Across The Universe With A Giant Housecat (The Blue) by Stephanie Void Page A

docking?”
    “Docking Bay Ninety-Four.”
    I took a quick shower, then after toweling off and dressing, I took off in search of the bay. I wanted to see my new ship.
    Upon reaching the spaceport wing, I found, happily, that it was equipped with a massive picture window that looked out into space, towards the docking area.
    Ships milled about, entering and leaving, their hulls bright gray against the black of space. Which one was the Indomitable ?
    I could see the docking bays. The numbers were painted huge on each one… Twenty-Three, Twenty-Four, Twenty-Five… no, wrong level. I looked down a few levels until I found the nineties.
    Bay Ninety-Four. It was unoccupied.  
    I went over to a chair and settled down to wait for the ship to arrive.
    I didn’t have to wait long—I spotted the ship the moment it came into view.
    The sheer size of the ship was impressive. It had to be ten times the size, at least, of my little Dragontooth .
    I watched the ship move like a swan, sliding perfectly into the parking slot. The pilot was a master; his piloting was nothing like the jerky way Katelyn drove.
    This ship would be my home for the next ten weeks. Maybe longer. Northe hadn’t exactly been forthcoming about how long the mission was supposed to take once we got to our destination.
    What exactly was our mission, anyway?
    #
    When I arrived at the conference room for debriefing, everyone else was already there. A sea of Stellar Intrepid uniforms greeted me.  
    Cartus was also there. Probably Standing Admiral Northe had sent him to keep an eye on me. He introduced me to the officers of the Indomitable .
    “I’m Captain Reginald Keene,” said the man who I knew to be the captain before he even opened his mouth. His facial expression did not change as he spoke. He resembled one of the old nautical captains I had often read about, with a face that was all angles. A shock of white-gray hair was gathered into a low ponytail at his neck. His mouth was a firm line of decisiveness, and his eyes burned brightly beneath bushy gray brows.
    He looked like the kind of captain I had always imagined myself serving under—the sort of captain who inspired legends and mystery to swirl around him like ghosts. I would bet ten to one that Captain Keene had killed an enemy with his bare hands or had bit a drinking glass in half on purpose. He seemed like that kind of captain.
    Next to Captain Keene was his first officer, Louis Paczoranni. Paczoranni was everything Keene wasn’t: young, easygoing, and open. He had a bright smile that stood out intensely from his dark complexion.  
    “I’ve been put in charge of you, Wolf,” Paczoranni said. “I’ll be showing you around the ship as soon as we get under way and making sure you get in enough time observing. We’ve set up a training room for you and Selburn, the other Space Reader.”
    Selburn. So that was her name.
    After the captain and the first officer, I was introduced to a swath of other officers and crew. I could not remember most of their names afterwards, but I promised myself that I would look up the crew manifest and try to memorize as many names as I could as soon as I was settled into the Indomitable .
    I was then shown to a seat, as the debriefing was to begin. I realized I was sitting next to a woman I hadn’t noticed before. The only one not in uniform, she sat with arms crossed, chewing on her lower lip. She looked obviously uncomfortable and out of her element.  
    She was somewhere in her early or mid thirties, wearing a long black skirt and blue-gray tank top that revealed several tattoos of scientific diagrams—were those molecules? Atoms? Star charts?—on her shoulders and upper chest.  
    Her hair was cut into a spiky short-and-long style and had been dyed several shades of blue. She wore dark eye makeup and blue lipstick that matched her hair.  
    Katelyn would have loved her look.
    The woman’s blue eyes connected with mine.
    “You’re Alan Michael Wolf, aren’t