Making of a Starship Captain Ch. 14

The Making Of A Survey Service Captain

By Gary L.M. Martin

[Note: This Science Fiction story is an intense character study with occasional sex scenes.]

Starship Gods

Michael Taylor became a God with the very best of intentions.

He fell into it by accident, by circumstance. It wasn't as if he and the survivors of the USS Asgard sat down together and said, "We have this marvelous situation. Why don't we take advantage of it and rule these people like Gods, for our own amusement and entertainment."

No, it didn't happen that way, not at all.

********

Taylor served on a number of ships after his stint on the Charleston; even though Captain Hauslohner was no longer in command, in fact all the senior officers had transferred or been transferred off the ship, nevertheless there was some ill will towards Taylor among the crew which made the Survey Service think it best that he didn't return to it. Perhaps it had something to do with the way he dragged each crewmember by their left foot across the corridors of the Charleston, yelling "I am the GREATEST! You will obey ME!" at the top of his lungs. Or perhaps it was the way he ridiculed them with scorn as he threw pieces of bread and meat into their faces in the shuttle bay.

Whatever the reason, the powers that be determined that Taylor should be sent to another ship, and he was, and he had a number of exciting adventures, and eventually was promoted to Lieutenant.

And on his very first mission as a full Lieutenant, Taylor was reassigned to the ill-fated USS Asgard, where he served on the ship's final flight.

The Asgard was a cargo ship. The Survey Service did a little bit of everything: military work, police work, and of course surveying and exploring, as the name implied. But it also operated its own cargo and hauling service, for destinations which were not well served by the private sector. The World Government was working hard to eliminate all private cargo haulers, saying that the Government could do it cheaper and better, but thus far had been unsuccessful in totally destroying free enterprise in outer space.

Taylor was worried when he learned he was being transferred to a cargo ship. The merchant branch was typically the place that ended Survey Service careers, not boosted them.

He needn't have worried; he was only on the Asgard for one flight. The ship's final one.

The Asgard collided with a fragment of a stellar ribbon, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that a fragment of a stellar ribbon collided with it. However the incident is described, the bridge was holed, and the crew there were instantly asphyxiated; and there was a power surge in engineering, and the crew there were electrocuted.

All of which left exactly one officer alive on board: Survey Service Lieutenant Michael Tiberius Taylor.

Taylor had had what he later recognized was the good fortune to have the door to his quarters jam shut after the call to stations sounded. While he was working to slowly pry the door open, the bridge was hulled, and the engineering crew were killed moments later.

Which left him the only officer aboard.

But not the only person.

The Asgard had nearly a dozen passengers, all of whom were alive and unharmed.

*********

As he made his way to the mess hall, where they were all congregating, Taylor heard them talking to the other surviving member of the crew.

"I wasn't on the bridge," said the crewman. "I work in the cargo department. My name is Adam Jefferson. I'm the apprentice crewman."

"Do you know how to pilot the ship?" Kyrsten Hymen asked. Kyrsten was a luscious lesbian, with short blonde hair and enormous tits.

"No."

"Do you know how to fix engineering?" Brianna Lindsay asked. Brianna was Kyrsten's lesbian lover, along with McKenzie Risella, who was the third member of their Triple.

Again Jefferson shook his head. "No."

"Then what fucking use are you?" Kyrsten raged, her breasts quivering with anger.

Taylor, out in the corridor, felt reluctant to enter the room. They were all so full of expectations. He knew he would disappoint them. He was just a lowly lieutenant, a newly minted lieutenant at that; what did he know about engineering?

"We are so fucked! We are so truly fucked up the ass!" Alexis Herman cried bitterly. Alexis was a school teacher on her way to a teaching job on Ramada (which made no sense to Taylor whatsoever). Alexis was a gorgeous brunette; she looked more like a supermodel than a teacher. Also, teachers seldom referred to being fucked up the ass, Taylor astutely noted.

"Calm down!" said Tara McCallister, trying to put an arm around her. Tara was an agronomist on her way to a colony planet. Tara had put out some feelers that she might be interested in Taylor, in more than a casual way.

"You calm down!" said Alexis, pushing her away. "We're on a crippled ship, the entire crew is dead, and we have no idea how the ship can be fixed, if it can be fixed. We don't even know how to launch a distress signal. We don't even know if life support is working. We have no chance!"

I have to help these people. I'm with the Survey Service. My mission is to help them, Taylor thought.

"Stop it!" said Tara, grabbing her shoulders.

"No chance!" Alexis yelled again, getting hysterical.

Tara slapped her. Alexis slapped her back. The other passengers, especially the men, were shocked and dismayed as two very attractive women started to fight in front of them.

"We're fucked! We're all fucked!" Alexis screamed.

"QUIET!" a new voice said sternly.

They turned to see a new figure in the doorway. In the dim lighting, all they could see was the silhouette of an officer's uniform.

The man stepped forward. "No one's going to die," he said firmly.

When he stepped into the dim light, they all saw the familiar face of United Survey Service Lieutenant Michael Taylor.

********

And so he took command.

The first step was to get access to the bridge.

But first it had to be made habitable. There was a gaping hole in the bridge, just above the viewscreen. Taylor would have to go out and fix it.

Taylor felt his anxiety start to creep up as he put on his spacesuit. He had had EVA training, back at the Academy. But that had been different. If anything went wrong there, Sergeant Chappie would immediately have called a retrieval team for him.

There was no one to save him if something went wrong here.

I'll just take it slowly, Taylor said to himself. After all, it wasn't as if he was going to have to use his jetpack to maneuver in space. That would have made his repair trip infinitely more dangerous. But Taylor didn't have to do that. He could simply walk on the hull using his magnetized boots.

"What if something happens to you?" Tara McCallister asked worriedly, as he suited up at the airlock.

"What could happen to me?" Taylor asked.

"A zillion things. Your suit could get punctured. Your air tanks could malfunction. You could drift away in space," Tara said. "And then we'd be all alone," she said, staring at him desperately.

She's right! Taylor felt himself gripped by anxiety.

"Maybe there's another way," said Inadequacy. "Maybe we can pilot the ship from engineering."

"We need access to systems on the bridge," said Ambition.

"If we go out there all alone, and get separated from the ship, there will be no one to save us!"

"Shut up! This is our job," said Ambition.

"Don't worry, that's not going to happen," said Taylor, giving Tara a confident smile. "I'm a United Survey Service officer. I have full training in zero g maneuvers."

"Just be sure to come back," said Tara anxiously.

Taylor smiled and winked as he put on his helmet and stepped into the airlock. When the door closed behind him, he started the cycle and soon the outer door opened. He stepped out.

Taylor gasped as he saw the vastness of deep space. It was just like his training at the Academy. He suddenly remembered how Ernie Maslarov was so agoraphobic that he refused to even step out of the airlock. He had RFD'd right then and there.

Taylor stepped out onto the hull. He took one step, and then another, slowly but carefully.

"How are you doing out there?" came the stressed voice of Tara McCallister over the comm. "Michael? Michael? Are you there?"

"I'm here," said Taylor. "Everything is fine," he assured her.

"You've probably done this hundreds of times," said Tara, sounding very worried.

"Thousands," said Taylor, and he smiled as he heard a feminine chuckle.

"How long have you been in the Survey Service, Michael?"

"Almost three years," said Taylor. As he took another step, he moved a little too quickly, and his right foot came lose. If his left foot had come off, he'd be floating away from the hull right now. He calmly put his foot back down, where it clamped down on the hull again.

"So... you must deal with stressful stuff like this all the time," said Tara.

"All the time," Taylor assured, taking another step forward. That brought him in view of the area of the hull around the bridge.

Except, that it was on an area of the hull which was angled radically different from the section he was on now. There was no way to simply walk to it.

He would have to fly there, with his jet pack.

If something went wrong....

"GO BACK!" Inadequacy screamed at the top of his lungs.

"No. We have to patch the hull."

"We'll die if we do!" Inadequacy cried.

"Not if we're careful," said Ambition. "We have four minutes of thrust in our jet pack. That should be more than enough."

"And what if it runs out before we get back to the airlock?"

"Then I won't have to listen to your annoying voice for much longer," said Ambition.

"Tell me about some of your adventures," said Tara.

Taylor pressed the button on his wristpad to demagnetize his boots. Then he gave a gentle push. His heart thudded in his chest as he pushed away from the ship. He aimed slowly for the part of the ship he needed to go to.

"Well, there was the time we were boarded by pirates and I had to fight them off," said Taylor. He pressed the thrust button, and gave it four seconds. He started heading to the other section of the hull.

"You fought them all off? How many were there?"

"Six, as I recall," said Taylor. He saw himself approaching the other part of the hull fast. Too fast. He bounced off the hull, and he found himself spinning in space.

"You fought off six pirates all by yourself?"

Taylor bit his lip as anxiety built up his head. He remembered when the same thing had happened to Mohammida Najjar, the reformed Laquintan. She had spiraled out of control and called for Laquinta to save her. Taylor only had himself to save him.

Calm, I have to be calm.

"Taylor?"

"Yes, what is it?" he asked, trying to keep the stress out of his voice. He gave a half second burst from the left side of his jet pack. He was still spinning.

"You fought six pirates without any help?"

Taylor gave another half second left burst. He started to slow along his relative x axis, but was still spinning on his y axis.

"I had a crewman help me." He gave another burst. His x axis rotation had virtually ceased. Good.

"Only two of you against six of them?"

"Yep," said Taylor. "After we subdued them, I blew up two of their Corsairs." He twisted his body and gave a short burst. His y axis rotation started to slow.

"You did? Alone? Where was the rest of your crew?"

Taylor gave two more short bursts. His rotation had almost completely halted. Good. He aimed himself for the part of the hull he wanted to go for.

"They were out of action. All felled by a nasty virus," said Taylor. He took a deep breath, and keyed for thrust. But this time, only two seconds. He slowly started to move towards the hull again.

"So... this has happened before? Where you've been put in charge of a ship?"

Yes, except last time, the entire crew hadn't been killed. And I took command gradually. And the Survey Service knew we were in trouble. And we didn't have passengers. Somehow, the tension of having panicky passengers who relied on him made his anxiety all the worse.

He landed feet first, and felt a wave of joy as his boots clicked as he made contact with the hull.

"Thank God," said Taylor aloud.

"Taylor? What was that?"

"Nothing," said Taylor. "Everything's fine. Everything's fine now."

********

After Taylor made the repairs, he jetted back to the airlock without incident. When he got inside and finished cycling through the airlock, Tara was the first to hug him. "You made it," she said.

Taylor smiled. "Was there ever any doubt?"

His cockiness and brave smile aroused her.

********

Despite appearances, Taylor didn't have a lot of self-esteem when it came to women. At the Academy, his sexual experiences with Cherry had built up his courage. But then his experiences on the Charleston wore them down again. Taylor remembered how he had been persuaded to make love to Missy Burns. She had treated him as little more than a disposable sex toy. She even mocked him while they were having sex, calling him worthless each time he thrusted into her.

Although Taylor became a hero on a professional level after the Charleston incident, on a social level he still felt the stigma of what Missy had done to him. In retrospect, his sexual experiences with Cherry had been nothing but a blip; his sexual history was more accurately defined by all the women who rejected him in high school; by Allyson Harshbarger, who cruelly took his virginity and then humiliated him by broadcasting it; by Sarah Blade, an older woman who used him for her own sexual pleasure; and, most recently, by Missy Burns. (Or was it Michelle? Now he would never know.)

And then Cherry had driven the final stake through his heart. After he had all but humiliated himself in front of her, and Sophie Astor, Cherry announced that she was getting married... to another man.

Taylor had always nursed hopes that he and Cherry, despite their separate postings, might find their way back together and stay together; the fact that she so willingly discarded what they had shared together, so quickly, so easily, for another man, only crushed what little self-esteem he had left.

Taylor had tried to meet other women whenever he got leave on Earth, but had struck out every time. Finally, he met a woman named Jessica Rutherford who seemed attracted to him. They went out and dated and, incredibly, they were sleeping together by the third date. They entered into a relationship, but it quickly deteriorated; Taylor way away on missions for weeks or even months, and the last time he saw Jessica, he got the sense that she could live equally well with him, or without him.

And now Tara McCallister was showing signs of attraction towards him.

Tara came over to his quarters, ostensibly to talk. She told him all about herself. She was a technical agronomist on her way to the small agro colony on La Honda to help the farmers increase their crop yields. Taylor was less interested in that than the fact that she was a pretty brunette with hazel eyes which seem to stare at him incessantly. She asked about his background in the Survey Service, but it was obvious that she was looking to get to know him in a way that was more biological than biographical.

They met in his quarters and talked several times, establishing a certain level of familiarity with each other, before Tara made the first move. She reached out and started touching his hand.

Tara pretended like nothing was happening as she talked about soil tests she had done on some nameless planet, while her hand gradually moved up Taylor's arm. He didn't draw away, but he didn't respond either. But when Tara reached in to give him a kiss, he drew away.

"What?" she said, looking hurt. "Don't you find me attractive?"

"Very much so," said Taylor, and it was true.

"Then what is it?" Tara asked.

"I... have a girlfriend, on Earth," said Taylor slowly. "Her name is Jessica."

"Oh...," said Tara. She paused, considering. "Are you serious with her?"

Taylor frowned. He knew that Jessica was contemplating breaking up with him. They had discussed it openly. But he felt so insecure, that he was afraid to jeopardize what little chance he had left with Jessica by getting together with Tara. "Kind of," he said, in a way that sounded very weak to his own ears.

"I understand," said Tara. She got up to go, and reddened. "I'm sorry."

"No, don't be," said Taylor. "If I led you on in any way-"

"I'd better go," said Tara, bumping into the door in her haste to get out.

Taylor felt sad after Tara left. He really did like her. But he wasn't quite ready to give up on Jessica.

********

"Michael Taylor would be good for you," said Galactic Despair.

"And who are you exactly?" Alexis's Ambition asked.

"A friend."

"A friend?" Alexis's Ambition gave a cynical smile.

"You're going to be facing difficult times ahead. Your future, your very life will be dependent on Michael Taylor."

"I'm not used to my future being put in someone else's hands," said Alexis's Ambition.

"Precisely. Make Michael Taylor yours, and you will be the master of your own fate," said Galactic Despair.

"He does seem kind of cute, doesn't he?" said Alexis's Lust, joining the conversation. "In a simplistic, boy next door kind of way."

"You want him?" Alexis's Ambition asked.

"He could be an amusing distraction... for a while, at least," said Alexis's Lust.

********

Taylor had another visitor the next day. It was Alexis Herman, the school teacher who had been on her way to Ramada.

Taylor once again thought how little Alexis reminded him of a school teacher. The redhead had long, luxurious wavy hair, high cheekbones, hazel eyes, full lips, and a very flirtatious look. She had firm, high breasts... a little too firm, and a little too high, for a woman in her mid 30's, Taylor judged.

She didn't act like a school teacher either. Taylor remembered how she had played with his legs under the table in the mess hall, how she had looked slyly at him. Precisely the same way she was looking at him now.

She actually ran her hands down his legs as she smiled at him. "You were so brave, Captain. The way you risked your life in that engineering deathtrap. The way you floated out in space to repair the bridge. The way you took charge."

"Although I'm acting Captain, my rank is still Lieutenant," said Taylor, feeling uncomfortable and aroused, all at the same time.

Alexis's eyes sparkled, and she leaned closer to him. "You look like a captain to me." She tried to kiss him, but Taylor pulled back.

"What's wrong?" Alexis asked. "Don't you like girls?" She seemed to be teasing him.

"Oh, I do," said Taylor.

"Then maybe you just don't like me," she said, leaning against him to press her glorious breasts against him.

"Oh, I do," said Taylor. And he did! She was gorgeous. "It's just... I have someone back on Earth."

"Someone? A wife?" said Alexis, rubbing her hands slowly on his chest.

"No."

"A fiancée?'

"... Not exactly...."

"A girlfriend?"

"Yes," said Taylor, finding it harder to concentrate as her hands roamed farther and farther afield.

"And what happens when we're stranded on this planet, assuming we can even survive there? What happens when days turn into weeks and into months, and we're officially declared dead? What will your girlfriend do then?"