by Mary E. Lowd
An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, or skip ahead to the next chapter.
Commander Janessa Carroway’s green eyes reflected the stars as she watched through the shuttle’s windows. She knew the shuttle was approaching Nexus Nine Base, but she didn’t look at that looming metal structure. She’d heard about the space station’s unusual architecture — all interconnected hexagons and triangles; pointy and angular instead of smooth and sweeping like most Tri-Galactic Union star bases, since it had originally been a Reptassan station. Carroway didn’t want to be here. It was a bad sign for what her next assignment would be.
“Jan, do you think that will be our new ship?” the Morphican piloting the shuttle asked, pointing at a small ship docked at Nexus Nine Base. His long rabbit ears were flat back behind his head, and his nose twitched furiously. In spite of the cyborg components that explicitly regulated his emotions, Lt. Vossie looked concerned.
Mild concern was the strongest emotion Jan Carroway had ever seen reflected in her rabbit-like compatriot’s demeanor.
Carroway was a Norwegian Forest cat with wild, untamable fur. She stood a head taller than most other cats, fluffy gray fur straining to escape the collar and cuffs of her Tri-Galactic Navy uniform. For an uplifted Earth feline, she was huge, which still left her substantially smaller than a lot of dogs. And the Tri-Galactic Navy was filled with dogs.
Lt. Vossie, on the other paw, was a tawny brown rabbit-like alien, approximately the size of a small cat. With his long ears standing tall, he came to Carroway’s shoulder. But in addition to his small size, he had the blunt claws and buck teeth of a vegetarian prey animal. His people were so naturally fearful that they’d developed highly advanced cyborg tech to elevate themselves above their fear.
Tubes in Lt. Vossie’s tawny neck fed artificial hormones into his body, constantly tweaking the chemical mix that bathed his brain, keeping it emotionally steadied, and a computer implant on his brow allowed his brain to interface directly with an AI that could whisper soothing probabilities straight into his mind, reminding him that fear was only fear and he didn’t need to let it rule him.
Cmdr. Carroway had come to depend heavily on Lt. Vossie and his preternatural calmness in dangerous situations. The fact that the hot-headed Norwegian Forest cat and cool-minded Morphican worked so well together was part of why they were here, approaching a space station she didn’t want to go to.
Carroway deigned to follow the angle of Lt. Vossie’s gesture and gazed, briefly, at the small ship. It looked brand new. But it also looked small. And well-armed. Very well-armed. The whole tiny ship was bristling with electron torpedoes and blazor canons.
“I don’t want to captain a ship like that one,” Cmdr. Carroway grumbled. Her voice was deep for a cat. She supposed she looked warlike with her sharp teeth, pointed ears, and bushy fur that flared around her face like an unruly mane. But she wanted to pursue science, diplomacy… The peaceful side of the Tri-Galactic Union.
“We still don’t know that you’re being promoted,” Lt. Vossie pointed out pedantically as he finished docking their shuttle with a satisfying ka-thunk. The sound felt very final, like a prison door sliding shut.
Carroway gave Vossie a withering look. Her feline eyes could smolder like green fire when she wanted them to.
Lt. Vossie folded, admitting, “Okay, yes, the probabilities suggest very strongly that we’re being re-stationed because you’re about to be promoted. It is exceedingly rare for a TGN officer with the rank of commander to receive a Silver Paw award for exceptional service during military action and not receive promotion to captain within the year.”
It had already been more than a year since the skirmish with the Archidopteran fleet where Cmdr. Carroway and Lt. Vossie had distinguished themselves by disregarding their captain’s orders and executing an extremely difficult maneuver that resulted in saving their ship and three other vessels as well. Lives had been saved. Hundreds. And yet, Carroway had barely escaped being court-martialed for disobedience. Even though she’d been right. She’d been right to trust Lt. Vossie’s probabilities, and their captain had never forgiven either of them for it.
The last year had been a long one full of demeaning orders and duties beneath both of their statures in rank. Subtle slights and obviously held, but unspoken, grudges. And now, instead of being promoted at a proper ceremony aboard the ship they’d been serving upon for years, Carroway and Vossie had been shipped off here to this backwater, converted-Reptassan station with no explanation of what to expect.
Janessa Carroway had dreamed about being promoted to captain since she was a mere kitten, still only daydreaming about someday joining the great and grand Tri-Galactic Navy, let alone ever becoming a celebrated officer.
Her daydreams had never gone like this.
This didn’t feel like a celebration. It felt like a punishment.
“Let’s get this over with,” Carroway rumbled, rising from her seat in the shuttle. She led the way to the shuttle’s airlock in the back, and Lt. Vossie followed her.
As soon as the pair stepped through the second pair of airlock doors, placing paw upon the metal floor of Nexus Nine Base, they were greeted by a widely grinning German shepherd dog wearing a TGN captain’s uniform. Carroway was tall for a cat, but this dog dwarfed her. “Welcome, welcome!” the dog barked. “I’m Captain Shep Bataille, and it’s an honor to meet you–” He held out a paw toward the bristling Norwegian Forest cat. “–Captain Janessa Carroway.”
Carroway heard the change in her rank like a slap to the face. Her pointed ears wanted to flatten tight against her skull, but with the force of effort, she kept them tall. She even put out a paw and politely shook the gregarious dog’s hand. She was a well-trained cat. Never hiss or growl around dogs. Don’t let them see what you’re really feeling. Even when their slights burn you up inside.
“And you must be Lieutenant Commander Vossie,” Captain Bataille barked, offering his paw to the Morphican.
Lt. Vossie kept a cool head, but he looked genuinely confused as he stared up at the much taller dog. “There must be some mistake,” the rabbit-like alien demurred. “I’m a lieutenant, and my commanding officer here is Commander Carroway.” Instead of taking the dog’s proffered paw, Vossie gestured at Carroway. “At least, last we heard.”
And there lay the crux of it.
All three officers — dog, cat, and rabbit — stood awkwardly in the hall outside the airlock as they figured out what had happened, tension rising between them.
“I’m so sorry,” Captain Bataille barked, his own triangular ears having dipped to half mast. “There’s no ambiguity in the reports I’ve received. Both of you should have received your promotions before arriving here.” A stricken look flickered over his long muzzle. “Your promotion ceremonies should have been performed before leaving your previous post.”
Carroway’s scowl made it clear that there had been no promotion ceremonies. Some feelings are so well earned that they’re not worth hiding, even from touchy dogs who don’t believe a cat is surrounded by hidden slights all of the time.
“I could get my officers to try to throw something together…” Captain Bataille offered, his eyes going hazy as he tried to figure out logistics. “It’d have to be quick…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Captain Carroway said, trying out her new title for herself in her own mind. It didn’t feel right. It felt fake. Probably because she was supposed to have had a ceremony, and it never happened. Her promotion felt like an afterthought.
Lt. Cmdr. Vossie cast a quick glance at his newly minted captain. She spotted a muted note of disappointment in his eye, and for a moment, she wondered if she should have taken this dog up on his offer to throw together a last-minute, ramshackle, hackneyed promotion ceremony for the two of them. Perhaps Vossie would have enjoyed the ceremony, even if she didn’t think that she could. Ah well, it was too late now. Captain Bataille was already telling them about their new post.
“I assume you’ll want to see your new ship! The Wanderlust is a beauty.” Captain Bataille’s brush of a tail wagged as he led them down the metal hallway, past other airlock berths, most of them empty, but a few hosting various docked vessels.
“The Wanderlust?” Carroway asked, in spite of herself. The name was pretty, and it conjured ideas of meandering through the universe, simply discovering for the sheer joy of discovery. That’s what she’d joined the Tri-Galactic Union to do. So, maybe, even if she’d missed out on a silly ceremony to celebrate her promotion, she’d still get a post that made it all worthwhile. And hey, once she was the captain, no one would be ordering her around on her own ship.
“Yes,” Captain Bataille woofed. “The Wanderlust is a long-range, small crew vessel.”
“How small?” Lt. Cmdr. Vossie asked, always one to pin down exact numbers.
“She can be run by a crew of six in a pinch, but she’s designed for a crew of twelve to eighteen.” Captain Bataille stopped walking and gestured at an open airlock with one of his large paws.
Through the airlock doors, Carroway could see the central hall of a standard-design TGN ship. No clues about the ship’s capabilities could be seen here, just closets for spacesuits, maintenance tools, and other supplies kept near an airlock.
A head popped out of a door farther down the hall — the head of a short, very pretty dog, approximately the same size as Lt. Cmdr. Vossie. The orange fur on the pretty dog’s ears was so long and draping, it made his face almost look like a butterfly with the white sploosh down his pointed nose serving as the butterfly’s body. Carroway recognized his breed immediately as Papillon.
“Captain Bataille!” the Papillon squeaked, clearly surprised by the group’s arrival. “I wasn’t expecting you for another hour.”
“I’m sure the ship’s fine, Ensign Lee,” Captain Bataille woofed. Turning back to Carroway and Vossie, the German shepherd added, “This is Ensign Barry Lee, one of Nexus Nine Base’s finest. We’ll be sorry to see him go.”
“You’re part of my new crew, Ensign Lee?” Carroway asked, trying to strike the right note between coldly commanding and warmly welcoming. She didn’t want to let any members of her new crew get the wrong idea about her being too soft. She didn’t need them arguing with her about whether they needed to follow the orders of a cat. On the other paw, this pipsqueak of a dog didn’t look too intimidating, and she did want to be on good terms with her crew. A ship works better when the whole crew gets along.
“Yes, captain!” Ensign Lee yipped while executing a smart salute with his paw. “I’ve been working with the engineering team on Nexus Nine Base for the last few months, retrofitting The Wanderlust for her upcoming mission. I know this ship inside and out, and while she’s an older model, we’ve spiffed her up good as new. Better than new!”
With a sinking feeling, Carroway realized that The Wanderlust must indeed be the heavily armed ship Vossie had pointed out to her during their approach. The ship’s name might carry connotations of peaceful, meandering missions of first contact, science, and diplomacy… but it was an old name. The blazor canons and electron torpedoes? Those would be the retrofits. She was sure of it. She’d distinguished herself during war; she was being given command of a war vessel. She feared learning what their first mission would be.
The Tri-Galactic Union wasn’t at war with anyone right now. Except for the Archidopteran skirmishes over a year ago, the TGU hadn’t been at war for a long time. But there are always dangerous patches of space — places where you can’t trust your allies not to turn on you or aggressive newcomers to arrive. Like the Archidopterans. Carroway shuddered at the memory of fighting those insectile aliens, whose queen had been intent on conquest. Similarly, until quite recently, the Reptassans had been at war with Avia, the planet orbited by Nexus Nine Base. Even if the Tri-Galactic Union hadn’t officially been involved in that conflict, there had been plenty of room for dangerous missions and the loss of life.
Captain Carroway had no interest in taking lives, but sometimes, it was necessary when another military attacked a peaceful target. She had never meant to become a war captain during a time of peace, but it looked like that was what the Tri-Galactic Union was going to want from her.
Ensign Barry Lee led Captain Carroway and Lt. Cmdr. Vossie through The Wanderlust, from stem to stern, an extremely thorough tour. The ship had two barracks rooms, each capable of housing a half dozen officers comfortably. There were individual quarters for both the captain and the first officer — meaning Carroway and Vossie — which were equipped to be shared with an additional two officers, in the case where the ship took on a fuller complement. According to Ensign Lee, the ship had only been assigned six officers so far, including himself, Vossie, and Carroway. An extremely minimal crew. A fact that should have seemed reasonable — why not leave room for the new captain to pick a few officers of her own? — but somehow set off alarm bells between Carroway’s fluffy ears.
In addition to the barracks and quarters, there was a small multi-purpose room with a synthesizer where officers could eat and do minimal exercise, and of course, there was the engine room.
The tour of The Wanderlust ended on the small ship’s bridge where Captain Carroway reverently walked a circle around her new captain’s chair, right in the middle where she could keep an eye on all the other officers who would serve in this room. Serve under her. Serve her.
It wasn’t a ceremony where her previous captain and crewmates celebrated her excellence, saying nice things about her and her accomplishments, and ending with the ritual addition of a captain’s rank pin to her collar. She’d have to synthesize one and add it to her collar herself, later…
But sitting down in her own captain’s chair for the first time… It did feel like an accomplishment. Even if everything had been done wrong, in ways specifically designed to hurt her, and it was the wrong kind of ship… It was still her ship.
As soon as Captain Carroway’s fluffy tail curled around her seated self, fluffy tip landing on her lap, all twitchy, Lt. Cmdr. Vossie whispered, “Congratulations, Captain. You deserve it.”
Captain Carroway smiled fiercely, pointy fangs peeking out and whiskers rising. It felt good to be a captain.
Carroway’s previous captain may have given her criminally negligent orders, tried to court martial her for disobeying them, and then spent more than a year punishing her for being better at his job than he’d been. But that buffoon of a dog still hadn’t stopped her from earning her own captain’s chair.
“How’s it feel?” Captain Bataille barked from behind her. “I know my first captain’s chair felt like…” He paused, stepping around to where he could make eye contact with the newly minted Norwegian Forest cat captain. “…like I was finally home, and I’d been searching for home for a long time.”
Captain Carroway’s smile softened, becoming no less real, but less savage, and her green eyes glazed, like she was looking at herself from a distance in her mind’s eye.
“Yes,” Carroway agreed. “That’s exactly what it feels like.” Though, she thought, it would feel even more that way if another captain — a dog, no less — weren’t standing on her bridge, waiting to brief her on the orders for her ship’s first mission. No worries. Captain Bataille wouldn’t be on her ship much longer, and whatever horrible mission the Tri-Galactic Union had planned for this overclocked warship, she’d find a way to make the best of it. She’d have Vossie at her side, and they’d pick a few more officers they could really rely on. It would work out. She’d prove herself, and she’d get better missions after this one. Maybe even — one day — a better ship. But this would do, for a start.
Continue on to Chapter 3…