Chapter 7

“Temps gonna hit the low to mid-thirties all through the middle belt. With the Falling Stars concert in Katayma tomorrow night, y’all better be hydrating.”

“Yes,” Casto said. “Get yourself a shade screen or two. Make sure, if you got skin that does not react well to sunlight, you slap that greasy slop all over yourself.”

“Count yourself lucky Casto. That fur you got does wonders to prevent them burns.”

“That it does, Jimmy. Does not help the body temp however.”

“Do Kakrin pant?” Jimmy asked.

“Only for certain reasons, Jimmy. I am sure a Terran can figure out why.”

“We probably can,” Jimmy laughed. “I saw this article last night, two Praeminians ran nude through the downtown core yesterday morning. It got me thinkin...”

“Oh no,” Casto laughed. “He’s thinkin folks.”

“More on that another time, but in all seriousness here, are you considered nude if you have full body fur?”

“Depends,” Casto replied. “If the fur covers the bits, no. However, League ethics set a level playing field on the definition of nude. If your race wears any sort of clothing, then you are considered nude if you do not.”

“So aquatic races, although nude, are not considered so. Is that what you’re telling me?” Jimmy asked.

“Yes,” Casto replied. “That is correct Jimmy.”

“So if I want to go to a nude colony, I have to go under the sea?”

“That might not be the nude you’re looking for.” Casto said back.

“Ah, oh, I guess it’s time to move on.”

“You are lucky that type of conversation is tolerated on this station,” Casto said.

“In other news,” Jimmy cleared his throat. “A Cordivain burned down half his garage by mistake. Said he tried to douse a smaller fire with a pail of what he thought was water. Turns out it was biodiesel. When asked why he couldn’t smell it, he said he had no sense of smell. When asked about the color, since biodiesel is a bit of a golden yellow, he said Cordivain don’t see in the same spectrum of color that Terrans do. It was a good thing the local fire service had a pair of Yisinthi. They responded fast enough with water packs to keep the flames from spreading until other units could respond to the blaze in proper.”

“Sure does make response times fast when you have a couple of crew from a race that flies.” Casto said.

“Sure does Casto.” Jimmy said.

A flashing screen on the navstation drew Jack’s attention and he noted that the astrodrive; so named as it pushed the ship forward at the speed of one astronomical unit per hour; was beginning to power down. This would give time for the onboard cooling system to return to optimal temperature before the superlum drive engaged. Space radiated heat quite slowly, despite being very cold when hidden from direct sunlight. This created the need for a cooling system to keep the ship from reaching lethal temperatures or sustaining damage to onboard systems. Both the astrodrive and superlum drive created immense heat that was pumped through a liquid ammonia pipe system. These ammonia-filled pipes were coiled through radiator panels that could be extended when the ship was stationary, or transferred into large coolant tanks when in transit or combat. The tanks could store a significant amount of heat, but they needed time to return to normal temperatures after combat or several superlum jumps.

Jack checked the cooling system display to confirm there were no irregularities and saw it was only at seventeen percent capacity, which meant it was running at expected levels. He kept watch on the navstation while the ships autopilot began calculating the jump to Calldan. The ship slowly came to near zero momentum and aligned itself towards Calldan using it’s small ion thrusters. He watched as the null gravity lattice around the superlum drives powered up. This lattice was an important part of the drive system, without it the crew would be exposed to such high levels of lateral g force that they would be turned into a protein rich paste at the back of the vessel. During dangerous operations the entire drive engine could be retracted inside an armored compartment on the vessel to keep it safe. This, however, increased heat generation and reduced efficiency, causing a delay in initiating a jump.

The ship bumped slightly, then Jack felt a bit of vertigo for a moment as the ship went superluminal, catapulting them to many times the speed of light. The drive would be pushing them faster every minute, for the next twenty minutes, in order to achieve optimal light speed. From then on it would simply maintain speed until beginning retro motion as they neared the system they were traveling to.

For the next hour, Jack simply maintained an uneventful watch, keeping tabs over the operating systems to ensure there were no irregularities. A welcome break came when Third Officer Kejeh Kindbright and Chief Engineer Zakia Mzuzi entered the bridge.

“Hey Jack,” Zakia said with a smile, “Good to see you again.”

“Chief,” Jack took her in an embrace for a moment before stepping back to look her over. “Glad to see you too.”

Zakia had dark skin, jet black hair and deep green eyes. She was Jack’s height and her lean frame seemed to have lost twenty pounds since he last saw her. She wore her hair tied back in a single bun just above her neck. Work related injuries had caused some faint scarring to her strong looking hands. Kejeh stepped up beside Zakia and gave Jack a friendly nod.

“Welcome home, Jack.” Kejeh placed both hands gently on Jack’s shoulders.

Kejeh belonged to a leathery skinned reptilian race known as the Djardunsa. Because they were genderless, they often struggled with the concept of male and female. Kejeh was about five feet in height, thin, with a large fin on their head like a headsail. Large, purple, reptilian eyes watched with intent and rarely missed a detail. There was a flat mouth under a long snout. The webbing between their four fingers and toes made them relatively fast swimmers, a necessary survival trait on their swamp covered, tropical home world. A fin-like paddle at the end of a small tail, which was often held as an annoyance on land, added to their aquatic capability. Kejeh wore a uniform like Jack’s with slight modifications, except for the added presence of a plastic one-gallon liquid container worn on their back. Inside the container was a mixture of water and some minerals intended to keep Kejeh hydrated, as Djardunsa tended to lose hydration faster than most species when not in a humid environment.

“Good to see you again Kejeh.” Jack set his hands on Kejehs’ shoulders and nodded.

“Did you find success on your time off?” Kejeh gave his shoulders a gentle squeeze and let go.

“I did, some,” Jack nodded. “How about here? Everything been ok?”

“Had a couple of concerns,” Zakia said. “Ship was hit by drones.”

“I was informed,” Jack nodded. “Somewhat worrying.”

“More than somewhat, Jack,” Kejeh said. “From a safety aspect, there is discussion in upgrading the point defense systems to a better model.”

“E grades are the best we can do though,” Jack replied. “That doesn’t leave a lot of options, and all are kinetic based.”

“We have single module twelve-barrel systems,” Kejeh said as Zakia patted Jack and moved past him with an engineering satchel over her shoulder. “We can purchase sixteen-barrel systems.”

“Those are expensive,” Jack replied.

“Given the newfound threat to the ship, is there really a price on safety?” Kejeh said back.

“No,” Jack shook his head. “Have you talked with the captain?”

“Yes. I drew up a memo and sent it to her. Talks are ongoing. She does not intend to be cheap on our safety but purchasing said modules has not been forthcoming. Finding a civil defense market with those in stock has been fruitless.”

“She’ll keep looking, I’m sure of it.”

“I do not doubt that.” Kejeh nodded and gestured to where Zakia was headed. “With you on return now, perhaps you can look into safety measures too, given some of your background with Ewar training.”

“Sometimes it can be done simply with programs to the radar that allow it to identify certain stealth functions. Still hard to acquire any stealth drone that has a radar defeating physical design. Some betray their locations, however, by sending too many signals back and forth. Comet rockets are a better point defense at that. Got longer range than the pattern fire that kinetic point defense shoots out.”

“Whatever it takes Jack,” Kejeh patted his arm. “I just want to see the vessel as safe as can be.”

“I get that, being safety officer and all,” Jack nodded. “We’ll do what we can.”

Jack had felt the concern in Kejeh’s voice when they spoke. Kejeh had been in the deck department of several freighters that were attacked by drones and manned pirate craft. Since the pirates were after the cargo, most bulk freighters were designed to jettison their cargo so they could make a hasty escape. One group, however, had made a sport of disabling the actual freighters and leaving them to drift. Rescue could be slow, and occasionally, not at all. Kejeh had run into these groups at least twice that Jack was aware of. The Djardunsa came from one of the most dangerous home worlds in League space and were known for being quite emotionless. The animated tone in Kejeh’s voice made Jack a little on edge about how safe the ship really was, but he pushed it away. Jack and Kejeh joined Zakia at the maintenance panel at the back-left side of the bridge. Zakia removed the small panel on the systems AC unit that kept the bridge and most of its electronic systems from overheating.

“This unit has been running pretty low on efficiency lately.” Zakia popped the access hatch off the side of the AC unit and reached into her bag to pull out a power diagnostic unit.

“Been getting hot in here these past few days.” Kejeh let out a bit of a yawn. “Have you noticed that while you are here, Jack?”

“It’s been a little warm in here.” Jack said. “Just thought it was because I was sittin in the captain’s chair.”

Kejeh looked at him startled for a moment while Zakia shook her head.

“I prefer it hot anyway.” Zakia grinned. “Just not pushing things into the ‘First Officer goes nuclear’ range.”

“You dust worlders and your heat tolerance...” Jack said, a little humorously. “ ... makes me a little envious...”

“Desert worlder...” She corrected in her own humorous way. “ ... and at least we don’t suffer excessive swassing.”

“Speaking of swassing-” Jack tried to retort but Zakia cut him off as she bumped his leg, making them both laugh.

“You manage to say hello to everyone yet?” Zakia asked.

“Mostly, still haven’t been to engineering yet. Kyzran probably doesn’t mind.”

“Probably not.” Zakia said to him as she shut off power to the AC unit and began working on a faulty wire.

“He still ornery as hell?” Jack asked of them both.

“He is as he always is.” Kejeh stated.

“Got downright sour at Andor and Nyka about something to do with the primary junction box for the engine room.” Zakia said.

“Andor wouldn’t give a fuck.” Jack raised a brow. “Nyka would though. Was the issue fixed?”

“Yes,” Zakia paused from work for a moment. “It was, in a way, Kyzran’s fault.”

“Oh?”

“You know how silicoids give off dust like we shed skin cells?” Jack nodded to her question. “Well, he let a bunch build up around the air intake for the power plant cooling system. Kept tripping the breaker when there was too much load on the grid.”

“Did he apologize?” Jack smirked, guessing not.

“No,” Zakia shook her head, then went back to work.

Jack slid down the wall beside her until he was seated on the floor. “Figures. Gather all the fucks in the League and stick ‘em in a room, Kyzran would stand out as the fuckest.”

“He received a talking to about workstation cleanliness.” Kejeh said.

“Well, now you see why I haven’t spoken to him yet...” Jack grinned. “ ... or Andor for that matter.”

“No Mr. Inappropriate for you?” Zakia asked.

“Not by the hairs of my hairless, chinny chin, chin.” Jack touched his chin. “Too out there for me. Just something about him and the way he conducts himself.”

“I suppose,” Zakia nodded.

“Me and Andor never see eye to eye. I hate to say it, but I don’t really care too much if I see him or not.”

“Not into a guy that tries to sleep with every single lady on board, huh?” Zakia looked up from her work with a smile.

“Not so much,” Jack smiled back and she returned to her work. “Did he ask you?”

“No,” Zakia shook her head and held up her hand with a wedding band.

“Heh, how about you Kejeh?”

“What?” Kejeh raised a brow.

“Did the Frenon try to swoon you?”

“Oh, that, is a rather uncomfortable topic, but yes.”

“What?” Zakia looked up from her work. “Seriously?”