Ships of My Fathers (6 page)

Michael relaxed in the shower. As bad as yesterday had been, today had been fantastic, from waking up, to breakfast, to after breakfast, and then back to Josie’s room. He had lost count. He was no virgin. The McKenzie sisters had taken care of that last year, but he had been nothing more than a boy toy to them. With Josie it was different. She took their pleasure seriously.

He dried off with a towel, and held it to his face. He could still smell her on it. She had laid out a pair of boxers and some sweats for him. He needed to get his uniform hung up, but that could wait. For now, it was back to seeing what Josie was up to.

He walked out into the hall and checked her room. No Josie. He stepped out into the living room to look there, but instead of Josie’s blond hair splayed out over the sofa, it was Annie’s brunette hair tucked neatly into a bun.

“Come on out,” she said.

He did, sitting on the sofa beside her. “Where’s Josie?”

“I sent her on an errand. She’ll be back soon.”

“Oh.” He looked around the room. He had not paid it much attention before, but it was nice. It was small for a common room, but it was only for a two-person apartment, not a seven-man ship.

“We need to talk, Michael.”

He nodded. “I guess, but Josie said—”

“No,” she cut him off with a chuckle. “Not about Josie. About your Dad.”

He looked away. He should have known. “Yeah, my…” he trailed off. Dad was not truly his dad any more. He could not hide from it. “Malcolm. We should talk about Malcolm.”

“Okay, let’s talk. What do you want to know?”

Where to start? It seemed so unreal. “Did he even know my mother?”

“Yes, he did. He loved her very much.”

“But he didn’t marry her? What’s the deal with that?”

She shrugged. “I’m sorry, Michael, but I never heard Sophia’s side of it. You didn’t know your fa—” she caught herself. “Malcolm was a different man back then. He grew gentler as you grew up.”

Michael thought about his years under Malcolm’s shipboard discipline. “Gentle?”

Annie smiled at him. “I know it’s hard to see it that way, but he loved you more than he could say, and I think that softened him up a lot.” She shook her head. “But back in the day, he was a brash man, hard, bold… exciting even. I think that’s what first caught my eye.”

Michael looked at Annie as she remembered with a far-off look. “So did you two…?”

She looked back to face him. “No, not until years later, after Sophia died. I didn’t tear them apart, and I can’t really blame Peter either.”

“Peter.” Michael did not want to think about him. Biological father. What did that even mean to him? “Then what did it? Didn’t she love Malcolm?”

“Oh, I think she did. Like I said, he was a bold figure and ruggedly handsome, but I think in the end, she wanted more.”

“What? Money, fame?”

Annie shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe, but mostly I think what she wanted was you. She was an only child, and she always talked about wanting to have a big family. Malcolm… well, Malcolm didn’t.”

Michael had never thought about it, but he was hardly surprised. In all the lessons over the years, Malcolm had never talked about the joys of fatherhood. “Why not?”

“I think it was your aunt, Molly. You never knew her, of course.”

“Yeah, but he told me about her. She died when she was a kid, right?”

“She was fourteen, four years behind Malcolm. I never knew her, but apparently he doted on her. Their dad had been gone for years, so he had played the man of the family. Then she got sick. I don’t know if they ever found out what it was, but he watched her fade away over the summer. I think at some level, he didn’t want to risk going through that again.”

Michael nodded, absorbing it. “So he didn’t want the responsibility.” A hundred details of his shipboard childhood started to take on a different color. “He didn’t want me.”

“Never say that, Michael.” Annie stood and walked over into the kitchen. “Never say that.” She came back a minute later with two glasses of tea, setting one before him.

He did not take it. “So, I guess this Peter guy did want kids?”

“He was a little older, already established in his father’s company. I only met him a few times, but he seemed like a nice man. I never heard the story of their courtship, but I know that he made the offer that Malcolm would not, a safe and stable life for Sophia and her children.”

“Safe?” Michael scoffed. “They’re dead, and... and Malcolm survived. If you ask me, she chose the wrong guy. This Peter Schubert—”

“Schneider,” she corrected.

“Yeah, whatever, he couldn’t keep her safe. He let her die.”

“I doubt it was for lack of trying. He died too, remember.”

“I guess...” he trailed off. “So how is it I’m even alive?”

“I don’t know. Malcolm and I weren’t in touch back then. He was off in his ship, and then those damn Caspians started their war.” She gave a shudder. “It was a bad time for all of us. All I know is that when I saw him next, Malcolm had you in one arm and a diaper bag in the other.”

Michael allowed himself a grin. “Diapers. I’m having a hard time picturing it.”

Annie reached down with her tea glass and clinked it against Michael’s, still sitting on the table. “He was versatile. You’ve got to give him that.”

“Versatile,” he said, nodding, “but not truthful. Why didn’t he tell me? For that matter, why did he even keep me?”

She shrugged. “He never told me, and after a while, I stopped asking. Maybe it was just that you were his last link to Sophia, and he didn’t want to give that up. Maybe he thought if you knew...” she trailed off, shaking her head. “I don’t think he ever really wanted to be a father, even after all those years, but he wanted you to have one. He was always very clear on that. I guess he thought that if you knew he wasn’t your biological father...”

“Then I’d feel like the orphan I am. Is that it?”

She nodded. “Something like that.”

Michael shook his head, remembering all those stories about Malcolm and Sophia: how they met, their tiny wedding, how she died. They had all been lies. “So what, was he never going to tell me?”

“I think he was always planning on it, someday. Maybe he was going to do it when you turned eighteen. Maybe it would have been when you got your captain’s license. I don’t know, but he would mention it every now and then, some vague event in the nebulous future.”

“But he never did.”

Annie shrugged. “He always meant to.”

Malcolm’s dying words flashed back to him. “Meaning to do it isn’t enough.”

She sipped at her tea. “I’m sorry.”

He looked down at the glass and finally lifted it to his nose. It smelled of raspberry. He took a tentative taste and set it back down. “So, however much he meant to, it’s never going to happen now.”

“And what is going to happen now?”

He sighed. “I don’t know. I imagine Isaac is tearing apart the port by now.”

“Don’t worry about it. I talked to him this morning.”

“When’s he coming?”

She shook her head. “Let’s take it easy for now. There’s no rush.”

A series of beeps sounded from the door and Josie burst in with two bags of takeout. “They were out of egg drop, so I hope you like hot and sour.”

Chapter 5

“Sure, taking a break can be nice, but remember that the rest of the world is still going.” — Malcolm Fletcher

T
WO MEN SAT AT A
conference table as the others filed out. When the last one left, closing the door behind her, the older man spoke. “You said you had some news, but I gather it’s not about this latest Shiantic intrusion.”

The younger one shook his head. “Malcolm Fletcher died.”

“Murder?”

“Accident, something about loading cargo. I haven’t seen the official report yet, but an acquaintance of mine was at his wake.”

“Damn.”

“I know. He’ll be hard to replace.”

The older man nodded. “Indeed. He had one of our specials, didn’t he?”

“Yes, sir,
Sophie’s Grace
.”

“Ha! Deceptively named. I like that. Are we going to pull it back?”

“We could, but I worry that the paper trail might expose the program.”

“Well, we can’t let it go to auction. We certainly don’t want one of those ending up in Yoshido’s hands.”

The younger man picked up his pad. “I believe it’s slated to go to his son, a Michael William Fletcher.”

“Is he one of ours?”

“No. I believe he’s still a minor… sixteen or seventeen years old. Do you want me to contact him?”

The older man rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “No, not yet. Let’s see what the boy does. If he’s got any of his father in him, he’ll contact us. If not, then we’ll deal with the special before he gets into any trouble with it.”

“Are you sure about that, Admiral?”

He chuckled. “As sure as I can be about anything in this business. It’ll do for now.”

“Aye, sir.”

Michael stared up at the sky, watching the clouds take on strange shapes. Josie lay beside him, having tugged the blanket back over them to guard against the chilly breeze. Sex on the mountain, he mused. That was one for the scrapbook.

Josie took another drag on the hand-rolled cigarette and passed it to him. He sucked it in, held it for a moment, and watched the clouds alter as he let it back out. “What’s this called again?”

She set it aside and ran her hands over his bare chest. “Tonja root. It grows naturally on the slopes, but it’s hard to spot.”

“Wow. It’s umm, different.”

She started kissing him around the neck. “It definitely adds to the experience.” Her voice had an echoed quality.

At some level, Michael recognized it as the effects of the drug coursing through his system. He reached over and ran a hand across her breast, his fingers tingling at the contact until the buzz cascaded up his entire arm. “It does at that.”

A small animal darted out and grabbed part of their discarded picnic lunch, but Michael did not care. Planet-side excursions had always been a little strange, but this climb up the mountain slopes had been one of the strangest. The tonja root only underlined the fact.

“Is it legal?” he asked.

“Depends. Why?” She reached down and started tracing circles on his stomach.

“Mmm, was thinking about shipping, exporting, that kind of thing.”

She slid a leg over him. “You and your cargo again. I think it’s time for more distraction.”

He reached over and picked up the tonja again for another long drag. “Sorry, lifelong habit, me and… Malcolm.”

She took the tonja back and sucked it in while mounting him. “Yeah, time to start making new habits. You ready?”

He smiled up at her, naked against the sky. “Always.”

Hans Schneider read over the report again. Disbelief melted into cheer. “How long has this message been in port?”

Walter Brookstone checked the log. “Thirty-eight hours.”

Hans rose from the command chair and waved over his first officer. “Ms. Corazon, get us into the docking queue and come to my ready room as soon as you can hand it off.”

“Aye, sir,” she responded and took his place in the center seat.

Hans strode to the back of the bridge and through the side door to his ready room. He sat behind the desk, but he could not contain his excitement. He stood back up and paced the five steps back and forth a few times, chuckling beneath his breath. By the time Felicia Corazon pressed the chime, he was almost giggling.

He moved back to his chair and called out, “Enter.”

“You wanted to speak to me, sir?”

“This may not mean much to you, Felicia, but Fletcher is dead. I never thought I’d outlive the bastard, but I did. He’s gone, at long last.”

She remained in a stiff pose. “Malcolm Fletcher?”

“Yes, yes. Malcolm Fletcher.” As if there could be any other! “It was some cargo accident, no doubt off on one of his smuggling runs.”

She nodded. “As I recall, didn’t he have a cousin of yours in his crew?”

“No cousin, my nephew. My little brother’s only son, Michael.” He fought the urge to get out of his chair again. “At long last, he’ll be coming home to his family.”

“Then it’s good news, sir. Where is he? Will you be sending for him?”