approached. Mendez straightened up, forcing his eyes to open wider and appear more alert. He didn’t much care for the old man, especially after watching him berate his workers the entire time they had been on board.
Marcus was wide awake, and was happily gnawing away on something that resembled a small, ugly carrot. “Past your bedtime, boy?”
“Just wish I had some coffee,” Marcus muttered.
“What’s coffee?”
“A hot beverage that helps keep you awake.”
“Well go get yourself some. We ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
“Can’t. We ran out.”
“Too bad. You say it keeps you awake?”
“Yeah.”
“Here.” Marcus pulled another of the strange looking tubers from his pocket and tossed it to Mendez. “Munch on that awhile.”
Mendez barely managed to catch the tuber as it struck his chest. “What is it?”
“Just think of it as coffee on a stick,” Marcus laughed. “You can thank me later,” he added as he returned to his work.
Mendez held the scraggly looking tuber up in front of his face. On closer inspection, it didn’t appear to be a tuber at all. It was actually a small twig covered with a densely compacted collection of gelatinous drops, mostly colored pale oranges and yellows. He sniffed it but found no noticeable aroma. He tried pinching one of the drops but found it was firmer than it looked. He pulled one of them off, and after inspection, decided to give it a try. It was crunchy, the texture reminiscent of a peanut. It had a rather bitter taste to it, which although tolerable was not pleasant. Having survived the first taste, he repeated the process until he had devoured nearly half the stick.
A few moments later, Mendez found himself up and walking around, unable to sit still with his new-found energy coursing through his veins. He looked at Marcus as he passed by, nodding his thanks. Marcus smiled and laughed. “Don’t eat too much! You’ll be climbing the walls!”
“This little ship is amazing,” Vladimir said. Nathan hadn’t seen his friend so excited since he first learned of the jump drive the special projects team had installed on board the Aurora. He stood at the doorway of the barn in which the ship was housed. It was smaller than he had thought, only about twenty meters long and maybe ten meters wide at the most. It resembled an old flying wing design and looked like a stretched out, flattened triangle, with two massive engine pods sitting on its wings on either side of the cigar-shaped fuselage that only protruded slightly ahead of the main wing shape. The cockpit canopy was only a slight protrusion sticking up from the fuselage with view ports cut into its front and sides.
Nathan followed Vladimir up the boarding ladder to the cockpit. From ground level, Nathan had only seen the top of one flight seat, but once he made it to the top of the ladder, he could see that there was a second seat tucked in behind the first.
“There is so much packed into this little ship,” Vladimir explained. “Energy and projectile weapons, reflective and ablative shielding, anti-gravity lift systems, inertial dampeners.” Vladimir had to stop to catch his breath. “Nathan, it even has limited FTL capabilities.”
“This ship has FTL?”
“Yes. But even without the FTL, it can still outrun the Aurora’s sub-light drive.”
“What kind of propulsion system does it use?”
“The reactors are fusion. That much I know. But the main propulsion systems-I have no idea.”
“Doesn’t Danik know?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe he does, maybe not. I do not fully understand everything he says as yet,” Vladimir admitted.
Nathan wondered if Danik was as difficult to get information out of as Jalea had been. It would make sense, with both of them being from the same organization. It might be doctrine not to reveal too much information. It certainly was Jessica’s preferred method of operation. And it was a skill Nathan had yet to master.
Nathan stepped back down the ladder, backing away from the ship as he stepped back onto the dirt. The ship had several impact marks where it had obviously been struck with weapons fire. There was also charring around the nearest engine pod, probably from an internal fire. “And you think this thing is still space-worthy?”
“Yes, I am almost certain of this.”
“You think the technology on this little ship would be of value to us?”
“The compact nature of her FTL systems alone would be of great value. Maybe not to us, but definitely to the Fleet.”
“I wonder if Tug would be willing to sell it to us?”
“Oh, Nathan,” Vladimir drooled. “Do not tease me.”
Nathan entered the small bunkhouse behind the main house. It was a simple building of wood, clay, and rock construction similar to the others. The floor, although it looked like dirt, was fused solid and smooth in a way that Nathan had never seen. There were ten modest beds of wood-frame construction, a pair on each side of the main entrance, with six more along the back wall. Each bed was covered with a heavy woven-cloth blanket.
Nathan entered the bunkhouse, turning to his right to head toward what he hoped was a door to the bathroom at the far end. The room was lit with softly glowing pale-white lighting panels above the head of each bed, casting a soft and relaxing glow in semi-circles around them. There were larger, overhead lighting panels spread across the beamed-ceiling of the room, however these were not lit.
The room appeared relaxing and comfortable, despite its overall rustic nature, and Nathan looked forward to getting some rest after a long and somewhat emotionally exhausting day. He came to the end of the room and reached out to take hold of the doorknob to what he assumed was the bathroom door, when it suddenly swung open away from him, startling him.
“Oh, Nathan,” Jalea said, a bit surprised herself. “I didn’t realize anyone else was here yet.”
Nathan stepped back out of surprise. Jalea had removed much of her outer clothing and was dressed only in a tight-fitting body suit that was rolled down to a few centimeters below her navel and an old, worn undershirt that covered most of her upper torso. Nathan had always been captivated by Jalea’s eyes. In fact, their effect on him had caused him to question his own decisions to place trust in her from time to time. As she had always been dressed in loosely fitted clothing, he had not noticed her voluptuous figure until now.
“Excuse me, I didn’t mean to intrude,” Nathan apologized. For some reason, he was embarrassed, despite the fact that she was still fully dressed. Nathan turned and stepped over to the nearest bed, taking off his cloak and dropping it on the bed.
Jalea moved past him, turning down the bed next to his. Nathan watched her out of the corner of his eye. The skin on her lower back was the same olive complexion as her face. She was not like most of the women he had known. For the last four years, Nathan had only dated classmates from the Fleet academy. Most of them had been the athletic type, all toned and muscled from the hours of intense physical training that they were subjected to during their time on campus. This woman was softer, more curvaceous than he could ever remember seeing.
“Tug seems like a good man,” Nathan said, trying to distract himself from Jalea’s ample charms.
Jalea climbed into her bed, “Yes, he is that.” She pulled her blanket just up to her hips, making no effort to cover herself as she lay on her side facing him. “I believe he found your tales of Earth quite interesting,” she told him as she propped her head up on one hand, her elbow against the bed. “As did I.” She looked at him a long moment as he removed his jumpsuit, stripping down to just his standard-issue uniform pants and Fleet undershirt. “You seem to know a great deal of Earth history. Are all your people so knowledgeable?”
“It was my major,” he explained, realizing that she probably wouldn’t know what he meant. “It was my area of focus during my formal education.”
“A rather fortunate coincidence, as you have become an emissary for your world.”
“Yes, I suppose it is.”
“Did your engineer find Tug’s ship interesting?”
“Very much so,” Nathan told her. “Actually, I was thinking of asking Tug if he would be willing to part with it.”
“I doubt that would be the case,” she assured him.
