Chapter 13: Pre-Flight Call All Hands

It was my intention to reassemble Great Gruncle Iron’s superbly coordinated extraordinary management team. The essential members are here, aboard and eager for the voyage. These attentive ladies before me now are all the crew I need and all I’m going to get, barring post departure discovery of a stowaway.

That’s always a worrisome possibility for every captain. Desperate people do desperate things, and there are uncountable locations on a four mile long Starship, for an intruder to hide in until it’s too late to evict them. Well, spacing them isn’t even a consideration, so if they’re aboard after we depart, we’re stuck with them.

“Yolanda, Ling and Mei are our A/C Gravity Drive engineers. Ladies? Come forward and receive your hard hats.” The helmets are camo pattern, dark gray and brown, with crossed wrenches bolted on the forehead. The hats appear already grease stained because of the mottled color scheme.

“Marshall, Milly, Karen, and Meredith are our science officers. Come forward and receive your head gear.” Their academic mortar boards are bright yellow with small working incandescent bulbs screwed on top, representing the light of reason. Different colored tassels indicate their field.

“Maarta, Faye, Linda, Jeanette, Pam, Judy, and Billi are our Care officers. A hand for them because they care for all of us, please.

Step up and receive your hats ladies.” Pink baseball caps with red hearts over the visor.

“Brenda, Tommy, Johnny, Suzie, Mary, Jimmy, and Peggy, are representatives of the generation of embryos in stasis and our future. Come get your beanies, kids. Applaud them, please.” Propeller topped beanies, in different colors are passed and argued over and swapped around till all the tykes beam with pleased smiles.

“Tomorrow, we break the bonds from mother Earth forever, and sail away on our new mother, the Starship we named ‘MOM’. We need to take excellent care of her. MOM is all we have and she isn’t equipped with life boats. There is no one we can call for assistance if we have a breakdown or disaster. We are entirely dependent on ourselves, our ingenuity, and our faith in a deity, luck, fate, whatever calms you. For myself, I’m anxious to get underway. Anybody suffering last minute cold feet, should speak now.”

Silence.

“Last chance? Anybody? Applause for our intrepid fearless crew!” Resounding applause.

“There is one last shipment of supplies due anytime now. Once that shipment is aboard, we lock down all the exits and entrances, and commence a thorough sweep of the ship for stowaways. The doors will not be opened again, except to evict a stowaway if any discovered. Report here again when you hear the call for SWEEPERS. Dismissed, good luck and bon voyage.”