To Touch the Stars (Founding of the Federation Book 2)

by Chris Hechtl

  “Not that I am aware of, and no, they are not duplicates of humans. Some wear clothes, all respect human nudity taboos, but a few like the bonobos think it is silly,” she smiled to the reporter who blushed. “The whole, if you've got it, flaunt it,” she said wickedly enough to generate a laugh.

  She was careful to direct them around the dog, cat, and other Neos’ habitats. She didn't answer any questions about other animals, instead refocusing them on something they hadn't seen or known about. It was a dance, and one she played to perfection since there was so much to see in a limited time.

  The UN people questioned the staff and Neos they encountered. They went behind Lagroose's back to complain to the media that they weren't given free rein to go where they pleased to do a proper inspection. Miss Cole smoothly pointed out that: one, they were invited guests, and two, this was a space habitat and space was still a potentially dangerous place. “We can't have someone walk into an airlock or break a seal on something. So they, like you, will have someone along at all times.”

  A couple reporters tried to hide cameras but each area was monitored by Athena. She picked them off with janitorial robots within a minute of the reporter leaving the area. Three reporters and a UN observer attempted to steal data as well. They were rebuffed by the company firewall and security bots. They were also warned politely not to attempt such shenanigans again.

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  Amelia blinked in consternation at the leprechaun-like being before her. She couldn't help but stare, shocked into a frozen state. “Hi,” Lizet, the head RN for their shift said, then nudged the student. “Can we help you?” she asked politely. By now they'd all seen the apes on the news, but no one expected one at the University Hospital.

  “I'm new,” the meter tall bonobo said, smiling tentatively. Amelia judged that she was a head taller than the ape, but only barely. She hated how short she was, but she bet the bonobo hated how slight her body was and how short she'd ended up being. She was dressed in a nurse’s uniform, one obviously tailored properly to her body frame. “I'm supposed to start my shift here?” she asked, looking concerned.

  Lizet blinked. “You are Ezra or …”

  “Emilia. Call me Emi,” the bonobo said. She had a cute body, very expressive eyes, Amelia judged. She wanted to reach out and hug her. She looked like she belonged in a stuffed animal collection.

  “Sorry, I don't mean to stare,” Amelia said. “I'm just surprised. You are so cute it's terrible.”

  “Really?”

  “I so want to hug you, sorry,” Amelia admitted.

  Emi chuffed in surprise and that laugh caught on with Lizet. The older, red haired woman chuckled. “Administration told us we were getting new blood but not who. Don't take it as sexual harassment please, but that was my first reaction too. I mean, we've seen the press conferences but …”

  “It's okay,” Emi said softly. She shrugged. “We bonobos get that a lot.”

  “So, you are a nurse?”

  Emi nodded. “I was studying to be a doctor but I got so wrapped up in other things I sort of lost track. I'm getting back into it now, but I wanted hands-on experience. I volunteered to come here,” she said, looking around the white and green clinic. “It's … nice.”

  “Thanks. You should see the kids’ wing. We've got paintings of trees and stuff there,” Amelia said with a grin. “You'd probably feel right at home there … right up until they smothered you with hugs,” she teased.

  Emi chuffed. “Pass. I don't mind kids, but I'm a trauma nurse.”

  “I'm actually a first year intern. Or I will be. Right now I'm a clinic volunteer hence the candy cane uniform,” Amelia admitted, holding up a hand and then modeling her smock and outfit. Emi gave her a once over and smiled.

  There was a burst of static from the overhead speakers that drew everyone's attention upward. “Code Orange, repeat, code Orange. Prep for mass casualties. Repeat, Code Orange, Code Orange,” the voice said then cut off.

  “What the frack happened?” Lizet demanded. She scowled as she went behind the bar to get her tablet.

  “Something big and nasty I suppose,” Amelia said, moving to the trauma kits. “You said you've got trauma training, I guess you're in the deep end, Emi,” she said.

  “It's the water main break at the university,” Emi said, pitching her voice so Lizet could hear her. The RN looked up. “I heard about it on the news on my way in. They were worried about trouble. Just before I shut it off there was something about electrical lines shocking people and a fire breaking out …”

  “Oh lord, we're in for it. Prep for electrical shock, burns, the works people!” Lizet called out as additional staff arrived from every direction. “Emi, don't get stepped on. You'll have to get the tour later,” she said.

  “I'll hold up my end,” the bonobo said grimly.

  Lizet nodded. “You'll get your chance,” she said, eyes on the camera feeds showing the outer entryway. “The first ambulance pulled up. Let's move it people!”

  Amelia shot Emi an encouraging grin as she waved her to the back store room to start moving supplies out as Liz and the doctors rushed forward to do triage. “I'm Amelia Irons by the way. Come on, I'll show you where the burn kits are …”

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  Isley Irons was on campus when the water main broke. She saw idiots wanting to go swimming in the mess but also frantic grad students and staff trying to find ways to stem the tide of water entering the basements and destroying their work. When the fire broke out, she grabbed a couple people coughing from the smoke and dragged them out to safety, then went in for more. She found the emergency oxygen breather, put it on, then went to work saving those she could until rescue workers arrived on the scene and took over. She was congratulated for her heroic efforts, but she waved such things off as unimportant.

  They insisted she be seen at the clinic. She saw Amelia and to her surprise an ape working together, but the place was so busy she didn't get a chance to say hi. A nurse checked her out, had her breathe into a tube to check for lung damage, then told her to go home and take a shower.

  “I'm not sure if the dorms are even open,” she said, coughing. It was a dry cough; the smoke had irritated her lungs. Her eyes watered from the smells in the emergency room. She gratefully retreated. She didn't envy Amelia a bit.

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  When the doctor on the ship flat out refused to treat the dolphins, there was a bit of a flap that made its way up his chain of command all the way to Jack. “It's a little late now; did he say why?” Jack demanded when Trey briefed him. He scowled blackly as Barbie came into the room. He'd seen a lot of her as of late, well, when she wasn't groundside arranging interviews with ape and dolphin rescuers.

  “It's a last minute change of heart. What the frack happened?” Jack raged.

  Trey shook his head. “He stated that he hadn't come to the conclusion until his pastor father had called him after the Neo press conference. He'd done a lot of soul searching since then and came to the conclusion he wasn't ready to treat a species who had been tampered with.”

  “Well, that's fine and dandy, but what do we do with him?” Jack demanded. “We'll need his alternate but …”

  “We can't pull him,” Barbie warned, interrupting Jack.

  He eyed her for a long fulminating moment. “Okay, I'll bite, why the hell not?” He finally asked.

  “Because that will turn into a mess. He'll complain to the media, which will turn into a frackus we don’t want at this delicate point. We need to sweep it under the rug. Quick and quiet diffusion,” she urged.

  “And how do we do that?” Trey asked, turning to her. “The dolphins need a medic. Not a bigot.”

  “We get the foremost expert on dolphins to join the crew of course. Someone who is a doctor for both species. If the doctor in a fit of conscience quits, we can deal with it. But we need to … refrain from firing him if at all possible,” Barbie replied smoothly.

  “Great. So, who do we know who can handl
e the dolphins and is interested in going on a starship? Who has the experience? Someone we trust?” Jack demanded.

  “And is single. We're sending couples or singles,” Trey warned.

  Jack rubbed his brow as he felt a headache coming on. This was turning into a disaster he thought. “Great. Do a search. I'm guessing we've got a small pool of people. Very small,” Jack grumbled. He uncovered his eyes as he scrubbed his face with his hands.

  “One name immediately pops out without the need of a search,” Trey said slowly, not even checking his tablet. “She's been on the design board from the beginning,” Trey said suggestively as he stared into his bosses eyes. “You sicked her on me since she had security clearance as well as medical training. She has no bias and has the out-of-the-box point of view we needed. She's also single and available for reassignment.”

  Jack looked at him for a long moment as Barbie looked down and away, then fought a grimace. He rubbed his forehead as he thought about it. He didn't like it, but he knew it was his job to pick the solution that wasn't the best but had the least bad things about it. This was a text book example of a catch twenty-two; he was damned either way. “Aurelia's not going to like it. She's going to hate you for suggesting it if anything happens,” Jack finally said quietly. “I'll hate myself if it does.”

  “We don't know if she'll go until we ask,” Trey replied with a shrug.

  “Can she qualify?” Jack asked.

  Again Trey shrugged. “No one knows the systems better and has the training she does. She's got a leg up on anyone else for the qualifications, though I have to admit passing the psychology testing is an unknown. We screened for people who can handle tight places and being away from home … as well as the integration into a crew. My problem is finding a berth for her. All the berths are taken. She's a female, so that's an issue.”

  “She … oh. Yeah,” Jack frowned thoughtfully.

  “Yeah,” Trey said, with his own frown. “I suppose we can get two of the males to double up to give her a cabin. We've got to ask her first.”

  “Get the ball rolling. Find a backup for her. Just in case,” Jack ordered. Trey nodded and left at a trot.

  “Coming home tonight suddenly lost all its appeal,” Jack murmured. Barbie smiled sympathetically.

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  Kathy was informed of the dilemma and asked if she would go when Trey found her. “It's either that or we find someone else, which could take weeks or months. We can't afford the delay or bad publicity right now,” Trey explained. For his credit he'd done the meeting face to face, not over a video conference. She wasn't sure if he'd done it out of some misplaced security concern or to pressure her.

  She nodded though, unsure on which way to jump. She bit her lip. There was really nothing on Earth for her since her parents had died. “Do I have time to think about it?”

  “Not a lot. A couple of hours. We need as much lead time as we can if you say no, so we can find someone else and get them up to speed. If we hold the ship …” Trey shook his head.

  She stared out at the image of space imagining what it would be like. She'd never wanted to go, but Jamey had signed on immediately. She frowned. “Screw it. I'm in,” she finally said, straightening her shoulders. “I guess I need to pack?”

  “It's limited. And we're still working on a berth for you,” Trey replied.

  “Figure it out. I'm not sleeping in a hallway for a couple years,” Kathy replied tartly as she turned about. She ran frustrated hands through her hair. “I don't know where to start! People I know need to be informed, I need to set up my will, handle my paperwork, finances, packing … shit … what about stuff I want to bring along? My e-books I can stick on a flash drive but …” She threw her hands up and spun about.

  “I'll upload you the info on what you can and can't bring. In fact I'll ask Athena to walk you through it,” Trey said. He looked up. “You hear that, Athena?” He asked.

  “I'm on it. But you need to hustle, Doctor Abrams,” the AI warned.

  “Okay, okay, I'm going,” Kathy said, moving out to her quarters at a trot. She started to dictate emails to friends and family to let them know she had joined the crew of Daedalus. Aurelia was put out when she heard but understood when Jack explained.

  Kathy entered a frantic whirlwind of packing, medical testing, more testing, more packing, and then a hustle to her waiting shuttle. When she boarded she got a quick tour of the ship, but all she wanted was her room. She was anxious until they showed it to her and explained Jamey had gallantly given it up to bunk with another male crew member. She already knew the deck plans inside and out; she'd seen them in virtual and in 2-D. But there was a major difference from seeing them in a computer and real life. She smiled at people in passing as she followed her guide.

  The ship was functional with its interior looking almost industrial. The exterior was smooth in places, quite nice. But nothing of the interior was like the ships imagined in famous works of science fiction. She harkened back to the water ships of Earth's oceans in many ways. Everything had a purpose; no space was wasted. Nor did bulkheads hide boxes, cables or pipes, all were exposed to give easy access for maintenance or repair.

  Hatches were of the traditional rounded oval shape and were liberally mixed through the ship to protect the crew and contents from a possible loss of pressure or fire. Half were automated; the other half were manual. Again they looked industrial in feel and function.

  Directions were on the bulkheads with arrows. Some of the decks were color coded. Red or orange meant danger, authorized personnel only. They were around the decks for the fuel, drive rooms, and reactors. Yellow meant engineering country. Blue and green were for habitats, green for the two-legs, blue for the fins. She was warned repeatedly not to stray into areas she didn't belong.

  Kathy felt immediately isolated from the rest of the crew due to her involvement and preoccupation with the dolphins and last minute inclusion. The doctor was hostile to her for her intrusion in his domain so she set up gear near the dolphins to triage and treat them with minimum contact with Doctor Asurabi. They'd spent the past three years working and training together so they had their own click going.

  She found friendship elusive in the mess so she looked up who she knew. The names were familiar, but none had been in any of her fields. She knew a couple of the life supports assigned to the dolphins’ habitat but only in passing.

  When she found Jamey's name, she e-mailed him, feeling a sense of relief. “Having a bit of trouble settling in?” he asked her in the e-mail.

  “Can we talk?” she asked, not sure she was asking the right question of him. He agreed to talk over coffee; he wanted to run his new project past her. As the ship finished it's working up trials, she settled into the routine. The dolphins were fun to be with; Kaku enjoyed playing volleyball with her.

  But more and more she found herself hanging out with Jamey, distracting him from the project Hannah had set on him. Despite their age gap, she and Jamey started to date. After the third date, they were relaxed and frisky enough for her to seduce him into her room and eventually into bed. Neither had any regrets about the arrangement.

  Chapter 13

  Charlie was killed in a vehicle accident groundside. He had gone down to visit family after a recent death in the family as well as receive a long overdue vacation. It had been a warm morning. Traffic had been light and he'd taken his beloved car out for a spin.

  It was clear something strange had happened to the vehicle’s computer. Although Charlie liked to drive, an anarchism due to his age and hobby of racing when he had been younger, the computer on board should have kicked in to brake and prevented the crash. An investigation was launched by the police when they got on the scene. Suspicions of Charlie's vehicle accident became acute when they found out the car's computer had been wiped. Then word from on high came to kill the investigation and rule it a DUI. That sealed the conception that the fix was in. However, the lead investigator was unsure what to do other than wh
at he'd been ordered to do. Since he had quite a case load and there were no other leads … he didn't like it but he shelved the investigation.

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  When Jamey didn't answer the knock on his office door, Levare took a chance and opened the door on his own initiative. “What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be out and about in your love ship?” Levare asked, leaning into the room.

  He found an intent Jamey, a bit disheveled from not changing or observing proper hygiene due to his obsession. Levare frowned, then wrinkled his nose at the smell. Obviously Jamey hadn't taken a shower in a day or more he thought with a grimace. That was nothing new; he remembered many times when that had happened during the frantic design rushes. Now was different, he didn't understand the young man's preoccupation; after all, the ship was finished. Unless … unless Jamey had found a last minute problem?

  “What are you working on?” Levare finally asked, sitting on the edge of the desk.

  “Oh um … when did you get here?” Jamey mumbled, still staring at the screen. Since the ship had come in to take on stores and fix a drive issue, he'd hopped over to his office to access the mainframe to run simulations. He'd lost track of time though.

  “Is that the thing your sister started you on?” Levare demanded. From the look of it, the young man was still working intently at the project his sister had put him on over a year ago. From the look of it, Jamey was really into the new design, going so far as to actually simulate a ship hull.

  “Yeah,” Jamey mumbled, fingers flashing as he worked. “You're sort of interrupting my train of thought here,” he said in annoyance. He'd thought he'd do it as a lark to disprove Hannah and tease her about it, but the more he'd delved into it the more intriguing the possibility had become. He was on to something; he was sure of it. Hell, not only sure, he had it, he just needed to flesh it out. Swallowing his pride and admitting to Hannah had been right was another thing he'd have to do. A bigger project. That thought made his mental train go off course. His fingers stopped moving.