"Fuck!" Honey yelled.
"What? They missed us," I responded.
"No, a second ship is coming around the moon where we are headed," she explained.
I heard the patter of tiny feet on tile. Then Teddy appeared beside me, one hand on the edge of my console expecting another jolt any second. "Is there anything that I can do, Captain?" he asked.
"Make sure that everyone is okay," I told him. His flexibility and resiliency made him the perfect candidate for moving through the ship during a battle. "If someone is injured, tell the doctor."
Teddy disappeared as Strawberry told me she was going to find another escape route.
"Don't bother," I told her as I began freestyling the thruster controls. We started swaying back and forth gently like we were meandering through a water slide. "I'm keeping control. Work on ripping a hole to get us out of here!"
"No!" Cinnamon and Honeysuckle screamed together. Strawberry just stared at me slack-jawed.
"I'm sorry, Kash," my spice girl recovered from her panic. "Are we sure that we want to take that risk?"
"Honey," I said. "Can the computer give us a percentage chance of escaping these two fuckers without rip-jumping?"
"Working on it," she replied. Cinnamon said that she would run some numbers, too. I told Strawberry to get started on plans for that hole as I continued to fly erratically at maximum safe speed. Our pursuers were closing the gap, but not as quickly as they were earlier.
"Three," Honeysuckle said quietly. It sounded more like a peep than a word.
"Three what?" I asked.
"Three percent chance of avoiding the enemy ship's weapon fire indefinitely," she said more quietly than anyone had spoken since the attacking ships appeared. "There is zero chance of outrunning them."
"Then we need to rip the fuck out of here before we take damage to the engines," I told them. "Strawberry, get that hole lined up for the tea party."
"Teegarden?"
"Yes, Teegarden. Let the computer plot it and don't bother double-checking the data. We are doing this."
"Oh, my stars," Cinnamon mumbled. "I have to pee so bad. My nerves are pushing on my bladder."
"The second ship is gaining on us," Honey informed me, returning to her more frantic voice. "I think they are going to overtake and block our course."
"How long until that happens?" I asked.
"Based on current numbers, less than three minutes."
"How much longer do I have to wait for your hole?" I asked Strawberry. It was a rare occasion when I didn’t mean to make a sexual reference despite the words chosen.
She barely gave me a sideways glance before replying, "Two minutes. But you will have to switch back to auto to hit the enter rip-jump button."
"Give me a nav-point," I told her. "I'll switch at the last second. The only thing keeping these bastards from shooting at us is my unpredictable flight path."
A few seconds later a prompt came up on my screen to switch to auto-pilot. At the bottom of the text box was an option to see the nav-point in relation to our ship. I chose that and began turning toward it.
"They are shooting!" Honey alerted me.
I pulled one more maneuver to avoid getting hit, then returned to my freestyle driving in the general direction of our exit point.
"Can they tell that we are about to jump?" I asked. Other than shooting at us I had no idea if they had a means to block us from exiting this system through the torn fabric of our universe.
"Our engine will begin creating the hole seven seconds before we enter it," Strawberry answered. "You need to switch to auto or we are all fucked!"
"Oh, my stars," Cinnamon muttered again. No mention of urine this time.
"I'm not close enough, yet."
"Kash!" Strawberry screamed in a panic that was far beyond what I previously thought she was capable. I ignored her and waited until the countdown reached ten seconds. Gently then, keeping my cool to the point that it made me look insane, I tapped the return to auto-pilot prompt.
"They are shooting!" Honey's scream tried to out-pitch Strawberry's.
The ship suddenly rumbled. Mildly in comparison to the jolt we felt when we got hit by the ship’s weapon. It continued for a few seconds. Then my screen went blank when it finally stopped.
What the hell happened?
CHAPTER TEN:
"We did it," Strawberry said in relief. She looked like she was about to collapse. Having never experienced rip-jumping before, I was more than a little confused. I tapped my screen until a large text message popped-up reading, Locked-Out.
"Don't touch anything, Kash," the berry flavored rookie navigator told me. "We ripped over to the jump-stream. You can't pilot here. Let the computer control us until we reach the nav-hole at Teegarden."
"How long until we get there?" I asked, acting like control had just been pried from my hands. I knew that I had succeeded in getting us free, but there was an uneasy feeling in my gut.
Strawberry pointed at the screen. "Our time, two hours and twenty-three minutes."
"Our time?"
"We're in another plane of existence," she explained, regaining some of her confidence. This was something that she knew, and I didn’t. "The computer estimates that nearly two days will have passed in galactic time while we're gone, but that is difficult to confirm. This is how interstellar travel works. Sometimes we return to a station just days after we left according to our clocks, but a week had passed since we left according to them."
"Were we followed?"
"No," Strawberry laughed. When I gave her a puzzled look, she explained. "They could try to follow us, but obviously they won't."
"Why not?"
"Because nobody is as crazy as you are!"
I took that as a compliment since she was smiling when she said it. She looked happy, not condescending.
"I'm sorry for doubting you, Kash," Cinnamon confessed timidly. It looked like she was expecting me to be angry.
"Me, too," Honey added. "I won't do it again."
"Don't worry about it," I told them. "But you might want to get used to some unexpected stuff happening. I might be pulling that shit often from here on when we run into trouble."
"How did you learn to pilot like that?" Strawberry asked me with an expression of awe. I had impressed her, and not just a little bit. The multiple facets of her personality just kept rolling out on display. It was enjoyable to see.
Watching television and playing video games, I thought to reply. But that didn't support the new hero status that I had suddenly achieved. "I guess it just comes natural," I told them. I almost regretted it as soon as the words left my mouth. Even I wasn't that much of braggart. I expected laughter, but I received only reverent gazes instead.
"Captain?" Vanilla's voice came through the speaker. "Is it safe to inspect the crew and passengers for injuries?"
I glanced at Strawberry first. When she nodded, I replied, "Yes. Did Teddy reach you?"
"Yes, a moment ago," Vanilla replied. "Only minor scrapes except for Sage in the cage. Pardon my rhyme. She sustained a head injury and has some bleeding. How do we feel about that?"
Did the doctor just ask me that?
"I'll send a guard with you," I answered. When both Honey and Cinny offered, I corrected myself. "Two guards, doctor. Don't take any chances."
I sat back down in my chair and finally realized how exhausted I was from the stress. I had a sudden desire to see outside. "Can we turn on outside cameras?" I asked.
"There is nothing to see," Strawberry told me with a grin. She was experienced at rip-jumping, even if she had never before been the navigator for the maneuver. "The cameras will either show nothing or bright light or a rapid stream of computer generated particles. Our eyes cannot interpret whatever is out there. But we can program the screens to show whatever makes us comfortable. What would you like to see?"
"Pole dancing," I replied. My mind went back to an old computer screensaver I had as a teenager. Pixelated strippers d
ancing on stage, whirling around their poles.
"I don't know what that is," Strawberry replied. "But I think we need to adjust our partnership."
"Oh really?"
"It is obvious that you have some skills and leadership qualities that I do not possess. At least not at your level. But I have done a lot to get us to this point. I hope that you can see that."
"Clearly," I answered.
"So, never ignore my input," she told me. "And ask for it often. There are a lot of things about life on the galactic scale and in our modern time that you will need to adjust to, so rely on me to help you with that."
"Okay," I said, dragging it out to let her know that I was waiting to hear what she was going to say next.
"Otherwise, I will follow your lead," she said. "Everyone is already calling you captain. That didn’t go without notice. Don't disrespect me and we can make that official. But, I have to be listed as next in command. And the others must acknowledge me as such."
It happened. I had been fantasizing about it ever since I stepped foot on the ship. But somehow, I was never sure that it would materialize. I was now the uncontested captain of the Arketa Koreta.
Thinking back over my short and ill-planned life, I had to admit that this was my biggest accomplishment. Of course, Strawberry could always change her mind. But something told me that she wouldn't. What we had just gone through together had removed a barrier between us. Her ultra-professional facade had been a protection, a defense mechanism. The deflating of her ego while struggling with her new duties as navigator had encouraged her to drop the veil.
My future was so bright that I should have to wear shades, quoting an old song from my time. That got me thinking. Did sunglasses still exist? If not, how many other basic items from my time had been forgotten. Could I reintroduce products from the past and make a gazillion dollars?
I chuckled to myself. I had just been officially named captain of a spacecraft and already I was looking for something new. It would probably be even harder to become a manufacturing guru. I should put those ideas out of my head and focus more on holding onto what I already had.
"So, what is your recommendation on how to handle the Sage issue at Teegarden?" I asked my first officer. "Can we put her in a crate and hope that someone opens it before she starves to death?"
Strawberry laughed so hard that she snorted. She was so embarrassed that she couldn’t answer, still laughing but perhaps more at herself than my joke.
"Maybe she'll be ankle deep in her own piss and shit by the time they find her," I continued.
"Stop," Strawberry demanded. "You are terrible!"
"Me? You were going to leave her on the planet to be killed by those monster girls."
"True," she responded, regaining some dignity. It was a very good thing that none of the other woman were present for her snort. "I've been thinking about what to do with Sage, actually. There are a few options, not including your crate idea."
"Clark's Station at Teegarden doesn't have the most respected government in the galaxy, I'm told. We could turn Sage over to them claiming that she is a criminal and they might not launch an investigation."
"What kind of criminal?"
"There are a few things that we could accuse her of," Strawberry explained. "The real question would be if we admit that she was one of the crew or pretend that she snuck aboard our ship at the last station. Or we could even claim that she was already at Clark's. The key would be to wait until we were about to leave before we unload her."
"They won't delay our departure if we dump someone on them like that?"
"I don't know," Strawberry answered, shifting in her seat to cross her legs. I could see her slowly recovering to her old persona. "This is honestly the first time that this sort of thing has come up. We might have to wait until we investigate the place before we decide. Remember, none of us have ever visited this station before."
"Would it be possible to just kick her out the door while we're firing up our engines?" I asked. "That way we wouldn't have to answer any questions."
"You better have the doctor sedate her if you try that," Honeysuckle said as she reentered the control room. Our mechanic was wide awake now, and her clothes were fitting properly. Still barefoot, though. "She didn't stop bitching, demanding and conniving the whole time that we were down there with the doctor."
I could visualize that for sure. "Was she badly hurt?" I asked.
"No," Honey answered with a smirk. "She probably banged her head against the pipe on purpose just to get Vanilla to come visit her. Sage obviously thought that the doctor would take her side."
"How did Vanilla deal with the situation?" Strawberry asked. She was surprised when I had told her that the doctor was fully onboard with the change of leadership.
"Surprisingly well. I was glad that Cinnamon was with me at first. One of us to watch Sage while the other made sure the doctor didn't do anything to help her. But she was fine. I don't know what kind of talk you had with Vanilla, but you really adjusted her attitude."
"He probably did more than just talk," Strawberry told her with a grin. "You know how Kash likes to make friends. With his cock."
I was shocked, but Honeysuckle just rolled with it.
"Kash," my green skinned lover said looking just as ornery as her crewmate. "Did you smack Vanilla in the forehead with your big pecker like you did me?"
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
There was a slight vibration in the ship when we reentered our normal universe. It was accompanied by a brief sensation of panic. I wasn't sure if I experienced that when we ripped the hole to enter the alternate plane of existence or not. It was already a frantic situation at that point.
Some lights flickered, but the most noticeable effect was my console coming alive and the locked notification being gone. Then Teddy began making gagging noises. A moment later he dropped down from his chair and ran from the room.
"I'll check on him," Vanilla said. "It's probably jump-nausea."
My stomach was a bit queasy too, since we entered Teegarden's space. Even worse than I felt a couple hours earlier. What I thought was an uneasy feeling may have actually been nausea.
"Where is the station?" I asked. I was prepared to fly us there on manual control if needed.
"Not close," Strawberry told me as she was fully absorbed with her screen. "I'm working on a nav-point for you now. Travelling at maximum safe speed by Federation standards, we won't reach Clark's station for another fourteen hours."
"Clark's unfinished station," Cinnamon added.
"Why do you say that?"
"That was a nickname for the station that I learned back on Infinity," my spice girl answered. "Because it doesn't have a full habitation ring. There are two curved sections on opposite ends of each other that make it look like the station is still under construction. The two ends operate independently to a large degree. We'll need to view what each section has to sell and their available contracts before we decide where to dock."
"Can we sell our goods at either place?" Strawberry asked before I could think of it.
"Probably," Cinnamon answered. "But it will likely be a good idea to check in advance. If we can."
"That's right," Strawberry said. "I almost forgot. We're not sure about our outgoing communication capabilities."
"I thought that we were worried about announcing our presence in advance," I said. "Just in case the Arketa Koreta has been listed as missing. How is this going to work? Can we change the name of the ship?"
"I don't know," Strawberry muttered, looking completely unsure of herself again. I turned to see the same expression on Cinnamon's face.
"Come on now, girls," I raised my voice. "You've been through this before."
"No," Strawberry replied sternly. It looked like I finally struck a nerve. I knew things were going too well. "We have never entered a station without a fully functioning comm system or wanted to avoid communicating our ship’s name. I just started learning navigation. Before that I
was strictly systems. And your girl Cinnamon is brand new to communications. We are not a band of experienced criminals in your gang."
Why the hell did she just say that?
"Kash," Cinnamon said in her calming tone. "We'll get it figured out. Maybe don't go full speed just yet. Give us some more time to work on this problem."
I pulled myself together. I was doing so well until then. I had to remember that I was the one that could think outside the box. These women of mine simply knew how to do their jobs. Their old jobs. Learning new positions so quickly had to be stressful. They were delicate flowers compared to me. That was one of the reasons that they accepted me so quickly as their new leader.
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