Shore Leave’s End

Month 9 Day 15

Shore Leave Day 16

0731 Hours

Capt Jane Burke

Jane sipped her coffee as she took the oversized datapad from the dock supervisor and started glancing through the lists of items ordered to be delivered to the Fireball today. There were medical supplies for sick bay, gardening supplies for the arboretum, tons of all kinds of food for the pantry... It wasn’t until she got to the requested supplies for security that she slowed down and actually read the list. Good. No exotic weapons requested, not even inordinate amounts of armory requested. With that, she signed her approval with a flourish and was ready to hand it back before she remembered...

“Oh, wait a minute.” What was the name of that local fruit? “I’ve heard of a native fruit or berry that sometimes produces an allergic reaction. I can’t remember what it’s called.”

“You probably mean Oyrt berry,” the local woman answered. “If you’re worried that some of it was included in your food supplies, don’t be; we don’t export it.”

“That’s good. Apparently, one crew member already had a bad reaction to it.” And right now, I can’t remember who it was, either. Come on, Jane, you’re not old enough to have memory lapses. She spent a few minutes watching boxes and crates being loaded into the lower levels of the space elevator but it was obvious the dock hands knew their business, so she wandered off and headed for the upper level of the elevator.

It was the upper level where passengers would pass the time during the trip to Port Station Gortia. It would be a long trip, and there had been an effort made to provide comfort and entertainment for the passengers; storage space for their luggage, dispensers for snacks and beverages, along with tables and chairs. And several alcoves where groups could watch a movie or play electronic games. There were even some curtained bunks for those who needed a nap. Those looked so comfortable, Jane almost regretted having slept well last night. Her duffel bag was already delivered to the luggage area.

“Good morning, Captain.” Chef Anna Hamara came aboard, put her duffel next to the captain’s and headed for the snack area. “I took the redeye through 13 time zones and a date line. I’m going to have a bite to eat and claim one of those bunks.”

Jane joined her, sitting at a table with her half-finished coffee. “I was going to warn you to be careful what local foods you splurged on adding to our pantry. I heard one native fruit can produce a strong allergic reaction, and one of our crew has already experienced it.”

“So Drake informed me last week,” Anna stated. “Those particular berries are very tasty, I liked them a lot. But by the time Drake told me about Mac, I’d already given up, because they don’t export them. Because of that potential.”

“So the dock supervisor informed me.” She shook her head in non-surprise. “Should have known it would be the redhead.”

“She does seem to have a knack for being the odd person out,” doesn’t she?” Anna sat down with a hot omelette and a container of juice. She leaned forward and half whispered, “I heard she got invited to one of Capac’s card games and didn’t realize until half way through it that it was strip poker!”

“That’s not fair,” Drake spoke up as he walked over from the luggage area. “It only took her 1 hand to find out it was strip poker. Although, come to think of it, somebody told her, because she’d lost that hand.”

Jane smiled, then wiped it off her face. “Much as I enjoy a little gossip from time to time, I’ve already heard that story. And I can’t have crew members hearing me gossiping with senior officers when gossip is officially discouraged. So, come by my quarters some evening and fill me up with all the gossip you’ve got.”

“You can count on it,” Anna promised. “Did you have a good shore leave, captain?”

“Very enjoyable,” Jane replied without going into details. “And you look like you did, too, Anna. You are positively glowing.”

Anna laughed. “Lots of sun in those southern islands! Mostly, I did what I should have done long ago: Got away from everything and did some soul searching.”

“I hate to say it, but you’ve been hiding away for most of 2 years or more, even though you’ve been aboard.”

“Oh, that wasn’t the part I meant I should have done long ago. It was the soul searching.”

“Did you decide anything?”

“Yes. Michael is not worth another minute of my time. Thinking back on it, he probably wasn’t worth it when he was around. I never should have listened to him about becoming ‘exclusive’. Especially since he only meant for it to apply to me.”

“I tried to hint...”

“I was too besotted... no, make that brain-washed, to have paid any attention to anything anybody said. Just ask Smitty.”

“Ask me what?” The man in question stood at the top of the gangway, a steaming mug in one hand and his duffel bag in the other.

“I was there,” Jane reminded her chef. “I don’t need to ask him. Smitty, she’s saying Michael is out of her system. So, tell us, Drake and Smitty, how your vacations were. I haven’t seen either of you since our game of Survival.”

“Another game of Survival?” Anna asked. “I’d have thought Moor learned his lesson last time.”

“It wasn’t Moor,” Smitty told her. “It was Bugalu.”

“Bugalu!” Anna repeated in surprise. “Stepping on a higher officer’s toes?”

“I think he was testing the water,” Jane answered. And a couple of his choices were... unorthodox.” I’m still wondering why he made those choices. “I haven’t studied the results yet...”

“I think they won,” Drake stated. “After all, they accomplished their mission, and we didn’t.”

“They wouldn’t have had a mission if we hadn’t failed ours,” Smitty objected.

Jane laughed. “I’m pretty sure the computer would have pretended we had failed. Especially since their mission to rescue us started at the same time as our mission to avoid being caught.”

“Oh, that sounds like an intriguing scenario for Survival. I’m sorry I missed that.”

“Well, you’re in luck,” Jane told her. “I not only acquired the usual download, I bought the more expensive video of the game. It will find its way to the library, and I expect plenty of people will be willing to tell me exactly where I went wrong. But I knew a year ago when he approached me with the challenge that playing against Bugalu would be far different than playing against Moor.”

“Does that mean I should be wary of a young buck trying for my job?” Moor asked as he put his duffel bag in the luggage area.

“Not at all,” Jane returned. “It merely means I know your methods, your style. I’ve had far less opportunity to observe Bugalu in a command capacity.”

“He did a good job,” Moor commented. “I’d like a chance to study his techniques myself.”

“The download won’t be available until after the 2 teams have had a chance to study it and discuss it. I want both teams to discuss it together. And, Smitty, I want your thoughts on what MacDowell did to the computer to get the kind of results she got.”

“Yes, I’ve been going through the notes we made as we... undid what she’d done.”

“Well, this has been fun,” Anna said, standing up and gathering her plate and things together to recycle. “But as I told Jane, I took the redeye from the southern islands half a world away, so I’m going to turn in for a nap.”

“Before the entire crew starts to show up, why don’t the rest of us take a stab at a game of Attakke? I can’t quite get the hang of it,” Drake suggested.

As they moved toward an alcove, Jane wondered what kind of report she’d get from Smitty on what the redhead had done during the other game. Will he be irritated and stodgy about her unorthodox methods? Or pleasantly surprised by how much those methods had accomplished? I know she keeps surprising me.