Ticonderoga - Episode 1 : Adrift

Cast of character reference ;

***

epithet : Phillip Irving Graves

Rank : maitre d' - commanding policeman

Call Sign : Pig

chronicle : He was born on old earth in the area known as the Western dominion of North U.S.. As a young person he was a trouble maker this, being virtually unheard of in his century, forced the military to deal with him. He was given a choice. fall in the United planet pacification keeping and research force or be remanded for mental conditioning to fix his behavioral problems. His life history in the military was a great example of how not to win. After twenty twelvemonth he was still only a petty officer third class. That was when he was caught pulling off his mop up infraction yet. Fleet admiral Tigrat caught him in bed with his wife, and both of his daughters, at the same sentence. Phillip was doomed to go back to base social status again. But instead the admiral made him an offer. discover a wife, get promoted to captain, with a ship, and go deep.

verbal description : He is six invertebrate foot tall, with jet black hair and John Brown eyes. His body type is thin and powerful with tan tegument tone.

Mate : Mrs Millishia Jaunu Steppen-Graves

***

public figure : Mrs. Millishia Jaunu Steppen-Graves

rank and file : commanding officer - Ships skill officer and fourth in command

outcry Sign : marihuana

History : She was born a simple farm daughter in the Midwest district of North America. She led an warning life-time, with no problems, until she came of age. Then she found she had a gustatory perception for bad boys. To try and inhibit her appetite for self destructive behavior, she joined the service. Her life history was in good parliamentary law and she was happy after five years but she longed to go deep. The lonesome problem was you had to be married and no one was asking. There was also the problem of Phillip ; she thought he was just dreamy. He was everything she wanted in a bad boy, but his calling meant he would never even manage to make it into space. She only had one more rank to go then she could go. That would take another six calendar month. Then she was broadsided by a interrogative she never thought any man would ask."Will you marry me I need a wife before I can go deep ?"

description : She is a five substructure six in tall, blond haired, down in the mouth eyed beauty, with culture medium sized chest. Her consistency elan is lissome and athletic.

match : Phillip Irving Steffi Graf

***

figure : Saint James Mitchell Penzo

Rank : Master honcho petty Officer - Chief engineer and mechanic.

cry Sign : wind hands

chronicle : He was born on the emerald isle of European Community. He was a good kid and went to college. After school he joined the Robert William Service to set up a little nest egg. There he met his wife and fell in love. He had a promising career ahead of him, and then everything hit the fan. He discovered the medicative essence of the engine result. Just a little nip of it could realize any man happy. He stayed happy a lot after that. When he was found out, he was offered a selection, armed services separation or he and his wife go deep.

Description : He is five foot eight column inch tall with sorry green eyes and brown whisker. His body eccentric is thick with just a tenuous spare tire.

better half : Leafa Tiski Mikia-Penzo

***

Name : Mrs. Leafa Tiski Mikia-Penzo

Rank : aged Chief petty larceny policeman - Chief of off ship security.

Call Sign : Demoness

history : She was born on her native existence of Liskia. She is strong and dissipated and excelled in her career as military police force, until her married man introduced her to the solvent. Everything still worked well for them until she was called out on an emergency while she was extremely well-chosen. Six workweek later she boarded her new vessel, The UP Ticonderoga.

verbal description : She is six foot two inch tall. Her race has red skin and fuzz with light grey middle. Many people say they look like the mythical demons, right down to the two tufts of tomentum on their foreheads that resembled trump. Her body type is thin and svelte with a fountainhead defined muscle tone.

Mate : King James Mitchell Penzo

***
name : Malcolm Leroy Libbshitz

Rank : lieutenant Jnr Grade - xeno-biologist.

Call Sign : Buster

History : He is a indigene of Ling, a human colony, joined the armed service to go deep, he wanted the spirit of an explorer, he was also married and his wife joined at the same prison term looking to send out with him. He is an expert in xeno-botany and xeno-zoology and loves to study new species of both flora and animals.

Description : He is five foot eight column inch marvellous with mousy blonde hair and profane eyes. His body type is thin and non muscular.

Mate : Melonie Michelle Russel-Libbshitz

***

Name : Melonie Michelle Russel-Libbshitz

rank : lieutenant Junior Grade - ships doctor.

phone call Sign : melon vine

story : She is a native of Scots heather, a human colony, and was married to her college dish. She joined the service to go deep with him.

description : She is five foot six inch tall with Pt blonde hair and very prominent bosom. He soundbox type is voluptuous.

Mate : Malcolm Leroy Libbshitz

***

epithet : Lorka Dumont Willock

Rank : commander - Security ship's officer, second in command.

outcry sign : quite a little

history : He is a Tithian warrior. Born on Tithia and joined the avail to get a chance to do battle in this sentence of peace. He is very democratic with the ladies because his subspecies believes that love romp should be as legal tender as war is violent.

verbal description : At well over seven base tall and four hundred and l pounds of solid muscle he is by far the largest member of the gang, except for his married woman. His blackness skin looks like a shadower seed to life. The simply break in his darkness is his red eyes.

Mate : Tanka Lundt Cravis-Willock

***

public figure : Tanka Lundt Cravis-Willock

Rank : commandant - Weapons ship's officer, third in command

cry signaling : Mount Everest

account : She is a female Tithian warrior. She joined the divine service with her husband, in the hopes of finding conflict. She is a ft taller than her husband, and a blaze of a lot meaner.

Description : She is eight metrical unit four inches tall with phantom mordant skin and red centre. Her body type is extremely muscular.

Mate : Lorka Dumont Willock


-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -

I stared at the blank view screen in strawman of me. My ship had been adrift for three days. There was only one problem when you were deep ; there was no one to help when you hit trouble. The good ship to us was two month travel away. It had taken us two twelvemonth to get this far out.

"passing deep"is a euphemism for getting lost. We were sent out here to find inhabitable planets that we could colonize or resourcefulness we could mine for. The fun part, the rules say the low crew member to set foot on a planet gets to name the planet.

The united backwash had managed to colonize or mining camp every sway for sixty light year around earth. We were one hundred and twenty out. It took about a year to travel sixty light twelvemonth with the razz drive as it was called. It got its gens because the matter and antimatter explosions inside it made it sound like it was snorting. We could put up with the annoying strait to travel at sixty clip the stop number of luminosity. The problem right now is our snorter had a stopped up nose.

I thumbed the communication theory dialog box on my president to life."Jazz script, What the hell is taking so long down there ? If you are nipping at the solvent again I'm going to take you off of relievo rotation for two weeks."

"Not a chance, Pig, I am trying to fix the damn damage those cockbiter rats did to the engine wiring. The fucking niggling beasties chewed through every illumination wire in the main flaming control cabinet."

"How long before we have locomotive engine power again ?"

"Another day at least, we have over a thousand wires to supercede in this cabinet."

"That is what you said yesterday, the day before, and the day before that, damn it, I want this ship moving by the end of this rotation !"

"Captain, even if I get this repaired that is no guarantee we will be able-bodied to act. We have no idea what else they damaged before we could kill the little mother fucker. Go take a backup man break and let me do my damn job."

I stalked off of the bridgework. The damn lifts were down so I had to go up down the access ladders to get to the bunch decks. I guess we could ring ourselves favourable ; those petty vermin had not reached the life-time backing equipment yet. twenty cockbiter stinkpot had managed to chew through our main power restraint, lift dominance scheme, helm ascendency interlink, navigation, and railway locomotive fervor dominance in lupus erythematosus than twenty four hr. Twenty rats had crippled a ship, with crew of one hundred people on card. Only designate knows what else was damaged. Jazz Hands was powerful I needed accent moderation ; it was time to head to the crew lounge.

There is a major set of rules about going mystifying. The first one is all crew extremity must be mated mates. The irregular rule is all kinship are open on the ship. When off duty personnel office need emphasize rest period any off tariff individual of the opposite gender is useable to them, unless they are in their eternal sleep cycle. Any same sex liaisons are not forbidden but are open to be refused. Your quarters were kept monogamous, only you and your spouse enjoyed that location. The sofa is where you go to stage liaisons with early gang members. That is also where the"breeding"elbow room are. There is one for just about every taste, from the pleasant to the downright kinky.

social status has its exclusive right as well. Command policeman are allowed to take away tension breaks during duty if there is no pressing want for their attending. As of right hand now, there was no pressing need for me. I could not command this ship to move if I were a god.

I no sooner walked into the lounge when Melonie saw me and came over. I knew what she was after, she loved my oral proficiency."pauperization some stress reliever, captain ?"

"At least a week's worth, Melons."I said as I took her by the arm and guided her towards the bar."I believe the madam is drinking a cobalt breaker, and I would enjoy a calum tea."I told the barkeep as I caressed melon stomach. I always enjoyed her very gravid breast and today would be no exception.

When we received our drunkenness, she took a sip from hers then asked,"Floaty ?"

"That sounds like a terrific idea,"I nodded towards the one of the zero-G rooms. When we entered the room I adjusted the dominance on the holographic display to make it look like we were in the clouds. I had seen enough stars already today. All of them champion I couldn't reaching. We attached the lids to our glasses so our boozing would not float out and then I touched the set off button. Watching her breasts suddenly float upward as the gravity stopped was an astound kickshaw. We floated in the air together as I started to undress her. As was banner when in the couch, her clothing was dewy-eyed and tardily to remove. She wore a pullover shirt and miniskirt with no panties on underneath. Her shoes were simple slippers very well-off and quite attractive. The fragile inactive charge caused by pulling her shirt over her chief caused her fuzz to stand out like a hallo of platinum blond silk. By a lot of standard this woman would be considered overweight. She weighed about XX Egyptian pound over nonesuch weight for her five foot six in material body. To me the extra softness just made her voluptuous.

Once her clothes were floating around the room like cast off feather, she started to strip me. My uniform was a little more complicated to remove. It was a tough button up pants and shirt, with a jacket over it, all in black. The skid were polished perfection in black natural leather. Underneath it all was my rule underwear, also black. Add the dark gray belt ammunition and thorax bandoleer as well as my maitre d''s hat to the whole matter and I looked like a trained monkey. Soon all of these clothes were floating around the room as well.

I pulled Melons to me and began to osculate the skin of her cervix and chest. This elicited several moans of delight. Her legs wrapped around my stomach and squeezed me hard enough to be slightly painful. She began to flex her hips rubbing her pert merchantman on the top of my cock. I was very invite to take what she was offering redress then but I had other ideas. Zero-G has one real reward to making love on any airfoil. I guided her legs out from around me as she pouted with those to the full rim that were just made for what I had in intellect. Once she was free I spun her in the air and brought her legs around to my case. There in front of my eyes was a small landing strip of platinum blond hair that pointed right to the target of my desire. I moved my psyche forward and inhaled the fragrance of her arousal. With deliberate slowness I extended my clapper and began to induce small roach through that fresh landing slip.

I felt her backtalk as she started to puzzle out and kiss along the ray of light of my cock. Her sassing and lips were delectable warmth on my skin. The vibrations of her groan made my cock parachuting and twitch as I touched the tip of my tongue to her clit and flipped it quickly back and Forth River. I nearly forgot what I was doing when I felt my cock microscope slide down her throat. She was so smooth and hot on the interior. I moved both of my custody around her delightful bottom and started wetting my fingerbreadth in the honey flowing from her tight slit. When I felt her legs starting to tighten around my question, I slid two fingers from one hand into her tight kitty-cat. My middle finger of my other hand pushed into her silklike asshole. I started pumping my fingers in and out of her at different speeds. Sometimes they would be moving in and out together, others they would be in a counterpoint rhythm.

I felt her stomach begin to tighten and tickle against my chest. Then her legs slammed shut on my head word like a clinch. Her flow was floating in droplets around my head as she orgasmed. While she was still vibrating and shaking through her climax I spun her through the air until I was behind her. I plunged the length of my rock knockout tool into her from fundament. She let out a moan that was bordering on a scream. I began to dog pound with all my might as we floated in the air. Then we both arched our binding as we thundered into our orgasms together.

Ten minutes later we left the floaty room freshly showered. As we exited the room, I set the controls to clean and desexualise the elbow room. I kissed Melons and left her drinking and grinning at the bar. As I was walking out of the bar, the all ship lurched and then vibrated with a groan that sounded like it was dying.

I slapped the communications venire at the doorway."malarky workforce, are we moving ?"

"Yes sir, but not under our own index any more."James II answered.

"What do you mean any to a greater extent ?"

"We got the system online, and fired the engine up. They immediately shut down. It seems our inactivity ascendancy system is down as well."

"Security I want every one of those damn rats killed again."

"Sir, we have no weapons control, would you like my wife and I to hold Rock at their floating corpses ?"Mountain said back facetiously.

"No, drop buster at them ; he's the pecker that brought those fucking rats on my ship."

"How soon, jazz Hands ?"

"We are looking at the damage now but I say at to the lowest degree a day."

"You always say a day. I want this darn ship moving under its own power by end of Hz or I am going to give you to Mt. Everest and Mountain as a butt boob !"

"Yes sir. Have you gotten that tenseness reliever yet ?"

"No, and I am looking for your wife right now, so propel it."

As I moved back to the bridge my mind wandered back to the events that led up to this situation. We had found a major planet with no beacon on it. It was unexplored. Scans showed it to be a lucullan oxygen rich major planet with flora and animal liveliness abundant on the surface and in the seas. I organized a landing party to investigate the surface.

***

The political party, consisting of ganja, Demoness, broncobuster, melon vine, Mountain and myself, left the ship in a shuttle. several orbital qualifying and scan later we determined a rich expanse to state and investigate.

It was a soft touchdown nothing at all out of the ordinary. There was the throw together for place to see who could make it through the door first. I had to laugh as the door slid back and my married woman muscled mass out of the way. I walked down the ramp to see my wife dancing in a playing area of member. Yes I said that right, all of the flora in the area were shortstop maybe twelve inches tall and shaped like that luck of the male anatomy.

I looked around to see the trees, thank god they looked more like trees, and they even had beautiful heyday growing on them. A stuffy look at the flowers made me think I had lost it. They looked like pinko penises with two orb hanging underneath them. I thought it was pretty appropriate that my wife would get to name a world covered in penis shaped plants.

"My god it is a world of dicks !"my wife exclaimed as she looked around.

"So plant the beacon, give it a name and cash register it. The beacon will post back the info via short space."I said as I walked down and resisted the urge to smell any of the flowers.

My wife set up the radio beacon place, as the balance of us looked around.

"I don't want to bend over on this planet."Mountain said quietly beside me, making me laugh.

"It does stimulate a certain menacing front doesn't it ?"

Buster was the first one to see an animal. It was floating gently on the breeze towards one of the trees. It had large flat wings with bladder underneath them. These bladder probably contain some gas lighter than the air around us. By paddling its feet it would move through the air like a duck swam across the water. As we watched it swam up to one of the trees and put its mouth around one of the flower. A few second gear later it left the prime hanging limply from its stem and moved to another efflorescence. One by one it drained the"nectar"out of the stiff efflorescence leaving them flaccid.

"We need a couple of those hiss on the ship,"Buster said as we watched."I bet we could take them back to UP space and sell them for a fortune."

"Get some sample distribution for study, we will delay all-night and take everything back in the morning."I told Buster and his married woman. They set about collecting plant and animal samples. They caught one of the wench but it died in lupus erythematosus than an hour in the cage. They must need to eat constantly.

dude gave me a report card a twosome hours later. The flowers on the trees produced nectar that made the shaft cadaver. When the bladder Winged whoreson Bronx cheer would suckle at the peak they would void out the ambrosia and take some of the pollen away on their oral fissure. Those moving from flower to flower action impregnation for the plant life. The limp efflorescence would take about an minute to generate a full freight of nectar again. There were several early animals and plants that he reported on.
My wife had decided to call this property, appropriately enough, peter's World.

As evening started to darken the skies we saw several, rat like, animal come out of holes in the ground. They started to climb up the Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree. We watched as they moved to the close of the limbs and bit the flowers off the Tree and ate them. Every man in the group cringed watching this. I think Mountain even turned a piddling picket. These animals quickly became known as cockbiter so-and-so. Buster thought they wouldn't sell well.

Our detector could not detect any brute big than the birds within five hundred clicks of us so we bedded down in the shuttle for the night.

I awoke the following morning and shook Demoness awake next to me. She smiled as I retrieved two cups of coffee from the energy solidifier. I looked around and noticed all of the others had already moved outside. Buster must birth awoken my wife when he got up to chequer his traps.

We got dressed and moved outside. bronco buster was studying a cage of twenty of the cockbiter rats he had captured during the night. They seemed a bit hardier than the razz. I oversaw the samples being packed in over crateful to be taken back to the science lab on the ship. Then we did a low level fly over of the planet to take scan and simulacrum of the plant and animate being life story. In 12 hours we cataloged over six thousand new species.

The flying back to the ship was uneventful and smooth. We were in the shuttle bay unloading when the lab geeks all showed up to see the sampling. I tried to state bronco buster to make sure the crates were in the lab containment area before he opened them, but I was too late. He popped the door latch on the rat crate and dirty dog exploded out and ran all over the deck. It took less than a arcminute for them all to vanish down an open access hatching. They had chewed through the plasteel of the cage, this should have warned me of what was about to happen.

"Do not unfold any other crateful !"I yelled."At least we don't have any penis flowers here for them to eat. I want them all caught and then you are to see me in the command office, Buster."

"Yes sir,"he said with a gulp.

I stalked to the bridge deck to get my status account. That fanatical science geek had let strikebreaker let loose on my ship. I was on the bridge receiving my account when the first polarity of trouble happen. The navigation screen went blank. We were suddenly flying subterfuge."Navigation, what the perdition are you doing over there ?"

"I didn't do anything, sir, my console just lost data link with engineering."

"Helm control, bring us to broad block, now !"I shouted as I stood from my chairperson. Suddenly my ship lurched and I fell on my font."hoot it, helm, you can't just cut the engines, how long have you been flying this crate ?"

"I didn't even touch the control, sir, the consol has lost link."

I stood and slapped the communications panel on my chair."Engineering ! account ! What the underworld are you doing down there ? You can't cut links while we are in flight of steps !"

nothingness deal came on the intercom,"Sir we didn't do anything. When the navigation coin bank went power dark, we opened the panel and scum bag came running out. How the nether region did we get rats on the ship ?"

We all heard the throb of the engines wind down as they shut themselves down."All hands find those mother fucking rats and kill them ! Now ! surety, issue persuader to everyone with finger's breadth. Lock them all on stun, we don't want any accidents. I will fall in everyone that stuns a rat an excess relaxation cycle."

turning to our tactical station,"Everest, take us to alert status."She thumbed the dismay scheme on her console to on.

The xanthous warning luminousness on the ship came to life. The computer voice could be heard all over the ship as she said,"Alert, all force are to maintain Alert Statuuuuuuuussssssssss…"Then the warning lights went out and the nosepiece went dark.

***

I shook myself out of my reverie as I entered the bridgework. The first thing I noticed was the view screen was no longer blank. It now showed a boastfully, thick asteroid field, and we were moving towards it slowly."Mt. Everest, give me a situation report."

"We are drifting towards the star-shaped field of view at approximately fifteen hundred kilometers per bit. Estimated clock time to capture into the field is six hours."

"Bring our shields and targeting online. Get the gunners in their stations and order them we may need to make a picayune target practice."

"The machine gunner are reporting to stations, but the weapons links are all still down, we have no gunslinger. The shell are on but we can not detect if they are working."

"So my day just got regretful. We may or may not have shields, we don't have guns. And we have no control over where the ship is going. Does that sum it up ?"

"Yes, sir."

"Let's get crowd in the two shuttles and see if we can tow the ship into a new course."

Activating the communications in my chairman I called down to engineering."Jazz script commit me some unspoiled news. Please."

"Pig, I promise you I will throw the helm control and inertial controls back on ancestry in eight time of day. My the great unwashed are working around the clock."

"That is good tidings, now I have some swell news for you. In six hours you will no longer ingest to concern about repairing the ship. Those big rocks out there are going to finish the job those skunk started. At the hurrying we are traveling one of those rocks is going to turn this ship into slag."

"Do you recognize a sound wrecker military service that may be in the domain ?"

"We are sending the birdie out."

I thumbed off the com panel."Babe, throw me some good news."

Marijuana spoke without looking away from her cabinet."We have an estimated impact time of seven time of day and four transactions. Then we are going to be landing on a large star-shaped dead ahead. We are caught in the gravity fountainhead of that large gas hulk on the other side of the flying field. I am running the figuring on the shuttles now."

"I asked for good news program, you could have told me you smuggled a bottle of whisky on control board or something."

I stared at the view screen that I now wished was space again. My mind started to freewheel back to the rats again.

***

We were hunting rats ; they seemed to move about the ship with impunity chewing on anything that glowed. The brightness level wires were rude mark."We need one of them alive so Buster can tell us why they are after the unhorse wires."

Our mathematical group split up into pairs. I was teamed with Demoness, our architectural plan was simple-minded ; impress about the ship opening access panels. If anything ran out pull the trigger and bedaze it. I noticed mountain had put on his observance armour for the hunt. It had a thick codpiece for protection down there.

Chatter over our helmet com was kept to a minimum. Demoness opened the first panel, it was to living support. There was naught. We moved to the rise control board. When I opened it there was an explosion of fur and teeth. Then there was unbelievable pain sensation as I was hit by the fire from the inducer. tinker's damn I am beaming it was set to stun.

I woke up in the medical lab with a huge couple of white meat hovering over my face."Hi, Melons,"I mumbled as I shook my oral sex to clear it."Did we at least manage to get one of the rats ?"

"Demoness caught four of them, and bagged a captain with only four shots."Melons said as she leaned to calculate past her breasts and into my face.

"Damn ! That hurt."I could see Demoness out of the recess of my eye."Why did you inject me ?"

"We had to finish the skunk, I knew the artillery was on stun and wouldn't hurt you."Demoness said with a mater of fact tone.

"melon's beloved, would you delight hand me my persuader ; I want to render Demoness just how slight they hurt."As Melon's looked at me with big eyes, Demoness quietly slipped out of the way. I reached over for the com control board next to the bed."Buster, tell me some good news."

"My retirement account is up fifty thousand."

"Don't headache, if you don't stop the rats you are not going to involve a retirement account statement, now what about the rats ?"

"I am studying them now ; I should have a report in two hours."

"In two hours they are going to eat every lighting wire in the ship. How do we stop them ?"

"The just matter I know is they are attracted to the lightheaded wires because they glow on the same wavelength in ultra reddish blue as the efflorescence do. As to why they are attracted to them."

I jumped out of the bed and headed for engine room. Mountain was in the hall."Get every marksman armed with rifles and meet me in technology. We are going to birth an old fashion turkey shoot."

Mountain headed off to collect men and woman. I went to engineering."nothingness work force, get over here, I have an idea."

"Yes sir,"James said as he ran up."Sir we are really busy trying to recompense the damage. Can this wait ?"

"No. How long would it hold to get a pile of spare light wire in the center of engineering and bond it to the main generator ?"

"About twenty minutes."

"You have ten, I also want the main link from the author to the rest of the ship ready to unplug on my command."

"You want us to switch to the musical accompaniment ?"

"No I want baron cut completely. We need to get all the outer door closed and all of the lift barb shut down."

"The lifts are no trouble the crumb chewed them up about 15 minutes ago. The taboo doors may be a problem. The main birdie bay doors are stuck undecided and the observation window in the forward cartography lab is non-operational."

"Evacuate those arena, tell everyone they have twenty minutes to procure everything and get out. We are going to rally a sand trap for the rats."

"But sir, If we cut the main power then the calculator will go down. We will be completely defenseless."

"We are facing a superior opposition, in an nameless tactical situation. We are completely naked now. If the rats continue at this charge per unit we will have no ship in 12 hours. It is time to get a last stand. The rats are attracted to the light wire so we will give them the solely batch of glowing wire on the ship to hail for. Now get them set up or I am going to fall you from the fore of the ship like a figurehead."

"Yes sir."

I moved to the speed balcony, as the others started to gather. I set the great unwashed up in positions so we had wax coverage of the engineering deck below. The sight of telegram was a centre of attack anything that moved was a objective."All right mass there are sixteen of these blackleg to bolt down. I want everyone's arm set to overkill. We can not yield for a single rat to escape this trap."

As I took my lieu as the hold up of the personnel left the humble level. Then the brightness went out. It was such a long hold. But after almost an hr the first rat came out of an access hatching and started moving toward the wires. He was hit by the light beam of over 40 arm. The little bastard was zero but a glob of charcoal.

It took about an hour for the skunk to start showing up. It took twenty moment for the close one to fall. I stood and hit the com panel. It was dead like everything else."Jazz hands, lets get the arrangement rebooted and hangout started."

***

I rose out of my woolgathering to see a enceinte rock'n'roll on the purview screen."Tactical, how far out is it and estimated meter to touch ?"

"We are five point six seven million kilometers from the asteroid. Estimated impact time is one time of day and three minutes."Everest answered.

"Reduce the exaggeration to ten times."

"It is already at ten times, sir."

"Shit ! How big is that thing ?"

"It is four K kilometer long by two one thousand wide."

"So if we hit it, it will indent my ship ?"

"Definitely, sir."

"How is the attempt to commute our grade with the shuttles going ?"

"Not dependable, sir, the position correction jets are firing and locking us on course."

"Bring them back in. We are going to need the shuttles along with the life sauceboat to evacuate."I looked at the screen. My heart sank. This was not exactly how I had envisioned ending my instruction. If we made it back alive we would get wide-cut honor and retreat benefits as admirals. My psyche drifted back to the day I had been informed of my choices.

***

"petty officer tierce socio-economic class Phillip Washington Irving Graves, reporting as place sir."I said as I walked into full admiral Tigrat's agency. He looked up at me with a shit eating grinning on his look. He motioned with his hand for me to sit and be at ease.

"Phillip, I am at a loss for what to do with you. If I press heraldic bearing then everyone in the fleet is going to cognize what you did. If I don't press charges then you get off Robert Falcon Scott free and I can not let that bechance either."He looked at me with open hatred in his eyes.

"Sir, we could just let this go with a private punishment."

The smile that cracked his face was one of pure wickedness."My idea exactly, so here is the softwood. I am going to recommend you as the police chief of the Ticonderoga. It is scheduled to depart at the end of the month. Then you are going to go inscrutable. Your mission will be two years transit out, then sixteen years exploring. When you return, you will have admiral's benefits."

"Sir, I am not married."I knew the platter, not s single ship had ever come back from going mystifying. to the highest degree disappeared without a trace. He was consigning me to a destruction sentence. My own command weighed leaden on my mind. I had always thought I could do it better than any of these blowhards. Out there I would be the part of authority. I would be the merely command chain. The buck would stop over with me.

"You have until the end of the calendar month to find a wife or I will pick out one for you."

The smile he gave me had me thinking through the women I knew. I sure as inferno would not let him decide. Then Millishia came to listen, she was one hell of a science policeman. Her career was lucky. Maybe I could get one over on the old ass in front of me yet."Do I get to take my crew ?"

"You will be given a listing of volunteers for late service. You may choose XXX couples from it. The other nineteen couples I will choose. I already have one of your technologist and doctors picked out. Plus a couple of security people you will just love."

"Do normal deep regulation apply ?"

"Yes, the ship must run efficiently."

Millishia and I were married a week later, we saw the ship for the first time a seven days after that.

The Ticonderoga was a thing of beauty, long and aerodynamic with four engine nacelles under her eubstance go-cart. She hung in blank like a phantom, the rib of the shipyard human body surrounding her. The long narrow down body looked like an pointer with atmospheric stabilizer on the rear half. The liberal head of the arrow was where the bid decks sat. The slightly wide body was the bunch orbit. Under the main body hung engineering and medical exam. She was designed to cut through blank space like a weapon system. She was one of the sexiest things I had ever seen. I was supposed to account aboard and pick out my crew via interviews.

A few of my crew was already onboard, my locomotive engineer, St. James Mitchell Penzo, and his wife, Leafa Tiski Mikia-Penzo were two of them. I had read their Indian file, they were dissolver addicts. She was also a Liskian, they were reputed to be a tough lot.

I had looked at the filing cabinet of over a thousand volunteer duet, I had to pick thirty. I had discovered something profound. Most hoi polloi that wanted to go mystifying were nut lawsuit. These were no exception. The Tennessean ran the gambit from mad scientist to psycho killers. I was at a exit for anyone I trusted on a retentive flight let alone wanted there.

I spent the next workweek interviewing aspirant ; it was the strong calendar week of my life. If it had not been for Millishia, I probably would have begged the admiral to court summon me. The next three days were spent choosing my bunch and filing their new ranks. One affair nice about being a captain of a rich ship, range onboard your ship was your alternative. You set the chain of command and the duty roster. The master was the first last and only melody of command once you left the distance port.

four Clarence Day later the slip melody fell away from the ship. My new steerer only managed to hit the dry wharf once on the way out. I now had an young crew, a new ship with all the hemipteran inherent and two years to turn them into a functioning crew before we made our first major planet fall.

***

Again I pulled myself out of my remembering, that rock was much bigger. The countdown on the blind said thirty-one transactions. My nous started flying through the possibilities. I had to come up with an answer. I would not misplace my ship and command after our first satellite fall.

A plan came to me. It would adopt some fancy flying. I hit the com unit in my electric chair."malarky work force, Prepare to unplug all power on my control. Demoness, I need your piloting skills, you have shuttle two, I have shuttlecock one, we launch in five."

malarky Hands came on the com unit,"Captain we have to have world power to do repairs, if you make me cut it off again it will take an 60 minutes to completely restart the system."

"I know, James, if what I have planned kit and boodle I will buy you the time you need."

"And if it doesn't ?"

"Then it won't matter anymore, you don't have time to fix the ship before we make our mo planet crepuscle. Do me a favor, Jazz."

"What, sir ?"

"take precaution of my wife."I thumbed off the console and left the bridge before anyone could ask any doubt. I had a program ; if it worked I would save my ship. Either way I was going to die first.

I burst into shuttle bay one and walked aboard the shuttle. I could hear the com dealings as Demoness launched. I thumbed the com unit between the two shuttle to life."Demoness, I am going to fly this ship into direct touch with the body of the Ticonderoga. Then I am going to have Jazz men cut all power. That should hold back the thruster from firing. Once that is set I am going to fire up the locomotive in the shuttle and present her the gas. If this works I will deflect the ship by decent to fly the coop the asteroid field."

"Sir, if you do that your engine will overheat and flame out in instant. The inside of the shuttlecock will be a one-half million degree fireball."

"That is where you come in. I am going to expel, I need you to scoop me up fast and get me clear. Get my dead body back for a adequate funeral."

"You don't have a spacesuit, Pig, have you lost your mind ?"

"I don't have time to put a suit on ; if this is going to solve I have to do it now."I shut off the com groove. It took me less than a arcminute to position my shuttle. I contacted wind hired hand,"Cut the power now !"Then I put the locomotive engine big businessman to replete and locked the accelerator pedal. The on board estimator started telling me I was going to die.

"Imminent engine overload in twenty dollar bill seconds. Imminent locomotive engine overload in xix indorsement. Imminent engine overload in eighteen seconds."I dove for the control for the ejection system. I let all of the air out of my lungs and pulled the handle."System detects non suited personnel, ejection system disabled."

screwing ! I pulled my English arm and shot the cabinet. Then I yanked the handle again, there was a psyche numbing roar as the air exploded out of the ship. My head hit something solid a few seconds later and the public went night. My conclusion persuasion was,"shag, that hurts."

***

"captain Graves, I do not expect you to derive back from this. I expect you to die a bloody and horrible death."admiral Tigrat said as I was in my last interview before launch."Do not disappoint me."

"Respectfully sir, my integral crew will be at your one one percent birthday party. There I will hand your married woman and daughter a kiss right in front of you. How did you ever manage to get a doughnut on the finger of that woman ? She has to be at least forty years vernal than you."

***

My promontory was pounding out a musical rhythm that sounded like a hangover."Where ?"I managed to ask around the pain in my head.

"Med lab,"the huge span of breasts above me said quietly.

"How ?"

"Liskians are toughened than humans, she had the shuttle decompressed and waiting on your riddance. Once you flew onboard she put up the emergency athletic field and re-pressurized. You may have a few ache and pains plus smudge vision for a few days, but you will be mulct soon."

"melon's, what about the ship ?"

"The ship is out of risk and flying under its own power again, skipper. You got us clear of the asteroids and bought him the time to fix the ship. By the clip I let you out of here we will be fully usable again."

"Tell idle words mitt and Demoness to take an extra relaxation cycle, they even earned a nip of the solvent."

"Jazz flushed the rest of the solvent out the airlock. He said any man that would do what you did to write the ship deserves a sober mechanic. ”