Saturday, 21 Jan 2519
Durance class, Trinity
En Route to Deadwood
In the Deeps between Georgia and Blue Sun
14:10 hrs, ship’s time
Excerpts from Kat’s XO log, translated from Russian
Friday, 20 Jan 2519
… Our passengers are a mix of a single, newlyweds, and families. We’ve a grandmother flying to Meridian to see her daughter and new baby. The two newlywed couples are two men who want to start a haberdashery on Highgate and a man with his mail order bride looking to make a fresh start on Deadwood. We’ve a family of five: two parents and three kids; and a family of 4: a single mother and 3 kids. The oldest from both families are teens and sulky and thick as thieves. Pomozhet nam Bog. The younger kids from both families are like kids everywhere: instant friends, begging for sleepovers, and generally keeping things lively on pax deck. I don’t envy Ai Jing her job. She’s been wonderful keeping them entertained, but I don’t envy her one bit.
Cassie’s been working her ass off feeding all of us. She’s cooked for an army before, but ours is not an army galley. Luckily, a good many of her recipes don’t require exceptionally pretty or elaborate ingredients, just cut-up ones. I’m good with a knife and I help when I can …
It was the hour before dinner aboard Trinity and it was the busiest part of the day in the galley. With fifteen passengers and eight crew, there were twenty-three souls to feed. Working on vegetables at the prep counter behind Cassie, who managed the pots and pans on the stove, Kat smiled at the hominess of the scene.
“Got the last of them.” Kat swept the last of the carrots and potatoes, peeled and neatly cubed, into a large bowl. “What do you need next?”
“Thanks, Kat,” Cassie turned and took the bowl of ingredients, adding them to the stew bubbling away on the rear burner. She preferred her stew veggies a litter firmer than the mush most cooks made of them. Upon hearing Kat’s question, Cassie looked at the bowls and bags and cans scattered across the counters. “Um, you know how to make biscuits? No? Okay, then if you could just get the ingredients measured out for me while I tend to the hot stuff, it would save me a lot of time. I’ll talk you through it. Grab me two cups of flour …”
Saturday, 21 Jan 2519
… As many times as I’ve been on a ship with a lot of people, I can’t get used to it. They’re safely removed one deck down but just knowing they’re aboard makes me feel crowded. I want to hide in the engine room.
There’s another aboard who seems overwhelmed by it all: Midori, the mail order bride. I’m not sure where she’s from but she’s got ‘stifled’ written all over her. Watching her when we’re all together for dinner, she keeps her eyes down and barely says a word but waits to be spoken to. My ears are good, better than most, and I can’t hear her half the time. She serves her husband like a geisha though she’s not Asian. Adam seems kind and attentive and not at all abusive. I don’t think he’s the source of her timid behavior. Ai Jing tells me the newlyweds hardly leave their stateroom. She brings them their meals on trays and the plates come back empty, so whatever’s going on with those two, we know they’re eating at least …
I guess it was only a matter of time before one of the kids got in trouble and likewise before we found that cat. Leave it to the Universe to combine both and dump the conjoined mess in our laps. It started out with a game of hide and seek and turned into a search and rescue.
Ai Jing sneezed. She’d been doing that more often since they left Hera. She wondered if she might be coming down with a cold, but she felt fine, other than that occasional sneeze. Meanwhile, she had more important things to see to. One of the children was not where he was supposed to be. Not that he was necessarily missing yet, but his mother was concerned, which meant that—She stopped midstride in the starboard corridor and turned around. The door to the maintenance area shouldn’t be ajar like that. She walked back to it and opened it, looking inside. The shelves that usually occupied the back wall were now raised like a gull-wing, revealing the forecastle door behind them, which was also ajar. She opened the door and sneezed again, finding the boy playing with a litter of tiny kittens, their proud mother looking on benevolently. She’s actually quite pretty. I hope she doesn’t have any diseases.
Ai Jing sneezed again.
“Miss Ai Jing!” Davy Wu froze, trapped between excitement over the kittens and his fear of being in trouble. The kittens won. He gently scooped up a blind mewing kitten from its squirming sibs and held it out to the pretty lady. “See! This one has a patch over its eye like a pirate!”
Ai Jing looked at the kitten before graciously accepting the gift. It was very … helpless looking. Its oversized head bobbed precariously on its slender neck, and its face quested for something, she was uncertain what. It licked her finger with a tiny sandpaper tongue, and her heart melted. The rodents could carry whatever plague they wanted: they were adorable.
“Yes, it does. It’s fascinating.” The lure of the kittens almost distracted her from her duties, but she shook it off. “Davy, your mother has been calling you. How about we come back in a few minutes after we tell your mother where you will be and get Cassie to provide us with some food for Mama Cat?”
Sneeze!
And see the doctor about this sneezing!
Saturday, 21 Jan 2519
Durance class, Trinity
En Route to Deadwood
In the Deeps between Georgia and Blue Sun
14:15 hrs, ship’s time
Excerpts from Kat’s XO log, translated from Russian
Long story short: one of the Wu kids found the cat in the foc’scle, just aft of the cannon bay. It’s a good thing Davy Wu had the sense to leave the hatch slightly ajar, else we’d never have found him—it was the self-locking sort. (Note to self: Fix that detail. Pronto.) Unluckily for us, the cat decided it was the best damn place to drop a litter of kittens.
Now, there’s no competing for cuteness in the room when kids are present, but to have kittens on top? Now I know the Universe is fucking with us. The bitch.
Just sayin’.
And all of that happened before I had my morning coffee. Bozhe moi, don’t these kids ever sleep …?
Kat didn’t bother stifling a groan as she saved her journal entry and locked her tablet down. Trinity hummed a perfect chord that told her everything she needed to know: there was nothing for her to finesse or fix.
Which means I can’t legitimately hide in here until the passengers are gone. Dammit.
As chief engineer, she could be forgiven for avoiding people. As Trinity’s XO, she had to circulate and make herself available. Securing her tablet in a console drawer, Kat internally girded herself, put a polite expression on her face, and stepped out.
Go to: All Aboard! Part 2: Coffin Comin’ On | Timeline | All Aboard! Part 4: Looking for Peace and Quiet
Go to: Season Two: Initial Steps
Starship Trinity 