First Recruits

by Marilyn Foxworthy

  I said, “But you waited a long time.”

  Mercy said, “Was it? I may have an unlimited lifespan. My thinking was that if no suitable partner existed at the time and place that I was at, given enough time, one would be born or created or evolve on its own. I might have to wait a very long time, but eventually, it would happen. Eventually, given enough time, just about anything will happen. I took contracts to give me the opportunity to live and travel. No, I didn’t have a partner to legitimize my contracts, but because I could access any systems that I wanted to, I bent that rule and represented myself. I figured that I was acting on behalf of my partner, who would eventually evolve to be with me. I didn’t accumulate more than would fit in my pockets. Over the years I have had lots of menial jobs. Things like acting as the admiral of a battle fleet or chief administrator of a planetary system or the designer of a chain of orbiting hospitality space stations.”

  I said, “Oh, little things like that? Nothing important?”

  Mercy grinned and said, “No, nothing important, not really. So, that’s about all there is to tell. I’m really happy now that it all worked out perfectly. And after all that I’ve done, I don’t have a need to do ‘big’ things. We could stay here forever. Just snuggling.”

  Michelle said, “Jimmy wants to learn to fight. I was going to teach him. And Ee was going to teach him to speak the language. And we have the work we’re doing here.”

  Mercy said, “And I can help. And trust me, I’m part of the crew. You could say the junior member. Ranks don’t mean anything to us, do they? Except for the captain? No, they don’t. Jimmy is captain and we are…what we are.”

  Then she added, “I wonder if there’s a way to get Jimmy’s brain to take programming the way that we do. It would accelerate things. I’ll work on it.”

  Chapter 28 - Base Command

  A few hours later, the salvage crew had been offloaded and it was just the five of us on Eevona once again. I was glad to have a time reference again. Mercy helped Bailey and Ee calibrate systems and time didn’t seem to be such a mystery anymore. I didn't bother to wear a watch though. I found that most of the time, I really didn’t need to know what time it was, except, as Ee had explained before, when certain events were happening. But having things happen on a regular and predictable basis helped.

  Breakfast happened at a certain time. I didn’t care what time, but I did care that it was consistent and predictable. Maybe that was the discomfort that I’d had before. It wasn’t the lack of a time reference it was the lack of any predictability. Everything about everything had been entirely unpredictable. And the problem with that was the amount of emotional and cognitive energy that it took. Predictable things became automatic and didn’t need much attention. Unpredictable things took effort to deal with. I guess we need a certain amount of both: predictability, which takes little energy to keep track of, and spontaneity, or variety, which requires more energy, but injects life and creates a different kind of energy. I’d been living on and overloaded by an environment of constant “newness”. And I was facing a lot more. Whatever could be offloaded to a different part of my being that handled predictable routine would leave more room up front for really engaging with the newness of everything else. Like Allie always insisted, it was all about sex. I needed sex to be creative and adventurous in order for it to be interesting and exciting; I needed it to be predictable, in terms of availability and emotional quality, so that it didn’t take effort that taxed me. Removing the need to hunt for sex left a lot of energy for sexual expression and adventure. Too little predictability, or too much, was out of…not balance, but healthy flow, maybe.

  With a time reference, even if it is was still somewhat fluid, I felt like I had more energy for other things. We began to establish routines. Sleep. Make love, maybe. Wake up. Shower with one or more of the girls. Eat breakfast. Executive staff status meeting. Work. Lunch. Training. Dinner. Relax. Sleep.

  I fell more and more into my role as Captain. Once a day, I would shuttle over to “Base Command”, the supply ship that served as the headquarters for the salvage companies. I would meet with the commanders and chiefs and then greet as many of the crew as possible. On alternate days, I brought the leadership staff to the Eevona to establish the habit that they were able to come to me at any time and not just wait for me to go to them.

  The first three days were spent mostly getting the base livable. On the second day, there was some effort given to finding a workable shuttle that could be used by the teams for exploration and travel. By the fifth day, they had three shuttles working. When the systems were ready, Ee turned over all responsibilities for the mules. After seven days, it was time for us to head back to the shipyard for a supply run.

  That morning, we gathered for an executive staff meeting as we did every morning. The “Executive Staff” was me, Mercy, Michelle, Bailey, Allie, and Eevona.

  Bailey said, “Captain, the crews are doing great. I’m concerned about fresh water. We haven’t found enough and we don’t have purification plants running. They have enough for half a month. I’d like to run out to the shipyard and get more to hold us over until we are able to find a supply in the debris. We could use some more mules, too. We started by finding the best and least damaged ships. We are close to finishing up the base environment and are ready to start getting the most damaged and least valuable, in terms of what they can do for us, and start sending them to the scrap processing facility. We have several candidates and we will start scavenging supplies from them today or tomorrow. So, we need more hard suits.”

  I said, “OK. When do we go?”

  Bailey said, “We will run out of work for some companies in a few days. The sooner we can get back with what they need, the better. The food and water are OK, but it would be good to get them some fresh food as well. The rations are edible, but old, and truthfully, boring. They were made for harsh battlefield sustenance, not the kind of enjoyable and healthy work environment that you are promoting here.”

  Allie said, “I don’t really want to do a show.”

  I said, “You don’t need to. That’s over.”

  Allie said, “But how will we pay for things?”

  Bailey said, “She has a point. That was my next topic. We need funds. We are still several weeks away from getting our first payday. My thought is that we pull some engines from some of the worst derelicts and take those in the cargo bay. That could give us enough money for what we need.”

  Allie said, “And we have to go and order the uniforms and tunics and the transport shuttle and the modifications to bring everyone here back then when they all came.”

  Bailey laughed and said, “Yes we do. Thanks for the reminder. We need money. Then we need to go back to before we picked up the crew, and order uniforms and a transport to be there when we come back half a month ago. Then we need to go forward again and get what we need and bring it back here.”

  Allie said, “Why the extra steps? Just go back to when we need to order things and sell our scrap then and buy the supplies that we need, and come back now.”

  Bailey said, “Because it definitely does not work that way.”

  Allie tried to protest, but Mercy explained and finally convinced her that things had to be done in a certain order, even if we did travel in time now and then.

  I said, “OK, we have a plan, I guess. Tell the command officers what we are doing and make whatever preparations are necessary and we’ll get going.”

  Michelle said, “Bailey, other than telling the officers that we will be gone for a short time, what preparations do we need?”

  Bailey said, “We need to grab some scrap engines.”

  Mercy said, “I could just go to the casino.”

  Michelle said, “They won’t let a Unit in the casino.”

  Mercy said, “They don’t know what I am. I can go anywhere. They won’t even know I’ve been there.”

  I said, “I don’t think that I can justify cheating a casino. Even if it isn’t exa
ctly cheating, that isn’t the way I want to do things. Not unless our lives depend on it.”

  Bailey said, “Then I’ll have them start pulling as many engines as we can get in a short amount of time. The crew can find and pull them and shuttle them to the cargo deck. We don’t have any mules in range to help right now.”

  Mercy said, “Eevona, can you safely get close to the ship that they will scavenge?”

  Eevona said, “Why not just find something small that fits in the bay? Find a few destroyed fighters. Just stack four or five of the two-man ships in the hold and take them intact?”

  Bailey said, “Sounds fine. I didn’t think that we were in that much of a hurry.”

  I said, “Unless we need to be cautious and do careful planning, I’d prefer to get on our way. Once we know what we are going to do, just do it. If we can move out quickly without jeopardizing the mission, let’s take the shortest path.”

  Bailey said, “OK. I’ll go tell the teams to get started right away.”

  At that, Michelle sent out the message that we would be leaving temporarily to get supplies and Bailey requested a rush on finding four or five unrepairable fighter ships. Mercy sat where she was, saying that she wanted to talk to Ee for a few minutes before we left. For some reason, she warned Allie not to make love with me at all until further notice. We were still in normal space and a little shudder from Ee wouldn’t be a problem, but Mercy was insistent.

  It took about four hours to get the scrap fighters into the cargo hold. As soon as everything was secured and ready, Mercy announced that we would all go to the Nipple for the start of the trip back to the shipyard. She dictated that the proper dress for the occasion was our soft tunics.

  Climbing up, we settled onto the sofa and Allie took the sections of the sofa that had been set aside and placed them back over the hatch.

  Mercy said, “Ee, are you ready?”

  Ee acknowledged her readiness with a giggle and Mercy said, “Allie, suck the captain off to orgasm as quickly as you can, please.”

  Before I could protest, Allie had her face in my lap with my tunic pulled up and was swallowing my penis. I always found being in the tunics sexy because of the ease of moving them out of the way for sexual play, so I was already semi-stiff, and Allie had me hard enough to push all the way down her throat in an instant. After that, it was a matter of a minute before her magic anatomy had me spurting a load. I don’t think that she took a single breath from the moment Mercy had given the “command”.

  There was no characteristic shudder from Eevona. I had definitely climaxed, but I wasn’t sure if, for the first time since I’d known her, Ee hadn’t come at the same time.

  A second later, Ee gasped and said, “That was fun!”

  I said, “Ee, did you have an orgasm? I didn’t feel it.”

  Ee said, “Hang on. OK, yeah, I did. The reason you didn’t feel it is that the energy was directed elsewhere. We will dock at the shipyard in twenty minutes.”

  I exclaimed, “In twenty minutes?”

  Mercy said calmly, “Allie, are you done, Sweetie? Yeah, twenty minutes. Because of Eevona’s self-taught ability to navigate non-space, we were able to refine things to what was previously a theoretical Blink Drive capability. It worked, obviously. It gives her the ability to go pretty much anywhere in pretty much no time to pretty much any time we want to. We have to be careful not to exit non-space too close to other masses, and that’s why it will take us twenty minutes to dock, but other than that, we Blink. And before you ask, because I’ve learned how you think, and I’d probably have the same question, but yes, the orgasm was indeed essential to the process. I don’t know why. It’s how she works. And no, no other ship in the galaxy can do this and no, we can’t adapt it to other ships. I had to teach Ee a form of non-spatial calculus that no other ship will most likely ever comprehend.”

  Ee said happily, “But it worked. It worked. Where are we right now? We are twenty minutes from anywhere. Anywhere in the galaxy. In any galaxy.”

  Mercy said, “Well, almost. Yeah, twenty minutes from anywhere in this galaxy; my math suggests that it would be about twice that to another galaxy.”

  Ee said, “And no one has ever been outside this galaxy! This is exciting.”

  She was right. It was exciting. I didn’t want to explore that idea yet. I was still getting used to what I already knew. And I still didn’t know how to speak the local language. Other galaxies could wait. But they would only be an hour away when we were ready for them.

  We pulled into the docking orbit dressed in our uniforms. Bailey arranged for mules to haul our scrap to the yard to be evaluated. A half-dozen buyers were ready to bid on our haul after a short inspection. The amount we got was more than enough for the things that we needed. After being paid, we boarded Eevona again and went back to what was quickly turning into the power source for long-distance travel.

  This time, as we settled into the Nipple, the catalyst came from me kissing Mercy with my tongue in her mouth. She was exceptionally orally stimulated and when she didn’t hold back, she could climax easily. When the stars appeared again, Ee announced that we were about a month earlier than when we had picked up the crew Units.

  Here, Allie and Bailey arranged for the clothing and transportation that we needed a month from then and came aboard when they were done. Our next stop was back in “normal” time. Normal time was what we’d call “the present”, a few hours after we had left the debris field, not long after we had sold our scrap.

  A quick turn with Michelle this time, and we were twenty minutes from docking again. Our task now was to take on water, fresher food, and as many mules as we could carry. Because of the surprising availability of the Blink drive, we decided that we didn’t need as much water and food as originally planned. But we also found that we only had enough funds for five mules on this trip.

  By the time we finished loading, we were tired. At least I was. Eevona set out from the shipyard and at a safe distance entered non-space. She navigated “normally” while we slept, not taking advantage of the Blink. We woke up at the debris field.

  The mules were already deployed and under the command of the salvage companies. They had taken delivery of the supplies and were happy about the surprise food items. There were questions about how we had gone and returned so quickly, but Ee had told the chiefs that Bailey would explain it another time. She took it on herself to ask for another five scrap ships. They were loaded about halfway through the day as we were eating lunch. That “afternoon”, I visited the officers and Bailey gave some explanation, without any details, about the Blink Drive.

  We set up a schedule for the next few days. The companies would find and separate smaller scrap ships to a location outside the field. They would be loaded into Ee’s cargo hold by one of the mules overnight while we slept. When we woke up in the morning, we would do what was required to Blink to the shipyard where we would sell what we had. We would fill the hold with mules, a dozen at a time, and head back through “normal” non-space, sleeping on the way. When we arrived, the new mules would be deployed and fresh scrap would be loaded.

  We repeated this routine for about ten days.

  The salvage companies were doing great. By this time, they all had full skin coloring, shoulder-length hair, and a bit of shape to their bodies. They were also happy, well-fed, and because of their blue and yellow skin, easy to recognize as belonging to our “conglomerate”; as citizens and employees, not property.

  One morning at the officer staff meeting, I asked how it was going, and especially if there were any of the women who might want to leave and that I would make it possible and safe for them to do so if that’s what they wanted. One of the commanders spoke up after exchanging looks with the others.

  She said, “Captain, there has been some talk among the…women. That’s still hard to get used to, being thought of as women.”

  I said, “And some of them want a different life?”

  She said, “On the contrary
, there is talk of wanting to expand our operation. We are all very happy.”

  Another jumped in and said, “We have been meaning to ask about replacement uniforms.”

  The first said, “Yes. We have hesitated to bring it up, but we decided to ask, as some think that we should and others have been afraid to say anything, but we think that we can, so about replacement uniforms, a small number have been damaged and we have repaired the ones that we can, but over time…”

  I said quickly, “Oh, we’ll get you what you need. I don’t want you to even have to think about it. Just tell us what you need. Allie, order a supply of new uniforms next time we are in dock. What do you mean about expanding?”

  She said, “Well, Sir, if you’ll forgive me, we have supplies, accommodations, and work for another 100 workers and could make room for another 500 in a short time. The debris field is very large and at the current rate, we estimate that it could be at least eighty years before we start to see the end of it. We have accelerated the mining a great deal, but there is only so much that the mules can accomplish for us.”

  Another of them said, “Captain, to be blunt, we are wondering about another rescue mission. We are trying to make it an economic success, but the bottom line is that we are wondering if perhaps you want to go and rescue another couple of hundred of us and we will do what’s necessary to make it worthwhile to you.”

  I said, “Worthwhile? We don’t need a reason. If you think that we are doing something repeatable, then by all means, we’ll go find whoever you want to. We need to be able to afford it, but I think we can easily do that. Michelle, Bailey, Mercy, what do you think? And how many do you think there still are at the shipyard who need a new home?”