by M. D. Cooper
Jessica laughed. “Man, I wonder what they’re thinking up on the station right now?”
“Nothing good.” Cargo smiled. “Though they will get to terraform that planet for terrestrial life now.”
“Let’s hope,” Finaeus said. “Though one thing is for certain. No one is doing anything there anytime soon.”
OUTSYSTEM
STELLAR DATE: 09.04.8938 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Hermes Station
REGION: Naga System, Orion Freedom Alliance Space
“OK, I suppose you’re safe,” Nance said as she pulled the hood off her hazsuit. “Iris was right. Those relatively-competent mad scientists bound the microbes to your skin so that the little nasties won’t get free. Even if they did, they seem to have adapted to the polymers in such a fashion that the microbes would probably die if they were removed from their new environment.”
“See,” Jessica said, letting her skin glow a little more. “I told you I was perfectly safe. Glad I don’t have to remove it either, I’ve grown rather attached to my glowing friends. Did I tell you I can stop a pulse blast with my hand?”
Nance sighed. “Yes, Jessica, just a few times now…like eight, or nine.”
Jessica slid off the medbay’s examination table and pulled her shipsuit back on. “Yeah, well, it’s really cool. It bears repeating.”
Sabrina replied.
“Touché,” Jessica said with a laugh. “However, I’m Retyna Girl. You’ll never take that from me.”
“Was she always so much into oneupmanship?” Jessica asked.
Nance chuckled. “More or less, yeah.”
Jessica pulled on her shoes and jacket before approaching Nance.
“What are you doing?” Nance asked as she backed up.
“I want to give you a hug to thank you. You did some amazing work back there. Hacking the door to get Sabrina free, getting that nuke altered just in time. Keeping our skins on with power till we got free. Besides, you’re still wearing your hazsuit.”
“Your thanks is enough, you’re not hugging me. Over my dead bo—”
Nance stopped talking as Jessica leapt forward and wrapped her in a tight embrace.
“Had to touch me eventually,” Jessica said with a laugh as she stepped back.
“No, I didn’t,” Nance said. “Now I have to sanitize this suit.”
“Seriously?” Jessica asked with a grin.
Nance’s sour face held for a moment, and then she sighed and gave a small smile. “No, not seriously. But I have a reputation to uphold! Next time I tell you to stay in your EV suit, you stay in it!”
“Yes, Mom.”
“What’s with the ‘Mom’ stuff lately?”
* * * * *
“So, have we selected a destination yet?” Jessica asked as she walked onto the bridge and took a seat at her console.
“There’s a place called Kidron that looks pretty good,” Cargo said. “It’s better than the other options we were considering. A lot of mining rigs far out around the edges of the system. We can get in, do a bit of trading, get some more volatiles and get out fast.”
“Just about ready to deploy the scoop, too,” Cheeky said. “No indication that the locals have spotted us, either.”
“Think they’ll pick up the scoop?” Jessica asked.
“If they have probes nearby looking straight at us, maybe,” Cheeky said. “But really, we’re kissing the star here. They’re not going to see anything but star.”
“Oh,” Jessica said. “Once we’re past the star…no one come into the rear observation lounge for a bit, kay?”
“Oh yeah?” Cheeky asked with an arched eyebrow.
“Yeah,” Jessica replied. “I need some me time…well, me and Trevor time.”
“In the sunlight.”
“Oh, will that room be in full, ridiculously amazing sunlight?” Jessica asked.
Cargo sighed and shook his head. “What am I ever going to do with you two?”
* * * * *
“Deploying the scoop,” Mandy announced.
“This is bullshit,” Jenn said as she adjusted the ship’s shielding to allow the ramscoop to draw in hydrogen and helium as they flowed off the star. “I can’t believe we got kicked off Hermes of all places…and all because of that little shit Misha.”
“Well…” Mandy chuckled. “He got his. Boarded a ship full of nut jobs that slammed themselves into a planet.”
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Jenn replied. “What would possess them to do that? And how did they avoid those RMs?”
“I bet RHY is asking the same thing. Either way, no one is coming back to Naga anytime soon. This system’s done.”
“That’s for sure,” Jenn said.
Mandy studied scan, watching for potential flares and CMEs as they boosted past the star on a slingshot for the Jushes jump point.
“Whoa, what is that?” she asked.
“What is what?” Jenn said.
“There’s another ship ahead, a few light seconds, just passing beyond scooping range,” Mandy said. “I’m pulling up its pro—holy shit,” she whispered the last two words.
“What?”
Mandy put the scan result on the small holodisplay between their seats.
“It’s them,” she said.
“The fuck! It is them.”
“But they hit the planet,” Mandy said. “Everyone in the system saw them hit Marsalla and smash it like a rotten egg.”
“Well, then what are they doing on an outsystem vector?” Jenn asked.
“A vector too…Kidron!” Mandy locked eyes with Jenn.
“Mandy…we’re not exactly welcome at a lot of places in Kidron.”
“You willing to let Misha go—or a ship that can do what that one did?” She paused, her eyes widening as a grin spread on the face. “At the least we can sell the intel.”
Jenn flipped her long braid over her shoulder and ran her fingers down its length for a minute. “OK, but just to sell the intel. I bet Derick would pay top dollar to know about a ship like that.”
Mandy grinned and nodded. “Top dollar.”
THE END
THE COOK’S NEW CREW
PERSEUS GATE – SEASON 1: EPISODE 2.5
BY M. D. COOPER
ABOARD SABRINA
STELLAR DATE: 09.03.8938 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Hermes Station
REGION: Naga System, Orion Freedom Alliance Space
“Why did the clocks just jump?” Misha asked, a cold sweat forming on his brow as he paced across the cabin in which he had been locked.
“No, I just got a sync update on your shipnet. My implant’s logs show a 30.2342 second adjustment!”
“Do you really expect me to believe that?” Misha asked.
Misha thought about it. He really didn’t. However, he did know that the ship was in some sort of combat. Its grav systems were good and he couldn’t feel the evasive maneuvers he knew they must be making, but there was no mistaking the thunder of the fusion drives or the scream of the antimatter-pion drive.
The ship had been accelerating full bore before the time jump, he was sure of it.
“And you just expect me to believe that nothing out of the ordinary is happening right now?” Misha asked.
Misha let out a sound that remin
ded him of the sort of harrumph his grandfather used to make whenever his mom said she was going to make a casserole.
“What I get for signing on with a ship like this—wherever it’s from. They’re up to no good.”
He looked at the porthole again. It was blacked out, though he did have access to the room controls. The debate over whether not to clear the window and look out into space raged in Misha’s mind once more.
Knowing what was out there could be just the thing he needed to set his mind at ease…or it could make him crap his pants.
“We’re so gonna die…” he whispered.
There was just no way this ship could outrun everyone who was after him at this point. If station patrol got in on the chase, it was just a matter of time before they were all goners.
“Screw it,” he said, his tone sounding far more resolute than he felt.
Misha walked to the port hole, took a deep breath, and hit the button to clear the plas.
What he saw didn’t make any sense at first. The ship appeared to be spinning slowly, and debris obscured the sunlight, which looked dim…but far too large. There was no way they could have made it to Naga Prime this quickly.
He peered around the edges of the porthole trying to get a better view. No…that wasn’t the star…it was something else. It was glowing red in places, with debris and clouds….
“Noooo,” he whispered. “It can’t be.”
“Sabrina! Is that the planet out there?”
Sabrina replied.
“You already removed my ability to send outbound messages. Why do you think I’m talking to you aloud?”
“Stop being evasive.” Misha’s voice rose in pitch. “Is that Marsalla down there? It has to be…yes, look, there’s the moon! What happened to Marsalla?”
“‘It broke?’ That’s your explanation? Planets don’t just break like that! Something had to have hit it,” Misha exclaimed, waving his arms for emphasis. “What happened to it?”
“What?!” Misha cried out. “You’ve got to be kidding me! Let me out of here! I have to know what’s going on!”
There was no response, and Misha continued to cry out, making demands, threats, and saying just about anything that he could think of to get them to let him out. He even volunteered to cook for the crew for a month.
Eventually he decided to take off the hazsuit. No one had told him to keep it on and it was bunched up uncomfortably. Once it was off—and dumped unceremoniously in the corner—he unlatched the room’s chair from the deck and dragged it over to the porthole, staring at the shrinking form of Marsalla as the globe, that had for so long been green, blue, and purple, now changed to red and black.
At some point he fell asleep, head leaning against the bulkhead, and his dreams were beyond strange. He was running through the warrens of Hermes Station, being chased by a purple woman who was hurling planets at him. Then he rounded a corner only to find Macy and Jenn waiting for him.
Then Macy reached out and knocked on his forehead.
“What?” he said to her in his dream.
“Hello?” she asked. “Can I come in? Are you decent?”
Misha replied.
Misha opened his eyes to see only the darkness of stellar space out the porthole. He peered around the window and caught sight of Naga Prime, its harsh glow muted by the plas.
“Uh, yeah,” Misha replied as he stood and rubbed his eyes.
Unless there were more women on the ship than he’d already met, Jessica would have to be the purple one. The extremely hot purple one.
As he quickly ran a hand through his hair, the door slid open and she walked in.
“Uh…are you glowing?” he asked.
“Hello to you too,” Jessica said as she entered the room, a rather serious expression on her face.
Misha’s blood pressure rose at her glib response. “Yeah, well pardon my manners, I’m the one that has been locked in this room for hours.”
Jessica gave a soft laugh. It was derisive to be sure, but boy did she look sexy when her eyes sparkled like that.
Shit, she was speaking, what’s she talking about? Misha wondered.
“…the station patrol, all after you, it turns out. You caused more than a little trouble for us, and we saved your skin, so I think that a little appreciation…”
Oh, that. “You’re right,” Misha said once Jessica finished listing the things he’d screwed up and how much he owed them right now. “I didn’t think things would escalate like that. I just needed a ride off the station, and based on the maps you wanted, I knew you guys were going far away from Naga. I’m not wrong about that, am I?”
A strange smile settled on Jessica’s lips, which were oh-so-luscious, and seemed to glow brighter whenever she smiled. How come all of the mod-hotties were always taken?
“No, you’re not wrong,” Jessica replied. “We have a bit of a trek ahead of us, but Kidron’s our next stop. We’ll drop you off there and we’ll part ways.”
“Uhh…any chance you can take me somewhere else?” Misha asked.
“Have some more fans at Kidron?” Jessica asked with a smirk.
Stars, this woman is hard to think around.
“Ummm, you could say that,” Misha replied. “Say, how is it that no one is attacking us right now? I thought station patrol would send everything they had at us.”
“Yeah…they did. Thanks for that, by the way,” Jessica said, her brow knitting as she spoke. “Luckily they sent relativistic missiles.”
“Luckily?” Misha asked. “There’s a billion billion humans out there, but I don’t think any of them have ever said, ‘luckily they sent RMs’, unless they were talking about killing their enemies.”
“Well, we jinked when they janked, and the RMs hit the planet. Just the right spot too, triggered a supervolcano eruption and gave us the cover for escape.”
Misha dredged up what he knew about Marsalla. He didn’t recall the planet having any dormant supervolcanoes. Granted, he hadn’t ever spent much time studying its geology either.
“So, we’re free and clear?”
“Yup.” Jessica nodded. “So long as no one spots us on our outsystem vector. We’re drifting dark right now. There’s a lot of debris out here to slink away with, so we should be OK.”
“And everyone thinks we’re dead?” Misha asked, a smile finding its way onto his lips.
“Yup.” Again, Jessica nodded with that smile of hers. “I take it that you like the idea of being presumed dead.”
“Well, it has its benefits,” Misha said with a soft chuckle. “So…about my destination. Any chance I can stay on a bit longer? I do know a lot about this region of the OFA. I can be your guide.”
Jessica chuckled. “I can imagine. Based on your track record, I imagine you have a lot of cautionary tales.”
“Uh, I suppose, yeah.”
“I’ll talk to the captain about keeping you on longer. As for making yourself useful, Sabrina mentioned you had offered to cook for a month. Let’s start there.”
“Really, Sabrina?” Misha asked. “I thought we were fri
ends?”
“I wish you wouldn’t call us organics,” Jessica said.
“Is she being serious?” Misha asked Jessica. “Is ‘AI’ an offensive term?”
“Who knows.” Jessica shrugged. “Another AI I know jokes that we’re all artificial, so it doesn’t matter.”
Jessica chuckled. “Well, I know for a fact that Bob jokes…but I suppose he might not be joking about that. I find it best not to ask Bob too much about his stranger proclamations.”
“Who’s Bob?” Misha asked.
“Just an AI on another ship I used to serve on,” Jessica replied. “C’mon. I’ll show you the galley.”
Misha followed Jessica out of the cabin and down the corridor. He was fully prepared to ask about how many ships Jessica had served on with AI controlling them, but instead he decided to enjoy the unobstructed view of her ass.
When they entered the galley, Misha was not surprised to see it matched the cabins. Which was to say it was very well appointed, and didn’t fit on a freighter at all.
“Nice table,” Misha said as he ran a hand along the wooden surface. It was well-polished and gleamed brightly, though it still had small nicks and scratches giving it character. “Where did you get it?”
“Honestly?” Jessica said. “I have no idea. It was here when I first came aboard.”