by Guerin Zand
“Aye aye, Captain.”
“Maria, organize the vegans and get their orders. Find out how hungry they are and figure out the total vegan order. You’ll be making those pizzas.”
“Aye aye, Captain!” Maria saluted.
I walked over to the corner of the galley and fired up the pizza ovens. I cleared off three tables and reserved them for the pizza making line. Finally, the marines arrived, even Tim.
“'Little’ Timmy, front and center.” Tim was pissed I used his pet name in front of his squad. Tough shit.
“You’re in charge of your team’s order, including Steve’s. We make 16-inch pizzas so figure out how hungry your marines are. If any of your marines are vegans, have them go to that end of the galley and report to Maria. For the non-vegans, we have a large crowd tonight, so we will not be taking special orders. We will be making cheese, pepperoni, meat lovers, and the Vengeance special. The Vengeance special, for those of you who couldn’t be bothered to read the menus, includes a touch of anchovy. Not overwhelming, but as I said, there will be no special orders. Keep that in mind.”
Maria and Tim got busy taking orders. Then Tim had a question. “Can we get the pizzas half one way and half another?”
“Yes. But don’t bitch if it’s not perfect. Shit happens, even when we're just making pizza.”
Gamma was still in my arms and she was smiling at all the activity. It all looked fun to her. The real fun hadn’t begun yet. Maria and Tim gathered up the orders and Senri reviewed them.
“Got it, Captain.” She put the orders down on the table. She had a perfect memory, so she didn’t need it written down.
“Grab a marine and get the supplies. Remember. No funny business.”
“Aye aye, Captain.”
“We need some volunteers, Timmy. Any marines with pizza skills step forward. We can also use any with mess experience. We need cutters to chop up some of the veggies.”
Five marines stepped forward. I took them aside and started to assign duties. I separated out the pizza twirlers first. Then I gathered up the pizza makers and assigned each of them a station. We armed them all with the necessary utensils and I went over the basic secrets of pizza making at the Vengeance pizza parlor. It was only a few minutes before Senri and her marine escort returned with a cart full of the required ingredients for true happiness.
I tossed Gamma on my back in piggyback fashion and I prepared the first pizza for the evening as an example for the others to follow. While the prep staff was busy slicing the vegetables and pepperoni, I twirled out the first lump of dough into a nice circle. Gamma was delighted as I tossed the pizza in the air. When the dough was in the desired shape, I tossed some flour on the table and put the dough down. I applied the right amount of sauce topped with a good sprinkle of powdered garlic and grated Pecorino Romano cheese. Then I covered the pizza with a nice layer of shredded Provel cheese. I pointed out to the staff we always put the cheese down before the toppings. Finally, I applied the toppings in the correct amount to produce a Vengeance special that was ready for the oven. Then I turned over the pizza assembly line to my little helpers.
As the pizzas started to enter the oven, Senri opened up the galley’s bar and started to take drink orders from the hungry crowd. I ordered a Pappy’s for myself and a sarsaparilla for the little lady. I walked over to the table where Julie and Stella were seated. I put our drinks down on the table and swung Gamma back up front. I plopped her down on Julie’s lap.
“Make yourself useful, Julie. I need to help out with the pizzas. Try not to traumatize her, please?”
Julie looked up with her usual perturbed look and said, “I’ll try my best.”
I slammed down my Pappy’s and went over to the oven to check on the first batch of pizzas. In a few minutes they were ready. I tossed them down on one of the tables and sliced them into the proper wedge shapes. I used a separate pizza cutter for the vegan pizzas so as not to offend those pains in the ass. Then I declared, “COME AND GET IT!” And pizza night was in full swing. I grabbed a slice of the first Vengeance special for myself and Gamma, placed them on a paper plate, and went over to relieve Julie of her babysitting duties. I instructed her and the rest of the table to grab a slice while it was still hot.
“Ok, Gamma. I’m going to show you how to eat pizza.” I grabbed my slice by the crust with my right hand and curled the slice slightly with a gentle squeeze. As I lifted the pizza towards my face, my left hand came up to support the other end as I guided the slice into my waiting mouth. It was perfect. “Hmmm. It’s really good, Gamma. Now you try.” The little girl didn’t have to be told twice. She handled the slice like a pro. Ok, she made a mess, but that’s not a bad thing when we’re talking about pizza.
The pizza helpers kept the pizzas coming. There was a constant supply of fresh hot pizza available. The helpers would take turns taking a break to enjoy their handiwork. Senri was spot on as usual. We made a total of 16 pizzas for the evening and only a few slices remained. When everyone had their fill, the marines who had no useful culinary skills volunteered to clean up.
As they started to straighten up the galley, I headed over to the beverage station. I coerced three glasses of root beer from the machine. Then I reached down to a small refrigerated cabinet below to produce a quart of vanilla ice cream. In case you can’t figure out what came next, I’ll explain. I took three large scoops of ice cream and voila, three root beer floats were ready for consumption. I took the three glasses of happiness, along with straws and spoons, to the table.
“Here you go, Gamma. This is a root beer float. Just watch us and you’ll see what to do with it.”
Maria looked up from the table at me with those sad and underprivileged eyes of hers.
“I didn’t forget you, Maria. I just want to warn you though, it’s real ice cream. If maybe your vegan principals won’t allow you to partake, we can always give it to someone else.”
“HELL NO!”
When Maria was a little girl, I believed she scarfed down her pizza so fast just to get to the root beer float part of the night. It had probably been a couple hundred years since she last had this treat. She didn’t hesitate to instruct Gamma on proper float protocol. I just laughed as I watched the two of them. When they were done, little Gamma was a proper mess. We did our best to clean her up with wet towels. What she really needed was a good bath and a change of clothes to be honest. She hopped back into my lap after we tried to clean her. Somehow that mess mysteriously transferred over to me like an infectious disease.
By that time, the marines had retreated to either their quarters or the recreation area for the evening. Senri was missing too, and, well, as I’ve said before, I preferred not to ask and that she not tell. I figured the marines were all grown up men and women. Hopefully, if any of them had wandered off with Senri, they were smart enough to bring protection. I’m talking about their body armor.
It was Maria, Prima, Jackie, Steve, Julie, Stella, Gamma, and I left alone in the now quiet galley. Maria went over to the control panel and enabled the external view mode and then returned to her seat. The external view mode displayed a perspective correct view of the outside view from the shuttle on the walls, floor, and ceiling of the room. It was like floating in space. Gamma was in awe. I was playing with her and we were having fun acting like we were floating around outside.
“Quite the little celebration tonight, Guerin.”
I grabbed Gamma back up off the floor, took a seat, and placed her back on my lap.
“I’m glad you enjoyed it, Julie. See, space travel can be fun.”
“Well, it looks like your new playmate enjoys fun almost as much as you do.”
Stella shot Julie a disapproving look. “Let’s not pick on Guerin tonight, Julie. I haven’t seen him this happy since he was a young boy. Let’s try and not ruin that, ok?”
“Of course, Stella. A happy Guerin is a happy universe, right?”
“Try if you must, Julie, but even you can’t ruin this nig
ht for me.”
“Want to bet?”
I shrugged off Julie’s remark and just smiled as I looked down at Gamma who was already asleep in my arms.
“We finished our analysis of little Miss Gamma,” Julie said with a wicked smile.
“And?” I asked.
“Congratulations. It’s a girl.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“DAD! Watch your language in front of Gamma.”
“Come on, Maria. She’s asleep. Besides, she just spent the evening with a bunch of marines. That’s probably the most ‘PG’ rated thing said in this galley all night. Julie?”
“I mean she’s your daughter.”
“WHAT?”
“She’s the daughter of Lihwa Zhu and Guerin Zand.” Julie smile somehow became even more frightening.
“That’s impossible. How could that have happened?”
The whole table looked at me like I was an idiot.
“Very funny. I know how babies are made, and it’s not possible. Lihwa has been dead for at least a century, and we never, you know. And I’ve never been to Ganymede before.”
Stella was laughing a bit at me. “Well, she obviously wasn’t conceived the old-fashioned way. She was conceived in the lab on Ganymede.”
“But how?”
“It’s no secret that you’ve been busy spreading your seed across the galaxy, Guerin.”
“Real funny, Julie.” She smiled and took a sip of her drink. She was enjoying this.
Stella shook her head. “We talked to Mei about this. Apparently, Lihwa had extracted and frozen some of her eggs before her military service. They had been preserved over the centuries. It was a frequent practice in those days for a woman in her field to do this. It was a precaution taken in case something happened to her. Remember, Lihwa was a famous historical figure in China, so preserving her genetic history was important.”
“That explains her mother, but how am I the father?”
Stella continued. “That’s where the Alacians come into the story.”
“How so?”
“According to Mei, there were blood samples taken from you back during your stay in Gitmo. Apparently, when the Collective and Roger cleaned up the records of your stay, these samples were never discovered. Mei was always curious about you. According to her, while she worked for Roger she did a little snooping into your history. She found those samples still preserved as well. Mei used her position to gain possession of both your blood samples and Lihwa’s eggs.”
“You mean she has been planning this that long?”
“No. Originally she thought preserving both would have historical value. It wasn’t until the problems started between the core and outer moons did she conceive the idea of creating a child using both.”
“That doesn’t explain the Alacians.” I was waiting for a better explanation from Stella.
“Human genetic science isn’t that advanced yet, but that didn’t stop Mei from violating the Eugenics Accord. She found human scientists who had no problem with that as well. They failed twice, hence her name Gamma. The Alacians somehow found out what she was attempting and made a deal with her. The Alacians were successful.”
“Do we know how the Alacians found out about her experiments?”
“Mei wasn’t sure. She assumes that there are spies in the system, or the Alacians somehow got their hands on one of her staff.” Julie didn’t think this might be important to us little monkeys.
“So, why my DNA? Why wouldn’t the Alacians simply create Gamma using their synthetic DNA, the same way they use to create the synthetics?”
Stella shrugged. “We think, although we’re not sure, that they believed your DNA was unique. It’s common knowledge that you have a daughter, and she came to have your abilities naturally. So Mei thought she could create her own daughter, or little sister, with those same abilities as well. She believed that would be useful in the future. Now, when the Alacians saw your defeat of their synthetics on Claorin, they must have thought they needed to improve their synthetics. I think they planned on using that DNA to improve their synthetic DNA. We believe they intended on taking Gamma to use as a source for future synthetic DNA development.”
“So I guess the big question I have is, is she a normal child? I mean as normal as Maria?”
“Gee thanks, Dad.”
“You know what I mean, Maria.” I meant to take a little shot at her. I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
“Not quite. They did accelerate her initial growth. She is only three years old, but physically she has developed into a human child of age 5 or 6. From this point on her physical development should be what you’d call normal.”
“Is that it?”
“No. They also seemed to have made some changes to the way her brain is developing. She has an increased brain capacity compared to a normal human. In simple terms, her brain matter is denser. This would result in an increased intelligence as well as the ability to process data faster. It’s like when humans would shrink processor technology. The smaller your transistors, the more you can fit on a chip, and the faster and more efficient your processor can be.”
“So, she’s even more dense than I am?” I smiled.
“That would be impossible, Guerin,” Julie responded with a smirk. I smirked back.
Stella shook her head at both of us. “If you’re both done?” Stella paused, waiting for us to remain silent. “Normal is another question. While these differences should not be of any real concern, what I am concerned about is her social development. She has not had any interaction with other humans until she met you, Guerin. The synthetics raised and cared for her. They were not just her guards. They were her nurses and caregivers. You know the synthetics, Guerin. That is not a normal upbringing. To be raised essentially by emotionless machines.”
“Yes.” I looked at Stella. This concerned me, and my look conveyed that. “It reminds me of some of the incredibly stupid ideas my sociology professor used to talk about. How, if they could get away with it, they would like to raise a child without any human interaction all the way into adulthood. They wondered if their theories would be proven correct and the child would grow up to be a psychopath or sociopath.”
“Exactly my concern, Guerin. She seems to have bonded with you. That may be because a child needs that connection and you were her first real human interaction. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”
Julie smiled at me. “Would you like my opinion on that?”
“NO!”
“I don’t know if there will be any negative long-term effects on her social development. Like you said, Guerin, the only way to know for sure would be to have done such vile experiments on children. We haven’t, and we don’t have any records of humans doing this. It’s a grey area.”
“Great, Stella. You’re telling me you don’t know what we should do?”
“Yes. I think it’s your call. What do you want to do?”
I looked down at this sweet girl, my daughter, fast asleep in my arms. “I guess from what you told me, that makes Gamma, Mei’s sister. I wonder if that is why she asked me if I was going to return her.”
“What are you thinking, Dad?”
“If Mei never had any interaction with her, which I think is what Stella just told me, I won’t be sending her to live with Mei. I mean, she agreed to this little experiment to start with. I’ll take care of her. I raised one daughter. Maybe I’ll get it right this time.” Maria stuck her tongue out at me. “I mean, at least she’s not a fucking vegan. There’s still hope for her.” I shot my other daughter my own little look.
Stella gave me a smile. “I think it would be best for both of you. I haven’t seen you so happy in a long time. Perhaps you need Gamma as much as she needs you. Just promise me you’ll keep me in the loop. Like I said, I’m not sure there won’t be any problems.”
“I’ll help too.” Maria seemed just as happy as I was about Gamma. “I always wanted a little sister.�
�
“No, you didn’t. You were a spoiled little brat. I can only imagine what a little shit you would have become if you had to share your parent’s attention with a little sister.”
“I was not a spoiled brat!” Maria pouted, which just proved my point to everyone there. We all laughed.
Chapter 16
A Captain’s Work is Never Done
Stella had returned to the Minnow to be with her husband. They were heading back to the Earth ship in the morning. Steve and Jackie had retired to their quarters and Senri, well, Senri was still unaccounted for. I didn’t want to know. That left me in the galley with Prima, Maria, Julie, and Gamma asleep in my lap.
“I’m going to put Gamma to bed,” I announced and was starting to get up.
“I’ll do it, Guerin. I’ve set up a small bed for her in your quarters with the help of a few marines.”
“So, you and a few marines were helping each other out in my quarters earlier, Prima?”
Prima just tilted her head to the side and gave me a silly grin. For some reason it just made me want to know more. I decided to be discreet instead as I handed Gamma over to Prima’s waiting arms.
“I’ll help you.” Maria hopped up. “She could probably do with a bath after that dinner. We can use the Captain’s tub.” Maria was excited to have a little sister.
“And she probably needs some clothes as well,” Prima added.
“You’re right, Prima. I wonder if we could conjure up a cute little fluffy bunny onesie. That would be so cool.”
“Easy on the onesies you two, or it will be the last time you get to babysit.”
“Whatever, Dad.”
“I wonder if Senri could help us in the manufacturing of a few stuffed animals as well. Do you know where she is, Dad?”
“No, and I wouldn’t go looking for her if you know what’s good for you. You can make Gamma toys tomorrow.”
The two of them just turned down the main hallway and headed for the Captain’s quarters. I could hear them continue to make more plans for Gamma as they walked down the hall.