Darvesh merely nodded in reply. As a younger man he had served in a Kashmiri regiment of the Commonwealth Marine Corps; he was accustomed to displays of Aquilan power. He glanced at the shuttle pilot. “Did you call Hector ‘Old Worthy,’ Petty Officer Long? That seems a strange nickname.”
“It is,” Long agreed. “I understand that it’s a reference to the ancient Earth hero Hector, the one who fought in the Trojan War. There have been a lot of ships—spacegoing and the old seagoing sort—named after him over the centuries. But I never have heard how that got turned into ‘Old Worthy.’”
“It’s a reference to medieval chivalry,” said Sikander. “Hector was considered one of the Nine Worthies, heroes that young knights should strive to emulate. Except the part about getting slaughtered by Achilles, anyway.” The Aquilans might have been a hundred years ahead of Kashmir in shipbuilding, but it seemed that he’d received a better education in the classics than his Commonwealth shipmates. Of course, very little about Sikander’s upbringing had been normal. Even by Aquilan standards the Norths were extremely wealthy, an aristocratic clan who could afford to buy their sons and daughters opportunities most Kashmiris could only dream of—for example, appointment to Aquila’s prestigious naval academy and an officer’s commission upon graduation.
Long shook his head. “Huh. That’s the best answer I’ve heard yet, and I’ve been on the ship for a year and a half. Can’t wait to try it out on the fellows in the ready room. They—” He broke off as the comm unit came to life.
“Shuttle Hector-Alpha, New Perth Traffic Control,” the audio crackled. “You are cleared for final approach and recovery on parent deck, over.”
The pilot nodded, even though this was only an audio link. “New Perth, this is Hector-Alpha. Clear for approach and recovery, roger, out.”
“Better go take your seat, Darvesh,” Sikander told his valet. A routine shuttle landing on a stationary dock was probably going to be about as rough as an elevator ride, but procedures were procedures, and passengers were supposed to strap down during departure and landing. For that matter, he was supposed to be ready to back up the pilot since he was riding in the copilot’s seat. This was Long’s boat and Sikander wouldn’t touch the controls unless the petty officer invited him to, but like any Aquilan line officer he was rated for ordinary shuttle operations.
Darvesh nodded and returned to the passenger seating, buckling himself in. Sikander adjusted his own restraints and sat back in his seat, watching as Long expertly adjusted the shuttle’s course and yawed the small vessel into a dead-center approach. Hector’s hangar was located in the middle of the ship’s “belly,” although that was mostly an illusion created by the customary Aquilian color scheme; there was very little real difference in what part of a warship was considered up or down. The large hangar door rolled open slowly with a puff of escaping atmosphere as the shuttle glided closer. No matter how many times a big compartment like a hangar deck cycled, traces of air remained to turn into a silver dusting of snow and drift out into the night.
Sikander watched carefully, but Long handled the shuttle with a masterly touch. He brought the boat into its cradle and set it down with a bump so gentle it wouldn’t have spilled a glass of water. “There you go, Lieutenant North,” he said. “Welcome aboard! Wait for the indicator to turn green before you crack the hatch, please.”
“Thanks for the ride, Long,” Sikander replied. He unstrapped himself and straightened up, tugging at his flight suit and stretching carefully in the cockpit. He was not particularly tall, standing five or six centimeters shorter than most Aquilans he met, but he was wide through the shoulders and solidly built. The gravity of Jaipur, his homeworld, was a little higher than one standard, and over centuries, natural selection had left most Jaipuri with stocky frames. Cramped spaces like a shuttle cockpit had a way of finding his elbows and shoulders if he wasn’t careful.
He ducked back into the passenger compartment, seized one of his own duffel bags despite Darvesh’s disapproving look, and waited for the atmosphere indicator by the shuttle’s hatch to go from red to green. No doubt the Kashmiri servant thought it undignified for Sikander to carry his own luggage, but Sikander had learned it was necessary to show his Aquilan comrades that he didn’t think he deserved any special treatment. No other officer on board besides the captain would have a personal attendant, after all, so the less he relied on Darvesh Reza, the better.
The light by the hatch turned green, indicating that the hangar bay was repressurized. Sikander cycled the hatch and stepped onto the hangar deck of the Commonwealth starship Hector for the first time. He turned and saluted the Aquilan flag displayed at the end of the hangar bay, then faced the watch officer in the hangar’s control booth. “Lieutenant Sikander North reporting under orders,” he said. “Request permission to come aboard.”
The watch officer returned his salute behind the booth’s wide viewport and answered through the intercom. “Come aboard, sir.”
Sikander waited a moment for Darvesh to complete the time-honored ritual of boarding a warship—for purposes of Aquilan naval etiquette, he’d been assigned an acting rank of chief petty officer—while the watchstander, a first-class petty officer, stepped out of the hangar control station and logged in their datacards. If the rating was surprised by Sikander’s identity, he didn’t show it. He simply nodded and said, “You’re expected, sir. The captain left word that you’re to call on her as soon as you get settled.”
“Very well,” Sikander replied.
“If you’ll follow Deckhand Parris, she can show you to your stateroom and give you a hand with your gear,” the watch officer continued. “After that, you can signal the ship’s info assistant to find anything you need—you’re logged in to the system now. Chief Reza, I’ll call for a messenger to give you a hand to the chiefs’ quarters.”
“No need,” Darvesh replied. “I will accompany Mr. North to his quarters first.”
The watch officer raised an eyebrow—he probably didn’t see many chief petty officers toting officers’ duffels—but made no comment. “Very good. Mr. North, Chief Reza, welcome aboard.”
“Right this way, sir.” Deckhand Parris was a short young woman who probably wasn’t more than twenty standard years of age. She smiled broadly at Sikander and Darvesh, and seemed to grin even wider as she tried to maintain a suitably solemn demeanor. Sikander had seen the reaction more than once. Many Aquilans were simply unsure of how they were supposed to greet him, and couldn’t help but get a little nervous or self-conscious. “Can I get your bag?”
The first of a hundred little decisions that might color how Hector’s crew receives me, Sikander reflected. Kashmir was a little old-fashioned, and a gentleman would never allow a young lady to carry a bag he was perfectly able to carry. On the other hand, an Aquilan officer would not want to suggest that he thought that a female rating couldn’t carry a duffel that a young enlisted person would be expected to tote for an officer … and a North would never carry a bag at all, but that was also an impression he would not wish to put forward. He decided that he’d rather look unconcerned about the whole business. “It’s no trouble,” he answered. “Lead the way.”
Hector might have been more than two hundred meters in length, but that didn’t translate into a very spacious interior. Armor, power-plant shielding, drives, weapon capacitors, and space for fuel, water, oxygen, and other necessary stores took up a lot of the hull volume. Officers’ country turned out to be just aft of the ship’s bridge. The stateroom reserved for Sikander’s use featured a decent-sized bunk, a desk and chair, a closet, a sink, and a small couch that faced the desk; as a department head, he rated his own quarters, including enough space to meet privately with a subordinate if needed. A screen on the outward-facing bulkhead showed the busy orbital approaches around New Perth Fleet Base, although it was a video feed from an exterior camera. Overall the room was not much bigger than three meters by six—spacious and comfortable for shipboard accommodations, and certainly a big step up from the tiny cabins he’d shared with other officers in his previous assignments.