Project U.L.F. (13 page)

The girl brought her arm across her breasts and raised her knees, adopting an almost fetal position to conceal her nakedness. Wyatt realized with shame that he was staring at her, not for any other reason than simply because he was trying desperately to take in all the features of her face and then put a name to it. But he simply did not know her.

“One minute,” he said quietly to her.

Wyatt lowered the cover glass and turned to face the rest of the crew, “What’s up with you guys!” he said angrily, “Come on now, give the girl some privacy.”

The crew all seemed to realize that they were guilty of some unwritten conduct violation and turned away muttering, their heads lowered. All except Kit, whose eyes lingered on the cover glass hungrily.

“You deaf or something?” Wyatt demanded of Kit, “Get out of here!” Kit frowned at Wyatt with hatred in his eyes before turning away.

Wyatt motioned Bobby over to the chamber and then reached into the hatch above it to retrieve a towel. He handed it to her. “She’s your charge for now,” he said, “Look after her, get her showered and find out everything you can about her. Who she is, what she does, and, more importantly, what she’s doing on this mission. I’ll be on the bridge when you come looking for me.”

Bobby said nothing, just nodded. Wyatt walked to the door, placed his palm on the ID plate and stated, “Wyatt Dorren, U.L.F. expedition team leader.” The door opened and he took a last look back at his newfound crew before disappearing through it.

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Wyatt stepped through the door and surveyed the bridge. Considering this was the nerve center of the
Santa Maria
it was incredibly small. Through the two rectangular windows on the far side of the room he could see the tops of the nearby trees. Within them a winged creature was flapping frantically to regain its balance on its perch. No doubt they would be bagging some of those to take back to the IZP.

“Computer!” Wyatt yelled, “Time to wake up, we’re here now,” and then he added, “Wherever ‘here’ is.”

Another voice filled the bridge area, “Voice identification commencing. Please wait.”

Wyatt smiled. It was Lyndsey. The computer was Lyndsey. Her voice was legendary.

Lyndsey Simons was the personal secretary to the first moon-base director. Although she had been dead for well over two hundred years, her voice had been immortalized as the voice of computers in all ships up to and including the Galleon Class. Of course no one had ever met Lyndsey Simons, at least no one still alive, but they all knew her voice.

The voice came again, “Identification complete. Voice pattern matches with that of Dorren, Wyatt. Project U.L.F. director and expedition team leader.”

“Computer, what’s going on in
that
world out there today? Where are we and what’s the atmospheric data?”

“We have landed on a planet in the Centari sector. We are 2.7 light years beyond Centari Red 603, the furthest charted star in this sector. Atmosphere comprises 22% breathable oxygen so breathing apparatus will not be required outside of the ship. Also, nitrogen, hydrogen and trace amounts of ammonium, argon and helium.”

“That’s a pretty potent mixture, are you sure we won’t need the tanks?”

“The human body will be capable of utilizing this atmosphere for life support, although some of the trace gases may cause irritation. Pure oxygen will alleviate any symptoms.”

“Okay, thanks. Anything else we need to know about this place?”

“The planet is served by two suns with lunar cycles of 21.7 and 15.65 earth hours. This means that day and night length varies greatly. Calculations estimate maximum and minimum temperatures of 112 degrees and -7 degrees Fahrenheit during day and night respectively.”

“Whoa!”

“Sensors have detected life forms in the near vicinity in the 18.27 hours that have elapsed since touchdown.”

Wyatt looked out of the window and back toward the trees. “I don’t doubt that at all.”

He heard the door to the bridge open behind him and he spun on the swivel chair to see Bobby entering. “Well?” he asked.

“Her name’s Kate. Kate Frere. She’s just graduated from Princeton. Won a placement on an expedition and was assigned to this ship. That’s it. If she knows anything else then she’s not telling, but I believe her. She was pretty shaken by cryosleep. It’s pretty obvious she hasn’t experienced that before.”

“Oh that’s great, just great!” Wyatt threw his arms up in the air. “So I’ve got three kids to look after now!”

“I’d just like to know who picked this crew,” Bobby said, “I mean, what were they thinking?”

What were they thinking
? Words came back to haunt Wyatt, words Mannheim had said to him when they had met in his office—
Think of it.
Wyatt began to chuckle, and then the chuckle became a laugh.

“What?” Bobby asked. “What? What is it? Come on Wyatt, this isn’t funny.”

Wyatt composed himself a little. “It’s Mannheim, isn’t it? Who else would come up with something this crazy. I mean, he thought up Project U.L.F. didn’t he?”

“What are you saying? Mannheim picked the crew?”

Wyatt stifled his laughter, “It wouldn’t surprise me in the least. I mean, it’s a high profile mission, right, and look at who we have…”

“Yeah, just look! You, me, Par, Kit, Byron, two kids I’ve never clapped eyes on and now this girl, Kate! I don’t see what you’re getting at. What
are
you getting at?”

“Yeah, but think about it. Me, the expedition leader, head of Project U.L.F., that’s self-explanatory. You, the token woman so we are seen to be politically correct and do our bit for equal rights.”

“But I’m not the token woman, what about Kate?” Bobby interrupted.

“Hang on, hang on. I’m coming to that. Then there’s Par, the token foreigner. Kit, on the criminal rehab program. Byron, an old-timer, close to retirement. Alex, the new recruit, and then Kate, a student. The fact that she’s female is neither here nor there. If she won the placement then the winner of that placement could equally as well have been a man, and then you would be the token woman. By chance it’s turned out that we have two women instead of one.”

Bobby frowned.

“One of each kind,” Wyatt explained, “A real hodgepodge of a team, I’ll grant you, but it’s just the kind of hare-brained scheme he’d come up with. It’s just the sort of crazy thing he loves. Not only are they going to show off the animals when we get back, Mannheim will show off the team as well.”

“So where does Chris fit into all of this?”

“Yeah, still haven’t figured that one out myself. Maybe we just got two new recruits, but then, that shoots my theory down in flames, doesn’t it? I’m working on it.”

“So what now?” Bobby asked.

Wyatt shrugged. “Well, we have a job to do. I suggest we go on and do it. First priority is to get the portable living quarters erected outside. It gets pretty cold out there at night and we don’t want to be caught out in it. Get the others assembled at the exit hatch, and I’ll drop the ship on its haunches and meet you there with some body armor. Life forms have been detected just outside and I don’t want to take any risks.”

Bobby nodded and turned to leave.

“Oh, and Bobby. I appreciate what you did back there…in the cryosleep room. I’m not happy with the set-up, either, but we’ll have to make the best of it.”

She smiled and then turned away again, the door closing behind her.

Wyatt turned back to the console and familiarized himself with the old craft’s displays and tabletop layouts. He reached over and pressed a large green button which went out at his touch. He felt the ship rock a little and then slowly tip backward.

Outside, the ship’s rear telescopic legs were retracting so that the craft’s back end was lowered to the ground. When the operation was complete the
Santa Maria
sat like a gigantic metallic gray frog in the middle of the forest.

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Wyatt arrived at the exit hatch clutching the seven chest protectors that his team would require. They all had their quad-sys guns strapped to their legs. All of them except Kate, of course, who was dressed only in her fatigues. Good, he thought, at least they were all prepared. They’d all passed the first test.

He handed out the body armor and each member of the crew took it dutifully, placing it over their head and fastening the quick-release clips on either side. Bobby already had hers; it had been placed in the hatch in her cryosleep chamber. Chest protectors for women were few and far between, so they tended to be loaded on board with the woman crewmember.

Wyatt looked around. Everyone was ready. Everyone, that is, except Kate, who was struggling with her chest protector. Wyatt wandered over to give her a hand. He took hold of one of the clips on the chest protector and Kate jumped at the intrusion.

“Oh, thanks,” she said, calming, “I’m having a bit of trouble with this.”

“I noticed,” he replied. Wyatt fastened the bottom clips on each side of the armored vest and then began to work his way up each side, snapping each clip into place.

“That’s getting really tight,” Kate groaned. “Don’t you have anything with curves?”

“I’m sorry, but they didn’t have women in mind when they designed these things. Unfortunately, you have to wear one—for your own safety.”

Wyatt fastened two more clips, one on each side, but then as he tried to fasten the next one, Kate exclaimed, “Oh God, if you do that up any tighter something’s going to pop out or explode!”

He was a little taken aback by the frankness of her outburst. Chris and Alex giggled like schoolboys.

Kate looked across at Bobby. “How come she manages?”

“Well she has one specially fitted for women.”

“Well don’t you have any more? I can’t get by in this one. It’s literally squeezing the air out of me!”

Wyatt stood there for a moment, hesitant. He sighed. “I doubt it, but I’ll take a look for you.” He unfastened the clips and slid the vest over her head, then turned and headed back up the walkway.

As he traipsed through the gloom of the lower decks he found himself wondering what he was doing. The last time he’d actually done anything for a woman out of the goodness of his heart was when he was with Tanya. The thought stung him.

No, I have to be seen as approachable,
he thought. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter who she was, or what the factors were that had brought her here with them—she would have to become a member of this team, and she had to learn to be able to count on Wyatt whatever the situation. This tiny gesture he was performing was the first step in that bond of trust.

He reached one of the equipment store hatches, turned the lock and slid the panel away to reveal the weaponry and traps that had become the tools of his trade. He looked up, and there, hanging on the rail were more chest protectors. He checked the first—standard, and pushed it further down the rail away from him. The same was true for the second, third and fourth chest protectors that he checked. The fifth, however, was indeed a woman’s chest protector.
Odd,
he thought, raising his eyebrows.

He lifted it off the rail and was just about to secure the hatch when his eye caught something else. It was not a weapon or a trap, or if it was, he had never seen anything like it. In the dim light he could not make out what it was. He put the chest protector down and reached into the hatch to pick up the object. It was a little black box with a carrying handle. When he brought it out into the more adequate lighting of the corridor, he could see that it was a craft finder. Things were going from screwball to odd to just downright weird.