“Major Kobayashi,” Blake answered.
“He’s good,” Kal added. “I’m also sending Mariana Ramsey with them.”
“Nice,” Catie said. She really liked Mariana after the time she spent with her in Guatemala, the time before, not the one during Basic.
“These meetings are going to get a bit more complex when we have to sync them up between our various locations,” Marc said. “It’s eleven hours between Nice and Delphi City, and who knows what it is between Delphi City and Artemis.”
“Artemis has a 26.5-hour day,” ADI piped in. “The colony site is currently three hours ahead of Delphi City. It also has a 330-day year, using Artemis days.”
“Oh, this is going to get complex,” Blake moaned.
“That’s only because we have the quantum relays,” Catie said. “Otherwise, we’d just have to do a simple reference, it’s real-time syncing that makes it so hard.”
“Are you going to stick with a seven-day week?” Catie asked.
“Yes, that and twelve months. I haven’t decided how to name the months,” Marc said. “Should we keep the names used here on Earth or make up new ones?”
“You don’t just want to number them?” Catie asked.
“People like names better than numbers,” Samantha said. “If we don’t name them, someone will.”
“Hmm, I’ll try and think up some names,” Catie mused.
“Moving on, Fred, how has your first month as President of MacKenzies been?” Marc asked.
“Pretty sweet,” Fred said. “I’ve been invited to join three other boards. I’m making a trip to Hawaii to attend a conference next week; Latoya is really liking that.”
“I’m glad to hear that it’s livening up your personal life, but I was asking about the business,” Marc said.
Fred gave a big laugh. “Business is good. I held my first board meeting on Friday. No problems.”
“Was anyone surprised?” Liz asked.
“Besides Latoya, not really,” Fred said. “I just changed the name of my staff meeting to board meeting and continued as usual.”
“Good. You’re going to pick up some more appearance stuff once I’m out of here,” Marc said. “Sounds like you’ll fit right in with all those other presidents and CEOs.”
“You think?”
“Just tell them about your first trip to Morocco,” Blake said. “If that doesn’t work, ask them if they want to go out on a fishing boat.” Blake was referring to the incident where they’d rescued Catie from the kidnappers, then taken over the crime lord’s compound so they could hand him over to his biggest enemy.
“That might work. Or I could just invite them out drinking with you and Kal. That will show them that I can put up with anything.”
“Okay, back to business. Catie, where are you with your new cargo ship?”
“We’re going to call them StarMerchants,” Catie said, “and the first one should be ready to go out for a test flight next week. I’m taking leave over the weekend, so I can do a walkthrough and fly her.”
“When will you do the first test jump?”
“After we do the test flight, we’ll have ADI fly her out and make a few jumps. Then we’ll bring her back and finish building out the bays. She’ll be ready to make a cargo delivery in January.”
“Okay, I’ll inform Governor Paratar to get his shopping list ready,” Marc said.
“And his exports prepared,” Catie said.
“Do we know what he intends to export?” Liz asked.
“Goats, according to Lieutenant Payne,” Blake said.
◆ ◆ ◆
After a week of tutoring Miranda and Yvette, the group had grown by six. They had to move the session into one of the classrooms to accommodate everyone. Catie had wanted to just do it virtually, but Yvette had convinced her that it was much better if they were in the same room.
Catie was now looking at sixteen cadets in her tutoring session as she started to review the material that Professor Gossmann had introduced earlier in the week.
“Instead of making the hull thicker when it’s formed, adding a second layer to achieve that thickness increases the strength of the hull, because . . .” Catie paused as a straggler entered the room.
“Please continue,” Professor Gossmann said.
“I’m sorry, we were just reviewing the material from your class,” Catie said apologetically.
“I understand. Please go on, I’m interested in how you explain the material. The eight most improved grades in my class belong to the cadets in this room. I think I might learn something.”
“Umm . . .”
“Please, Cadet MacGregor. I’m serious, I’m here to learn. This material is complicated, and you apparently have a way to simplify it. I’d like to understand it.”
“Busted!” ADI said.
“ADI!” Catie messaged back.
“He’s a nice guy,” ADI said. “Just pretend he’s not here.”
“Go on, pretend I’m not here,” Professor Gossmann said.
Chapter 19StarMerchant One
By taking leave, Catie was able to leave the Academy on Friday afternoon, a day early. She wasn’t due back until Monday at 0600. “Whew, it feels good to be out of there,” she told Liz, who was picking her up in a minicar.
“I thought you were enjoying the Academy,” Liz said.
“I am, but it’s still nice to be out from under all that discipline and structure. I can let my hair down.”
“Just not too far. We don’t need to get arrested,” Liz said.
Catie snorted a laugh. “Don’t worry. Are we flying up tonight?”
“Of course. Now remember, not a word to the twins, or we’ll both be in trouble for not taking them,” Liz said.
“I still think we still could have taken them,” Catie said.
“Sure, but then it’ll take twice as long to get anything done.”
“Are we taking off from the city airpad, or from the airport?”
“The airpad.”
Liz handed the car over to the bodyguard, who had been shadowing them and grabbed her bag out of the trunk. Catie grabbed hers, and they both headed over to the Lynx that was sitting on the pad waiting for them.
“Hi!”
“What!” Catie almost jumped out of her skin.
“Did you think you were going to leave us behind,” the twins said.
“ADI!”
“I was only following orders. If you didn’t want them to know where you were, you should have blocked them,”
