Ticonderoga - Episode 1 : Adrift

hurl of graphic symbol ;

***

gens : Phillip Irving Robert Graves

membership : Captain - commanding officer

Call Sign : Pig

story : He was born on old earthly concern in the area known as the Western Territories of North America. As a juvenility he was a trouble Divine this, being virtually unheard of in his century, forced the armed services to deal with him. He was given a choice. Join the United Planets peace keeping and research force play or be remanded for mental conditioning to fix his behavioral problems. His career in the military was a groovy example of how not to come along. After twenty dollar bill geezerhood he was still only a petit larceny officer third course of instruction. That was when he was caught pulling off his forged infraction yet. Fleet Admiral Tigrat caught him in bed with his wife, and both of his girl, at the same time. Phillip was doomed to go back to base rank again. But instead the full admiral made him an offering. bump a wife, get promoted to captain, with a ship, and go deep.

verbal description : He is six foot tall, with jet black hair and John Brown eyes. His consistency type is thin and muscular with tan skin tone.

Mate : Mrs. Millishia Jaunu Steppen-Graves

***

Name : Mrs. Millishia Jaunu Steppen-Graves

membership : Commander - Ships science officer and fourth part in control

Call star sign : marijuana

History : She was born a simple farm girl in the Midwest territorial dominion of N United States of America. She led an cautionary life, with no problems, until she came of age. Then she found she had a taste for bad boys. To try and moderate her appetite for self destructive behavior, she joined the service. Her career was in good order and she was happy after five eld but she longed to go deep. The solitary trouble 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 career meant he would never even manage to relieve oneself it into space. She only had one more than rank to go then she could go. That would strike another six months. Then she was broadsided by a dubiousness she never thought any man would ask."Will you marry me I need a married woman before I can go deep ?"

description : She is a five pes six column inch tall, blond haired, blue eyed stunner, with medium sized boob. Her soundbox style is lithe and athletic.

Mate : Phillip John Irving Graves

***

name : James Mitchell Penzo

Rank : passkey Chief petit larceny Officer - honcho technologist and mechanic.

claim Sign : wind hands

History : He was born on the emerald islet of European Community. He was a good kid and went to college. After schooling he joined the service to set up a picayune nest egg. There he met his wife and fell in beloved. He had a promising vocation ahead of him, and then everything hit the fan. He discovered the medicinal personal effects of the railway locomotive resolvent. Just a little nip of it could make any man happy. He stayed happy a lot after that. When he was found out, he was offered a option, armed services interval or he and his wife go deep.

description : He is five foot eight inches marvellous with dark green centre and brown tomentum. His trunk type is thick with just a slight spare tire.

Mate : Leafa Tiski Mikia-Penzo

***

Name : Mrs. Leafa Tiski Mikia-Penzo

membership : Senior head Petty officer - tribal chief of off ship security.

Call foretoken : Demoness

account : She was born on her native public of Liskia. She is substantial and immobile and excelled in her career as military constabulary, until her married man introduced her to the resolution. Everything still worked well for them until she was called out on an parking brake while she was extremely glad. Six weeks later she boarded her new watercraft, The UP Ticonderoga.

Description : She is six base two inch tall. Her airstream has red skin and hair with light Zane Grey eyes. Many people say they look like the mythological ogre, right down to the two tuft of hairsbreadth on their forehead that resembled horns. Her organic structure type is thin and lithesome with a well defined heftiness tone.

Mate : James IV Reginald Joseph Mitchell Penzo

***
Name : Malcolm Leroy Libbshitz

Rank : deputy junior mark - xeno-biologist.

Call Sign : Buster

History : He is a aborigine of Ling, a human colony, joined the avail to go deep, he wanted the animation of an Explorer, he was also married and his wife joined at the Saami time looking to transport out with him. He is an expert in xeno-botany and xeno-zoology and loves to consider new species of both industrial plant and animals.

verbal description : He is five foot eight inch tall with mousy blond haircloth and downcast center. His body character is tenuous and non muscular.

partner : Melonie Michelle Russel-Libbshitz

***

figure : Melonie Michelle Russel-Libbshitz

social rank : lieutenant Junior class - ships doctor.

Call mansion : melon vine

History : She is a native of Ling, a human colony, and was married to her college smasher. She joined the Service to go deep with him.

description : She is five foot six column inch tall with platinum blonde hair and very enceinte breasts. He body type is voluptuous.

Mate : Malcolm Leroy Libbshitz

***

Name : Lorka Dumont Willock

rank : commander - surety officeholder, second in command.

Call Sign : great deal

account : He is a Tithian warrior. Born on Tithia and joined the service to get a fortune to do battle in this time of peace. He is very popular with the ladies because his race believes that passion play should be as tender as war is violent.

description : At well over seven feet tall and four hundred and fifty pounds of solid heftiness he is by far the heavy member of the crew, except for his married woman. His inglorious skin looks like a shadow come to life. The only jailbreak in his darkness is his red eyes.

mate : Tanka Lundt Cravis-Willock

***

Name : Tanka Lundt Cravis-Willock

social status : Commander - artillery officer, tertiary in command

yell star sign : Everest

History : She is a female Tithian warrior. She joined the service with her husband, in the hopes of finding battle. She is a foot taller than her husband, and a hell on earth of a lot meaner.

verbal description : She is eight metrical unit four in tall with dark black tegument and red eyes. Her physical structure type is extremely muscular.

spouse : Lorka Dumont Willock


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I stared at the dummy view screen in front line of me. My ship had been adrift for three daylight. There was only one trouble when you were deep ; there was no one to help when you hit trouble. The nighest ship to us was two month travel away. It had taken us two years to get this far out.

"Going rich"is a euphemism for getting lost. We were sent out here to find inhabitable planets that we could colonize or imagination we could mine for. The fun part, the rules say the first crewman to set foot on a planet gets to name the planet.

The united slipstream had managed to colonize or mining refugee camp every rock-and-roll for sixty light years around earthly concern. We were one hundred and twenty out. It took about a yr to jaunt sixty light yr with the snort drive as it was called. It got its name because the matter and antimatter explosions inside it made it sound like it was snorting. We could put up with the annoying phone to trip at sixty times the amphetamine of Light. The problem right now is our snorter had a stopped up nose.

I thumbed the communications venire on my chair to liveliness."Jazz hands, What the hell is taking so long down there ? If you are nipping at the solvent again I'm going to get hold of you off of relief gyration for two weeks."

"Not a chance, Pig, I am trying to repair the tinker's damn wrong those cockbiter puke did to the locomotive engine wiring. The have sex footling beasties chewed through every luminousness conducting wire in the main fire command cabinet."

"How long before we have engine power again ?"

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

"That is what you said yesterday, the day before, and the day before that, anathemize 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 capable to move. We have no thought what else they damaged before we could pour down the minuscule bastards. Go film a ministration break and let me do my tinker's dam job."

I stalked off of the bridgework. The tinker's damn heave were down so I had to climb up down the access run to get to the crowd decks. I guess we could call ourselves lucky ; those little vermin had not reached the life history support equipment yet. Twenty cockbiter lowlife had managed to jaw through our briny power controller, lift restraint systems, helm ascendance interlink, pilotage, and engine fervidness control in less than twenty four hours. Twenty git had crippled a ship, with work party of one hundred masses on plug-in. Only fate knows what else was damaged. Jazz hand was right I needed stress relief ; it was prison term to head to the crowd lounge.

There is a major set of linguistic rule about going deep. The first one is all crew members must be mated yoke. The secondment rule is all human relationship are candid on the ship. When off duty personnel office need stress relief any off duty individual of the reverse gender is available to them, unless they are in their sleep cycle. Any same sex liaison are not forbidden but are open to be refused. Your quarter were kept monogamous, only you and your spouse enjoyed that location. The lounge is where you go to arrange liaisons with other crew extremity. That is also where the"education"rooms are. There is one for just about every preference, from the pleasant to the downright kinky.

membership has its privilege as well. Command officers are allowed to take tenseness breaks during duty if there is no pressing need for their attentions. As of right now, there was no pressing indigence 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 techniques."demand some stress easing, captain ?"

"At to the lowest degree a week's worth, Melons."I said as I took her by the arm and guided her towards the bar."I believe the lady is drinking a cobalt circuit breaker, and I would delight a calum tea."I told the barman as I caressed melons breadbasket. I always enjoyed her very bombastic breast and today would be no exception.

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

"That sounds like a wonderful idea,"I nodded towards the one of the zero-G rooms. When we entered the way I adjusted the controls on the holographic display to make it search like we were in the swarm. I had seen enough principal already today. All of them superstar I couldn't ambit. We attached the lids to our glasses so our drinks would not float out and then I touched the spark off button. Watching her breasts suddenly float upward as the sombreness stopped was an amazing kickshaw. We floated in the air together as I started to undress her. As was standard when in the lounge, her wear was uncomplicated and prosperous to remove. She wore a slipover shirt and mini with no panty on underneath. Her place were uncomplicated skidder very well-to-do and quite attractive. The slight electrostatic bursting charge caused by pulling her shirt over her headland 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 twenty pounds over paragon weight for her five infantry six inch systema skeletale. To me the extra effeminacy just made her voluptuous.

Once her apparel were floating around the room like cast off plume, she started to undress me. My uniform was a little more rarify to remove. It was a tough clit up pants and shirt, with a jacket over it, all in Shirley Temple. The shoes were round off perfection in blackened innate leather. Underneath it all was my rule underwear, also pitch blackness. Add the dark gray belt and chest bandoleer as well as my captain's hat to the whole thing and I looked like a take monkey. Soon all of these clothes were floating around the room as well.

I pulled Melons to me and began to kiss the cutis of her cervix and chest. This elicited respective moans of joy. Her peg wrapped around my abdomen and squeezed me hard enough to be slightly painful. She began to flex her rosehip rubbing her pert tail end on the top of my cock. I was very allure to take what she was offering decent then but I had other ideas. Zero-G has one real advantage to making lie with on any surface. I guided her legs out from around me as she pouted with those wide-cut lips that were just made for what I had in psyche. Once she was free I spun her in the air and brought her legs around to my face. There in front of my optic was a minuscule landing funnies of platinum blonde hair that pointed right to the object of my desire. I moved my head forward and inhaled the fragrance of her arousal. With deliberate slowness I extended my tongue and began to stool small-scale circles through that sugared landing strip.

I felt her rima oris as she started to lick and kiss along the shaft of my shaft. Her mouth and lips were delicious fondness on my skin. The vibration of her moans made my cock jump and twitch as I touched the tip of my clapper to her clit and flipped it quickly back and forth. I nearly forgot what I was doing when I felt my cock coast down her throat. She was so smooth and hot on the inside. I moved both of my hands around her delightful freighter and started wetting my digit in the honey flowing from her tight bitch. When I felt her legs starting to reduce around my drumhead, I slid two fingers from one hand into her compressed snatch. My middle finger of my early deal pushed into her silky arsehole. I started pumping my digit in and out of her at different f number. 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 vibrate against my chest. Then her legs slammed shut on my head like a clinch. Her menses was floating in droplets around my head as she orgasmed. While she was still vibrating and shaking through her orgasm I spun her through the air until I was behind her. I plunged the distance of my John Rock hard cock into her from arse. She let out a moan that was bordering on a screech. I began to Syrian pound with all my might as we floated in the air. Then we both arched our backrest as we thundered into our sexual climax together.

Ten minutes later we left the floaty way freshly showered. As we exited the room, I set the controls to clean and sterilize the room. I kissed melon vine and left her drinking and smiling at the bar. As I was walking out of the bar, the whole ship lurched and then vibrated with a moan that sounded like it was dying.

I slapped the communication control board at the room access."Jazz men, are we moving ?"

"Yes sir, but not under our own power any more."James IV answered.

"What do you signify any more ?"

"We got the organisation online, and fired the engines up. They immediately shut down. It seems our inertia ascendence scheme is down as well."

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

"Sir, we have no weapons command, would you like my wife and I to throw rocks at their floating remains ?"Mountain said back facetiously.

"No, throw dude at them ; he's the prick that brought those fucking squealer on my ship."

"How soon, Jazz Hands ?"

"We are looking at the wrong now but I say at least a day."

"You always say a day. I want this damn ship moving under its own world power by end of oscillation or I am going to consecrate you to Everest and mount as a aim blank !"

"Yes sir. Have you gotten that stress relief yet ?"

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

As I moved back to the bridge deck my mind wandered back to the events that led up to this situation. We had found a planet with no beacon fire on it. It was unexplored. Scans showed it to be a lush O rich planet with plant and creature life abundant on the control surface and in the seas. I organized a landing party to investigate the surface.

***

The party, consisting of marihuana, Demoness, fellow, Melons, mess and myself, left the ship in a shuttle. Several orbital passing game and scan later we determined a robust orbit to farming and investigate.

It was a diffuse touchdown nothing at all out of the ordinary. There was the scramble for positions to see who could have it through the threshold first. I had to laugh as the threshold slid back and my wife muscled slew out of the way. I walked down the ramp to see my wife dancing in a domain of member. Yes I said that right, all of the plants in the area were short maybe twelve inches tall and shaped like that percentage of the male person flesh.

I looked around to see the trees, thank god they looked more like Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, and they even had beautiful heyday growing on them. A closer facial expression at the prime made me think I had lost it. They looked like pink member with two balls 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 macrocosm of peter !"my wife exclaimed as she looked around.

"So industrial plant the lighthouse, chip in it a name and register it. The beacon will send back the information via dead space."I said as I walked down and resisted the urge to smack any of the flowers.

My wife set up the beacon station, as the rest of us looked around.

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

"It does consume a sealed menacing comportment doesn't it ?"

Buster was the inaugural one to see an animal. It was floating gently on the cinch towards one of the trees. It had orotund flat fender with bladders underneath them. These vesica probably contain some gas lighter than the air around us. By paddling its invertebrate foot it would make a motion through the air like a duck swam across the weewee. As we watched it swam up to one of the trees and put its mouth around one of the flowers. A few seconds later it left the flower hanging limply from its stem and moved to another flower. One by one it drained the"nectar"out of the stiff flowers leaving them flaccid.

"We need a duad of those birds on the ship,"Buster said as we watched."I bet we could hire them back to UP blank and sell them for a fortune."

"Get some sampling for study, we will stay nightlong and take everything back in the morning."I told Buster and his married woman. They set about collecting plant and animal sample distribution. They caught one of the boo but it died in lupus erythematosus than an 60 minutes in the batting cage. They must need to eat constantly.

baby buster gave me a story a twain hours later. The flower on the Tree produced ambrosia that made the diaphysis corpse. When the bladder Winged mother fucker wench would suckle at the flower they would discharge out the nectar and take aim some of the pollen away on their oral fissure. Those moving from flower to blossom reach fecundation for the works. The hobble flower would get about an 60 minutes to get a full lading of nectar again. There were several other animal and plants that he reported on.
My married woman had decided to shout this place, appropriately enough, prick's World.

As even started to darken the skies we saw respective, rat like, creatures come out of muddle in the ground. They started to climb up the trees. We watched as they moved to the terminal of the limb and bit the peak off the tree diagram and ate them. Every man in the group cringed watching this. I think spate even turned a piffling pale. These animal quickly became known as cockbiter betrayer. Buster thought they wouldn't sell well.

Our sensing element could not observe any creature larger than the boo within five hundred mouse click of us so we bedded down in the shuttle for the night.

I awoke the side by side break of the day and shook Demoness awake side by side 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. broncobuster must have awoken my wife when he got up to check his traps.

We got dressed and moved outside. fellow was studying a cage of twenty dollar bill of the cockbiter rats he had captured during the night. They seemed a bit hardier than the birds. I oversaw the samples being packed in over crate to be taken back to the science lab on the ship. Then we did a low story fly over of the planet to take on CAT scan and images of the plant and sensual life. In twelve 60 minutes we cataloged over six thousand new species.

The flight back to the ship was uneventful and suave. We were in the shuttlecock bay unloading when the lab geeks all showed up to see the sample. I tried to tell Buster to pass water sure the crateful were in the lab containment country before he opened them, but I was too late. He popped the latch on the rat crate and squealer exploded out and ran all over the deck. It took less than a hour for them all to disappear down an unfastened access hatch. They had chewed through the plasteel of the batting cage, this should have warned me of what was about to happen.

"Do not open any former crates !"I yelled."At to the lowest degree we don't have any penis heyday 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 to get my position report. That rabid skill geek had let rats loose on my ship. I was on the nosepiece receiving my report when the offset sign of trouble happen. The navigation screen went blank. We were suddenly flying screen."piloting, what the hell are you doing over there ?"

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

"Helm control, bring us to full stop, now !"I shouted as I stood from my chair. Suddenly my ship lurched and I fell on my face."tinker's dam it, helm, you can't just cut the engines, how long have you been flying this crate ?"

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

I stood and slapped the communications jury on my chair."applied science ! Report ! What the netherworld are you doing down there ? You can't cut links while we are in flight !"

Jazz deal came on the intercommunication system,"Sir we didn't do anything. When the sailing banking concern went business leader darkness, we opened the panel and informer came running out. How the hell did we get rats on the ship ?"

We all heard the throb of the locomotive wind down as they shut themselves down."All manus find those mother fucking rats and kill them ! Now ! security measures, proceeds inducers to everyone with fingers. Lock them all on stun, we don't want any accident. I will give everyone that stuns a rat an additional relaxation behavior cycle."

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

The yellow warning twinkle on the ship came to life. The estimator part could be heard all over the ship as she said,"Alert, all staff office are to maintain alarm Statuuuuuuuussssssssss…"Then the admonition lights went out and the bridge went dark.

***

I shook myself out of my oneirism as I entered the bridge. The initiatory thing I noticed was the vista concealment was no prospicient lacuna. It now showed a gravid, obtuse asteroid battleground, and we were moving towards it slowly."Everest, give me a situation report."

"We are drifting towards the asteroid field at approximately fifteen 100 kilometers per second. Estimated sentence to entrance into the orbit is six hours."

"Bring our shield and targeting online. Get the gunners in their station and secern them we may need to own a little aim practice."

"The gunner are reporting to post, but the arm inter-group communication are all still down, we have no guns. The shields are on but we can not detect if they are working."

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

"Yes, sir."

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

activation the communications in my hot seat I called down to applied science."jazz Hands give me some good news program. Please."

"Pig, I promise you I will have the helm control and inertial restraint back on line in eight hours. My people are working around the clock."

"That is good news program, now I have some great tidings for you. In six time of day you will no longer have to worry about repairing the ship. Those big careen out there are going to finish the job those rats started. At the speed we are traveling one of those John Rock is going to turn this ship into slag."

"Do you know a secure diversionist service that may be in the area ?"

"We are sending the birdie out."

I thumbed off the com panel."babe, turn over me some near news."

Marijuana spoke without looking away from her console."We have an estimated encroachment fourth dimension of seven hours and four instant. Then we are going to be landing on a gravid asteroid dead ahead. We are caught in the gravity well of that large gas giant on the other side of the force field. I am running the deliberation on the shuttle now."

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

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

***

We were hunting git ; they seemed to move about the ship with impunity chewing on anything that glowed. The light wires were natural fair game."We need one of them alive so Buster can tell us why they are after the promiscuous wires."

Our mathematical group split up into couple. I was teamed with Demoness, our plan was simple ; incite about the ship opening access code panels. If anything ran out pull the induction and stupefy it. I noticed mountain had put on his ceremony armour for the hunt. It had a midst codpiece for protection down there.

chatter over our helmet com was kept to a minimum. Demoness opened the first panel, it was to liveliness support. There was nothing. We moved to the ski tow controller board. When I opened it there was an plosion of fur and dentition. Then there was incredible pain as I was hit by the blast from the inducer. shit I am glad it was set to stun.

I woke up in the health check lab with a Brobdingnagian pair of breasts hovering over my case."Hi, Melons,"I mumbled as I shook my head to enlighten it."Did we at least manage to get one of the scab ?"

"Demoness caught four of them, and bagged a captain with only four shots."melon vine said as she leaned to depend past her chest and into my face.

"shit ! That hurt."I could see Demoness out of the corner of my eye."Why did you shoot me ?"

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

"Melon's dear, would you delight hand me my inducer ; I want to show Demoness just how little they hurt."As Melon's looked at me with big eye, Demoness quietly slipped out of the elbow room. I reached over for the com panel next to the bed."fellow, tell me some good news."

"My retirement account is up fifty thousand."

"Don't concern, if you don't block off the puke you are not going to want a retirement report, now what about the git ?"

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

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

"The exclusively thing I know is they are attracted to the light wire because they glow on the same wavelength in radical violet as the flowers do. As to why they are attracted to them."

I jumped out of the bed and headed for engineering. mickle was in the Hall."Get every crack shot armed with rifles and meet me in engineering. We are going to have an old fashioned turkey shoot."

passel headed off to gather men and women. I went to engine room."Jazz Hands, get over here, I have an idea."

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

"No. How long would it take to get a pile of spare light up telegram in the center of engineering and attach it to the main author ?"

"About twenty minutes."

"You have ten, I also want the briny link from the generator to the quietus of the ship ready to unplug on my command."

"You want us to switch to the backup man ?"

"No I want power cut completely. We need to get all the outer doors closed and all of the lift shafts shut down."

"The lift are no problem the so-and-so chewed them up about 15 minutes ago. The taboo doors may be a problem. The briny shuttle bay doors are stuck surface and the observation window in the forward cartography lab is non-operational."

"Evacuate those field, tell everyone they have twenty min to secure everything and get out. We are going to bait a cakehole for the rats."

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

"We are facing a higher-ranking foeman, in an unknown tactical situation. We are completely defenseless now. If the lowlife continue at this rate we will have no ship in twelve hr. It is sentence to make a death point of view. The squealer are attracted to the light telegram so we will feed them the solitary batch of glowing wire on the ship to come for. Now get them set up or I am going to cling you from the prow of the ship like a figurehead."

"Yes sir."

I moved to the upper balcony, as the others started to gather. I set multitude up in office so we had full coverage of the engine room deck of cards below. The stack of wires was a gist of fire anything that moved was a target."All right people there are sixteen of these rats to kill. I want everyone's artillery set to overkill. We can not afford for a single rat to miss this trap."

As I took my position as the last of the personnel left the broken point. Then the Light went out. It was such a long wait. But after almost an time of day the starting time rat came out of an access hatch and started moving toward the wire. He was hit by the beams of over 40 weapon. The picayune bastard was nothing but a clod of charcoal.

It took about an hour for the rats to start showing up. It took twenty minutes for the last one to strike. I stood and hit the com jury. It was drained like everything else."jazz hands, lets get the arrangement rebooted and haunt started."

***

I rose out of my woolgathering to see a bombastic rock'n'roll on the sentiment covert."Tactical, how far out is it and estimated clip to impact ?"

"We are five degree six seven million km from the asteroid. Estimated impact meter is one hour and three minutes."Everest answered.

"Reduce the enlargement to ten times."

"It is already at ten clock time, sir."

"mother fucker ! How big is that matter ?"

"It is four chiliad km long by two thousand wide."

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

"Definitely, sir."

"How is the attempt to change our course with the birdie going ?"

"Not good, sir, the attitude chastisement jets are firing and locking us on course."

"Bring them back in. We are going to necessitate the shuttles along with the life boats to evacuate."I looked at the CRT screen. My meat sank. This was not exactly how I had envisioned ending my command. If we made it back active we would get to the full honors and retreat welfare as full admiral. My nous drifted back to the day I had been informed of my choices.

***

"Petty officeholder third class Phillip Irving Graves, reporting as enjoin sir."I said as I walked into admiral Tigrat's office. He looked up at me with a diddley eating grinning on his typeface. 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 charges then everyone in the fleet is going to know what you did. If I don't press flush then you get off Walter Scott free and I can not let that happen either."He looked at me with subject 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 evil."My opinion exactly, so here is the deal. I am going to recommend you as the captain of the Ticonderoga. It is scheduled to vary at the end of the calendar month. Then you are going to go deep. 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 record, not s undivided ship had ever come back from going deep. Most disappeared without a shadow. He was consigning me to a death sentence. My own instruction weighed sonorous on my judgment. I had always thought I could do it better than any of these braggart. Out there I would be the voice of authorisation. I would be the exclusively command chain. The one dollar bill would stop with me.

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

The smile he gave me had me thinking through the women I knew. I sure as hell would not let him decide. Then Millishia came to beware, she was one hellhole of a skill officeholder. Her life history was gilt. Maybe I could get one over on the old ass in battlefront of me yet."Do I get to choose my crew ?"

"You will be given a lean of unpaid worker for mystifying service. You may choose thirty couples from it. The other nineteen yoke I will select. I already have one of your engineers and medico picked out. Plus a couple of security department hoi polloi you will just love."

"Do normal deep rule apply ?"

"Yes, the ship must run efficiently."

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

The Ticonderoga was a thing of beauty, long and sleek with four locomotive engine nacelles under her body carriage. She hung in blank like a phantom, the rib of the shipyard frame surrounding her. The long narrow eubstance looked like an pointer with atmospheric stabilizer on the rear one-half. The large-minded head of the arrow was where the command decks sat. The slightly wide body was the crew field. Under the main consistence hung engineering and medical. She was designed to cut through space like a weapon. She was one of the sexiest things I had ever seen. I was supposed to describe aboard and pick out my crew via interviews.

A few of my crew was already onboard, my engine driver, James II Mitchell Penzo, and his wife, Leafa Tiski Mikia-Penzo were two of them. I had read their files, they were solvent addicts. She was also a Liskian, they were reputed to be a ruffianly lot.

I had looked at the files of over a thousand military volunteer twain, I had to blame thirty. I had discovered something profound. Most people that wanted to go rich were nut cases. These were no elision. The volunteers ran the stratagem from mad scientist to psycho killers. I was at a red for anyone I trusted on a long flight of stairs let alone wanted there.

I spent the next calendar week interviewing aspirant ; it was the heavy calendar week of my life sentence. If it had not been for Millishia, I probably would have begged the admiral to court marshal me. The adjacent three days were spend choosing my bunch and filing their new ranks. One thing nice about being a chieftain of a oceanic abyss ship, place onboard your ship was your choice. You set the chain of dictation and the duty roster. The captain was the first last and lone occupation of command once you left the blank space port.

Four days later the mooring lines fell away from the ship. My new helmsman only managed to hit the dry loading dock once on the way out. I now had an untested gang, a new ship with all the glitch inherent and two years to turn them into a performance bunch before we made our first base planet fall.

***

Again I pulled myself out of my memories, that rock 'n' roll was much bigger. The countdown on the screen said thirty-one transactions. My mind started flying through the possibleness. I had to come up with an resolution. I would not lose my ship and dictation after our first major planet fall.

A plan came to me. It would take some fancy flying. I hit the com unit in my hot seat."Jazz Hands, Prepare to disconnect all power on my command. Demoness, I need your pilotage acquisition, you have shuttle two, I have shuttle one, we launch in five."

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

"I know, St. James, if what I have planned whole kit and caboodle I will buy you the sentence you need."

"And if it doesn't ?"

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

"What, sir ?"

"Take tutelage of my wife."I thumbed off the console and left the bridgework before anyone could ask any questions. I had a architectural plan ; 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 birdie. I could hear the com traffic as Demoness launched. I thumbed the com unit between the two birdie to life."Demoness, I am going to fly this ship into manoeuvre contact with the soundbox of the Ticonderoga. Then I am going to ingest Jazz Hands cut all power. That should give up the thruster from firing. Once that is set I am going to burn up the engines in the shuttle and establish her the gas. If this works I will deflect the ship by enough to get out the asteroid field."

"Sir, if you do that your engines will overheat and flame out in indorsement. The inside of the shuttle will be a half million stage fireball."

"That is where you come in. I am going to turn out, I need you to scoop me up fast and get me clear. Get my body back for a decent 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 work I have to do it now."I shut off the com television channel. It took me less than a hour to location my shuttle. I contacted Jazz hands,"Cut the exponent now !"Then I put the engine power to entire and locked the throttle. The on board computer started telling me I was going to die.

"Imminent locomotive overload in twenty arcsecond. Imminent locomotive engine overload in nineteen minute. Imminent locomotive engine overload in eighteen seconds."I dove for the ascendency for the ejection system. I let all of the air out of my lungs and pulled the handle."scheme detects non suited personnel, projection system disabled."

nookie ! I pulled my side arm and shot the console. Then I yanked the handle again, there was a mind numbing roar as the air exploded out of the ship. My head hit something solid a few second gear later and the populace went dark. My last thought was,"fuck, that hurts."

***

"Captain Stephanie Graf, I do not look you to hail back from this. I expect you to die a bloody and horrible death."admiral Tigrat said as I was in my net audience before launch."Do not disappoint me."

"Respectfully sir, my integral crew will be at your one hundredth natal day party. There I will feed your married woman and daughters a kiss right in front of you. How did you ever manage to get a ring on the fingerbreadth of that woman ? She has to be at least xl years younger than you."

***

My headway was pounding out a calendar method that sounded like a hangover."Where ?"I managed to ask around the pain in my head.

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

"How ?"

"Liskians are tougher than humans, she had the bird decompressed and waiting on your ejection. Once you flew onboard she put up the emergency fields and re-pressurized. You may give birth a few aching and pains plus blurred visual modality for a few mean solar day, but you will be fine soon."

"melon vine's, what about the ship ?"

"The ship is out of peril and flying under its own power again, captain. You got us earn of the asteroids and bought him the time to fix the ship. By the time I let you out of here we will be fully functional again."

"William Tell malarky manus and Demoness to take an excess liberalisation cycles/second, they even earned a nip of the solvent."

"malarkey flushed the ease of the solvent out the air lock. He said any man that would do what you did to spare the ship deserves a sober mechanic. ”