Fireflies and Cosmos: Interstellar Spring Book 1

by J. Darris Mitchell

  You are my captain now, and I am yours to do with as you wish. I want you to understand that I understand all that… passion… is behind us, and that I will do my best to ignore such lustful memories whenever I am in your presence. It may take some time, but I am committed to respecting the Captain you have become, and will do my best to behave as one of the admirable people you have crewed.

  Respectfully and forever yours, Roman Luz Jupiter

  P.S. those flowers needed to be thinned and the swallowtails already laid clutches of eggs and will probably die in a few days. I thought that it would be better to let them appreciate your presence than die without beholding the being to whom they owe their life, much as you have given me the same opportunity. But I digress. Rest assured I will always

  From there it seemed as though something had been crossed out repeatedly. Catalina considered trying to see what Roman has worked so hard to hide, but figuring it was probably just another ruse, she crumpled up the poorly veiled love note, and threw it in the composter.

  She knew what Roman was doing, and love note or not, he was not rekindling what they once had.

  Catalina Mondragon pushed the letter from her mind, told herself Roman was only trying to relive his glory days and stood up to go to the bridge, and check on their ETA to Wholhom. It was difficult to ignore how wet her panties had become from reading the note, yet if anyone could do it, it was undoubtedly the Captain of the Artemis.

  Chapter 12

  The drop from Bubbledrive was far less remarkable that being in it. The stars didn't cease to blur like they did in old flatfilms, nor was there any whoosh or feeling of a shift of motion. All that happened was that the aurora of multicolored lights around the Artemis ceased to be, and there in the distance in front of the ship, a star burned far brighter than the others. Gliese 777 it had been named by the Earth-stuck astronomers who'd first noticed it. Now it was simply referred to as Wholhom. Few systems had more than one habitable planet orbiting a star, and people tended to care little for things they couldn't touch or stand upon. It was possible the people of Wholhom had given their star a name, as Earth's Sun was named Sol, but probably few even knew it and even fewer cared to use it.

  Catalina noticed it as happenstance. Her attention was focused on their quarry, Wholhom itself could be seen off to the port side of the star. Fin hadn't come in on the best possible distance- that would put the planet directly between them and the sun- but given the last minute readjustments, the Captain was sure Fin had calculated the best course and found that trekking in under thrusters was a quicker alternative than spiraling around the gravitational wells of the sun and planets to get a bit closer.

  'ETA?'

  '3 days Captain. It would be less, but I figured we should drop out to confirm orders, and the difference only amounts to a few hours. Actually, based on the other gas giants in orbit, I have an interesting hypothesis for how we can leave and shorten our time out of Bubble,' Fin said, but Catalina wasn't really listening. The reports were coming in, filling their databanks with information expressed in words, pictures and videos from their friends and loved ones across the inhabited sector of the galaxy, business proposals, advertisements, and digital piles of junk mail. Catalina didn't care for any of that. She only wanted a report from the Institute on their orders and the state of Epsilon-V.

  'Captain I see nothing carrying the Institute's data stamp.'

  'Their encryption often costs them speed. We should be receiving their transmission in the next hour or so.'

  'Do you want any of this other stuff?'

  'Tell Wholhom the Artemis is here and en route to bring them air, water and soil or sea in 3 days. We'll need a full briefing, a liaison, and landing clearance as close to what they perceive to be the ecological travesty important enough to abandon Epsilon-V,' Catalina took a deep breath. 'Not that last part of course Ensign.'

  'Of course Captain,' Fin said and hastily deleted a few key strokes as her round cheeks turned red beneath her pink hair.

  They needed to purchase very little on the Artemis. Equipped with the organic output of the composters, Farah and Ikamon could grow more than enough food for their meager crew. They didn't need fuel, for the bacterial fuel cells of the Artemis would be fully charged from the light of Wholhom’s sun by the time they reached Wholhom. 3D printers could make any tools they'd need an autoloom could handle clothing, and the ship had a repair bay to maintain the drones that went about its hallways fixing the ship. Few wrote letters to any of them, a life in deep space and planet hopping didn't make much for permanent contacts, though it seemed Roman had somehow gotten his forwarding address out and a few private messages appeared in the queue for him. Catalina briefly considered giving them a look, she had full rights to any information, personal or otherwise on her ship, but she forwarded them on without opening them. It wasn't really her business who Roman was talking with, even if he had spent the last few days wooing her.

  It hadn't seemed to Farah or Ikamon that that was what Roman was doing, but Catalina knew better. Roman had spent the last few days familiarizing himself with what insects the late Dr. Mercurian had collected and that the crew of the Artemis had managed to keep alive without an entomologist. He also cleaned empty cages, reorganized the data base of insects and cross-referenced Farah's biomes of plants and fungus with his new system. When he wasn't busy with that, he organized the cargo hold, inspected the central composter and generally just tidied up. While he did all this, he didn't say a word.

  'What the hell did you do to him Captain?' Farah asked, her smile wide, eyes gleaming.

  'I told him to not talk to me while we were under Bubbledrive. He followed my orders.'

  Farah had rolled her eyes, but Catalina suspected that she was impressed. As far as Catalina knew, nothing with two legs had ever gotten Roman to be quiet without having sex with him and waiting for him to fall asleep first.

  Ikamon had also approached her about Roman's behavior, though his concerns were the opposite of his wife’s issues. 'Captain, I believe Roman is not feeling well. All he does is work, he is not like his old self, you know?'

  'He's probably making up for the last year wasted,' Catalina replied.

  'Mm… eto, perhaps I can spend some R&R time with him?'

  'I see nothing wrong with that. Just keep it off the bridge.'

  Ikamon saluted and went off, but he came to her the next day, just as dejected. 'I do not understand, he still drank beer and smiled. He seemed very interested in the aquatic insects we found on Hera's Hall, but he did not say a word.'

  'At least someone on this dirt bucket knows how to follow orders.'

  Ikamon had said nothing to that, only widened his eyes and saluted.

  But Catalina knew what Roman was doing. The bastard was trying to win her over. He was trying to prove he was a new man. He knew what his letter and his butterflies would do to her, and by not speaking while he worked he was demonstrating that he could follow his captain’s orders down to the letter. He was doing his job efficiently, improving morale on the ship (Farah's emotional temperament far outweighed her husband’s as far as the overall atmosphere of the Artemis was concerned) and he was doing it all with a smile. The bastard even apologized in his letter for still thinking she was beautiful, or something along those lines. Catalina found herself regretting that she had composted the letter, and apprehensive that Roman in his new found interest in ship systems and cleanliness, might have found it in the bowels of the ship. If he did, it didn't so much as put a chip in his grin. All and all, he seemed to be a more professional, kinder and better man than the one Catalina had left behind on Bulletar for someone taller and with far larger breasts than hers. If it wasn't for one trifling detail, Catalina might have been naive enough to think he had changed. But Roman had forgotten all about Betriz. He was the same as he'd ever been. He chased a new woman on every planet he ever set foot on, and yet he was strangely patient and had always been skilled at the long game. Despite knowing all this, des
pite having seen Roman do the same thing a dozen times on the RL Carson before they got together, Catalina still found herself attracted to him. There was just something about him. Maybe it was his confidence, or his broad hairy chest. Maybe it was his undeniable though not necessarily unpleasant musk, or the way he babbled in poorly constructed naturalist poetry. Most likely though it was the way he looked at her, his eyes crawling all over her skin as they followed the eddies and flows of the lights of the Bubbledrive, that Catalina found so difficult to resist.

  'Incoming, Captain. It seems the Institute has decided to grace us with their orders,’ Fin pulled Catalina from her thoughts.

  'Watch the tone, Pilot.'

  'Aye, Captain,' Fin said.

  Catalina had full confidence that her own smirk was completely inward.

  'Captain Catalina Solaris Xao Mondragon, I am General Ecologist Boris Aprocrita,' the General Ecologist’s voice boomed from the telescreen, not butchering a single one of Catalina's multitude of names. Catalina didn't recognize the face or the name, just his rank. The man hadn't seen a lot of planets by the look of badges he sported on his coat, Catalina had more accolades than he, but his rank was of General which meant he helped oversee the entire galactic ecosystem, instead of captain a ship that merely tended to a planet at a time. Catalina saluted the video and listened with intent.

  'Wholhom is experiencing a crisis we expect the Artemis is best equipped to solve. It seems the chief crop of Wholhom, Arachis hypogaea, is experiencing unexpected and terminal failure and has been for a few standards. The colonists will not likely survive the volatile climate of the planet without it. Thank you for your prompt handling of this task. Your acquisition and demotion of Ensign Roman Luz Jupiter is noted. Once complete on Wholhom you will bring him to Earth-1 for debriefing. That will be all. We all must grow for the Charter,' The General Ecologist said.

  'The Charter grows because of us.' Captain Catalina replied and saluted.

  With that, the screen went back to view of Wholhom and its sun twinkling in the distance, having grown in size not at all since they saw it but a few seconds ago.

  'Captain? Is that it?'

  'Pilot?'

  'Is there not an encoded message of some kind? A secret mission?' Fin asked.

  'No Fin.'

  Fin furrowed her brow. 'Captain, why didn't he mention what is happening Epsilon-V?'

  'It is unlikely General Ecologist Apocrita is familiar with the particulars of every mission ever run on every ship.'

  Fin laughed, a single big loud guffaw, but when the Captain said nothing, she turned to face her with a look of horror. 'Captain, is there something I don't understand? Why are we being demoted for some bunk mission helping farmers on a planet with safe but bland life that's been surveyed before, and why do they want to debrief Jupiter and not us? Epsilon-V was the craziest place I’ve ever seen!' Something dawned on Fin and her face lit up. She straightened her hunch and smiled at the Captain. 'Captain, forgive my ignorance. I heard crops and failed to realize the possible significance.'

  'What are you talking about?'

  'Captain, I have a confession. I maybe lied on my resume.'

  'Maybe?'

  'I sort of exaggerated some things I did, not lied exactly. I would've told you sooner but it's just I had to make sure you'd keep me on the ship, and respect me for the skills that I had and that you needed and not the skills you thought you needed.'

  'You've more than proven your abilities to handle the Artemis, and I didn't believe for a second you could do all those maneuvers you listed anyway.'

  'No, Captain. I did those maneuvers, set the textbook vid for some of them too.'

  'Then what on Earth-1 are you blabbering about?' Catalina said, wiping the grin off of Fin's face.

  'I didn't get straight A's in ecology sir. I can tell the bugs mostly, I mean I know what a butterfly is, the fish are easy and the molluscs are pretty different, but I uh… I don't know my plants Captain. I had to beg the professor to pass me. What is uh…,' Fin took a deep breathe,' Arachis hypogaea?'

  Catalina sighed, she knew her whip-crack pilot had been too good to be true, at least the poor thing had pronounced the Latin correctly.

  'Peanuts Fin, they want us to help farm peanuts.'

  Chapter 13

  Dr. La'Shay Winston had never seen an O-class ship until the Artemis entered the orbit of Wholhom. She watched through the polished lenses of a locally made telescope, admiring the graceful curves of the organic starship. The long thin prow and massive half circle that Winston knew comprised the living library that made the O-class ships so famous, resembled an arrow notched into a bow, but as it adjusted in flight, La'Shay Winston saw it was a far more seductive craft than that. Large flanges, invisible from below, gave a feminine and feline cast to the silhouette of the ship, like a cat's haunches tightly coiled and ready to strike. With an almost invisible puff of jets, the long prow on the front of the ship detached, like an arrow firing from a bow, then broke into pieces that descended into Wholhom’s atmosphere.

  Ships on Wholhom had none of its grace. Most were boxy freighters, few even capable of interstellar travel. Wholhom was one of the closest outer planets or furthest inner planets, depending on one’s perspective. It had a healthy ecological system, complete with soil bacteria, algae, fungus, and a fair amount of grasses and annual wildflowers. The briny sea was populated, and Wholhom was even lucky enough to have honeybees. All in all, it probably would have been considered an inner planet if it had been settled but a few years earlier, and if Dr. La'Shay Winston hadn't needed to call the Institute to save her people from starvation.

  Dr. Winston tried to hold her head high as the shuttle of the Artemis completed its landing sequence. A large hatch opened on the underside of the vessel and out she came, the near legendary Captain Catalina Solaris Xao Mondragon. Only once had she failed the Charter, countless other times she had solved problems where no one else could, where it had seemed the only viable option was to give up on the ecology of an entire planet for life inside a Corporate burbdome. La'Shay prayed that the Captain and her crew would be able to help Wholhom as she had helped so many other planets.

  Captain Mondragon marched towards La'Shay, her gait even crisper than her perfect uniform. Her badges of honor, arranged on her breast in perfect rows twinkled in the blueish light of Wholhom's sun. She was shorter than La’Shay had pictured but was as perfectly groomed as her reputation. La'Shay immediately regretted not wearing a clean lab coat. She made little time to clean her white coveralls, and for the Wholhom farming community, grit was respect. Dr. Winston was respected by some of the gruffer farmers instead of only tolerated because they knew that she wasn't afraid to collect her own samples and she knew her way around an Ultra-Reaper. Of course La'Shay couldn't expect the captain of a worlds-renowned O-class ship from the Institute to follow the same code of conduct. Her heart dropped further when she saw the crew of the Artemis emerge behind the Captain. None of them carried the same prestige as Captain Mondragon, but La'Shay hoped to learn much from Farah Relkor, and had arranged for Julia Tartren to escort the enigmatic Ikamon to Wholhom's salty seas to glean what knowledge she could from the marine biologist. La'Shay had to remove her glasses and clean them when she saw the third member of the crew. She had expected to see Dr. Patrick Mercurian, an entomologist nearly as renowned as Captain Mondragon, but instead of the geriatric doctor a brute of a man walked towards her. La'Shay put her glasses back on and saw his uniform, though just as clean as the others, only carried the rank of Ensign, and had no badges of honor to add to his credibility. Of the four of them, only the Ensign smiled, a wide roguish grin that shone out beneath his strong nose. La'Shay might have found him attractive if it wasn't for the hair sprouting from his neck and knuckles.

  'We all must grow for the Charter,' La’Shay saluted.

  'The Charter grows because of us,' Captain Mondragon saluted back. 'I take it you are the planet's botanist, Dr. La'Shay Winston?'

 
; 'Yes Captain Mondragon, and may I just say it is an honor to meet you. I have followed your career through the comms and I wanted to say how excited I was when I heard that you got the Artemis and the crew you selected. I mean Dr. Relkor and Mr. Ikamon are legends in their own right and Dr. Mercurian-'

  'Is no longer with us,' Captain Mondragon interrupted.

  La'Shay felt her confidence slip. She only hoped she appeared to have the Captain's resolve. 'I had hoped your crew and Dr. Mercurian could help us,' she removed her glasses and polished them absent-mindedly on her labcoat, ‘we have a beetle problem and our planetary entomologist is a specialist in honeybees. The best in the inhabited sector in fact, but he’s the first to admit he doesn’t know much else. Because of the early reports on the health of Wholhom, the Institute didn’t see a reason to send people that could be better needed elsewhere. I have learned much about how to care for this world, but we had hoped that Dr. Mercurian and Dr. Relkor could-‘

  Again Captain Mondragon cut her off. 'You will find the talents of our entomologist more than adequate for farming peanuts. Now, if you would kindly dispense with the pleasantries we need to get down to business. Every minute wasted on Wholhom is a minute not spent investigating Epsilon-V and what has happened to the eminent doctor.'

  'I- I'm sorry?' La'Shay said.

  'Surely you watch the holos? Dr. Mercurian is dead.’ Farah Relkor said. If she noticed what the harshness of her words did to La'Shay, she did not betray it. 'Patrick died on Epsilon-V months ago. We were en route there when the Institute sent us here because you weren't handling your end of the Charter. Wholhom's initial surveys indicated that this planet had a good variety of life and most of your flora has adapted well to the spectrum of your sun. Rumor is you even have honeybees. Should be a walk in the park to farm here. What happened?'