Ryk Brown - The legend of Corinair

He reached the utility room on the far side of the treatment area, half expecting to find Doctor Chen sitting in the corner nibbling on dried fruit and nuts as usual. But the room was empty-a mess, but empty.

“Captain?” A woman’s voice came from behind. Nathan turned to see a familiar face. She was a good four or five years younger than him, with short brown hair and hazel eyes. She looked tired, but determined. But as the young woman approached, he couldn’t quite remember where he knew her from. She wasn’t a member of his crew-or at least she wasn’t wearing a uniform. Then he noticed the partially healed scar on her forehead, and he remembered. He had helped her in the corridor after the battle with the first Ta’Akar ship on his way to see Captain Roberts right before he died. She had been injured herself, the gash on her forehead, and had been trying to help a badly injured man more than twice her size, despite her weakened state. And he had seen her later, running around the treatment area with a data pad, taking treatment notes for Doctor Chen.

“Yes?” Nathan answered as the woman approached.

“You probably don’t remember me,” she started.

“The corridor,” he said. “You were helping an injured man to medical. You called for help. Yes, I remember.”

“That’s right,” she said, surprised that he remembered her. “My name’s Cassandra. Cassandra Evans,” she told him, holding out her hand.

“Nathan Scott,” he said as he shook her hand. “You’re on the jump drive project, right?”

“The what?”

“Oh, sorry. The superluminal transition something.”

“Yeah, I guess jump drive is easier to say.”

“What are you doing in medical?”

“I’ve been helping out Doctor Chen. My job on the project was to study how the jump drive might affect human physiology. But with all that’s happened, it made more sense for me to help out here for now.”

“That’s good of you. I’m sure Doctor Chen appreciates it.” Nathan looked around for the doctor. “Where is the doctor?”

“She’s in surgery. She’ll probably be in there for quite some time. She said to yell at you for ‘bringing a bunch of unscreened foreign humans on board without prescreening them for pathogens.’” Cassandra’s face pulled into a slight frown. “I don’t have to yell at you, do I?”

“I’ll consider myself properly scolded.”

Relief washed across her face. “She also said to tell you that everyone needs to undergo a full physical as soon as possible. That means anyone who went down to the surface and anyone new to the ship.”

“I’ll see to it, but it may be awhile,” he explained. “Things are still a little hectic right now.”

“Of course, I understand. I’ll let her know when she gets out of surgery.”

“Great, then I guess I’ll leave you to your work then,” he said as he prepared to leave. “It was nice meeting you, Cassandra.”

“You too, sir.” Nathan started to head back toward the entrance, when she called to him. “Captain?” Nathan turned back to her to see what she wanted. “I just wanted to say thanks.”

Nathan looked a bit puzzled. “For what?”

“Doctor Sorenson told us how you stepped up and took over when Captain Roberts and Commander Montero were killed. She says you probably saved us more than once already.” Cassandra looked a little embarrassed by her statement. “So, I just thought someone should thank you; that’s all.”

Nathan was surprised, and at a loss for words, which was something that didn’t happen to him very often. “You’re quite welcome, Cassandra.” Nathan looked at her for a moment. “And thank you for saying so.”

The young woman suddenly felt awkward. “I’d better get back to work now,” she said, taking a few steps backward before turning and disappearing into the utility room.

Nathan turned and continued out the door into the corridor, thinking Sometimes this ‘captain’ gig isn’t too bad.

The musky, overpowering aroma of the molo struck Nathan long before he reached the hatch to the mess hall. If there was one thing he had learned from his dinner at Tug’s farmhouse, it was that molo smelled far worse during cooking than it did when you ate it. As he approached the hatch, he made a mental note to himself to make sure that all future molo cooking was done with the galley doors closed.

Nathan was unprepared for what he saw when he stepped through the mess hall hatch. The entire room, which was large enough to sit at least two hundred at once, was covered with sheets of raw molo. There were stacks of it, each piece about a meter square and ten centimeters thick. Tug was leading the workers from the harvesting crew, along with two of the Aurora’s crew, as they removed the outer skin from each piece. After skinning it, they would quarter it and then move it into the galley for cleaning.

Across the serving counter, Nathan could see several large pots with steam pouring out of them as one of the female workers dumped bowls full of diced molo, as well as some sort of fresh herbs into the pots of boiling water. While there was nothing appetizing about the smell, Nathan knew from experience that when prepared properly, molo was a tasty and nutritious meal. He was just thankful that they had someone on board who knew how to cook it.

Nathan made his way over to one of his crew, a young technician who was showing one of the workers from Haven how to use the comm-set he was being assigned. “How’s it going?”

“This is the last one, sir,” the technician answered as he indicated to the worker that he was free to go. “I made a list of all their names, skill sets, and their comm-set ID’s, just like Commander Taylor asked.”

“Very good. Do me a favor, and make sure they all know that our doctor will be calling them in for physicals at some point over the next few days-if they’re here that long.”

“Yes, sir,” the technician answered, looking somewhat dejected.

Nathan was sure that the smell of the molo was getting to the young man. “Don’t worry, it tastes a lot better than it smells.”

“It would have to, sir.”

Nathan made his way across the room to where Tug was working. On one of the tables he passed there were several boxes full of some type of prepackaged foods, labeled in a language he didn’t understand. “What’s all that?” he asked Tug as he approached, pointing back toward the boxes.

“They were on the shuttles,” Tug explained. “It was meant to feed the workers for at least a few days. We thought it might be useful. We might be able to combine some of it with the molo to stretch it a bit further.”

Nathan looked around at the stacks of molo. “It looks like you’ve already prepped most of it. That was pretty fast.”

“Actually, about half of the original shipment was ruined during the battle in the hangar bay. I guess a few of your men took cover behind one of the stacks, and it got pretty cooked by energy weapons fire.”

Nathan grimaced. “So how long will what we have last us?”

“Including the extra people you took on board today, maybe two weeks. But I understand you have some emergency rations that you pulled from the escape pods?”

“Yeah, but don’t get your hopes up,” Nathan told him, remembering the noodle and mystery meat that he and Vladimir had been forced to eat just before their trip to Haven. “Most of that stuff is barely edible.” Nathan looked around the room. “Where are the fly boys?”

“Your new shuttle crew? They’re down in the hangar bay, going over the shuttles to check for damage. I don’t think they were comfortable rubbing elbows with the workers.”

“Yeah, I can understand that,” Nathan said. “I think I’ll go check on them,” he added as he turned to walk away. “We’re going to have another strategy meeting in about an hour or so,” he called back to him.