Chapter 12: Ship Board Complications

By the third day with no ship trying to intercept the slow-moving cruise liner, we concluded that Dan and whichever syndicate he was working for assumed that our DNA switch on the crew files was a trick to throw them completely off our trail and didn’t bother looking on other ships. It was a huge gamble on our part because if they had figured out where we were, we would not have anywhere to run. The three of us worked very different schedules, but we arranged to meet up at least once a day in one of the cargo holds to make sure we were all doing okay and let the others know if we saw anything suspicious or concerning. Kayla thought there was a man following her, but we quickly determined that it was just a middle-aged man looking for a shipboard fling with a pretty young girl. Oddly enough, this particular cruise line had a very strict policy against the crew fraternizing with the guest. A single comment to her supervisor resulted in the first officer having a conversation with the man and the stalking ended.

It was around 1:30 in the morning when Captain Mitchell walked onto the Starview Deck where I tended the starboard-side bar. My shift went to three in the morning, but most of the clientele were either retirees or families, so on most nights, there wasn’t a sole in sight after midnight. She was in her white uniform as it was the color of the day. The blue gas giant that we were orbiting filled the deck with a soft blue and green light. Her heels clicked on the imitation wood decking as she crossed from the far side over to where I was cleaning glasses with a bar towel. I couldn’t help but notice she was walking more carefully then her normal stride as if she was trying to keep her balance. As she got closer, I could see some of her hair was not pinned back as if she put it back up in a hurry and one of the brass buttons on her uniform jacket was missing.

“Do you really have to clean those that way?” she asked as she walked up, her words laced with a very slight slur.

“Not really,” I said. “We only use the ones that come out of the cleaner behind the bar, but we have these hanging on display, and we keep those clean by hand. Gives me something to do.”

“Is there anyone around?” she asked.

“Nope, you can have a seat if you want,” I said pointing to the chairs along the bar.

She started to pull a stool out but stopped herself and said, “No, against the rules,” she then looked around to make sure we were alone. “If anyone comes by I’ll just act like I'm addressing a customer’s complaint about you.”

“I guess that would be believable,” I replied trying not to sound too sarcastic. “How is it going with access to the ship's communications?”

“I was able to get a copy of the access key code,” she said, but in a way that sounded like she was embarrassed and a little ill.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

She bit on her lower lip and looked around again to make sure we were definitely alone, “Do you have any vodka back there?”

“Sure,” I answered, and she nodded to indicate that she wanted a shot. For someone who was afraid of breaking the most minor of rules, she must really need it to risk a major violation. I poured a shot from under the bar and handed it to her in a water glass. She tossed it back and slammed the glass onto the bar with her eyes squinted shut for a moment as the booze burned its way down. “Days like this are what makes me really hate this job. No one should ever have to do the things I’ve done.”

“Did you have to hurt someone?” I asked.

She put her hand on the bar for balance and shook her head. “No, no, quite the opposite,” she said. “Hit me again.”

“It looks like you’ve had your limit. You need to be able to walk yourself back to your quarters. What happened?”

She looked around and took in a deep breath to force some air to clear her head a little. She then sighed and looked at me with very sad eyes. “Bob, the director of the entertainment division, has a keycode to make contractor payroll and requisitions back to the home office. When I realized Bob had taken a liking to me, I saw an opportunity to get a copy, so I invited her back to my quarters for a few drinks.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Her?”

“Bob, she says she doesn’t like to go by Bobby, so she goes by Bob and by Bob I don’t mean bye-bye Bob, I mean Bob is bi and not just a little bit, she is a full-blown, go down and say bye-bye to never not being bi again, you know.”

“I’m getting the picture,” I said.

“My plan was to get her drunk on a couple of bottles of wine I got from the staff commissary. We went through both, and it should have put her out, but it didn’t. It just made her hornier. She was pawing me and kissing my neck and cheeks and, and, and didn’t want to stop until the bottle was empty. Then she suggested going to her quarters where she had a bottle of what she called the good stuff. So, I thought the booze just hadn’t hit her yet, and the walk to her room would give it the time to knock her off her feet, but it didn’t, no it didn’t, she could barely walk straight, but was eager to… you know. When we got to her room, she looked for the bottle and pulled out a half-empty bottle of bourbon. We took a couple of shots and then she was on top of me. I had to play along, so I acted like I liked it. And I acted. It was an act. I was good. I was very good. I almost convinced myself that I was liking it. But I wasn’t. No Sir, I was not. I don’t do things like that. You know me. I wouldn’t do that if I didn’t have a choice.”

“I know,” I said trying to be reassuring, but she was losing the battle with the alcohol in her system, and I poured her a glass of water to help flush her out before she made a mess on my workstation. She took the whole glass of water like a shot and continued. “Now kissing another girl isn’t that bad. I mean we all do it when we’re teenagers. You know, you go to a slumber party and play truth or dare so someone always dares you to kiss your best friend just to get a laugh out of it. And we all experiment a little bit in college, just to be sure, but it never goes past petting and necking…, maybe a little rubbing. So I thought it was just like that, I would let her kiss me, I would kiss her, roll around a little. And when she pulled off my shirt, I went with it. I pulled off her shirt. Part of me said I should stop, but we need that key code, so I let it happen. I let it happen. I let it happen. What I let happen.”

“What?,” I asked.

She thought for a moment like she was deciding if she should continue or not, but then said, “I wasn’t even aware all of our clothes were gone. She whispered in my ear that she had a special accessory and went to put it on.”

“Accessory?” I asked, not understanding what earrings or a belt would have to do with sex and then realized what she was talking about. “Oh.”

“I was numb and buzzed and felt like I couldn’t barely move. I could have. I was aware enough to know what was happening and could have come up with an excuse to leave, but I didn’t. I let it happen. I closed my eyes and imagined it was someone else. A man. A man whom I wouldn’t mind doing it with, what she was doing to me.”

“Anyone, I know?” I jokingly said. She looked at me for a long moment that made both of us uncomfortable and then said, “No.”

“Are you going to be okay to get yourself back to your room?” I asked.

She nodded and drank another glass of water. “Yeah, but I wanted to ask you something.”

“Sure,” I said.

“I know that you and Kayla are, something, what are you two anyway, never mind, I know that she would kill me if she knew I was asking you this, but I don’t know anyone else, well I guess I know some people, but I don’t trust anyone else and I need to know that I am who I think I am, I mean whom I know I am, that I am the same person that I have always been. I need to know that I prefer guys over girls. So I was wondering if you.”

I cut her off there, but I didn’t want to make her feel worse. So I just said, “I have an hour left on my shift. I’ll meet you in your quarters after I get off.”

She smiled, put her hand on my hand that was on the bar and squeezed it. “Thank you,” she said, and then walked off. I, of course, didn’t go to her quarters. Instead, I sent a text to Kayla. All I told her was that Mitchell was drunk and asked her to make sure she got back to her room and in bed. When Kayla found her, she was half asleep, sitting against a door two cabins down from her room. Kayla helped her get into her own room, undressed, held her hair back as she expelled a lot of the booze, cleaned her up and put her to bed. She then sent me a text insisting I owed her big.

The next day the ship jumped to the Cysteine system, that was the halfway point of the cruise and where we planned to contact an Alliance Military base for help. I had to act as normal as possible, so I headed out for my bartending shift at 1600 hours. Mitchell would send me a text to let me know if she got the message out and if help was on the way. If she sent the message, ‘Party at Sunset’ I would know that everything was going as planned. If she sent a text saying ‘Party Cancelled’ I would know something was wrong and we would meet in the cargo hold after my shift to discuss other options. Yet, when I was crossing the main deck that had the pools, water slides and even an artificial twelve-foot diameter sun lamp for tanning, I heard a voice call out to me, or rather my alias. “Mr. O’Brien.”

I looked over and saw Mitchell in her blue uniform, perfectly pressed, every hair in place, pulled back and pinned and her walk was steady and direct. She was wearing make-up to hide the circles under her eyes, but I could tell by the way she was squinting that she was in a bit of pain. “A word, Mr. O’Brien,” she harshly said as she walked by and I followed her off the deck and into an employees-only hallway that happened to be vacant of anyone at that moment. She stopped, turned on her heel to face me and then said. ‘We need to talk.”

“Was there a problem with transmitting our message?” I asked.

She shook her head slightly and said, “No, I’m going to wait until we are on the other side of the system when they can get a ship to us quicker. There’s no way for users to secure the line and the moment I send the message the syndicate will know where we are. But that’s not what I wanted to ask you about.” She looked around and then stepped a little closer so she could speak in a softer voice. “Did I talk to you last night?”

“Yes, you came by my workstation around 1:30 last night,” I answered. With as drunk as she was, I’m not surprised her memory had some gaps in it. “You told me that you had used alcohol to get the access codes to the transmitter. You clearly consumed more than you commonly do. Tell me what you remember, and I’ll try to fill in the blanks.”

“Her face turned to beat red, and she looked around again to make sure no one was listening to us. “I have a pretty good memory of what happened before I came to see you, but our conversation is foggy. I remember talking to you, but I don’t remember what we talked about. Then I remember Kayla guiding me to the head and holding my hair as I threw up. Then waking up this morning with the worst hangover of my life.” She then looked up at me, her eyes almost looked like she was scared. “What exactly did I tell you, or.. what did I ask you?”

I think she did have a memory of what we discussed, but it was so out of character for her that she couldn't tell if she dreamed of telling me about her first lesbian encounter and her request for sex from me to reaffirm her heterosexual identity, or if it actually happened. I didn’t want to make her feel any worse, so I said, “You told me that you were able to get the code. When I asked how, you told me that you didn’t want to talk about it. You asked for a drink, I gave you one, and then you headed back to your quarters. I sent Kayla a message asking her to help you get to your room and into bed.”

“That’s it?” she asked

“That’s it,” I said. “Why, is there something else I need to know?”

She looked at me for a moment, her face almost showing embarrassment. Then she said, “No, everything is as it should be. I’ll send the transmission tomorrow. One of my former CO’s, Corral Remington is commanding a regiment on the Beaverton base.I’ll contact him directly. He’s a career officer, and we can trust him. If I ask him to send a warship to get us, he’ll request an entire fleet.”

“Sounds good,” I said looking around myself. This entire fiasco had been making me paranoid, and I found myself frequently looking over my shoulder. “I better get to work. My supervisor is anal about punctuality.” I turned to continue on to my duty station and knew that we would most likely never speak of the events from the night before ever again.