by Mary E. Lowd
An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.
When Captain Carroway and Lt. Cmdr. Vossie found Ensign Mike, the fungal officer had crawled under one of the consoles in the small engine room and folded themselves up into a little ball under their mushroom cap so that their face was hidden and only their mycelial beard was visible. They looked a little like they were trying to remerge with the ship they had originally grown from and return to a simpler state of being.
“Please get up, Ensign Mike,” Captain Carroway meowed, trying to keep the disdain from her voice at the mushroom’s lack of dignity. “This is not behavior befitting an officer of the Tri-Galactic Union.”
The fungal officer made no move to get up. In fact, Lt. Cmdr. Vossie got down on the floor beside them. The Morphican didn’t fit under the console with the fungal officer, but the rabbit alien sat companionably beside them, crossing his strong hind legs.
Captain Carroway skewed a triangular ear. She hadn’t expected Lt. Cmdr. Vossie to get down on the floor like that. He’d never done anything like that, anything so undignified, before in all the long years she’d known him. However, her surprise at Vossie sitting down on the floor, cross-legged beside Ensign Mike, was nothing compared to her shock when he started softly singing.
Captain Carroway couldn’t make out most of the words; Vossie was singing too softly for that. But the tune was sweet and pretty, clearly a child’s lullaby, soothing and easy to sing. After a minute, the fungal officer shifted, peeking with their slitted eyes out from between their mushroom cap and bushy gray beard. A moment more later, Ensign Mike began singing along in his mushy, watery voice that sounded like it belonged deep in an ancient forest, rather than aboard a state-of-the art spaceship in an extremely high tech engine room.
The mushroom and rabbit alien sang together, clumsily, neither of them any good at actually harmonizing. But there was a gentle purity to the way their voices came together, aligning sometimes and then getting out of rhythm in other places. When the song was done, Lt. Cmdr. Vossie said, “You’ve been singing that to me since I was nothing but a kit.”
“You sang it first,” Ensign Mike said. “You sang it to yourself so many times that I started to sing along.”
“And then you began anticipating when I would need it, and you started singing it to me first. Before I even realized I was sad or stressed.”
“It saved a lot of hormone treatments,” the mushroom observed. “If you can calm your biological organism with a whispered song, you don’t have to interfere directly with their body chemistry. I was programed to know that before I had any sense of myself or yourself as a person. It was only practical.”
“It seems to have worked a little on you too,” Lt. Cmdr. Vossie said, reaching out a paw and gently taking ahold of one of Ensign Mike’s fleshy, stubby hands. “It kind of feels like we grew up together. Like we’re some sort of weird siblings.”
The mushroom’s mouth twisted into what must have been their version of a smile. It looked a little sad and haunting, but maybe that was simply because of the weird, unusual shape of their mushroomy face. Or maybe it was because Ensign Mike was still sad.
Captain Carroway didn’t have time for this mushy nonsense. She had a small crew, and she needed every one of her officers to be doing their job. But also… A ship this far away from home would fall apart fast if its captain was always riding roughshod over her crew members’ emotions.
Against her better judgment — or maybe, it actually was her better judgment — Captain Carroway knelt down on the floor of the engine room as well. She didn’t sit all the way on the floor, instead staying balanced on her toes. But she did lower herself down to Vossie and Mike’s level.
“Ensign Mike,” the Norwegian Forest cat purred, doing everything in her power to sound soft and caring, in spite of her actual impatience. “There are forests burning down on the back of the world turtle out there while our ship watches. I want to help them. But I need your help to do that. I need you to help design a believable holographic projection that will scare the Zakonraptor ships away. Can you help me with that?”
“I do want to help,” the mushroom said. “I just… got overwhelmed. There were so many people with so many feelings.”
Captain Carroway wanted to snap something about how that’s a normal situation that a person is just going to have to expect to deal with in life. And it was. But also, that wouldn’t have been a helpful response here. So, the Norwegian Forest cat continued to temper herself and instead said, “Perhaps you and Lt. Cmdr. Vossie could stay in here, where it’s quiet, and work on the design for the holographic projection together.” Then with the kind of restraint that should be the envy of absolutely everyone, instead of making her suggestion into an order, Captain Carroway asked through gritted teeth, “Do you think you could do that?”
The fungal officer blinked their row of slit-like eyes and looked at Lt. Cmdr. Vossie. The rabbit alien nodded encouragingly, and the fungal officer mirrored the expression, bobbing their mushroom cap head. “Yes, I think we can do that,” Ensign Mike said.
Captain Carroway sprang back up to a standing position, relieved to have this problem dealt with for the moment. “Good,” she meowed. “Please get it done as quickly as possible. Ideally, we could use a whole fleet of similar but slightly different holographic spaceships so that the illusion will look more convincing than if they’re all identical. Maybe add some blast patterns to their hulls so it looks like they’ve seen combat, and definitely make them substantially bigger than the Zakonraptor ships.”
Captain Carroway left the rabbit alien and mushroom to work together on their illusions and padded her way back toward the bridge. Commander Chestnut, however, met her in the hallway, just before the mouth of the bridge. The golden-mantled squirrel seemed to have been lingering there, waiting for her.
“Is something wrong, Commander Chestnut?” the Norwegian Forest cat meowed. Something seemed to be wrong all the time, and it was always her job to fix it.
“I don’t think we should kill the Zakonraptors, even if they are attacking the forests,” the squirrel chittered up at her.
“I agree,” Captain Carroway meowed. “I was never planning to attack them.”
“But… the vacuum bomb…” Commander Chestnut looked confused.
“It’s a tool in our arsenal,” Captain Carroway acknowledged. “And part of brainstorming is to throw every idea out on the table, examine them all, and then make your decision. And my decision, for the moment, is that Lt. Lee is right. We should try to talk to the Zakonraptors.”
The golden-mantled squirrel blinked. He tilted his small head with its beautifully delicate coloring. The way that his golden fur lightened to cream around his eyes was quite charming. “But you dismissed Lt. Lee’s suggestion outright.”
“No,” Captain Carroway disagreed. “Korvax dismissed his idea, and the conversation moved on. I was still collecting ideas, and that Papillon is one sharp dog who really understands how the Tri-Galactic Union works. We talk first. We resort to other tactics if talking fails.”
Commander Chestnut narrowed his dark eyes, crinkling the cream fur lining them. “Which tactics?”
“I think we can scare them away using Ensign Diaz’s hologram idea. That will at least buy us some time.” Captain Carroway wasn’t sure what she’d do if the holograms didn’t work, but then, she supposed she’d figure it out when she got there — if she got there — just like she’d been having to do with everything else. A whole lot of being captain seemed to amount to being able to make things up on the fly.
“I told you T’lia was brilliant,” Commander Chestnut said proudly, his narrow chest puffing out.
Faced with their first real challenge as a blended crew, the officers of The Wanderlust worked quickly, efficiently, and smoothly together. Captain Carroway was impressed and very pleased with how her ship was shaping up. Lt. Cmdr. Vossie and Ensign Mike put together an imposing fleet of holographic ships in very little time. It took a little longer for Ensign Diaz and Lt. Lee to construct an additional, large scale, long range lumo-projector from synthesized and scavenged parts and get it mounted on The Wanderlust’s outer hull, while also properly connecting it to the shipboard computer systems. While those tasks were being completed, Ensign Risqua and Ensign Werik put together an impressive dossier of information that they’d collected on the hyperspatial slipstream surrounding the world turtle.
In short form: the hyperspatial slipstream was a wildly unpredictable, quantum field, and shooting a vacuum bomb into it would probably be a devastatingly horrible idea. Or maybe an absolutely brilliant plan that would fling The Wanderlust all the way back across several galaxies to the Milky Way Galaxy where she belonged. It was impossible for the ensigns to say which without far more research, like the kind of research that would take lifetimes to perform properly. So, firing a vacuum bomb at the turtle would need to be an absolute last resort. Captain Carroway didn’t feel like playing with those kinds of odds again any time soon. Once in a lifetime is more than enough for firing a bomb with that much power.
Once everything was lined up and ready for the holographic illusions, Captain Carroway hailed Korvax back and instructed him to keep his vessel close to The Wanderlust and be ready to lead them down to a safe landing space on the turtle’s back if and when needed. Then she hailed the Zakonraptor fleet — a wide frequency hail reaching out to any of the attacking vessels that might take the time to answer her.
Tension on The Wanderlust’s bridge ran high as all of the officers — union and Anti-Ra — manned their posts with bated breath, waiting to see if the Zakonraptors would answer their hail.
The bridge of The Wanderlust was fully crewed with every station manned. Two days ago, when Captain Carroway had first walked onto The Wanderlust, she’d never expected to see it that way. But now, with the whole crew at attention, the bridge was downright crowded.
The Norwegian Forest cat hoped the Zakonraptors would answer her hail. She wanted them to see her crew, imagining of course that they were on a much large ship, flanked by a whole fleet of backup. She wanted to look at their faces and tell them to back down.
Instead, Captain Carroway kept watching the forest fires crawl over the Waykeeper’s back, burning down the forest to bare shell in some places. It was horrific. It needed to stop.
Captain Carroway raised a paw, ready to order Ensign Mike to deploy the attack phase of the holograms. The holograms would be less impressive if they weren’t accompanied by an angry speech, but maybe they would work anyway.
Then a Zakonraptor answered their hail.
A scaly green face framed by yellow feathers appeared on The Wanderlust’s viewscreen, replacing the image of the wounded world turtle. The Zakonraptor looked a little like Ensign Risqua — half Avioran and half Reptassan. Except, Risqua had a beak on her scaly face framed by red and blue feathers. This Zakonraptor had more of a snout. Behind the Zakonraptor in the front were more of the dinosaur-like aliens, each with differently colored feathers and scales. They made for a riotously colorful crew. Perhaps more importantly, though, they all looked large, strong, and like they probably had very sharp teeth and claws.
Compared to the Zakonraptors on their screen, the crew of The Wanderlust looked like a small collection of harmless, fuzzy mammals, a delicate songbird, and a funny little toadstool.
Captain Carroway didn’t like feeling small. She wasn’t used to it, being one of the biggest cats around.
Drawing a deep breath, Captain Carroway prepared to put Ensign Melbourne’s work with the shipboard computer’s translation algorithms to work. “Greetings,” the Norwegian Forest cat meowed, standing up as tall as she could without actually rising to her tiptoes. “I’m Captain Carroway of the Tri-Galactic Union peace-keeping fleet.” It felt strange to embellish her position, but the words she said needed to match the images that the Zakonraptors were about to see. Besides, everything in her body was screaming at her to puff herself up, fluff her fur out, and appear as big as possible in every possible way.
Keeping herself steady, Captain Carroway held one paw out to her side, low down where it wouldn’t seem important to the Zakonraptor on the screen and gestured in a way she’d already arranged as a signal with Lt. Cmdr. Vossie. The Morphican, off to the side of the bridge and only barely visible in Captain Carroway’s line of sight as she stared down the dinosaur alien on her screen, nodded almost imperceptibly.
The external lumo-projectors were already on, and The Wanderlust itself had already been shrouded in a hologram that made it look much larger and even more well-armed than it really was. But now, the holographic projections that Lt. Cmdr. Vossie and Ensign Mike had designed flew into place beside The Wanderlust. Now, it looked like The Wanderlust was surrounded by a whole fleet.
“We want to know why you’re attacking this seemingly helpless world turtle,” Captain Carroway meowed, all sweetness on the top but with an undercurrent of menace underneath, like a crème brûlée where the sugar crust covered a poison-laced custard.
The Zakonraptor tilted its spade-shaped head, feathers at the side of its face flaring in and out as if matching the pattern of its breathing. It blinked wide yellow eyes. Then finally, the alien dinosaur hissed, revealing a long, black, forked tongue. “Never heard of you,” the Zakonraptor snapped, each word a resounding roar. “None of your business.”
Well, at least, Captain Carroway thought, this meant the translation algorithms were working. Which was good. But the Zakonraptor’s initial reaction to her attempts to intimidate them wasn’t a good sign for the likelihood of their fleet backing down easily. Fortunately, even though Captain Carroway didn’t really have a whole fleet to back her up, the one ship she did have was extremely well-armed for its size.
“I can’t let you keep attacking a helpless turtle,” Captain Carroway meowed. This time, the tone of her voice had hardened from burnt sugar to cold steel. “If you don’t back off, I’ll be forced to order my fleet to attack.”
The Zakonraptor on the screen hissed in a way that might have been laughter. Captain Carroway wasn’t sure. The dinosaur might have been expressing any feeling from mirth to fear. She hoped the Zakonraptor was afraid. But she feared it was only amused…
“You want the turtle for yourself?” the Zakonraptor roared. “Want to fight for it?”
To the Norwegian Forest cat’s horror, the alien dinosaur looked almost excited about the idea of fighting over possession of the world turtle. “I want the turtle to be free to continue on its way, unmolested,” Captain Carroway meowed, narrowing her eyes.
But then the Norwegian Forest cat felt her golden-mantled squirrel first officer, small beside her, lean against her and whisper, too low to be heard by anyone else, “This bully won’t understand that. You need to claim the turtle for yourself.”
Captain Carroway faltered, breaking eye contact with the disturbing dinosaur on her viewscreen to glance down at the squirrel beside her. Commander Chestnut was so much smaller than her, facing a fearsome alien larger than even the largest dogs, but he seemed completely steady, totally unfazed. Absolutely sure of himself.
Captain Carroway didn’t like lying, but it was something she was already having to do. If another lie would help sell the whole deception, then so be it. “Yes, you’re right,” the Norwegian Forest cat meowed savagely at the dinosaur, baring her fangs as much as possible. “This world turtle is mine. I claim it in the name of the Tri-Galactic Union. You and all of your little friends better back away and stop messing with my property.”
Captain Carroway couldn’t help glancing down at the golden-mantled squirrel to see what he thought of her ruse. Commander Chestnut smiled, his eyes sparkling. She’d done well in his estimation.
The Zakonraptor looked nonplussed.
Captain Carroway decided it was better to press her advantage than to give the dinosaur extra time to think. So, the Norwegian Forest cat added, voice dripping with cruelty, as if she couldn’t wait to barbecue some dinosaurs, “Do you need a demonstration of my fleet’s might? Or would you like to get out of here with your tails intact? You do have tails, don’t you?” She did her best to make it sound like there couldn’t possibly be a worse, more scathing insult than to suggest an animal might not have a tail.
The Zakonraptor’s image disappeared from the main viewscreen, returning the panoramic view of the world turtle with forest fires crawling along its curved back. None of the Zakonraptor ships were obviously leaving.
Captain Carroway looked down at Commander Chestnut. “Should we give them a minute, do you think?” the Norwegian Forest cat asked. “Or should we release some electron torpedoes in a wide spread to give them a taste of what they might be facing?”
“If we fire,” Commander Chestnut said, as serious as he’d ever sounded, “we need to fire on one of their ships. No warning shots. No weakness. They need to believe we’ll be utterly ruthless with them, if we really want to scare them away.”
Captain Carroway nodded at the golden-mantled squirrel. She could follow his logic. She didn’t like it. It was the logic of a terrorist. But it rang true.
Even so, the Norwegian Forest cat didn’t want any more deaths on her conscience this week. But then… She didn’t know how many Ollallans were perishing in the forest fires spreading across the turtle’s back as she and the representative Zakonraptor postured at each other and sized each other up.
The small vessels were still firing on the turtle. She could see the red beams of their energy weapons slicing through the darkness of space and kindling more of the beautiful, phosphorescent forest into blazing fires. Her words hadn’t stopped the Zakonraptors. So, action would be needed.
“Lt. Cmdr. Vossie, fire on the nearest Zakonraptor vessel with an electron torpedo,” Captain Carroway ordered. Her paws went cold and numb beneath her, and her head felt floaty and dissociative giving such an order. She didn’t want to be a war captain. She didn’t want to order deaths. “Aim for their blazor canons. Try to damage them, not destroy them.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Lt. Cmdr. Vossie said. His voice sounded a little shaky, like he wasn’t prepared for handling blood on his paws today either. “But I can’t make any promises, as I’ve never seen a schematic for these ships.”
“Do your best,” Captain Carroway said. She didn’t need to say any more. The Morphican’s best, even without his computer implant, would always be good enough for her.
Lt. Cmdr. Vossie took careful aim and fired.
Continue on to Chapter 21…