Family Barbeque
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Family Barbeque
“A crew is not a family,” said Tommy “Ray” Gunn firmly. He resisted the urge to interfere with the meat on the grill. It was getting on fine on its own. He gazed out over the purple landscape of this newly discovered planet.
“You’ve said this before,” said Ella Wright. She lifted the brim of her hat slightly to look him in the eye. “What do you mean?”
Gunn frowned at this. It was one of his command axioms, which inevitably meant it was carefully unexamined. “One might be born to a family, or join one, or find oneself… no wait, that’s how you make a family. The difference is in how you leave.”
“Feet first,” said Robb from the other side of the table.
“Leaving a family is an event, leaving a crew is just another day in the Patrol.” Gunn nodded. Yes, there was the most important difference.
“I’m heart-broken,” said Wright.
“Don’t get me wrong. I like you Wright, and if you requested a position in a team I was running I’d take you on. But if our tour together finished and you went on to your next assignment and we never saw each other again, well that’s the nature of a crew. We work together and live together but we aren’t bound for life.”
Wright looked out at the rest of the crew, Jack the cyborg who had been with Gunn since his inception, Robb who had died under his command a half dozen times, Quintillius who had followed Gunn since the last time he was busted down to Able Patroller. “Hmm.”
“So I’m not your father or your brother or your second cousin twice removed. I’m your boss. And the other thing is that a crew will wait on the investigation.” He glanced about at the smoking shuttle lying broken-backed down the slope. “A family would have already assigned blame for the incident.”
Wright nodded slowly. “Let me get you another drink.”
“A tube of Dr Perky thanks,” he said.
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