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Bev led the way out of the lock and onto the orbital, slowing just a bit as we reached the debarkation lounge. She glanced over her shoulder once, her eyes shining and a wolfish smile playing across her lips.

“Take care of yourself,
boy toy
,” she said, and then stepped into the lounge to be buried by the avalanche of family, friends, and laughing children, waiting to escort her home.

I smiled to myself, worked my own pallet around the boiling, squealing throng, and out into the main docks. The cold stung my face and teared my eyes as I oriented myself. I headed down the docks to starboard in search of my ride—the
SC Christiana Ellis
, a fast packet en route from Newmar to Diurnia, and my first billet as an officer.

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2358-
M
AY-22

The
Ellis
wasn’t far from the shuttle bays. The docks were a second home to me. As part of the academy training, I’d spent a good amount of time working on and around them while learning the ins and outs of ship handling. There had been a lot of grumbling when we’d spent one whole month doing lock maintenance in our second year, but in the end everybody agreed that knowing up close and personal how the docking clamps worked gave us a healthier appreciation for how little it would take to damage one—and the ship attached to it.

Changes from the Joint Planetary Committee on Trade had relaxed some of the standardization rules, thereby permitting the orbital management more leeway in painting the fixtures and dock spaces. They still weren’t garish, but regulations allowed for splashes of color, and individualized patterns. Newmar Orbital had adopted a color scheme that displayed the various systems in pastel colors, giving the dock spaces a kind of organic feel. Electrical, air, fuel, water, and data runs, each in different colors, were offset against the pale neutral background of the bulkheads. I had to admit the scheme was pleasing to the eye, although a little disconcerting…like being in the guts of some huge space beast.

Even as I was considering how the docks had changed, superficial though it was, I couldn’t help but remember my first tentative steps across the Neris Orbital’s threshold after my mother had died, almost six stanyers before. In some ways it felt like a lifetime, and in others only last week. No doubt, the smell of the docks triggered my emotions. The combination of fresh paint, lubricant, hydraulic fluid, and the tang of electrical systems brought it all back. So long ago. So far away.

After two years on the
Lois,
I had been accepted to The Academy at Port Newmar. The four years of physical, mental, and emotional challenges had given me much more than I was really able to wrap my head around. Remembering how young and stupid I’d been going in brought a smile to my face. Those first exams had been so easy…as long as all that was required had been filling out the forms. My test taking skill had remained strong, but my hubris had gotten me into trouble when it came to the physical tests.

While the book work at the academy was a large part of the effort, occasionally you had to prove you knew something by actually doing it firsthand. The first field trial in engineering maintenance had been a rather messy and embarrassing disaster. Luckily I recovered and learned, much to my chagrin, that my manual dexterity was limited to fine motor control and that my test taking ability only extended to academic work. Nobody could touch me in the “book courses” like Trade Law, Modern History, or Grav Theory, but when it came to the practical stuff—like getting my shuttle certification—I was average at best. My systems marks had stayed high, but being a Third Mate was more than just systems and it showed in my final standing—122 in a class of 438—in the top third, but nothing distinguishing. My academic advisor had been very supportive.

“A good showing for a first generation spacer, Mr. Wang,” she’d said. With a wink she added, “Your children will probably do better.”

One physical skill that I picked up at the academy came out of my self-defense classes. For stanyers I’d admired Bev’s fluid and dangerous grace. I’d seen her practicing with other crew back on the
Lois
. Her skill and training kept her in good standing at the academy. After an introduction to the various schools available, we were required to pick a discipline in our second semester. Beverly, of course, went with her preferred forms of G’wai G’wah—a combination of bare hand and armed combat with lots of kicks, strikes, dodges, and grappling. I, on the other hand, was mainly hopeless in a fight. The training master had taken me aside at the end of the first semester.

“Wang,” he had said, “I hope you never get into a fight, because you have the killer instincts of a lawn chair.” His words were harsh, but his tone was light and playful. “I could assign you to one of the intro courses in any of the various hard disciplines—G’wai G’wah, tae kwon do, karate, or the like—but you’d be wasting your time.”

“Yes, sar,” I had replied. All instructors were addressed as “sar” regardless of rank, and he was obviously going somewhere—even if I hadn’t known where at the time.

He nodded once, then led me out of his office and onto the academy grounds. I had followed him, somewhat mystified, as he strode across the manicured lawns to where a small woman with sun burnished skin worked to prune an azalea. I remember thinking, “Oh, great, I’m being demoted to gardener.”

The training master had stopped about two meters from the woman and bowed deeply. It had been one of those martial arts bows with hand positions and arm movements. I knew right then that this woman was
somebody
.

“Sifu,” he had said after she returned his bow, less deeply but still respectfully, “please forgive my interruption but I would like to introduce Cadet Wang to you.”

The woman had smiled and turned her gaze on me. She inclined her head gently after a moment.

“Thank you, Mr. Mercer.”

It had been all she said, and that’s how I found myself studying tai chi with Sifu Margaret Newmar. I had no idea at the time, and it had been stanyers later that I came to understand, that she was, in fact, a direct descendant of the Newmars for whom the system had been named not to mention one of the leading experts in tai chi in the universe.

Her first lesson had been pruning azaleas. The memory of her kind smile and gentle nature warmed me. I had learned so much from her, and I would miss our time together. I had no doubt that I’d be back to see her again. Her students regularly returned to visit and I had met some amazing people that way.

I glanced up out of my reverie and found myself at the lock displaying “CELLIS ETD 2358-May-23” I pressed the call button and turned to look into the video pickup. In less than a tick the lock began cycling, and a rating stepped out, ducking under the door even before it had finished opening.

She greeted me with a smile and said, “Mr. Wang? We’ve been expecting you. Welcome aboard, sar. I’m Casey and you’re the last one to arrive. If you’d come this way, please?”

As easy as that I was ushered aboard, tote and all, and she showed me to a small stateroom. A clever closet allowed me to latch my grav trunk down while still being able to access it easily. A small, fold-down desk, a compact wall screen, and a bulkhead mounted bunk comprised the sum total of the furnishings. I had room to stand, turn around, change clothes, and not much else.

Casey pointed out the controls. They were pretty standard, and she showed me where the san was at the end of the passage. There was a common room and crew quarters farther aft.

“We’re pretty informal here, Mr. Wang,” Casey said. “Eight passengers and a crew of four, so we can move pretty quickly. You’ll meet Bill—Captain Lochlan—tonight, if you care to join us at Freddie’s for our send off dinner.”

“Thanks, Casey,” I said with a nod.

Freddie’s was one of the better restaurants on the orbital. Good food and reasonable prices.

She grinned again. “Sure thing! The reservations for 19:00 in the name of Ellis. You’ll get a chance to meet the other passengers too. I think most of them will be there.”

I nodded again. “Sounds like fun,” I said and meant it.

“Oh, the skipper knows how to throw a party. You’ll have a ball. Trust me.”

With that, she ducked out of the stateroom and closed the door gently behind her.

In the sudden silence, I became aware of the ship sounds around me. When docked there wasn’t as much background noise as when underway, but the ever-present environmental blower and the occasional whirr and vibration as pumps or fans started up somewhere in the ship made me feel strangely at home, even though I hadn’t been aboard a ship for almost a stanyer. Two years on the
Lois McKendrick
made a lasting impression.

That was when it struck me.

For the first time in a long while, I didn’t have anything to do. I sighed and stripped off my uniform jacket, hanging it in the locker. The chrono said 15:25 local time, which meant I had a few stans before I needed to head up to Freddie’s. I keyed open the grav trunk and started pulling out the clothing I would need for the voyage. It wasn’t much, all told—a few personal shipsuits and my comfy boots.

When I finished that small chore, it was only just past 16:00, so I took a few minutes to check out the wall screen. I found an extensive library of entertainment programming and some information on the ship itself. If I managed to get through the library I had with me—all the accumulated reading that I had put off during the previous four stanyers—I’d have plenty to occupy myself with.

For fun, I pulled up the ship’s specifications. It was a small ship, as clippers go—barely fifty meters. She was rated at six metric kilotons which was more than enough for some small cargo in addition to the bread-and-butter passenger traffic. The ship’s amenities included a gym with treadmills and weight machines along with a small hot tub and sauna. I whistled appreciatively when I saw the engine ratings and did some rough calculations.
Christiana
had Tatiana-class Burleson drives which gave her a jump range of six—twice as far as the
Lois
had been capable of. The Pravda fusactors were more than sufficient to the task of powering up the Carillon sail fields and grav keel. I did a double take when I saw the designators on the sails. This ship had about half as much sail area as the
Lois
, but it only massed a small fraction of the larger clipper.
Christiana
was a spritely little boat—according to her specs. She had good reason to be called a “fast packet.” We’d make the run to Diurnia in just under six weeks, dock-to-dock.

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2358-
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AY-30

Eight days out of Newmar I ran out of things to read, or more precisely, I ran out of things I
wanted
to read.

Having grown up with an ancient literature professor, I had been used to being surrounded by books. Mom had made it a habit of discussing them over dinner. My tablet was full of volumes, and the ship’s library was available and extensive.

But I wasn’t used to inactivity.

Ever since Mom’s death, I’d had little more than a few moments of free time. From the planet, to the
Lois
, to the academy—I’d always had things to do, and people to do them with. During my third stanyer at Port Newmar, I had hungered for the opportunity to curl up with a book, a fresh pot of coffee, and bury myself in the story. For three weeks during the spring of that third stanyer, the desire for a fresh book and no demands had been physical—an ache in my stomach. Something bounced me out of it then, so it was with a certain degree of ruefulness that I ran to the end of my “reading binge” within so short a time. Faced with another month in transit, I realized I needed to find something else to do.