Rust Bucket (17 page)

      "That was wise advice," she said. "I followed that one while at the Academy and, of course, used an implant. Then when my first boyfriend washed out, I was able to go on instead of sulking and flunking out. He seemed to follow it too, because he didn't ask me to give up my position in the Academy when he washed out. I didn't find anyone quite like him the rest of the time, although I still enjoyed sex occasionally. How about yourself? Did you indulge yourself while at the academy?"

      I answered, "Uh, no. I was trying to keep my mind on my studies and learn enough discipline to handle more than one task at a time."

      "You seem to have learned that discipline pretty well," she replied.

      I said, "Well, thanks. I still have to work at it sometimes, but it comes easier now."

      She stated, "You could have fooled me about that. I thought you had that part mastered. You sure seem to know everything about the ship and crew. Do you have to spend a lot of time doing that?"

      I replied, "Not really. It's just a matter of doing it right the first time. That and a little refresher occasionally so it's fairly easy to keep up with. The hardest part now is making the decisions. It seems that more and more, now, I'm learning that the smallest of decisions can have a great impact on someone living or dying."

      "Really?" she asked.

      I said, "Quite so. Whether I have my breakfast on time or not can influence whether I make a correct decision at a later time."

      "Well, I suppose so. Have you made any wrong decisions?" she asked.

      I said, "I'm not sure. That's the absolute worst part of it. Not knowing in some cases whether a decision is right or not. Some decisions continue to haunt me later when there's no way of changing them. I wonder if zigging instead of zagging would have ended in a better or safer result. But there's no way to know a lot of times."

      "You sound as if you could use some sympathy or consolation. I could come to your cabin later if you like," she said.

      I looked at her face and felt a bit threatened by what she was proposing. Right then, I didn't need any conflict of duty. It was going to be difficult to tell her no because I could see everything she had to offer and her body offered a lot. I'm sure I could have accepted her offer because she was my First Officer and we worked closely anyway. It wasn't uncommon either for affairs to occur, either in the Academy or the Navy, but I wasn't ready for one. However, my position in the Navy was tenuous at best. It might not be an offense or admissible in a later court proceeding that I had an affair or even a one-night stand with my First Officer, or anyone else in my ship for that matter. However, it could be used to show that I wasn't paying attention to my duties if something went wrong. Had she asked to share my bed back at our home port, I'm sure I would have accepted. Many of those affairs and one-night stands occurred there. I answered, "Thank you for the offer, especially since you are so tempting to me, but I feel that I must decline for now."

      The look of disappointment was clearly visible in her face as we reached the ship where she let me enter first because of my rank. I went to my cabin and right to bed instead of putting on the change of clothing since I usually slept naked anyway.

***

The work continued to progress over the next couple of weeks. The water tanks were finished. Our efforts were concentrated on the structural frame, steering, and engines of the ship. We weren't filling up the water tanks yet because none of us, least of all myself, wanted to put any additional stress on the frame. The amount of water to be added could have easily made it bend. The more we thought about that, the more we realized we had been lucky to lose most of the water before we landed.

      Everyone continued to get drinking water and bathe at the lake. It was a nightly ritual for the crew to go to the lake in two shifts. One shift remained on guard and did a few other tasks while the other shift enjoyed themselves for an hour getting themselves and their clothing clean.

***

The engines were easily fixed since they weren't that badly damaged or loosened. The steering was the next easiest, but the frame continued to elude our best efforts. We threw everything we knew at solving the problem. The best solution we could come up with was to reinforce the two damaged beams with logs. That solution worried the pilots who would have to steer the ship through the atmosphere. They weren't concerned with the weight, but the aerodynamics. The weight of the logs we thought of using was in no way as much as what was lost from that area of the ship. They weighed far less, but their placement would create aerodynamic disturbances that would compound the steering.

      I finally resolved that debate by stating, "Okay, we'll use the logs, but we're also going to have to return to port. We won't take any risks unless we're spotted and have to fight. That means we'll have to be satisfied with what we've accomplished so far. We're not even going to attempt to do a flyover of the aliens three hundred kilometers away to destroy their ship, even if it looks like they'll be able to get back off the ground. We're also going to fill the water tanks only halfway. That should give us an additional margin of safety for lift off. Any questions or comments?"

      I looked around. There were a lot of disappointed faces on the officers and crew members as they realized that we were going to end the mission. I wasn't really aware why they were so disappointed, either. They weren't worried about the mission so much as they were concerned about what would happen to me. It hadn't occurred to me that everyone was that concerned about me, although I had received an inordinate amount of offers of sex during the last few weeks. I actually had to ask one woman to leave my cabin when I walked in and found her naked and waiting in my bed for me.

***

Work resumed on the frame to put the logs into place. It was finished in only a couple of days. It wasn't a pretty sight, but the work was done well. The logs were tightly in place and fit up against the frame almost like a glove on each side of both beams. We used logs that reached from one exposed bulkhead to the next so that the entire beam was protected. There wasn't any of the two beams showing except on the edges. The cables we used were tightly stretched and cut into the wood slightly. However, the sleeves we made to keep the cables from cutting through the wood entirely were holding up. The cables themselves were kept from making large bulges that would cause additional steering problems themselves.

      When that was finished, all the pilots inspected the work and made their estimates of how the steering would be affected. They accepted the work based on the fact that they knew they only had to make a single take off and, perhaps, one landing. As well, they were aware that we might have to go through some evasive maneuvers in space, but that part of the risks didn't worry them at all. In space, the shape was largely unimportant. It wouldn't affect the maneuverability as long as the frame continued to hold up and the engines were capable of being used fully.

      Once the pilots accepted the repair, everyone worked at carrying water to fill the water tanks halfway. With what we had to carry water, it looked like we would be taking off in a week or less. Despite the lighter gravity, the water we carried seemed heavier than it was. The trail to the lake from the ship was easy to see since there was a continuous stream of mud after the first day where water had sloshed about and spilled a little from each container onto the ground.

      By the second day, the muddy trail was a little wider and slippery, even though everyone was wearing non-skids. After all, non-skids were meant to be used on surfaces where the slippery portion was usually very thin or very hard, such as ice. They wasn't anything at all non-skid about our non-skids when it came to thick, slippery mud by the end of the second day.

      The third day saw us making a slight change in our path after a few personnel went slipping and sliding in the mud to land on their asses or faces to the amusement of most everyone else. Shirley managed to get some images of the unlucky participants of the Mud Follies, as we called it. We voted that night on who did the most spectacular dive into the mud. I thought Frank did the best job, despite the fact that he was among the most agile and balanced individuals on the ship. But he only came in second. He was beat out by Jean, another pilot, who also had a superb sense of balance no matter where or how she was positioned. We didn't have the time or materials to make up a plaque for Jean, but the image was preserved anyway to be used, we hoped, when we got back to port.

      The fourth day saw us nearing our goal of filling the water tanks halfway.

The morning of the fifth day, the roaring sound was picked up almost as soon as the sensors went off. I heard the sensors first and knew instinctively what it meant. The aliens had taken off. They were probably going to try to take us out. Then the roaring sound came to my ears, followed a split second later by the four gunners on duty blasting away at the alien craft as it passed overhead firing down at us.

      The ship shook. I knew we had been hit. Then there was the sound of an explosion some distance off. I knew that the aliens wouldn't be leaving after all. There was only one sound like that and that was when a Mark III quad hit its target in an atmosphere.

      Already, our ship was tilting. I rushed out of my cabin, not because I was afraid of dying, but to find and see what the damage was specifically. It was a moment later, as I reached my cabin door, still naked, that I heard and felt the rumbling of the ground as the alien ship plowed into the ground not far away.

      I got outside the ship and looked at it. The hit had been at one of the worst places possible. Namely, the aliens managed to hit right where we had repaired the frame. The logs around one beam had been shattered and knocked away from the beam. Without that support, the weight of the ship and the hit on the beam itself combined to finish breaking the beam so that the ship was now tilted and placing additional stress on the remaining beams. Only the nearness of the scaffolding was preventing the ship from tilting any further and breaking the ship in two.

      Slowly I realized that I was being joined by others, most in the same state of undress and some in only their mesh undies. They were staring at the same damage and wondering if we could repair it. It certainly looked bad. We would have to raise one portion of the ship somehow to return the ship to some state of balance for launching. That was a necessity or we would crash if we tried to lift off. As I looked around at the others, I could see a lot of depression and tears in their eyes. They had worked hard. We were so close to leaving, even if we were ending the mission. At the same time, there were a few people who actually seemed cheery about the damage and that confused me. One of them was my First Officer.

      "Okay, let's all go about getting dressed and then get breakfast. We've got work to do soon and we all need to prepare ourselves if we're going to succeed," I announced to get everyone back into a positive frame of mind. The damage appeared insurmountable, but I was sure we had enough brainpower to solve the problem even though it might take us a couple of months. At any rate, I wasn't going to let any of my people give up yet.

      I walked back into the ship, certain that my weight and movement inside wouldn't add to the damage since the scaffolding was doing its job. I went to my cabin, unaware at first that I was being followed until I actually reached my cabin and my First Officer stopped at the door.

      "Dave?" she said.

      "Yes. What's up?" I asked.

      She asked, "Would you like to reconsider my offer since it looks like we're not leaving and they won't be able to court-martial you?"

      Finally, I knew why she seemed so cheery. The offers of sex from so many others before then made sense to me as well. It was all the efforts of individuals to reward me for what I had done or what they thought I had done for them.

      "Uh, what makes you think that we won't be able to get off this planet?" I asked.

      She said, "Well, we don't have anything to lift this much weight so that we can put more logs onto the frame, let alone straighten out the beam."

      "I think we do," I replied as I finished pulling on my mesh undies and started on my overslicks.

      "Huh? Do you know something I don't?" she asked in surprise.

      I replied, "No, but I'm not ready to give up either. I think it can be done and that we can do it. After all, the ancient Egyptians did heavy lifting with less than we have. This is child's play compared to what they did. We're just too used to thinking about it in different terms. But before we do this, we've got one other thing to do. You're going to have to take over for awhile. I'm taking a patrol over to the alien ship to check for survivors. It's too close now to ignore. I don't want them bothering us while we're working if there are any survivors. I could be taking about half the crew with me. The only people not going with me for sure are the people already injured."

      She said, "Oh, I guess so. We should check in case there are some alive. They might want to attack still."

      I said, "Yes, they might. You better go about getting your breakfast. Thanks again for the offer. I must admit, you are very tempting to me, but I've got other things that have to be attended to right now."

      She stepped out of the way as I passed her naked body. It was very tempting to have her, but I knew that it was still the wrong time. I knew we could get the ship repaired and back into space.