You will also have a kit on board to remove and replace chips in case there are any issues. They’re very easy to program, the kit will do it for you.”
Emi relaxed a little. “What else do they do?”
“They allow you as medical officer to monitor the crew with the computers, to a certain extent. You have empath training, so you’ll be able to fine-tune your senses, I’m sure, to your crew mates and sense any problems with their health. We’ll go through all of this in-depth with you, and there will be a full set of records on board for your reference. And as I mentioned before, it attunes you to each other so that while it’s impossible to force each other, it’s also very uncomfortable to let any crew member go without release if they’re in the mood and really desiring intimacy.”
“An anti-blue-balls feature,” Emi snarked. The men laughed again.
“Correct,” Graymard said. “But that also applies to you, as well.
There’s no set time frame. Again, it’s tapped into your particular biorhythms, whether you’re in the mood once a day or once a month.” She looked at her men, who watched her, smiles on their faces. “I don’t think I’ll have any problem with these three taking care of my needs.”
“Damn straight,” the twins said. Aaron grimaced.
“You got a setting in that thing to prevent that?” he grumped.
Emi laughed.
The technician looked up. “All done.” Graymard was right—she hadn’t felt a thing. Aaron took her hand when she stood, helped her to her feet.
“What’s next?” he asked Graymard, not releasing her, his thumb gently stroking her hand.
“Lunch, then an orientation for Emi, which you three need to sit in on.” Graymard looked at her clothes, apparently torn between amusement and disapproval at them taking the initiative to dress her in hand-me-downs. “Then you can take her by supply and get her whatever she requires there. I’ll leave word with them to totally outfit and equip her as needed, no limits.” She didn’t want to take off what she was wearing just yet. It was nice knowing all three of her men had contributed something to her ill-fitting couture. “I need to go by my apartment and storage locker and get my things.”
“You’ll have time later today. Go eat, and then the receptionist will direct you to the orientation.”
Emi wondered if she was coming down with a cold or something, because her sense of taste and smell still seemed out of whack, almost dulled. They ate together, then she snuggled, tucked comfortably between Aaron and Caph on one of the large leather sofas in the orientation room. Halfway through the first video, Caph swapped places with Ford, and Emi smiled and patted his…mmm…firm thigh.
Aaron never moved from her left side, their fingers laced together, his thumb idly stroking the back of her hand.
Usually training videos like that bored her to tears. But what seemed only minutes later it was over, and the technician was asking if she had any questions before starting the next. The videos were program overviews, how the fleet ranking hierarchy was established and her basic duties and responsibilities as medical officer¯she’d be a fully commissioned, ranking fleet officer¯the mission specifics to be detailed down the road. Three videos later, her men led Emi to supply to get her uniforms.
After a quick stop by the ship to drop everything off, they requisitioned a large box van from the motor pool.
“We won’t need anything this big,” she told Aaron as he climbed behind the wheel and indicated she should take shotgun.
Caph and Ford crammed into the back seat of the crew cab. She had a feeling, whether by silent captain decree or some mutual decision amongst the men, she would always get the shotgun seat next to Aaron.
“The pick-up trucks only seat three, might as well get everything in one trip. A car would be too small,” he explained.
“True.”
It took less than an hour with the men’s help to empty her dorm and the storage locker. Fortunately, Daniel didn’t put in one of his appearances. Donna wasn’t in, so Emi sent her an email promising to get together with her in the next few days. Unloading was easy, and they cooked dinner together. She still hadn’t changed her clothes, but she did switch to comfier sneakers.
“Did anyone think to get me bread crumbs, by the way?” Ford frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“You’ll have to keep sending out a search party to find me. I’ll need to leave a trail of bread crumbs so I don’t get lost in this place.” The men laughed. Aaron reassured her. “There are regularly spaced com pads all over the place. Find the nearest one, hit the button, it activates it and gives you a map on the screen.”
“Oh. That’s helpful.”
“You don’t think we really know this ship like the back of our hands yet, do you?” Caph asked.
She shrugged. “I assumed you did.”
“We’ve only had her eight months. We picked her up at the Mars DSMC base and brought her here when we signed on. They wanted us to have a shakedown cruise with her old crew before we hit dry dock, and didn’t want the post-refit maiden voyage to be our first on her,” Caph explained
“What did you have before?”
“Med-hev. Medium-heavy,” he clarified. “Larger than the geeks and grunts have now, though. Nearly as big as this girl.” He smirked.
“The grunts were forced to downsize from what they crewed on in the ISNC. They screamed bloody murder when they weren’t given the Bight.”
Which explained even more.
“Why do they use small crews on these ships?” she asked.
“The more people you have, the more resources you need to keep them alive. For what we’re doing, between cargo, supplies, science equipment, and weaponry resources, a trim crew is the best. Plus we’re set up with a jump engine in addition to the regular engines, so we need the extra space for it. The ships are equipped with multiple redundant back-ups. Let’s put it this way—if the ship totally goes offline, it means we’re pretty well fucked regardless, because some major shit’s happened to it. It’s not like in the old vids where the computers can maliciously take over, or one little short-circuit blows the bird up.”
She still felt nervous about going out in space, but these men had spent decades there and survived it just fine. “Is it going to be dangerous?”
The men watched her, but Aaron answered. “Frankly, probably less dangerous than settling down in a house in Old Phoenix and trying to drive to work every day and risking your life in traffic. For some of the explorations we’ll pick up military escorts, but even then that’s mostly just training for them, not actual protection for us. We’ll have a full range of weaponry. Where we’re slated to go are places already charted from a distance, but they haven’t been closely mapped or explored yet. Mostly unpopulated regions. They’re looking for new colony and outpost prospects.”
“So there’s always a risk?”
He leaned back, his voice softening. “There’s always a risk. Any day you wake up in the morning and get out of bed you take a risk.
There’s acceptable risk, and unacceptable risk. I will never knowingly put my crew in jeopardy. I damn well have a strong sense of self-preservation. Can accidents happen? Sure. Piracy is a possibility, but they won’t have near the weaponry we’ll have, and where we’re going, it’s never been reported. I’m not a daredevil, despite the reps we captains sometimes get. I just happen to love my job.” She nodded. “Okay then.” His soothing, calm confidence reassured her.
Dinner was excellent. The twins were great cooks. Hopefully they could teach her a thing or two.
After clean-up, Ford rubbed his hands together. “Want the full tour now?”