<===^===>
Not only did the crew manufacture supplies and equipment for the hospital, they had even fabricated a full prefabricated building. Once it was all down they worked with the locals for the ideal site in the city. It was leveled and then the pieces were put together. It took a few days to get used to the project, but once they borrowed a crane it went together smoothly.
The building was four stories tall and shaped like an H laying on its back. Each of the wings would serve a different purpose. Utilities were run to the hospital, but Faith had provided solar panels and a backup generator for it just in case.
The site had been carefully selected on high ground to keep the foundation away from any potential flooding or other natural disasters. Local construction crews were hired to help with construction and to pave around the building.
While the project hit its stride other crews worked on other projects. Io 11 engineers worked with the local mayor to improve the space port and local industry before they left. They also provided Soline with the latest teaching materials, solar panels, tablets, a central computer net, and petabytes of books for her school. The woman was floored by the gift, it was a treasure beyond measure to a teacher.
When asked how all this was possible, they told stories of the admiral. The stories amused and intrigued some of the natives. They became even more interested when the crew showed them how far they had come with the ship's restoration. That got other people on the planet excited.
“Look the admiral up in Pyrax. He's there now, just on the other side of your jump point North. If you write to him he might send you some packages to help things along like he did us.”
The Captain allowed the crew shore leave once she was certain it was safe. To her amusement and annoyance they brought in two waifs. “More trouble,” she grumbled, looking from the two small children to her granddaughter and the doctor.
“Gram, they needed help,” her granddaughter said.
“And on their own homeworld they can get it,” the old woman said, eying the pair. “Related?”
“Twins,” Emily, the XO and chief of ship's security said, kneeling next to them. “One boy, one girl,” she said, looking over her shoulder. Both were filthy, heads down, covered in rags. They held hands however.
“Age?” the Captain asked, trying hard not to sigh.
“Eight?” Emily said, frowning.
“We're twelve,” the girl said softly.”
“Twelve?” Emily asked in disbelief, appalled. The kids were barely a meter tall and were incredibly thin despite the drooping rags. Rage filled her, rage that anyone would allow that to happen.
“Incan if I'm right about the phenotype,” the doctor said. She frowned and then knelt. “They won't get much bigger without a proper diet. They won't get much older either,” she said to the Captain. She turned to the kids. “Hi. I'm a doctor. Can you two tell me if you are in any pain?”
“Just hungry,” the girl whispered. Her stomach growled.
“Do you have parents?”
“No. They died.”
“And what? You've been living on the streets?” the Captain asked. Both nodded. “Do you want to go to space?”
“Please we're hungry. We'll do whatever you want,” the girl said.
“Local authorities?” the Captain asked in concern. The kids cowered, suddenly terrified.
“A pair of waifs usually fear people in authority Captain. They may have been chased off or mistreated,” the doctor said, looking over her shoulder to the Captain. “If they're telling the truth I'm willing to take them on.”
“Adopt them? Don't you have enough trouble?” Emily asked.
“Well, I suppose you can help,” the doctor said, smiling at Emily.
The XO snorted then her eyes widened when she saw the challenge in the doctor's smile. “Wait, you were serious?” she demanded.
The Captain chuckled, making her look back over her shoulder to her. “She's right. You want them, then they're equally your responsibility. But I think this time we'll check with the local authorities just in case.”
“Great,” Emily said, rolling her eyes. Her grandmother handed each child a piece of candy she kept in her pocket. The kids unwrapped each and devoured them. The Captain chuckled. “Already spoiling their appetite eh gram?” She demanded.
“Just doing what comes naturally to a grandmother,” the Captain cackled, moving off. “I suggest food and a bath. Not necessarily in that order,” she said. “And they are NOT coming up on my shuttle until they get the latter,” she said firmly.
<===^===>
Mindy's mother Clarissa, chief of medicine on the ship impregnated Jennie while in transit to Halced 6. It would be three months there, hopefully she would be over any morning sickness when she entered the second trimester. That was if the procedure took, it was their first on the ship.
Shandra was there for the implantation. “This means you're stuck on the ship until you pop,” Shandra teased. “No going out EVA or playing around with anything radioactive while my bun is in your oven lady,” she said, patting Jennie's tummy. Jennie made a face and stuck her tongue out at her partner. “I'll have me some of that,” Shandra said, leaning over to French kiss her partner.
“Mom, are you sure this is going to work?” Mindy asked, looking at Jennie.
“The synthetic biology papers all say so. It's just a matter of fusing one X gene from each parent and then inserting them into the nucleus of an embryo. We've done that silly, it's already subdividing,” she said, holding up the syringe with the embryo floating within.
“Wow!” Mindy said, eyes wide. “So, you really are an Oma,” she said, looking at Shandra.
“Not yet but I'm looking forward to being one,” Shandra said with a smile. She kept her eyes on her partner as the doctor finished the procedure. Shandra stroked Jennie's face, eyes locked together.
“Ahem, it's done,” Clarissa said. “So you can get your legs out of the stirrups and go back to duty or whatever,” she said, waving her free hand as she checked over the notes on a tablet.
“Really? That's it? I feel robbed,” Jennie said, smirking. Shandra chuckled.
“You'll be singing quite a different tune when the morning sickness kicks in,” Clarissa said, smirking.
“Yeah, so not looking forward to that,” Jennie said. “I still don't see why I'm the mother and you get to stay all trim,” she grumbled, pulling her legs out of the stirrups and then setting her bare feet down on the cold floor.
“Because my dear, I get sick and it effects the entire ship. There are only so many helmsman to go around. Whereas with you,” Shandra smirked as her partner went to get changed behind a screen. “Spoil sport,” she teased. Jennie turned and stuck her tongue out at her once more. Mindy snickered.
“Where as you my dear are one of a couple of hundred engineers. Easily replaceable. I bet if we threw a rock they'd multiply all by themselves,” Shandra said, winking at the teenage nurse and her mother.
“More than likely they'd build a catapult and throw the rock back,” Clarissa replied absently.
Jennie came out dressed in her uniform and poked Shandra. “Agreed. Okay, I'm ready. Time to get back to work,” she said, smiling. “Am I glowing yet?”
“I don't know, I don't know if we got that gene sequence right,” Mindy said thoughtfully. All three women turned to her. She shrugged and then turned away. “We'll see won't we?”
“She didn't.”
“She better not of,” Clarissa growled. They heard Mindy giggling. Clarissa shook her head and waved the two out.
Halced 6:
With holds half full they settled into Halced orbit and opened their radio net to begin trading. They were met with surly responses to their overtures to trade for their new manufactured goods. The locals preferred to keep from becoming too dependent on passing traders. They wanted to make do with what they had as much as possible.
The planet had been settled by a corporation that had been into ge
netic engineering projects. It had been an off shoot of Lagroose industries at one point, which had settled Eden in the Pyrax system. Their ancestors had reverse engineered dinosaurs and had populated the planet with them once it had been terraformed ages ago.
Dinosaurs and other resurrected or constructed species were sometimes spectacular failures on some worlds, but on Halced 6 the civilian authorities had taken a more conservative approach with management. Geneticists had engineered mammoths and other Ice age animals for cold polar climates, but also racing dinosaurs to create a sporting interest in the sector. Therapods had been created as racers only, not generic mounts for public use. Also Skybax fliers had been engineered for air racing, and water dinos for water racing.
Before the great fall the population had used nanites and neural implants to connect to the beasts. Some had organic computers that were passed down through generations. Most went wild after the fall. Some of the domestic dinosaurs remained, they were bred and used as transport as well as for running mail. In the past century as the hand to mouth situation had finally relaxed the population had brought back old racing tracks and raced.
The crew went to the track and watched a relay race. It was a complex affair, the natives had to pass through hoops in the air and on the ground, each transition they had to pass a baton to the next on ground or in air, and then finally water. Mindy and Dorah Dita cheered wildly when the polka dotted dinosaur team they had fallen in love with won.
Faith picked up six new crew members. For the first time none were human female, two were young men, one was a Gashg botanist, and three were Veraxin. One of the men had been practically shanghaied by his lover, a member of the engineering crew. She had put quite an effort into seducing him into coming on board. Faith had talked the Captain into allowing it, if they hadn't the young woman and her lesbian lover had made it clear they would both leave the ship. That had opened the flood gates for the others to join the ship's company. It would be a new experience for the crew. Since most of the new members were dirt siders not spacers, a new experience for them as well. “There's no telling where this may lead,” the Captain said, watching Prudence lead her reluctant male lover down the boarding ramp of the shuttle and into the boat bay. They were met by Evilan who gave Prue a deep kiss, then turned and kissed Troy. The girls were all over the young man, making a few of the watching girls giggle, and a few simper in jealousy.
“That's enough of that, this is a ship not a love boat. Take it to your quarters,” the Captain called gruffly.
“We intend to Skipper,” Prue said, grinning as she kept hold of Troy. The Captain snorted as Evilan felt the young lad up, making him squirm and both girls giggle. Then they goosed him into motion. He was getting a bit flustered as they passed, Evilan's attention and naughty whispers had him bent over a bit. The other girls giggled at his expense.
“It's soo big!” One girl tittered after the trio had left the compartment.
“I heard Prue had to use those metal cuff things to convince him to come. She...” She stopped and cupped a hand to her friend and whispered something naughty.
The girl stared, stepping back, wide eyed and slack jawed. “No way!”
The other girl nodded in earnest.
“And he didn't pee in her mouth or anything?”
“No. But it took hours and hours to get him to agree. All without letting him cum.”
“Not once? Torture??”
“From what I heard he enjoyed it. Or at least stopped complaining... um.. oh hi Captain!” the girl said brightly, blushing scarlet in embarrassment. “I um, didn't see you there,” she said.
“Carry on with your duties young ladies. Leave gossip for later,” the Captain said gruffly. Both girls nodded and scampered off.
“Oh boy. Hope that lad can handle what's ahead of him. I've got a lot of horny girls apparently,” the Captain murmured. Faith snickered at her side.
<===^===>
When it came time to leave they did a roll call and came up one engineering rating short. They had lost one crew member, she had gone on ground side liberty the first day and hadn't been seen since.
The Captain refused to leave orbit until the young woman had been found. The local authorities had refused to help, so the XO took a security detail down to do a search. They located her through her Ident implants. They found her body in a back alley, she had been mugged and stripped naked by the homeless in the area. “Grams, from the look of her she's been dead since the day we arrived.”
“Very well,” the Captain said as the crew got over their shock and began to mourn. “Bring her home,” she said gruffly.
The young woman's body was given full honors and a spacer's burial. Her quarters were reassigned to two of the new crew.
“As it always is, new life begins, and an old ends,” the Captain murmured as they broke orbit for the New Haven jump point.
“You said something Captain?” Faith asked softly. The Captain waved her off.
New Haven:
When they arrived in New Haven orbit they were unsettled when they found out the high price for fuel. It was so exorbitantly high the Captain agreed to let Faith, Jennie, and her engineers build a gas giant refinery. Jennie however couldn't go EVA so she was stuck overseeing the operation from the inside.
The star system had a double belt, easy to pick rocks. It also had a moon in orbit of the planet New Haven. The cargo crew took their shore leave on planet while the engineers went to work. Some grumbled about the split, but they knew it was important.
Since the ship didn't buy as much fuel, the crew was amused by the puzzled reaction on the ground. “What's going on?” Shandra asked, confused. She'd come a long way as a hyper pilot, she'd grown in confidence as chief helmswoman on the ship. She made an incredible team with Lessa. She missed Jennie though, her partner was stuck on the ship, very much pregnant and very much busy with the refinery project. She'd come down to escape Jennie's grumbling about swollen feet and aching belly. She was going to have twins, something they hadn't anticipated. Apparently more than one embryo had been inserted. Clarissa had neglected to tell them that.
Still, the girls looked good on the ultrasound, and Clarissa had reported that they had passed all their tests with flying colors. Now they had to wait while the twins put on weight and then repositioned themselves for re-entry.
“It's...” Vanessa the Purser closed her eyes. The puzzled reaction was starting to turn to rancor from the natives. They didn't need the animosity. “It's like this. It's called economics.”
“I know what economics are,” Shandra said, wrinkling her nose.
“Right well, we carry a balance of trade where ever we go. What we buy, what we sell, and the services we perform. Before we didn't do many services. The balance for the rest was almost even. Sometimes we made a profit, sometimes not. We can't survive for long if we don't of course.”
“Okay, following so far,” Shandra said as the other spacers gathered around. She frowned, looking around then shrugged. The negative climate was starting to affect the spacers, they were clumping together for mutual support. That was a natural reaction. “Well, when we come, we buy fuel, food, water, clothes, along with goods to trade at our next stop, or the stop down the line.”
“Following so far.”
“So think about it. The admiral interjected a few things that broke up that system. We have replicators now, which can recycle most of our food and waste. We have supplies we've taken on from raw material, you know asteroids?”
Shandra nodded. “And that's bad? Somehow I'd think it would be good!”
“For us,” the Purser said. “But we're not trading for those things down here now. At least not much, normally just the food and drink we want that is fresh, or food, lodging, and drinks for the crew when they are on liberty.”
“Ah.”
“So, the local economy isn't getting the credits. And the biggest credits come from the fuel we bought. Fuel and water. Take that out of the economy and everyth
ing goes out of kilter.”
“Ah,” Shandra said, now warily watching a pair of locals talking. “So, without us getting taken by the fuel people we are hurting them. And they don't like it.”
“We're not playing by the rules,” a woman said.
“Well too bad!” a spacer said angrily. “They've been hurting us by raising the prices!”
“And those credits go into the pockets and into the local economy,” Vanessa said, sighing. “I handed out the packages the admiral asked us to do, that's gotten us some short good will, but I know it's not enough. Just information isn't enough, people need to see results. They need to see, to touch things, not just read it on a spread sheet,” she said.
“Barter. Balance of trade,” Shandra said. She looked around, seeing the sea of angry natives. “Why don't we talk about this in the hotel,” she murmured, using her hands to guide them away.
“Yeah,” another woman said, not looking happy and doing her best not to look around. “I so don't like the look of the people around us now,” she said softly.
That got the Purser and other girls nervous. Quickly they moved their discussion to the hotel by the space port. “We have to do something,” Shandra said. “Fix it. Or the next time we come...”
“I'm more worried about the people we've got abroad,” Vanessa said. “I think I need to call the Captain.”
<===^===>
The Captain wasn't happy about the price gouging but she bought some fuel when Vanessa insisted they needed a face saving gesture. “All right, fine, but only a couple tons to get over their pride,” she grumbled.
Since they weren't buying in bulk the water works attempted to charge them the same price for ten tons as they would for an entire load. Vanessa balked at that. She met with the local waterman and the Mayor who was trying to portray himself in the role of a neutral arbiter. She of course knew better, the locals were in it together to try to fleece the ship for as much as they could get away with.
“Look, I'll tell it to you straight. You're prices are too high.”
13 Degrees of Separation Page 5
