by Guerin Zand
Our thinking was that while a lot of traffic might pass through the spaceport on Hell, most would only stay on Hell for a very short period of time. Others may spend more time on Hell if they were there to coordinate with other teams, and for those, we wanted the stay to be a bit more comfortable. For those visitors, we’d have larger suites available to make their stay on Hell more comfortable. Some would even be staying on Hell as permanent staff. For those we designed larger quarters that would be their home for the duration of their stay. For now, we only envisioned using Hell as a base for operations and put the idea of a permanent settlement on the back burner.
Along with planning the facilities, we had to start to come up with a list of personnel we would need to maintain and run the spaceport. We were just one crew, and we could handle our own needs for now. At some point we would need to have a fully manned spaceport. We all got together to come up with a list we thought would be a good start and passed it along to Roger. The one posting I didn’t discuss with Roger was who would be in charge of this spaceport. I wanted Roger and Katie for that. I was passing on subtle hints in the hope that they would come up with the idea on their own. In the meantime, our first shipment of supplies from Earth arrived and we enlisted the cargo hauler’s crew to help with unloading and storing the supplies.
Finally, the construction on the first lightning class ship was completed. We finally decided on a name for our new ship, the Deviant, and Senri and I took her out for a quick test flight. It had the typical two-man cockpit that you might find in a large transport aircraft on Earth. A lot of the other stations that were in the bridge of the cruiser class ships, like the Ryvius, were moved to engineering. After many arguments, I relented and removed the pizza oven from the galley to allow for more food storage. I wasn’t happy about that since I thought a pizza oven should be a trademark of any Zand starship design. They were right though. With only a crew of four, a pizza oven probably wouldn’t be used that much.
Everything checked out just fine with our initial test flights. We had made a hop out to Earth to show off our new shiny toy to Roger and Katie. While we were there, I talked to Roger about how I had no idea who should be put in charge of our new base. I just made it clear that I wasn’t interested. Hopefully that gave him something to think about. Logically, no one other than Roger made sense and I hoped he would see that.
We dropped by the Earth ship on the way back to make sure we’d have no issues docking on a Collective ship or station. While we were there, I picked up Seca and her husband. I knew Prima missed her sister and I thought I’d surprise her by bringing Seca out for a visit. I secretly had the ladies task the construction crews to get a suite ready for them before I left with Senri. Needless to say, Prima was overjoyed when she saw her sister getting off the Deviant. Later that night she showed me just how much she appreciated my little gesture. Let’s just say it gave a whole new meaning to the term “getting lucky”.
Chapter 8
Desterio
With the construction of the Deviant completed, it was time to switch the manufacturing facilities to building the security and cloaking system for the planet in Trogan space. The one where the humans were being held, according to Trixy. The one problem with that was we still needed to do the reconnaissance to determine the exact specifications of the system to complete the design. That meant dealing with Trixy again, and I wasn’t looking forward to that. Maria knew that, so she had a suggestion.
We were down in the facilities main lab where I was working with the fembots on scheduling our tasks for manufacturing. Maria came down to see me. “Why don’t I handle Trixy, Dad?” I was suspicious right off. Why would my daughter want to spare me the pain of dealing with Trixy? Let’s face it. Most of the women in my life enjoyed seeing me suffer, so this didn’t make any sense. “We still have to talk her into giving us the location of the planet. I doubt she’s going to want to do you any favors.”
“Ok, I give up. Why do you want to deal with Trixy?”
“Well, you have a lot to do here, don’t you?” She looked at the group of fembots I had been talking to and smiled.
I had seen this maneuver when she was a little girl growing up. She was acting like she was doing me a favor, while in reality, she was trying to talk me into something she knew I wasn’t going to go for. “Sure, but I’m not really needed here to do any of that. The ladies can handle most of it. The construction is pretty much automated once we decide on the task order.”
She could see I knew what she was trying to do, so she decided to try the truth as a last resort. “I want to be in charge of the reconnaissance mission, ok? You said that you were going to let me handle it, right?” Ok, I guess I may have said something like that after a few beers. “I’ll take Senri and Kelly with me on the Deviant. We can pick up Trixy on Trinix and head out to the planet from there.”
“We’re not talking about a pleasure cruise here, Maria. You could be in real danger out there. Hell, I don’t even know if we can trust Trixy. What if this is just some Trogan trap? No. Absolutely—”
“But, Dad. You said you were thinking of letting me go on a mission of my own, and it’s just a reconnaissance mission. Kelly can keep an eye on Trixy. It really isn’t that dangerous, and you know it.” I could see Maria really wanted to do this. Like I said, the look she was giving me wasn’t much different than she’d used when she was a teenager who wanted to borrow the car.
I thought about it for a second or so and said, “Ok, but I want you to pick two of the fembots to go along. Just as added protection.”
“Deal!” Maria gave me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. “You’re not as big an asshole as everyone says, Dad. I promise, I’ll be careful not to dent your new starship.”
Maria went running off to pack for her little trip. I could tell she was happy that I had agreed to let her handle the mission. I went back to what I was doing and didn’t think too much about it. If she stuck to the plan, she was right, it shouldn’t be at all dangerous. There was nothing in the Trogan empire that could threaten a starship with Collective technology. Trixy was still a question though if you asked me. As long as Kelly kept on eye on her that shouldn’t be an issue. Of course, nothing ever went as planned. I just had to trust Maria to handle whatever came up.
The thing that bothered me the most about this was not that I didn’t think Maria was capable. She definitely was. Probably even more so than I was. No, what bothered me was that Maria seemed to think she had to prove herself. I don’t know if she was trying to prove herself to me, or maybe our Collective friends, but it was that sort of thinking that could get her into trouble and keep her from asking for help if she needed it. She lacked confidence in her own abilities, and maybe that was my fault to some extent. She needed to learn to trust her own judgment and not worry about what anyone else thought. Lack of confidence in yourself is what makes you question your decisions and second guess yourself. That’s what would get you in trouble out here.
The next morning, we met in my office located in our family’s suite. Building conference rooms for meetings was a pretty low priority since there were so few of us on Hell. At some point we would need to add a few. Maria came in wearing this uniform she had designed. When we initially formed the crew of the Ryvius, Maria had wanted to design a uniform for the whole crew. I was having none of that. Cargo shorts, t-shirts, and sandals were my uniform. If it got a little chilly I’d throw on a bathrobe.
Anyways, in came Maria with her new uniform. It is kind of hard to describe, but I’ll give it a try. It was sort of a two-piece onesie, if that makes any sense. Underneath was her take on the onesie. Skin tight from the ankles up to the crew neck. Next there were the boots. They were thigh high and a cross between a square-toed cowboy boot, your standard military type shitkickers, and something a stripper would wear. Finally, there was the overcoat. Of course, it was tight fitting, denim blue, with large gold buttons from the waist up. It had what looked like a Nehru collar with wings, like the
shirts commonly worn with a man’s tuxedo. Below the waist, to almost mid-thigh, the bottom of the coat flowed like short skirt with a slit up front. Around her waist was what I could only call a utility belt from which a very familiar 45 was hanging in its holster.
“Is that my 45?” That wasn’t the only issue I had with her uniform, but I thought I’d let the rest of it go.
“Yea,” Maria responded as she shrugged her shoulder. “Don’t you always say nothing says ‘Hey!’ like a 45?”
Ok, yea, I did say that. “I guess, but I’m not sure it really goes with the outfit, do you?”
Maria simply responded, “Oh, Dad!”
The rest of her crew showed up a few minutes later. They were all dressed in the same uniform, all in different colors of course, even the fembots. She had chosen Mary Ann and Ginger for her crew from the available fembots. Then in marched Gamma. She was wearing the same uniform in hot pink, and, well, this was a bit too much for me.
“What are you doing in that uniform, Gamma?” I gave her that stern fatherly look that told her I knew exactly what she was doing, so she’d best come up with a different answer before she opened her mouth. She didn’t.
“Maria said I could be part of her crew.”
“Absolutely not, young lady.” I fixed my glare on Maria. “What the fuck are you thinking, Maria. She’s only eleven-years-old and—”
“I’m physically fourteen, Dad!” Gamma huffed back.
“Don’t give me that crap, young lady.”
“Why can’t I go? Maria gets to go. It’s not fair!”
For a moment I started to wonder if this was another one of those times where different realities were overlapping, like that time at the swimming hole. Ever since that day, I had worried about this happening, but the problem was you could never tell it was actually happening, could you? I mean, if reality was variable and fluid, then what was real was sort of a matter perspective at any given time, wasn’t it? Since the first day I was abducted by the fucking aliens this had been a problem for me. The only thing you can do is simply go with it, and ignore the fact that reality was changing. It’s like how you ignore the fact the planet you are on, or starship for that matter, is actually moving when you walk. It doesn’t affect your walking, does it? If your reality was constantly changing like your position in the universe, did it really make any difference?
Before I could start to object, Maria jumped in. “Don’t worry, Dad. We won’t let anything happen to Gamma, I promise. Besides, she has Mary Ann to look after her as well.”
Gamma had adopted Mary Ann as her fembot, I guess that’s what you’d call it. She was always hanging around with Mary Ann, and she would accompany Gamma when she’d leave the spaceport on one of her little adventures.
Gamma wasn’t interested in space travel with all that fancy math and physics stuff. Sure, she was learning all about it in her studies, but her real passion was life. Ever since we got Alpha she had been intrigued with all of the different forms of life there were in the universe. Having an entire planet to explore, she had decided to take it upon herself to start cataloging all of the different life forms on Hell. She had enlisted Mary Ann as her assistant, and the two of them, often in the company of Alpha, would go off on their own frequently. Mary Ann would take her around on one of the grav-shuttles and she was even teaching Gamma to fly. Mary Ann would always carry one of their stunners, which she told me would subdue the largest of predators, and she assured me that she could keep Gamma safe. After a while, I had stopped worrying about Gamma knowing that Mary Ann would not let her out of her sight. Actually, it would have been nice to have one of these fembot baby-sitters when Maria was younger.
“Ok, Maria, but if something happens to your little sister, I will kill the lot of you. You hear me?”
“Sure, Dad. But if something were to happen to her, we’d probably all be dead anyway.” Maria just had to rub it in.
“Don’t worry, Maria. If that happens, I will surely find a way to kill you a second time, trust me.” Maria simply smiled. “This isn’t some pleasure cruise ladies. Go find this planet, get us the information we need, and come right back.”
“We thought we’d go to Earth after we survey the planet and do some shopping, Dad. We’ll send you the information as soon as we have it. We don’t need to hand carry it back to you.”
“I guess there’s no point in me saying no, is there?”
All the women, except for the fembots, shook their heads.
“We’ll probably stop for a bite to eat while we're there. Do you want us to bring you something back?”
“Sure, why not.” At least I’d get some decent takeout. “I will expect a memory dump of your activities, Maria, when you get back. At least of the mission and in case you find some other trouble to get yourselves in.”
Maria rolled her eyes and said, “Whatever, Dad. We aren’t going to get in any trouble. Stop worrying so much.”
Right! Nothing to worry about, Dad. My daughters and their lady friends were just going out into a hostile area of space dressed like some modern age Power Rangers. What could possibly go wrong? At least Gamma wasn’t packing a 45 as well.
I walked the crew out to the spaceport and saw them onto the Deviant. Something about how that crew looked, and the ship’s name, made me a little uneasy. I grabbed up Gamma giving her a big hug and a kiss. I looked over at Maria with a look of warning which she simply ignored. I walked away to avoid being smashed by the gravity drive as they took off. I had a bad feeling about this, but that’s part of being a father I told myself.
◆◆◆
The girls had been gone a little over a week and we had no news from them. What was I expecting, right? Anyways, I was sitting down to dinner with my two wives, Seca, and her now husband Louis Green. Seca and Louis got married in some sort of alien ceremony that I didn’t quite understand, but they referred to each other as husband and wife, so I will too I guess. Of course, Seca saw all sorts of business opportunities to be had on Hell. Her and Prima had pretty much cornered the market for Earth imports and concessions on the Earth ship. She thought she could do the same on Hell. While Seca was making one of her many sales pitches, a call came in over my private comm channel from Ye-jun Park, Kelly’s acting head of security on Hell.
“Guerin, we have a call from one of your ladies, Ginger, I think she said was her name. Do you want me to patch it through?”
“Yes, Ye-jun.”
“Guerin, Maria asked for me to contact you if we lost track of them.” We hadn’t got to the part of their training that covered subtlety.
“What do you mean you lost track of them, Ginger?” They were supposed to stop on Trinix to pick up Trixy, could something have happened on Trinix? If so, what were they still doing on Trinix?
“After they went down to Desterio, we—”
“Wait a minute, Ginger. Where is Desterio?” I had never heard of an area called Desterio on the planet Trinix.
“It’s the planet we came to with Trixy to gather the information you requested,” Ginger responded with the usual fembot lack of emotion.
“No one was supposed to go down to the planet, Ginger. Exactly who went down to the planet?” I sort of new one person who probably went down to the planet, ignoring her father’s instructions.
“Maria, Kelly, Trixy, and Gamma.” Once again, Ginger responded as if the answer was just a simple fact, and not one that was going to make me go ballistic.
I immediately sent the call out over the Ryvius crew comm channel for all hands to report to the ship ready for action. I also sent out an alert to Steve onboard of the Discovery.
“What the fuck do you mean, Gamma is down on the planet!” That didn’t just go out over the comms. I yelled it out at the top of my lungs as I started to get up and leave the kitchen.
“What is it, Guerin?” Prima asked. It was obvious what I had just blurted out had upset her. I guess I wasn’t much subtler than Ginger had been.
I continued to head
out of the room with Prima hot on my tail. “My daughter, Maria, decided for some God-unknown reason, to go down to the planet they were just supposed to observe. Oh, and she brought Gamma with her, if you can fucking believe that one.”
I reached my room and I grabbed my go bag. I instinctively went for my 45 when I realized that Maria had taken it with her. She thought it went with her outfit or something. I grabbed an old Mac-10, chambered in .45 caliber, I had laying around instead. I tossed a half dozen magazines into my bag, checked I had enough ammo for a small war, and headed out for the spaceport.
Prima was still on my heels. “Are they alright?”
“I don’t know, Prima. According to Ginger, they’ve lost contact with them.” We exited the facility and Prima grabbed my arm as we both broke out into a trot towards the ship. When we got to the loading ramp of the ship I stopped.
“I need you to stay here, Prima.” She started to object, but I put a finger up to her lips to stop her. “You need to help coordinate things from here. Get with Ye-jun in the control center and get Roger on a channel. I already sent him the alert. Right now he’s mustering all the troops he has available. We may need them.”
“Guerin, I’m worried.”
I could tell by the look on her face that she was more than just worried. If anything were to happen to any of them, especially Gamma, Prima would be devastated. Damn it! The feeling of Déjà vu raced through me. I couldn’t help but think of Anna’s death, and how I wasn’t prepared for that when it happened either. I just hoped it was only a feeling, and not a real possibility. I tried to be reassuring, for Prima’s sake, but I’m not sure I was successful.
“Don’t worry, Prima. I’ll get them back, but we have to go now. I don’t have any time to waste. Just do as I told you, Prima. Please!”
