In Ashes Born (A Seeker's Tale From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 1) by Nathan Lowell Page B

and she couldn’t engineer without a captain.” I rubbed a hand across my eyes, trying to dispel the images.
    “So you blame yourself because she’s dead?”
    “If I hadn’t started the company. If I’d been smarter about it. If I hadn’t hired her on.” I felt my breath shuddering in and out and had to stop for a moment. “She’d still be alive.”
    “All right, let’s talk about this captain-crew barrier for a bit. Tell me about that.”
    “Easy. I don’t screw with crew. Never have. Well, except her.”
    “That’s charming. Where did you hear that?”
    He surprised a short laugh out of me. “It started with Alys Giggone.”
    His eyebrows shot up. “You had the hots for Alys?”
    I laughed again. “She was my first captain. The Lois McKendrick was my first ship. They had a nonfraternization policy aboard.”
    “No intimate relationships among the crew members.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Was it enforced?”
    “How do you mean?”
    “Did you ever see anyone engaging in fraternization? Did they get punished? Was it part of the standing orders?”
    “I never observed it. It was just part of the culture of the ship.” I paused thinking of Bev and Bril. “We lost at least one crewman because he wanted more latitude.”
    “He liked the idea of bunk bunnies?”
    I coughed in surprise.
    “I’ve heard the term before,” he said.
    “Yeah. And he was roundly derided for his predilection.”
    “You were what? Eighteen? Nineteen?”
    I nodded.
    “And you were good with this rule?”
    “It made things a bit difficult for me, but I understood the rationale.”
    “And you didn’t want to be seen in the same light as that other guy.”
    I shrugged. “My mother raised me alone. I learned a lot from watching her suffer.”
    “So, do you wonder why we headshrinkers like to talk about mothers?”
    He caught me off guard with that one, too. “No, I guess it makes sense.”
    “Were you ever in on a ship where this nonfraternization rule wasn’t in place?”
    “My first posting out of the academy was a den of depravity called the William Tinker .”
    “Den of depravity. That’s a bad thing?”
    “It was. I’m not being overly judgmental with that. The captain abused the crew sexually and allowed his first mate to do the same. That went all the way to torture, assault, and hospitalizations. At least one crewman died under suspicious circumstances.”
    He twitched and the grin left his eyes, but remained fixed on his lips. “What did you do?”
    “That was my welcome to the fleet as an officer.” I sighed. “I did what I could. Worked with the crew that would work with me. I was the only male officer who didn’t abuse them.”
    “Why didn’t Geoff Maloney do anything?”
    I shot him a glance.
    “Yeah. I’ve seen your public jacket. Alys sent it over,” he said.
    “Back then none of the contracts allowed for appeal outside of the chain of command. What the captain did in space stayed on the ship until and unless the captain brought in the authorities. With the contracts he had, Mr. Maloney’s lawyers felt he had no grounds for dismissal and cautioned him against risking the company in court.”
    “Yet, you broke it open.”
    I shook my head. “No, I was just the catalyst. I didn’t actually do anything. That was the chief engineer and the cargo master. The first mate had his bully boys attack me one night. It didn’t work out well for the mate, and the captain made a mistake. That allowed the company to step in, remove him from command, and replace him with a captain who could bring in the authorities to put an end to it.”
    “And you stayed there until you made captain.”
    “I did.”
    “I see.” He glanced at the chrono. “Well, our time is up for today but that sounds like a good place to pick up next time. How long will you be on-planet?”
    “I was planning on a few weeks, but it may only be a few days.”
    “All right. We’ll have to move fast. I’m going to give you some