Jethro 8 Snippet 5

 

 

SG3R211-94 Sigma Sector Capital

 

Suqinoted her family was in transit so there was a natural delay on emails. Thatsucked. It was coming to an end though; they would be hitting their homeworldsoon.

Onher next ground-side leave, she had four days off because it was a holidayweekend. She wished Hurranna was around, but the cat had been stuck in atraining exercise and her carrier was on the other side of the star system forthe holiday. That sucked.

Thestar system had been pirate controlled until it had been liberated. When theFederation had come in, the massive habitats had been restored and additionalspace stations built. There was even a dedicated ONI station called Delphi.

Thenatives had consolidated on a moon colony that had massive domes on it. Insideit didn’t look at all like you were indoors. The designers had done their bestto make it as large and impressive as possible. It was helped with the factthat the moon had an ocean, near 1G gravitational field, and a molten corewhich spun and generated its own magnetic field. There were some talks amongthe natives about possibly terraforming the moon into a habitat like herhomeworld Kathy’s World.

Sheended up getting dragged to a recently opened theme park by a group of Marines,one was Blainey, an old friend from boot. She hadn’t interacted with “The B Blainey”much in boot but apparently Blainey fondly remembered her however, the “cat.”

Blaineywas a husky human woman, not a heavy worlder, but she definitely worked out.She had a chiseled face and had a reputation of being in bar fights. She hadbeen masted twice and nearly lost a stripe after one altercation. Her nose wasjust a little out of position due to a couple lucky hits.

Theygot through the lines to get in relatively quickly. They traveled in their civies,and she thought everything was fine. There were an inordinate amount of humansin the group, but the planetary population had been hit by the plagues as wellas pirate genocidal hunts for years before it was liberated by the Federation.

Oneof the first rides they got on was a Ferris wheel. It was giant and hollow core.It was driven by massive wheels on the ground. The hollow center allowed tworoller coaster tracks to pass through it. The passengers on the Ferris wheelrode in cars that moved in and out as the wheel rotated.

Whenthey went up, she found out it was timed so the cars would tip and then rushtowards a coaster just as it came through the hollow and then the car wouldswing up and away in the nick of time. It was a scary experience but excitingand fun once she realized it had all been carefully engineered for the frightexperience.

Thesecond pass, the rush and tip of the car were expected. The roller coaster wason its way back and that track corkscrewed in a wild maneuver.

“Weare so going to try that coaster next,” Blainey gushed girlishly.

Suqisighed internally but nodded.

  >>*<<

Hurrannahad some idle time since it was a holiday weekend. She hated that they werestuck on the other side of the star system, but she wouldn’t have missed theflight time with the training operation for anything in the galaxy.

Shecouldn’t get actual time with Deja, so a video conference was the next bestthing. They were doing it under the pretense of debriefing after the previousexercise. The talk quickly shifted to Jethro and Ox’s survival though.

“Tohave survived that,” Deja said as he shook his bullet-shaped head. As a selkie,he could cut through the water or space with incredible ease.

“Yeah.I bet if they’d had you along, they would have been back in half the time,”Hurranna said.

“Maybe,”Deja said thoughtfully. He still had a chip on his shoulder about being draggedinto a helm position. Fortunately, the Federation navy now had plenty of peoplelike him who could do it now.

“Noifs, ands, or maybes about it,” Hurranna said with a snort and ear flick.

“Maybe,”Deja said again and then wiggled his whiskers as the lynx shot him a reprovinglook. “Like I said, maybe. Too many variables,” he said with a slight shrug.

Shecocked her head but let that one go.

“Heardanything from them?” Deja asked.

“Igot the email from Jethro. Short and sweet and to the point, a thanks and yup,still kicking,” she said. They both looked at each other in amusement. “Ox …nothing. Then again, word is he is in terrible shape.”

Dejanodded and looked concerned. “I thought they had AI and nanites and stuff tokeep them alive?” he asked.

“Yeah,I heard the same thing. It is probably why they are alive,” Hurranna said. Dejalooked at her and then nodded slowly.