Rocketship Patrol (3 page)

Loy’s brow furrowed. “Okay...”

“Exactly like that.”

Loy lowered her duffel bag to the metal grate of the corridor floor between two bare structural reinforcement struts. “We need to make this official, don’t we?” she asked, reaching into her uniform jacket to pull out the sealed manila envelope containing her orders.

“If you insist.”

“Should we wait for the Commanding Officer?”

“I’d just go ahead,” 8724 said.

Loy nodded and broke the envelope’s wax seal with a swipe of her thumb. “Busy man, I take it?”

“I never said that.”

“Okay, then…” Loy squared her shoulders, clicked her heels together, and, after clearing her throat with a demure cough, read aloud: “
Dana M. Loy, Junior Officer, Probationary, of the Drantini Unified Police and Emergency Service, you are hereby requested and required to immediately and forthwith report to the DUPES patrol rocketship designated 8724, currently on patrol in Drantini system deep sector 192, and once there, to carry out all the duties and responsibilities of your oath of service under command of Lieutenant Detective Archibald Q. Hackenthrush, by order of the High Commissioner of Police and Public Safety.
” She paused, looked up. “And then there’s a couple pages of authorizing policy codes and signatures—it’s okay if I skip those, right?”

“Guess we’ll find out,” 8724 said. “Before the irony inherent in the sentiment becomes painfully obvious, congratulations, Junior Officer Loy.”

“Thanks!” Loy beamed as she neatly folded the orders and slid them back into the manilla envelope. She slipped the envelope away into her inner jacket pocket. “Can I get a copy of that to send to my mom?”

“You wanted to record it?”

Loy’s face sagged. “You didn’t record it?”

“Honestly, we get a lot of you rookies out here, and most of you end up not wanting to commemorate your time aboard. We could do it over, if you’d like.”

“No, that’s okay,” Loy said with a sigh. “The moment’s gone. It was only my first reporting-for-duty ceremony, is all. I’ll just write mom a detailed synopsis, I guess.”

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate that.”

Loy nodded and smiled. “It’ll be something she can frame for the fridge. So, I guess I need to report to the Lieutenant Detective, right?”

“Probably.”

“He’s up on the bridge, no doubt?”

“Lieutenant Detective Hackenthrush insists we call it a cockpit. But no, he’s not there. He’s in the mess. Which you can find by walking around this corridor until you come to the all-level access ladder, which you’ll take down one–”

“–level, then hang a right and there’s the mess,” Loy finished for the Ship’s Brain.

“A mind reader, eh?” 8724 asked.

“No, nothing like that,” Loy said. “I simply studied up on your layout the moment I got the assignment.”

“Really? You didn’t just immediately start drafting your reassignment request letter? That’s what most of rookies do once they get word they’re coming here.”

“Not me,” Loy said. “I couldn’t be more excited than to be aboard such a classic model of patrol rocketship–”

The sparking crack of a high-energy discharge echoed through the corridor, and Loy reflexively ducked down into a crouch, drawing her service raygun. She swiveled, scanning her surroundings over the raygun’s sight.

“Was that beam fire?” she asked.

“Lunch must be over,” 8724 said.

A spinning plastic dinner plate arced through the open mess hatchway out into
8724
’s Deck 5 corridor. A moment later a yellow-blue beam lanced out after it. The beam missed the plate by feet and sliced into the bulkhead where it left a bubbling impact burn—a fresh scar atop hundreds of older scars. The plate, intact, completed its arc by bouncing off the bulkhead. It rolled away down the corridor.

Lieutenant Detective Archibald Q. Hackenthrush stood in the center of the mess, a beam autorifle in his hands and a napkin tied over his eyes. Human, Hackenthrush was tall and quite bald, his DUPES uniform in need of a host of minor seam and patch repairs, and a major dry cleaning. “Did I hit it?”

Next to him, Rikkan “Rikky” Ishkansti sniffed the air from under his own blindfold with a stubby pink nose. Compact, tailed, and covered in fine green fur, the Drantini native wore a DUPES uniform that was in slightly better shape than Hackenthrush’s, except for the missing sleeves – which he’d torn off at the shoulder to show off his bulging upper arms. His pill-box police cap was shieldless, and worn back-side front. “How are we supposed to tell?”

“Intuition.” Hackenthrush lowered the autorifle. “In the spirit of fairness, let’s call it a miss, then. What’s that make it?”

“Us, zero. Plates, twenty-seven. Do we really have to wear the blindfolds?”

“Well, it’d hardly be fair to the plates if we didn’t, would it?”

“Guess it still beats cleaning them.”

“You said it.” Hackenthrush raised the autorifle, pointing it at what he could only assume was the hatchway. “All right, let’s go again. And no fancy throw this time—just toss it.”

“Whatever.” Rikki blindly pawed at the table next to him, patting the tabletop until he found the stack of plates. He picked the top plate off the stack, brought it close to his chest, and began spinning, faster and faster. “Away!” he announced on the fifth spin, releasing the plate and sending it spinning towards the fridge in the back of the mess.

A split-second later, Hackenthrush squeezed off a shot at the hatchway. The beam lanced out into the corridor – just grazing the top of Junior Officer Loy’s cap as she stepped into the hatchway.

Loy let out a surprised gasp and slipped into a crouch, throwing her arms over her head.

Hackenthrush lowered the autorifle and yanked his blindfold down over his nose. “That had to be a—” He noticed Loy crouching there, staring back at him, confused and apprehensive. “Oh, hi there.”

“Hi?” Rikki’s ears pricked up. He pulled his blindfold off. “Well, helloooo, nurse.”

“Heel, boy.” Hackenthrush shoved the autorifle into Rikki’s paws and stepped up to Loy. “I’m Archie. And you must be...?”

“Dana Loy,” she said after a moment, her eyes settling on the rank insignia on his collar. A look of disbelief crossed her face. Swallowing, she came out of her crouch. A small pillar of smoke rose from her singed pill-box cap. “Your new junior officer.”

Hackenthrush extended a hand. “Well, rookie, welcome to the boring ass-end of space, where old cops come to die, and new cops come to grow old. And then die.”

Loy shook his hand weakly. “Thanks?”

Hackenthrush lifted her hand to his lips and looked deep into her eyes over her knuckles. “So... wanna go make out?”

Loy yanked her hand away. “What?”

“Hey! No fair!” Rikki protested, throwing the autorifle onto the table and stepping up next to Hackenthrush. He pushed his paw into Hackenthrush’s shoulder. “When did we abandon our no-hitting-on-the-rookie agreement?”

Hackenthrush shrugged at him, then turned back to wink at Loy. “The second we got a cute rookie—”

Loy’s fist sprung out to meet Hackenthrush’s jaw.

Hackenthrush’s head went whipping back and he went down, his legs collapsing underneath him. Next to him, Rikki let out a belly laugh.

Panting, Loy stared down at Hackenthrush, laid out cold on the grated mess floor. “Oh my god, what did I do?”

“Proved once again Archie’s not nearly as charming as he thinks he is.” Grinning, Rikki returned from the kitchenette wall-unit, a glass of water in one paw, a washcloth in the other. He dipped the washcloth into the water and gave it to Loy.

“It hasn’t even started yet and my career’s already over...” Loy crouched in front of the moaning Hackenthrush, dabbing the washcloth against his forehead.

“Relax, he’s not dead. He’s just got a glass jaw.” Rikki sipped from the glass, then waved for Loy to scoot back. As soon as she did, he dumped the glass out on Hackenthrush’s bald head.

“–No! Leo, don’t let go of the lifeboat!” Hackenthrush came awake in a flurry, sitting up and flapping his hands in front of his water-drenched face. As he regained his wits, he scrunched his face at Loy.

“Lieutenant,” she stammered, “I... I’m so—”

Hackenthrush held up a hand. “Junior Officer Loy, it occurs to me that, for the sake of our sacred oath to protect and serve and our duty as officers of the law, I believe you must consider me out-of-bounds for the duration of your tenure under my command. Do you think you can suppress your obvious deep attraction to me?”

Loy quickly nodded. “I’ll try my best, sir.”

Hackenthrush flicked water off his nose with his index finger. “That’s all I ask.”

Rikki leaned in close to Loy. He wriggled his ear-tips and wagged his furry eyebrows at her. “Um, so, you and me…?”

“No.”

Rikki’s ears flattened against his head. “Just checking.”

“I suppose you need us to show you what controls what, eh rookie?” Hackenthrush asked as he stepped off the ladder onto
8724
’s bridge at the top of the patrol rocketship. Hackenthrush stopped next to the console in front of the central, slightly-raised commander’s chair, and put his hand on it. “This is the communications array. A radio, in the common street parlance.”

“Um,” Loy said, climbing up through the hole in the deck and stepping onto the bridge, “that’s the maneuvering jet manual controls.”

Hackenthrush’s left eyebrow went up. “You sure?” Loy nodded, and Hackenthrush said, “Guess that explains why we always crash into a moon when I try to dial up Jack Benny.”

“That’s the radio,” Loy said, pointing at a cluster of Bakelite-knob dials and glass-faced indicators on the inward curving wall between two exposed structural reinforcement girders before pointing at every sub-system on the circular bridge in turn. “And that’s life support control. Primary rocket controls. Secondary rocket controls. Tertiary rocket controls. Navigation. Weapons Station. Communications. Grappling hook controls. The first aid locker. Cease-and-desist immobilization transmitters. Coffee percolator–”

“That’s a percolator?” Rikki’s head and shoulders appeared in the hole in the deck as he came up the ladder.

“Even I knew that.” Hackenthrush poured himself a cup and plopped down in the commander’s chair. “What did you think it was?” he asked Rikki over his shoulder, raising his
Galaxy’s Number One Best Cop
mug to his lips.

Rikki swung off the ladder onto the bridge. “Emergency bathroom.”

Hackenthrush spit his mouthful of coffee out over his lap. Glaring back at Rikki, he put his mug down on the chair’s armrest. “So… rookie, you do seem to know your way around the rocketship. Can I assume you knowledge extends to all aspects of patrol work?”

Loy blushed. “With all modesty, I graduated in the top five percent of my Academy class, with honors.”

“Only five percent, eh?” Hackenthrush gave her a patronizing smile and hooked his thumbs into his uniform’s suspenders. His chest puffed out. “I seem to remember graduating in the top one-hundred percent of my class. Standards must be slipping at the old Academy.”

Loy somehow managed to keep a straight face. “Yes, sir, they must.”

“Well don’t let that worry you, rookie,” Hackenthrush said. “I’m sure you’re prepared to handle whatever comes our way–police work-wise, that is. The truth is, this sector’s not exactly on the prime trade lanes. Sometimes we go weeks without seeing another ship. I think the biggest challenge you’ll find yourself facing–and the dirty little secret they don’t put in the DUPES recruitment posters–is coping with the sheer boredom of space patrol.”