Chapter 1: A bigger room

-- February - Week 7 --

For Lee Gillian and her crowd, it was a good week.

They all found it hard to believe they had been gone from Earth for nearly seven weeks, as so much seemed to have happed on this voyage so far and they weren’t even at their destination yet.

The Fore Rih Space Drives (FRSDs) and the smaller Fore Ionic Drives (FIDs) that were used for manoeuvrability, were all in operation. Their spaceship was slowing as planned with minor adjustments as required, depending on what the scientists found.

Lee’s workload had become lighter and less stressful. She still used Jim Hoyle as her TA, to assist her with her electrical maintenance duties if he didn’t have other work to do. Lee and Jim would often go help Jim’s wife, Magda, up in the Horticultural Dome, or they would go help Terry Ore with the drive maintenance, just to keep busy.

Lee and her hunky Lieutenant, Sean Watson, were becoming more comfortable in their relationship. While they still enjoyed ‘fucking like rabbits’ they endured Cinderella disappearing at the stroke of 23:30 hours, to go to work.

Their friend and dinner companion, Sandra Wills, told the group that she had heard that Rodger Bartlett was on the mend. It would still be several weeks before he could return to full duties, not that most of them really cared.

Ben Layard was also up and around with a cast on his leg. Lee hadn’t seen much of him. While he was the supervisor of the Engineering crews, he only communicated with her by email. He never came and checked that she was doing her job, and this suited Lee just fine.

The talk of the ship was still about Lee killing Dr Syd Adams. Some of the guys were still not sure how they felt about what she did. However, there was not a woman aboard who condemned her. As far as they were concerned, she was a heroine. No woman liked being raped or knowing a sadistic rapist was living near them.

Dr Von West had linked Syd’s description with some old news items, about a rapist that killed his victims after raping and torturing them for weeks. The dead all had burn and bites marks all over their bodies, the same as she had found on Tahoora Aabdar.

Doc Von was happy to let everyone see the articles, especially when Tahoora said she didn’t mind them knowing what had happened to her. She preferred they knew the truth rather than speculate about what he had done to her.

Many of the crew had since been speculating on just how Syd had been picked for this voyage.

Ulani Goldsmith, their resident sociologist, had talked with Lee and Tahoora with Doc Von present. Lee also asked if Lieutenant Sean Watson as the ship’s security officer and the ship’s Captain Nick Clark could be present as well. The other three women agreed.

The girls had a chance to get their story straight before the interview. They kept it simple. Syd had attacked Tahoora in the lift when she refused to go with him. Lee had entered the lift when it had stopped on her floor. She saw Tahoora’s distress and torn dress. She tried to get Syd to leave her alone.

Syd had attacked Lee, and she had defended herself. She had hit him harder than she intended and accidentally killed him when her punch had sent his heart into fibrillation and broke a rib. End of story. While they had left out a couple of minor points such as Lee provoking Syd, it was essentially the truth.

Lee told Ulani and Doc Von about Rodger’s attempted rape a couple of weeks before and showed them the vid. She said to them that the Captain, Sargent Gary Carpenter and Sean already knew of the incident. She, however, had asked them, to keep it to themselves.

Lee explained that she could have done something similar to Rodger, but she hadn’t. She really didn’t mean to wallop Syd as hard as she did. She just wanted to stop him from hurting them anymore. The bruises on her neck gave her story credibility.

Ulani, Doc Von and the Captain agreed with Sean when he said they were all better off without Syd anyway. It wasn’t as if the ship was suitable for keeping a prisoner on. He doubted that the other women and many of the men would have been happy with him being on the ship once they had learnt of his treatment of Tahoora.

Sean said if Lee hadn’t dealt with him, someone would have ended up pushing him out of an airlock or locking him in a hold to be found later. They all had to agree with Sean as they too had heard the opinions being expressed in the dining room.

The four officials all wrote up their reports. They cited that Lee had reacted to a life and death situation and accidentally killed her attacker while defending herself and protecting Tahoora. As far as they were concerned, that was the end of it.

Lee also found that her friends had reacted positively. They all said it was shame he had died, but not one of them condemned her or treated her any differently than before. They treated the incident as one of those things that happen in life and moved on.

The fact that none of them had liked Syd or what he had done to Tahoora also helped with their attitude. While Lee felt bad that she had killed Syd, she was also relieved that he was no longer a threat to the women on the ship.

The Army team surprised her the most. They all hugged and kissed her for getting rid of the arsehole. Penny told her of how he had tried to pick her up, and Juanita and the guys wouldn’t leave her or any of the other Army girls alone with him around.

Sean was probably the most amazing. He had simply kissed Lee told her she was a bloody amazing woman and that he loved her. He had gently held her before taking her to bed and making gentle love to her.

Now that the ship was heading in-system, there had been many meetings regarding Professor William Essco’s confinement. However, a decision had still hadn’t been reached. Essco was incensed that Lee could kill his friend and she wasn’t punished, while all he had done was make a little booze.

He wasn’t happy when it was pointed out to him that if the alcohol had caught fire, it would have endangered the whole crew and not just the one person who was already doing the wrong thing.

The science contingent did, however, decide to elect Professor Philip Goldsmith, an Archaeologist, as the new team leader for the Scientists. Philip was chosen mostly because the science team found that he was about the only person, no one could find a reason to reject.

It did help that he was also well respected. Most of the crew considered him astute, a good judge of a situation and character, and fair in his judgements. They also thought his wife Ulani was a plus and that they made a good team. They were a handsome, charismatic couple.

Philip stood around 179cm (5’10”) and Ulani about 2cm shorter. Both had dark-blonde hair, trim figures and hailed from Wales. The Goldsmiths were in their late thirties but childless. They also elected to wear the jumpsuits assigned to their division.

Philip was a personable man who listened to others and didn’t tend to belittle them. Those closest to him all agreed that he was a decisive man, once presented with the facts and he did like to ferret out the facts before making a decision.

The Captain considered the Goldsmiths team players. He and Philip had a running chess game in the dome lounge area that no one was game to touch. As far as Lee and Sean were concerned, Miss Piggy liked the Goldsmiths, so that was good enough.

Sandra and Kyle had swapped rooms a couple of weeks before, and it hadn’t surprised anyone. Kyle being shacked up with his girlfriend, Debora Smith, delighted Lee. She was also sure that at least half the crew had traded places at least once, if not twice, so far.

Dave Rose, their favourite Vet and good friend, and Sandra had become inseparable as well. Lee often heard Sandra’s voice coming from the animal area. Sandra was an animal lover and enjoyed working with Dave and the animals, when not doing her other work.

Lee was amused that Dave and Sandra loved to discuss/argue good-naturedly, the most entertaining topics. They spend one evening discussing the effects on the environment caused by methane gas that was emitted by pigs and cows. To which of course everyone had an opinion. It had ended up a lively and amusing discussion.

Towards the end of the week, an interesting development occurred for Sean and Lee. They had been in Sean’s room recovering from their most recent bout of lovemaking.

“Hey, Lee?” asked Sean.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Hmm, what do you think of moving in with me?” Sean asked her tentatively.

“Do I get to read your books?” she counted.

“Of course, you can read them any time you wish,” he immediately answered.

“While not opposed, the problem is Miss Piggy?” she reminded him.

Sean looked at the pig. She was in her favourite spot under the desk. She was not quite so small anymore, as she was now nearly four months old. They had come back to his room after being in the observatory lounge, and Miss Piggy was with them.

Getting the pig reassigned back to the cargo hold would solve the issue. However, Sean knew that wasn’t a solution that Lee or the pig would agree too. Lee had become attached to the pig, and the pig was obviously attached to her. Plus, he liked the damn pig himself. He had always had a dog when he was a kid.

Dave had said pigs were just as smart if not smarter than dogs. They could be good company and lots of fun, as he had found Miss Piggy was. Plus, she appeared to have adopted him as well. He was the only other person, other than Kyle and Lee, that the pig obeyed. “Crap,” he said.

“Exactly,” said Lee giggling. “She can’t get back to the cargo hold to do her business from here. It is one thing to get there from my current room, but from here, she would have to navigate the halls and the lifts. And while she is smart, I think her physical limitations like reaching the lift buttons, would be difficult for her to overcome.”

She smiled at Sean and kissed him for good measure. “Problem is,” she continued. “I don’t think that moving to my place is an option. The room is too small for the three of us, and we can’t put a double bed in that room because it’s a strange shape.”

Sean nodded in full agreement with her assessment as thing stood. “Hmm, we will have to think about it some more.”

Lee very much liked the idea of moving in with Sean, but she just couldn’t see an option that worked. Sean suddenly gave a big yawn, and Lee realised it was time to go to work. She hugged Sean and gave him a long, searing kiss.

“You don’t need to see me home. I have my guard pig tonight, and you look beat. It must be all those meetings you’ve been to this week. Go to sleep, and I will see you later.”