Then the Time Travel Computer moved the Galileo over a large warehouse and teleported things not needed on the Galileo into the storage building. They moved all of the fruit trees, wooden growing beds and dozens of bags of black dirt down to the surface of the planet. Then they moved the Galileo over a medical supply warehouse. Once there, they began teleporting supplies into the Growing Room, which now served as a storage and scrub room for the surgical teams. The crew carried twelve large cartons of medical supplies into the existing infirmary. The nurses would use that room for the storage of drugs and injectable medicines.
While they waited for the food supplies and the Food Replicators to come aboard, the crew began helping the medical teams get their personal belongings and clothing into the sleeping quarters. Addalyne realized then that the medical teams had enough personnel to run the surgical units twenty-four hours a day if necessary, and backup teams waited on planet Earth, planet quantum and at IFTT Headquarters. She also knew that the Galileo was not the only starship helping with rescue operations. The Empress, the Coalsack, the Yutaka II and the Yutaka III all provided support and brought in medical supplies and doctors from other planets within Universe Number Two. There were twenty other privately owned starships helping with the rescue, each capable of transporting medical supplies, food and rescue equipment and machinery to the stricken planet.
When Tom and Connie uploaded the flight plan from IFTT Headquarters and activated it, the Galileo slowly turned and headed off into the blackness of space towards the planet of Quantum.
Once they were in flight, the crew worked to get all four of the new Food and Beverage Replicators working. The units simply needed to be uncrated and placed on counters where there was room enough to work. Once they had them set up, Addalyne showed the crew how to activate the units and then link them to the Time Travel Computer. The computer would monitor the operations of the replicators and notify the crew if one of the medical staff needed assistance.
Once that project was complete, Tom and Connie contacted the medical staff, gave them a tour of the kitchen and explained the operation of the cooking appliances and the replicators. While Tom and Connie did their job, the remaining crew began uncrating and installing six new Waster Disposer units. Once they finished installing the units, they began testing each unit. Addalyne said, “I have some soiled bed sheets that we can use to test these disposers.” When she headed off towards her quarters to retrieve the sheets, Bob gently punched Timothy on the shoulder and said, “You animal. Can’t you keep your hands off that child for even one night? If you have not knocked her up by the end of the week, I will have a talk with her and offer my services.”
When Addalyne returned, she dropped one of the sheets into a disposer and pressed the green button on top of the unit. They heard the unit beep twice and then heard a high-pitched sound as the unit atomized the sheet.
When Addalyne turned around and looked at Timothy, Bob, and Chris, she realized that they were laughing about something, and she seemed to be the object of the joke. She stepped up to Timothy, put her nose an inch from his and said, “Don’t make me pin you to the floor and force the reason for your laughter from you. Tell me why you three have made me the butt of your little joke.” Timothy reached out to pull her close to him, but she took a step back and pushed his hand aside. Timothy said, “Bob and Chris were just wondering why we had so many soiled sheets and if I was ever going to get you pregnant.”
Addalyne did not comment on Timothy’s explanation of the joke, instead she picked up the remaining soiled sheets and headed towards the second Waste Disposer. As she walked, the computer spoke into her implant and said, “Addalyne, Bob intends to offer his services to impregnate you if Timothy cannot accomplish the task by the end of the week.” Addalyne stopped and stood still for a moment, contemplating how she was going to retaliate for the rude comments. Then she dropped the sheets to the floor and headed back towards Bob. When she stepped up to him and placed her nose against his, she said, “If you think you are man enough to impregnate me, let’s test your skills right now. Addalyne wheeled around on the heel of her boot and grabbed Bob by the wrist as she turned. Then she began dragging him towards the cargo bay door. Bob began to protest, but Chris just cheered Addalyne on. When the door to Addalyne’s door slid open, she dragged Bob into the room and then pushed the button beside the door to close and lock it.
Once inside the room, she unzipped her flight suit, slid it off her shoulders and let it drop to the floor. Bob panicked and turned to leave the room, but found the door locked. Addalyne spoke to him and said, “What is your problem. First, you offer to impregnate me, now when you have the opportunity, you get flustered and try to leave. I don’t think I will allow you to leave just yet.” She stepped up behind Bob and reached around in front of his flight suit. When her fingers found what she was searching for, she stepped back and said, “What now. You obviously don’t find me attractive; you don’t even have an erection. What will the crew think of you if you don’t frack the new girl when you have the chance?”
Bob turned around to face Addalyne and said, “We were just joking around with Timothy. I had no intentions of fracking his mate.” Addalyne stepped up close to him and reached around behind her back to release the hooks on her bra. While she was doing it, she decided to allow Bob to escape with his dignity still intact. She spoke to the computer through her implant and asked to have the door opened. Bob was leaning back against the door as it slid open and he fell backwards into the hallway. When he stopped back stepping, he ended up with his back against the door of the room across from Addalyne’s quarters. Then he saw Timothy, Chris, Tom and Connie looking at him. Connie was the first to speak. She said, “So I assume Timothy can return to work now. Bob surely did his deed and impregnated Addalyne.” Just then, the computer spoke over the overhead speakers and said, “Commander, how does a Demords True Blood male impregnate a Demords True Blood female without an erection capable of penetrating the females genitalia?” The crew began to laugh and they watched Bob’s face turn a deep shade of red. Then Chris stepped up and said, “You can sleep in the cargo bay tonight and for the rest of this mission. Don’t come around my quarters now that I have discovered you in Addalyne’s room.”
Now that the crew had released some of their pent up tension, Bob and Connie got them working to insure the medical teams were prepared to tend to patients as soon as they arrived in orbit over the planet Quantum. They soon found the medical teams resting in their bunks. The computer told Tom that most of them had eaten a meal from the replicator, but two of the nurses had not eaten. Tom found the two women and asked if they were hungry. The two nurses explained that they were vegans and did not find anything in the Food Replicators that looked edible. Tom said, “If you two will follow me to the kitchen, I will help you work with our computer to create your own meals exactly as you desire. The computer will put only the ingredients that you ask for into your food. You do not have to go hungry aboard this vessel.”
Once Tom had explained how to ask the computer for assistance, he poured a cup of coffee and hung out in the kitchen to insure the women had food that would satisfy their personal needs. Once the nurses sat down and began eating their food at a table, Tom returned to the sleeping quarters to insure everyone was comfortable. He explained to the doctors how to ask the computer for anything they needed. He also explained how to summon a crewmember to give immediate assistance if the need arose.
When Tom returned to the kitchen, he found his crew working up a sleeping schedule to insure they could provide twenty-four hour assistance to the medical teams. The schedule was aggressive, but doable. Three team members would sleep for six hours while the other three worked. They would work showers and meals into their working time if possible. That would insure their six-hour sleep time would really be six hours in bed.
When the Galileo arrived at Quantum and had established a stable orbit, the medical teams on the ground began teleporting patients up to the c
argo bay of the Galileo. Within thirty minutes, they had filled all twenty-two beds and the doctors and nurses were busy tending to them. Once the doctors finished evaluating the patients, they prepped and hurried the first four patients with the most serious injuries into surgery.
The Command Team had already uploaded a flight plan and quickly turned the Galileo towards the Milky Way Galaxy. Once at planet Earth, they would teleport their patients into the waiting hospital emergency rooms.
During the first hour of the trip, Addalyne heard the Time Travel Computer sending emergency messages back and forth between the Galileo and the emergency room doctors at a trauma center on Earth. The doctors aboard the Galileo simply could not save a young child. A large block of concrete had smashed the child’s chest and damaged his lungs beyond repair. Addalyne leaned back against a wall in the hallway and allowed her tears to heal her sorrow. When Tom walked down the hallway, Addalyne tried to walk away and hide her tears, but Tom spoke to her and said, “You should not be listening into the communications going back and forth between the doctors. You will only find sorrow in those transmissions.” He pulled Addalyne into his arms and let her cry a moment. Then when she stepped back, she wiped her eyes and said, “I am sorry for the tears. It is my job to be strong so I can help the patients here that can be saved.” Tom smiled and said, “You must also remember that you are a True Blood Demords female and feel the pain of those around you more intensely than most. You cannot change who you are or how you feel.” When Connie walked into the hallway, she stepped up beside her mate and saw the tear stains on the front of his flight suit. She could also see that Addalyne had been crying. She had heard the communications about the death of the child and she understood what had upset Addalyne. She spoke to the Time Travel Computer and said aloud, “Computer, please create a rule to prevent Addalyne from overhearing the doctors communications unless she declares an emergency? Those conversations are disturbing.”
As Addalyne turned to dry her face, Connie said, “Addalyne, are you needed somewhere, or can I ask for your assistance?” Addalyne turned and walked up to Connie and said, “I just finished changing bed sheets and can help you until after the medical teams change shift.”
As Connie and Addalyne walked into the kitchen area, Connie said, “Girl, please help me get these two Beverage Dispensers working. I am about to toss both of them out an ejection door.” Addalyne laughed and said, “They can be temperamental at times.” When Addalyne pressed the button for ice, hot water came out. When she pressed the hot water button, it dispensed ice-cold water, instead. She laughed and said, “Okay, I know how to fix this.” She pressed three buttons on the front of the dispenser at the same time, held them for twenty seconds and then released them. The next time she tried dispensing ice, she actually got small ice cubes. She turned to the commander and said, “Let me show you a method I designed into these dispensers to reset them to their default settings when all else fails.”
Once all of the dispensers were again functioning properly, Addalyne turned to the commander and said, “Most equipment the IFTT designs and sells are completely reliable and seldom fail. However, these damn Beverage Dispensers are the most unreliable and difficult machines I have ever worked with. I have designed two updates for them, but they still fail more than they work. Someday, when I have time, I would like to design a reliable dispenser.”
Connie and Addalyne worked to assist the medical teams as they changed shift. The teams needed showers and food before they went to bed for a few hours. Addalyne kept the computer busy producing towels as fast as they used them. When one of the doctors walked out of the shower and had not taken a towel into the shower room with him, Addalyne giggled and threw him a dry towel. As he stood in front of everyone and dried himself, Connie and Addalyne did their best to keep their backs turned. It was obvious that the human male had no modesty.
Once the teams had finished their showers and meals, they settled down for some sleep. The Galileo was still a busy place, but the medical teams required little assistance with their work. There were no surgeries scheduled and the Galileo would arrive at planet Earth in two hours’ time. The crew used the opportunity to take showers and change clothes. There were two crewmembers still sleeping and the other four took turns in the showers. The schedule the crew had created worked perfectly to insure there were always Demords available to keep the Galileo staffed properly.
As the vessel arrived at planet Earth with their first cargo of patients, the doctors aboard did not wish to teleport three of the patients who had just recently came out of surgery. Tom contacted the IFTT and arranged a place where they could settle the Galileo to ground level. Once the vessel rested a few inches above the tarmac of a military hospital, Tom created a door out the side of the vessel near the storage room to transport patients. The unloading process was much slower that way, but did provide a safe method for moving patients without having to atomize and reassemble their bodies, something the doctors did not want their patients’ bodies to endure. The doctors also feared that some of the patients might suffer from teleportation sickness now that they were taking narcotic painkillers and other heavy medications.
Once the crew and the emergency room personnel finished offloading the patients from Galileo, the crew began teleporting fresh supplies into the cargo bay. They loaded baskets of fresh fruit and vegetables aboard, something the medical team had requested. The crew of the Galileo knew that the food from the replicators would provide good nutrition; however, the humans and patients aboard were not accustomed to food produced by duplicating the atomic structure of the item and then dispensing the food onto a plate in a gelatin form. The dispensed food smelled and tasted exactly like the naturally occurring food, but it did not present well on a plate to those accustomed to the real thing.
Once the crew had finished the task of restocking the vessel, they uploaded a new IFTT flight plan and headed back towards the planet Quantum. During the flight, the medical teams took the opportunity to catch up on their sleep and clean the cargo bay. There were used bandages, dropped instruments, and clothing items under the beds and in the beds. They medical team replaced all of the bedding with new and then sterilized ever surface in the cargo bay and surgical scrub room. Two of the nurses took ownership of the kitchen. The quickly began preparing meals in small containers and placed them in the cooling units for later use. Addalyne soon joined the women and requested an additional cooling unit from the Time Travel Computer. Once the computer had located a unit, the commander took the Galileo out of hyper-flight just long enough so the unit could be teleported into the kitchen area. When Addalyne heard the commotion of the unit materializing in the kitchen, she peeked into the room to insure it was safe to enter. Once the other two women helped Addalyne slide the unit into an unused corner of the kitchen, they began filling it with the remaining fresh food items.
As the crew sat down for their evening meal in the kitchen, they realized that most of the doctors ate from the Food Replicators. When Tom discussed the reason for bringing all the fresh food aboard when they intended all along to eat from the dispensers, the doctors explained that any remaining food items the patients did not eat, they would leave on the planet Quantum to help feed the injured and those struggling to find food. The starships were providing as many food and medical supplies as they could, but those remaining on the surface needed every bit of support they could get. Fresh food was a luxury for the struggling rescue teams and medical staff.
When the Galileo entered orbit over planet Quantum, they discovered a long line of starships surrounding the planet. The crew of the Galileo saw vessels from corporations and private ventures that they had never heard of before today. Tom routed the chatter flowing between vessels into the Elders so his crew could listen in on the work going on around the planet. As they listened, they heard Jill Yutaka and Trish Wilson discuss with the Payload Master on the planet’s surface where he wanted the bulldozers and generators delivered. As they listened, they dis
covered that The Empress, the Coalsack and the Yutaka II and III had all made trips to distant universes to purchase equipment to help rebuild the devastated portions of the planet. Addalyne was very pleased with her niece, Jill Yutaka. Jill had funded the trips and paid for the machinery and supplies with her own funds. Addalyne spoke to the Time Travel Computer and dictated a message to Jill. The message read:
Dear Jill Marie Yutaka
I am aboard the Starship Galileo, presently in a holding pattern behind The Empress. I just realized the extent of your love for the people of this universe and I thank you for the delivery of machinery and supplies. I realize you have spent a great sum of Galax to help the people of planet Quantum and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Be safe and prosper.
Addalyne Yutaka
The message that Addalyne dictated to the Time Travel Computer displayed on the monitor in the control room for the commander’s approval. Tom and Connie both read the message and then sent it along to The Empress. Then Tom stepped out of the control room and headed off to find Addalyne. When he located her in the laboratory, he stepped up beside her as she cleaned a sink and said, “The computer displayed your message to Jill on the monitor in the control room for my approval. I read it and sent it on to Jill. When I first met you, I feared that you hated the Yutaka family and Trish Wilson. Now, I am beginning to understand that you might not agree with their methods of doing business and how they interact with those around them, but you do respect what they have done and how they have advanced your brother’s dream by building a fleet of starships. I just wanted you to know that I read your message to Jill and I am very pleased that you wrote it.”
The Chronicles of Addalyne Yutaka Page 15
