They had apparently put me off duty right away and I could access more ship information. Now that I could see the duty roster, I found out my shift actually ended an hour ago, but that was fine since I had arrived on the ship mid-shift anyway. Grub was apparently another word for food, and I was to find this in the galley, which was a cafeteria. I was hungry and very thirsty, having only used the suit’s nutrition straw and water tank sparingly, so that sounded like a good idea. The computer would only give me the location, not directions, but now that I understood the compartment numbering system, it was easy to find anywhere on the ship. As I made my way, it was strange to me how deserted the Shallow Water was. Bedford was densely populated and it was rare to not pass a single person while walking even short distances. Here there were only thirty other people, and I didn’t know how many kilometers of passageways per person.

  The alert came that the ship was powering up for departure. I thought of accessing the external sensors to take one last look at Bedford, but the surface was not the planet I knew, and the underground was where I was escaping from. This ship and wherever it went was my future.

  When the hatch to the galley opened, I saw Koko sitting there with a male ogre, who looked older, as best I can judge troll age, and even bigger. They were at the other end of the compartment at a table that would sit four. There were eight such tables.

  “Greenie!” a loud voice called out. I looked to my right and saw a motherly looking woman with a brilliant smile standing behind a counter.

  “Hi. Is it that obvious?”

  “You peeked through the hatch like you didn’t know what you would find, then looked around confused about what to do.”

  “I guess it would be pretty obvious.”

  “Plus you look like a child.” She seemed slightly drunk.

  “I’m in my twenties.”

  “Yes, child. Welcome to the crew’s mess. You’re the third of the new crew I’ve met.”

  “I thought it was the galley?”

  “Galley’s my side, mess is your side, at least until they send you to work for me. What can I get you?”

  “Anything’s fine. I haven’t eaten a thing since last night.”

  Cookie handed me a tray with metal utensils and a cloth napkin, then added a ceramic plate with a giant piece of meat on it. “Space dragon steak and a side of spinach and mushrooms cooked in dragon oil with dragon eye cake for dessert.” She added a small plate with a dome shaped white item that glittered slightly in the light. “The beverages and snacks are available anytime.” Coming out from behind the counter she escorted me to a display of packaged food items, drink dispensers, and a nearby refrigerator. “Might I suggest a glass of dragon’s blood wine.” She took a dark bottle from a table and a large glass, which she poured to near the rim for me and added to my tray.

  “Thanks.” I went carefully to the table furthest from Koko and the unknown ogre, not wanting to interrupt their meal, but Koko saw me and waved me over to their table.

  “Ah, Greenhand Jayden Herman. I’m Second Mate Tubbs. You see I live up to my name,” he said, patting his belly.

  “Good to meet you, Second Mate.”

  “How’ve they been treating you? Learning anything yet?”

  “I spent a couple of hours degaussing the hull.” Koko shook her head.

  “Who had you do that?”

  “Ship’s Engineer Pippin.”

  “He’s new here. I know the type. I’ll have a word with him. You see, there’s no such job.”

  “I did realize that, but I didn’t want to cause any conflict on my first day. I know that I’m the FNG slash Fresh New Gal.”

  “That’s not what the F stands for,” Koko said.

  “I know. I looked it up but I prefer mine.”

  “Would you like to file a report against Engineer Pippin?” the Second Mate asked.

  I thought about it a moment and then said, “No. It did teach me how to use the spacesuits you have, so it was educational. Maybe that was the intention. If I really need to go outside, I won’t be afraid.”

  “More than Pippin can say,” Koko added under her breath.

  “How’d you like it out there?”

  “It was fine.”

  “No harm done then. I’ll still have a word with Pippin. Hazing is not tolerated on this ship. Now, I’m off to my quarters.” He nodded to each of us in turn, “Voko, Herman,” then took his tray over to the counter, “Cookie,” and left the galley.

  “Always an empty tray,” said Cookie with a fond smile.

  “I like him,” I said to Koko. “What did he mean about his name?”

  “Joke about his weight.”

  “I never saw any ogres on Bedford.” I examined my plate. “What is this Cookie gave me to eat? She said it was dragon, but I’ve studied space dragons and they are cobalt based lifeforms, so we wouldn’t be eating them.”

  “Think it’s just steak. Cook here has a vivid imagination.”

  “Steak? Like from an animal?”

  “Tube grown. Better. I’ve had both.”

  “On Bedford we just had the five basic foods. Brown, green, yellow, and blue algae and algae fiber, all grown in giant vats.”

  “Worst food I’ve ever eaten.”

  “Normal cafeterias taste much better than the GSE.”

  “Never ate at a GSE there. Tried the supposed best places. All terrible.”

  “Even the last night? Let me tell you again how amazing that restaurant you took me to was.”

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  “Hardly edible. Part of the reason you look like a flagpole. Try the steak.”

  I cut off a small piece and ate it. Almost as soon as it touched my tongue, I moaned. I chewed and the flavor filled my mouth, tasting better than anything I had ever encountered. “How can anything taste this good?”

  “Ship has a great cook. Makes everything with wine, beer, or liquor, I hear, and takes some sips herself along the way.”

  “I thought she seemed slightly inebriated. Is it safe to eat this?”

  “Alcohol burns off during cooking. Watch out for the cake though. Eat that before a shift and get reported drunk on duty.”

  “We don’t have alcohol on Bedford, unless you know a bootlegger.”

  “Name of that club you took me to was misleading.”

  “They had root beer.”

  “Didn’t even taste like that.”

  “But you did find what you were looking for.”

  “Another skinny girl, but not as pretty as you.”

  I took a sip of the wine. “So good!” I ate a few more bites of steak, then a quarter of the spinach, which was also amazing, but I was already feeling full. “I think I believe you when you say food on Bedford is especially bad. It’s also way too expensive. Eating like this for a year already makes coming along worth it. This is so tasty I wish I was hungrier so I could eat it all like the Second Mate.” I looked at Koko’s plate, which was still half full and just a spoonful taken from the dessert. “I thought you would be a bigger eater.”

  “Have a theory about Bedford.”

  “What?”

  “Colonies over a thousand people must prove they are self-sufficient. Shortcut to that is to provide bad expensive food laced with appetite suppressants. Haven’t wanted to eat much since I ate on Bedford.”

  “You think they were drugging us?”

  “Maybe suppressing more than appetite. Let’s see if you change in any way. On my old ship I’d down two steaks easy.”

  I wondered if her theory had merit, but time would tell. For now, I turned my attention to the dessert. It looked a bit like the fiber froth they sometimes served back home, but I checked the menu posted by Cookie via my CCP and it was a rum soaked chocolate cake covered in vanilla frosting and sprinkled with sugar. I had never eaten any of those things, so the description wasn’t much help. I dug my spoon into my dessert and took a bite, closed my eyes, and savored it in my mouth.

  Koko was looking at me when I opened my eyes again. “Never seen that expression on a woman’s face before,” she paused, “in the mess.”

  I took a few more bites of the cake even though I felt full to bursting. “If this is what food is supposed to taste like, appetite suppressants weren’t necessary to keep us from eating much of what they were serving on Bedford.”

  “Agreed.”

  The desert was fantastic. The sweetness mixed with the ethanol burn of the alcohol compelled me to finish half the dessert, despite being completely full.

  “Anything else of note happen besides your walk outside?” Koko asked.

  “I met the dead head.”

  “What?”

  “Simmons.”

  “Ah. May’ve exaggerated her injuries.”

  “Was she injured at all?”

  “Think she bruised her upper arm.”

  “So, aside from made up tasks, what exactly does a greenhand do on a dragoning ship?”

  “Learn. Train. Practice. Some menial things the robots and drones do poorly. You’ll work in different areas. You have to learn to be useful before we can use you. Pippin’s a good engineer. He’ll teach you well…in his own way.”

  “Will I train with you?”

  “Ship first, then interceptor. Learn the main functions and maybe some time with Cookie.”

  “She mentioned working for her.”

  Koko nodded. “When not learning, you’ll do whatever needs doing you can do. Often nothing. Just learning. Mostly we supervise the machines that run the ship…until we face a dragon.”

  “What’s it like when you encounter a dragon?”

  “You’ll see soon enough.” I didn’t press her.

  “Is it unusual that our chief mate is an elf? I’ve always heard they don’t like to mix with us.”

  “Not a full elf. Had a great-grandparent who was human, so elves consider him human.”

  “I couldn’t tell but I’ve only ever seen elves in videos.”

  “Had the same question. Second mate told me.”

  “Can elves tell?”

  “No but they keep meticulous records since the Great War.”

  “Before my time.”

  “How old do you think I am?”

  “Oh, I know it was like a hundred years ago. I’m just not very interested in history.”

  “Four hundred years ago. Mixed elves joined the human side because they were treated as a lower class. Now they’re rejected completely.”

  “Still?”

  “Still.”

  “I think they told us about that in school. I only paid attention to lessons about aliens.”

  “I’m also surprised to find your friend Dawningsun here.”

  “She won’t tell us why. Asked once and the middle of my back itched intensely for a week. Lee denied doing it, but not going to ask again.”

  Koko looked up and I saw her four fellow survivors from her previous ship enter. After some banter with Cookie they got their food and took the table next to us.

  “You talk to the second mate about me, Greenie?” Pippin asked.

  “He asked me what duties I had performed since coming aboard and I told him.”

  Pippin seemed annoyed but spoke nothing more about it. “Why was he eating in the crew mess anyway? Doesn’t this wreck have a wardroom?”

  Koko answered. “Captain closed it, Second said.”

  “Why?”

  “Didn’t know.”

  “Simmons, you’ve been onboard longer than the rest of us. What have you heard about the captain?”

  “I know she was severely injured when they took damage from the last dragon. I was told no one on board has seen her since they left the repair facility for Bedford. She keeps to her cabin.”

  A group of three I had never seen entered the crew mess. They filled their trays and came over to us, introducing themselves as Ship’s Pilot Shaw, Navigator Knap, and Communications Operator York. Shaw and York were human and Knap an orc. The new and old crew quickly settled into shop talk. I mainly sat and listened as they spoke about things I had little context for, like what planets they were from, ships they had served on, and some specifics about this ship.

  The old crew said they wished they had been able to visit Bedford, but the captain wanted them to get back to space as quickly as possible and hadn’t authorized shore leave. The new crew then spent quite a bit of time complaining about Bedford to the point that having to stay on the ship seemed more like a blessing. I had to admit their criticisms were likely accurate and didn’t speak up to defend my former home. York mentioned that they hadn’t taken on any food supplies and everyone was relieved. I noticed that Koko’s friends also didn’t finish their meals, while the other three ate with relish and got seconds.

  I was feeling somewhat lightheaded between the wine, the dessert, and my lack of tolerance for alcohol, but my attention focused again when the talk turned to what had happened on the Shallow Water’s last journey.

  “It wasn’t just any dragon we tangled with; it was Big Jack,” Shaw said.

  “Nonsense,” said Pippin. “Foolish space legend.”

  “No is not.” Lunkfleece took a large gulp of beer. “Many ship see. Big Jack destroy.”

  “Trust me,” said Shaw. “That giant white dragon nearly ended us. Partially took down the shields over the tower and ruptured the ring.”

  “Our second interceptor sacrificed itself to save the ship and the other two. They went right for Big Jack’s head,” York added.

  “That beast hunts dragoners. I heard reports it took out four seven-kilometer ships,” Shaw continued.

  “What’s the story with the captain?” Pippin asked.

  “After Big Jack took out the shields, he bit into the ship right at the tower. He knew where the orders were coming from and his top teeth penetrated the hull right where Captain Baha was on the pri-fly. Somehow, she survived, but we didn’t find the body of the engineer you’re replacing. The bottom teeth ripped right through engineering.”

  “I’ll believe it if I see it. Dragons are just stupid hulks full of oil. Catch ‘em, ring ‘em, drain ‘em. Save those stories for Greenie here.”

  “I’ve read a lot of studies on space dragons. There’s strong evidence they’re intelligent,” I said. “Some people think we shouldn’t be hunting them at all.”

  “You think the Galagot will stop hunting them if we do? Or any of the other aliens?”

  “There are alternatives.”

  “The opinion of a troglodyte, leaving her cave for the first time,” that elicited a laugh.

  “No, she’s right,” Koko said. “They’re Smart. Not like us, but smart. You’re in engineering. We battle them.” Bulkfleece, Simmons, and Dawningsun nodded agreement.

  The conversation then turned to telling stories of harrowing encounters and examples of dragon intelligence. Most of the stories came from the interceptor crew, but Shaw, Knap, and York had some of their own. They had all served on dragoning ships for decades. Pippin was mostly silent.

  Eventually everyone made their excuses and left the mess until Koko and I were sitting alone again. I was feeling sleepy and lightheaded but not motivated to stand up. My wine glass was a quarter full, but I remembered finishing it. Did I get a refill?

  “I need to go to bed,” I said.

  “Come to my cabin first, Jayden.”

  “Okay.” I wobbled a bit when I stood up and grabbed the table to keep from falling.