Path to Europa

by Garion Swann

  "So you're the reason she's leaving!" she said in a raised voice.

  "Well, not the only reason," Jenny said before Jamie had a chance to respond. He just smiled. "I'm too old to fly around on ships now, forty years as a spacer is enough for me!" Jenny thought she sounded much older than usual when she said that.

  "Nuisance," Alex said as he approached commerce control, he caught up with her when he noticed she was heading the same way he was.

  "Captain Harper," she replied in kind.

  "Commerce control?" he asked.

  "I have orders to report to Admiral Fletcher," she said, her head facing forward. She hadn't turned to face him, she was focussed on the job.

  "Dean?" he asked.

  "Mr Fletcher has asked for my presence," she replied.

  "Mine too," he said. They walked the rest of the way in silence. Eventually, they entered commerce control, it was a hub of activity, lots of freighter Captains getting work, it seemed a lot busier since he was last here. Alex spotted Dean talking with someone and made his way other to him, Nuisance walking next to him. Dean had noticed them and quickly finished his conversation and made his way to them.

  "My office," he said quickly and motioned them to follow. A few minutes later they arrived at Dean's office.

  "A shootout?" he asked quickly and with a slight frustration to both of them.

  "News travels fast," Alex said.

  "You're damn right it does," Dean said, he was clearly annoyed about the incident. "You could have compromised the mission."

  "The mission was already completed by that point, Dean," Alex argued.

  "And if you'd been captured, and they figured Nuisance worked for Trulen, the Yventi authorities could have worked it all out. Your ship had been searched! You were clearly of interest to them." Dean replied.

  "We weren't even in Yventi space when we were attacked." Alex paused and thought, "You sure found about the search pretty quick." Alex said.

  "As I said, news travels fast when it's me," Dean said, he turned to Nuisance.

  "You've been quiet," he said.

  "Everything is in my report, Sir," she said handed him a data storage device.

  "Report to your next posting, we'll catch up another time," he told her.

  "Yes, Sir," she said as she snapped to attention, turned and left.

  "I thought we'd have her a bit longer," Alex commented.

  "You needed her to investigate who sabotaged you. You've got the name, so you don't need her anymore." Dean said, apparently this was his business side, very to the point. Not like the friendly Dean, he knows so well.

  "And I wanted to find out why she was called Nuisance," Alex said.

  "I don't think anyone knows," Dean replied.

  "Any news on Dylan?" Alex asked.

  "Nothing as yet,"

  "He'll be long gone by now." Alex sighed.

  "Well, we need to talk about your next mission," Dean said motioning for Alex to sit. They both sat in the same seats as the last time they had met, Dean this time sitting up straighter than before.

  "Preferably something in the system if you have it, I've got no security or engineering chief, and my Doctor has just taken a job here, so I need something low risk at the moment." Dean thought for a moment, it didn't take him long to think of something.

  "I do have a job you can do," he enabled the projector built into the small table, it projected a map of the Trulen system, it showed all the ships currently in the system there were thousands. Most on a route to a jump point.

  "Trulen has about seventy small outposts surrounding our space, they are each manned by about fifteen people with enough provisions for about six months, we resupply them every four, and we have two due for resupply tomorrow. I'm down a resupply ship so was looking at delaying, but you could fill the gap. It's about an eight hour trip out to the first and another hour to the second.

  "Sounds alright," Alex said, he liked to idea of not needing to leave the system to complete a mission. Dean had changed his screen to a contract generator, he inputted the mission and attached Alex's ship to it. The computer automatically generated a cost and added on the premium pricing. Alex saw the figure, four hundred and fifty thousand credits. Not bad pay at all, he used to average about two hundred and eighty thousand credits a day, so this would be a nice boost. It was rare this kind of mission came up as most stations maintained their auxiliary stations with their own fleet. When they did come up, they tended to be well paid. Dean had finished the contract, and Alex skimmed it. He quickly inputted his authorisation code, then the automated system would send a notification to the Michelangelo's bridge, whoever was in command would see they'd got a contract, the cargo would already be making its way round to the part of the station where the ship was docked, and loading would begin soon. It was a very efficient and automated process, something Trulen prided itself on. Most of the manual labour was done by robotics, all the staff that were in manual labour had a choice of finding other work or bring retrained in another area of work Trulen needed. Research and development were usually was the path most took, Trulen had a considerable workforce dedicated to research and development, they were the forerunners of new technologies this half of inhabited space. Trulen reported barely any profits as they put a lot of it into R&D.

  "So you'll leave in three days after your shore leave is finished," Dean said. Alex was surprised at how much Dean knew about his ship.

  "One day you'll tell me how you know so much about my ship," Alex laughed.

  "Good Luck, Alex," Dean said with a smile. They shook hands, and Alex departed.

  Grant arrived at Jamie's Bar dead on 19:30, most the crew has turned up, the ship had gone into lockdown, so no one was onboard, the Captain didn't want anyone to miss the party. He and a few others had elected to stay sober which meant they could respond to any alerts while the ship was in lockdown. Any motion detected on board would be reported to Alex. Grant had set that system up himself, Alex was quite tolerant of grant playing with the ships system as long as it didn't affect ships performance. Grant entered the bar he nodded and smiled to most the crew he saw but made his way to the bar, his first port of call was Doctor Tamber.

  "Grant, so glad you could come." She said with her warm tone and smile. They'd had many long conversations about problems Grant was having medical or otherwise when he first joined the ship she helped him get used to being away from family. She was a bit like a mother to him, he was sad to see her go, but she had seemed like a different person since they'd first arrived at Trulen, she was ready to move on, and he respected that.

  "I got you something," he said without replying to her.

  "I told people not to!" she said in jest.

  "Well, actually it's technically yours already,"

  "What do you mean?" She said confused.

  "Here," he hadn't bothered to wrap it properly, Doctor Tamer knew what it was straight away.

  "My favourite scanner! You had it!" She said with a bit of annoyance, she had lost the scanner a week ago, not long after she first announced she was leaving the crew.

  "I needed to do something with it," he said sheepishly.

  "Hmmm" she replied still annoyed, "I've been frantically looking for this! Why Grant?" she asked.

  "Well, I've improved it! Hold it normally!" he said excitedly. Doctor Tamber held the scanner by its grip, she noticed the difference straight away.

  "Oh," what did you do?"

  "I replaced the grip, using your medical scans measurements and made it the exact fit for your hand. With that I increased the scanning range and speed, and made the display better quality," he said everything very quickly, Doctor Tamber only just kept up.

  "Grant, this is lovely, thank you." She was delighted with the gift, a lot of thought had gone into it.

  "You're welcome! Sorry I had to steal it though." He said quietly. She just smiled and put the scanner in her bag.

  "So, was her hand measurements the only ones you'd looked at?" Je
nny said rather loudly, there were several empty glasses in front of her, no surprise there Grant thought. Everyone laughed at the comment. Grant proceeded to order a round of drinks for the people that were at the bar. He didn't make too much of a display as buying a round for the whole crew would get very expensive.

  The party was well received, everyone seemed to be having a good time, Doctor Tamer was probably the most well-known crew member as she dealt with any medical issues, even the Captain didn't have as much interaction with all the members of the crew.

  Alex had arrived half an hour late as he needed to meet with Dean beforehand, but nobody seemed to bother that much, it wasn't a formal start time. The food had already been served when he arrived, it was a buffet selection put on by Jamie's Bar, all of which was for free, very kind of him. Alex said hello to some of the crew as he made his way to the bar where he could see what was left of his senior staff, Grant and Jenny. With Doctor Tamber going, Dylan betraying and Grey injured he needed to fill some positions. He hadn't given it much thought, the in-system mission would give him some time to look at it. He ordered a drink from the bar, a non-alcoholic juice. He felt a tap on his shoulder, he turned to see Doctor Tamber.

  "So, you've actually left." He said with a slight smile.

  "Yeah, have you got anyone new yet?" she asked.

  "No, I've put the advert out, we'll see what comes back." He said, he was saddened that she was leaving but struggled to make conversation with her, they hadn't had a lot of discussions over the last six years, but he considered her more than a colleague, more like a friend.

  "If you need me to vet anyone, I'd be more than happy to." She offered.

  "Yeah that would be great actually, you'll tell better than me who's bullshitting and wouldn't be able to get a splinter out." They both chuckled. "When do you start your new job?" he asked.

  "Well it was supposed to be in about two weeks, but they've asked me to start early, mainly for Grey's benefit." She replied. She could see the change in Alex's mood when she mentioned Grey. She was surprised that Alex wasn't the first to ask how he was the moment he was out of surgery.

  "He's got the best care possible then," Alex said complimenting Doctor Tamber.

  "Thank you," she said with a smile. After a few seconds of silence she continued, "I don't know what's happened between you two but I hope you solve it, you need each other."

  "He should have thought of that before getting a drug addiction," Alex snapped.

  "You know it's not that simple, Alex," she said sternly. Alex said nothing, he was still angry at Grey and anytime he thought about it he wanted to pound his fists into everything in sight. Grey was his friend and should have been able to tell him.

  "How long until he recovers," Alex asked.

  "Cell regeneration therapy for this sort of injury takes about a week, but he'll be able to walk within a couple of days. He'll need a few further days of observation and if there are no issues can probably return to light duty." She replied. Alex frowned when he heard ‘return to duty'. Doctor Tamber picked up on this immediately.

  "Alex, he is returning to duty right?" she asked cautiously.

  "Why should he?" Alex's quick response.

  "He's one of your best friends," she replied just as quick.

  "He was on drugs!" Alex said trying to suppress his raised voice, "His actions got someone killed," he whispered loudly. Doctor Tamer sighed, he was right, but the ship without Grey was undesirable, even if they clashed every so often they were an excellent team. They had learnt a lot from each other, especially since the incident that stranded them for Lady Jean to find them in the first place.

  There was a long silence which was only broken by Grant coming over to bring them a drink.

  "Captain, Doctor… drink up!" He shouted. He'd had a few drinks already.

  "I'm not drinking tonight, Grant, but thank you," Alex replied in a considerably quieter manner than Grant.

  "Oh, the ship can look after itself, let your hair down!" Grant shouted, somewhat slurred. Both Alex and Doctor Tamber were laughing at Grant, he'd never been one who could hold his drink. Grant wandered off without saying much more than a grunt, he had already downed the drink that he got for Alex, Doctor Tamber made sure she got hers before he thought to drink that too.

  The night was going well, and everyone was having a good time. Most of the crew had already said their goodbyes to Doctor Tamber, she had started to repeat herself with her goodbye messages as there were so many people to say goodbye to. She'd spent some of the evening sitting and just watching the crew, it was rare they got a chance to relax, there was a strict alcohol policy on the ship, although people could drink they couldn't have too much that they couldn't do their job. The sickbay did hold sobering pills, but Doctor Tamber didn't like using them unless it was an emergency, rapid sobering was not a pleasant process and could have some unfortunate side effects, in a few cases she knew the pills actually intoxicated the patient even more.

  She watched as the crew interacted with each other, some had hooked up and would probably regret it in the morning, although some of the more long term relationships onboard had actually started as a drunken encounter, and they were going well. She would miss this crew, they had mostly stuck together which was unusual on most ships, that was probably down to the distance they are from home and the threat from Lady Jean.

  The night was drawing to a close, and a lot of the crew had retired to the ship or a room they had booked for the night, Alex had left quite early, his excuse being he needed to allow people onto the ship as it was in lockdown. Doctor Tamber however, knew he was not comfortable in social situations where he wasn't in command of people. Eventually, the last person walked out, it was Jenny who had basically sat in the same seat drinking all night, she seemed like she'd had a good time though, this made Doctor Tamber smile. Jamie had followed Jenny to the door and made sure she was heading in the right direction, he closed the door and enabled the security seal now that everyone had left.

  "Thank you for tonight, it was very kind of you to host it." She said warmly.

  "Not a problem, it was a great evening, the crew looked like they enjoyed themselves. Some probably won't even remember it," he chuckled. "Nightcap?" he asked her moving behind the bar to pour a Gin for himself.

  "Do you have to ask?" she said, practically grinning, being around Jamie made her happier than she'd ever been before. Something about him was incredible. Jamie handed her the drink, and they clinked their glasses before both taking a sip, they looked into each other's eye and just enjoyed the moment.

  Chapter Ten

  It was three hours until the shore leave deadline was up, most of the crew were aboard and those who had stayed on the station for the time off had been trickling back onto the ship all day. Alex had been inspecting the ship for the last couple of hours, before a major launch he would inspect every room on the ship. A major launch was any launch where they would cold start the reactor, usually when the ship docked they would just idle the reactor so it wouldn't shut down, any more than a day Alex would shut it down completely so the ship would run on station power and not waste any fuel.

  He usually left the engineering inspection to Grey, but as he was in medical he thought he'd best see how the engineering crew were getting on. They made up a large chunk of the personnel onboard, it took a lot of manpower to keep the ship running. He entered engineering to alarms going off, he jumped when a particularly loud one sounded. He ran to a status display to see more warnings than he could count, it looked like a child had come in and started pressing random buttons and messed up the startup sequence.

  "Tina!" he shouted when he saw his interim Chief Engineer running past. She looked terrified when she saw him.

  "Captain!" she quickly said, "E-e-everything's under control," she said, not very convincingly.

  "Doesn't look like it!" he said failing to keep a lid on his anger.

  He ran over to the systems control panel and checked what was ha
ppening, the startup sequence had been done all wrong. He flicked switches across several panels and the engine powered down almost immediately there was a loud bang, he looked over to a console that had blown, scorch marks were all over the wall. Thankfully no one was nearby at the time, a crew member ran over to combat the fire. After a few moments, all the alarms had stopped, and all that could be heard was the fire extinguisher getting rid of the last flames from the console explosion. The engineering crew looked around, not knowing what to do.

  Alex turned to Tina who looked frightened. He sighed.

  "What happened? He asked, quietly this time.

  "I-i-i don't know Captain, I'm s-sorry." she stuttered, "We were doing the normal startup sequence, and it all just went wrong. I need to investigate. It would be much easier if Grey were here."

  "You're just going to have to do without him," Alex said, he wondered if he could help in any way. He'd only been shown, as all the senior staff had, to perform an emergency shutdown of the engine and how to check what various faults are. This allowed him to read the status displays and decide to kill the engine.

  "Get it sorted, call me before you try again!" he said and walked out, he would just be in the way and wanted to give Tina a chance to prove herself.

  Tina watched the Captain leave, she was kicking herself, of all the times for him to walk into engineering, he had to walk in when she had just messed up her first startup sequence. The Captain had asked her to take over in engineering, he had not specified whether it was temporary or permanent. She signed and pushed her hair back with her palm.

  "Right let's do this right, let's prep for another start and double check everything. Ryan, get onto the fuel injectors and unlock, Frankie I need you to open the emergency seals on the fuel tank. Deano, reroute whatever went to that console to a portable one for know, we'll need to fix that as soon as we are running.