Scout Ship: Rise of the Empyrean Empire: Novel 01 Page 12

  I’d forgotten we’d shared personal contacts, well not really, I just didn’t expect her to use it until after the mission and hadn’t been thinking about it. I also caught myself smiling, and knew I was in trouble. I decided screw it, and to just enjoy the friendship and what came.

  I said, “Play the message Amy.”

  Katy’s voice filled my head.

  “Hey Michael, did you see the admiral’s face when I said virgins?” she giggled rather naughtily which sent a shiver down my spine, “I’m never going to get promoted again. Thing is, I like OPS, I get to be nosy, scan, and control the ship’s systems, who wants to supervise anyway? I’d be bored out of my skull. I hope you don’t mind a personal message from me when on mission, but we didn’t get a chance to finish our argument, and I was enjoying it. I believe it was your turn, and I fully expect a message when I get off shift tonight, don’t let me down… sir.”

  I tried not to read too much into the message, she was probably just used to talking and socializing with Timothy, and had lost that. She could also be reaching out to me for all the other reasons that connected us as some kind of replacement, which was both nice and disappointing on different levels.

  There were two other lieutenants she could socialize with, but I knew Cindy didn’t really approve of her ‘fun’ attitude, and George was an unsociable ass. I was probably just overthinking it, that whole attraction thing was still awkward. Problem was, she was exactly my type in looks and personality, it was just every other circumstance around us made it impossible, and even wrong for me to think about her that way.

  “Amy, record a reply for Katy’s message. Katy, glad you sent the message and don’t mind at all, it even cheered me up a bit. I almost laughed at that joke, and I’m pretty sure the captain was close as well. As for our argument, I don’t think our scientists are that stupid, they won’t light it up inside. Can’t really get into details though, not on personal messages if we don’t want to get locked up, so be careful there. As for the other, you obviously haven’t given it enough thought, think how much nosier you could be with access to crew records.”

  I shook my head, did I really just say that? I wondered if the intelligence section had a sense of humor, probably not.

  “Amy, remove the pause and continue. Anyway Katy, I need to get some sleep, hope I hear from you again tomorrow. Amy, end message and send.”

  I shook my head, kicked off my boots and laid on the bed, all the while wondering if I was heading for pain. I’d managed to avoid close entanglements for years in the service, and I couldn’t have picked a worse target for my affections if I’d tried. Yet… that wasn’t something I could truly control, was it? I couldn’t help at all the effect her presence, smile, and even just her voice had on me. I eventually fell asleep.

  The next few days went by quickly, and I still didn’t have any answers for my personal issues. Listening to Katy’s voice, which never failed to make me smile, and responding to them became part of my after-shift routine far too easily for my comfort. I’d continued and failed to reason myself out of my attraction, but despite the fact it was doomed didn’t seem to make a difference. I’d even tried to blame it on the fact I’d been lonely the last year, but that excuse only went so far. I wasn’t just lusting after her body because she was gorgeous and it’d been far too long since I’d slept with a woman, I also craved her presence, her voice, and her conversation. She’d been able to draw me out, and our conversations had been far more personally revealing than I got with most people.

  I wasn’t sure whether it was a good thing or not we didn’t share shifts.

  I don’t think I was obsessed or anything, I didn’t think about her all the time or consider doing anything stupid, yet my favorite times of the day now were shift changes when I could get a glimpse of her and see the private smile she always had for me, and before bed when I could hear her voice.

  Outside of my attraction, there was a genuine friendship being built as well. It was an effortless thing, and I never needed to struggle about where our conversation went next. Our messages had lengthened quite a bit the last three days spanning a number of topics. Enough about that, let’s just leave it at the fact I was falling for her, when clearly that was idiotic.

  The mission moved on as well. We’d reached the edge of the solar system where it was much safer to transition to subspace, and we were currently in route to a few light hours outside of 61-Virginis. The estimation was it would take thirty minutes to catch up to the slowly drifting derelict from where it was the first time. We couldn’t go directly to its assumed location, because we only had the Chavez-Teller scan of the space around where it was a couple of weeks ago.

  We’d arrive to that space in just twenty minutes, and though it was the middle of my shift I was expecting the captain to show up any minute. The first six hours would be the highest probability danger zone, so I’d be spending that time in auxiliary control, along with the ensigns.

  Cindy had also come up with a proposal to save time, the missiles themselves would be able to get to specified coordinates instead of using the shuttles, and stay in the same spot relative to the drifting derelict using their own engines. It just took a quick software tweak, and about two percent of the missiles flight time which wouldn’t be an issue in battle. The new program allowed the missile to go back to standby and safe, whereas usually when a missile’s engines were fired the warhead was live until it hit the enemy ship, or was self-destructed or manually recovered.

  In short, we’d just open our landing bay, and toss the forty missiles out with a loader, and they’d get to their station keeping distances and vectors on their own.

  I turned and looked at the door when it slid open, and Samantha walked onto the bridge, and took the captain’s chair.

  “The lieutenants should be here any minute, I want you to take the auxiliary control room, and take John this time, I’ll pilot.”

  “Yes captain. Do you think the aliens will show up?”

  She said in a confidential low tone, “Nope, no virgins at this party.”

  I raised an eyebrow, “Captain?”

  She shook her head and said too low for the ensigns to hear, “What, I can’t tell a joke? We’re supposed to be more informal at least privately, remember what we talked about? Be glad I didn’t mention anything about your devastating missile plan, and the virgins being nervous about their rear.”

  I choked on a laugh.

  She smirked and said, “No, I think it’s highly unlikely they’ll notice us, but we act as if they will and our lives depend on our vigilance and preparations, clear?”

  “Of course captain, I feel much the same way.”

  She nodded, “Good. Here come the lieutenants, and our admiral, get moving.”

  I turned and watched them come in as I stood.

  “Yes maam,” I replied crisply, and led the four ensigns around the inner ring and into engineering. We walked into auxiliary control and took our seats and were strapped in just moments before transition. The views of the bridge and viewer were active.

  The captain said, “Three, two, one,” the engines died, “Transition.”

  We popped back into normal space, and the alarm went off as the captain initiated another burn.

  Then she said, “Katy, start the download of the probe, have Armstrong parse the data as it comes in, look for the shuttle as you suggested, or good secondary targets for our plasma weapons while we try and get them in the back with our missiles. Pass the latter onto Cindy and Ally for analysis.”

  Katy said, “Aye maam, the probe estimates it’s seventy eight percent complete with its task, it’s a little less than halfway across the ship. Estimated time of completion is in one week.”

  That made sense, the alien ship was tallest with the most decks in the back. The front half mile of the ship was much thinner than the back half. Hopefully their landing bay was somewhere in the back half.

  Katy smiled, “I believe we have the location of the bri
dge, it’s located a third from the back, center deck. It’s also made out of the same alloy as the hull of the ship.”

  She looked a little crestfallen as she added, “It also found a port and starboard landing bay on the bottom deck, both were scoured clean however. There were no indications of escape pods either. There are a few major EPS conduits I’m forwarding to our weapons officers as well as the bridge location.”

  I felt the urge to comfort her disappointment about her shuttle idea falling through, and squashed it. Ridiculous.

  Cindy said, “These main EPS trunks are buried deep, three of them right down the center and most protected area of the ship, and then they branch out into smaller conduits to feed the ship, it looks like they have triple redundancy as well. I wish we knew where the weapon was, they only seem to have one on the ship.”

  Katy nodded, “Maybe it’s one of the devices in engineering? There are no emitters or ports other than the airlocks on the ship, maybe they can project the gravity field through matter?”

  Cindy shrugged, “Maybe, or maybe it’s a function their engines are capable of, and they take one offline as an offensive weapon, who knows.”

  The captain said, “No point in speculating and guessing, we’ll go after what we can understand, and let the scientists figure out the rest. Battle is no time for guessing, and we’re already going after the engines anyway.”

  The captain paused a moment, and said, “Get ready to flip ship, in ten… five… one…”

  The engines cut off, and we flipped, and the engines cut back on. We’d slow and rendezvous with the alien ship in just a few minutes, matching its drift vector and speed.

  The captain ordered, “Katy, start an FTL scan of the current location of the ship, then keep an ongoing scan to account for the changes as we drift and update navigation. I want to be ready to transition at any time.”

  Katy replied, “Aye captain. In progress.”

  A few minutes later we were there. After that we got the missiles out, and the scientists left in EVA sleds and started attaching emitters on the mile-long ship. It wasn’t a hard process, but the ship was big and they had to be careful with the power lines as they’d be on the outside of the ship as well. From what I gathered, the Armstrong would be powering and controlling them, and would make a subspace field large enough to transition both ships, one of which was sixteen times larger in length, and a whole lot larger than that in volume of the scout itself. That would take some reprogramming of the drive, and be done at the last minute as we connected to the back of the ship, both power and physically.

  All that mass, I doubted we’d be able to push it very fast. If we managed a tenth of a G in subspace I’d be happy.

  The six hours passed slowly, and everyone was on edge. We were ready, but in the end as expected, the enemy hadn’t shown up. At the end of my shift I left to get some sleep, and my daily message from Katy…

  Chapter Seventeen

  The week both went slow, and flew by. My guess was a little off, we managed a little better than a tenth of G after transitioning to subspace, the Armstrong was pushing the load at fifteen percent of one G. The trip to Sigma Draconis that would have taken just an hour, would take us much longer at the slower acceleration. The only change to the plan had been to cancel self-destructing the missiles, the captain felt it was worth the risk, and we recalled them right before transition.

  The probe had finished its work, and no more landing bays or weaknesses were uncovered. It seemed the front half of the ship were all rooms for the crew, and places we guessed were R&R or meeting rooms, and all the critical stuff was in the back or the center of the ship. It was a good design, as long as they could keep their bow faced toward an enemy. We didn’t really find a better way to fight them either, going after the EPS trunks was more problematical than taking out engineering. We could get them from the top or bottom of the ship, but we had to get all three for it to be effective, which would take twelve missiles at a minimum, whereas only four with maybe a spare would be required for the engine room approach.

  Still, they were worth aiming at if it came down to firing phased plasma beams.

  The week went slowly, because it’d been fairly tense, especially that last day when we were sitting ducks while getting hooked up to the derelict, and we would have been unable to react quickly in case the aliens finally decided to show up. It didn’t help that our first transition attempt had to be aborted for a second round of programming. Thankfully, that wasn’t an issue and all our preparations turned out to be unnecessary.

  The week went fast, because I knew this mission would end soon, and I’d miss my daily message exchange with Katy. I really wanted to go on leave, I felt a bit burned out from the twelve hour shifts every day for the last three hundred and eighty-two days without a break, and two days of debriefs from hell was not a break, but would we even keep in touch after that? The last few days, neither of us had even mentioned what brought us together in the first place, and had been just getting to know each other better. The more I learned, the deeper I fell. Which was ridiculous, because I’d never even touched her, not even an innocent brush of arms. Neither had she been sending me signals of any kind, as far as I knew it was all one sided.

  We’d drop off the ship later today, and a week later be back at Mars and off to take leave back on Earth. Just seven more messages didn’t seem nearly enough, would they slow down when she was with her friends and family on Earth? Even if they didn’t, they’d slow down a lot when we were assigned to new ships, and most probably in different star systems.

  I also felt a little nervous, because I might have done something stupid last night, she seemed to really enjoy our daily broken up conversation, as much as I did. But I wondered if I was reading into it too much.

  Regardless, I’d mentioned that outside of visiting my family the first week, I didn’t really have anything else planned for the remainder of my five weeks’ leave, and then I’d asked her what her plans were. I’m not usually so mental about women, but all the complications and history adds up to a very confused and conflicted me. I’d never felt so strongly about a woman before, or so guilty for doing so.

  It was dumb, because I worried if she said yes, I wouldn’t know if that meant she felt the same, or if she would just think of it as a friend thing? If she did say no, or if she was subtler and kinder about it and simply said she had plans with her step-brother and father, it would simply hurt, and I’d get over it. Eventually. No was probably the sanest and safest option, but I was past wanting that easy out. I wondered if she had any idea how I actually felt toward her, and if my half assed invitation to meet up on leave would be the thing that finally clued her in. At least it would be okay then, and not against regulations as we’d no longer be in the same chain of command, but if we did meet up on leave chances were we’d never be assigned together again. It wasn’t against regulations, but I had no doubts that our A.I.s would report it.

  I hated myself like this, I used to be confident and have it all figured out, then I guess I grew up.

  Regardless, I was stuck here on the bridge all day before I could hear her response, and it was driving me a little crazy. I felt like a boy with his first crush, instead of a grown man and commander of a UEDF scout ship.

  We had to transition again in just over eight hours, and I wasn’t sure if the captain would show up again or not. I guessed she probably would, I would’ve if I were the captain, hell, I would as first officer if it happened on her shift. Technically there shouldn’t be any danger, but Samantha liked to be around for all the big stuff, and uncoupling from an alien ship and seeing off the admiral, the scientists, and the tug shuttle most definitely counted.

  I wondered if my mother and sister had heard of Timothy’s death, or if I’d be telling them next week. I was a little split on which option was better, which was a little selfish of me. I know my sister had a crush on him since she was about thirteen, and my mother cared for him too, though not as much as my sister
and I had.

  I spent the next several hours writing up commendations for the crew, and filling out reports. I also looked over the latest sim scores, and I was confident any captain would be lucky to inherit my ensigns. They’d done an outstanding job. Focusing on the work and my duty helped clear all the personal crap, the classical music Amy played in my head may have helped as well…

  The captain came in and took a seat.

  “Sam.”

  She quirked her lips, “Michael.”

  Where had Samantha been hiding her sense of humor? No wonder she let Katy get away with her joking, the captain was the same personality type, or possible even worse given her puerile jokes this last week. I wanted to be angry about her holding back this camaraderie we should have had for a longer amount of time, but the truth was I’d thought I’d been promoted too early as well, so couldn’t really blame her for holding me at arm’s length so long. Sometimes I still thought I was too young for Lt. Commander, I was still twenty-seven, just twenty-six when promoted two years ahead of the normal eligibility.

  “All systems are at hundred percent captain, and we’re on schedule to drop out of subspace in twenty minutes.”

  She nodded, “No need for auxiliary control this time, just wanted to be here to send off the admiral.”

  I said, “The bridge is yours, captain.”

  After a moment, I asked too low for the ensigns to hear, “So what are your plans?”

  The captain smiled, “My son of course, I only get to see him on leave. I’m going to spend four weeks with him, and then maybe look up a few friends before I get back. You?”

  I shrugged, “Family, and then I’m not sure yet.”

  She nodded, “How would you feel if I requested you for my next assignment? We work together well, you give smart concise suggestions, and you never argue once I’ve made a decision.”

  She had a point, we did. We also had no chemistry at all between each other as anything more than friends, even if she was still a very attractive woman at her age. Point was, we did work together well, and there were no complications to get in the way of it.