Ticonderoga - instalment 1 : Adrift

roll of Characters ;

***

Name : Phillip Irving Graves

social status : Captain - commanding officer

outcry Sign : Pig

story : He was born on old earth in the area known as the Western dominion of Second Earl of Guilford America. As a juvenility he was a bother maker this, being virtually unheard of in his one C, forced the military to deal with him. He was given a choice. fall in the United major planet peace keeping and inquiry force or be remanded for mental conditioning to fix his behavioral problems. His life history in the military was a big case of how not to advance. After twenty yr he was still only a fiddling officer third class. That was when he was caught pulling off his unfit infraction yet. Fleet Admiral Tigrat caught him in bed with his wife, and both of his girl, at the Saami time. Phillip was doomed to go back to fundament rank again. But instead the full admiral made him an offer. Find a wife, get promoted to captain, with a ship, and go deep.

Description : He is six metrical unit tall, with jet black hair and Robert Brown oculus. His organic structure type is lean and muscular with tan skin tone.

teammate : Mrs. Millishia Jaunu Steppen-Graves

***

public figure : Mrs Millishia Jaunu Steppen-Graves

Rank : commanding officer - Ships science officer and twenty-five percent in mastery

margin call Sign : marihuana

chronicle : She was born a elementary farm girl in the Midwest Territories of North America. She led an exemplary animation, with no problems, until she came of age. Then she found she had a appreciation for bad boys. To try and curb her appetite for self destructive deportment, she joined the service. Her vocation was in salutary rules of order and she was happy after five years but she longed to go deep. The only problem was you had to be married and no one was asking. There was also the job of Phillip ; she thought he was just dreamy. He was everything she wanted in a bad boy, but his vocation meant he would never even manage to realise it into space. She only had one Sir Thomas More rank to go then she could go. That would take another six 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 ?"

Description : She is a five ft six inch tall, blond haired, blue eyed beauty, with medium sized breast. Her body style is lithe and athletic.

Mate : Phillip Irving Graf

***

Name : James Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell Penzo

Rank : passe-partout Chief Petty Officer - headman locomotive engineer and mechanic.

Call Sign : Jazz hands

History : He was born on the emerald islet of Europe. He was a dependable kid and went to college. After school he joined the service to set up a petty nest egg. There he met his wife and fell in sexual love. He had a forebode life history ahead of him, and then everything hit the fan. He discovered the medicinal burden of the engine solvent. Just a little nip of it could produce any man happy. He stayed felicitous a lot after that. When he was found out, he was offered a pick, military separation or he and his wife go deep.

Description : He is five ft eight column inch marvellous with dark special K eyes and brown fuzz. His body type is thick with just a slight fifth wheel tire.

Mate : Leafa Tiski Mikia-Penzo

***

Name : Mrs Leafa Tiski Mikia-Penzo

social status : Senior chieftain Petty policeman - Chief of off ship security.

Call star sign : Demoness

account : She was born on her native human beings of Liskia. She is strong and fast and excelled in her vocation as armed forces police force, until her husband introduced her to the solvent. Everything still worked well for them until she was called out on an emergency while she was extremely happy. Six weeks later she boarded her new watercraft, The UP Ticonderoga.

description : She is six foundation two column inch magniloquent. Her race has red tegument and tomentum with light grey middle. Many people say they look like the mythical fiend, right down to the two tufts of hair on their foreheads that resembled horns. Her trunk character is lose weight and lithe with a well defined muscle tone.

Mate : Jesse James Arthur Mitchell Penzo

***
public figure : Malcolm Leroy Libbshitz

Rank : Lieutenant Jnr grade - xeno-biologist.

Call signaling : broncobuster

account : He is a native of Ling, a human colony, joined the service to go deep, he wanted the life of an adventurer, he was also married and his wife joined at the same time looking to embark out with him. He is an expert in xeno-botany and xeno-zoology and loves to study new species of both flora and animal.

Description : He is five foot eight inches magniloquent with mousy blonde hair and juicy eyes. His body case is thin and non muscular.

Mate : Melonie Michelle Russel-Libbshitz

***

public figure : Melonie Michelle Russel-Libbshitz

Rank : deputy Junior score - ships doctor.

Call Sign : Melons

History : She is a native of eelpout, a man colony, and was married to her college dish. She joined the service of process to go deep with him.

Description : She is five foot six inches improbable with Pt blonde hair's-breadth and very large breasts. He body type is voluptuous.

match : Malcolm Leroy Libbshitz

***

Name : Lorka Dumont Willock

Rank : Commander - certificate police officer, secondly in command.

song Sign : Mountain

story : He is a Tithian warrior. Born on Tithia and joined the service to get a chance to do fight in this time of heartsease. He is very popular with the ladies because his wash believes that beloved play should be as legal tender as war is violent.

verbal description : At well over seven feet tall and four 100 and fifty pounds of solidness muscle he is by far the largest member of the crew, except for his wife. His Joseph Black cutis looks like a tail semen to life. The only break in his darkness is his red eyes.

Mate : Tanka Lundt Cravis-Willock

***

Name : Tanka Lundt Cravis-Willock

Rank : commandant - weapon officer, third in command

song preindication : Everest

account : She is a female Tithian warrior. She joined the service with her married man, in the promise of finding engagement. She is a foot taller than her married man, and a Hell of a lot meaner.

description : She is eight feet four in tall with dwarf smuggled skin and red eye. Her body character is extremely muscular.

first mate : Lorka Dumont Willock


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

I stared at the blank purview screen in presence 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 dear ship to us was two calendar month travel away. It had taken us two class to get this far out.

"exit recondite"is a euphemism for getting lost. We were sent out here to find inhabitable major planet that we could colonize or resources we could mine for. The fun percentage, the rules say the first crewman to set groundwork on a planet gets to cite the satellite.

The united wash had managed to colonize or mining bivouac every rock for sixty luminousness years around ground. We were one hundred and twenty out. It took about a year to travel LX light long time with the snort private road 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 phone to travel at sixty clock time the speed of ignitor. The problem right now is our snorter had a stopped up nose.

I thumbed the communications board on my president to liveliness."Jazz hired hand, What the hellhole is taking so long down there ? If you are nipping at the resolution again I'm going to direct you off of succour revolution for two weeks."

"Not a chance, Pig, I am trying to repair the tinker's dam damage those cockbiter rats did to the engine wiring. The fucking minuscule beasties chewed through every light wire in the main fire controller cabinet."

"How long before we have railway locomotive king again ?"

"Another day at to the lowest degree, we have over a grand wires to replace in this cabinet."

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

"Captain, even if I get this repaired that is no guaranty we will be able to move. We have no idea what else they damaged before we could kill the little bastards. Go remove a relief break and let me do my tinker's dam job."

I stalked off of the bridge. The damn lifts were down so I had to climb down the entree ladders to get to the crowd decks. I guess we could shout out ourselves golden ; those slight vermin had not reached the life support equipment yet. XX cockbiter rats had managed to chew through our primary power control, lift control system, helm control interlink, navigation, and locomotive fervour control in less than twenty four time of day. twenty rats had crippled a ship, with crew of one hundred mass on circuit card. Only doom knows what else was damaged. malarkey hired man was decent I needed stress succor ; it was sentence to point to the work party lounge.

There is a major set of linguistic rule about going deep. The firstly one is all crew extremity must be mated couples. The minute rule is all relationships are open on the ship. When off duty personnel need tenseness succour any off duty person of the opposite grammatical gender is uncommitted to them, unless they are in their log Z's cycle. Any Sami sex liaisons are not forbidden but are spread out to be refused. Your poop were kept monogamous, only you and your spouse enjoyed that location. The sofa is where you go to arrange intimacy with other crew fellow member. That is also where the"training"elbow room are. There is one for just about every taste, from the pleasant to the downright kinky.

Rank has its privilege as well. program line police officer are allowed to study tension recess during duty if there is no pressing indigence for their attentions. As of rightfield now, there was no pressing pauperization for me. I could not control 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 viva proficiency."Need some stress sculptural relief, sea captain ?"

"At least a week's Charles Frederick Worth, Melons."I said as I took her by the arm and guided her towards the bar."I believe the lady is drinking a Co breaker, and I would love a calum tea."I told the barman as I caressed melon vine tummy. I always enjoyed her very large 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 thought,"I nodded towards the one of the zero-G rooms. When we entered the room I adjusted the ascendence on the holographic display to make it front like we were in the clouds. I had seen sufficiency headliner already today. All of them whiz I couldn't reach. We attached the chapeau to our glasses so our drinks would not float out and then I touched the activate 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 standard when in the lounge, her clothing was bare and slow to polish off. She wore a pullover shirt and miniskirt with no panties on underneath. Her horseshoe were simple slippers very easy and quite attractive. The thin static bearing caused by pulling her shirt over her header caused her fuzz to stick out out like a hallo of platinum blond silk. By a lot of standard this char would be considered adiposis. She weighed about twenty pounds over ideal weight for her five metrical unit six column inch frame. To me the duplicate mildness just made her voluptuous.

Once her apparel were floating around the way like cast off feathering, she started to undress me. My uniform was a little more complicated to slay. It was a goon button up drawers and shirt, with a crown over it, all in black. The shoes were round off perfection in black cancel leather. Underneath it all was my regulating underwear, also black. Add the gloomy Gray knock and chest bandolier as well as my master's hat to the hale matter and I looked like a trained monkey. Soon all of these clothes were floating around the way as well.

I pulled Melons to me and began to osculate the skin of her neck and chest. This elicited several moans of joy. Her wooden leg wrapped around my stomach and squeezed me gruelling enough to be slightly awful. She began to flex her rosehip rubbing her pert bottom on the top of my cock. I was very tempted to submit what she was offering right then but I had former ideas. Zero-G has one real reward to making love on any aerofoil. I guided her legs out from around me as she pouted with those replete lips that were just made for what I had in mind. Once she was rid I spun her in the air and brought her ramification around to my aspect. There in strawman of my heart was a modest landing strip of platinum blond hair that pointed right to the target of my desire. I moved my head forward and inhaled the fragrance of her arousal. With deliberate ineptness I extended my clapper and began to name small roundabout through that sweet landing strip.

I felt her mouth as she started to drub and snog along the shaft of my cock. Her mouth and brim were delicious lovingness on my skin. The vibrations of her groan made my cock parachuting and twitch as I touched the tip of my natural language to her clit and flipped it quickly back and forth. I nearly forgot what I was doing when I felt my rooster slide down her throat. She was so smooth and hot on the inside. I moved both of my work force around her delightful bottom and started wetting my finger in the beloved flowing from her pissed cunt. When I felt her legs starting to tighten up around my head, I slid two fingers from one hand into her tight kitty. My halfway fingerbreadth of my other hired hand pushed into her silky asshole. I started pumping my digit 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 abdomen begin to fasten and vibrate against my chest. Then her legs slammed shut on my question like a clamp. Her flow was floating in droplets around my head as she orgasmed. While she was still vibrating and shaking through her sexual climax I spun her through the air until I was behind her. I plunged the distance of my rock toilsome cock into her from buns. She let out a groan that was bordering on a scream. I began to pound sterling with all my might as we floated in the air. Then we both arched our backs as we thundered into our orgasms together.

Ten proceedings later we left the floaty elbow room freshly showered. As we exited the room, I set the controls to clean and fix the way. I kissed melon 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 groan that sounded like it was dying.

I slapped the communications dialog box at the doorway."nothingness deal, are we moving ?"

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

"What do you mean any Sir Thomas More ?"

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

"Security I want every one of those darn blabber killed again."

"Sir, we have no weapon control, would you like my wife and I to throw stone at their floating corpses ?"mickle said back facetiously.

"No, throw fellow at them ; he's the motherfucker that brought those fucking puke on my ship."

"How soon, jazz men ?"

"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 damn ship moving under its own power by end of bike or I am going to give you to Everest and Mountain as a fair game dummy !"

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

"No, and I am looking for your wife right now, so make a motion it."

As I moved back to the bridge my judgement wandered back to the events that led up to this situation. We had found a planet with no beacon on it. It was unexplored. Scans showed it to be a lush atomic number 8 rich planet with plant and animal life abundant on the surface and in the seas. I organized a landing company to investigate the surface.

***

The party, consisting of Marijuana, Demoness, broncobuster, melon, Mountain and myself, left the ship in a shuttlecock. Several orbital passes and scans later we determined a rich region to land and investigate.

It was a easy touchdown nothing at all out of the average. There was the scramble for positions to see who could pee-pee it through the door first. I had to laugh as the door slid back and my wife muscled batch out of the way. I walked down the ramp to see my wife dancing in a field of operation of penises. Yes I said that rightfulness, all of the industrial plant in the area were myopic maybe twelve column inch tall and shaped like that circumstances 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 penny-pinching look at the blossom made me recollect I had lost it. They looked like pink penises with two glob hanging underneath them. I thought it was pretty capture that my married woman would get to appoint a world covered in penis shaped flora.

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

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

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

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

"It does have got a certain menacing presence doesn't it ?"

bronco buster was the initiatory one to see an animal. It was floating gently on the breeze towards one of the trees. It had large monotonous wings with bladder underneath them. These vesica probably contain some gas lighter than the air around us. By paddling its foot it would prompt through the air like a duck's egg swam across the water. As we watched it swam up to one of the Tree and put its mouth around one of the flowers. A few seconds later it left the efflorescence hanging limply from its stem and moved to another peak. One by one it drained the"nectar"out of the stiff heyday leaving them flaccid.

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

"Get some samples for study, we will continue nightlong and have everything back in the morning."I told broncobuster and his wife. They set about collecting plant and animal sampling. They caught one of the birdie but it died in less than an time of day in the coop. They must need to eat constantly.

Buster gave me a story a twain hours later. The heyday on the tree produced nectar that made the tool stiff. When the Bladder Winged shit dame would nurse at the peak they would empty out the nectar and take some of the pollen away on their sassing. Those moving from blossom to blossom accomplished fertilisation for the plant. The limp peak would lead about an hour to get a wide load of nectar again. There were several other brute and plant life that he reported on.
My wife had decided to call this place, appropriately enough, cock's World.

As eve started to darken the skies we saw various, rat like, creatures come out of holes in the ground. They started to climb up the trees. We watched as they moved to the oddment of the arm and bit the flowers off the Tree and ate them. Every man in the chemical group cringed watching this. I think Mountain even turned a small pale. These brute quickly became known as cockbiter blabber. Buster thought they wouldn't sell well.

Our sensors could not detect any beast larger than the birds within five one hundred clicks of us so we bedded down in the shuttle for the night.

I awoke the adjacent morning and shook Demoness awake future to me. She smiled as I retrieved two cups of coffee from the push solidifier. I looked around and noticed all of the others had already moved outside. baby buster must have awoken my married woman when he got up to retard his traps.

We got dressed and moved outside. Buster was studying a batting cage of twenty dollar bill of the cockbiter rats he had captured during the nighttime. They seemed a bit hardy than the birds. I oversaw the sample being packed in over crates to be taken back to the science lab on the ship. Then we did a low tier fly over of the planet to take scans and images of the industrial plant and animal life sentence. In twelve hours we cataloged over six thousand new species.

The flight back to the ship was uneventful and tranquil. We were in the bird bay unloading when the lab geeks all showed up to see the sample distribution. I tried to secern fellow to pee sure the crate were in the lab containment region before he opened them, but I was too late. He popped the latch on the rat crate and crumb exploded out and ran all over the deck. It took less than a bit for them all to disappear down an spread access hachure. They had chewed through the plasteel of the cage, this should have warned me of what was about to happen.

"Do not give any early crateful !"I yelled."At to the lowest degree 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 program line office, Buster."

"Yes sir,"he said with a gulp.

I stalked to the span to get my status write up. That rabid skill geek had let bum loose on my ship. I was on the bridge receiving my report when the low polarity of trouble happen. The navigation screen door went blank. We were suddenly flying blind."Navigation, 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 wax stop, now !"I shouted as I stood from my chair. Suddenly my ship lurched and I fell on my face."hoot 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 instrument panel on my chairperson."engineering science ! Report ! What the hell are you doing down there ? You can't cut links while we are in flight !"

malarkey Hands came on the intercommunication system,"Sir we didn't do anything. When the sailing cant went power wickedness, we opened the panel and rats came running out. How the snake pit did we get skunk on the ship ?"

We all heard the throb of the engines wind down as they shut themselves down."All workforce find those mother fucking rats and kill them ! Now ! Security, issue persuader to everyone with fingerbreadth. lock them all on stun, we don't want any accidents. I will pass everyone that stuns a rat an extra relaxation cycle."

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

The yellow-bellied monition sparkle on the ship came to life-time. The estimator articulation could be heard all over the ship as she said,"alerting, all staff office are to hold Alert Statuuuuuuuussssssssss…"Then the admonition lightness went out and the bridge went dark.

***

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

"We are drifting towards the asteroid field at approximately xv one hundred kilometers per second. Estimated time to captivate into the field is six hours."

"Bring our shields and targeting online. Get the cannoneer in their stations and tell them we may want to have a little target practice."

"The gunners are reporting to place, but the weapon links are all still down, we have no ordnance. 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 carapace, we don't have guns. And we have no ascendence over where the ship is going. Does that sum it up ?"

"Yes, sir."

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

Activating the communicating in my chairwoman I called down to engineering."Jazz Hands give me some good news. Please."

"Pig, I promise you I will throw the helm command and inertial ascendancy back on credit line in eight 60 minutes. My hoi polloi are working around the clock."

"That is serious intelligence, now I have some great word for you. In six hours you will no longer have to concern about repairing the ship. Those big rocks out there are going to end up the job those rats started. At the speed we are traveling one of those rocks is going to turn this ship into slag."

"Do you know a good wrecker serving that may be in the sphere ?"

"We are sending the birdie out."

I thumbed off the com jury."Babe, give me some effective news."

Marijuana spoke without looking away from her console table."We have an estimated impact time of seven hours and four minutes. Then we are going to be landing on a turgid star-shaped short ahead. We are caught in the gravity fountainhead of that big gas colossus on the other position of the field. I am running the computation on the shuttle now."

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

I stared at the persuasion filmdom that I now wished was blank again. My mind started to err back to the rats again.

***

We were hunting rats ; they seemed to move about the ship with impunity chewing on anything that glowed. The light conducting wire were natural prey."We need one of them alive so dude can tell us why they are after the light wires."

Our mathematical group split up into couple. I was teamed with Demoness, our plan was simpleton ; impress about the ship opening approach instrument panel. If anything ran out pull the trigger and stun it. I noticed mountain had put on his ceremonial occasion armor for the Richard Morris Hunt. It had a thick codpiece for protection down there.

chatter over our helmet com was kept to a minimum. Demoness opened the showtime instrument panel, it was to life reinforcement. There was null. We moved to the nip and tuck control jury. When I opened it there was an explosion of fur and teeth. Then there was incredible pain as I was hit by the attack from the inducer. tinker's damn I am glad it was set to stun.

I woke up in the aesculapian lab with a Brobdingnagian span of tit hovering over my human face."Hi, melon,"I mumbled as I shook my caput 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."melon vine said as she leaned to appear past her breasts and into my face.

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

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

"melon vine's heartfelt, would you please hand me my inducer ; I want to evince Demoness just how footling they hurt."As melon's looked at me with big centre, Demoness quietly slipped out of the way. I reached over for the com panel next to the bed."fellow, say me some good news."

"My retirement report is up fifty thousand."

"Don't worry, if you don't finish the scab you are not going to need a retirement story, now what about the rat ?"

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

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

"The but matter I know is they are attracted to the igniter conducting wire because they glow on the same wavelength in radical violet as the blossom do. As to why they are attracted to them."

I jumped out of the bed and headed for engineering. mountain was in the hall."Get every sharpshooter armed with rifles and adjoin me in engineering science. We are going to get an old fashioned turkey shoot."

lot 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 animate the hurt. Can this await ?"

"No. How long would it take to get a stack of supererogatory light conducting wire in the essence of engineering and attach it to the main generator ?"

"About twenty dollar bill minutes."

"You have ten, I also want the main link from the source to the relaxation of the ship ready to disconnect on my command."

"You want us to exchange to the backup ?"

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

"The lifts are no problem the blackleg chewed them up about fifteen minutes ago. The outer doors may be a problem. The briny shuttle bay doors are stuck open and the watching window in the forward cartography lab is non-operational."

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

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

"We are facing a superordinate enemy, in an unknown tactical situation. We are completely defenseless now. If the crumb continue at this rate we will get no ship in twelve hour. It is time to shit a utmost stand. The rats are attracted to the brightness level conducting wire so we will present them the entirely slew of glowing conducting wire on the ship to add up for. Now get them set up or I am going to hang you from the bow of the ship like a figurehead."

"Yes sir."

I moved to the pep pill balcony, as the others started to gather. I set hoi polloi up in post so we had full phase of the moon coverage of the engineering deck below. The batch of wires was a center of fire anything that moved was a target."All right people there are sixteen of these stinker to toss off. I want everyone's weapon set to overkill. We can not afford for a bingle rat to escape this trap."

As I took my position as the last of the personnel left the lower level. Then the lights went out. It was such a longsighted wait. But after almost an 60 minutes the commencement rat came out of an admission hatch and started moving toward the wires. He was hit by the beams of over forty weapon system. The little bastard was zilch but a chunk of charcoal.

It took about an hour for the lowlife to start showing up. It took 20 minute of arc for the last one to fall. I stood and hit the com control board. It was absolutely like everything else."nothingness hired man, lets get the scheme rebooted and repair started."

***

I rose out of my woolgathering to see a large John Rock on the view screen door."Tactical, how far out is it and estimated time to impact ?"

"We are five level six seven million kilometre from the asteroid. Estimated impact metre is one hour and three minutes."Mt. Everest answered.

"Reduce the enlargement to ten times."

"It is already at ten sentence, sir."

"asshole ! How big is that thing ?"

"It is four thousand kilometre long by two K wide."

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

"Definitely, sir."

"How is the attempt to change our grade with the shuttle going ?"

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

"Bring them back in. We are going to require the shuttles along with the life boats to evacuate."I looked at the screen door. My pump sank. This was not exactly how I had envisioned ending my mastery. If we made it back alive we would get wide-cut award and retreat welfare as full admiral. My head drifted back to the day I had been informed of my choices.

***

"petit larceny officer third family Phillip Washington Irving tomb, reporting as ordered sir."I said as I walked into admiral Tigrat's authority. He looked up at me with a shit eating grin on his look. He motioned with his hand for me to sit and be at ease.

"Phillip, I am at a release for what to do with you. If I press guardianship then everyone in the fleet is going to experience what you did. If I don't military press charges then you get off Scott free and I can not let that happen either."He looked at me with undetermined hatred in his eyes.

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

The smiling that cracked his facial expression was one of pure iniquity."My intellection exactly, so here is the spate. I am going to recommend you as the headwaiter of the Ticonderoga. It is scheduled to depart at the end of the month. Then you are going to go rich. Your mission will be two years transit out, then sixteen yr exploring. When you return, you will have admiral's benefits."

"Sir, I am not married."I knew the disc, not s single ship had ever come back from going deep. well-nigh disappeared without a trace. He was consigning me to a death judgment of conviction. My own command weighed heavy on my nous. I had always thought I could do it better than any of these blowhards. Out there I would be the representative of authority. I would be the solely command chain of mountains. The buck would stop with me.

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

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

"You will be given a list of volunteers for deep service. You may choose thirty couples from it. The other nineteen couple I will choose. I already have one of your engineer and doctors picked out. Plus a couple of security department masses you will just love."

"Do convention deep rule apply ?"

"Yes, the ship must run efficiently."

Millishia and I were married a week later, we saw the ship for the first sentence a seven mean solar day after that.

The Fort Ticonderoga was a thing of dish, long and silky with four engine nacelles under her body carriage. She hung in outer space like a phantom, the costa of the shipyard frame of reference surrounding her. The tenacious narrow consistence looked like an arrow with atmospheric stabilizers on the arse one-half. The broad head of the arrow was where the bidding decks sat. The slightly wider dead body was the crew field. Under the main physical structure hung engineering and medical. She was designed to cut through space like a weapon. She was one of the aphrodisiacal matter I had ever seen. I was supposed to account aboard and select my crew via interviews.

A few of my gang was already onboard, my engine driver, James 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 tough lot.

I had looked at the files of over a thou Volunteer couples, I had to pick thirty. I had discovered something profound. Most the great unwashed that wanted to go deep were nut cases. These were no exclusion. The Volunteer ran the ploy from mad scientist to psycho cause of death. I was at a expiration for anyone I trusted on a prospicient flight let alone wanted there.

I spent the next calendar week interviewing wannabe ; it was the hardest week of my life sentence. If it had not been for Millishia, I probably would have begged the full admiral to tribunal marshal me. The following three sidereal day were fatigued choosing my bunch and filing their new social status. One thing nice about being a chieftain of a deep ship, rank onboard your ship was your choice. You set the chain of command and the obligation roll. The captain was the first last and solely line of command once you left the distance port.

quaternary daylight later the mooring line lines fell away from the ship. My new steersman only managed to hit the dry dock once on the way out. I now had an unseasoned crowd, a new ship with all the bugs constitutional and two twelvemonth to turn them into a functioning gang before we made our first planet fall.

***

Again I pulled myself out of my memories, that John Rock was much adult. The countdown on the screen said thirty-one minutes. My psyche started flying through the possibilities. I had to come up with an solvent. I would not lose my ship and command after our first planet fall.

A design came to me. It would convey some image flying. I hit the com unit in my chair."wind hired man, Prepare to disconnect all big businessman on my bidding. Demoness, I need your piloting skills, you have shuttle two, I have bird one, we launch in five."

malarkey Hands came on the com social unit,"Captain we have to have power to do repairs, if you make me cut it off again it will lease an hr to completely restart the system."

"I know, James, if what I have planned oeuvre I will buy you the prison term 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 irregular planet fall. Do me a party favour, Jazz."

"What, sir ?"

"Take maintenance of my wife."I thumbed off the console table and left the bridge before anyone could ask any query. I had a programme ; if it worked I would preserve my ship. Either way I was going to die first.

I burst into bird bay one and walked aboard the shuttlecock. I could hear the com traffic as Demoness launched. I thumbed the com unit between the two shuttles to life."Demoness, I am going to fly this ship into direct contact with the soundbox of the Ticonderoga. Then I am going to take in nothingness Hands cut all power. That should stop the thrusters from firing. Once that is set I am going to fire up the locomotive in the shuttle and turn over her the gas. If this works I will deflect the ship by enough to escape the asteroid field."

"Sir, if you do that your engines will overheat and flame out in seconds. The inside of the shuttlecock will be a half million 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 consistency back for a properly 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 make I have to do it now."I shut off the com channel. It took me less than a minute to locating my birdie. I contacted Jazz handwriting,"Cut the power now !"Then I put the engine big businessman to full and locked the accelerator. The on control panel computer started telling me I was going to die.

"Imminent engine overload in xx seconds. Imminent engine overload in XIX arcsecond. Imminent engine overload in eighteen seconds."I dove for the controls for the ejection system. I let all of the air out of my lungs and pulled the handle."organisation detects non suited personnel, ejection organisation disabled."

Fuck ! I pulled my English arm and shot the console table. Then I yanked the handle again, there was a mind numbing roar as the air exploded out of the ship. My headspring hit something solid a few seconds later and the creation went dark. My live sentiment was,"fuck, that hurts."

***

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

"Respectfully sir, my entire crew will be at your one hundredth birthday company. There I will give your wife and daughters a kiss right in presence of you. How did you ever manage to get a ring on the finger of that cleaning woman ? She has to be at least forty long time younger than you."

***

My head was pounding out a rhythm method of birth control that sounded like a katzenjammer."Where ?"I managed to ask around the pain in my head.

"Med lab,"the Brobdingnagian pair of breasts above me said quietly.

"How ?"

"Liskians are problematical than human race, she had the bird decompressed and waiting on your exclusion. Once you flew onboard she put up the hand brake fields and re-pressurized. You may accept a few aches and pain in the neck plus bleary imaginativeness for a few Clarence Day, but you will be mulct soon."

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

"The ship is out of risk and flying under its own power again, captain. You got us elucidate 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."

"Tell Jazz Hands and Demoness to take on an supererogatory liberalization oscillation, 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 save the ship deserves a sober mechanic. ”