-= Captain’s Quarters, USS Lone Star =-
Kreik hadn’t been delighted there was nothing that the Lone Star could
do, and Felix wasn’t, either. He had left his ready room in sullen mood,
a reflection of his native, even childish impetuousness. He didn’t like
it, didn’t appreciate situations that didn’t go his way. He stalked the
lifts and corridors back to his quarters.
Before the door sensor sought him he paused, holding his hand to a bulkhead. Hello, Lonie. Papa's home.
Every inch of the ship had been forensically cleaned. It gave Felix a
bizarre combination of feelings, being somewhere so familiar that had
that out-of-the-bag smell. He closed his eyes to listen to Lonie’s hum.
It was brighter, more capricious than other vessels; not inconsistent,
but a bit more musical. Perhaps that was why only Edie could really run
him.
Lester beat him to the door. Felix followed obediently behind him.
The senior officers’ quarters on the Lone Star were a far cry from the
cramped, if homely, cupboard-rooms of the Artemis. He remembered the
first time he’d set foot in them, provided the tour by his first chief
engineer, Aiden Derin, and been gobsmacked by its grandeur.
Since then he’d changed the entire configuration: this floor was now
open-plan, with soft purples and greys stretching through the space. As
always, the view over the Arboretum struck him first. With a high and
central vantage point over the space, Felix had selected these quarters
when Paxan Brey, his first officer and one-time girlfriend, had forced
him to ten years ago.
The hammock he’d slept in until his captaincy, and sometimes during,
hung next to one of the windows: a tight, colourful knit from Earth,
reinforced battery-operated anti-grav stabilisers. These days he took
the gratuitously large bed, upstairs, leaving the hammock for Lester.
The entertaining space extended to his right, with a fully functioning
island kitchen and bar gently separating the room.
Collectibles from his time around the fleet, cherished gifts, and
photographs of the dear and departed interspersed his bright, eclectic
furnishings. He caught the eye of a couple as he sauntered through the
space, reacquainting himself. The eyes followed him back. Simon Finn.
Various of his first flight outfit, the BobCats. Paxan Brey. Adevian
Brey. Desiree Taliano, wherever and whoever she was now. And now,
Desdemona Sovanae. There were, and had always been, too many of these
names.
The wall of windows let atmosphere and quasi-natural light cast beams
across both decks of his apartment. Even some of the flooring upstairs
was transparent, where the bedroom met the cloud level of the ship’s
inner woodlands space. Felix’s feet took him up the stairs, at the top
and bottom of which was a door to his exclusive turbolift – a
recommendation made after the time, three years ago, when he’d been held
hostage in one for four days by a non-corporeal teenager.
Upstairs, Felix passed his guest room – an over-decorated bazaar of
paraphernalia, some of which originating from non-Federation dignitaries
whose cultures did not incorporate, say, taste – and the bathroom,
whose wall could be made transparent to see the Arboretum. (Only once
had the technology on both glass windows failed, providing late-night
bird-watchers below an unexpected view of Felix’s ablutions.)
The captain’s bedroom was his creative joy – not that he saw it much.
Ten years ago de l’Isle had started collecting textiles that appealed,
like a magpie, before realising he had nowhere to put them. He had left
instructions for the ship’s interior designer at UP to hang them, up-
and down-lit to create a billowing, frozen wave around the room. This
was the first time he’d seen it in person. As requested, there were gaps
for the future.
The colours graduated around the space, some enhanced by the natural dye
or sparkle of that artisan’s, or people’s, weave. Their scattered prism
enhanced the neutrality of the space within – especially the crisp
white sheets of his bed.
Felix found himself making a beeline for them. As he had when he was a
kid, he splatted face-first into the bedspread. The air pushed itself
out through the covers like a subspace detonation. At the centre of it, a
depleted captain found himself reminded of his position: its challenges
and sadnesses.
Tomorrow, he reminded himself before sleep took him, was another day.
-= The next day =-
“Captain on the bridge!”
Felix breezed back onto the nucleus of the ship as though he’d never
left. The Lone Star’s strange pre-mission interruption was concluded.
He’d woken early, readopted his running route around the Arboretum –
although with a much slower time – and cooked himself breakfast over a
few reports. Literally, in one case; the new counsellor’s personnel file
had been liberally splashed with bacon.
“You bet he is. Did someone say we’re near Kincardine?” He took his spot
in the centre chair. With none of his senior staff on the bridge Felix
had a chance to take it all back in again.
“Yes, sir,” Ensign Willis called from the front. “Coming into the system now.”
The station, planets and their accumulating traffic came into view. “Slow to impulse and take us in, Ensign.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Better warn them what’s coming. Comms, signal Kincardine Station and
let them know we’re coming in.” Felix paused, frowning. “Does anyone
know whether it’s pronounced kin-kar-deen or kin-kar-dyne?”
Variously, they confessed they didn’t know.
“I’ll ask Admiral Stanton. Which reminds me. Get a message to her yeoman
and ask her to remind the Admiral that she owes me a beer.”
He wasn’t entirely sure that she did. But the message would be right,
anyway: that Captain Felix de l’Isle and the USS Lone Star were back in
town.
-=-=-
by Captain Felix de l’Isle, Commanding Officer