Space Relations Pt. 19

*** This story begins a new series with the excitable crew of the SCS Space Relations. This series takes place after the events of A Corvus Turrim Christmas Carol, which can be found in my other series Amor Fabula Ep. 04. ***

*****

The Pussycats Of Saturn

Captain Tyrone Boom-Boom Washington sat quietly in the lounge of his research vessel, the infamous SCS Space Relations. The young, officious black man had several things on his mind, most importantly the fate of another research vessel in the vicinity, the SCS Darwin's Beagle, which had not sent out any communications in several Earth Standard days. His ship was on its way now to investigate the matter, beginning with the last place the Beagle had transmitted from.

Washington also thought about his lover and first wife Barbara Bruxhall, whom the crew affectionately called Barbie. His first wife was off-ship along with his second in command Camelia Braxton, a former commander of the much larger starship SCS Neptune. It was a long story, but Braxton had at first been a bitter, oppressive bitch to her crew of several hundred. Thanks to the efforts of the people on Washington's starship, the matter had abruptly come to a head and been forwarded to Admiral Cocksander on Earth. Not only had Braxton been removed from her post, but as a punishment the mature woman had been assigned to Washington's ship as a lowly ensign. Perhaps the brass had expected his crew to ride the poor woman without mercy, but that's not what had actually taken place. Instead, Washington's subordinates had basically screwed the anger and bitterness out of Braxton, and normalcy and an adequate amount of happiness into her. In fact, the silver-haired Braxton had earned her place in the Space Relations, after her heroic handling of a crisis situation where several Space Corps personnel had lost their lives, including Washington's first navigator Brad Cummings.

Washington wanted both Barbie and Cammie, as Braxton was now being called, back on his little ship. He missed the two women drastically: Barbie because she would warm up his bunk, and Cammie because she offered a wealth of mature experience and knowledge to the rookie space captain. The reason both women were off-ship was because a Space Corps tribunal had been formed to decide Cammie's fate. This tribunal was presiding on the Neptune, with Barbie, Cammie and a host of others giving depositions as to exactly what had taken place under Cammie's leadership. If the worst thing they could do was to continue to assign Cammie to the Space Relations, Washington would have been overjoyed.

Because there was only so much time he could take in turning the matter over in his mind, Washington focused his attention on the conversation his subordinates in the lounge were having. These were the crewmembers not essential to the running of the ship, but they filled their niches well. First was Science Officer Ramiro De La Cruz, a Hispanic man in his late twenties. Cruz was a man of average build, with black hair, hazel eyes and a cool demeanor. His mind was filled with a vast knowledge of human and non-human psychology. Sitting next to Cruz was his primary lover Science Officer Mary Wattakunt. Mary was a softie with blonde hair, green eyes and nice C cup handfuls for breasts. Mary was also the resident empath, psychically able to read minds and even to influence the emotions of others. Both of Washington's science officers were what could be referred to as firecrackers, as opposed to the typical stuffed shirts that simply followed orders and kept to protocol. Lastly, lying on her rump and taking up most of a couch with her thick legs was Margo Muldren. Margo was a big and meaty woman with black hair and eyes. The woman did a fine job as the ship's cook, although the way she spiced up her food was certainly not in accord with Space Corps standards.

"I'm telling the both of you." Cruz was heard saying. "There is ample evidence that a Type II Civilization visited our Earth in the ancient past. It's clear as day, baby, if you know how to interpret the facts that lie right in front of your eyes."

"Why don't we know about it then?" Margo countered.

"What is a Type II Civilization?" Mary wondered.

"A Type I Civilization is what we had on Earth up until the creation of Space Corps and the implementation of space travel." Cruz replied. "That is a civilization that remains stationary on a single planet, and that uses only the energies and resources of that single planet. A Type II is able to travel from one star to another, using the energy and resources from multiple planets."

"Where's the proof of that?" Margo shook her head.

"It's all over the place, baby. The fact is that in the past, Earth's governments worked very hard to suppress this knowledge. Look at the Mayan people. The Mayan had their Long Count Calendar that amassed durations of time of up to billions of years. Those people mapped out the seasons of space, based on how Earth cycled up and down on the Galactic Plane. You don't just guess at that, baby. You have to be out there in space, keeping a close watch on everything for a very long time to create a calendar as precise as the Maya did. Take a step further back to India. Their Yuga calendars also go back billions of years. Their Vedas talk about epic battles among the gods, on Earth, on Earth's moon and in space. The establishment wants to isolate these tales and pass them off as mythology, but these tales are found all over the world. Don't even get me started on Sumeria. In that culture, the gods actually set foot on Earth, baby. They built ancient strongholds, they subjugated humans as miners and they brought all sorts of advanced knowledge to Earth. Did you know that the Dogon Tribe of Africa had knowledge of what the planets around Sirius were like? How could they possibly know that? We can see that Sirius is one of the brightest stars in Earth's sky, but we can't see the planets in orbit around it. How could the Dogon know this, unless somebody that was out there came to Earth and told them about it?"

"I think you're talking too much." Mary nodded.

"Am I making your head hurt, baby?" Cruz asked her.

"Yes, you are. Let's talk about baby ducks. I had one when I was little. I used to carry it around with me everywhere I went. I was like its mother until a cat came by and ate it. True story, bud."

"Do you think any of those old cultures had lesbians?" Margo cut in.

"Why would you ask me something like that?" Cruz balked. "These people were highly advanced when compared to the sexual abnormality that goes on in the Divided States. A man belongs with a woman and vice versa. They would never degrade their culture by engaging with the same sex."

"What a minute, bucko." Mary waggled her finger at Cruz. "The Greeks and the Romans were famous for their manly love."

"Well..." Cruz looked at a loss for words. "Perhaps women were not intellectually stimulating enough to hold the interest of the men..."

"Oh, no you don't!" Margo sat up. "You're not getting out of it that easy. When a guy humps another guy, the last thing he's thinking about is philosophy! Answer my question. Did any of those cultures have lesbians? I can imagine what the Maya and the Indian women look like, but I don't know anything about Sumeria. Give me some visuals here. Light skin, dark skin, tall, short? Come on, help me out here!"

"I don't want to talk about that anymore." Cruz clammed up.

"Are you butt-hurt now?"

"Shut up, you dirty, smelly lesbian!"

"You wanna hump the lesbian out of me?" Margo asked, her tongue pushing against the inside of her mouth. "I'm willing to let you try."

"Me too!" Mary started bouncing up and down on her seat. "I'm a lesbian just like Margo! What are you going to do about it, Cruz?"

Captain Washington shook his head. This is what things were always like on his ship. Just then, a strong voice rumbled out through the intercom.

"Captain Washington, we are within sighting and hailing range of the Beagle."

The captain glanced toward the corner of the small lounge where he knew the camera and speaker were located. "Thank you, Thor. I'm on my way to the bridge."

As he started toward the lounge door, Cruz called out to him. "Can we tag along, Captain?"

"As long as you behave yourselves." Washington replied. "No hanky-panky on my bridge while we're on official duty."

Running down the center of the small ship was a centralized corridor. It separated the kitchen area from the lounge and workout center. At the end of the corridor lay the ship's bridge. A simple push pad allowed Washington to activate the sliding door. With his three tagalongs, he entered the most technically important part of the ship.

Three workstations were located in the center of the chamber. These were laid out in a symmetrical triangular pattern, with the captain's chair as the apex and the other two stations as the corners. To the left sat Combat Technician Thor Brukenfooken. Thor was a big, muscular and sometimes brooding Nordic man, with blonde hair and blue eyes. At times, he was seen sporting a beard or goatee, but presently he was clean-shaven. In the station to the right was Willow Smith, the ship's Systems Integrity Analyst. Willow was an average woman in many respects, with her simple brown hair and brown eyes. As opposed to Thor's public outbursts and constant brooding, Willow would at times wallow in moods that were shy and awkward. The two ensigns were quite a contrast, Washington knew, as he took his seat in the captain's chair. On top of that, Willow was his second wife in title, but not yet in actuality.

A navigator's chair was set against the right wall. If Cammie were on board she would be sitting there, but for now the chair was empty. Additional seating ran along the back wall, but this was supplementary and not essential to the running of the ship. The bridge, it must be said, was the most heavily fortified part of the vessel. In the case of an emergency or attack, the head of the ship was the safest place to be. Cruz and Margo chose seats at random. Mary could have taken a seat anywhere. She looked lost briefly, before she finally went and sat on Margo's lap.

Washington understood why Mary did that. They didn't know what to expect from the silent Beagle. They had no idea why the fellow science vessel had not responded as per protocol or if anything dire had happened to its crew. As an empath, Mary could send her mind across the divide and attempt to contact the crew of the Beagle through psychic means. If Mary discovered anything ominous, her soft demeanor would be shaken. She chose Margo as an emotional anchor because of the cook's strength and boldness.

"Thor, go ahead and hail the Beagle." Washington instructed, as he studied the images from the two cameras mounted outside of his ship. The monitor at the front wall of the bridge was huge, with its screen showing the Beagle from two slightly different angles. In one, the Beagle was seen as a tiny black smudge against the backdrop of space. In the second half of the screen they could see the outline of the planet Saturn next to the small ship. The Beagle had been investigating a radio anomaly somewhere around Saturn before they stopped communicating.

"Aye, aye, Captain." The Nordic ensign nodded, before turning toward his console. He pressed the button activating the communications circuit. "SCS Darwin's Beagle, this is Ensign Thor from the SCS Space Relations. Do you copy?"

Washington was instantly jealous of the Beagle. The vessel had an imposing and sleek design, with a hawkish forward slant and large, powerful thrusters that reminded him of strong human biceps. He compared the ship's shape to his own. By contrast, the form of the Space Relations looked like a mundane silver boot, with its sleeping quarters up top, the heel being the dining and lounging areas, and the toes being the bridge.

"No response, Captain." Thor frowned. "Let me try again."

As the big Nord did so, Washington shifted his head toward the systems analyst. "Willow, what can you tell me?"

The pretty woman shook her head. "All readouts look fine to me. Life support is on. The ship is maintaining a calculated orbit just out of Saturn's pull. I've got readings for twelve people on board, with four on the bridge, six in the research area and the last two in their bunks. I did find an anomaly, Captain. Permission to use the monitors so I can show you what I'm talking about."

"Go ahead, Willow." Washington nodded.

After adjusting the onscreen images, Willow explained, "The middle image is a close-up of the Beagle, adjusted to center it horizontally. The image on the right is from our archives. This is what the Beagle should look like."

The captain leaned forward in his seat, curious to see what his ensign was talking about. At first glance, both images looked to be the same. The closer Washington studied them, however, the more apparent the differences were. In the present-time display, the snub nose of a typical jet airplane was gone, replaced by the slanted, hawkish nose. Also, the thrusters looked larger and more robust. Even the coloring was changed from the friendly silver, similar to the color of the Space Relations, to a darker, gunmetal gray. The captain originally assumed the darker color was due to the obscurity of space.

"That can't be the same ship." Thor voiced exactly what the captain was thinking. "Perhaps its frame was upgraded and modified recently."

"And it got painted." Margo added, from the back of the bridge.

"If it was, there is no record of it." Willow shook her head. "I have the spec sheet right here if you want to see it."

"Pass it over to my computer." The big Viking requested.

As Thor studied the details on the Beagle, Washington swung his seat around to face one of his science officers. "Mary, are you picking anything up?"

"The people are there, on board the ship." Mary queasily admitted. "But they're not moving around or doing anything. They're not... thinking."

"I hope they're breathing." Washington felt a knot in his stomach.

"They are." Mary nodded. "They're warm, so they're still alive. If they weren't alive, I wouldn't be able to pick them up at all."

"Could they all be sleeping, baby?" Cruz asked.

"No, no." The blonde frowned and shook her head. "They look like they were doing stuff. You know, like standing up or sitting down, but doing something normal. All of a sudden, they just froze in place."

"As in a form of suspended animation or hibernation?" Washington asked.

"Something like that." Mary agreed. "Like somebody hit the pause button on them."

Washington rotated his chair around to face the monitors again. He thought these findings a very disturbing dilemma.

"Willow is right." Thor announced. "There have been no recent modifications or repairs to the Beagle to account for such a drastic change in appearance, at least not officially. Whatever happened to that ship has caused it to look more like a military vehicle than a science one."

"Well, we have no way to board it." Washington understood. "Let's create a reverse polarity field between their ship and ours. We'll magnetize the Beagle and tow it away from planet Saturn. Hopefully some of our physicists can figure out what is happening to the crew. Thor, send a long-range satellite communication out to the Neptune explaining our findings. Willow, set up a reverse polarity field."

"Aye, aye, Captain." Thor nodded.

"I'm on it, Captain." Willow seconded.

Washington saw that his two science officers were having conversations with their minds. "Is there anything you'd like to share about this?"

"Not really, Captain." Cruz frowned. "I only asked Mary if the crew of the Beagle in any way looked diseased or deformed."

"They look normal to me." Mary shrugged her shoulders. "They've got their clothes on and they're in the parts of the ship they should normally be found in. I can see their faces because some of them were looking at each other before they blanked out. They don't look scared or angry, more like casual as if whatever happened to them happened instantly. The captain of the Beagle is in his bridge chair, with his arms crossed and staring at an image of Saturn. He looks thoughtful."

"The captain of the Beagle is a woman." Thor corrected.

"No he's not." Mary denied. "I'm looking right at him from the eyes of whoever is in the navigator's chair. I'm looking at the Captain right now. He's an Asian man."

"She's in the archives." Thor made a face, before the big man went to type in a few commands into his computer console. The portrait of a stern, officious woman in a Space Corps lieutenant's uniform replaced the live image of the Beagle with Saturn behind it. "Her name is Jay Lee Pang."

"Oh, wow!" Mary looked shocked. "That woman's picture looks just like the man I'm looking at now. Except I'm looking at a man!"

"That's impossible." Thor negated. "You must be mistaken."

"That sounds kinky, baby." Cruz joked. "I wonder what I would look like as a woman."

"Pretty hideous, if you ask me." Margo quipped.

"Take that back, you unrepentant lesbian!"

"Captain, the reverse polarity field is up, but I have it at a low setting right now." Willow announced.

"That's fine, Willow." Washington nodded at her. It wouldn't do to have the field on at full strength yet, as they were still a good distance away from the Beagle. Also, who knew what sorts of space debris their ship might attract if they suddenly put a strong, new magnetic field out there. "Thor, will you bring us closer to the Beagle."

"Piggyback, sir? In case anyone turns on their thrusters?"

Vehicles with no power could be pushed around in space. However, the Space Relations would have to use its thrusters to head back toward the Neptune. Also, if the crew on the Beagle suddenly came to, they might want to move their vessel right away. This would be disastrous if the Space Relations was pushing their ship. They would get thruster exhaust right in their faces.

"Let's put the Beagle under us." Washington decided. "Willow, adjust our reverse polarity field."

"I'm doing it right now, Captain!"

"Thor, are we getting any radio anomalies such as those that prompted the Beagle to come out here in the first place?"

"Negative, Captain." The big ensign shook his head. "No activity except for ours and the regular emissions from Saturn."

The next few minutes went by in a routine manner, with the Space Relations moving into place over the Beagle.

"In position now, Captain." Thor said.

Willow glanced over her shoulder. "Should I increase the reverse polarity?"

Washington opened his mouth to reply, when he heard Cruz's voice pipe up behind him.

"It's a trap, Captain." The science officer said.

This prompted the black man to swivel around in his chair. "Why would you say that?"

"Well, just look at what's happening, baby." Cruz elaborated. "Why is the Beagle even out here? Someone heard a vague radio signal, didn't they, and because the Beagle was the closest vessel, they were the first on the scene. Look at what's happened to those people. They're frozen in time and space, most likely. Maybe they've been like that for several days, Earth Standard. And now we're here, also because we were the nearest available vessel. Whatever happened to them will most likely happen to us."

"I disagree, Captain." Thor refuted. "Whatever is happening to the Beagle is a localized event. Everything else in this sector of space is completely normal."

"If this is a trap, who is doing the trapping?" Washington asked. "Mary, you're not picking up any unusual brain patterns, are you?"

"No, Captain." The pretty blonde shook her head.

"There is nobody out here except us and that ship." Thor emphasized.