Ships of My Fathers (23 page)

He looked at Gabrielle. “Well, less than the
Heinrich
, but that’s to be expected. She’s a smaller ship, but Malcolm knew what he was doing.”

“Yeah, Malcolm knew.” She started gathering her things. “It’s your own life, Michael, but I hope you figure out that there are better role models out there than him.”

“Wait, what do you mean? Are you buying your father’s story now?” Michael fumed. “I should have known you’d stick to Daddy.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “You know, Michael, I’m doing my best to welcome you into the family. I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, and I wanted to extend that to Malcolm. If you’d lived with my father as long as I have, you’d understand how much I’d like to prove him wrong just once.”

“And?”

“And he’s not. I’ve been asking around in port, other crews, other captains.”

Michael’s interest both picked up and cooled at the same time. “And did they know what happened to the
Kaiser’s Folly
?”

“No, but they knew about other ships. I talked to a pilot who had seen your precious Malcolm gut a ship from stem to stern, and when that was done, he started shooting at the escape pods.” She shuddered. “The escape pods, Michael! Who does that?”

“I, um… I don’t know.”

“Merciless Mal, that’s what they called him. You may think he was a good man, but from what I hear he was a vicious bastard. And for the record, the role model I was talking about was Peter Schneider, your real father.”

He stammered at her as she left, but in the end he had no retort. Merciless was as apt a description for Malcolm as he had ever heard.

Michael did not bother making plans with Karen for the Folsom liberty. He had learned his lesson at Tortisia, and while she did not say anything about it in their brief times together, he was certain she would find someone at Folsom whom she had not seen in far too long. It turned out three such crews were vying for her attention, so he did not even bother trying to keep track of her.

Gabrielle kept her distance as well. At least at Ballison he had been able to use her for introductions, but without her he drifted from table to table, club to club, bumping into various crewmates, looking for anyone he knew. Finally, he settled in at the bar of some club on the ring above where they had docked. The bouncers had stopped giving him any grief about his age. He was not sure if he actually looked any older or if he simply looked too glum to be that young.

He was into his third round at this particular club when a girl slithered into the seat next to him. He glanced at her once, saw the blond hair, and then did a double take. For a second, he thought it was Josie, but it was not.

“Wow, you look like you saw a ghost,” she said.

He shook his head. “Sorry, you just reminded me of someone.”

“Someone good or someone bad?” she asked.

“Good,” he replied. “Very good.”

“Then why don’t you buy this good girl a drink, and maybe I can help you relive some old memories.”

He waved the bartender over. “Michael,” he introduced himself.

“Fini,” she said. “I’ll have whatever he’s having.”

“So, Fini, are you a good girl?”

She took a sip from Michael’s glass. “Depends, Michael. How good do you want me to be?” She took another sip, her puckered lips lingering on the shot glass.

Michael could not help but to react. What Fini lacked in Josie’s sweetness, she more than made up for in raw sexual allure, but given Josie’s profession, that was not much of a reference for this girl. So, are you a professional? He could hardly ask her that. Instead, he settled on, “Do you live here?”

She shook her head. “Groundside. I’m up on a joyride with a friend of my mom’s. She’s got a semi-regular squeeze passing through.” She made a motion back towards the corner. “He’s another spacer like you.”

The bartender arrived with her drink, and Fini lifted it up to Michael’s mouth and tipped it for him. “I owe you a few sips,” she said.

This one seemed stronger than the previous ones, so Michael pulled back before he drank too much of it. “So, what ship is he from?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Wanna meet him?” She reached under the bar and squeezed at his knee. “He’s got a suite at the Velocity. Hot tub, auto-massager, the works.”

“Sure,” he said. After all, Karen was off having her fun. Why not him?

Fini led him over to a corner booth where an older man and woman were locked in an embrace, their drinks forgotten. “Look, Vera, I got one too.”

The couple broke their kiss and looked at them. The woman, presumably Vera, smiled at Fini. “Looks like you got yourself a nice one, girl, but I’m going to stick with my captain.”

The man nodded. “Jimmy Anders,” he said, reaching for his drink on the table.

“Michael Fletcher,” he replied.

The man paused, his hand hovering over his drink. “Fletcher… wait, are you by any chance Malcolm’s boy?”

He felt his shoulders sag, but he nodded. “Yeah, I am.”

The man bounded up from his seat, wiped his hand on his uniform and stuck it out towards Michael. “Damn glad to meet you, son. Your dad and I go way back.”

Two men sat at a table. They were early for the meeting as was their custom. The younger one wore a mischievous grin.

“What have you got?” the older one asked.

“A records request for our old privateer program.”

“And why are you bothering with it?”

“I had some of the records flagged. This request is of particular interest.”

The older one paused, and then a smile crept across his face as well. “Fletcher?”

“You were right, Admiral. His boy Michael requested his war records, with a specific request for all data on one particular battle.”

“Second battle of Tanaris?”

“No, some little border incident.”

“Why? I mean, what was special about it?”

“Well, it turns out the boy isn’t Fletcher’s. His parents were S&W employees with family connections, and their ship was destroyed in the incident. It’s not clear how the kid ended up with Fletcher, but according to the synopsis Fletcher was there at the battle.”

The older man chewed it over for a moment. “Interesting. Maybe it is time to talk to the boy. Is he still out on the border?”

“No, he’s on an S&W ship now, the
Heavy Heinrich
. Actually, they passed through here three weeks ago.”

The Admiral stroked his beard. “Ok, go pull the records, especially for that ‘little border incident.’ I want to see them after lunch. There may be more going on here than it looks like.”

“And the boy?”

“Don’t pack your bags yet, but start checking
Heinrich’s
route and look for a courier run you can hitch a ride on. If this is some mess left over from the old program, I think we owe it to Fletcher to pull the boy in.”

“I’ll get on it right after the meeting.”

“No, Commander, skip this. Get going on this Fletcher thing now.”

“Aye, sir.”

Michael and Anders sat in the front room of the suite, drinking coffee. Michael had still not acquired the taste for it, but Captain Anders was an old comrade of Malcolm’s, and he did not want to look like a little boy. At least this brew was not as harsh as what he was typically offered.

“
Kaiser’s Folly
,” Anders repeated, chewing it over. “No, I don’t remember it. What’s it to you?”

“My mother died on it,” Michael replied. He did not want to get into the whole adoption thing with Anders, especially not with Fini and Vera still asleep in the other rooms. “The old
Hammerhead
was there when it happened. I’m trying to get the details.”

“Details? Like who killed her?”

He nodded. “Something like that. I put in a records request to the Navy, but I don’t know if they’ve got any more than I do.”

“Well, I’ll tell you who would know, and that’s Malcolm.”

“Yeah, but he’s not here to ask.”

“No, but you’ve still got his files back on
Sophie
, right?”

“I suppose,” he replied. “But he was on the
Hammerhead
during the war. I don’t know if he would have kept them.”

“Of course he would,” Anders replied. “Your dad was a data hoarder. I do salvage, you see. That’s one of the ways he and I did business. I recover cargo and parts from old vessels, some of them dating back to the war. Your dad was able to point me to a few of the older ones, and whenever I found one of my own, he always bugged me to get a copy of their data. A man who wants that much old data never throws any of it away. I’d bet you a container of gold that he’s got the full record of every shot he fired on the
Hammerhead
, all tucked away somewhere in
Sophie
’s memory.”

“You really think so?”

“Damn straight. It’s a shame though. I bet he’s got a few old salvages set aside that he never told me about. When you get back to
Sophie
, I do hope you’ll let me know if you find any in there.”

Michael thought about it. There was no harm in it, after all. These were ships that had been long dead for years. “Sure, as soon as I get back.”

“And when will that be? I mean, you’ll be of age pretty soon, right?”

He did the math. It had been four months since Malcolm’s death, or was it five? He would turn eighteen in January. If the
Heinrich
kept to her schedule, they would be somewhere in the Gemini Basin by then, almost on the other side of the Confederacy. “Yeah, I guess it is only a few months now.”

“Are you going to head back soon?”

He sat back and found he had no answer. He had not thought seriously about the travel schedule since the day Hans had retrieved him. He was stuck on the
Heinrich
for the time being, and they were hardly going to run him back to Taschin on his birthday. He knew they would circle back through this sector later, but by then it would be May or June, with
Sophie
accruing docking charges the whole time.

“I’d like to, I suppose,” he said. “But I don’t see how I can book passage on my own until January. My… my captain isn’t likely to let me out of his sight.”

Anders looked around and shrugged. “He doesn’t seem to be watching now.”

“I can’t jump ship.”

Anders dismissed it with a wave of his hands. “All I’m saying is that Malcolm had a lot of friends, and it wouldn’t be that hard to find one heading back to Taschin. Heck, I’d take you even if I had to change my route.”

Michael considered it. It was tempting, but it was not a decision he was going to make while sitting in a station hotel room, wearing a borrowed bathrobe. Still, he realized he did need to start planning his return to Taschin, and the sooner the better. “Well, I can’t do it right now, but you’ve made a good point. I’ll definitely be thinking about it.”

Anders nodded. “Well, I’m off to Latera the day after tomorrow. Call my ship if you change your mind.”

“Latera? We’re headed there, too.”

Anders raised his coffee mug to Michael. “Well then, I’ll extend my offer by a week. Find me at Latera if you’re interested.”

“Thank you, Captain Anders, I may just do that.”

“No more Captain for you, Michael. Call me Jimmy.”