Ticonderoga - sequence 1 : Adrift

mould of Characters ;

***

Name : Phillip Irving Graves

rank : maitre d'hotel - commanding officer

Call house : Pig

History : He was born on old earth in the area known as the Western Territories of North America. As a spring chicken he was a worry shaper this, being virtually unheard of in his century, forced the military to deal with him. He was given a choice. get together the United satellite peace keeping and research force play or be remanded for mental conditioning to fix his behavioral problems. His vocation in the military machine was a great example of how not to pull ahead. After twenty years he was still only a petty policeman third category. That was when he was caught pulling off his uncollectible violation yet. Fleet Admiral Tigrat caught him in bed with his wife, and both of his daughters, at the like meter. Phillip was doomed to go back to foot rank and file again. But instead the admiral made him an go. Find a wife, get promoted to captain, with a ship, and go deep.

Description : He is six foot tall, with jet blackamoor hair and Robert Brown eyes. His body eccentric is thin and brawny with tan pelt tone.

married person : Mrs. Millishia Jaunu Steppen-Graves

***

Name : Mrs Millishia Jaunu Steppen-Graves

Rank : commandant - Ships scientific discipline officer and fourthly in command

Call foretoken : Marijuana

story : She was born a bare farm female child in the Midwest Territories of compass north America. She led an cautionary life, with no problem, until she came of age. Then she found she had a taste for bad boys. To try and curb her appetence for self destructive behavior, she joined the overhaul. Her life history was in good edict and she was happy after five years but she longed to go deep. The lone 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 fill another six calendar month. Then she was broadsided by a question she never thought any man would ask."testament you marry me I need a married woman before I can go deep ?"

verbal description : She is a five invertebrate foot six inch tall, blond haired, blue eyed looker, with mass medium sized breasts. Her body manner is lithe and athletic.

teammate : Phillip Irving Graves

***

public figure : King James I Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell Penzo

Rank : Master chief Petty police officer - Chief engineer and mechanic.

phone call mansion : Jazz hands

History : He was born on the emerald isle of EC. He was a good kid and went to college. After school he joined the serve to set up a niggling 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 effects of the engine solvent. Just a petty 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 forces interval or he and his married woman go deep.

description : He is five invertebrate foot eight in tall with dark green eyes and brown whisker. His body type is blockheaded with just a slight spare tire.

better half : Leafa Tiski Mikia-Penzo

***

public figure : Mrs. Leafa Tiski Mikia-Penzo

Rank : Senior honcho Petty Officer - chief of off ship security.

Call preindication : Demoness

History : She was born on her native world of Liskia. She is substantial and tight and excelled in her life history as military police, until her hubby introduced her to the solvent. Everything still worked well for them until she was called out on an parking brake while she was extremely happy. Six hebdomad later she boarded her new vessel, The UP Ticonderoga.

verbal description : She is six foot two inch marvelous. Her wash has red tegument and hair's-breadth with low-cal grey eyes. Many citizenry say they look like the mythical demons, right down to the two tufts of pilus on their foreheads that resembled horn. Her organic structure type is tenuous and lithe with a well defined muscle tone.

Paraguay tea : James Billy Mitchell Penzo

***
Name : Malcolm Leroy Libbshitz

Rank : lieutenant Junior course - xeno-biologist.

shout Sign : fellow

history : He is a aborigine of Molva molva, a human Colony, joined the inspection and repair to go deep, he wanted the life story of an explorer, he was also married and his wife joined at the same prison term looking to ship out with him. He is an expert in xeno-botany and xeno-zoology and loves to study new species of both plants and brute.

description : He is five foot eight column inch tall with mouselike blond hair's-breadth and blue eyes. His body type is thinly and non muscular.

Mate : Melonie Michelle Russel-Libbshitz

***

Name : Melonie Michelle Russel-Libbshitz

social station : Lieutenant Junior form - ships doctor.

Call Sign : melon

chronicle : She is a native of ling ko, a human colony, and was married to her college dish. She joined the avail to go deep with him.

Description : She is five foot six inches tall with platinum blonde hair's-breadth and very declamatory breast. He body type is voluptuous.

Mate : Malcolm Leroy Libbshitz

***

Name : Lorka Dumont Willock

membership : Commander - surety officer, second in command.

call option polarity : Mountain

History : He is a Tithian warrior. Born on Tithia and joined the overhaul to get a chance to do battle in this time of peace. He is very popular with the ladies because his race believes that love gambling should be as tender as war is violent.

description : At well over seven feet improbable and four one C and fifty Egyptian pound of solid sinew he is by far the largest member of the crew, except for his wife. His black tegument looks like a apparition cum to aliveness. The only break in his darkness is his red eyes.

Mate : Tanka Lundt Cravis-Willock

***

epithet : Tanka Lundt Cravis-Willock

rank : Commander - Weapons officer, third in instruction

Call Sign : Mount Everest

History : She is a Female Tithian warrior. She joined the service with her husband, in the Leslie Townes Hope of finding conflict. She is a pes taller than her hubby, and a hell of a lot meaner.

Description : She is eight human foot four in tall with fantasm blackened skin and red eyes. Her body character is extremely muscular.

Mate : Lorka Dumont Willock


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

I stared at the vacuous prospect screenland in front end of me. My ship had been adrift for three solar day. There was only one problem when you were deep ; there was no one to assist when you hit hassle. The penny-pinching ship to us was two month travel away. It had taken us two yr to get this far out.

"loss deep"is a euphemism for getting lost. We were sent out here to receive inhabitable planets that we could colonize or imagination we could mine for. The fun part, the rules say the outset crewman to set human foot on a planet gets to cite the planet.

The united race had managed to colonize or excavation camp every rock for threescore lightness years around earthly concern. We were one hundred and twenty out. It took about a twelvemonth to jaunt lx light up years with the snort drive as it was called. It got its name because the thing and antimatter explosions inside it made it sound like it was snorting. We could put up with the annoying phone to travel at LX times the stop number of light. The trouble right now is our snorter had a stopped up nose.

I thumbed the communicating panel on my chair to biography."idle words hired hand, What the hell on earth is taking so long down there ? If you are nipping at the answer again I'm going to take you off of ministration rotary motion for two week."

"Not a chance, Pig, I am trying to repair the damn wrong those cockbiter dirty dog did to the engine wiring. The fucking piddling beasties chewed through every light wire in the main fire control cabinet."

"How long before we have engine power again ?"

"Another day at least, we have over a 1000 wires to replace 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 !"

"chieftain, even if I get this repaired that is no warrantee we will be capable to move. We have no approximation what else they damaged before we could kill the petty love child. Go take a assuagement pause and let me do my red cent job."

I stalked off of the bridge. The damn lifts were down so I had to climb down the accession ladders to get to the crew decks. I guess we could ring ourselves lucky ; those little varmint had not reached the life support equipment yet. Twenty cockbiter rats had managed to jaw through our main power control, lift dominance organisation, helm control interlink, navigation, and engine fire controller in less than twenty four time of day. Twenty rats had crippled a ship, with bunch of one hundred people on board. Only luck knows what else was damaged. Jazz Hands was proper I needed stress relief ; it was meter to head to the crew lounge.

There is a major set of linguistic rule about going deep. The number 1 one is all crowd members must be mated couples. The second rule is all kinship are surface on the ship. When off duty personnel need stress easement any off responsibility soul of the opposite grammatical gender is uncommitted to them, unless they are in their sopor cycle. Any same sex liaison are not out but are open to be refused. Your one-quarter were kept monogamous, only you and your spouse enjoyed that placement. The sofa is where you go to arrange liaisons with early crew member. That is also where the"training"rooms are. There is one for just about every taste, from the pleasant to the downright kinky.

membership has its privilege as well. Command officeholder are allowed to take stress break of serve during tariff if there is no pressing indigence for their attending. As of right now, there was no pressing pauperism for me. I could not dominate this ship to affect 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 technique."Need some stress succor, 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 dame is drinking a cobalt surf, and I would enjoy a calum tea."I told the bartender as I caressed melons breadbasket. I always enjoyed her very large chest 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 room I adjusted the controls on the holographic display to make it look like we were in the swarm. I had seen enough stars already today. All of them stars I couldn't reach. We attached the lids to our spectacles so our drinks would not float out and then I touched the spark off button. Watching her breasts suddenly float upward as the gravity stopped was an amazing treat. We floated in the air together as I started to undress her. As was received when in the lounge, her clothing was simple and promiscuous to remove. She wore a pullover shirt and miniskirt with no panties on underneath. Her shoes were simple-minded skidder very comfortable and quite attractive. The tenuous unchanging heraldic bearing caused by pulling her shirt over her head caused her hair to stand out like a hallo of platinum blond silk. By a lot of standard this woman would be considered stoutness. She weighed about twenty dollar bill lb over nonpareil weight for her five foot six in underframe. To me the extra softness just made her voluptuous.

Once her dress were floating around the room like cast off plumage, she started to undress me. My uniform was a little more complicate to remove. It was a problematical push button up pants and shirt, with a jacket over it, all in black. The shoes were polished flawlessness in Shirley Temple Black cancel leather. Underneath it all was my regulation underclothing, also black. Add the benighted grey-headed swath and chest of drawers bandolier as well as my police captain's hat to the hale thing and I looked like a trained monkey. Soon all of these clothes were floating around the room as well.

I pulled melon to me and began to snog the tegument of her neck opening and chest of drawers. This elicited respective groan of pleasure. Her legs wrapped around my stomach and squeezed me hard enough to be slightly painful. She began to turn her pelvic girdle rubbing her pert backside on the top of my peter. I was very charm to take what she was offering flop then but I had early ideas. Zero-G has one tangible advantage to making sleep together on any control surface. I guided her legs out from around me as she pouted with those fully lips that were just made for what I had in mind. Once she was free I spun her in the air and brought her legs around to my brass. There in front line of my centre was a minor landing flight strip of platinum blond hair that pointed right to the object of my desire. I moved my drumhead forward and inhaled the perfume of her rousing. With deliberate slowness I extended my tongue and began to make small lap through that cherubic landing strip.

I felt her mouth as she started to lap and kiss along the calamus of my cock. Her mouth and sass were delectable warmness on my hide. The quiver of her groan made my cock saltation and vellication as I touched the tip of my tongue to her clit and flipped it quickly back and forth. I nearly forgot what I was doing when I felt my cock slide down her throat. She was so unruffled and hot on the inside. I moved both of my hands around her delightful stern and started wetting my fingers in the honey flowing from her blotto puss. When I felt her legs starting to tighten up around my question, I slid two finger's breadth from one hand into her squiffy pussy. My middle finger of my former manus pushed into her silky asshole. I started pumping my finger in and out of her at different stop number. Sometimes they would be moving in and out together, others they would be in a counterpoint rhythm.

I felt her belly begin to tighten and vibrate against my dresser. Then her legs slammed shut on my point like a clamp. Her catamenia 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 length of my careen hard cock into her from behind. She let out a moan that was bordering on a scream. I began to pound with all my might as we floated in the air. Then we both arched our backs 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 Melons and left her drunkenness and grin 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 communications venire at the doorway."nothingness Hands, are we moving ?"

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

"What do you entail any Sir Thomas More ?"

"We got the system online, and fired the engines up. They immediately shut down. It seems our inactiveness control system is down as well."

"security department I want every one of those tinker's dam rats killed again."

"Sir, we have no weapons control, would you like my married woman and I to throw rocks at their floating corpses ?"Mountain said back facetiously.

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

"How soon, Jazz workforce ?"

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

"You always say a day. I want this tinker's damn ship moving under its own major power by end of cycle or I am going to give you to Everest and Mountain as a butt dummy !"

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

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

As I moved back to the bridge my nous wandered back to the event that led up to this situation. We had found a satellite with no beacon on it. It was undiscovered. CAT scan showed it to be a lush O robust major planet with plant and animal life sentence abundant on the surface and in the seas. I organized a landing party to look into the surface.

***

The company, consisting of ganja, Demoness, fellow, melon, passel and myself, left the ship in a shuttle. respective orbital passing game and scans later we determined a fertile area to land and investigate.

It was a soft touchdown aught at all out of the ordinary. There was the scramble for positions to see who could spend a penny it through the door first. I had to laugh as the threshold slid back and my wife muscled Mountain out of the way. I walked down the ramp to see my married woman dancing in a sphere of penis. Yes I said that right, all of the flora in the area were curtly maybe twelve inches grandiloquent and shaped like that percentage of the Male anatomy.

I looked around to see the trees, thank god they looked more like trees, and they even had beautiful flowers growing on them. A secretive look at the flowers made me think I had lost it. They looked like pink penises with two balls hanging underneath them. I thought it was pretty capture that my wife would get to nominate a existence covered in phallus shaped plants.

"My god it is a existence of dicks !"my married woman exclaimed as she looked around.

"So flora the beacon fire, cave in it a gens and register it. The beacon will charge back the information via short space."I said as I walked down and resisted the urge to smell out any of the flowers.

My wife set up the beacon light post, as the respite of us looked around.

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

"It does have a sealed menacing mien doesn't it ?"

buster was the firstly one to see an brute. It was floating gently on the breeze towards one of the tree diagram. It had large flat wings with bladders underneath them. These bladders 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 H2O. As we watched it swam up to one of the trees and put its back talk around one of the flowers. A few seconds later it left the prime hanging limply from its stem and moved to another flower. One by one it drained the"nectar"out of the rigid prime leaving them flaccid.

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

"Get some samples for study, we will rest overnight and take everything back in the morning."I told Buster and his married woman. They set about collecting plant life and animal sample distribution. They caught one of the birds but it died in less than an 60 minutes in the John Cage. They must ask to eat constantly.

bronco buster gave me a theme a couplet hours later. The bloom on the Tree produced nectar that made the shaft stiff. When the bladder Winged Cocksucker fowl would suckle at the flower they would empty out the nectar and look at some of the pollen away on their mouths. Those moving from flower to blossom accomplish fertilization for the plant life. The hobble prime would take about an hour to generate a full load of nectar again. There were several other animals and plant that he reported on.
My wife had decided to call this place, appropriately enough, hawkshaw's World.

As eve started to darken the skies we saw several, rat like, creatures come out of holes in the ground. They started to climb up the tree. We watched as they moved to the final stage of the limbs and bit the prime off the tree diagram and ate them. Every man in the mathematical group cringed watching this. I think hatful even turned a piddling pale. These animal quickly became known as cockbiter rotter. fellow thought they wouldn't sell well.

Our sensors could not detect any fauna orotund than the boo within five c clink of us so we bedded down in the shuttle for the night.

I awoke the next good morning and shook Demoness awake succeeding to me. She smiled as I retrieved two loving cup of coffee tree from the get-up-and-go solidifier. I looked around and noticed all of the others had already moved outside. broncobuster must have awoken my married woman when he got up to hold in his traps.

We got dressed and moved outside. baby buster was studying a John Milton Cage Jr. of twenty of the cockbiter rats he had captured during the dark. 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 storey fly over of the planet to remove scans and icon of the works and animal liveliness. In twelve hour we cataloged over six thousand new species.

The flight back to the ship was uneventful and politic. We were in the shuttle bay unloading when the lab geeks all showed up to see the samples. I tried to tell Buster to make for sure the crateful were in the lab containment area before he opened them, but I was too tardy. He popped the latch on the rat crate and rats exploded out and ran all over the pack of cards. It took LE than a min for them all to melt down an unfastened approach hachure. They had chewed through the plasteel of the cage, this should have warned me of what was about to happen.

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

"Yes sir,"he said with a gulp.

I stalked to the nosepiece to get my status written report. That fanatic scientific discipline oddball had let informer loose on my ship. I was on the bridge receiving my report when the first sign of trouble happen. The piloting screen went blank. We were suddenly flying screen."Navigation, what the Hell are you doing over there ?"

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

"Helm dominance, bring us to full halt, now !"I shouted as I stood from my chair. Suddenly my ship lurched and I fell on my fount."hoot it, helm, you can't just cut the locomotive, how long have you been flying this crateful ?"

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

I stood and slapped the communication theory dialog box on my chair."engineering science ! Report ! What the the pits are you doing down there ? You can't cut connexion while we are in flying !"

Jazz Hands came on the intercom,"Sir we didn't do anything. When the navigation bank went power wickedness, we opened the venire and rats came running out. How the Inferno did we get squealer on the ship ?"

We all heard the pounding of the engine wind down as they shut themselves down."All hands find those female parent fucking rotter and stamp out them ! Now ! security system, issue persuader to everyone with finger. Lock them all on stun, we don't want any stroke. I will collapse everyone that stuns a rat an surplus ease cycle."

Turning to our tactical post,"Everest, take us to alert status."She thumbed the alarm system on her console to on.

The yellowness warning lights on the ship came to life sentence. The computers voice could be heard all over the ship as she said,"alerting, all personnel are to maintain warning signal Statuuuuuuuussssssssss…"Then the monition lights went out and the bridge circuit went dark.

***

I shook myself out of my reverie as I entered the bridge. The first thing I noticed was the view screen was no farseeing blank. It now showed a large, dense star-shaped field, and we were moving towards it slowly."Everest, give me a situation report."

"We are drifting towards the asteroid area at approximately 15 hundred kilometre per indorsement. Estimated time to enamour into the field is six hours."

"Bring our shields and targeting online. Get the artilleryman in their station and tell apart them we may need to have a little target practice."

"The gunners are reporting to station, but the weapons links are all still down, we have no hired gun. The shield are on but we can not detect if they are working."

"So my day just got worse. We may or may not have buckler, 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 bunch in the two birdie and see if we can tow the ship into a new course."

activating the communications in my hot seat I called down to engineering science."Jazz Hands return me some practiced news. Please."

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

"That is good news, now I have some great news for you. In six hours you will no longer have to vex about repairing the ship. Those big rocks out there are going to terminate the job those blabber started. At the swiftness we are traveling one of those rocks is going to rick this ship into slag."

"Do you know a good wrecker service that may be in the area ?"

"We are sending the shuttles out."

I thumbed off the com board."Babe, pay me some in effect news."

Marijuana spoke without looking away from her console."We have an estimated impact fourth dimension of seven minute and four minutes. Then we are going to be landing on a vauntingly asteroid dead ahead. We are caught in the gravity fountainhead of that large gas giant on the former incline of the playing field. I am running the computation on the birdie now."

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

I stared at the perspective CRT screen that I now wished was blank again. My nous started to drift back to the bum again.

***

We were hunting rats ; they seemed to move about the ship with impunity chewing on anything that glowed. The light source conducting wire were raw targets."We need one of them alive so Buster can separate us why they are after the wakeful wires."

Our group split up into duo. I was teamed with Demoness, our plan was simple ; go about the ship opening access panels. If anything ran out pull the gun trigger and stun it. I noticed mountain had put on his ceremonial armour for the Holman Hunt. It had a thick codpiece for protection down there.

yak over our helmet com was kept to a lower limit. Demoness opened the foremost panel, it was to life sentence support. There was nothing. We moved to the lift ascendancy panel. When I opened it there was an plosion of fur and teeth. Then there was incredible pain as I was hit by the good time from the inducer. Damn I am sword lily it was set to stun.

I woke up in the medical lab with a huge twain of breasts hovering over my face."Hi, melon vine,"I mumbled as I shook my promontory to acquit it."Did we at least manage to get one of the rats ?"

"Demoness caught four of them, and bagged a maitre d' with only four shots."melon vine said as she leaned to wait past her breasts and into my face.

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

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

"Melon's dear, would you please handwriting me my persuader ; I want to show Demoness just how piffling they hurt."As melon vine's looked at me with big eyes, Demoness quietly slipped out of the room. I reached over for the com panel next to the bed."Buster, secernate me some upright news."

"My retirement history is up fifty thousand."

"Don't trouble, if you don't stop the rats you are not going to need a retreat account, now what about the rats ?"

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

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

"The solely affair I know is they are attracted to the light wires because they glow on the same wavelength in ultra violet as the flowers do. As to why they are attracted to them."

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

Mountain headed off to collect men and women. I went to engineering."Jazz Hands, get over here, I have an idea."

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

"No. How long would it take to get a spile of unornamented illumine wire in the center of applied science and tie it to the main source ?"

"About twenty dollar bill minutes."

"You have ten, I also want the primary link from the generator to the rest of the ship set to unplug on my command."

"You want us to shift to the relief ?"

"No I want index cut completely. We need to get all the outer doors closed and all of the heave shaft shut down."

"The lifts are no problem the rats chewed them up about fifteen minutes ago. The outer doors may be a trouble. The primary shuttle bay doors are stuck heart-to-heart and the observation window in the forward cartography lab is non-operational."

"Evacuate those areas, tell everyone they have twenty minutes to fix everything and get out. We are going to bait a trap for the rats."

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

"We are facing a superior foe, in an unknown tactical situation. We are completely defenseless now. If the rats continue at this pace we will get no ship in twelve hours. It is metre to make a finish pedestal. The blackleg are attracted to the lighter telegram so we will give them the only batch of glowing telegram on the ship to fare for. Now get them set up or I am going to hang 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 people up in positions so we had full reportage of the engineering deck below. The pile of wire was a center of fire anything that moved was a quarry."All redress masses there are sixteen of these dirty dog to kill. I want everyone's artillery set to overkill. We can not afford for a individual rat to escape this trap."

As I took my position as the last of the personnel left the lower level. Then the lightness went out. It was such a long wait. But after almost an hour the outset rat came out of an access hatching and started moving toward the telegram. He was hit by the shaft of over forty weapon system. The picayune by-blow was nothing but a lump of charcoal.

It took about an time of day for the rats to start showing up. It took twenty dollar bill transactions for the stopping point one to diminish. I stood and hit the com panel. It was dead like everything else."malarkey hands, lets get the system rebooted and repairs started."

***

I rose out of my woolgathering to see a large rock on the position screen."Tactical, how far out is it and estimated fourth dimension to bear on ?"

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

"Reduce the magnification to ten times."

"It is already at ten times, sir."

"cocksucker ! How big is that matter ?"

"It is four thousand kilometers long by two G wide."

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

"Definitely, sir."

"How is the endeavor to change our row with the bird going ?"

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

"Bring them back in. We are going to necessitate the shuttlecock along with the life gravy holder to evacuate."I looked at the screen. My nub sank. This was not exactly how I had envisioned ending my command. If we made it back active we would get full pureness and retirement welfare as admirals. My mind drifted back to the day I had been informed of my choices.

***

"Petty ship's officer third class Phillip John Irving Graves, reporting as range sir."I said as I walked into admiral Tigrat's office. He looked up at me with a damn eating smiling on his face. He motioned with his hired hand for me to sit and be at ease.

"Phillip, I am at a red for what to do with you. If I press charges then everyone in the fleet is going to have it off what you did. If I don't insistence charges then you get off Winfield Scott free and I can not let that happen 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 evil."My thoughts exactly, so here is the heap. I am going to urge you as the chieftain of the Fort Ticonderoga. It is scheduled to depart at the end of the month. Then you are going to go deep. Your mission will be two years transit out, then 16 years exploring. When you return, you will have admiral's benefits."

"Sir, I am not married."I knew the record, not s I ship had ever come back from going mysterious. Most disappeared without a trace. He was consigning me to a demise condemnation. My own mastery weighed heavy on my mind. I had always thought I could do it better than any of these blowhards. Out there I would be the voice of authority. I would be the but dictation strand. The long horse would stop with me.

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

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

"You will be given a inclination of military volunteer for deep service. You may select thirty twain from it. The other XIX couples I will prefer. I already have one of your locomotive engineer and doc picked out. Plus a yoke of security system people you will just love."

"Do pattern deep dominion apply ?"

"Yes, the ship must run efficiently."

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

The Ticonderoga was a thing of peach, long and sleek with four locomotive engine nacelles under her body carriage. She hung in distance like a phantom, the ribs of the shipyard frame surrounding her. The long narrow-minded body looked like an arrow with atmospherical stabilizers on the rear half. The broad question of the arrow was where the bid decks sat. The slightly all-embracing organic structure was the bunch area. Under the briny body hung applied science and medical exam. 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 account aboard and choose my work party via interviews.

A few of my bunch was already onboard, my technologist, Saint James Margaret Mitchell Penzo, and his wife, Leafa Tiski Mikia-Penzo were two of them. I had read their filing cabinet, they were solvent addicts. She was also a Liskian, they were reputed to be a tough lot.

I had looked at the files of over a thousand volunteer couples, I had to blame thirty. I had discovered something profound. most people that wanted to go deep were nut cases. These were no exceptions. The military volunteer ran the gambit from mad scientist to psycho killer. I was at a loss for anyone I trusted on a long escape let alone wanted there.

I spent the next week interviewing aspirer ; it was the difficult 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 Clarence Day were spent choosing my crew and filing their new social rank. One thing nice about being a skipper of a deep ship, rank onboard your ship was your choice. You set the chemical chain of dictation and the obligation roster. The senior pilot was the first utmost and only when line of reasoning of command once you left the space port.

quaternity days later the mooring lines fell away from the ship. My new helmsman only managed to hit the dry wharf once on the way out. I now had an untested crew, a new ship with all the germ inherent and two year to turn them into a functioning crew before we made our first planet fall.

***

Again I pulled myself out of my memories, that tilt was a lot bighearted. The countdown on the blind said thirty-one minutes. My mind started flying through the possibilities. I had to descend up with an answer. I would not misplace my ship and command after our initiative major planet fall.

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

Jazz paw came on the com unit,"Captain we have to own power to do mending, if you make me cut it off again it will take an hour to completely re-start the system."

"I know, James, if what I have planned whole kit I will buy you the clip you need."

"And if it doesn't ?"

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

"What, sir ?"

"Take fear of my wife."I thumbed off the console and left the bridge before anyone could ask any question. I had a plan ; if it worked I would relieve my ship. Either way I was going to die first.

I burst into birdie bay one and walked aboard the bird. I could hear the com traffic as Demoness launched. I thumbed the com whole between the two shuttles to lifetime."Demoness, I am going to fly this ship into direct contact with the body of the Ticonderoga. Then I am going to have got jazz hand cut all power. That should halt the thrusters from firing. Once that is set I am going to fire up the engine in the shuttle and break her the gas. If this works I will deflect the ship by sufficiency to fly the coop the asteroid field."

"Sir, if you do that your locomotive will overheat and flame out in sec. The inside of the bird will be a half million academic degree fireball."

"That is where you come in. I am going to eject, 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 judgement ?"

"I don't have time to put a causa on ; if this is going to ferment I have to do it now."I shut off the com channel. It took me to a lesser extent than a hour to location my shuttle. I contacted wind hands,"Cut the power now !"Then I put the locomotive engine major power to full and locked the throttle. The on display board data processor started telling me I was going to die.

"Imminent railway locomotive overload in twenty seconds. Imminent engine overburden in nineteen seconds. Imminent engine overload in eighteen seconds."I dove for the ascendance for the exclusion arrangement. I let all of the air out of my lungs and pulled the handle."System detects non suited personnel department, ejection system disabled."

Fuck ! I pulled my side arm and shot the console table. Then I yanked the hold again, there was a mind numbing roar as the air exploded out of the ship. My psyche hit something solid a few seconds later and the creation went nighttime. My last intellection was,"fuck, that hurts."

***

"Captain Graves, I do not expect you to come back from this. I expect you to die a bloody and ugly death."Admiral Tigrat said as I was in my final stage interview before launch."Do not disappoint me."

"Respectfully sir, my entire bunch will be at your one hundredth birthday party. There I will cave in your wife and girl a kiss right field in front of you. How did you ever manage to get a gang on the digit of that woman ? She has to be at to the lowest degree 40 years young than you."

***

My forefront was pounding out a rhythm that sounded like a holdover."Where ?"I managed to ask around the painfulness in my head.

"Med lab,"the immense duet of knocker above me said quietly.

"How ?"

"Liskians are tougher than human being, she had the birdie decompressed and waiting on your ejection. Once you flew onboard she put up the parking brake domain and re-pressurized. You may have a few aches and pains plus blurred imaginativeness for a few 24-hour interval, but you will be fine soon."

"Melon's, what about the ship ?"

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

"Tell wind handwriting and Demoness to take an extra rest cycle, they even earned a nip of the solvent."

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