A Starship Called Starsong

Chapter 24

My new interrogator looked at the man beside the lie detector and asked, "Is everything set up and ready to go?"

The tech nodded submissively. "Yes, Sir."

"Excellent." He turned to face me. "You are the Captain of the Starsong?"

"Yes."

He glanced at the displays and seemed disappointed that they barely shifted. "I fail to see how you became Captain. There is no way someone in your previous position could afford to even lease a spaceship for a day. We did check, but there are no reports of stolen spacecraft that match the description of the Starsong."

How dare he insinuate that I am a thief! He watched as the anger and indignation flashed in my eyes. However, I wasn't about to let my temper get the best of me and potentially make me slip up. It took some effort, but my voice was calm. "I am the Captain of the Starsong, and I did not steal the ship. Instead of making rash accusations, why don't you ask questions instead?"

"Fine by me, what did I have for dinner yesterday?" His flippant voice was very condescending, and I immediately knew what he was doing. His scheme was quite obvious to me. He was trying to be a jerk in order to get me mad, probably in hopes that my mouth might run away with me, or that I might react violently – which would give him an excellent excuse to stick me in a holding cell.

Being calm and collected was going to ruffle this guy's feathers a lot more than anything else. He may be trying to make me mad, but I suspected that it wouldn't take much for me to kindle his already-smoldering temper.

I wasn't about to fall into his trap; the best way out of this one was to play it cool. I mildly raised my eyebrow. "Be serious."

He huffed and looked at his sheet of questions before staring at me once more. "What happened on the Tyndel? How are you now a Captain?"

I returned his gaze calmly as Starsong murmured some details into my mind. I hated to break it to my interrogator, but he really needed to take glaring lessons from my one university professor.

I said, "We had all been trying to escape, as I am sure the others who returned on the Tyndel have already told you. The emergency escape doors were locked, just as the airlock doors had been, so we couldn't bail. The ship eventually docked on some planet – I don't know the name or where it was – and there was another ship there. I was told by the one who had commissioned it that it was a gift, and he made me Captain."

The man looked skeptical. "He made a Cargo Bay assistant a Captain?"

I shrugged lightly. "I will be honest. I spent hours arguing, but since it was the only way off that planet, I eventually accepted. Now I am just trying to do as good of a job as I can to keep my word."

The man glared at the lie detector screen unhappily before jotting down some notes. He looked back up at me. "Who was this man?"

"Some questions are better left unasked, as any docking station Overseer will tell you. I deemed it wise not to inquire."

He frowned, apparently recognizing the reference to the policy the five intergalactic companies used. He narrowed his eyes as he noticed that the lie detector had skipped slightly on my last sentence. He focused on me with intense scrutiny. "You deemed it wise not to inquire? Please elaborate on that for me."

His suddenly smooth and composed voice showed that he thought he had found an opening, a way to unravel my story like a big ball of string. I continued to regard him calmly, although my heartrate had undoubtedly risen a bit. Starsong offered me some more information as I pretended to choose my words.