“Yes sir.”
The hallway had settled and he picked his way through carefully, looking at the meter wide indentation where the second mine had gone off. Chief Grady's not going to be happy about that, he thought to himself as he looked down the hall where the secondary explosion had occurred.
The blueprints marked the room at the end as the transmitter hub and he scanned the way to it thoroughly. Before moving ahead he looked the other way, and found what he was looking for. There was a proximity trigger pointing at the door from the other end of the hall. If he had stepped inside it may have triggered an explosive somewhere else. He estimated the mechanical eye's field of vision and moved down the hall, pressed against one side so it wouldn't detect him.
Holding his sidearm at the ready he activated the door control. The secure forty centimetre thick door slid to the side in a quarter second. A woman in a sealed vacsuit was working at a terminal inside. It looked like one of the crew Regent Galactic assigned to Wheeler. She entered the send command before Jake could do anything and turned to face him with her hands up. There was a proximity bomb right between them.
“It's too bad you didn't let the Minister take over Captain. He could have shown you the way into trust, into salvation from the guardians of Eden.” she said, he could hear her smiling behind that vacsuit mask.
“No one has to die here. If you have the code for that mine-”
“I don't. If either of us move any closer to it that will be the end.”
“I can promise you fair treatment and safe delivery to the nearest port. All you have to do is show me what you sent,” Jake said in a soothing voice.
“I know what you do to your enemies, Captain.”
“I've never broken my word, you can get out of this, whatever it is with your skin intact.”
“It's too late for that.” She shook her head slowly. “The West Keepers know all about their shiny black pawn. They've been very interested in what you've been up to, even though you're such a small thing to them.”
“Take your time, explain it to me.” Jake invited calmly as he worked to think of any peaceful conclusion to the situation. Whatever information she had been sending had to have been important.
“You really don't know, do you? The new plague approaches and you're just like everyone else. Oblivious, attached to your material things and the need for wealth, power.” The young woman pulled her headpiece off. Her long white hair fell down her shoulders, and she was positively radiant, beaming with a broad grin. “Enjoy these final days Captain. My death in service sends my spirit to the garden, to the promised territory of the confessed and reformed.” she said in celebration as she stood and leapt towards the proximity mine.
Jake barely had time to duck and cover himself with his long coat. Even through the armour it and his vacsuit provided, he was rocked by the explosion hard. After a moment he looked up and saw very little of her was left, the explosion had caught her fully.
The Morning After
Frost woke in a still unfamiliar but comfortable bed and didn't want to move. The morning before he roused from a deep sleep and didn't want to get up either. The mattresses adjusted to the user, the sheets and over blankets were as porous, light or heavy as they had to be. They would also seal around someone if the room were to suddenly decompress, providing a couple of days worth of air and water using a hidden recycler so the crew member would be safe until they were rescued. No more sleepin' in my vacsuit, he thought to himself with a smile. How someone could determine how heavy a blanket had to be was a mystery to him, but as he rolled himself more firmly into it he didn't much care how it was accomplished, he just didn't want to leave.
At first when he found out they wouldn't be going back to the Samson he was a little disappointed. On that ship, whether he was First Officer or not, he was a specialist. No one could run some of those systems quite as well as he could, especially the maxjack. He had decided not to mention how bent and crooked it had become since the Captain used it. Some criticisms weren't worth the trouble. If he had to go out with the whole maintenance staff to recalibrate and repair the system of arms, cutting tools and everything else and it took a couple of days, the Captain would hear about it. That would be as much a complaint as he'd need.
“Requires a certain finesse. Have ta' treat her a little like yer own arms, aye.” he leisurely muttered to himself with regard to using the maxjack.
“What's that?” Called someone from the bathroom. “Talking in your sleep again?” she snickered.
He sat straight up, still wrapped in the sheets. What have ye done now Shamus? he thought to himself, alarmed. Memories from the night before ended at the bar. They had started experimenting with drinks from the materializers as the night went on. His head didn't hurt at all, but he knew he had been seriously inebriated. If my head doesn't hurt now that means I was drinkin' somethin' that cured that particular ailment in advance. And that means we got into drinkin' somethin' engineered, some non-alcoholic brew that had another kind o' kick.
He looked around and realized that he couldn't see anything personal other than his vacsuit and gun belt laying across a chair in the corner of the bedroom. Frost quietly got out of bed and cinched the sheet around his waist. It looked like he was in his quarters, but he couldn't be certain. There was a good chance he was in rooms that looked exactly the same since few people had had a chance to put their own personal touches on anything. He hadn't even had a chance to move his footlocker up from the Samson.
He quietly rushed from the bedroom to the common room and looked out into the hallway as the door opened. To his relief, he was in his own quarters, not on some previously unseen deck on the ship. Now ta figure out who spent the night.
He started turning back towards his quarters but noticed Stephanie come around the corner and immediately avert her eyes. He checked his sheet, found it in place and decided to make a show of it, leaning leisurely against the door jamb and stretching. “G'mornin'.”
“Morning. In case you haven't noticed, you're out of uniform,” Stephanie commented, blushing.
“Aye, but we're not due for another hour or two and my kit's covered.”
He felt slender arms wrap about his middle and the woman from the night before pressed up against his back. She wasn't wearing anything from what he could tell. “Good morning Steph.”
“Good morning, Grace,” she said with a tight smile. “No way do you deserve that. ” Stephanie told Frost with a wry grin.
“Oh, I just thought I'd help him home then didn't want to travel the three decks to my own quarters. Lucky him,” Grace explained.
“See you two later,” Stephanie shook her head as she walked on.
Frost backed away from the door and turned towards Grace. “Guess we skipped over that first date,” He said as he pulled her closer. She was a beautiful woman, a little taller than him, but her long, shapely body felt like a luxury.
“Well, I think we had it, even if it was impromptu and I can't remember it. Judging from how we woke up it probably went well.”
He had been through a few forgotten evenings before, so he wasn't in unfamiliar territory. Best to press right on through it an' see if there's any mornin' magic, Frost thought as he smiled at her. “I lay down with the finest woman on the ship after months of bein' all alone an' I don't remember a second of it. My luck's mixed, that's a fact.”
“Wanna make a memory?” Grace asked against his lips.
They kissed and, to their collective relief, it felt familiar. What the mind forgot, the body often remembered. How designer beverages manipulated the memories of the inebriated was often strange and selective.
She stepped out of his arms, turned and started swaggering back to the bedroom. He watched for a moment then chased after her, tickling her all the way back to bed as she laughed, squealed and squirmed.
Why did I say that? It's true, Frost definitely doesn't deserve that, Grace is beautiful in a sort of fashion model way and I've seen how almost every head turns when she goes by. I don't even remember how that happened, how they got bunked up last night, Stephanie thought as she walked towards the bridge.
Why does this bother me? I tease Frost all the time, but that comment was meant to hurt, she considered with a sigh. Her disappointment and frustration was a surprise and she was sure he could see it. I got absolutely
