Savage By Nature Read online

It was 6:26 when she was ready to go, unsure of whether to linger in here or outside the room.

  At 6:28 she ultimately decided to gather her PDA and head out into the corridor.

  Godunov, Ngo, Baez, and Loudon were already there. They loitered outside their rooms, facing away from their doors so the scanners wouldn’t track their faces. Godunov and Ngo were speaking at a regular volume, apparently passionate about their topic but with their accented voices overlapping, Felina couldn’t decipher it. Meanwhile Baez and Loudon spoke erratically, while teetering on their heels in boredom.

  Soundproof to an extent, Felina knew she hadn’t heard even the faintest noise inside her room.

  “Hello, ladies,” she said on approach of Baez and Loudon. “Good morning.”

  “Sabartinelli, is it?” Loudon asked with a raised brow.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Felina Sabartinelli. Quite a name.” Baez smiled.

  “Why thank you! And you, Miss Zoe Baez.”

  The three women got acquainted well, interacting already more so than they had in the previous weeks whether aboard the Rüppell, Columbus, or Dingir. Given, Felina had been the most soft-spoken, but now that they were not only aboard the eminent Manticore but interacting with its key crew, she saw it best to familiarize herself with these colleagues.

  Afterall, they were of the same profession.

  And while in subliminal competition in the long run, this wasn’t a game show or rat race. Felina was glad to perceive the others feeling the same way, or at least most of them. The only other documenters she judged—albeit prematurely at the moment—to be less than cordial about this fact might be Calloway, Baxter, and Wisniewski. She was only guessing on Baxter due to her youth, which she knew wasn’t an accurate trait to jump on but didn’t want to drop any precautions she may have about anyone. Calloway was most obvious, although the minor attraction she had toward him hoped he didn’t fit the asshole bill. And Wisniewski, despite being soft-spoken, had a devious vibe to him that Felina couldn’t shake.

  Once again, she figured, reading people when she should be focusing on more important matters.

  She couldn’t wait to take the Thomas Asher tour, as much as the man unnerved her, everyone that came from the Samum knew that the labs were where their reports would truly shine. Speaking of which, she also wondered briefly on the whereabouts of the Samum crew, and how they were perceiving this deluxe vessel.

  “It was, in one word, amazing,” Baez replied.

  Felina brought herself back to reality, as it were.

  “Did it have a pool?” Loudon asked.

  “Oh, yeah. It was probably three-quarters the entire rec center. Right in the middle, and surrounding it, the exercise machinery. State-of-the-art stuff, I’m tellin’ ya. You gotta go there tonight…if we have time, I mean.”

  “I think after today, I just might have to,” Felina added. “Especially if we interact with Asher at all.”

  The two women shared a chuckle.

  “Don’t worry, Sabartinelli,” Baez said with a subtle grin, “they’ve got punching bags too.”

  Felina and Loudon beamed.

  Just then the other auto-doors opened, and the rest of the USRD documenters filed out into the corridor. As if on cue, and evidently on time to the dot, Cassel arrived from down the corridor, visible immediately after a bend thirty feet away.

  “Here she comes, boss lady,” Baez murmured, lips barely moving. “I feel like I’m in the Army or something here.”

  “I assure you, Baez,” Cassel said once fifteen feet away, startling the young woman, “you mustn’t feel that way. This isn’t a military vessel, we belong to the USRD for a reason.”

  Baez, blushing, cleared her voice and apologized.

  “No worry,” Cassel smiled briefly, arriving with a fixed stance and PDA cradled between her right hand and hip. “Any firmness of demeanor from you all will be a compliment to us, especially the Captain. Afterall, your presence is of great resolve and your reports, based on their accuracy and sincerity, determine a great deal for the Manticore. So, I appreciate any of your austerity, as long as it’s benevolent. If you have questions of any caliber or quantity, do not hesitate to ask myself or your future tour guides. I see that…all of you are present, and assume you’re up to par with the provided PDA’s.”

  Cassel took a breath, gazing over the faces before her. The documenters had gathered into an uneven line. Meanwhile, other personnel sporadically passed them by in the corridor, but not enough for congestion.

  Nobody posed any objections or inquiries to Cassel’s words, so she saw fit to carry on.

  “If you’d follow me, keep to the right, and I’ll speak as loudly as I can. Any stragglers will find yourselves wishing you hadn’t fallen behind.”

  Felina, Baez, and Loudon were closest to the front. Felina was right behind Loudon, and Baez behind her. After that it was Ngo, Godunov, Baxter, Calloway, Schuman, Wisniewski, and Zometa. Half of the group had their PDA’s out—each a bit smaller than a clipboard—fingers dabbling on the hologram surface, tapping or sliding. Felina kept hers close but in hibernation. She sought only to use it when they arrived at the bridge, and when Ikabu brought them to the security center. Supposing they get a tour of the labs later, she would have it glued to her hands with the screen more than just ‘on.’

  For the time being, at least, it was a basic tour.

  The faces passing them by all wore similar uniforms, identical only if they belonged to the same sector. Felina’s attention resided in Cassel’s voice and her hand gestures, indicating places of interest in the vessel that they passed. Briefly they would pause as she spoke about the area, never garnering a lot of interest or importance but still more so than the unknown passersby. This said, Felina kept the strangers at the back of her mind; faces she probably wouldn’t recognize again, uniform colors and styles blended into a mural of forgetfulness.

  En route to the bridge, their corridor path was simple and a bit on the boring side. Most of the places they paused at for Cassel to explain were already available for discernment in the PDA’s map of the vessel, let alone the bedside Manticore brochure.

  Areas like maintenance rooms, the kitchen, cafeteria—not as impressive as she’d expected, nonetheless massive—access routes to the starboard lifts, staircases, and recreation center.

  All of these on the median level of the Manticore.

  Between their lodging and the bridge, they had passed three lavatories as well. Felina reckoned that if someone was walking the corridor as fast as most of the passengers were seen to, they could cross this distance in fifteen minutes at the most. Going their current speed, including Cassel’s tour-based interruptions, it took them about fifty minutes. Felina felt that a lot of Cassel’s speech was unnecessary, such as explanations regarding the maintenance rooms and even lavatories, but she didn’t hold this against her. Afterall, the woman was Ensign of the vessel and as a secondary authoritative position under the Captain, these elaborations were understandable.

  Besides, the documenters were here to stay for ten days. Felina expected all of the touring to end by Friday, Saturday at the latest, giving them most of the weekend to relax and unwind while socializing with crewmembers for a more personal approach to understanding the Manticore. Then, come next Monday, they could resume focus on their reports, collating data and comprising it into coherent files.

  Cassel finally reached the bridge, accessed from the main corridor via an opaque reinforced glass double-door. It opened as per a facial recognition scan of Cassel, announcing her name prior to granting access. Cassel beckoned the others to follow, feasible due to the door’s inability to close while a presence was detected in its threshold. Once Zometa was clear, it sealed shut behind them.

  Entering the bridge of the Manticore, Cassel extended her right arm and welcomed them. She then said that they could fan out, but never go farther than her.

  Felina couldn’t not be impressed even if she tried.

 
“Often referred to as the Bubble or Atrium of the Manticore, its bridge is its command center, where duties such as navigation, internal and external communications, perceptive exploration, and system maintenance is conducted.”

  Cassel’s words were diaphanous to Felina at the moment. She might have heard them, recognized their existence in the English language, but her thought process hadn’t properly registered them. She was too busy marveling at the beautiful structure that was this ‘Atrium.’ She grasped why it would be called the Bubble, too, and why it was technically a structural atrium.

  The bridge of the Manticore, Felina now occupied.

  A momentous milestone for her.

  Its ceiling was high, to say the least. Thrice as far-reaching as the vast cafeteria, and on all sides. The bulkheads extended up at a gradual angle, curving to reach the apex of the ceiling, which was eighty-percent silica-palladium glass. This formed a virtually unbreakable canopy that allowed the occupants of the bridge to physically see what was above and ahead of them without the assistance of digitally-enhanced imaging. Of course, the latter was necessary to properly navigate the stars and provide safe travel.

  The bridge, although located on the median level of the Manticore, was structurally a gap in the vessel’s architecture. It was as if the bridge’s Atrium was a head peering out of steel underbrush, vital enough to part them for sake of viewing the surroundings. Given the proximity of the bordering exterior hulls, especially since the bridge was still roughly a thousand feet from the bow, this did not create a safety hazard. Due to its inset position, it was considerably protected in the instance of a potential collision.

  The opposite posed a common structural flaw in most United Systems vessels, whether RD or MB—military branch. Most frequently, the bridge was located on the underside of the spacecraft, although on some models they weren’t exposed at all.

  In this case, Felina was most impressed and satisfied.

  Control wise, the bridge was extremely competent. A single row of three computer terminals hugged either side of the open floor, with uniformed men and women seated behind each desk. They tapped and swiped hologram screens, inputting and analyzing data when they weren’t typing away at hover-keyboards. Despite all of these actions at once, the bridge was substantially quiet.

  Perhaps most impressive was the orrery at the bridge’s center, and the raised path arching over it. This path had a single guardrail facing the bow, thus the front of the room. Due to its synonymy with ‘bridge,’ Cassel indicated that it was called the pulpit. From here, whose apex extended eight feet off the floor, the Captain would be able to best observe anything in the room as well as inspect the orrery.

  The orrery itself, which comprised the center of the bridge and thus directly in front of the pulpit, was a hologram system displaying the Manticore’s current trajectory in correlation to the nearest planet, as well as its occupying galaxy.

  Sighting it for herself, now, was breathtaking.

  Felina briefly fumbled with her PDA before getting a hold of it and jotting notes. Cassel informed them that recording video or snapping images with their PDA’s of anything within the confines of this room was prohibited, and that the PDA itself wouldn’t allow them to as long as they were inside. The same went for the security center and research labs, but anywhere else would be permitted.

  “Access to the bridge, as you noticed upon our entry, is limited to the personnel in here now as well as the Captain, myself, and the three lead crewmembers you’ve already met.” Cassel surveyed the bridge, taking a few steps further in, approaching the pulpit’s base but not ascending it. “However, nobody can access the bridge unless previously done so by the Captain himself, typically first thing in the morning. And unless Captain Keyes is present in the bridge, none of the other crewmembers are allowed to enter unless myself, the announcer, or our navigator. This of course doesn’t include anyone already present in the bridge at the time of the Captain’s departure.”

  Felina thought it was odd for the announcer to have such high access, and was sure to take note of it.

  Meanwhile, Cassel beckoned the navigator from his seat at the foremost section of the room. He had sat with his back to the orrery, about ten feet from its edge, behind a terminal display that easily dwarfed the others.

  The man approached Cassel and the documenters, wearing a look of enthusiasm that probably took one too many caffeine capsules. He had a fairly young face with jawline stubble, soft brown eyes, and thinning hair the color of wet soil. Despite these features he had a surprisingly commanding voice, with a mild German accent.

  “Karl Brennan, the Manticore’s chief navigator,” Cassel said, stepping aside for him to shake the documenters’ hands.

  Felina was a bit taken off guard by this kind of greeting, quite the opposite of the austere introductions Captain Keyes had given his lead crewmembers. Nonetheless, she didn’t mind the change in pace, and found this Brennan fellow to be rather genuine. He was probably in his early forties, but Struck Felina as very handsome.

  “Nice to meet you all,” Brennan said. “I sure hope the Manticore has impressed so far. Every day I spend in this room is brighter than the last, I must say, it’s honestly an honor to navigate the stars with such an incredible vessel.”

  Felina felt confident in her human-polygraph capabilities, and currently perceived Brennan’s enthusiasm as authentic. His morning giddiness was probably to blame for any scattered speech or fidgeting fingers, but upon returning to his terminal he became a man of stone concentration.

  Cassel proceeded with the introduction of the Manticore’s announcer, which was a title the woman wore as if royalty, and was treated as such. Felina briefly wondered if the woman had relations with Keyes, but the thought dissipated as quickly as it had arrived.

  “Irene Birch, the pleasure’s mine,” she said, exchanging handshakes. She was tall, big-boned, with a comely fair-skinned face and strong features. She had ashen blonde hair tied back into a high bun and deep blue eyes. Her voice was deeper than expected, but not virile. “Trust me, for my position all I do is call names—so-and-so to here, so-and-so to there. Now, finally, faces! Truly, I’m glad to meet the gavels of Manticore.”

  Cassel suddenly snapped Birch’s name under her breath, with heavy eyes that made the announcer apologize before wishing the documenters the best and returning to her console. She sat nearest the entrance, so close to the bulkhead in her own corner that Felina hadn’t even noticed her upon entering the bridge.

  “Um, she said ‘gavels’?” Baez asked, brow raised.

  “Yes, well, I suppose in a place as large as this—USRD or not—nicknames are bound to be born.” Cassel cleared her throat and guided the documenters away from the pulpit and to the right side of it. Felina noticed a ramped path leading down between two bulkheads to an auto-door practically hidden away. Cassel’s voice drew Felina back to her. “Some of the crew have taken it upon themselves to call you ‘gavels’ in lieu of your judgmental status of the Manticore following this visit. I sincerely apologize for this slippage, although it was bound to happen eventually, especially during your lunch time in the cafeteria.”

  “I wouldn’t look at it as an issue, ma’am,” Godunov said. “I, personally, am honored to have any say in the ‘judging’—for lack of a better word—of the eminent Manticore. Besides, my reports of the crew’s competence and the vessel itself is unbiased to such trivialities. Considering the setting, the location, and the number of crew, having such nicknames is only logical. Certainly not intolerable, as long as we’re treated kindly.”

  “You speak highly, and I hope that your colleagues feel the same way, Mr. Godunov,” Cassel said, clearly regaining her composure. “As I assure you, too, that kindness is our crew’s maxim.”

  Godunov nodded warmly and the rest of the documenters accorded. Then Felina posed the obvious question.

  “Excuse me, Miss Cassel—but where is the Captain?”

  “Frankly, I expected him to be here,�
� Cassel replied, tilting her head as she looked at Felina. Cassel crossed the bridge to hover over Birch’s shoulder with hands behind her back. She spoke quietly, and Birch responded similarly. Then Cassel nodded and withdrew, turning back to face the documenters. “It appears that the Captain is tending to matters in the main labs, and will be preoccupied for at least the next hour. All in good time, though, since Ikabu should be arriving soon.”

  “Excuse me, Miss Cassel, one more question if I may?” Felina asked with a partially raised hand.

  “Of course, Sabartinelli, what is it?”

  “The door over there, down the ramp,” Felina asked. “Where does it lead?”

  “Ah, yes, that is the Skipper’s Door, as it’s casually called aboard the Manticore. It provides direct access to the Captain’s personal quarters, via a walkway that leads starboard to the lower level. From there is a path accessible only to him via facial recognition, and myself via passcode entry. It leads to the lifts and main engine room, the latter which contain crew specific to that sector.”

  Felina was more than sufficiently answered. She thanked Cassel while taking notes on her PDA.

  Cassel proceeded to ask Birch from across the room to page Ikabu.

  “Imam Ikabu, Head of Security, to the bridge, please. Imam Ikabu to the bridge. Thank you.”

  Inside the room, Birch’s voice was echoed by the intercom announcement, so as to confirm that it had been broadcasted appropriately.

  While they waited, Cassel allowed them to linger in the area, but nobody exceeded where she stood. Thus, nobody got a closer look at the orrery, which was naturally everyone’s key fixation. Three minutes later Ikabu arrived via the sliding double-doors, marching through with an ambivalent look on his rugged face.

  “I was already en route, Cassel, but I appreciate the beckoning,” he said.

  “Just making sure, Ikabu.” Cassel flashed a grin, almost out of mockery, and Ikabu sighed gutturally. Cassel proceeded to bid farewell to the documenters, thanking them for their courtesy, attentiveness, and patience. Some of them returned this verbal gesture, Felina sure to include herself in hopes of neutralizing any static between her and the Ensign.