Fort Ticonderoga - Episode 1 : Adrift

cast of Characters ;

***

public figure : Phillip Irving Steffi Graf

Rank : master - commanding officer

Call Sign : Pig

chronicle : He was born on old worldly concern in the region known as the westerly Territories of magnetic north USA. As a youth he was a hassle Almighty this, being virtually unheard of in his century, forced the armed services to allot with him. He was given a selection. link the United planet peacefulness keeping and research violence or be remanded for mental conditioning to fix his behavioral problems. His career in the war machine was a great example of how not to get on. After twenty eld he was still only a niggling military officer 3rd form. That was when he was caught pulling off his high-risk misdemeanor yet. Fleet Admiral Tigrat caught him in bed with his wife, and both of his daughters, at the same time. Phillip was doomed to go back to fundament rank again. But instead the admiral made him an offer. Find a wife, get promoted to captain, with a ship, and go deep.

Description : He is six pes tall, with jet black fuzz and brownish eyes. His body type is thin and brawny with tan pelt tone.

first mate : Mrs. Millishia Jaunu Steppen-Graves

***

Name : Mrs Millishia Jaunu Steppen-Graves

rank and file : commander - Ships skill officer and fourthly in command

Call Sign : marihuana

account : She was born a simple farm girl in the Midwest Territories of North America. She led an exemplary biography, with no problem, until she came of age. Then she found she had a gustatory sensation for bad male child. To try and curb her appetite for self destructive behavior, she joined the service. Her vocation was in thoroughly order and she was happy after five twelvemonth but she longed to go deep. The only 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 career meant he would never even manage to earn it into space. She only had one more than social rank to go then she could go. That would take another six months. Then she was broadsided by a interrogative she never thought any man would ask."testament you marry me I need a wife before I can go deep ?"

Description : She is a five foot six inch tall, blonde haired, dreary eyed stunner, with spiritualist sized breasts. Her body style is slender and athletic.

Mate : Phillip Washington Irving Graves

***

Name : James Mitchell Penzo

membership : Master tribal chief Petty police officer - boss engineer and mechanic.

Call signaling : malarkey hands

chronicle : He was born on the emerald isle of European Community. He was a good kid and went to college. After school he joined the service to set up a little nest egg. There he met his wife and fell in love. He had a promise calling ahead of him, and then everything hit the fan. He discovered the medicinal gist of the engine solvent. Just a little nip of it could make any man well-chosen. He stayed glad a lot after that. When he was found out, he was offered a option, war machine interval or he and his wife go deep.

description : He is five fundament eight in magniloquent with blue green centre and chocolate-brown tomentum. His body type is thick with just a slight fifth wheel tire.

spouse : Leafa Tiski Mikia-Penzo

***

epithet : Mrs. Leafa Tiski Mikia-Penzo

social status : older top dog Petty ship's officer - tribal chief of off ship security.

Call signboard : Demoness

account : She was born on her native world of Liskia. She is secure and libertine and excelled in her career as military police, until her hubby introduced her to the solvent. Everything still worked well for them until she was called out on an emergency while she was extremely felicitous. Six weeks later she boarded her new vessel, The UP Ticonderoga.

description : She is six foot two column inch marvelous. Her race has red tegument and hair with spark grey eye. Many the great unwashed say they look like the mythic daemon, right down to the two tufts of pilus on their foreheads that resembled horns. Her torso type is cut and lithe with a wellspring defined musculus tone.

Ilex paraguariensis : James Mitchell Penzo

***
Name : Malcolm Leroy Libbshitz

social rank : lieutenant Junior Grade - xeno-biologist.

Call Sign : buster

story : He is a native of Ling, a human being dependency, joined the avail to go deep, he wanted the life of an IE, he was also married and his married woman joined at the Lapplander time 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 animals.

description : He is five human foot eight inches tall with mouse-colored blond hair and blue eyes. His soundbox eccentric is thin and non muscular.

checkmate : Melonie Michelle Russel-Libbshitz

***

Name : Melonie Michelle Russel-Libbshitz

Rank : Lieutenant Junior mark - ships doctor.

Call mark : melon vine

history : She is a native of Ling, a human colony, and was married to her college sweetheart. She joined the Robert William Service to go recondite with him.

Description : She is five metrical unit six inch grandiloquent with platinum blonde hair's-breadth and very big breasts. He organic structure type is voluptuous.

Ilex paraguariensis : Malcolm Leroy Libbshitz

***

Name : Lorka Dumont Willock

Rank : commanding officer - Security officer, s in command.

yell Sign : batch

History : He is a Tithian warrior. Born on Tithia and joined the table service to get a chance to do battle in this time of peace. He is very democratic with the gentlewoman because his race believes that love gaming should be as cutter as war is violent.

Description : At well over seven metrical unit improbable and four hundred and fifty dollar bill pounds of solidness muscle he is by far the bombastic member of the work party, except for his married woman. His black skin looks like a shadow cum to life sentence. The only break of serve in his darkness is his red eyes.

Mate : Tanka Lundt Cravis-Willock

***

Name : Tanka Lundt Cravis-Willock

social rank : commandant - artillery military officer, third in command

birdsong Sign : Mt. Everest

History : She is a female person Tithian warrior. She joined the divine service with her husband, in the promise of finding conflict. She is a substructure taller than her husband, and a hell of a lot meaner.

description : She is eight feet four inches tall with tincture black peel and red centre. Her body eccentric is extremely muscular.

Mate : Lorka Dumont Willock


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

I stared at the blank eyeshot screen in front 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 oneself when you hit trouble. The nearest ship to us was two month travel away. It had taken us two years to get this far out.

"release oceanic abyss"is a euphemism for getting lost. We were sent out here to come up inhabitable planets that we could colonize or imagination we could mine for. The fun part, the convention say the first crewman to set foot on a satellite gets to bring up the planet.

The unify races had managed to colonize or mining camp every rock for sixty light geezerhood around terra firma. We were one hundred and twenty out. It took about a year to travel sixty light yr with the snort movement as it was called. It got its name because the matter and antimatter blowup inside it made it sound like it was snorting. We could put up with the annoying sound to travel at sixty times the pep pill of light. The job right now is our snorter had a stopped up nose.

I thumbed the communications panel on my president to living."Jazz hands, What the hell is taking so long down there ? If you are nipping at the result again I'm going to remove you off of rilievo rotation for two calendar week."

"Not a opportunity, Pig, I am trying to repair the damn hurt those cockbiter rats did to the locomotive wiring. The hump petty beasties chewed through every light telegram in the main blast control cabinet."

"How long before we have locomotive office again ?"

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

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

"Captain, even if I get this repaired that is no guarantee we will be able to go. We have no melodic theme what else they damaged before we could defeat the little prick. Go rent a relief disruption and let me do my damn job."

I stalked off of the bridge. The damn rise were down so I had to climb down the access ravel to get to the crew decks. I guess we could call in ourselves prosperous ; those piddling varmints had not reached the aliveness support equipment yet. Twenty cockbiter rats had managed to chew through our primary power control, countermand control systems, helm controller interlink, sailing, and engine fire control in less than twenty four hour. Twenty squealer had crippled a ship, with work party of one hundred people on display panel. Only fate knows what else was damaged. malarky manpower was right-hand I needed emphasis relief ; it was clip to head to the crew lounge.

There is a major set of convention about going oceanic abyss. The first one is all crew members must be mated couples. The indorse prescript is all relationship are assailable on the ship. When off duty personnel office need stress rest period any off duty person of the opposite word gender is useable to them, unless they are in their nap cycle. Any same sex inter-group communication are not forbidden but are open up to be refused. Your quarters were kept monogamous, only you and your spouse enjoyed that locating. The waiting room is where you go to coiffure inter-group communication with other crew phallus. That is also where the"breeding"rooms are. There is one for just about every taste, from the pleasant to the downright kinky.

Rank has its privilege as well. Command officers are allowed to take stress disruption during duty if there is no pressing need for their attention. As of right now, there was no pressing need for me. I could not overtop this ship to go 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."Need some stress rilievo, 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 ma'am is drinking a Co breaker, and I would love a calum tea."I told the barman as I caressed melons stomach. I always enjoyed her very big titty and today would be no exception.

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

"That sounds like a rattling melodic theme,"I nodded towards the one of the zero-G rooms. When we entered the way I adjusted the ascendence on the holographic display to make it wait like we were in the cloud. I had seen enough stars already today. All of them sensation I couldn't reach. We attached the hat to our glasses so our drinks would not float out and then I touched the trigger off clit. Watching her tit suddenly float upward as the gravity stopped was an awesome goody. We floated in the air together as I started to uncase her. As was standard when in the lounge, her clothing was simple and easy to off. She wore a pullover shirt and miniskirt with no step-in on underneath. Her shoes were simple slippers very comfortable and quite attractive. The slight static charge caused by pulling her shirt over her caput caused her hair's-breadth to stick out out like a hallo of atomic number 78 blond silk. By a lot of standard this woman would be considered heavy. She weighed about twenty pound sterling over nonesuch weight for her five invertebrate foot six inch framing. To me the supernumerary softness just made her voluptuous.

Once her wearing apparel were floating around the room like cast off feathering, she started to discase me. My uniform was a little more complicated to move out. It was a elusive button up gasp and shirt, with a crownwork over it, all in bleak. The shoes were polished paragon in black born leather. Underneath it all was my ordinance underwear, also shameful. Add the dark gray belt and dresser bandolier as well as my captain's hat to the whole thing and I looked like a take aim scalawag. Soon all of these clothes were floating around the room as well.

I pulled melon to me and began to osculate the hide of her neck opening and chest. This elicited several moans of joy. Her legs wrapped around my stomach and squeezed me tough enough to be slightly painful. She began to twist her hips rubbing her pert merchantman on the top of my pecker. I was very tempted to take on what she was offering right then but I had other idea. Zero-G has one real advantage to making love on any surface. I guided her legs out from around me as she pouted with those full 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 cheek. There in front of my eyes was a small landing strip of platinum blond hair that pointed right to the object of my desire. I moved my pass forward and inhaled the fragrancy of her arousal. With deliberate slowness I extended my tongue and began to make small circles through that sweet landing strip.

I felt her mouth as she started to lick and osculate along the diaphysis of my cock. Her lip and mouth were Delicious warmth on my tegument. The oscillation of her moans made my putz parachuting and vellication as I touched the tip of my tongue to her button 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 smooth and hot on the interior. I moved both of my manus around her delightful bottom and started wetting my fingerbreadth in the honey flowing from her tight bitch. When I felt her legs starting to tighten up around my chief, I slid two digit from one hand into her compressed pussy. My midriff finger's breadth of my other hand pushed into her silky asshole. I started pumping my fingers in and out of her at different amphetamine. Sometimes they would be moving in and out together, others they would be in a counterpoint rhythm.

I felt her stomach Menachem Begin to tighten and vibrate against my chest. Then her branch slammed shut on my head like a clamp. Her flow was floating in droplets around my head as she orgasmed. While she was still vibrating and shaking through her coming I spun her through the air until I was behind her. I plunged the length of my rock heavily cock into her from nates. 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 binding as we thundered into our orgasms together.

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

I slapped the communications panel at the threshold."Jazz hired hand, are we moving ?"

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

"What do you think of any more than ?"

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

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

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

"No, project broncobuster at them ; he's the prick that brought those fucking rats on my ship."

"How soon, Jazz Hands ?"

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

"You always say a day. I want this damn ship moving under its own exponent by end of cycle or I am going to give you to Everest and hatful as a target dummy !"

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

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

As I moved back to the bridgework my judgment wandered back to the events that led up to this situation. We had found a planet with no beacon on it. It was unexplored. scan showed it to be a alcoholic oxygen rich planet with plant and fleshly life history abundant on the Earth's surface and in the seas. I organized a landing political party to investigate the surface.

***

The company, consisting of ganja, Demoness, Buster, melon vine, Mountain and myself, left the ship in a shuttle. Several orbital notch and scan later we determined a rich area to dry land and investigate.

It was a soft touchdown zilch at all out of the ordinary. There was the scramble for stead to see who could make it through the door first. I had to laugh as the door slid back and my wife muscled Mountain out of the way. I walked down the ramp to see my married woman dancing in a field of penises. Yes I said that right, all of the plants in the region were short circuit maybe twelve inches tall and shaped like that portion of the male anatomy.

I looked around to see the trees, thank god they looked more like tree, and they even had beautiful flowers growing on them. A closer facial expression at the bloom made me think I had lost it. They looked like pink penis with two musket ball hanging underneath them. I thought it was pretty allow that my married woman would get to name a mankind covered in penis shaped plants.

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

"So plant the radio beacon, give it a public figure and register it. The radio beacon will send back the info via short space."I said as I walked down and resisted the impulse to smell any of the flowers.

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

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

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

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

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

"Get some samples for subject area, we will stay all-night and take everything back in the morning."I told Buster and his wife. They set about collecting plant and brute sample. They caught one of the birds but it died in less than an hr in the Cage. They must postulate to eat constantly.

Buster gave me a written report a twain hours later. The flush on the Tree produced nectar that made the shaft stiff. When the bladder Winged cocksucker hiss would suckle at the flower they would evacuate out the nectar and take some of the pollen away on their mouths. Those moving from flower to flower complete fertilization for the plant. The hobble flush would take about an 60 minutes to generate a full encumbrance of nectar again. There were several other animals and plants that he reported on.
My wife had decided to call this billet, appropriately enough, putz's World.

As even started to darken the skies we saw several, rat like, creatures come out of hole in the ground. They started to climb up the tree diagram. We watched as they moved to the ends of the tree branch and bit the flowers off the tree diagram and ate them. Every man in the radical cringed watching this. I think Mountain even turned a footling pale. These creature quickly became known as cockbiter rats. Buster thought they wouldn't sell well.

Our sensor could not detect any animal large than the birds within five hundred pawl of us so we bedded down in the shuttle for the night.

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

We got dressed and moved outside. 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 tier fly over of the planet to withdraw scans and images of the plant and animal life. In twelve hours we cataloged over six thousand new species.

The flight back to the ship was uneventful and liquid. We were in the shuttle bay unloading when the lab geeks all showed up to see the sampling. I tried to tell Buster to make sure enough the crates were in the lab containment area before he opened them, but I was too previous. He popped the door latch on the rat crateful and rats exploded out and ran all over the deck. It took to a lesser extent than a second for them all to melt down an open admission hatch. They had chewed through the plasteel of the coop, this should have got warned me of what was about to happen.

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

"Yes sir,"he said with a gulp.

I stalked to the bridge to get my status study. That overzealous science oddball had let rats loose on my ship. I was on the span receiving my report when the inaugural house of bother happen. The navigation cover went blank. We were suddenly flying subterfuge."Navigation, what the hell are you doing over there ?"

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

"Helm ascendency, bring us to full period, now !"I shouted as I stood from my chairwoman. Suddenly my ship lurched and I fell on my face."Damn it, helm, you can't just cut the locomotive, 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 communication theory control panel on my chair."Engineering ! write up ! What the the pits are you doing down there ? You can't cut links while we are in flight !"

Jazz custody came on the intercom,"Sir we didn't do anything. When the navigation bank went power dark, we opened the panel and skunk came running out. How the hell did we get rats on the ship ?"

We all heard the pounding of the engines wind down as they shut themselves down."All workforce find those mother fucking scum bag and kill them ! Now ! Security, issue inducers to everyone with fingers. Lock them all on stun, we don't want any chance event. I will generate everyone that stuns a rat an superfluous ease cycle."

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

The yellow-bellied word of advice light on the ship came to life. The computers voice could be heard all over the ship as she said,"Alert, all personnel are to hold Alert Statuuuuuuuussssssssss…"Then the admonition visible light went out and the bridge 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 longer lacuna. It now showed a large, dense asteroid subject area, and we were moving towards it slowly."Mt. Everest, hand me a situation report."

"We are drifting towards the asteroid field at approximately fifteen hundred km per second base. Estimated meter to fascinate into the field is six hours."

"Bring our shell and targeting online. Get the gunners in their place and secernate them we may necessitate to make a lilliputian object practice."

"The gunners are reporting to stations, but the weapons links are all still down, we have no guns. The carapace are on but we can not notice 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 control over where the ship is going. Does that sum it up ?"

"Yes, sir."

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

activation the communication in my chair I called down to engineering."Jazz Hands render me some good news. Please."

"Pig, I promise you I will cause the helm control condition and inertial controls back on assembly line in eight hours. My hoi polloi are working around the clock."

"That is good news, now I have some great news program for you. In six hours you will no longer let to worry about repairing the ship. Those big rock out there are going to eat up the job those dirty dog started. At the speed we are traveling one of those rocks is going to plow this ship into slag."

"Do you know a expert wrecker service that may be in the arena ?"

"We are sending the shuttles out."

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

marijuana spoke without looking away from her cabinet."We have an estimated wallop metre of seven hours and four minutes. Then we are going to be landing on a prominent asteroid numb ahead. We are caught in the gravity fountainhead of that large gas giant on the other side of meat of the field. I am running the calculations on the shuttle now."

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

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

***

We were hunting rats ; they seemed to proceed about the ship with impunity chewing on anything that glowed. The light wire were natural targets."We need one of them alive so Buster can severalize us why they are after the brightness wires."

Our group split up into pairs. I was teamed with Demoness, our architectural plan was simple ; actuate about the ship opening access control board. If anything ran out pull the trigger and bedaze it. I noticed mountain had put on his ceremony armor for the hunt. It had a thick codpiece for protection down there.

cackle over our helmet com was kept to a minimum. Demoness opened the first panel, it was to life financial backing. There was zilch. We moved to the lift ascendance panel. When I opened it there was an explosion of fur and teeth. Then there was incredible pain as I was hit by the blast from the persuader. hoot I am gladiola it was set to stun.

I woke up in the medical exam lab with a huge twain of breasts hovering over my facial expression."Hi, melon,"I mumbled as I shook my head to gain it."Did we at least manage to get one of the rats ?"

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

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

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

"Melon's darling, would you delight hand me my inducer ; I want to show Demoness just how lilliputian they hurt."As melon's looked at me with big optic, Demoness quietly slipped out of the room. I reached over for the com board next to the bed."Buster, tell me some good news."

"My retirement history is up fifty dollar bill thousand."

"Don't worry, if you don't arrest the scab you are not going to need a retreat account, now what about the bum ?"

"I am studying them now ; I should give a reputation in two hours."

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

"The just thing I know is they are attracted to the light wires because they glow on the same wavelength in extremist violet as the bloom do. As to why they are attracted to them."

I jumped out of the bed and headed for engine room. heap was in the hall."Get every sharpshooter armed with rifles and gather me in technology. We are going to have an old fashioned turkey shoot."

Mountain headed off to foregather men and adult female. I went to engine room."idle words hired hand, get over here, I have an idea."

"Yes sir,"James said as he ran up."Sir we are really busy trying to repair the price. Can this hold back ?"

"No. How long would it subscribe to get a passel of extra light wire in the center of engineering and attach it to the chief author ?"

"About twenty minutes."

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

"You want us to exchange to the backup ?"

"No I want baron cut completely. We need to get all the outer doorway closed and all of the rhytidectomy quill shut down."

"The raise are no job the rats chewed them up about xv minutes ago. The outer threshold may be a problem. The main bird bay door are stuck capable and the notice windowpane in the forward cartography lab is non-operational."

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

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

"We are facing a ranking enemy, in an alien tactical spot. We are completely defenseless now. If the rats continue at this rate we will have no ship in twelve hours. It is time to make a last stand. The rats are attracted to the ignite wire so we will leave them the only if peck of glowing conducting wire on the ship to come for. Now get them set up or I am going to pay heed you from the prow of the ship like a figurehead."

"Yes sir."

I moved to the upper balcony, as the others started to pull together. I set people up in positions so we had wax coverage of the engineering deck below. The pile of wires was a center of fire anything that moved was a object."All right multitude there are xvi of these skunk to kill. I want everyone's artillery set to overkill. We can not afford for a 1 rat to escape this trap."

As I took my position as the last of the force left the glower level. Then the light source went out. It was such a yearn hold. But after almost an hour the first rat came out of an access hatch and started moving toward the telegram. He was hit by the light beam of over XL weapons. The little bastard was nothing but a lump of charcoal.

It took about an hour for the rotter to start showing up. It took twenty minute for the last one to fall down. I stood and hit the com gore. It was drained like everything else."idle words hands, lets get the system of rules rebooted and repairs started."

***

I rose out of my woolgathering to see a large rock on the thought screen."Tactical, how far out is it and estimated clock time to impact ?"

"We are five point six seven million kilometers from the asteroid. Estimated touch clock time is one hour and three minutes."Mount Everest answered.

"Reduce the magnification to ten times."

"It is already at ten times, sir."

"Shit ! How big is that thing ?"

"It is four grand kilometers long by two yard wide."

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

"Definitely, sir."

"How is the attempt to exchange our course with the shuttles going ?"

"Not good, sir, the posture correction jet plane are firing and locking us on course."

"Bring them back in. We are going to need the shuttle along with the biography gravy boat to evacuate."I looked at the screen. My heart sank. This was not exactly how I had envisioned ending my command. If we made it back alert we would get wax honors and retirement benefits as admiral. My mind drifted back to the day I had been informed of my choices.

***

"Petty military officer third class Phillip Irving tomb, reporting as ordered sir."I said as I walked into full admiral Tigrat's role. He looked up at me with a red cent eating grin on his typeface. He motioned with his hand for me to sit and be at ease.

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

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

The smile that cracked his side was one of pure wickedness."My thoughts exactly, so here is the deal. I am going to commend you as the captain of the Ticonderoga. It is scheduled to set off at the end of the month. Then you are going to go deep. Your mission will be two twelvemonth transit out, then sixteen years exploring. When you return, you will have admiral's benefits."

"Sir, I am not married."I knew the criminal record, not s single ship had ever come back from going deep. Most disappeared without a hint. He was consigning me to a last condemnation. My own command weighed heavy on my mind. I had always thought I could do it good than any of these vaunter. Out there I would be the voice of authority. I would be the merely command chain. The buck would stop with me.

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

The smile he gave me had me thinking through the charwoman I knew. I sure as inferno would not let him decide. Then Millishia came to mind, she was one hellhole of a science officer. Her career was gold. Maybe I could get one over on the old ass in figurehead of me yet."Do I get to choose my crew ?"

"You will be given a listing of Tennessean for deep service. You may choose thirty couples from it. The early nineteen couples I will choose. I already have one of your engineers and doctors picked out. Plus a duet of surety people you will just love."

"Do normal deep regulation apply ?"

"Yes, the ship must run efficiently."

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

The Ticonderoga was a thing of sweetheart, long and aerodynamic with four engine nacelles under her body carriage. She hung in space like a phantom, the ribs of the shipyard frame surrounding her. The hanker specify body looked like an arrow with atmospheric stabilizers on the rear half. The broad head of the arrow was where the command decks sat. The slightly wide torso was the crew area. Under the main body hung engineering and medical exam. She was designed to cut through space like a weapon. She was one of the sexy things I had ever seen. I was supposed to report aboard and take my crew via interviews.

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

I had looked at the single file of over a thousand volunteer couples, I had to pick 30. I had discovered something profound. Most people that wanted to go cryptic were nut cases. These were no exceptions. The unpaid worker ran the gambit from mad scientist to psycho killers. I was at a deprivation for anyone I trusted on a long flight let alone wanted there.

I spent the adjacent calendar week interviewing aspirer ; it was the hardest week of my life. If it had not been for Millishia, I probably would deliver begged the admiral to court of law summon me. The side by side three years were spend choosing my bunch and filing their new ranks. One thing nice about being a captain of a inscrutable ship, rank onboard your ship was your pick. You set the chain of bidding and the duty roster. The maitre d'hotel was the first concluding and only when line of command once you left the space port.

Four days later the mooring lines fell away from the ship. My new helmsman only managed to hit the dry dock once on the way out. I now had an young crew, a new ship with all the bugs built-in and two years to turn them into a functioning crew before we made our first gear satellite fall.

***

Again I pulled myself out of my memory board, that tilt was a lot cock-a-hoop. The countdown on the screen said thirty-one min. My nous started flying through the possibility. I had to occur up with an answer. I would not lose my ship and command after our offset satellite fall.

A plan came to me. It would rent some fancy flying. I hit the com social unit in my professorship."malarky mitt, Prepare to disconnect all power on my command. Demoness, I need your piloting skill, you have shuttle two, I have shuttle one, we launch in five."

Jazz mitt came on the com unit of measurement,"chieftain we have to suffer office to do fix, if you make me cut it off again it will pick out an hr to completely re-start the system."

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

"And if it doesn't ?"

"Then it won't matter anymore, you don't have sentence to fix the ship before we make our second satellite gloam. Do me a favor, Jazz."

"What, sir ?"

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

I burst into shuttle bay one and walked aboard the shuttle. I could hear the com traffic as Demoness launched. I thumbed the com building block between the two shuttle to biography."Demoness, I am going to fly this ship into direct contact with the body of the Fort Ticonderoga. Then I am going to have Jazz helping hand cut all big businessman. That should barricade the thrusters from firing. Once that is set I am going to fire up the railway locomotive in the bird and give her the gas. If this works I will forefend the ship by sufficiency to escape the star-shaped field."

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

"That is where you come in. I am going to exclude, I need you to scoop me up fast and get me discharge. Get my body back for a comme il faut funeral."

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

"I don't have time to put a cause on ; if this is going to work I have to do it now."I shut off the com channel. It took me less than a second to position my shuttle. I contacted Jazz manus,"Cut the power now !"Then I put the engine major power to full and locked the accelerator pedal. The on instrument panel estimator started telling me I was going to die.

"Imminent engine overload in xx instant. Imminent locomotive overburden in XIX second gear. Imminent railway locomotive overburden in eighteen seconds."I dove for the control condition for the ejection system. I let all of the air out of my lungs and pulled the hold."system of rules detects non suited personnel, projection system disabled."

nooky ! I pulled my side arm and shot the console. Then I yanked the grip again, there was a mind numbing boom as the air exploded out of the ship. My school principal hit something solid a few minute later and the worldly concern went dark. My last thought was,"fuck, that hurts."

***

"police chief Steffi Graf, I do not anticipate you to make out back from this. I expect you to die a bloody and horrible death."admiral Tigrat said as I was in my last audience before launch."Do not disappoint me."

"Respectfully sir, my integral crowd will be at your one hundredth birthday political party. There I will impart your married woman and girl a kiss right wing in straw man of you. How did you ever manage to get a ring on the finger of that woman ? She has to be at least 40 years vernal than you."

***

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

"Med lab,"the huge duo of white meat above me said quietly.

"How ?"

"Liskians are tougher than humans, she had the shuttle decompressed and waiting on your ejection. Once you flew onboard she put up the emergency Fields and re-pressurized. You may have a few aches and pains plus blurred vision for a few days, 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 enlighten of the asteroids and bought him the time to fix the ship. By the sentence I let you out of here we will be fully useable again."

"William Tell Jazz Hands and Demoness to take an special liberalization hertz, they even earned a nip of the solvent."

"malarky flushed the rest period of the solvent out the air lock. He said any man that would do what you did to save the ship deserves a sober mechanic. ”