Ringship Discretion (8 page)

Attie pulled a chair, but one of the magnetic foot locks wouldn't let go. He kicked it and spilled the soup. "Dammit!"

Amelia reach her hand out to his waist. "Attie, can you just lay with me". 

He set the food down and began taking off his corn covered pants when Doc walked by.  He saw the captain, but said nothing.  He just reached in and closed Amelia's door. Attie climbed over Amelia and laid against her back.  She pulled his arm over her to her breast and squeezed tightly.  Attie whispered "I love you" and hugged her tightly. 

When the captain awoke Amelia was gone.  He slid across the bed and looked at the floor. His pants and the food were gone.  He turned into a sitting position and got up.  His left foot was cold and when he looked down, he only had one sock on.  He opened the door and looked down the corridor.  He was stumbling towards his quarters, when from the galley he heard "Good afternoon Captain!".  He peaked around the corner and everyone was eating what looked like dinner.  He felt his hair and said "How long have I been out?" 

Ben responded "Oh, about 17 hours!"

The captain took a deep breath "I feel like hell"

Ben joked "And you look it too!" 

Helen interjected "Captain, put some damn pants on, we got children on this boat!" and she covered AJ's eyes.  Everyone started laughing. 

Atticus looked down. "Oh, Shit. Sorry.  Wait! Where the hell are my pants?." Amelia turned and handed him his now clean pants. He gently smiled "Thank you." She kissed him on the cheek and a gave him a small smile back.

After dinner the captain, Ben, and Amelia went to the bridge to check on things. Amelia sat down in the pilot's seat and the captain in the co-pilot's chair.  Ben leaned up in between them both.  Amelia spoke up. "I was afraid of this.  We are off course by more than four degrees.  The four panels on the starboard are putting out just a bit more power than the two new ones at the moment, but that's not always the case.  When I set them yesterday, they were equal.  In either case, we could use a third panel on the port side. Then I could set both sides to higher thrust". 

The captain thought for a second. "Well, all the sensors are still useless, which means no one has shut off the jamming signal. We could shut the engines down, replace the third panel and then get back under way."

Amelia looking at her display, "Well, with the extra thrust, it would certainly make up for the time we would have lost by course correcting and the hour or two we spend putting the panel on 

The captain looked back at Ben. "Up for another space walk?"

Ben said "Actually I am.  With the doc's help, I was able to fix the hole in my suit.  I recharged all the packs we used yesterday, although I still haven't fixed AJ's."

An hour later, the captain, suited up again, walked up to the back of Amelia's chair. "You ready?" She looked up at him and nodded.  The Captain hit the intercom "Everyone get ready for zero G. We are going to cut the engines. Ben and I are going back out to install the third panel." He let go of the intercom button, gently put his hand on Amelia's shoulder and whispered "OK, shut them down".  The thirty second alarm sounded.

As Atticus and Ben exited the airlock with the new plate and their equipment, the Sun shined in Ben's face. "The Sun sure is getting small.  I always feel a little uncomfortable being so far from its warmth." 

Atticus looked also, wincing. "But it's still bright as hell!"  They rounded the edge of the ship to it's plate and thruster nozzle covered underbelly.  Atticus pointed. "There, that's where we are going to put this plate.  At least we'll be working in full sunlight with the ship's attitude the way it is." As they made their way over to the half melted stanchion, the captain said "Shit! Look!" and pointed to one of the plates Amelia and him had installed. "The rods have bent under the strain."... "Amelia?" 

Amelia's response had a touch of static. "I copied that.  You guys will have to reinforce them.  So that means will be shutdown for a while longer.  I am going to turn the internal plating on so we can get some cleaning up done in here" 

The captain paused. "Roger that."

Ben and the captain worked for about three hours and managed to get the new plate on and the others shored up. The captain clicked his radio. "OK Amelia, I think we are done.  We are coming back."

She responded "Good, we managed to make the place more presentable. Hopefully, we won't be breathing in anymore bits of glass either."

The captain cocked his head "Amelia, can you repeat that whole sentence?"

She asked "Why? Did you not copy?"

He said "No, I mean yes, that's just it.  It was crystal clear"

In a raised voice she said "The jamming.  It's stopped!"

The captain in a hurried voice, "We're coming in now."

The captain and Ben threw everything into the airlock and quickly pulled it shut. They stood on the floor adjusting to the gravity once again while they waited for the lock to pressurize.  Once the airlock hit 40 kPa, it turned green and they removed their helmets.  Ben looked at the captain "Ready to go to full pressure?" The captain reluctantly nodded.  The pressure slowly rose.  They stood in there for what seemed forever equalizing their ears.  The captain looked through the portal at Amelia sitting at the controls, frustrated at the pressurization taking so long. In reality, it was a lot shorter than when they had to depressurize to go out, but they hadn't been in an anxious hurry then.

Amelia said over the comm "Attie, I'm picking up ships again and hints of gamma rays.  There must be one hell of a firefight going on back there."

The captain started to pace "Come on already!" Then the lock turned green once again and the captain instantly opened the hatch.  He stumbled over the welding equipment, started to fall forward, but kept trying to catch himself until he slammed into the back of Amelia's chair.  Amelia was jolted forward from the impact, then she looked over at Ben and they exchanged looks before she looked at Attie.  Attie made a fist and shook it at the airlock, but didn't say anything. Then he looked back at the console "What's the situation?" 

Amelia pointed to the display. "It looks like some of the BB ships met up with some of  Big Sis ships and they are duking it out .  There are more ships coming from here and here.." The screen suddenly filled with random noise and bogus information. 

It took a second for the captain to realize what had happened "The jamming signal is back up.  No doubt the BB ships are using it against the Big Sis ship again. Good! Let's get going while they're blind and confused." The captain hit the intercom. "We will be turning the engines back on, but we have to turn the internal plating off first.  Get ready." He looked at Amelia. "Do it".

CHAPTER 3: The Run to Io.

Whom Do I flee?

What can the cargo be?

To kill the Big Three,

just to get at me.

Two days later the captain knocked on Amelia's door.  She quietly replied, "Come in".  He opened the door to see her putting down a picture of her husband.

She turned while wiping her face. "Hi."

He looked at her and wanted to comfort her, but instead just said "The jamming signal. It stopped again." She took in a deep breath, got up and followed him to the bridge. 

She changed the settings on the passive sensor suite and ships appeared. "Well, I would say that is one of the BB ships coming after us, but look behind him. There are so many radar echoes, but they aren't moving.  I'm getting no difference in doppler shift relative to each other.  My guess is that they are all disabled or destroyed.  There are several more Big Sis ships coming from here and they seem to be heading to cut off the BB ship, but he's accelerating too fast." 

Atticus zoomed the display out.  "What about catching us?"

Amelia pushed a display control button and it read out the relative speed and accelerations. "He is out accelerating us, but not by much."

"Will he catch us before we get to Io?"

If we maintained our current rate of acceleration and they maintained theirs, no. But we have to slow down to make the rendezvous.  We will have to start braking in..." She ran some numbers "in 9 days at the latest, or we will overshoot. We do have a three day head start, so that will buy us some time."

The captain thought for a second. "Hmmm, won't they have to start braking as well or over shoot us?"

Ben scratched his head. "Well, they could take some shots as us while they screamed by. Who knows how accurate their lasers are or what kind of range those things have."

Amelia's intensity of concentration grew. "Captain, I had the computer analyze this and if the BB ship starts to decelerate with us, the Big Sis ships will catch up with him.  So I figure he has to play a fine line between getting us and them not getting him.  I asked the computer to predict the optimum situation for the BB ship." 

The captain and Ben listened intently. "Go on..."

She continued. "If we slam on our brakes in 9 days, they should hit theirs in 13.  If that is the scenario, then they will catch us in 18, but they will blow by Io station with so much momentum that it would take them more than a week to turn around and get back.  If however, they didn't bother slowing down at all, they would catch us in 14 days." 

Ben asked "So, if the BB ship were to brake with us and try to meet us at  Io station, when would the Big Sis ships catch up to her?"

She ran some more numbers "Hmm..if the Big Sis ships didn't bother decelerating and the BB ship did, they would catch up to her in about 15 days.  Therefore, the BB ship has to keep her acceleration up for as long as she can.

The captain sat down in the co-pilots seat and thought for a while. "Hmmm..what if we altered course to the other side of Jupiter and did some aerobraking? We could keep accelerating for longer before having to brake."

Amelia balked. "Aerobraking in this piece of crap?  I don't know.  Maybe we could do some, but I don't think she can take much more punishment; plus, we would have to turn the drive plates away from the atmosphere or they would just rip off, especially with the jury rigging we've got going on. And that would defeat the point.  If we could add the aerobraking and the grav deceleration, that would help, but substituting one for the other wouldn't."

The captain with frustration in his voice, "Crap. Any ideas Ben?"

Ben shrugged. "You guys are the geniuses at this kind of thing, I just fix the ship.  You're the ones who figure out new and exciting ways to break it!"  The captain looked down at the deck with a smile while Amelia watched him with a big grin of her own.

Amelia straightened up. "Wait, we can't use the atmosphere, but there is something else of Jupiter's that we can use."

The captain looked up at her waiting for her to tell them...."Well?!"

She put her hand up and said "Hold on...Thinking." She brought up displays of Jupiter's and Io's magnetic field.  Atticus leaned over her shoulder trying to figure out what she was doing. After a minute, she turned excitedly, almost banging heads with him. She recoiled slightly, pushed him back, and spoke. "OK, so Jupiter has a huge magnetic field and we now have two MFGs on board, but, why did we bring a second one in the first place?"

Ben spoke up. "To protect us from the ion stream around Io."

She nodded her head. "Yes! Well, that ion stream leads all the way around Io's orbit, so if we inject into Io's orbit on the other side of Jupiter and come around, we could use it to give us extra "magnetic field brakes".  The intensity is huge too, so it should really make a difference.  We were just going to head right at Io and use our brakes, but now that we are going around the planet and using the magnetic field, I bet we could get an extra couple of days acceleration before we have to turn and decelerate."

The captain looked at Amelia stunned. "Damn. I love you! You're bloody brilliant. Do you have the exact measurements? "

She smiled. "I'm good, but not that good.  I have to make a hell of a lot of calculations and see if I can get current data from Io station as to the field strength. I'll work with Ben on the MFG configuration and I will have something by tomorrow."

Attie grabbed her face and kissed her. She openly smiled, and Atticus thought how wonderful it was to see her happy, even if just for a minute.

Ben and Amelia worked on the problem the rest of the day, with AJ quietly watching and following them around like a puppy dog.

Atticus alternated between listening to them, watching the sensor displays and eating junk food in the galley. 

That evening Atticus was asleep in his bunk, when the door opened.  Amelia came in and closed the door behind her. "Can I lay with you?". 

Attie looked up and watched her details appear as she came closer. "Of course". He scooted over and opened the covers.  She kicked off her shoes, unzipped her jumpsuit and let it fall to the floor, then she pulled her tank top over her head and let it drop.  Attie watch her intently.  He could see the bottom of her breasts being lit up by the display next to the bed.  Her nipples were getting hard from the cold and her breasts bounced as she jumped on her socks to take them off.  She then slipped her panties off and jumped into the bed. "Attie, can you cuddle with me in the naked way? I just want to feel your warmth against my skin."