THE SHIP OF SECOND CHANCES, Karin Lowachee

THE SHIP OF SECOND CHANCES
(c) Karin Lowachee

You sit down every week with Captain Azarcon, for dinner or breakfast or whenever he calls you in, and you never quite know what to expect. He calls me Jos now, not Musey very much anymore, and never Private Musey, since that designation no longer applies. I’m not a jet anymore. I’m Jos to him, liaison to Nikolas S’tlian and all sympathizers, and by association, the liaison to the striviirc-na, specifically the Assassin-Priest Caste Master. Meals with the captain in his quarters or his mess are much different from meals or tea with Niko or the Caste Master. With the captain, we generally talk politics, art, or aliens. He could be in a tolerant mood or even a generous one, laughing or dryly commenting on the state of his self-imposed exile from EarthHub. He'd make jokes about the current President Damiani and her radical Centralist politics, her terrorist ties. He'd even joke about pirates.

But never Falcone. No, Falcones still too close to us, still too immediate in memory despite years of distance and a small sense of revenge. He's dead and I killed him. But some things remain immediate for the Captain and I. We never talk directly about it but the gaps and darkness sometimes in our conversations speak as loud as any silence after a strangled shout. And now with Yuri Kirov on board, Falcones last and most successful protégé jokes aren't quite fitting. You see Kirov in the corridors, usually with his friend Finch and a jet guard in tow, and there is reminder enough of Falcone to make any joke die before it's born. Some things should die in the womb. Sometimes you wish memories could, when they’re half-formed and not yet animated. When you never speak of them, that's when they can be allowed to dissipate. Sometimes when the captain's son Ryan joins us for meals I can feel his curiosity burning from across the table. I can see his eyes shifting from me to his father and all of the questions he wants to ask getting stuck behind some latent sense of propriety. What about Falcone? What about him, and you, and my father? What about Yuri?

Yeah, well. What about Yuri.

I think sometimes the Captain can read minds because he asks me that, out of the blue in the middle of our spinach salad. What do you think of Yuri? The stewards gone from the mess, Ryan's across from me picking at the pine nuts, in some sort of Mood that I'm done trying to predict or understand. I feel his gaze lift and fix on me as I concentrate on the way the lights hitting my glass of water. We’re near enough in age, Ryan and I, to be some sort of dangerous joke to a few of the crew who don't know the full extent of the captains past, or mine. Dark-haired, blue-eyed, a few years past the age of majority in chronological years we have those cosmetic similarities. It irks Ryan in some way, though not enough for there to be any real tension anymore. Ryan’s talked to Kirov more than I've talked to Kirov, from months ago when the pirate was in Macedon’s brig, and now lately that he's joined us again, not quite a prisoner anymore. I guess I can respect Ryan for that. I wait for him to butt in, as he so often does, and offer an opinion to save me from voicing mine.

But he doesn't say anything. His timing or contrary nature can be laser accurate. He has that trait from his father. He might be as curious as the captain to know what I think of Kirov, the protégé after me, apparently. The one who bought the lies and sold them for cheap, even though the quiet price was a high one. Yuri Kirov has become the primary item of gossip on Macedon, the primary target in silent corridors (his jet guard notwithstanding, because what does it hurt to rough him up a little? Nothing serious, just to make a point), the primary issue being we are still dealing with refugees from our destroyed sister ship Archangel and Yuri Kirov has been the hardest working volunteer in those recovery and medical efforts. Out of guilt, maybe, or maybe he really is that sorry for his indirect hand in the tragedy. The times I've been told to escort him from medbay or the hangar decks where we've triaged a lot of the injured crew, it was like walking beside a ghost. He made no sound but dark sighs and gave off nothing but a cold, weary air.

What do you think of Yuri? I feel the smooth steel of the fork handle against the pads of my fingers. Any detail to concentrate on in order to avoid the question. Just because thinking of him is too much like memory. I just want it, and him, to die. At least from my sight or interaction. There's nothing charitable in that, Ryan would say, and has said to me after one of his conversations with the pirate. Why should I be charitable? I don't trust pirates.

You're a symp, Ryan told me. Once upon a time, my father didn't trust you. Once upon a time the captain was at war with sympathizers like Niko, the striviirc-na, and now he and his ship are under their umbrella of protection, alliance, and charity for supplies. Trust starts somewhere, usually with an absence of pride.

I have no trouble being a hypocrite in this one thing.

The quiet still stands. But Captain Azarcon can be as silent and patient as any striviirc-na, or Niko, and he waits for me to speak.

“I think he's trying.” I manage to equivocate with a straight face.

Ryan kind of snorts and I ignore him.

“Trying?” the captain says. “To do what?”

You can't get away with half-answers with Azarcon. With either of them, really.

“To fit in, or something.” I know better than to ask why my opinion matters. It doesn't, not in any large scale, but we are both Falcone’s protégé. The captain more than me. The captain who was the first and spent nearly as many years with Falcone as Kirov. More than five and only a little less than life. Or that's how it feels no matter how many years you're free.

“You think he wants to fit in here?” the captain says, without any judgment in the question.

“He wants to survive. Same thing.” I tear apart a green leaf on my plate.

“Were going to need his help to track down Caligtiera and that Ops agent Lukacs.”

Azarcon never just drops details to the floor without expecting a pick up. Caligtiera, the khan now among what's left of the network. Of course we're going to need Kirov’s help, he's the man's kissing cousin. Pirates operate on blood, genetics notwithstanding. You're blooded. Kirov has the tattoos to prove it.

The captain sees something in my face that I'm trying not to show.

“You can run intel with him. I want your skepticism on him and you won't antagonize him as much as one of my jets.” It’s just as much a warning as a reason.

This dinner won't have many jokes. Not even Ryan seems inclined.

“You,” the captain says to his son. “You can back off Yuri for now.”

“I can find out shit from him, we've developed a rapport.” Ryan sits back, glancing at me as if seeking my support. He can look elsewhere on this one. “I mean, I actually I think he's generally cool, you know. He basically wants to live here. Not just survive.”

Now Azarcon Jr. speaks up.

I look at him. “Kirov has no choice. Don't mistake his tolerance for you as any sort of friendship.”

“Wow,” Ryan says. “That sounds familiar.”

“It should,” I reply. Just because.

The captain lets us play sometimes.

“I mean,” Ryan continues, looking back at his father with that more serious tone he's adopted lately. Its not fake, like I know he can fake tone of voice, facial reactions, and mannerisms. He has that on-cam awareness that the children of the spotlight have ingrained. No, but this seriousness is there, it's what he is now. Still a brat, but one with purpose. His meedee infiltration has given him a kind of focus. He'd die for his father and go to war to defend the captain's reputation. I used to doubt that. Now I don't. “I mean,” he says, “the feeling I get from Yuri is remorse, and whatever else he is, or was, he's trying. Not that you asked me, Dad, but there it is. You know the jets haven't been kind.”

“Small wonder.” I remind him, since he never grew up with pirates. Or jets. “You might think you know, but Kirovs trained. You know he's trained to make you think whatever he wants you to think.”

“I know that.” His voice is on the edge of irritation. He thinks I'm patronizing him, even when I'm not. Education isn't patronization.

I’m well aware the captains letting us debate while he listens. That might be half of the reason he likes us both here at his meals.

“Corporal Dorr always says how this ship is everyone's second chance.” Ryan says it just as much to me as to the captain. He’s looking at his father.

I make him look back at me. “Just because it takes us on doesn't mean it's a smooth transition, or any sort of transition in the end. Sanchez got kicked and went right to the Family of Humanity to sell some secrets. So, you know, some people fail. They do it to themselves. All I’m saying is I don't trust Kirov, I probably never will trust Kirov, and even though I'm ordered to work with him,” This I give to the captain, straight, “I don't have to like it. I don't like him. I don't like the way he looks at me, I don't like the way he's involved with the relief efforts on board, and I don't believe his remorse will last once the novelty of regret has worn off.” Deep breath. A fiddle of the fork. I stab a mandarin wedge and eat it. The sweet-sour juice rolls down my throat, burning just a little. That many words can only lead to silence, so I let it infiltrate.

I have no idea what the captains thinking. I never do. He sits there at the head of the table sipping his wine and looking at both of us, some pale judge weighing the facts of the case. Or some destroying angel overseeing the manic intentions of man.

“I'm inclined to be cautious,” he says finally. “But with a certain open mind.”

I think of the weeks I'll be spending with Kirov talking about his pirate life and how we mean to get him from it by nailing in the coffin of his past.

The rest of the meal tastes too much like ashes.

#

Escort duty on Kirov is never just that. When the captain asks me to take him from medical to his quarters or vice versa, or whatever, it's with the full intention to get us used to each other. I've had a shift working with Aki in medbay, mostly helping the staff stack and file the influx of supplies Niko has sent over in the past week. And then the captain comms to tell me to pick up Kirov from bay two and take him to his quarters. I'm tired and, at this point, cranky. But yes, sir is all I say because I chose to stay on this ship. Because I respect the captain. Even when I disagree with him.

Kirov looks tired too. Sometimes he talks, fatigued or not, other times nothing but silence. I hope silence is in his bones now. Finch isn't with him, or his former engineer, Piotr. I dont ask. He drags along beside me with his hands in his pockets and a slight slouch to his tall height. He looks like he couldn't kill someone in under ten seconds, but I know better. I know Falcone’s training, even if he went further than me. But I know a killer when I see one and weariness doesn't mask that other kind of death that resides behind his eyes.

There are still a lot of crew left to lie in the open on the deck, insulated with blankets and fed regularly, not badly enough injured to require a medical bed, but trauma and grief are more difficult to treat anyway. In the bay at least they are among friends, not isolated in quarters, and there is comfort to that. Sometimes I spied Kirov sitting with one Archangel crew or another, talking. I doubt he's told them that he is a pirate. He wears badgeless black fatigues. He could be anyone. But that's his skill, to blend in. Even with the depressed and destitute. Or especially with them.

We walk along the corridors in silence. Sometimes the ship feels like a tomb when it's not moving. Since we're currently safe in striviirc-na space, with Niko’s ship at our starboard side, we are motionless and mausoleum-like. There have been a lot of deaths in the last few weeks. Too many injured who didn't make it.

“The captain mentioned us starting to work on Cal,” Kirov murmurs. Caligtiera, he means. His voice sounds lazy but it's the opposite. Cautious and alert without wanting to be obvious about it.

“Yeah.”

“When?”

“Next shift.” If I could speak in one words to him for this entire thing then we will be good. Or at least all right.

“All right.” He echoes my thoughts.

Silence except for the sound of our steps on the gray deck. The entire ship is gray in the corridors. Sometimes it's like living in a melted black and white world. You don't realize there is color until you look at your own hand. Or in someone else's eyes.

“You don't like me much, do you,” Kirov says.

So this shift isn't one of his quiet ones.

“I don't know you.”

“You know of me.”

I glance at him to make my point. “Like I said. I don't know you.”

“You don't care to know me.”

Why does he pick now to pursue this? Because we'll be working together?

“No, I guess I don't.” If he wants honesty.

He breathes out and rubs his cheek a little. His knuckles are red from bruises or faint blood, I don't look close enough to tell. Doesn't matter.

“You're like the jets.” I feel him return the glance. “I thought you wouldn't be.”

“I haven't hit you.” Like the jets.

“They aren't so bad. Captain must've given an order.”

Or he is just used to worse.

The thought of that makes my stomach twist.

“I'll save you the trouble,” he says, in a different, harder tone. “I'm not trying to seduce you, convince you, or hurt you in any way. I know you were one of his-” I could kill him now just for that reminder. “-and you know I am too, and that's where it begins and ends. It doesn't have to be more than that linear truth. All right? No deviation anywhere, you do your job, I do mine for Azarcon, and at some point we part again.”

“Except we’re on the same ship.” I turn straight to him to make him stop. He still hasn't removed his hands from his pockets, some kind of capitulation or a way to diffuse strife, but I only believe it as far as I can see it. He can move fast enough that it would be difficult to see. “And I know how well you Speak.”

“I'm too tired to Speak.” He stares at me half-lidded. “You might just be thinking you're more important to me than you really are.”

The arrogance of pirates. “This ship is important to you, and I have the captain's ear.” We both know the math. Or the inclination of protégés.

“So do I.” His shoulders might be to the bulkhead, but in his mind, his back is not.

My eyes are level with his, regardless of our different heights. “Fool yourself. You aren't fooling me. Or the captain.”

“He's giving me a chance. And maybe I don't care what some random jet thinks or how they act around me for the rest of my life here, but you.” He doesn't finish it. He doesn't have to. I'm not here to argue.

“Your very existence on this ship is an argument.”

He doesn't reply. He could toss back an easy retort, since I am a sympathizer, but then again we all are now. We’re in alien space.

It’s alien space, right here, on the deck. Two people speaking different languages out loud, but with some kind of unacknowledged understanding in silence.

“Just take me back to q.” His voice returns to its half-somnambulant murmur. So I return to my absence of words, if not an absence of memory.

And we go again in echoes.

# # #