Chapter 565

The Alien Ship

... As the Captain knelt shaking and pissing on himself, he realized that his weapon was very near his hand, and the First had his back to him. Knowing that he would never have a better chance, he eased his hand forward as if he were just shifting his weight while preparing to stand.

In an instant, the weapon was in his hand, and since it was already pointed in the general direction of the First Officer, raising it enough only took an instant...

Unfortunately for the Captain, the First’s Precog was screaming at him. With reflexes that only he possessed, he drew, spun and fired, all in one blindingly fast motion.

As the First turned, his eyes inadvertently focused on the threat, which was the weapon in the Captain’s hand, and that’s where the pulse went. The Captain had been on his knees with his hand just above shoulder level as he pointed the weapon slightly upward toward the First Officer’s midsection. After the particle beam destroyed the Captain’s weapon, his hand, a considerable portion of his forearm and took out a chunk of his shoulder, it went on to destroy the base of one of the consoles. A moment later, the steward grabbed a fire extinguisher to put out the resulting fire. No one moved to help the Captain.

“Shit, you stupid mother fucker,” (Interpreted) the First snarled, his weapon now lined up on the Captain’s head – not that the Captain noticed because he was unconscious an instant after the beam had done its work. Generally, with this much damage, he would have bled to death in a short period of time, but because the beam had cauterized the wound, he stood a good chance of recovery should he receive medical attention in time.

“Shit,” the First hissed out as he absently returned his weapon to its holster, “I have just forced us to have to go rogue, and I did not even kill the bastard.”

“We could wait for a few sub-cycles. I doubt if he will last long without medical assistance,” the Third offered.

“Tempting. Very tempting,” the First Officer snarled, “but get him into the chamber. At least he will be out of my sight for a while.”

“Sir,” the Science Officer said as he paused the recording, which was impossible as far as the High Command knew, “I could delete the recording of what has happened, we could space him and make it look like a suicide. I guarantee that the High Command would not be able to tell.”

The First sighed. “I swore to uphold the Captain. I have already severely damaged that oath, even before I shot his ass, but I am still going to try to maintain the mission parameters as they were outlined to me. At least it will take the chamber several cycles to grow him a new arm and patch up his shoulder, but at the end of this mission, there will be a firing squad waiting for me.”

They will be waiting a very long time, the Science Officer grimly promised himself – a thought shared to one degree or another by the rest of the personnel on the bridge.

The Prison Planet

... Tosha and Kayla held back a step to let the others go through the door first. “A pulse rifle?” Tosha quietly commented as she nodded to the weapon slung on Kayla’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” she said as she cast one last glance behind them. “After watching that last vid of the saber-tooth’s attack, I decided to play to win.”

“Makes me wish I had brought mine,” the young Security officer said with a nod as they went on inside.

A moment later, Jeff addressed Morales. “I think I brought everything we’ll need to get the cave wired. Would it be okay to put our equipment in the flat area just past your walkway?” he asked.

“Sure. Just let me get the snow shoveled out of the way.”

The Prime grinned as they walked back outside after Morales donned his cold-weather gear and took his rifle down from the rack. “Don’t bother. Ship will move it for us.” As soon as they were clear of the entrance passage, they stopped while Jeff sent Ship a mental request. A couple of seconds later, a large patch of snow disappeared to crash down into the woods a hundred feet or so away. An instant after that, a canvas-covered mound appeared where Jeff instructed Ship to put the supplies.

“Wow. Please tell the lady thank you from me. Too bad that she can’t stay. She surely would come in handy after a heavy snowfall.”

After a slight hesitation, Jeff replied, “She is pleased that you referred to her as a lady, and she asked me to assure you that she will remove the snow from your path any time she’s here and the path needs shoveling.”

As they were removing the covering, “I hope you don’t mind, but I have decided to increase your battery capacity quite a bit, Jeff said, tongue in cheek. “The downside to that is we’ll have to enlarge the hole in the side of the entrance tunnel where we discussed putting the batteries, and that will mean we’ll have to take out more of the top of your rock wall, too.”

Morales shrugged. “Shouldn’t matter. No way can a cave bear get that far down the entrance tunnel, anyway.” He paused a second before, “Look, Jeff. Why don’t you give me the dimensions for the compartment, and I’ll expand the hole to the size we need?”

“Well,” Jeff said while trying to sound serious, “as long as you’re volunteering for the hard part...” They both chuckled at his attempt at humor. After taking out a small pad, he tore off a page with the dimensions of the battery box on it. Giving it to Morales, Jeff continued, “I wound up making the compartment much longer while still keeping it fairly shallow so we could maneuver the box mechanism and the drawer down the entranceway. All we will have to do is walk down the entranceway with it, raise it up, and slide it in. The measurements I gave you are the actual dimensions of the box and the mechanism that holds it, so you’ll need to dig the hole a couple of inches wider all around to give us maneuvering room to slide everything in.

“Oh, yeah, Dave made it out of a non-conducting material that won’t burn and is also quite light. The batteries are a new design that’s owned by Frank Wainwright. They are still in the testing stage, although he assured me that they would soon be on the market. He says that they will store more than four times the amount of power compared to the most advanced batteries available. They will also charge very quickly, which means that they will be able to use the heavy amperage that the newly designed solar cells will put out. I only wish the idea had been mine,” he finished with a mock sigh.

After Morales checked out what Jeff had written, he commented, “If I had known the dimensions, I would have had the hole dug out already, but I did knock together a bench to stand on while I dig, thanks to all those nails you sent. With the chain saw and the guide, I can make rough lumber in a hurry – well in a hurry compared to sawing it out by hand.”

Jeff turned to his friend. “If the area were out in the open, Ship could have removed the dirt for us, but since it’s at the other end of the entranceway, she can’t get to it with her inertialess tractor beam. I would suggest throwing the dirt in the wheelbarrow. When it’s full, just move it to the open end of the entranceway. I’ll tell Ship to get rid of the dirt the way she did the snow.”

“That’ll work and save a lot of time,” Morales replied.

“Good. If you need anything, just let me know,” then Jeff quickly teased, “but I still can’t get you off the planet.”

“I would have to be insane to want to leave with what I have here now,” Morales remarked seriously.

“I can relate to that,” the Prime said as they turned to go back inside to retrieve a heavy bench that Morales had made from a couple of cut-off logs with a wide board nailed across them. “I can use it to stand on while digging in the wall, and we can also use it for a bench to sit on,” Morales commented.

Shovel in hand, he stepped up on the board, but stopped to address Jeff more directly. “Seriously, the last thing I would want now is to get off the planet. I haven’t even thought about leaving in quite some time. Now that I have all three of the women I love here with me, leaving is the last thing I would ever want. Besides, I won’t leave Lobo and Lila – nor my chicken buddies, for that matter.”

Jeff slapped Morales on the back before going on inside where he found the women sitting in a huddle while drinking coffee and planning. As he removed his jacket and hung it up, “Ladies,” he began, but was interrupted as Kayla handed him a cup of coffee before opening the door to hand Morales one also. “Uh, I need to ask Jasmine something,” the Prime continued after taking a sip of the coffee and thanking Kayla.

Jasmine separated herself from the other women to bring him Ashley’s laptop. Before he could comment, she said, “Ashley, Christine and I realized that we still had to leave room for the main fire and the cook fire in case there are multiple cloudy days when the system wouldn’t be able to recharge enough for heat or cooking. Accordingly, we’ve sketched out what we hope to have in our kitchen one day. On the second page, we’ve also sketched a suggestion for wiring the cave.”

Jeff had already done the same thing but didn’t tell them that. He had expected that the women would have to decide on where everything would go, but for the moment, all he really needed was the location for the cookstove since it would be on one of the 240 volt circuits and, therefore, a separate circuit to the lighting and wall receptacles. He had decided to wire for an electric stove, hoping they would not want gas. Ship could easily bring in a full tank of propane, but refilling it would be a hassle. With the extra solar collectors, all far better than anything on the market today, there would be plenty of power for a stove and wall heaters, while the new battery system, capable of withstanding heavy amperage during charging, would take only a couple of hours to charge the batteries fully. If there were a few hours of sunlight every couple of days, the Morales’ family could have electrical appliances and lighting whenever they needed them.

“Is that okay?” Jasmine asked with a grin while nodding to the detailed diagram the engineers had prepared.

Talk about overkill, Jeff thought as he looked at the very professional diagram of the proposed kitchen. On the second page was an equally detailed diagram of the wiring for the rest of the living area, including the area where the chickens lived.

Wow, this looks very professional, he thought, but managed to stop before saying it aloud. It’s supposed to look professional; they’re engineers. Instead, he just thanked them. After looking around for a moment, he went on, “I intend to recess the wiring into the walls and floor, but with the solid rock of the roof preventing us from putting lighting fixtures up there, at least without a big hassle, I’ll have to stay with indirect lighting from high on the walls. We don’t have any building codes to deal with, and I have no idea what they would be for a cave, anyway, but for safety’s sake, just as I did outside, I’ll go a step beyond code on much of this. But the only way I can think of to get the wiring out of sight is to dig a channel and, on the walls, use what are basically long staples driven into the dirt to help secure everything. Once we get the wiring in and operating, I’ll devise a way to hide the conduit. Sound okay to you?” he asked everyone, the others having joined them by now.

Ashley and Christine looked at each other before Christine responded. “We couldn’t think of any other way to do it, either, and that seems reasonable.”

“So, what can we do to help?” Ashley asked.

“Uh,” Jeff started while he was taken aback a bit. “Just as you have done here,” he said while motioning to their sketch, “I intend to keep the receptacles and lighting for each room on a separate circuit. Since there aren’t any rooms here in the cave, I’ll arbitrarily say that we will consider each twelve feet down the wall to be a room. The lighting will be on 15 amp breakers with 14 gauge wire, while the receptacles will be on 20 amp breakers and 12 gauge wire. The wall heaters will be on 240 volt circuits and on wire one step heavier than code. Each wall heater will have its own breaker.