“I see it as a gift box. The cluster at the top is like a curly bow.”
“I see it! Constellation Gift Box.”
“Sure.” Not exactly what I had in mind for a name, but at least she was seeing what I did.
“Well, Earth girl, you’ve seen out into space, had your body rocked by your mates and caught up on your beauty sleep. So how about a tour around the ship? I mean, you’re Lady Karter now, in charge of the entire civilian side of things, so I’d think you’d want to see the inside of the battleship you run now. And it’s named after your mate’s family.”
Battleship Karter. Suddenly, all those third person references made more sense. Kaed hadn’t been talking about himself, but about the ship with the same name we were on.
“Wait. Did you just say I’m in charge of something?”
My disbelief must have been clear on my face, because Chloe laughed. “Oh, yeah. You’re the boss now. Anything not military will have to go through you. School. Food. Social events. Civil disagreements.”
Holy hell, this was in introvert’s worst nightmare. “Like what?”
“Not a lot happens around here to argue about, but let’s say two people are bickering over personal quarters, or someone is playing their music too loud.”
“Are you kidding me?”
She shook her head. “Nope. As the commander’s mate, you’re like the mayor of the battlegroup. The only person who outranks you is Karter himself, and only because he’s the military commander. You’re like the civilian commander. He only outranks you because we live in a war zone, but most civilian or not-critical decisions will be yours to make.”
Not a big deal, right? I could breathe through this. “How many people live in my little space town?”
“Just over five thousand. But with the incoming survivors from the Varsten, it’s more like nine thousand at the moment.” Chloe’s grin was absolutely unrepentant. She was enjoying this. “Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll do great. You’re brilliant, so you’ll adapt.”
So much for having someone from home who would understand me. She was just as crazy as the rest of them appeared to be. “I don’t know anything about any of that. I’m a total introvert, Chloe. I’m serious. I’m more comfortable with a calculator or a telescope than people. And stars don’t talk back. They don’t change.”
“Won’t matter. The people on this ship will come and ask you anyway. And you have a lot of personnel around to help you.” She punched me on the shoulder and I was proud of myself for not flinching. “Come on. Let’s get o
ut of here so you can meet your devoted fans. Everyone wants to meet you. You’re a celebrity.”
A celebrity? Was she insane? Only one way to find out. I was Lady Karter now, mayor of a space town in a war zone with nine-thousand aliens depending on me for answers. Holy shit. Warden Egara hadn’t told me a damn thing about this. But I was not a coward. Just because I didn’t like to be around people didn’t mean I couldn’t do it when I had to. And no way I was going to hide in this room for the rest of my life. “Okay. I’d love to look around. And I’m starving.”
“I’m an I.C. Commander. I think I can handle a tour and lunch.”
“Lunch? How long was I out?”
She checked something on her wrist, some kind of data display built into the arm of her uniform. “Looks like you transported back to the Karter about sixteen hours ago, give or take.” She tapped something and shrugged. I noticed she did that a lot. Nothing seemed to bother her. “They run on a twenty-five-hour day out here, so it’s not a bad adjustment. Really similar to what your body is already used to. You’ll adapt in no time.”
“I never sleep that long.” But it did explain why I was so hungry. I hadn’t had a real meal since before the processing dream on Earth. And then… well, Kaed and Ronan had worn me out.
I knew I blushed as the thought crossed my mind, but Chloe just laughed. “I bet you were busy. Post-battle adrenaline plus new mates. Wow, must have been explosive.”
I didn’t respond because I had a feeling she wasn’t digging for dirty details, just stating fact.
“I’ll start at the beginning then. Karter asked me to come and check on you since you were zonked out. I can’t believe you transported twice and still were conscious enough for sexy times.”
I had no idea the effects transporting had on other women from Earth, so I didn’t think anything special about my supposed accomplishment. But I didn’t have time to explain any of that, because Chloe kept talking.
“Karter is in charge of this ship, like I said, so he’s got work. Non-stop, especially after what happened on the Varsten. Ronan, too. They’ll be back, I promise. They’re tracking down the data on that probe. In the meantime, we’ll go on that tour and I’ll give you a Welcome to Space 101 class.”
That sounded great.
“Can we start with clothes?” I asked.
Chloe laughed. “Ah yes, that is a class all in itself.” She walked into the bedroom and to a wall unit that looked like polished black marble, until bright green lines appeared, making a kind of grid. “This is the S-Gen machine. That stands for Spontaneous Matter Generator. It’s like an old-fashioned 3-D printer on Earth with a major upgrade. It will make you new clothes every day. When you’re done, you dump them in the ship’s recycling system.”
“You throw away your clothes?”