most of the way and put on some lipstick and eye liner.
“You mean Minh, everyone on the bridge calls him Minh.”
“I like Ronin. Find anything else out about him?”
“I'm Chief of security.”
“Yeah, so?”
“I can't use that information for personal reasons.”
“Oh come on! If you can't get the goods on your crew mates what good is being Chief? Besides, I have to know who I'm flying with.”
“Good point. You have the access, why don't you look him up?”
“He might check his Crewcast logs and see that I've been looking at him.”
Stephanie rolled her eyes. “You know you're not in high school anymore, right?”
“I never went. Is this what it's like?”
“Rampant insecurity and raging hormones? Yup.”
“I thought that was pregnancy.”
“Nope that's morning sickness, swollen feet, constant trips to the bathroom and raging hormones.”
“Right, gotcha,” Ashley followed Stephanie to the lift, waving at a group of pilots just coming in from being on standby for the last shift. “So, you and Frost?”
“He was over last night. Bugger refuses to take the foot medical grew for him. He won't take anything our new Chief of Medical made for him because she's nafalli. I told him she just started the whole process, that humans took care of the rest because she can only put in half shifts but he won't listen.”
“Oh, so you two are back together.”
Stephanie gave Ashley a wilting look as the lift doors closed. “He was over last night.”
“Oh, all night? Okay, I guess that's back together. He doesn't know about you and Captain?”
“No, and he won't. It's just not worth the grief.”
“I'd tell him. If it's meant to be he'll just go blow off steam and come back. Besides, you were kind of on a break.”
“Not really.”
“Well, he pissed you off.”
“That's not any kind of reason to-” the lift doors opened to admit three maintenance members laden with tools and a cart with spare parts. “well, it's not a good enough reason.”
“True.” Ashley nodded. “Just trying to be on your side.”
They were silent until they arrived on the command deck. It was obvious that important things were about to happen. The hustle and bustle of people moving between communications, conference rooms, flight control and the bridge was intense. They strode across the dark decked concourse and through the officer's observation lounges automatic double doors.
There were only a few seats left, the rest were filled with command deck personnel who were organizing transmission packets and having a bite before their shifts began. The pair looked around and spotted a small two seated table beside the transparent outer hull. On their way to their seats they stopped at a materializer where Ashley ordered a tall, steamy blended coffee and a morning meal bar for them both.
The blue topped, glossy table for two reflected the dim light shed by the asteroid field outside. Black, grey and white; the expansive, quickly rotating field of stone and ice stretched well out of sight. Some kind of gravitational source had directed it to settle into a thin, circular shape.
The light reflected towards them was from a distant dwarf star. Observation areas that faced the rear of the ship would have a clear view of it and the shadow of the planet nearest as it crossed in front every three hours.
Ashley sipped from the safety cup and sighed. “I can't believe the blends Ayan programmed into the fabber. I've never seen a hazel nut, but it's like she reinvented coffee.”
“I can't believe they call materializers 'fabbers' on Earth,” Stephanie smirked.
“It's a lot easier to say than; 'materializer' or 'energy to matter fabricator' like some people do. It's catching on too, I even heard Captain say it yesterday.” Ashley brought up the social display on her thin, five centimetre wide comm unit.
“Thirty eight messages?” Stephanie boggled. “You weren't kidding when you said you were starting to get popular.”
“There are what, three thousand people on the ship? I'd have to be a hermit not to have a few.”
“I think I got four yesterday, one was from Laura, another from March and the other two were people who were trying to apply for security positions. I've had to cut several of my security people's access to Crewcast off during their shifts. People are obsessed. I don't see the point, really. If I wanted to hang out with crew members I'd rather do it face to face.”
“Aw, don't be bitter. You'll have more than you can handle before you know it. I can see why you'd have a harder time getting to know people on the ship though, you are the head of security. People just have to notice you're not a buzz kill. Oh, and what did March want?”
“To give me crap for revoking his certifications. I told him that if he cheated on his qualifiers then there's no way he's getting out of grade one maintenance.”
“Oh, so that's where they put him.”
“Yup, he's carting equipment around, hauling refuse to mass converters and cleaning the last few unexplored parts of the ship. Captain assigned him the rank of Crewman's Mate.”
Ashley chuckled to herself. “I thought Crewman was the lowest rank. Serves him right for nearly blowing us up over Sheffield. Hope he likes being a maintenance monkey, I don't think he'll be getting promoted.”
“I thought you'd like that. He's still pissed though, and he's hanging out with Shamus now.”
“That's gotta be awkward.”
“He wants Shamus to set him up with you.”
“Hell no. Not in a billion, trillion, frivillion years.”
“I don't think frivillion is a proper measure of time,” Agameg said from behind Ashley.
“Just made it up. It means as long as anyone has ever imagined plus a day.” Ashley grinned up at him. “Steal a chair and have a seat.”
Agameg did just that and sat down with his chocolaty breakfast drink. “Finn is finishing the last trial of the wormhole transmission systems before the first burst transmission, he says hello.”
“I know, he sent me a message. I guess he didn't sleep last night.”
“He said he couldn't. When he found out Ayan wasn't going to take over the permanent installation of our stolen wormhole generator and hypertransmitter he started taking things much more seriously. He doesn't blame her, not with her and Laura working on enhancing the engine rebuild that's set to start as soon as we find a safe port.”
“Like he wasn't taking that thing seriously before? I don't think there's anyone who understands it better.”
“You may be right. Working with Chief Grady he even managed to get the micro fusion cells working with the rest of the ship, increasing our power output twenty percent while leaving enough independent cells inside the wormhole generator so it can power itself in an emergency.”
“I love having an escape route,” Ashley said. “I'm going to have to thank Finn after he gets a couple days sleep.”
“How are the repairs on the bridge coming?” Stephanie asked.
“They're finished. Ayan seems to know how to motivate people while maintaining good relations. Frankly I've never seen any ship so busy but people seem to be happy following her and Chief Grady.”
“Wow, that only took what, four days?”
“Three and a half. Everyone has already transferred there. It's like nothing happened only the ready quarters have been moved. They're on top of the bridge now.”
Ashley checked Alice's status and frowned.
“No change?” Stephanie asked, finishing the last bite of her breakfast bar.
“No, she's still out. Says here she might need some kind of synaptic therapy.”
“You can see that?” Agameg asked. “I was only able to see her basic status on Crewcast.”
