The Kruton Interface Read Free

the ship was painted on a forward section of the hull. Some wag had sloppily interpolated two more letters after the penultimate one.
     
    R E P U L S iv E
     
    “How appropriate,” Wanker murmured. “How very appropriate.”
    He picked up his spacebag. It was as heavy as the sense of impending doom that now settled on him.
    Inconsolably glum, he left the observation bay.
     
    * * *
     
    Lieutenant (jg) Darvona Roundheels, blond and pretty but perhaps a tad plump, sat at her communications console, idly blowing on her prosthetic fingernails. She had just painted them a pulsing shade of fluorescent pink. Mandarin fingernails, the wickedly curving sort that came in lengths up to ten centimeters long, were the rage this year but regulations forbade such frippery. Darvona had to content herself with nails only two centimeters long, but she made up for it by painting them a new color every few days, or applying floral decals, or gilding the tips.
    She was alone on the bridge. The Repulse was all but deserted, manned only by a skeleton crew.
    Darvona resented being assigned to duty, though she had to admit that she had screwed up badly during the docking maneuver. She had been daydreaming, and—well it was an honest mistake. Anyone can make a mistake, she assured herself.
    Still, it was rotten to draw duty when ninety percent of the crew had liberty. Not that there was anything to do dirtside, except maybe hang out in the rec hall and play games. Or find some new enlisted man to have lots of sex with. Or, better yet, find two or three enlisted men to have lots of sex with. Or … even better than that—
    Her reverie was interrupted by the whoosh of the bridge’s access tube as it dropped an ensign to the deck. It was Ensign Svensen, a navigation systems engineer.
    Svensen stepped out from under the end of the transparent tube, gave Darvona a cross between a smirk and a snarl, then strode to his control console.
    “Hi, Sven,” Darvona called, giving him a fetching smile. Svensen was cute but obviously didn’t like women, because she had never fetched him with one of her smiles, not even her best man-melter. “What’s new?”
    “Word is the new captain will be here today.” Sven began punching buttons and flipping switches.
    “I hope we have better luck with this one. We don’t do well with captains.”
    “Oh?” Svensen said coolly. “Now, what would make you say that?”
    “What would make me say it? We’ve had no less than three in the last standard year. And they’ve all—”
    “Four.”
    “Four? Has it been that many? Oh, wait, you must be counting the one that got mangled when the shuttle got crushed between the ship and the tanker.”
    “Yes. Captain Moore was his name, I believe.”
    “Poor Dinty. I don’t count him, ‘cause he was in command only two days.”
    “He was captain of this ship. He counts.”
    “Well, if you insist. Four.” Darvona ruminated a moment. “Actually, when you think of it, it’s all been a result of bad luck more than anything.”
    Svensen grunted, then gave a mirthless laugh as he continued to work.
    “What’s with you?” Darvona wanted to know.
    “ ‘Bad luck.’ You must be kidding.”
    “Well, I really don’t think it was our fault. The crew’s fault, I mean.”
    “Aside from the captain that got reduced to puree, we had one suicide, one dismissed in disgrace, and one committed to psych rehab.”
    “Poor Captain Chang. I really liked her.”
    “I hear she’s doing well in occupational therapy.”
    “And I adored Captain Suomi,” Darvona said.
    “Mr. Rhodes gave a nice eulogy.”
    “Yes, it was.” Darvona shook her head sadly. “Okay, you’re right. I guess we do have our problems. We haven’t been doing so great lately.”
    “That’s one hell of an understatement. You don’t get the lowest rating in the Space Forces by being anything close to ‘great.’ And don’t forget the countless reprimands we’ve been slapped with.”
    “Who can