Space Trippers Book 1: Trippin' (23 page)

A low whistle came from one of the other crewmembers. “Going for years at three times the speed of light.” they repeated, discouraged by the very idea. And that was only if they had picked the right direction to travel!

The Captain sighed loosing patience, “So what are our options?”

“We could do as Lieutenant Baine suggested and try to calculate what direction we need to go in order to get back, and try to analyze any data we can find on the jumps as we go. Eventually we might be able to find a return path.” Sanic suggested.

Valesque shook her head. “Before you can even do that we need to get this ship repaired. We have zero power, which means the Light Core will have to charge the batteries for at least a week before we can use even the lowest engine pulse.” she reported, throwing water on the Captain’s plans once again.

“And before that we have to get the shields in place, and some of the weapons would be a good idea as well. We are now in unfamiliar territory, we have no sensors and therefore no idea what is out there, a comet could come by or we could drift into an asteroid field. Without shields we are completely vulnerable to any number of things.” she reminded them seriously. Her concern was the safety of her ship and these people, no matter where they were in the universe.

Fairbanks hated to admit it, but the aggravating Virrilian was right, their first priority was defense. “I will have Junior Lieutenant Cecil in navigation begin calculating a return path.” she announced. “Lieutenant Baine, I want you to accompany Doctor Rhaugh and Ensign Sanic. You three will oversee the repairs, starting with the shields.” she ordered curtly, not wanting to let the Virrilian wander unsupervised any longer.

She still did not trust her to willingly help them return to their home territory, as she was adamant about not letting herself or her ship be involved in the war.

The Captain let out a heavy sigh as she dismissed the crew from the conference room. It looked like her husband was going to have to wait a bit longer after all.

Chapter Nine: Teamwork

Tim, Sanic and Valesque all left the conference room together. Since Tim was a Lieutenant he had been put in charge of the two Ensigns and their repair project.

The Captain had called Tim over and talked briefly with him before the three had left the room. Valesque was not quite sure what she had said to him, but she guessed it was something to do with her because Captain Fairbanks kept looking at her grimly as she spoke to her junior officer.

Now as soon as the doors had closed behind them, separating the small group from their heated superior, Tim turned to Valesque with a cocky half smile.

“It seems our Captain is not too fond of you, Beautiful.” he began, not a bit surprised. “It is now my duty to accompany you wherever you go. She told me from now on not to let you out of my sight. And I am not about to argue with the Captain’s wishes.” he smirked, satisfied with the arrangement himself. “Especially when they coincide so nicely with mine.” he added with a mischievous wink..

The small Virrilian next to him growled her disgust at her latest fate.

“So I am under house arrest? Is that it?” she asked in rhetorical aggravation.

“Yep, and I am your very own, personal guard.” he added suggestively, his blue eyes twinkling as he entertained himself with his companion’s deep loathing sighs and obvious annoyance with the situation.

“So, you are a ‘Doctor’, eh?” he started again after a slight pause, looking down at her as the three of them walked out of the control room towards the down Hydro-lift.

“That is pretty impressive, Beautiful.” Tim praised, imagining what it would take to acquire such a prestigious designation.

He had never bothered going to college himself, the only reason he had left Old New York and joined the Intergalactic Police was because of his parents insisting he do something useful with his life and talents. And they did not consider wasting away his life on a solar farm as making anything of himself. They had pressed him to go into the I.P.A. Military but he was not interested in being a subordinate lackey. At least in the I.P.F you were given mostly free reign, mercenaries were not known for liking to be dictated to after all.

Now as he contemplated Valesque’s achievements, who looked to be even younger than himself, he had new respect for her. It was a new thing for him to be so taken with such a highly educated and capable girl, before the only type he had really gone for was a waitress or cute nurse.

Then there was the occasional flight mechanic, the base secretaries and one rather attractive salesgirl he remembered. But the aloof Virrilian was the first really distinguished and complex girl he had ever been interested in. Her title, knowledge and competence put her in a league of her own, but not out of his league by any means, it just made her more interesting and worth attaining.

Valesque flushed slightly at hearing herself referred to as ‘Doctor’ again, she had never been particularly fond of the title. ‘Doctor’ somehow felt like a smug, arrogant, conceited title; thinking it was better than everyone else was.

She had worked hard and graduated early in order to get her doctorate as quickly as possible because she had thought that somehow if she were someone important in the Science Field, a ‘Doctor’, her people would change their minds and accept her.

But they hadn’t.

And when they rejected her offering in the shape of the space warp weapon, she discarded everything that had gone along with it including the self-important title, the whole space warp project, and her hopes of ever returning home. She threw it away, all the garbage of her past piled up together.

The Virrilian Engineer let out a small resigned sigh as her ignominious history began to catch up with her. “’Doctor’ is just something they call a person who finishes a certain number of classes.” she dismissed trivially.

“If you say so, Beautiful.” the Pilot replied, wondering a bit at the self–depreciating tone of her statement when she had obviously worked very hard to get that title.

“But, you can’t deny that creating a space warp device was one amazingly inconceivable accomplishment.” he insisted. He knew he was impressed with the idea anyone could have come up with that, let alone that it was the same young woman who was standing beside him in the hydro-lift now.

Surely you had to go to special high-tech, ultra-secured, top-secret places, by invitation only to get to meet such an apparent genius as her. Yet here she was, shamefaced in the elevator next to him as if it was nothing at all and even seemed to wish he would stop mentioning her accomplishments.

Valesque’s face twisted into a distrustful frown as he said this. “I would think you of all people would not have appreciated the design of such a weapon. What with you being a Military Flyboy and all.” she replied as if he had been mocking her.

“You mean because I am a fighter pilot and shoot people down for a living.” he confirmed. “But if you could get rid of an opponent without having to really harm them, that would be a much better solution.” he admitted to her shock.

“Of course, that is probably why I never would have fit into the I.PA.” he laughed. “There the motto is 'shoot first, ask questions later'. At least in the Police force I could choose how to deal with my targets. They might not have always agreed with my methods of incapacitating the enemy until they were forced to retreat, but they couldn’t argue much as I was their best fighter.” he finished with a slightly conceited tone.

Their companion Sanic had been silent from the time they left the conference room; he was deep in thought over the sudden revelation that his dream girl was even more amazing than he had at first thought. It was impressive enough that she was the main Engineer in charge of building such an outstanding ship, but now he also finds out she had even conceived and built a space warp generator and held a Doctorate in Scientific Engineering!

He had not had much formal education himself, he learned all about ship functions and electronics from living most of his life on board a science vessel with his parents. Becoming an Operations Commander seemed to be a natural course, he could not fathom how much determination it would take to pursue a doctorate degree.

That title and her accomplishments with it, especially the space warp device, surely put her in an even higher class than he had previously feared.

It seemed the more he found out about her the farther she was out of his league, and the less chance he had.

As the lift stopped at Science Deck 1 the two men realized they had been blindly following the Virrilian Engineer to the Med-room.

Tim suddenly felt uncomfortable again, as he realized their destination and he recalled Lola had been sent down to the Med-room by Valesque earlier to tend to those injured during the space warp.

He was still not at ease around the artificial female, her extremely outgoing and simple character would have been cute in a real girl, but in a fake one it was increasingly irritating. If she was a robot she should just act like one.

“Is there a reason why we are stopping on this level, Beautiful?” he asked as the Hydro-lift doors hissed open on the medical floor. He had somehow been under the impression they were going back down to her lab to work on the shield emitters.

“The Space Tripper is in the Med-room.” she replied simply. “Sanic had said he wanted to examine it and see if he could find a return path, remember?”

And she also wanted to check on Lola, she added silently to herself.

She was never quite sure what that android would get herself into without close supervision. Like the episode in the hydroponics room, she recalled, thinking how she now had to find the time to clean that mess up and see if there were any decent plants left.

Lola was not an official crewmember, no one had even realized she was on board when the orders had been made; she was also not a part of the control or flight crew so therefore she had not been invited to the Captain’s interrogation meeting in the conference room. Valesque had instead sent her back to the Med-room with instructions to feign an injury so she would have an excuse for being there if the Captain found out about it.

Lola had the ability to alter her appearance by picturing what she wanted to look like and then her exoskeleton would morph to conform to her visualization.

Valesque had no idea what injury Lola had given to herself as her excuse for being in the Med-room, but she was about to find out as the threesome walked through the doorway towards their destination.

Lola was seen in the second exam table aisle working on a very nervous looking patient.

Valesque was not sure what he had to be so worried about until Lola turned to see who the new arrivals were.

As the girl’s candy-colored head turned to glance their way Valesque got a good look at what had obviously been troubling him.

Lola had inflicted a serious ‘head injury’ to herself as her cover.

The blue side of her cotton-candy hair was stuck in spots to a horrible looking gash in her forehead that had trickled ‘blood’ down the side of her face. She looked like someone who was in desperate need of medical attention herself!

And this was apparently what her ‘patients’ in the Med-room had been thinking.

They had entered the room with merely slight cuts, scrapes and bruises only to be greeted by a woman with a severe head wound who insisted on treating them and would not take no for an answer.

As she diagnosed and tended to them, she rattled on a sad tale about the ordeal of unfortunate crewmates who were now lying dead by the thousands in a make-shift morgue a few floors below.

When she told them this story, and they saw her own terrible gash, they tended to look at one another in concern and back away fearfully. They were afraid the poor girl had been hit too hard in the head and was going completely delusional.

The crewmen figured the best thing to do in the situation was to let her do whatever she wanted and not to alarm her. They had heard deranged people like her tended to get violent if you tried to oppose them.

So, all of them just sat quietly waiting for their treatments while giving each other apprehensive looks and warning gestures.

They were obviously much relieved when the newest arrivals came and the disturbed girl excused herself to go talk with them.

Tim could not help but chuckle as the injured crew members looked at each other meaningfully and began to tiptoe out of the room behind the android’s back.

Valesque just put her hand to her head realizing once again how much oversight this person required.

“Look! Isn’t it good? I think the other people really believed it was real too.” Lola said happily, as she joined her friends and pointed to her self-inflicted wound proudly.

“Mmmm…yes, I am afraid they did.” the Virrilian acknowledged as she caught a glimpse of the last frightened worker quickly fleeing the room while Lola was distracted.

“When I said you should pretend to be injured I had meant for you to just have maybe a cut on your arm or a sprained wrist.” she explained as she examined the scary looking illusion on the girl’s forehead.

“You mean, like this?” the eager to please android questioned as she momentarily closed her eyes. Her head wound slowly disappeared until no trace was seen of it as a new smaller cut was formed on her hand.