by Bob Mauldin
On a ship the size of the Galileo, as in any enclosed environment starved for any information or diversion, news traveled fast. By the time Lucy arrived in the rec room, almost every junior officer not actively on-shift, and a few that were, had crowded in to welcome her back. Most she didn’t know, but by now she realized that any excuse to party was a good excuse. Virginia sidled through the crowd and pressed a beer into her hand.
“Where’d this come from?” Lucy whispered incredulously. “We’re going to get so busted.”
“Not even. Special dispensation from Commander Kitty,” Virginia retorted. “There are three parties going on right now, and one of them is for the Captain. She gave the word to unlock the food processors restricted levels enough to allow beer for tonight, so we’re having the first kegger in space in your honor.” Virginia stepped up on a chair, pulled a protesting Lucy up on another and addressed the room. “Ladies and gentlemen, if there are any present, our guest of honor, Lt. Commander Lucy Grimes! Queen of the asteroid racers!”
Cheers shook the walls, glasses were lifted (and spilled), and Lucy’s mouth dropped open. “What ... how ...?” she spluttered incredulously.
Rob and Michiko appeared out of the crowd. “Let me guess, Lucy. You forgot that the Galileo has much better sensors than those puny fighters,” ‘Chiko volunteered. “We kept track of your entire trip. Especially your return flight. Word got out and everyone on board started betting on the winner. I don’t think anyone was more interested than Commander Kitty. Actually, I think pissed is much more accurate. I sure wouldn’t like to be in the Captain’s shoes right now.”
Lucy paled in horror as she stepped down off the chair. Rob grinned. “Lighten up, Boss. Rumor has it that Commander Kitty is only upset with the Captain for starting it. For once, the First Officer gets to pin back the ears of the Captain. Not that we lowly junior officers will ever hear what she has to say. All you did was follow the Captain’s lead. The fact that it turned into an all-out race isn’t exactly your fault. The fact that you won, now, that’s a matter for celebration. You are an official hero to all the folks in this room!”
Galileo had been on-station for just over a month now. The habitat section of Earth’s first deep-space station was nearing completion. Another week would see that finished, two more for Power Generation, and then the pressure of so many people living so closely together could be alleviated by moving a large number aboard the new facility. Then work on the actual dock assembly would begin. The factories that weren’t involved in the habitat section were turning out some of the larger assemblies that would go into the dock proper. By far and away the largest of those was a duplicate of the smelter. It was half finished already and floating in position trailing the habitat, as were several dozen other modules, scheduled to be installed at different times during the construction project. Not to mention three new stripped down shuttles and twenty-four new construction pods; the shuttles to feed the smelter and the pods to handle the actual construction of new ships after Galileo returned to Earth. Projections said four more months after the habitat section was done, and they could head back to Earth.
Simon was going over reports with Stephen in the ready-room. “Dr. Penn says injuries are up. Nothing major so far, but he says it’s only a matter of time. These games are the main problem, of course. Stopping them will start a mutiny, so what can we do?”
Stephen tossed his pen onto the table. “You said it yourself. Mutiny if we try to stop it. So, I have a suggestion.” Simon looked up from his reports expectantly. “Do the only thing you can, Simon.” Stephen took off his shirt with a vicious grin, revealing a series of laser sensors. “You can show your support. For the sport, if not for Walker’s Wildsiders. Exhibition games start in about an hour.”
Simon shook his head in resignation. He had to show support. After all, one of the teams in the first exhibition was Kitty’s Kommandos. If he didn’t, after his little screw-up with racing back to the ship like a teenager with a new hot rod, Kitty would never let him hear the end of it. He slapped the table with one hand. “Of course, I’ll show support, Stephen. And, privately, I hope the Kommandos wipe the deck with your butts.” Turning the conversation back to the construction of the base, he asked, “So, when do we need to fire up the fuel plant?”
“All the material is in place,” Stephen said. “We can send the signal any time. That way we can send a ship out to tow the finished fuel cell and send Sundiver back for installation as soon as Power Generation is completed.” The game forgotten for the moment, the two men lost themselves a bit longer deciding how to handle some of the minutia that constantly threatened to take all the fun out of having a space ship.
Simon changed from his uniform to something less conspicuous. He felt that he needed to appear at the games in an informal capacity. Deck eighteen, forward, had been transformed into an arena. Cables had been strung from floor to ceiling in a random pattern, some of which had four-foot plastic (or something like plastic) balls suspended from them at different levels. About three dozen other balls lay around the arena. One end of the room near the gravity control panel had been walled off by some clear material put out by one of the factories. Cables were strung in an orderly pattern for spectators to anchor themselves once the gravity was turned off.
The rules were simple: kill your opponent by hitting the proper sensors. Some sensors caused an arm or leg to be immobilized. The sensors would light up with a reddish glow, and if it was for an arm or leg, one of the three referees would disallow that limbs’ use. Five players to a team, no substitutions after the game started, no quarter until one team was dead.
The gravity was still on when Simon found a place among the nearly two hundred fifty spectators in the gallery, some of whom were in laser tag outfits. He saw Lt. Commander Grimes and her team off to one side, wearing what looked like bathrobes, for crying out loud. They were in one of the later exhibitions, he supposed. As he waited for the first match, Kitty slipped into the space beside him. “We’re in the fifth match,” she explained. He looked her up and down in surprise. Her flat-black outfit could have been painted on, and sensors were strapped to various parts of her anatomy. Kitty chuckled merrily. “Gayle is something of a seamstress, you know. And with this new fabric, she had a field-day. You like?” She pirouetted beside him. “See something you like, big fella?”
Simon was saved from answering by three men in traditional referee’s stripes walking out into the arena floor. One blew two short blasts on a whistle, consulted a clipboard, and announced, “We need the first two teams in the arena immediately. That will be the Neutron Stars and the Astronuts.” Ten men and women walked into the arena, each armed with a laser pistol that had been redesigned specifically for the human hand, and powered down for the games. One team was dressed in standard black ship uniforms with multi-colored stars sewn on, and the other team sported gaudy rainbow patterned outfits. Starting positions had been predetermined and the Neutron Stars in their rainbow outfits took position at the far end of the arena. The referees spread out, one asked if both teams were ready, and then signaled to the gravity control operator, who cut the power.
Both teams held their positions while the referees moved from one loose ball to another giving each a random kick or shove until all were in motion. At the next whistle, both teams exploded into action. Each team had different tactics, the Astronuts operating more or less solo, each having picked out an opponent, while the Neutron Stars worked as two teams of two, with the fifth player flying solo as backup for whichever twosome needed support.
The Neutron Stars handily beat the Astronuts, the Moon Men trounced the Starwalkers, Walker’s Wildsiders squeaked out a victory over the Novas, and then it was time for the match between the Martian Maniacs and the Queens of Outer Space. The Maniacs were already in the arena when the five bathrobe-clad women entered. The team captain of the Maniacs asked the Queens if they intended to fight in their robes, and Lucy looked him up and down. “Oh, no,�
� she drawled, a sound of superiority riding the accent. “We’re just waiting for our attendant.” At this announcement, another young lady walked up to the Queens, who began to hand her their robes. The catcalls and applause was deafening. Revealed were five nearly nude women, dressed in sensors, mini-thongs, pistol belts slung low, and nothing else. Very distracting for the all-male Maniacs, whose team captain lodged an immediate protest to the boos and jeers of the crowd.
The referees put their heads together for a moment, and one referee spoke for the group, “In the matter of the protest by the Maniacs over the manner of dress exhibited by the Queens. Considering the fact that no mention is made of uniforms or clothing in the rules of combat, we find that the Queens may wear anything, or nothing, as long as all sensors are worn and no sensors are blocked. Let the combat begin.” Gesturing to the panel operator, the referees set the loose balls in motion, and at the whistle, the contest began.
Lucy’s teammates were Velma and Virginia from her bridge crew, and Ensigns Toni Putnam and Miranda Lee, both training for bridge positions. The five bare-breasted women started out using the same tactics the Neutron Stars had used to such good effect. Within a matter of minutes, Velma had been shot in one arm, and Toni in a leg.
Shifting tactics on the fly, Lucy yelled, “Cue ball!”
Immediately Velma grabbed the nearest ball, wrapped her legs around it and with her pistol in her good hand, got a push from Virginia. She sped off toward one corner of the Maniacs territory like a cue ball’s bank shot, firing wildly.
The other four advanced to the center-line of the arena, and at Lucy’s shout of, “Cables!” pushed off the stationary balls and, firing cautiously, flew toward different anchored cables in enemy territory. Using the cables to change trajectory, they each kept firing at anything that looked male.
Distracted by Velma’s ricochet tactic, and not being able to disable or kill her because of the ball she had wrapped herself around, the five Maniacs were all “killed” within five minutes of the starting whistle. The final action took less than two minutes from the time Lucy yelled “Cue Ball.” At the referee’s command, gravity was restored, and the teams sorted themselves out.
Holstering their guns, the Queens of Outer Space strutted from the arena beaming from ear to ear as they slipped back into their robes. It took longer for the crowd to stop cheering than it had for the Queens to beat up on the Maniacs. So far, they were the only team to win their match without having a team member killed.
Simon turned to Kitty only to find her gone. As he looked around, he finally saw her entering the arena for her match. Her teams’ opponents were the Rocketeers and were dressed in black and silver. At the signal, the Kommandos began to advance. The two pairs and a solo looked like it might become a standard tactic. Kitty’s team varied it only slightly, as their pairs were on the flanks, while the solo worked the center.
The Rocketeers tried a tactic no one else had yet. Each grabbed one of the loose balls, and the team moved together as a group. The balls made a formidable wall through which none of the Kommandos shots could penetrate. To their advantage, the Rocketeers were able to fire around the sides and between the gaps at their opponents. They concentrated their fire first on ‘Chiko Greene, Kitty’s solo, then at the Rocketeers team leader’s direction, at each remaining member of Kitty’s team. They lost two of their own in the doing, but eliminated the Kommandos rather handily, much to Kitty’s chagrin.
Four months turned into just over three. Orion’s new shuttles were pressed into service alongside Galileo’s three and with six shuttles supplying the converter, the factories went into overdrive. Between that and the instant attraction, and near total devotion, to what was now being called Z-Tag, almost every-one was too tired or too caught up in something to be bored.
Even the scientists had kept busy. Much had come of their poking into the dark recesses of the computer core. Some of it disturbing. Things like not understanding even the basic mathematical principles behind which most systems operated. And staff sat in the ready-room going over reports. They all realized they had dodged a major bullet in that there had been no deaths Quite a few injuries, half a dozen broken bones associated with the construction, and multiple cuts, scrapes, sprains, abrasions, and more broken bones from Z-Tag. All in all, they had walked away clean, primarily due to the amazingly trouble-free technology aboard the ship.
Chief Baylor would remain with the dock for about six months, long enough to turn out one new ship, now being called a battle-cruiser. He and almost five hundred others had volunteered to stay and handle operations. As the dock was technically capable of independent motion, Chief Baylor would be promoted to captain.
The modifications to the original dock plans had been instituted, but a last-minute clamor for an arena for Z-Tag had gone up. Extending the lowest level of the dock, now being called a base, and soon to be formally named, had been, if not easy, at least straightforward. Adding extra height and grav lines to the lowest level had accomplished the task.
The three fighters would remain behind and assist the shuttles in their duties, as they had capture fields also, albeit not as strong as the shuttles. New ones, built to human dimensions and specifications had been built to replace them. Engineering estimated that anywhere from two weeks to a month could be cut from the production schedule by their addition.
In the final days before Galileo headed back to Earth, a large portion of the organic material stored in the holds was transferred to the base for the food processors, personnel received their new assignments, for the base as well as Galileo, new chains of command were worked out, and the base’s new computer core was activated.
The activation of the new core touched on one of the darker discoveries. The computer itself was semi-organic in nature, composed of about four cubic feet of proto-organic gel, just like Galileo’s. Information was transferred to and from the gel by way of micro-thin lasers that would write and read to and from different sections of the core. As the information in the Galileo’s computer was being transferred to the new one, it was discovered that one section was being consistently skipped. It could not be copied over to the new core, nor could it be read. The science staff hypothesized that it was probably a personal diary or a formal report under some kind of lock.
It started simply enough: Simon needed to know the date. It wasn’t until he glanced at the calendar and figured out the present date and Orion’s commissioning date that the icy feeling of disaster barely averted washed over him. Simply remembering was enough to get him off the hook, especially way out here, but ever the romantic, Simon had been obsessing for the last several hours about what he could do to make the occasion special for Kitty.
He wandered the corridors of Galileo aimlessly until he found himself on the bridge. The number of people at duty stations surprised him for a moment until he reminded himself that the commissioning ceremony was just a week away. Communications was one of the stations that was constantly manned since it was used as Flight Control for the entire construction process. Now, with construction winding down, everyone who could find the time, and that was most of the people aboard, were lined up to get a chance to fly one of the fighters. That meant increased traffic and increased personnel on comm duty.
Gayle looked up when he entered the room then returned her attention to the pilot she was coaching. “Relax, Ensign,” she said into the microphone. “You just need to realign your frame of reference. Your computer still thinks it’s aboard Galileo. Didn’t your instructor warn you to realign as soon as you left the ship? Lower right-hand quadrant of your control panel. Small green knob. Turn it clock-wise until it lights up.” She cocked her head for a second. “Very good, Ensign. Now complete your flight and remember to realign when you re-enter the flight deck. I will personally check your flight logs, later. Control out.”
Gayle took her headset off, shook out her hair, spoke quietly to one of her Control team, and came over to join Simon. “What’s
up, boss? You look ... strange.”
“Do you know the date?”
“The date?” Caught flat-footed, Gayle stalled for time. “No, I don’t. Should I? It’s pretty easy to lose track out here.”
Simon nodded. “That’s just my point. We’re going to commission the base next week, so I had to look up the date because I want to make up a plaque or something to give to Daniel during the ceremony.”
“Okay, so far, but what’s the big deal?”
“Today is February 7th. One more week will make it the 14th, our sixteenth anniversary,” Simon confided. “You know we always do something special. But look where we are. What other man has given his wife an anniversary in the asteroid belt?”
“Hold it, Simon, let me think. You know by now that most women just want to have special occasions remembered, and Kitty is really no exception to that, but out here ...” Her voice trailed off as the thoughts raced through her head. “How about you say something during the ceremony? Maybe at the end? Just to her? And afterward the two of you can have one of the most romantic dinners on record. I have just the place. You know the observation deck. Run everyone out and it will just be the two of you for a quiet dinner. Consider all the details taken care of.” At his look of disbelief, she added, “Duty roster for one shift and a romantic dinner. I’ve got a week to figure it out. You better take me up on it, friend. It’s likely to be your last real peaceful moment for a while.”
Simon sat in silence for a few moments. “I can do that. All I have to do is come up with something to say.” Already beginning to formulate a way to add what he wanted to say to Kitty into what he had pre-pared to say to Daniel and the ships’ company, Simon wandered back to his quarters.
Gayle, for her part, returned to her console, put her headset back on and smiled. Too bad you can’t collect on bets you make with yourself, she thought. Kitty had come to her not five hours before with the same dilemma and received an almost identical solution. It was an incredibly easy thing to do since she had been anticipating the situation for over a month after her own need to know a date. Hell, she had had the dinner planned for most of the last month, anyway. It’s just so much simpler when your victims cooperate.