“Viper, we’re running out of bombs, bud.” I say, watching the cameras show the boys throwing bombs willy-nilly into the forest surrounding the crater.
“We would have an easier time targeting if we were lower down!” He yells back.
Okay, fuck it. Short memories and all that. I lower the hover of ASS-1 to 30m above the crater. They start hitting more often, but then I see a rustling in the trees and I veer right, hard. A 10m long pink and tan tiger-like thing leaps out of the canopy to swipe my shuttle and barely misses. I steady the ship, lean out and fire off some plasma rounds out of the open cockpit door. I get a few hits on the tiger thing, enough to make it look up at me after it lands.
“Crazy Ivan time friends.” I start raising the lift in preparation for my maneuver and issue alerts for the team to pressurize the compression pockets in their suits.
I let the shuttle drift back down in a wobble, hoping it makes us look wounded. Tiger takes the bait and I blast it full on in the face with my rear thrusters. I expect it to be knocked back, but it weighs enough to just drop down. I pitch the ship vertical and watch us drop down toward the stunned and slightly crispy alien. Just before I see it recover we are mere meters above it and I full afterburn the plasma vortex thrusters. The focused point of those thrusters should be in the realm of tens of thousands of degrees. The thrusters cut back as the 12g alarm goes off, which distracts me just enough to miss the gorilla-like juggernaut launching itself at the bottom of my shuttle, allowing it to slam into us and get its arms around my hull. After ten seconds I have to dial the g-forces back yet again to not kill my teammates, but I still gain altitude while the roaring beast begins to make my ship creak and crumple.
I start to fear for our lives when I see claws come into the ship. I full power the lift thrusters and give the long-armed alien a good burn on its middle. The shriek of the monster and my shuttle tell me the beast let go from the pain and in seconds it appears smoking in my rear facing camera. I level out the ship as best I can and head back towards the crater to survey what happened.
The crater has erupted in chaos. Two remaining Juggernauts defend the object while thousands of smaller aether-warped beasts swarm the area.
/Doc. How much of the gelled fuel do you have on hand?/
/400 liters or so. It’s not all in one place though. I can get about half together in five minutes though./
/Perfect, let me know when and I’ll jump over. Stupid Idea number two time./ I use the five minutes to draw vortex runes without the fire components of my thrusters, and when I get the word, I warp to the location indicated slap runes on top of the multitude of 10 liter containers then lie on top of them to port them back over the crater. A few seconds of falling to re-orient myself and I port back into the shuttle, feeling sick to my stomach.
I stick my head out of the cockpit door and vomit while eyeing the falling containers and triggering the dispersal runes about 10m up. I lower the elevator in the back and dump the remaining plasma grenades overboard. When all of the bright white flares of heat and light are finished, the crater is aflame in a vibrant blue hue.
“Huh, the blue flame surrounded by a pink field is really pretty.” I hit record on my aft cameras and watch it burn.
The boys don’t start waking back up until I start back home. All five of them start asking what happened and I tell them that they can watch the recording after we get back to the Station. Viper wants to do a debrief for some reason, and Katie wants to review the Aether gains. Melissa shows no emotion on her face, but as soon as I get within arm range she pulls me into her lap and latches her arms around me like a safety harness and doesn’t let me go. We watch the video of the mission with her head on my shoulder and my leaning back into her.
“That was an absurdly dangerous feint, Mercer.” Viper hissed.
“Only slightly more dangerous than asking me to fly lower, mission commander.” I snipe back.
“And then you almost kill us with acceleration.” He accuses.
“Yep. That I did do. But the control limits we planned for emergency egress worked. We killed thousands of aether-warped and the Station is much safer now.” I say, not pleased with the outcome, but I don’t want to continue sniping at him.
“How behind does the damage to the shuttle put you?” Katie asks me.
“Not much really. If Eyes doesn’t mind heading a repair team, I’ll put in a work order and they can work on fixing her up while I run through my drone testing on a new warp configuration.”
“Who pays for repairs now that we’re broke?” Viper asks again.
“Broke? We all just made a small fortune in AE. And I’ll pay for the repairs. I made the decision that got her bent, and she’s my ship, so I’ll pay Eyes and he can figure out the rest.”
“What about all that money you left out there? The money you burned?”
“Viper, man, are you trying to start a fight? How about you initiate a council vote on a well-structured argument instead of whatever this is. If Everyone feels that funds need a different distribution than the Andromeda Matrix’s estimated participation distribution, then by all means lets vote on it. But as none of this is an emergency, it can wait until tomorrow.”
Viper looks as though he wants to protest but a few of his teammates tell him to leave it be. Good, at least one of them is sensible.
We all end up leaving Katie to her office and go our separate ways.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
“What do you think about you, me, and Katie order dinner and drinks and watch a movie on the moon?” I ask Melissa as we walk toward the pond.
“While that does sound romantic, I’d rather order snacks and drinks and piddle with work in our PJs.”
“You just described my perfect afternoon. You coming to my shop slash apartment? Or we going back to your place?”
“It’s supposed to be our place, dummy. But since I have never been to the apartment part of your shop, lets go there after I pick up my PJs.”
While she goes to the dorms I order us some food and have it delivered to the converted 5th floor workshop and send a little note to Katie telling her our plans. When Melissa returns, I fly us via shuttle to the roof and take the stairs down to my apartment.
Since it used to be a lab, the layout of my apartment is enormous loft. The stairs open up into a living room-lounge with a huge projection display wall. The space to the left meanders into my kitchen area, where the flame burner connections used to be, with an island and sinks for whatever I might want to prepare, or have someone prepare. It’s rarely used, but it looks nice and has a walk in refrigerator and freezer.
The kitchen area opens up into a span of floor to ceiling windows on both sides of the loft that is littered with tables and shelves supporting tools, various projects in various states of completion, and a few sections of my modules manifested as books. On the far side of the loft, where the decontamination station used to be, is an absurdly large tub and adjacent open shower. The opposite corner on the far side is my bed, dresser and cozy chair stacked high with blankets. That section also has a skylight so I can stargaze from the comfort of my own bed.
“I understand better why I never see you. This place is amazing. You realize I’m moving in right?” She’s looking at me with a serious expression.
“Hehe, yah,” I fidget nervously and blush, “I wanted to ask you after I finished fixing it up. Most of my furniture was machine parts and crates that the exchange delivers some items in. My plan didn’t firm up until after our argument two days ago. I figured this was as solid indication as any that I’m still interested?”
Melissa’s eyes widen, “you did this in two days, while there was a mission to plan, for us?”
I nod sheepishly, “Yes?”
Her expression softens and her lavender eyes sparkle as she pulls me into her soft lips. The kiss is slow and captivating, weakening my knees like in a sappy romance, Mel wraps an arm around my waist, holding me up as she kisses my breath away.
“I love you Penny.” She says between breaths.
“I love you too Melissa.”
“Now go take a shower and then you can show me what you’re working on while I eat all your food.”
I chuckle at her and the warm and fuzzy feelings in my chest and cheeks. “That sounds perfect.”
***
Katie rings the bell when I’m in the shower so I tell her I’ll be a second and warp her into my apartment, maybe our apartment, while in my PJ’s. She brought a basket with wine and a few tools for projects.
“You put three work stations in?” She says, amazed that I considered her.
“I mean, yeah, It’d be rude after our discussion to not include you wouldn’t it?” I put my hand on her hip in reassurance.
“I suppose, but I’d calculated that you’d regress into your previous habits and ignore the problem?”
“Ouch, Kay. Odds were in your favor, but ouch.” I can’t help but smile, she knows me pretty well. “I never said I’d consider the whole thing, but this is me considering it. It’s a space with room for all three of us.”
She breathes in deep and slowly exhales, a small shudder shows me she is struggling with emotions she’s trying to repress.
“Can we move to the portion of the evening where we discuss our projects? Mostly your warp timelines?”
“Absolutely.” I smile, giving her a peck on the cheek before walking over to the beach-ball sized drone I’ve been yelling at.
“So you’re having Tessa control the drone through the ansible?” Melissa asks, already producing the drone with her cyber equipment.
“That’s her idea, yeah. She’s been wanting to be more involved too and it’s honestly been amazing for the technical details that cause me mishaps when I’m in a flow state. Anyway, this is my test drone. It has a forward-facing warp array after you yelled at me months ago. Un-piloted, throwing shit tests have been successful so far.”
“Why haven’t you tested this yet? From what I can tell, the drone is remotely pilotable and everything.” Katie seems to have pulled up Ophelia’s display.
“I haven’t been able to finish the handshake between Tessa in my head and the desired control through the ansible.” Melissa studies me, grabs my aether port wrist, then does a Vulcan mind meld grab on my head.
“Hey Tessa, can you allow my AI to uplink through the ansible?”
“I can, yes.” A smooth, dusky timber resonates in the loft.
“Wow, did you pick that voice or did she?”
“Not sure why she picked hot-teacher sexy, but she likes it.”
“So do I.” Katie adds.
“Shit, so do I. However, we can talk playtime implications later. Now, I think we can do this. Ophie, go ahead, load and link to the drone.” She inserts a power cell into the beachball-sized drone. “Alright, give me the twill when you’re connected.”
In a few seconds, the drone whistles like R2D2.
“Okay, lets take this to the roof. I don’t warp in the apartment.”
“Somehow that surprises me.” Katie says, deadpan having dealt with my shenanigans as well.
“Parts of my reinforced, hardened lab space have been destroyed by warps and related explosions, so it’s a rule I follow.” Mel squeezes my hand in appreciation.
Once we’re on the roof, the drone zips up until it’s barely visible “Ophie wants to know the standoff for the worst disaster and the most likely disaster.”
“10 kilometers and 500 meters. If she lights the signal beacon, we’ll be able to see her from a kilometer easy.”
The drone zips off to the right and flares a bright red light.
“Oh, nice. You clearly thought this through. We’re prepared to execute the lowest projected warp. Horizontal translation. Do we need to adjust for warp in atmosphere?”
“Nope, tested that on the moon. Well, the moon I blew up. The rune creates a nearly perfect annihilation pocket, so the extra matter doesn’t matter.”
“Noooooo. Science puns. I’m dead,” Melissa despairs with the drama flair of a wrist to her forehead. Katie gives me a thumbs up.
I snicker at the dichotomy.
“Alright Ophie, Atropos, start the logs and initiate warp.” The light fades within seconds, appearing a good distance to the left.
“FUCK YEA!” I grab Melissa with both arms and pick her up and spin us both. “Thank you for fixing my problem! AHHHH!”
She squeals and giggles at my excitement. “My pleasure hon. Not quite fixed, I have to make a little device to see if my idea will fix Tessa’s problem.”
“Andromeda am I glad that worked.” I sigh heavily, relieved when I get spin around to see Katie lifting an eyebrow and tapping her foot. I scoff pick her up in a princess carry, which must look ridiculous with our height difference, and kiss her on the cheek.
“Thank you for all of the magitech help Kay.” She grins appreciatively.
“Can you ask Ophelia execute warp plans Beta through Delta? While we celebrate with galaxy fruit and wine?”
“Would you like Atropos and I to help extrapolate the incoming data to your future scale model?”
“Yes, but no more business. There will be wine and cuddles and an honest attempt to make whatever this is, feel less awkward.” I teleport them both to the lounge.
I grab a tray and pile it with my fruit beer and snacks and plop on my sectional. Katie pulls me up to lie on her and Mel positions herself to lie on me. Katie puts on an updated version of one of those “How it’s Made” shows and we drink and heckle the show like a bunch of giant nerds.