Part of it was also influenced by strong laws that people put in place to make industries comply with those efforts. Industries were required to have their Chief Executive Officers and other high up officers live at or on the sites where their factories were located, usually downwind or downstream. Having themselves and their families among the first to be exposed to any harmful effects from the discharges went a long way towards making them take immediate and drastic action to reduce the discharges and come up with products that used the discharges. Because of that effort, there were lots of people proud and happy to live near industrial sites if only because those sites were among the safest and cleanest on Earth. The industries benefitted greatly because of their efforts. Environmentalists quit opposing them when they wanted to build new plants at new locations because of the cleaner air and water the plants discharged into the environment.
It created more jobs as an environmental industry grew up and prospered. It provided only the finest equipment to factories, and eventually to small businesses and homes, for keeping the environment clean. With its development, joblessness went down to some of the lowest levels ever seen.
Meanwhile, accumulated knowledge concerning ecological balance was applied to each discovered planet. There was no spoilage, to speak of, to their natural environments. Now, man came and retained the natural beauty of each planet, except where cities were built. Even then the discharges from those were carefully regulated and cleaned. Of course, people hadn't solved all the problems. We still didn't treat ourselves better at times, but that was usually an individual choice and not the result of unfair laws.
***
I went into the water with the grace and ease I picked up in the Academy. It wasn't enough to be able to move through the countryside silently and skillfully. One had to know how to do the same in the water. That was also taught at the Academy during the first half-year. A cadet had to be able to approach a goal either way, as silently and quickly as possible. The academy had good instructors who taught the necessary skills for doing those things. Each of the instructors had been to other worlds. Some had been in the very situations they taught the cadets to handle. The Sarge was one of those instructors and, for some unknown reason, he and I had become more than just instructor and student. He was more like a personal mentor and friend. Each time I found myself doing some of these things, I could visualize him telling and showing me how to do what he was instructing. Now most of those actions came naturally to me. I practiced them even when it wasn't necessary.
I still remember the exercise when we had to wear small metal jingly bells and sneak up on our goal without being heard or seen. It was one of the hardest exercises we ever faced even though it was one of the simplest. More than a few cadets spent time retaking that exercise in order to do it right. I had to go through it twice to pass. Others had to go through it as many as five times to pass. But, now I could walk around with a pocketful of metal objects and there wouldn't be the slightest sound coming from me.
In later courses, some of us reminded ourselves about sound and light discipline by putting one of those jingly bells next to the communications microphone and light switches. Of course, some cadet graduates, from what I had seen thus far in the Navy, hadn't learned the lessons of maintaining sound and light discipline at the proper times.
I swam about enjoying the water for almost an hour and then picked up my clothing and shoulder pack to walk back to the ship where I could put on my other change of clothes as others were already doing. As Captain, I no longer had to do my own laundry, but I still did it myself most of the time. To me, it was only appropriate to allow it to be done for me when I was extremely busy. If I had time, I would do it myself, if only because it helped me to rub shoulders with the rest of the crew and remain aware of what their concerns were.
Majel caught up to me a moment later, also carrying her clothing and shoulder pack in her hands. "I can do your clothing for you with mine."
"Oh, I don't mind doing my own. It keeps me in touch with reality," I replied.
She said, "Okay, but if you change your mind, just let me know. It's really no problem to throw your clothing in at the same time."
I replied, "Thanks. I'll remember that."
"Do you have a boy or girlfriend?" she asked suddenly.
I was totally unprepared for the change in topic. I looked at her for a moment to see if I could discern any reason in her face for her question. I couldn't see anything about her that might be a tipoff as to her reason for inquiring. I answered, "Not really. I've gone on a few dates in the last few years just before the war, but nothing since. I guess I've been more concerned with putting my career together. Any particular reason for your question?"
She answered, "Just curiosity. You seem to be awfully involved with what you're doing. I wondered if you had a personal life and how you handled it for my own educational benefit. I was hoping to get some advice from you on how to keep the two separate. Since I hadn't seen any pictures of anyone in your cabin, I knew that I'd have to ask."
I replied, "Well, there's no one right now in my personal life. It's not that I haven't met anyone whom I would like to have a long term commitment with, but that I've been dedicating myself to getting started. After all, I'm still young and ninety is still a long way off before I have to retire. So, I guess I'm not the one who can give you that kind of advice. You have someone in mind?"
She said, "Not yet, but it's been something that I thought I should start thinking about. Either I'm going to make a career in the Navy or get married or something. Of course, I might decide to do several things. I just wondered if you had any knowledge of the pitfalls to avoid."
I replied, "Absolutely nothing more than what they said at the Academy during the first year. Keep your relationships friendly and loosely held so that each person has enough freedom to expand."
"That was wise advice," she said. "I followed that one while at the Academy and, of course, used an implant. Then when my first boyfriend washed out, I was able to go on instead of sulking and flunking out. He seemed to follow it too, because he didn't ask me to give up my position in the Academy when he washed out. I didn't find anyone quite like him the rest of the time, although I still enjoyed sex occasionally. How about yourself? Did you indulge yourself while at the academy?"
I answered, "Uh, no. I was trying to keep my mind on my studies and learn enough discipline to handle more than one task at a time."
"You seem to have learned that discipline pretty well," she replied.
I said, "Well, thanks. I still have to work at it sometimes, but it comes easier now."
She stated, "You could have fooled me about that. I thought you had that part mastered. You sure seem to know everything about the ship and crew. Do you have to spend a lot of time doing that?"
I replied, "Not really. It's just a matter of doing it right the first time. That and a little refresher occasionally so it's fairly easy to keep up with. The hardest part now is making the decisions. It seems that more and more, now, I'm learning that the smallest of decisions can have a great impact on someone living or dying."
"Really?" she asked.
I said, "Quite so. Whether I have my breakfast on time or not can influence whether I make a correct decision at a later time."
"Well, I suppose so. Have you made any wrong decisions?" she asked.
I said, "I'm not sure. That's the absolute worst part of it. Not knowing in some cases whether a decision is right or not. Some decisions continue to haunt me later when there's no way of changing them. I wonder if zigging instead of zagging would have ended in a better or safer result. But there's no way to know a lot of times."
"You sound as if you could use some sympathy or consolation. I could come to your cabin later if you like," she said.
I looked at her face and felt a bit threatened by what she was proposing. Right then, I didn't need any conflict of duty. It was going to be difficult to tell her no because I could see everything she had
to offer and her body offered a lot. I'm sure I could have accepted her offer because she was my First Officer and we worked closely anyway. It wasn't uncommon either for affairs to occur, either in the Academy or the Navy, but I wasn't ready for one. However, my position in the Navy was tenuous at best. It might not be an offense or admissible in a later court proceeding that I had an affair or even a one-night stand with my First Officer, or anyone else in my ship for that matter. However, it could be used to show that I wasn't paying attention to my duties if something went wrong. Had she asked to share my bed back at our home port, I'm sure I would have accepted. Many of those affairs and one-night stands occurred there. I answered, "Thank you for the offer, especially since you are so tempting to me, but I feel that I must decline for now."
The look of disappointment was clearly visible in her face as we reached the ship where she let me enter first because of my rank. I went to my cabin and right to bed instead of putting on the change of clothing since I usually slept naked anyway.
***
The work continued to progress over the next couple of weeks. The water tanks were finished. Our efforts were concentrated on the structural frame, steering, and engines of the ship. We weren't filling up the water tanks yet because none of us, least of all myself, wanted to put any additional stress on the frame. The amount of water to be added could have easily made it bend. The more we thought about that, the more we realized we had been lucky to lose most of the water before we landed.
Everyone continued to get drinking water and bathe at the lake. It was a nightly ritual for the crew to go to the lake in two shifts. One shift remained on guard and did a few other tasks while the other shift enjoyed themselves for an hour getting themselves and their clothing clean.
***
The engines were easily fixed since they weren't that badly damaged or loosened. The steering was the next easiest, but the frame continued to elude our best efforts. We threw everything we knew at solving the problem. The best solution we could come up with was to reinforce the two damaged beams with logs. That solution worried the pilots who would have to steer the ship through the atmosphere. They weren't concerned with the weight, but the aerodynamics. The weight of the logs we thought of using was in no way as much as what was lost from that area of the ship. They weighed far less, but their placement would create aerodynamic disturbances that would compound the steering.
I finally resolved that debate by stating, "Okay, we'll use the logs, but we're also going to have to return to port. We won't take any risks unless we're spotted and have to fight. That means we'll have to be satisfied with what we've accomplished so far. We're not even going to attempt to do a flyover of the aliens three hundred kilometers away to destroy their ship, even if it looks like they'll be able to get back off the ground. We're also going to fill the water tanks only halfway. That should give us an additional margin of safety for lift off. Any questions or comments?"
I looked around. There were a lot of disappointed faces on the officers and crew members as they realized that we were going to end the mission. I wasn't really aware why they were so disappointed, either. They weren't worried about the mission so much as they were concerned about what would happen to me. It hadn't occurred to me that everyone was that concerned about me, although I had received an inordinate amount of offers of sex during the last few weeks. I actually had to ask one woman to leave my cabin when I walked in and found her naked and waiting in my bed for me.
***
Work resumed on the frame to put the logs into place. It was finished in only a couple of days. It wasn't a pretty sight, but the work was done well. The logs were tightly in place and fit up against the frame almost like a glove on each side of both beams. We used logs that reached from one exposed bulkhead to the next so that the entire beam was protected. There wasn't any of the two beams showing except on the edges. The cables we used were tightly stretched and cut into the wood slightly. However, the sleeves we made to keep the cables from cutting through the wood entirely were holding up. The cables themselves were kept from making large bulges that would cause additional steering problems themselves.
When that was finished, all the pilots inspected the work and made their estimates of how the steering would be affected. They accepted the work based on the fact that they knew they only had to make a single take off and, perhaps, one landing. As well, they were aware that we might have to go through some evasive maneuvers in space, but that part of the risks didn't worry them at all. In space, the shape was largely unimportant. It wouldn't affect the maneuverability as long as the frame continued to hold up and the engines were capable of being used fully.
Once the pilots accepted the repair, everyone worked at carrying water to fill the water tanks halfway. With what we had to carry water, it looked like we would be taking off in a week or less. Despite the lighter gravity, the water we carried seemed heavier than it was. The trail to the lake from the ship was easy to see since there was a continuous stream of mud after the first day where water had sloshed about and spilled a little from each container onto the ground.
By the second day, the muddy trail was a little wider and slippery, even though everyone was wearing non-skids. After all, non-skids were meant to be used on surfaces where the slippery portion was usually very thin or very hard, such as ice. They wasn't anything at all non-skid about our non-skids when it came to thick, slippery mud by the end of the second day.
The third day saw us making a slight change in our path after a few personnel went slipping and sliding in the mud to land on their asses or faces to the amusement of most everyone else. Shirley managed to get some images of the unlucky participants of the Mud Follies, as we called it. We voted that night on who did the most spectacular dive into the mud. I thought Frank did the best job, despite the fact that he was among the most agile and balanced individuals on the ship. But he only came in second. He was beat out by Jean, another pilot, who also had a superb sense of balance no matter where or how she was positioned. We didn't have the time or materials to make up a plaque for Jean, but the image was preserved anyway to be used, we hoped, when we got back to port.
The fourth day saw us nearing our goal of filling the water tanks halfway.
Chapter 11
The morning of the fifth day, the roaring sound was picked up almost as soon as the sensors went off. I heard the sensors first and knew instinctively what it meant. The aliens had taken off. They were probably going to try to take us out. Then the roaring sound came to my ears, followed a split second later by the four gunners on duty blasting away at the alien craft as it passed overhead firing down at us.
The ship shook. I knew we had been hit. Then there was the sound of an explosion some distance off. I knew that the aliens wouldn't be leaving after all. There was only one sound like that and that was when a Mark III quad hit its target in an atmosphere.
Already, our ship was tilting. I rushed out of my cabin, not because I was afraid of dying, but to find and see what the damage was specifically. It was a moment later, as I reached my cabin door, still naked, that I heard and felt the rumbling of the ground as the alien ship plowed into the ground not far away.
I got outside the ship and looked at it. The hit had been at one of the worst places possible. Namely, the aliens managed to hit right where we had repaired the frame. The logs around one beam had been shattered and knocked away from the beam. Without that support, the weight of the ship and the hit on the beam itself combined to finish breaking the beam so that the ship was now tilted and placing additional stress on the remaining beams. Only the nearness of the scaffolding was preventing the ship from tilting any further and breaking the ship in two.
Slowly I realized that I was being joined by others, most in the same state of undress and some in only their mesh undies. They were staring at the same damage and wondering if we could repair it. It certainly looked bad. We would have to raise one portion of the ship somehow to return the ship to some state of balanc
e for launching. That was a necessity or we would crash if we tried to lift off. As I looked around at the others, I could see a lot of depression and tears in their eyes. They had worked hard. We were so close to leaving, even if we were ending the mission. At the same time, there were a few people who actually seemed cheery about the damage and that confused me. One of them was my First Officer.
"Okay, let's all go about getting dressed and then get breakfast. We've got work to do soon and we all need to prepare ourselves if we're going to succeed," I announced to get everyone back into a positive frame of mind. The damage appeared insurmountable, but I was sure we had enough brainpower to solve the problem even though it might take us a couple of months. At any rate, I wasn't going to let any of my people give up yet.
I walked back into the ship, certain that my weight and movement inside wouldn't add to the damage since the scaffolding was doing its job. I went to my cabin, unaware at first that I was being followed until I actually reached my cabin and my First Officer stopped at the door.
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