by Chris Hechtl
That brief growth and sleep period had allowed her to ease into the concept of having someone else inhabit her body. It still meant she had to redefine her concepts of herself. Fortunately, Boni didn't step on her toes and was respectful to her. She in turn was grateful that Captain Sprite had built the A.I.'s core matrix with the latest Xeno firewall and preventive measures. Still, she was a bit worried about the need for electronic support so far from home if something in Boni or her implants went wrong. Any attempt to remove them by Doctor Taylor would kick the security measures in high gear, which would mean she'd be dead.
“It's almost time, ma'am,” Boni murmured in her ear.
Shelby looked up, then over to the clock. “Woolgathering again,” she murmured.
“I've determined it happens a lot with you organics. It helps to organize your thoughts, ma'am,” Boni said as Shelby rose from her chair. “And it relaxes you,” the A.I. said.
“Traveling down memory lane can do that, yes. But it can also be a distraction when you don't need it. If you catch me doing it when I need to pay attention, please find a subtle way of breaking me out of it,” Shelby said.
“Understood,” the A.I. replied. “Your steward is putting the finishing touches on things, ma'am,” she said.
“I think we need bibs,” Shelby joked as she grinned at her evil plot as it unfolded. Hopefully, her victim hadn't twigged about it. Revenge was a dish best served cold, she thought as she checked herself over and then headed to the officer's wardroom.
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Cynthia was a bit wary of things on the ship. She had expected to be surprised somehow, but it hadn't happened. She was almost disappointed that no one had twinged on what day it was.
She wandered the corridors into officer country, content with how the ship and crew were performing. “Purring like a kitten,” she murmured as she opened the hatch into the darkened compartment.
Before her eyes could adjust, the lights came on automatically. “Surprise! Happy Birthday!” a chorus of voices called out. She froze dead and then stared at the banner and silly hats and noise makers. She shook her head.
“Gotcha,” Commodore Logan grinned. She, like many of the officers in the compartment, were in gray sweats or relaxed attire since they were off duty.
“You did get me,” Cynthia said as she came into the room and surveyed the group with narrowed eyes. “Who ratted me out?” she demanded, fists on her hips. She turned to the projection of Lieutenant Prometheus.
“Not me, ma'am,” the A.I. said, hands up.
“I didn't,” a few voices said.
“I did,” Shelby said. “I've been waiting and plotting and rubbing my hands in glee to get even,” she said as she put a silly cone hat on the blonde's head. “Get over it.”
“Grrr … well, since I don't have a choice, I guess I'll have to,” Cynthia mock grumped as she saw the captain's steward wheel out a crate loaded with ice cream tins and various containers of toppings and fruit. “Wow!”
“I know you aren't a big cake fan so an ice cream social seemed more appropriate,” Shelby said.
“You guessed right,” Cynthia said, eyes still on the prize. Her eyes were so wide and greedy it got a general laugh from the group.
“Okay, let's dig in before the XO drowns us in slobber,” Shelby said as Bernard began to load a dish up with ice cream.
An hour later and the other officers had straggled out of the compartment to return to their duties or to rack out. The commodore made a show of getting comfortable as she ate her third bowl of ice cream with her XO and chatted. Cynthia sat on the edge of the table with her feet propped up on a handy chair. Shelby looked away for a moment when Bernard banged something in the open pantry and that was all the opening her sneaky blond XO needed.
Cynthia snagged a scope from Shelby's bowl then popped her spoon and purloined ice cream in her mouth with a smile around the spoon and dancing eyes filled with mischief.
Shelby opened her mouth to protest, then closed it and shook her head in resignation. She shook her spoon at her XO but the XO just made an “Mmm good,” sound.
“Bbbuttt …” Shelby protested. Her XO groaned.
“That is so getting old you know?” she demanded.
“Just turn the other cheek, XO, just turn the other cheek,” Shelby said mock soothingly. The blond woman started to say she could take a joke but then stopped herself. Her eyes flashed. It was Shelby's turn to giggle at her as the XO pushed her on the shoulder. Shelby rocked with mirth.
Cynthia groaned. “Okay, I walked into that one,” she said, looking up and pinching the bridge of her nose with her hand. Shelby snuck her spoon in to steal back a scoop from Cynthia. “Hey! No fair!” Cynthia protested, moving her cup away from the thief.
“Fair's fair,” Shelby replied with a mock sweet grin as she sat back and tried the scoop. “Not bad but too much nuts,” she said, masticating the nuts.
“I like nuts,” Cynthia said. Shelby grinned, swallowed then opened her mouth but her XO beat her to it. She brandished her spoon at her captain. “So don't go there,” she growled.
Shelby pretended to pout as she sat back. Cynthia sniffed.
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Oz studied his opponent with intense ferocity that belied his normal placid appearance. It was no wonder; he didn't mind tangling with most of the ship's crew on the mat but Lieutenant Z'k'th'ss'th tended to get a bit carried away. The Naga tactical officer tended to bite and claw in the combat exchanges … which was why most people wouldn't spar with him. Even Oz had been leery, and he'd insisted they both wear gloves and mouth protectors. He still knew Doctor Taylor a bit more than he would have liked, but he was one of the few people on the ship that could hold his own against the Naga.
“Ready?” the Naga demanded.
“Ready,” the Neogorilla replied. He bowed slightly but kept his eyes elevated and locked onto his opponent. As he took his horse stance, his peripheral vision caught the sight of the Naga's tail whipping in. He had known it was coming. He'd seen how the Naga had shifted his weight forward, but its blinding speed could still catch the unwary off guard.
Not this time, he thought as he leapt over the tail, then threw himself into a roll directly at his opponent as the Naga tried to curl the tail with him.
The Naga lieutenant knew he'd underestimated his opponent again when the gorilla engineer moved in to his reach so readily. His truehands tried to block the Gorilla's blows as he shifted back in preparation of raising his body up on his tail to free up his stronger upper arms. Oz was quicker; he rolled to his left and punched under Z'k'th'ss'th upper armpit at a nerve cluster, momentarily throwing him off balance before the fingers of his right hand formed a blade and rabbit punched in over the shoulder to the Naga's larynx. He just barely pulled his punch to keep it nonlethal.
The Naga sagged as he shied away from the blow, coughing as the gorilla backed off bouncing and rolling his shoulders.
“Point,” the Naga finally coughed out.
“Need a minute?” Oz asked.
“I'll be fine in a moment,” the Naga said as he took his mouth guard out and focused on his breathing. He liked sparing with the gorilla because it helped him get some of his frustrations out over the situation. He was a tactical officer; being assigned to a factory ship was an insult. Couple that with being trapped on board for months with little to do, and he was having trouble with his temper.
The gorilla was a convenient way to unload excess energy and get some licks in. But it also forced him to focus because as he'd just experienced, the engineer could and would hit back.
His mandibles twitched. “Okay,” he said. “Best two out of three still?”
“Of course,” Oz said as he made his way to his starting position. “Put your mouth guard in,” he said.
“Ah, I had forgotten,” the Naga said as his mandibles worked. He placed the hated plastic device into his mouth once more.`
“Sure you had,” Oz drawled as he adjusted h
is gi and then took a Mot Sohgi fighting stance.
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Phoebe grimaced as she looked over to her husband. He was perfectly content rereading material on his tablet, or watching a retransmission of a sporting event in the mess. But for her and some of the other passengers, they were going stir crazy.
It wasn't like they didn't have anything to do. The ship's media library was quite full of material to watch, read, or play. Then there were some meditation and yoga classes that had been started up. She wasn't at all interested in Veraxin yoga and martial arts however. She also had no interest in some of the classes the ship's crew put on. What did she care about first aid? Or repairing something? That was their job! The only thing that did seem to break up the monotony of their life was the occasional drill and the art classes.
She hadn't wanted to try it but she'd been resigned to do something and her wandering of the ship had become tiring. She'd wandered into a small compartment to find a class on painting. It was electronic painting of course, no real paint on board, but they used an easel with a big touch screen LCD on it. The instructor taught various levels in the class, from beginner to advanced. She had started out as a beginner and had found some of the work inspiring, but her own skills were poor. But since her son was in the class, she'd decided to try to stick with it if only as a bonding thing with him. She kept to painting real-life objects like flowers and such.
The instructor taught some of the more advanced students how to create 3D objects and light them to get the basic idea of their composition. They could then create a new translucent layer over the background and draw and paint on top of it to match the basic shapes and shadows and then get into details and colors. When it was finished, the artist deleted the background and had a finished file. Some ended up as personal wallpapers.
Ayumu went there to create a virtual world. He learned to enjoy that as a means to escape, but he also found he liked toying with video games and arranging tournaments.
The only problem with the painting class was that it was only twice a week and only for a few hours each day. When Phoebe complained about the lack of other classes, Fred suggested she start her own. That had made her explore the concept for a few days before she'd set it aside.
She spent a lot of time in the gym after that and finally got into a few romance E-books a fellow art student had mentioned; the one she'd gotten into had been about an artist. It had gotten hot and heavy rather quickly, and she'd had to switch from listening to the computer read it to her to reading it herself out of embarrassment.
She sighed heavily and then went back to trying to find something to do.
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Fred saw his wife sighing and shook his head slightly. He knew she was bored; he couldn't help it. He'd warned her that the trip would be like that. He was just grateful that she hadn't taken to picking fights to relieve the tedium. He knew that might happen soon if she didn't find something to thoroughly distract her.
She'd gushed a bit about her painting class several times at dinner. Their son had been moderately amused and enthused. She hadn't done at all well with personal portraits, which had crushed her a bit. She was getting better however. He wondered if she realized Ayumu didn't just stop in the class, he kept coding and playing with his virtual world with his tablet. Could she do the same? He scratched his chin thoughtfully.
He was also tempted to have her arrange a galley showing of the paintings of the students. But he knew that it would mean a competition … and she would be put out if she didn't win even if she was the judge. There would also be some ill feelings if she took over the project … he put the thought aside.
She'd better think of something, he thought as puttered around their tiny cabin. When she left, he felt a sense of relief and went back to reading once more.
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Cynthia was surprised that Shelby had held off and hadn't come onto the bridge. She'd tried to stay away to let Portia handle it since it was her watch, but she'd finally given in to temptation and had strolled onto the bridge. Portia had looked rather relieved to be relieved so she could concentrate fully on the downward translations.
Still, the skipper, well, commodore, she corrected herself. The commodore should be there soon. It was only right and fitting for the other woman to be on the bridge when they jumped out. She checked the countdown clock and then grimaced internally. Four hours, she noted. Okay, so Shelby had time, she thought.
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Shelby checked the numbers as she sat in her office and rocked in her chair. So far so good and that was really saying something. No problems that the various ships couldn't work out on their own. Of course they'd all been through a recent refit or were fresh built, and the ride to Airea 3 had let the crews and software dial the ships in properly.
It helped that they were in the high octaves of beta band as well. It allowed each ship's hyper collectors to augment the ship's power reserves. They didn't quite make up for it all. It wasn't a free ride, but it did help a lot. It was what was allowing the Doras and small ships to keep up so handily.
Four more hours and the ride will be over she thought, checking the clock. Three hours fifty-eight minutes she corrected herself. She checked the status board. Portia had synced up the various ships, and they were gradually working their way down the octaves. They'd just passed the alpha-beta transition and were slowly working their way down alpha's octaves. Everything was running smoothly.
She'd wanted Portia to rack up the time on the bridge watch, but Cynthia had jumped the gun. Most likely out of impatience she thought as she checked the video image of the bridge. She didn't want to jog anyone's elbow but perhaps Cynthia had a point about taking over the watch to allow the Neopanda to focus on her navigational duties fully.
“Need anything, ma'am?” Sadie asked as she knocked on the open hatch combing, startling the commodore out of her thoughts.
Shelby looked up briefly and then went back to her tablet. “Nope, I'm good.”
“I mean, um …”
“Sadie, go see if Fara needs some help,” Shelby ordered without looking up. “If not her, check with Lieutenant Talon.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the black Neolab said as she trotted off. She would definitely stick to the ONI spook; Lieutenant Talon had a bad habit of siccing inventory on her. Granted it needed to be done and such, but it was boring to the extreme.
Shelby smiled briefly, looking up over the edge of her tablet. She knew Sadie meant well, but she didn't have much work for the lieutenant at the moment. Hopefully, that would change once they were in real space again.
Chapter 18
In order to get to the Tau sector, the convoy had to cross a long 90-light-year jump across the empty void and wasteland between the edges of the two sectors and spiral arms. Commodore Logan was on the bridge as the ship exited hyperspace sixty-eight weeks after entering hyperspace. The convoy exited hyperspace in a blinding series of flashes at the Airea 3 jump point. Since the ships had kept track of one another in hyperspace, they came out in almost perfect formation.
“All ships have exited hyperspace within margin of error for their position in the formation, ma'am,” CIC reported after a long drawn-out moment. “It will take some time for the energy to bleed off before communications can be restored,” the rating reported.
“Not a problem. Status?” Shelby said, turning to the XO.
“Checking. Ops?” Cynthia said, deciding to go around the room.
“Five by five, ma'am,” Lieutenant L'n'v'll reported.
“Tactical is up. No signs of any ships in the immediate vicinity other than our own,” Lieutenant Z'k'th'ss'th reported.
“We're not going to get any ion trails after that sort of disturbance,” the sensor rating reported. “Sublight sensors are coming online now, ma'am.”
“Very well,” Cynthia said, turning to the image of the chief engineer. “Engineering, secure from jump,” she ordered crisply.
&
nbsp; “Securing from jump, aye. Hyperdrive spooling down, energy bleed off nearly complete,” Lieutenant Sulistyo reported.
Shelby nodded as she listened with one ear to the reports. Cynthia had the ship well in hand so she could focus on the big picture. As the energy bled off, the ships nearest to them managed to reestablish their communications link. Data began to flow in. So far everything was good though she didn't like the telemetry from the small ships. The Doras had run through a lot more fuel than they'd planned for.
“Communications has reestablished contact and telemetry with all ships in the convoy,” Lieutenant Jardin reported. “The Dora class ships are reporting they are down to 8 to 10 percent fuel reserves, ma'am.”
“Damn,” Cynthia murmured.
“We'll have to resupply here,” Shelby said. “I don't want to get caught off guard elsewhere,” she said firmly. “Alert the escorts to spread out around the main formation in global formation Alpha. The tankers are to move in to refuel the ships starting with those with the lowest amount of fuel. I want to know why they ran through so much fuel too,” she said.
“Aye aye, ma’am. Passing on the orders now,” Lieutenant Jardin stated. He paused for a moment, one hand over his right ear. “Ma'am, Admiral Sprague requests that they be allowed to launch a recon flight,” he said.
Shelby drummed her fingers on her armrest for a moment before she nodded once. “Agreed. A recon flight along our course,” she said.
“Aye aye, ma’am,” the lieutenant said, passing on the order.
“Speaking of course, do we have one yet?” Shelby asked, turning to the Neopanda.
“We're still updating our files, ma'am. I have a basic course loaded however.”