Tony met Holly his final year at Oxford, before he transferred to Sandringham for his military training. Petite, slim, and graceful, with long wavy blond hair and sky blue eyes, she was his feminine ideal. With a wry grin, Price thought that the only thing he had gained from Dr. Young’s second-year literature course was the understanding of a “feminine ideal”. It was the best description of what Holly meant to him.
She was studying to be a ballerina with the Royal Ballet Corps when they met. He’d been the suave ladies man, fond of fast planes and even faster women. Dating Holly was like throwing the engines in full reverse while pulling a gravitational arc turn. He still spent hours a day thinking about their future together.
Thoughts of the future brought Tony back to the lonely present. Holly sent him digital messages and videos nearly every day. The framed screen on the wall showed a montage of images and short videos from their favorite vacations. Holly frolicked on a Thai beach wearing a pink bikini, then glided down an Aspen slope on her skis before the image changed to a still frame of her fine boned face. He’d taken that last picture right after he’d proposed. The look of joy on her face still made his chest constrict.
He flipped his arm over and checked the time on the chip implanted at his wrist. He had a few hours before his next shift. Ensign Robertson’s new course had skirted them past the Jupiter asteroid clouds. They were back on the straight-shot course to Neptune with nothing in the way but small exploration satellites and communications buoys. It would be a boring flight until they reached Neptune. O’Connell and he would trade off for the next few weeks in a grueling repetition of monotony. Price almost wished for something exciting to happen during his shifts. He was anxious to prove that he had the training to handle the
Hudson
in a crisis. The commander was heralded as the better pilot, but he intended to give her a run for her money. By the time they returned from Dremiks, he intended to be the best pilot in the fleet.
Tony flipped off the lights and stripped down to his boxers before stretching out on his bunk. He watched a simulated Holly wave to him before she pranced back into the lapping waves. He dreamt of home.
***
When Price arrived on the bridge for his next rotation, the captain was already there. Lieutenant Guttmann was in the engine room. Ensign Chi had the watch, but his practical duties in that role were non-existent with two senior officers on the bridge. Price nodded to Chi and slipped into his co-pilot’s chair. His flight suit chafed slightly across his shoulders, but Price welcomed the feel. It meant his work-outs were paying off and the ladies would take notice when he walked by. He rubbed at the short blond stubble on his chin and hoped the captain would not notice his lack of a clean shave.
The
Hudson
was ahead of schedule and gliding smoothly through space. She’d crossed Jupiter’s orbital path several hours before. The plotted course took them across the ellipses of each of the planets, but, due to the time of year, they would not approach Saturn or Uranus. Neptune, their first jump point, was still over a week away.
“Lieutenant, the engine room is requesting a cut in the starboard engine output by half and a small turn to port. There’s something they want to test.” Ensign Chi said, interrupting the quiet of the bridge.
The captain looked up from the report he was reading. “Con is yours, Lieutenant. Proceed as requested.”
Price checked his heads up display and engaged the side thrusters to move the
Hudson
to port. He decreased their speed fractionally while at the same time dipping the nose of the craft and rolling them sideways slightly. He waited until he heard Chi announce that the engineers had completed their test.
“Very well, Lieutenant. Please resume designated course.”
Tony sighed and leaned back in his chair. A course correction engine test would probably be the most exciting thing to happen during his entire watch.
***
In the engine room, Lieutenant Guttmann stooped over and peered down the horizontal shaft of the port engine. Everything was working perfectly, but Swede always worried and always double-checked his systems. At their current speed, the engine hummed slightly, but it wasn’t working as hard as it would during their jumps through the “twisted space” that formed the conduits between solar systems. During their two test jumps following the
Hudson
‘s commissioning, the engines performed exactly as planned. Swede hoped that the following eight months went as smoothly.
“Sir, Marissa Hill has filed a complaint that the waste management system on the colonists’ aft deck is malfunctioning.”
Swede hung his head in dismay. When he wasn’t fretting constantly over the engines of the
Hudson
, and the sensor arrays and shields that comprised her primary functions, he was regularly bombarded with small technical difficulties surrounding the life support systems. The regular military crew was no better than the colonists, constantly complaining about water pressure, waste systems, air temperature, and the relative humidity of the crew decks. He had to routinely pull his engineering crew off their assigned duties and send them scurrying to fix a clogged filter or bent intake valve.
“Sir? Should I file the complaint in our log? There are four other complaints that came in before this one.”
“No specialist, we can’t let the captain’s sister-in-law think we are ignoring her. The last thing I want is the captain involved in this.” He straightened his uniform. “I’ll go up there myself. Have Rodgers join me with his kit. I want this fixed before dinner time.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
The presence of the captain’s brother and sister-in-law among the colonists only increased the stress of a crew straining to maintain civility toward the civilian colonists. Ryan Hill was the vice chancellor of the colonial delegation. His wife was a noted sociologist specializing in terra-forming colonization. She was also a noted harridan who went out of her way to belittle and annoy anyone she perceived as being “below her.” Lieutenant Guttmann suspected that not many people were considered
above
Marissa Hill.
The lieutenant’s irritation only increased when he arrived on the aft deck and discovered that the malfunction was a simple short in a wiring panel. Short circuits were not uncommon in newly launched ships; shake-down cruises rarely provided for full power tests and the constant stress that systems underwent during normal routines. The common nature of the problem didn’t excuse the prevalence on the
Hudson
, however. Guttmann ordered Rogers to rewire the system while he went to find the captain.
“Sir, it will necessarily interfere with other tests and normal ship functions. But I think you’ll agree it would be better to find these flaws before the jump.”
Captain Hill tapped his fingers on his desk, thinking to himself. “I don’t disagree, Lieutenant. I just question the necessity of a complete diagnostic shut-down when we’ve already done two complete wiring checks during the shakedown. And, of course, all current systems were stable during the test jumps.”
“Yes sir, but why are they failing now? Why so many little shorts and failing relays after a long shakedown cruise and two test jumps? I’d like to answer those questions closer to home rather than on the far side of the universe.”
Guttmann watched as the captain considered the situation for a few minutes longer. Hill consulted what the lieutenant presumed was a schedule on his tablet. “All right. You have three days starting the day after tomorrow. Before the test, stand down your regular watches to bare running-normal minimums. Everyone not absolutely essential for monitoring critical systems should have time off. They’ll need it because I want this done as quickly and unobtrusively as possible.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Chapter 3
A day later, Cassie Ruger stepped out of the shower and turned two steps to enter the quarters she shared with Commander O’Connell. The doctor’s long hair, unbraided at the moment, was wrapped in a towel to dry. She pulled on a pair of running shorts and a tank top and marveled at the feel of the cool, recycled, air on her skin. Her pretty mouth quirked into a smile when she saw what her roommate was up to.
Maggie was sorting her laundry into a two separate bags. Dr. Ruger knew from previous experience that Maggie wouldn’t take the lifts down to waste treatment and laundry facilities in the bowels of the
Hudson
. She would, instead, throw the two heavy packs over each shoulder and jog down the corridors. When she reached a ladder, O’Connell would descend using only her legs and one arm, holding both bags with the other hand.
“Hullo Cass. Need any washing done?” Maggie swiped at a strand of hair that has escaped from her ponytail when she looked over her shoulder. She was dressed much like the doctor, in shorts and a tank top.
“No, I did mine two days ago. Not to mention that there’s no way I would help you engage in your sadistic little ritual.” Cassie popped open her locker-like closet and pulled out a comb and her leave-in conditioner. She sat on the edge of her bed and started to comb out her hair.
“I’m not sure I even want to know what it is you mean.” Maggie swiped at the loose hair strand again and growled a short curse. “Stupid damn hair. I could put that whole damn bottle of conditioner on it and it would still kink up and fly everywhere.”
Cassie, having heard this complaint several times in the preceding months, kept her thoughts to herself and continued combing.
“Well, if you don’t have anything to throw in here, I’m off. See you at dinner?”
“Don’t break your silly neck, please.”
Maggie laughed. “Doing laundry? I seriously doubt there’s a risk of that. I didn’t know you cared, though.”
“I don’t, except that I’m on break for the next four hours until dinner and I don’t want my nap interrupted by having to reset your spinal column.” Dr. Ruger raised her head as she said this and caught the fleeting glimpse of O’Connell’s rude gesture as she backed out the door.
Alone in the sudden quiet of the room, Cassie returned to her silent reverie. Combing her hair was one of the little pleasures of her day. She was so busy that she had little time for reading, or playing chess, or even exercising. The simple act of pulling the comb through her slightly kinky, thick, dark hair relaxed her enough that her thoughts wandered freely. It wasn’t unusual for her to sink into sweet memories of her childhood in Jamaica. Raised by parents who had pulled themselves out of poverty by sheer luck and back breaking hard work, she enjoyed what few on her island nation did, even in the new century that politicians boasted would see the end of world poverty. Cassie Ruger and her family knew that poverty wasn’t something that could be erased by political promises and sleek new inventions. The youngest of five children, raised in a uniquely indigenous mixture of evangelical Catholicism and native island spiritualism, she’d spent her weekends in the soup kitchens and shelters.
The hopelessness of the poor when faced with disease had driven young Cassie, like so many before her, into the field of medicine. She vowed to return to help her people, but life intervened. Now she sat millions of kilometers away from the Caribbean, brushing her hair and humming the soft calypso lullaby of her childhood. Before they left Mars orbit, she sent a long letter to her mother. Widowed four years before, Mamma Ruger lived her life through the joys of her children, nieces, and nephews. In the evenings after chores were finished and homework completed, the women of the family would gather on the porch and “visit”. The gossip sessions migrated between houses and fluctuated in length or regularity depending on the business of daily lives. The atmosphere, however, never wavered. Cassie’s memories of those evenings were infused with a warmth that had little to do with the stifling island humidity.
The last tangle broke free, and the comb slid effortlessly through her hair. Cassie pushed the heavy mass of damp hair back over her shoulder. Reaching blindly behind her head, her fingers quickly separated her hair in a part and then plaited both sides of the part into separate French braids before joining the two sides into one thick plait of hair that hung below her shoulders. Her short cropped bangs fell softly against her forehead. She tied off the braid with a simple rubber band and hung her towel on the bar to air-dry.
The air blowing across her damp hair and over her bare shoulders chilled her. Cassie grabbed a soft cotton long sleeve t-shirt and slipped it over her head before lying down on her bunk. She slid her hand over a flat pane on the wall. The lights dimmed accordingly. The coverlet on her bed was a handmade heirloom quilt from home. She pulled it over her shoulders and snuggled down into the bed. Sleep quickly over took her.
The commander didn’t encounter any obstacles on her way to the laundry. She dropped her bags once inside the door. The nearest wash unit was blessedly unoccupied. Rolling her shoulder to ease a cramp, O’Connell untied the laundry bags and began feeding her clothes into the washer. The machines were the latest in water and energy saving models. They used pressurized air and water to remove soil and stains and freshen the fibers of the clothes. Colors no longer bled using the new system, but Maggie still had two loads to do. She purposely waited until she had two full bags before doing her wash. It was the best approximation of military full-pack hike that she could manage while on the
Hudson
.
O’Connell knew her constant, and unique, workouts raised eyebrows among the military crew and inspired jokes among the civilian colonists. She ignored them. Once they reached Dremiks there would be plenty of heavy work to be done in an atmosphere that even the Dremikians had admitted was harsh and unforgiving. Beyond that looming burden, the very act of piloting a spaceship was physically demanding. The
Hudson
might act like a great plodding whale carrying them all along in the safety of her belly, but even she could turn unpredictable and cantankerous. Physical force would also be necessary to pilot the landing craft down through the atmosphere of Dremiks. O’Connell knew all of this would demand muscle tone and strength that she wouldn’t have if she didn’t work out every day.