Path to Europa

by Garion Swann

  "Okay," Grant said still looking down at his tablet, "Check your tags you should get a notification to vote." Lots tones were going off at once as everyone's tags alerted them to the vote. All the crew were issued with the device when they started, and they had to keep it on them at all times, they were connected to the ship's computer, some thought it was over the top, but the system came in very handy. It offered to track if required, which would allow lost crewmembers to be found easily. The device itself was linked to the biosignature of the owner, and the system would know if it was away from its owner.

  Alex checked his comms when it beeped, and it had a question on it,

  ‘Do you think the Michelangelo should do the upcoming mission explained by the Captain?'

  Alex clicked the button that said Yes and waited for the results, some crew had pressed a button straight away, others were discussing it amongst themselves. Eventually, all the crew had voted, and Grant passed his pad to the Captain. Alex viewed the results and was happy, it had gone better than expected.

  "Of the fifty-two crew who voted, forty-six said they were happy to go ahead with the mission, which is a vast majority so we will complete the mission. Thank you." He made sure to thank the crew. "Those who voted no, if you do not wish to join us for the mission I can activate the clause in your contracts that will terminate them without any strings attached. You'll be dropped off at either the Trulen station or the next station we visit, it's up to you.

  "You're kidding me right?" Dylan said standing up suddenly. Alex looked at him, his facial expression wanting Dylan to elaborate, "You're going ahead with this, what sort of an idiot are you?"

  "The crew voted yes to this mission, so we're doing it," Alex said staying seated, "I guess you voted no?" Grant asked.

  "Yes, of course, I did, this is a suicide mission, this would never happen in the fleet."

  "Well, this isn't the fleet!" Alex replied raising his voice, "The fleet has a nice big pot of money, the fleet has the resources to repair their ships at will, we don't. We have to scrape by and survive!"

  "You're a terrible Captain, Alex, face it," Dyan replied harshly. "I'll be leaving this excuse for a ship, I give you two days at most!" Dylan stormed out of the room, Alex motioned for one of the security personnel to escort Dylan off the ship.

  "Anyone else who wishes to leave you may do so, please let the XO know," Alex started to walk out of the canteen then turned.

  "Congratulations to Jenny Glover on becoming the Michelangelo's new XO." Alex left and headed to his office, he needed to make a call.

  Chapter Three

  Jenny was walking from the canteen after the vote, her new status as XO had quickly sunk in, she had not expected it to happen at all. She knew it could have happened at any time as she was the Second Officer. If the XO were incapacitated, she would take their place. Being XO meant she had an office and would not be in the pilot's seat as much, well actually if she was in charge of crew shifts then she could be, she smiled at that thought. Jenny had voted yes to the mission, it was not the most dangerous mission she'd done, so she was okay with it, she was used to being in a small fighter with only a thin layer of transparent material between her and death. When she was in training, the master she trained with always used to link everything to the worst case scenario, most commonly it was death. It would teach the students to respect how close they are to danger, it would make them more careful. A couple of students didn't appreciate death, so the instructors set them up to get as close to death as possible by making it seem like they were being ejected into space during a training exercise and let them get close to death they'd managed to simulate the effects of being in space without a suit. It was scary to watch, but it taught the two students a valuable lesson, and they went onto become the best pair of pilots Jenny had ever known. Jenny got to the XO office and walked in, Dylan kept it sparse, and it looked like he had already been in and cleared his stuff. She'd never liked Dylan he was a cantankerous ex-military snob who should have been thrown off the ship years ago. Jenny sighed and sat down she opened the console that was at the desk and found it was blank, she was confused. A screen to login as herself should be there, it was just blank as if there was no software on it at all. She opened her comms device and found Grant's comm.

  "Second Overlord Jenny," came Grant's voice, "What can I do for you?"

  "Second Overlord?" She asked.

  "Well Alex is the first Overlord, and now you're the second," he said.

  "You have a wondrous mind Grant, you really do." Jenny replied, "Anyway, Dylan's computer is blank, I can't get to the login."

  "Oh, let's see now," he said, a minute or so went by, and he replied, "He's completely wiped it, the bugger! He'd only do that if he were hiding something. I'll need to talk to the Captain, don't use it for now." Grant cut the comm without giving Jenny a chance to respond.

  "Lovely," she said to herself. She decided to head to the bridge and use the XO's console there.

  Alex was sitting in his office, he had tried to call Dean Fletcher but he was busy so left a message to call back, Alex was sort of looking forward to the covert mission, he thought how much of a risk it was and where risk-taking had gotten him last time. Getting the premium rates that Dean had spoken of was an opportunity he could not pass up; it meant he'd get a larger share of the profit from each trading run he did on behalf of Trulen. The usual rate was about four per cent. Although not much compared to what Trulen would make, it was still a considerable amount of money. The premium rate would be around six or seven per cent, making the mission even more profitable. Alex started doing some maths on some previous jobs he had done for Europa and how much extra he would've got with premium rates. He was startled when the chime to his office went off.

  "Come in," he shouted. Grey walked in holding a pad. Without saying anything he handed Alex the pad, he took it noting the worry on Grey's face. Alex looked down at the pad and saw the reason for Grey's concern. The report stated that a panel on board had been rigged to overload the ship's power systems, Grey had managed to disarm it which was reassuring.

  "Who did this?" Alex asked.

  "Engineer Jameson replaced the panel recently, but I don't think he noticed that it was rigged."

  "Worth questioning though?"

  "Yes, but we don't have anyone qualified to investigate,"

  Alex's screen lit up - there was an incoming communication from Trulen station.

  "I'm working on getting someone, leave this with me, I need to take this." He said motioning to the screen. "Thanks, Grey," Alex turned to his screen, and after Grey left he answered the call, it was Dean.

  "Alex! How're you doing?"

  "Good, the crew is happy doing the mission,"

  "Brilliant, I guess you'll be going as soon as your repairs are complete," Dean asked.

  "Yes, should be within twenty-four hours. Dean, can I ask a favour?"

  "Shoot,"

  "Does Trulen have any spare security chiefs I could borrow? Preferably with investigatory skills?"

  "Problems?" Dean asked, concerned.

  "Nothing major," Alex responded, a slight lie if a saboteur was still aboard.

  "I have someone, one of our ships had a run in with an asteroid and needs repairs, it will take a while as they damaged the main structure of the ship, it was nearly not worth repairing! The crew will be reassigned I can pinch someone for you."

  "Thank you, experienced?"

  "One of our best actually, always looking for new adventures, and she's good on covert missions."

  "Sounds great, thank you, Dean. This is more than I could have asked for, the mission the better rates and security chief, I feel like royalty."

  "Anything for an old friend!" Dean said with a smile.

  "How about a brand new colossus trade ship and several squadrons of fighters?" Alex asked in jest. Dean laughed.

  "Even Trulen doesn't have a couple of billion credits lying around to buy a third Colossus!" He chuckled. "Alex, I've g
ot another meeting to go into, give me a call when you're launching. I've sent the orders for your new security chief to make her way to your ship. This is only temporary by the way."

  "Understood, much appreciated, Dean." Dean smiled, and his face disappeared from the screen. Alex saw a notification pop up from Dean, it contained a profile of the new security chief. Before he could read it, his door chimed once again.

  "Come in," the door parted to reveal Grant.

  "Captain," Grant said.

  "Grant, how're you doing?"

  "Concerned, Captain, Jenny attempted to use Dylan's computer but it was completely wiped, we don't normally do that we just normally remove an old user's profile when they leave, we never wipe unless there's an issue. Dylan wiped it himself."

  "That is concerning, but we have someone who's going to look into everything that's happened, the sabotage, this wipe, and the rigged panel Grey found."

  "Rigged panel?" Grant asked.

  "Yeah, Grey managed to disarm before it did anything."

  "So, who's dealing with it? Grant said. Alex had not looked at the profile yet.

  "Let's see," he said opening the file, "Nuisance,"

  "Come again?" Grant said, moving to the other side of the Captain's desk to get a better view of the pad.

  "That's her name, Nuisance, no surname, just that. Interesting." Alex said, he skimmed the profile seeing lots of qualifications and experience. Impressive at the age of thirty-four.

  "I want you to work closely with Nuisance, she's a neutral party, and I want her to have access to stuff she needs to investigate what's happened."

  "You got it, let's hope she figures it out," Grant said, reading the profile for himself.

  "Aye, let's hope." he agreed.

  *

  "How goes the repairs?" Grey looked up as the Captain entered engineering and asked.

  "Complete, about 4 hours ago!" Grey replied.

  "Oh, so we're good to go?" Alex asked.

  "No, I want to inspect this ship, I'm not drifting through space again. Hence the extra 18 hours added to the repair time."

  "Ahh fair enough, should've told me that, Trulen thinks we were going to leave as soon as they finished repairs," Alex said, slightly annoyed but he understood and agreed with the time Grey added on.

  Grey was frustrated, he'd taken on the complete inspection himself, relieving the rest of the engineering crew. He didn't trust everyone so he couldn't trust anyone to do the inspection.

  "You're gonna have an investigator poking around, Trulen has given us a good security chief, and she has investigatory skills. Her name is Nuisance so make her welcome, and let her look round, you can escort her if you need."

  "Nuisance, that's a strange name, she cute?" Grey asked with a sly smile.

  "She is probably going to be the most highly qualified person on board, and the first question you ask is how cute she is? What is wrong with you?" Alex replied, he didn't like relationships onboard, and he also didn't like Grey commenting on every female aboard by their level of cuteness. He knew Grey had been in various promiscuous relationships aboard and had warned him about it, the less tension aboard the better. Alex wasn't the best when it came to relationships, he was nervous and shy, he never put himself out there. He'd been in one serious relationship aboard Europa, but that ended after his promotion to Senior Commerce Manager, Amber, his girlfriend, had moved to a new part of the station with him, but she missed where she used to live. She lost the life she had and got a new one, they ended on good terms and Alex has been alone ever since. As Captain, it would be inappropriate to enter into a relationship with one of the crew. One of his traders on Europa had lost a majority of his crew after they decided they could not trust him. He had a relationship with one of the crew, it was a long-term relationship, and they were even talking of marriage. He decided to get very drunk one night, and an affair started with another crew member, they were found out and most the crew decided they could not trust the Captain so left. Alex had been lost in his own thoughts and realised Grey had moved to another part of engineering. Alex followed him, he was inspecting the ship subsection by subsection.

  "Gis' a hand with this would ya?" Grey asked. Alex complied and helped lower a large panel off of the wall, they lowered it to the floor and Grey began his inspection.

  "So what do you think of this mission?" Alex asked. He hadn't had much chance to speak to Grey since the vote.

  "Where the ship goes I go, I couldn't care less about the mission, as long as you allow me to do my job and we don't do anything stupid I'm all good," Grey replied without looking up from the power conduit he was focused on.

  "So you don't think it's a stupid idea?" Alex asked. He had started to lean against the bulkhead.

  "Short term pain, long-term gain, sounds like a good plan to me." Grey was a very blunt person and would always speak his mind regardless of the situation. It was convenient most of the time but could sometimes prove extremely annoying.

  "That's my thinking, we'll probably get bored when we finally get back to normal trading," Alex said with a slight chuckle.

  "It would certainly make my life a lot easier!" Grey said quickly. Alex knew he was distracting him from his work, so he decided to end it there.

  "Cheers Grey, let me know how it goes," Alex said, he turned and headed for the door. The thought of regular trading stayed with him as he walked through the halls. It would be strange going back to it, although the fear of Lady Jean catching up with them would always be there, the protection from Trulen would be comforting, but they wouldn't be there all the time.

  "All hands, this is the Captain, prepare for undocking procedures," Alex ordered from his seat on the bridge. Grey's inspection had finished, and he'd given the go-ahead to start the engines, the cloaked sensor buoys had been hidden away ready to be dropped in the nebula.

  Alex opened his communications screen and called Dean.

  "Alex, all good to go?" Dean asked as soon as he answered.

  "Aye, we'll be leaving in the next few minutes," Alex replied.

  "Good luck and thank you," Dean said before cutting the comm. Alex checked through the final reports that declared the ship ready for spaceflight, the repairs had gone well, and he was happy to sign it off. The station had done an excellent job, the ship was in perfect condition, and all damage had been repaired.

  The bridge doors opened to reveal a woman, she was average height with dark hair tied back in a bun, she wore a jumpsuit which had focused heavily on practicality. She had a sidearm holstered on her hip. She walked over to where to Captain was sitting.

  "Security Chief Nuisance reporting in for duty, Sir," she said as she snapped to attention.

  "Ahh Nuisance, welcome aboard, this is a relaxed ship so no need for standing to attention," Alex said, he always had trouble getting the military used to his more relaxed command style.

  "Yes, Captain, where do you need me," she asked.

  "Let's have a talk in my office." he replied, "Jenny, please get us started and head to the next station."

  "Aye Captain" she replied, not moving from the pilot's seat, he often left Dylan to do tasks like getting the ship going, he may as well do the same for Jenny.

  "Engineering, begin routing power to thrusters," she began.

  Alex left the bridge with Nuisance in tow and led the way to his office.

  "Please have a seat," he said while entering. They both took their seats at opposite sides of Alex's desk. Nuisance held an excellent posture, almost perfect.

  "Please forgive me for getting straight to the point but there's something urgent I need you to look into so thank you for accepting the request from Dean.

  "I go where the Admiral tells me, but you're welcome I suppose," Nuisance said.

  "The Admiral?" Alex asked.

  "Admiral Fletcher," she said looking confused.

  "He's an Admiral?" Alex asked surprised.

  "Yes, Trulen combined the administration side of its military and mercha
nt fleets."

  "Ah, interesting. He didn't mention that." Alex realised that it was no longer just a favour he was doing, it was basically a military contract.

  "Anyway," he said putting that thought in the back of his mind for later, "We've had issues aboard the ship with sabotage, and we need to find the culprit, I'd like you to investigate this from scratch, you will have full access to what you need. I've compiled all the information I've got for you. If you can make this your priority that would be a massive help."

  "Of course, Captain. I'll get right on it. What about other responsibilities that fall to the security chief?" Nuisance asked.

  "We've lasted without a security chief for a while now, we can handle a bit more," Alex said. He looked out the window of his office to see the ship start to move, he always found it strange as it seemed like the station was moving as the inertial dampeners stopped them feeling the ship move.

  "And we're off," Alex said, "Have you been briefed on our mission?"

  "Yes, the Admiral briefed me." Nuisance said, her tone was professional, and she seemed focused if she is as good as Dean said she was he'd be delighted to have her aboard.

  "How much freedom do I get, Captain?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Can I question crew at my own free will?" Nuisance asked. This took Alex a moment to think, it would be a severe morale dampener if the crew started being accused and questioned.

  "Keep it covert for now, Unless it is absolutely necessary, as in, a danger to the ship, then don't hold or question anyone," Alex ordered.

  "Understood, I'll get right on it. Do I have a workspace?"

  "Deck three, section four is a security office and a small brig that will be your workspace, you've been assigned quarters near there as well," Alex replied after quickly reading the notes Jenny had sent him. She was performing the XO duties very well.