close to someone, how to love and, worse still, she didn’t know how to accept love. The men she’d dated alarmed
her when they narrowed the gap between where the relationship started and where they wanted it to end. Each time she had generated false crises to drive her suitors away. It was easiest that way.

  She dressed in a green bathrobe and shower shoes, gifted by her sister. They were Massoud’s only civilian possessions on the ship and represented a little luxury. She could traipse to the showers without having to worry about managing her uniform in the cramped changing room. Although no fleet regulations governed gender separation in the bathrooms, and there was no expectation of privacy, the custom was for women to shower in the first half of the hour and men in the second. However, given the time of day, she expected little company.

  To her surprise, she found Chrostowski and Detzler chatting in the changing room when she arrived. Chrostowski was overtly flirting with the younger woman, who responded in the most innocent fashion. With the arrival of Massoud, Chrostowski thought it best to depart. Massoud released her long hair from its netted bindings and massaged a cleanser into it. This same long hair had once been her vanity; now it was long out of simple indifference. She had not even had it trimmed while she’d been on leave. She stepped into the communal shower and let the carefully balanced sonic, infrared and ultraviolent waves purify her skin and hair. Detzler stepped in afterwards.

  “You know Chrostowski is bi, don’t you Detzler,” Massoud said in a neutral tone.

  Detzler’s eyes widened. “Oh! Oh, no I didn’t.” Her unguarded expression revealed that she had just deciphered the nature of her conversation with the older woman.

  “Chrostowski’s nice,” Massoud added. “Just let her know if you’re not interested. Stick to neutral subjects. Also, she has a habit of touching you on the upper arm. If you brush your arm afterwards, as if you are brushing her touch away, she’ll get the message. She’s decent and has a lot of fleet experience. She can be a good mentor to you.”