Making Of A Starship Captain Ch 02 1

The Making Of A Survey Service Captain

By Gary L.M. Martin

[Note: This Science Fiction story is an

intense character study

with occasional sex scenes.]

Chapter 1: The Grade School Years

Captain's Log, Stardate Supplemental, Michael Taylor, USS Comet, Commanding:

I have taken a landing party down to the unexplored world of Gamus II. It is filled with forests and rivers and oceans that are really wild! And I am the first man to land on the planet! I see all sorts of amazing things! There are giant giraffes, but these giraffes had lines instead of spots, and they ate people instead of plants! They started to attack us, so we opened fire with our compression rifles, bam bam bam bam bam-

"Ow!"

Mike Taylor rubbed his arm. "Darden, you hit me!" He looked up at his brother, who was grinning at him as he stood inside Mike's bedroom.

Darden grinned. "Mom said to tell you dinner was ready."

"But I was making a Captain's log entry!" Mike whined.

"Sorry, Lifeboat," Darden grinned. And then he was gone.

Lifeboat

.

That's what Darden called him now. Ever since the incident on the

Arcturus

, two years ago, Darden called him Lifeboat. He still harbored a grudge that his parents had chosen Mike and not him to be saved on the Survey Service scoutship. Why should Darden blame him? He hadn't make the decision. Mom and Dad did.

Darden had always been jealous of the attention Mom and Dad had given him, ever since he was born. Before Mike, Darden had been the only child. But when Mike was born, Darden had been forced to share his parents with Mike. But after their sister Val was born, Darden didn't heap scorn on her; somehow, though, brothers were different.

Mike rushed to the dinner table.

"Took you long enough," said his father.

"I was making a Captain's log entry, Dad," said Mike. "I was practicing, for when I join the Survey Service."

His father sighed. "Mike, I wish you would give up this fantasy."

"It's not a fantasy," Mike insisted. "I am going to join the Academy, right when I graduate high school."

"I almost wish the Survey Service hadn't saved us," Dad sighed.

But Mike wasn't listening. He was sure that he was going to join the Survey Service. He would be brave and bold, just like Captain Renton. He watched reruns of a holoshow called

Survey Trek

, a space drama which was based on the Survey Service. It featured a big, brave handsome man named Captain William Burgess who would always be brave and bold and strong. He would fight enemies hand to hand and more often than not get his shirt ripped, showing off his handsome chest. He would also kiss girls too, but always right before commercial breaks, and afterwards he would always be doing something completely different, which confused Mike for a number of years, until he eventually figured it out.

There were actually several iterations of

Survey Trek

, but Mike didn't like the later ones, which featured much more talk than action, and focused on weird things like skin color and sexual orientation and recycling. Mike watched and rewatched the original series over and over. His favorite episode was the one where a glowing alien changed everyone's compression pistols into swords, and Captain Burgess had swordfights with Ramadhan Corsairs on his ship. Mike estimated he had seen that episode at least 38 times.

Mike attended Lorena Hickok Middle School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was called

progressive

, though Mike didn't really learn the meaning of that word until many years later. He learned in school that Lorena Hickok had been a friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of President Franklin Roosevelt, back when the United States had been an independent country, before it joined the World Government. At first it confused Mike to learn his school had been named after a friend of the President's wife. It was explained to him that Lorena Hickok had been a very special friend of Mrs. Roosevelt, a special friend who could give her things that her husband couldn't. Mike concluded that Lorena Hickok must have been a really special friend to get a whole school named after her.

Mike didn't have many friends in school. Kids thought he was weird. While kids were playing together at lunch, Mike would be sitting on a bench, his eyes glazed, his mind thinking of adventures in space, his mouth making "boom" or "zap" noises as he imagined space battles he was participating in. Meanwhile the boys were playing Equalball during recess, each one dutifully taking their turn to kick the ball into the goal while the others respectfully stood on the sidelines and clapped. The girls had their own fun, playing word games such as "What color will my husband's eyes be?", "How big will my husband's hands be?" and the ever popular "How much money will my husband make after the wedding?"

The kids ostracized him. They called him

Captain Taylor

and

Space Cadet

. Mike did have one friend, though. His name was Bob Petrovic. Bob said that he too wanted to join the Survey Service when he grew up. They played Survey Service games together, like Rescue, or Fight the Ramadhan Pirates, or Hunt the Manophobes, or Delete the Drug Dealers.

Mom thought his play activities were mostly harmless, but objected to the fact that every time they played Delete the Drug Dealers, the villains had names like Little Pepe or El Curo or Alienza. She said that was racist and she wanted the drug dealers to have more ordinary names like Fred or Bob or John. When Mike made the mistake of telling her that drug dealers on

Survey Trek

didn't have those kind of names, she began to wonder aloud if he should be allowed to watch the show. Just like Dad.

And of course Mike also played with Mister Peepers. Mister Peepers was his best friend and slept with him every night. One time Darden stole Mister Peeper's battery and hid it for three days. Mike cried and cried until Dad forced him to give it back.

********

An interesting conversation was taking place, deep inside of Mike's brain.

Curiosity tapped Ambition on the shoulder. "Oh, hey there," said Ambition.

"Hey yourself," said Curiosity. "There's someone who wants a chat with you."

"Someone? Who?" Ambition asked.

"I don't know," said Curiosity.

"How can you not know?" Ambition asked.

Suddenly, the environment melted around him, and Ambition found himself somewhere else. With someone else.

"Who are you?" said Ambition. He usually recognized everyone on sight, having had interactions with nearly every motivation in Mike's brain.

"I don't really have a name," said the newcomer. "You can call me... Galactic Hope, for want of a better term."

"Galactic Hope?" said Ambition. He squinted. "You're not from around here, are you?"

"No."

"And you're not someone else's ambition."

"No."

"Then if you're not from Mike's mind, and you're not from the Ambition plane, how are we even able to talk?" This meeting was getting odder by the minute.

"Let's just say I'm from a plane of existence that is perpendicular to your own, and intersects it in parts."

Ambition shook its head. None of this made sense. "What do you want?"

"It is very important to us that the one called Mike Taylor succeeds in his ambition to join the Survey Service."

Ambition gave a laugh. "Mike Taylor? He's a dreamer. An outcast. He'll be lucky to graduate high school. I have difficulty enough just getting him motivated to do his school work. He'll never amount to much."

"No, you are mistaken," said Galactic Hope, and there was something in its voice, something so authoritative, that Ambition found himself focusing with great seriousness. "Michael Taylor is destined for great things. He will become one of the greatest Captains in Survey Service history. He will save the galaxy."

"Mike Taylor... will save the galaxy?" This was too much, even for Ambition.

"Yes. You must nurture his interest in the Survey Service, and promote it at every opportunity."

Ambition paused, and then held out his hands. "Sure. That's my job, I mean. To make him have ambitions. I'll try my best. But I really think you have the wrong guy."

"We don't." The environment around Ambition started to fade. "You... will... see....."

********

In the fourth grade, Mike learned that there were currently seventy two different genders, and that the number of different kinds of genders were growing almost daily. Teacher made the students go through exercises to help figure out what their gender was, and the School Counselor followed up with individual sessions. At first Mike was sure of what he was. "I'm a boy," he would insist, stubbornly, but his teachers were equally stubborn in telling him he was not.

After several intensive counseling sessions, Mike gradually became convinced that he was the robot gender. He was given assignments in class to help reinforce his new gender identity. He was made to write an essay describing what it felt like being robogendered. By now fully convinced he was robogendered, Mike wrote that it felt very good, and he felt very empowered, because he knew how powerful robots were.

********

Self-Image looked in the Mirror. He saw a robot looking back at him.

"I am a robot," he said smugly. "A robot. I am a robot."

Ambition tried to shake some sense into him. "You're no robot!"

"I am a robot," said Self-Image, preening in front of the mirror. His metallic image shined back at him. He had a metal body and metal arms and legs and a metal head. "School says I am a robot. So I must be a robot."

"No, you are simply a little boy, a little boy who is getting distracted, who is getting off track," said Ambition desperately.

But Self-Image would not be moved.

********

When the school felt he was ready, Mike was sent home with a note stating that he was robogendered, and that he would go through a period of adjustment, and that his parents should be understanding and encourage him in his wonderful journey of gender self-exploration.

But Mom and Dad were

not

accepting of his new gender, and Dad even wondered aloud if he should have been home schooled, until Mom reminded him that the World Government had ruled that home schooling was anti-communitarian, and punishable by five years in a rehabilitation colony.

"I'm a robot, just like Mister Peepers!" said Mike gleefully, hugging his dog.

Dad turned red and Mike thought he was going to burst.

But Dad got his revenge at dinner. When Mike sat down to eat, and Mom served him, Dad took his plate of food away.

"Hey!" said Mike. "Why did you do that?"

"Robots don't need to eat," said Dad, with a nasty grin on his face.

"But... but...."

"But what?"

But

. Mike didn't have an answer for that. Mom seemed about to say something, and her eyes watered with sympathy, but a glare from Dad shut her up.

And then later, upstairs, when he went to go to the bathroom, Dad was there, blocking the way. "What?" Mike said.

"Robots don't need to go to the bathroom." Dad had another evil grin on his face. Could he really be enjoying this?

Mike's jaw dropped as he realized the implications of this.

********

"I am a robot," said Self-Image, looking into the mirror.

"But I have to go to the bathroom!" said Bodily Needs.

"I am a robot," Self-Image repeated.

"No you're not, if you feel like you're going to explode on the inside!" said Bodily Needs. He touched Self-Image's body. "Feel that?"

Self-Image suddenly felt a tremendous pressure in his bowels. "Oh... oh... oh..... All right, I'm not a robot!"

********

And that was the beginning, and the end, of Mike's gender identity quest at the tender age of nine.

********

Dad was an Equalitarian, and Mom was a follower of the She-Goddess Aura, so they ended up going to the First Equalitarian Church of Cambridge... at least,

at first

.

Sara, Mike's Mom, really liked Reverend Lustman's sermons, at first. He would talk about how everyone should be equal, and how the poor should have everything the rich did, and how rich people never, ever made money honestly, which is why they were rich. In the beginning, Mike's Mom enjoyed the sermons very much. But it wasn't long before the sermons began to take on an apocalyptic tone, specifically an equalitarian one, as Reverend Lustman harped on the coming Equalpocalypse.

"And the ground will open up, and the rich will fall into the cracks of the Earth! The Lord will return, and smite the rich where they stand! Their skulls will burst open like melons, and their skin will burn like fried chicken! And all their ill gotten worldly goods will be redistributed to the more worthy-"

All this talk about bursting melons and fried chicken got Mom upset, and she stopped going to church, and didn't let the kids go either. The next thing that Mike knew, Mom was taking him and Darden and baby Val to another church, one with a decidedly

different

holy message....

********

Audra Rosenbloom didn't

plan

to become a priestess; at first, she wanted to open up a health food store, one that sold dried nuts and granola. She applied for and received a special World Government grant for disadvantaged women without color, but the store quickly went out of business due to little sales. So she got a second grant from the World Government and tried again, with similar results. After the third grant and her third failure, Audra began to realize that society unfairly discriminated against purveyors of dried nuts and granola.

Feeling depressed, she attended a vegetarian barbecue at the local Church of the She Goddess which opened her eyes. Audra realized how comfortable she was with the ideology of the She Goddess. Eating meat was bad! Audra always knew that, but never knew why. Men, Capitalism, the free market--they were all destroying the environment. Audra had always sensed that too, subliminally, but when it was finally explicitly spelled out for her, it all made sense. Even her name Audra, was remarkably close to the name of the She Goddess, Aura. It was meant to be, Audra decided.

And so Audra got a degree in divinity from the Highlands Community College School of Religious and Social Justice Studies, and was graduated with top marks after getting an "A+" on her graduating thesis entitled "A woman god--if not now, when?" She worked in several ministries before being chosen to lead the one in Cambridge, where the Taylor family attended.

Sara Taylor liked the sermons at the First Coming of the She Goddess Community Church. They were filled with hope and love for the environment, and women, and women's issues, and women empowerment, which was good for Val and maybe the boys too if they would open their minds and broaden their perspectives a little. Edwin, however, would have none of it; after trying one service, he dropped out. He complained that there were very few men there, which was true, and he noticed that the men who were there all looked weak and emasculated. But Sara brought the children and they kept attending.

They quickly got to know Sister Audra. They would stand in line to talk to her afterwards. Sara got to be on good terms with her. Sister Audra took one look at Darden, at the defiance in his eyes, and never paid him any mind ever again. But Mike was a different story. She would pat him on the head, and smile at him, and look him in the eye and ask how he was, every time. Sister Audra asked Sara if Mike showed any troubling harbingers of masculinity. Sara told Sister Audra how Mike fantasized about space battles, and compression pistol firefights with alien races.

"Oh no no no, we can't have that," she said, smiling as she cupped Mike's face. "Such a dear boy! He's way too young to be corrupted by toxic masculinity! Does he eat meat? Does he urinate standing up?"

"Yes," said Sara, hanging her head, as she started to feel embarrassed.

"Don't feel bad, my child," said Audra. "I think we can save him. I want Mike to join our special boy's choir."

********

"You did what?" said Edwin, at dinner.

"I signed Mike up for the church's boy's choir," said Sara.

Edwin dropped his fork with a clatter. "Sara, I had no real objections when you joined that church, but going to church is one thing, and putting Mike in their choir is another. Haven't you heard about the scandals that have been rocking the Church of the She-Goddess?"

"Oh, those are a few isolated incidents," said Sara, waving her hand dismissively.

"A few? Almost every day we hear about Headophiles in the Church," said Edwin. "The whole problem is that they don't let their priestesses marry men. Only women."

"Aura says that women who truly serve the faith can only lay with other women. It is the way," said Sara, raising her chin.

"Yeah, but what happens when closeted heterosexual women join the church?" Edwin asked. "Their... tendencies come out in other ways."

"I'm sure Sister Audra is not like that," said Sara. "She's a committed lesbian. I can feel it."

"How?"

"From... from the way she stares at my breasts." She flushed slightly as she said it.

"I stare at your breasts, and I'm not a lesbian," said Edwin.

Sara's eyebrows furled, and she gave Edwin a nasty stare. Edwin smiled at her and resumed eating his peas.

*********

It was going to be the first of a new line of Survey Service battleships. The USS

Warspite

, bristling with megajoulers and plasma ray emitters. Mike stared at the outline of the new twenty story building under construction in downtown Cambridge, seeing its majestic steel beams jutting skywards, and knew he had to check out the spaceship that was being built just blocks away from his home.

********

"Don't go," said Ambition.

"But I want to go," said Love Survey Service.

Love Survey Service was one of Ambition's deputies. After all, they both had the same goal, for Mike to eventually join the Survey Service. But Love Survey Service was easily led astray, in this case, by Love to Play.

"It's a construction site, for an unfinished building," said Ambition.

"But we can pretend it's a spaceship," said Love to Play, putting hands around Love Survey Service's shoulders. "It will make us more excited about joining the Survey Service."

"Yes... yes, that would be fun," said Love Survey Service.

"Think about what you're doing," said Be Cautious. "This building is not meant for kids! You could fall to your death, or be crushed by something heavy!"

But Mike was only nine years old. The voice of Be Cautious was thin and reedy. He found the voice of Love to Play much more persuasive.

"It will be our first spaceship, our first command!" said Love to Play.

"Let's go!" said Love Survey Service.

********

Mike snuck in after nightfall, when the construction site was empty. Mister Peepers wanted to come too, but Mike knew Mister Peepers wasn't good at climbing, so he stowed him on his back in a knapsack.

It was easy to get in--they had only half heartedly fenced a portion of the construction site. Mike entered the ground level and shined his light around casually. This must be where the engine room would be, when the

Warspite

was finished. Oh how he would love to see the ship when it was fully built!