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Barry’s always loved the observation decks. There’s something about how, even on something as efficient as an interstellar ship – even the earliest ones, more tunnel network strapped to a payload than full-fledged ships – there’s always been a room of curved, fused-silica panes to linger in and simply look at the galaxies outside.
All the handbooks say it’s for “astronaut mental health” and “reduction of rates of in-flight claustrophobia”, but Barry knows the real reason. Everyone does. It’s quite simple, really, because every person who’s ever set foot on a space-bound vessel, from the first astronauts strapping themselves to combusting rockets to the newest, greenest recruits at high command, have all wanted to see the stars up close. There’s something about the universe’s spread of interstellar stars that have been calling people to them since the dawn of mankind, and it’s something that draws people to this very day.
He himself joined up because of it. That, and the famous green-paper leaflet (they’re getting rare these days, and a part of him feels bad for the kids whose introduction is electronic outreach instead) that’d been pressed into his hands after getting his pilot’s licence. Explore the galaxy! it’d said, and here he was, exploring the galaxy on the good ship Mephistopheles with his trusty crew.
His crew. With a sigh, he leans a little heavier on the observation deck’s railing. It creaks as he watches the Mesarthim system in the distance, drifting, binary stars indiscernible from each other by the naked eye.
In simple words: his crew are all kids. They’re all just kids – stupid, stupid kids in over their heads. Half of them barely know what they’re doing, and are just pretending they do in the hopes of keeping their new job, no matter how legally they got it. Angela, bless her heart, is the only one he knows isn’t a day out of flight training. She’ll replace him when he finally retires, just as he’s been training her for, and he can only hope to god he remembers his advice to actually connect with the crew, not just lead them. The ways of logic may be good for strategising, but humans aren’t logical animals. A fully-logical leader can’t calm her crew, and if they’re in crisis, they’ll need more than the facts to make them listen.
If they’re lucky, they may just have a crisis to demonstrate that to her. Mephistopheles is old, not “busted-up old wreck” old, but the kind of old that leads to minor accidents and quarantined rooms with failed seals. The kind of old that leads to friction in the crew, incidents that they need a sharp, charismatic captain to lead them through.
But, bless their hearts, the rest of his crew isn’t quite so qualified. Serena’s as logical as Angela, a clear, bright comms officer, but he’s seen her records. Half of her graduating class were terrified of her, and the other half thought she was a complete asshole. Barry’s had the fortune of knowing she’s neither fearsome nor intentionally dickish, but if she wants to stay on past what her high grades could get her, she’ll need to learn how to communicate with people who aren’t Angela.
As for the rest of them, William’s underqualified, nervous, fresh out of the academy and not nearly enough training to have made it shipboard. Adam keeps passing off his work onto anyone else, and Barry’d bet it’s because he barely knows the tools he’s using; if someone else fucks it up he can just blame them for not waiting for him, rather than admitting he’d never have done it at all. It hasn’t caused any accidents yet, but Barry’s keeping a close eye on him for when it finally does, because that’s the kind of collateral damage that needs stopping from ever happening again.
(Call him a cowboy captain if you will, but the technicians at port are good, and this old girl shouldn’t have any real problems on this trip: the worst that can be expected are flickering lights and the food dispenser needing the occasional kick.)
And Somerset is doing the best job out of all of them, but Captain Barry Chahal’s worked with old John before, and he’s just that: old. “Somerset” can’t be out of his twenties. Though, now that he thinks about it, last they’d been on a flight together John had mentioned a son who wanted to go into psychology like him… Maybe Junior decided to use his dad’s credentials for a trip into the great, black, jewel-spattered yonder.
That’s the thing about all this, why he’s turned none of them in, why he always tries to avoid turning in stowaways when they show up on his flights: the view in front of him now, the stars cast like distant flecks of diamond on an endless black sky, distant specks of other ships weeks of travel away from them making their snails-pace trek through the cosmos, the hum of the engines far below… He fell in love with it all the day he first set foot on a ship.
How could he ever deny it to anyone else?
He chuckles lowly as he pulls himself away from the observation deck’s railing, the sound echoing oddly against the curved roof. It’s strange to be saying things like that when this is the last flight he’ll ever take.
It doesn’t matter if command realises he’s got stowaways and undertrained staff aboard anyway, because what’ll they do? Fire him? It’d be more paperwork than it’d take to just let him go with his pension. As it is, he’ll retire with a flawless record, the kids’ll have their in-flight training for their resumes, and they’ll all live better, happier lives for him turning a blind eye, just this once.
Maybe they’ll have an adventure, maybe not. Maybe the kids will have the kind of run-in that makes them realise spaceflight isn’t all fun and games, and to act on the advice he gave them before he retires; maybe the flight will be smooth as a plane of sheet metal, and they’ll all come home with a tale no more exciting than the inside of the ship or the drifting stars outside.
And most of all, he hopes they never lose the love of the stars that drew them here.