“I guess I should have asked for that first, but yeah.” Aaron glanced at his watch. “I’ve got a captain’s meeting in fifteen I can’t miss.” He stood, leaned over and kissed her, then each of the twins. “See you in a few hours.” She watched him leave and blushed when the twins noticed her expression.
“That doesn’t bother you, does it, sweetheart?” Ford asked.
Emi started breathing again. It had been a very sweet kiss, like a husband kissing his wife good-bye before going to work…and his husband…and his other husband. Matter-of-fact and brief, but tender.
She shook her head, smiling. “No, didn’t bother me, just sort of surprised me. Good surprise. I’ll get used to it.” Truth be told, she was wondering if she could coax the twins to bed.
The twins’ collective sigh of relief made her laugh. “I was worried for a second there, honey,” Caph admitted. “Afraid you’d freak out on us. Well, let’s get started. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.” They showed her the rest of the immediate crew area, including the rec area with exercise equipment and an advanced sim room.
“We’ve got thousands of programs for it,” Ford explained, showing her the console. “Tons of on-Earth places, off-Earth, lots of different things. Make sure you look through the library before we leave. If there’s anything you want, requisition it. We have full access, so it’s not like it costs us anything.”
“Same with the books,” Caph added. “We’ve got a huge book, vid, and music library, but check it out and if there’s anything you want, we’ll get it. You can get put on subscription services too. When something comes out for keywords you specify, it’ll be waiting for us to upload it at whatever our next scheduled DSMC port is.” She shook her head, amazed. “Wow. I mean, it’s like a library at your fingertips.” She was used to good borrowing access because of the university, but not being able to basically own them and have full and unfettered access. “What about educational material?” Ford led the way past sick bay. “You’ll have the full and most up-to-date medical journals and diagnostic manuals when we leave, with automatic uploads at each DSMC base. Not just human, but known species, especially the treaty races.”
“I’ll be doing a lot of studying.”
They took her up to the bridge next, which was near crew quarters. “I’m going to be assigned watches, huh?” She stared at the nearly dizzying array of consoles, screens, controls, computers¯maybe she was in over her head.
Ford slipped his arm around her waist. “Don’t worry. It’s not nearly as complicated as it look.”
“I hope not.”
Caph pointed to one work station, surrounded by a curved console, with a large, comfortable-looking chair. “Captain’s chair. Or whoever’s on watch. Command console.” He waved her over and showed her one main console screen with several readouts highlighted in green. “This is the mini-brain, as we call it. It will tell you everything you need to worry about. There are pre-set alarms, so if something goes out of whack it’ll immediately set off the klaxon and we’ll all be here in thirty seconds or less, believe me.”
“I can’t break anything?”
He laughed. “No. Navigation is automatic unless overridden. If you’re doing a watch, it’ll be set on auto-pilot. Sensors will notify you if there’s any reason to change course. If so, it’ll either handle it, if it’s a minor adjustment like for a single object, or it’ll notify us if it’s an evasive action, like for an asteroid field. You basically sit up here and stay awake. Good time to catch up on your reading. Sometimes we’ll alternate, someone takes the first half of night watch, someone gets up early for the second half. Unless someone had too much coffee and can’t sleep.” He glared at Ford.
Ford shrugged. “I like my java. What can I say.” He winked at Emi. “We won’t leave you alone at first. We’ll partner up with you.
After a month or so, you’ll be an old hat at it.” They showed her the observation dome, a small armored bubble at the top of the ship, easily accessed from a ladder in the bridge. “This is usually shielded when we’re making jumps or under way, but you can see the whole top of the ship from there, great to check for any damage,” Caph explained, making room for her on the small platform.
There was enough room for all three of them to stand there and stare out the windows.
She looked out over the dry dock facility. The Kendall Kant and Braynow Gaston were clearly visible nearby. With the observation dome located near the ship’s bow, the Kendall Kant’s bridge was maybe ten yards away.
Ten minutes later, they threaded their way to cargo. It was huge, almost two hundred yards long and a hundred yards wide, nearly empty. “Where is everything?” Her voice echoed.
“They’ll start loading us once the retrofits are complete. Not too much down here now,” Ford explained.
The enormity of the situation loomed over her as large as the cavernous cargo hold. “How am I ever going to learn this?”
“Honey, I had no college training when I joined the double-M, neither did Caph. It was all OJT, as they say. On the job training. It’s a lot easier to teach someone this—” he waved his arm, indicating the ship, “—stuff than it is what you can do. I promise, in six months you’ll be completely comfortable. They don’t expect you to be as up to speed on the ship as Aaron or us. Your primary job is to keep us morons alive.” He smiled, and she relaxed.
“Thanks.”
“It’s the truth. That’s why they’re so far behind launching new missions. There’s a few med officers contracted to join once they finish college, but it’s hard to find a good crew pairing. This was like fate, meeting you. Seriously.”
The tour continued, some of the areas not yet complete where labs would be located. Then another large, unfinished room. “This is going to be the hydro lab,” Caph said.
“Hydro?”
“Hydroponics. So we can have at least a few fresh fruits and veggies,” Ford volunteered.
“A garden?”
“Sort of,” they parroted, then laughed.
She loved it when they did that.
“My parents used to have a garden when we still had a house.” She didn’t like to talk about them much, thinking about their death still hurt, even this many years later. “I used to love that.” The twins grinned. “You want to take charge of it?” Ford asked.
“I was going to try it, but last time I tried plants, I killed them. Maybe you’d have better luck than me.”
Caph rolled his eyes. “He ain’t exaggerating. Less than a week, everything was dead.”
She nodded. “I’d like that.”
They returned to the crew area nearly an hour later, with only part of the tour complete. She felt tired and wanted to lie down. The day blurred in her mind. She meant to close her eyes only for a moment, but when she awoke, Aaron was leaning over, kissing her.
“Hey,” he whispered.
She looked around. The twins were asleep, the vid screen on and tuned to a local TV station, the volume down low.
“Hey.” One thing she would ask for was a wall clock, or maybe a window sim screen. She wasn’t used to not being able to sense the time. “What time is it?”
“After ten. I’ve been back for a while but didn’t want to wake you guys. I had to take care of some paperwork.” He quietly undressed and slipped into bed next to her, curling around her.
She snuggled against him, amazed how comfortable it felt being with these men. Ford and Caph both wore sleeping shorts, Ford’s arm slung over Caph’s broad chest. They looked so perfect like that, like they belonged there.
“They’re so cute,” she whispered.
He kissed the back of her neck. “They are. Told you we’re not always sex maniacs.”