Ringship Discretion (9 page)

Attie took off his undershirt, threw it across the room and kicked his underwear somewhere down the bed. "Sure!" She scooted her bare back and butt up against him. The coolness of her skin sent sensations up his spine. He put his arm around her and could feel the soft warmth of her breast. He asked, "Do you want to..?"...she interrupted, "Not tonight Attie. I'm sorry. I am just not ready.  Can you just hold me and make me feel safe? I feel you, but I am really sorry, I just can't right now".

Attie whispered in her ear. "I love you and being with you is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Please don't be sorry.  Making you happy is all that I need." She turned over, kissed him and hugged him intensely.  She began to cry..."I love you too."

In the morning, Attie woke up to find Amelia not there.  He looked on the floor and saw her panties and tank top still laying there, but her jumpsuit was missing.  Just then the door opened, and in she came. "You're awake! I made some french toast for you and I have some orange juice."  Attie sat up in eager anticipation of the delicious smelling food.  She gently set the tray down in his lap.

He asked "What about you?"

She smiled and sat down next to him. "I had mine."

He forked in a mouth full, "Mmmm that's good" and with his other hand pinched her butt through her jump suit.

She giggled a bit and said "Eat up, we have a big day of planning ahead." She grabbed her clothes off the floor, hopped up, and on the way to the door, she turned and said "Hey Attie.".  He looked up from his food and she unzipped her jump suit. Attie jumped and the plates of toast slid across the tray. He lunged to catch it.  As he caught it, he looked back up, she laughed and went out the door. He yelled "Hey! That's not fair!"

Then Ben popped his head in. "Having fun this morning Captain?!  Well come on, get your ass out of bed. We have ideas."

The captain said "I am. Hold on just a second. I'll be right there." and he mumbled to himself "I just have to find where my underwear went..."

Ten minutes later the captain walked up to the bridge, his hair a big mess, and saw Amelia sitting there, her beautiful shoulder length straight red hair. It was in perfect condition. She was wearing a cobalt blue top with two rows of buttons with the top  button undone and the flap opened to expose her cleavage.   Attie gulped at the sight of her while thinking, "Damn, she's gorgeous this morning!" Amelia saw him standing there with his mouth open and when Ben looked away for a second, she pulled her blouse forward.  Attie's eyes got big and she giggled.

Ben turned back. "What?!" He looked at them both. "What is with you two today?" 

Both of them chuckled and Amelia pushed a button and pointed at the display. "OK, so after going over the power outputs Ben measured from the MFGs, and getting up to date Io and Jupiter magnetic field data, I built this model.  If we change course in 12 hours, we can easily enter into this part of Io's orbit in front of Io.  With both MFG's running at full power it will slow us down enough to give us an extra day of acceleration.  That means that the BB ship, assuming it doesn't follow us and predicts our destination is Io, will intercept us only two hours before we get to Io. But the interesting thing is we will be heading back toward them at that point."

Attie said "Damn, that's close! Can we get a little more power from somewhere to shave off those two hours? Or, wait. We would want to add to those two hours at that point, to be as far away from Io as we can when they pass. Right?  Damn, this gets confusing."

That's when AJ said "Excuse me.  Can I ask a question?"

The captain said "Sure."

AJ spoke up "Well, I don't know if I understand this right, but don't each of the MFG's have a built in backups?  Could we run the backups also?"

The captain thought and looked at Ben. Ben said "Holy Shit, I don't see why not? Assuming, I can get enough power to them.  I may have to run a second set of power feeds, but yeah."

The captain looked at AJ. "You just got yourself a bonus kid!  Alright, let's get to work!"

That evening in the galley the captain spoke. "OK, everyone, we have a great plan, thanks to Amelia, Ben and AJ here.  Helen and Doc congratulated AJ with pats on the back and Aunt Helen even kissed him on the head, which he pulled away from.

The captain continued. "Here's the plan...."

CHAPTER 4: The Jupiter system

The giant in the sky,

round which we fly,

does not care whether we live or die.

On day 11, after leaving the wreckage in the asteroid belt, and 9 days before their expected arrival at Io Station, Amelia turned the Discretion 180 degrees and began to decelerate with full power.  They had altered course to intercept Io's orbit, on the opposite side of Jupiter, a number of days earlier.

The captain asked Amelia "What is the status of the BB ship?"

Amelia looked at the display. "Well, they are still on an intercept course with Io. They are probably wondering why we have taken so long to brake, and if they smart, they are also wondering how we are going to swing around and actually make it to Io.  They haven't started braking yet and the four Big Sis cruisers are still behind her, but not gaining.  In fact, one has already begun to brake.  Maybe that one is after us?"

The captain asked "How does that play into our time table?"

"Well that Big Sis Cruiser won't arrive at Io station until two full days after us, so we theoretically have time to get away. To where I don't know, be we can worry about that later.  The other cruisers are going to overshoot just like the BB ship."

On day 13 after leaving the wreckage, Amelia announced "The BB ship has begun its deceleration burn.  They are falling into our trap perfectly!"

Three days before their ETA with Io Station the captain sat up in bed. "I can't sleep!"

Amelia ran her hand up his back and then sat up. "It will be OK. They are doing exactly what we predicted they would do.  They still think they are going to be able to intercept us, and as long as they think that, they don't have any reason to change their plan."

Attie looked at her. "I know, but there are so many variables, plus we don't even know what to expect when, and if, we actually make it to the station." Then Attie's face changed and he stared at Amelia.

She looked back with a chuckle "What?"

He ran his hand up through the back of her hair, rubbed his cheek against her and kissed her below the ear. Amelia sighed and she started kissing him back on the neck. Then somehow their lips met and both of them began letting out small sounds of pleasure.  His hand ran up her belly until it cupped her left breast and they both fell back. She rolled over and backed up against him.  She lifted her leg slightly and pushed back. The light of Jupiter, now taking up a large part of the side view port, lit up their bodies as they became one.

The next morning everyone was nervous.  Ben said "OK, Captain, we are as ready as we are ever going to be."

Amelia looked at Attie. "12 minutes till we begin our orbital insertion 'mag' burn." 

Attie looked back at her with desire. "What's the status of the BB ship?"

Amelia looked at the sensor display. "The ionization is really screwing with our sensors and I sure wish the  radar worked, but it looks like they will be at the Io Station in 30 hours at their current direction and deceleration. Ten Minutes 'till our burn."

The captain got on the intercom. "OK everyone, this is it.  We are not 100% sure what to expect here, so everyone get strapped in and make sure everything is secure.  Make sure you don't have anything metal on, as we discussed earlier"

Amelia said "Two minutes!"

Attie, strapped into the copilots chair, put his hand on hers. "I love you!". 

She grabbed his hand and held it tight. "Me too."

Attie asked Ben "Do you think they will figure out what we are doing, once we start to decelerate really fast?" 

Ben said "Probably, but there won't be shit they can do about it!"

Amelia said "One minute!"

Ben said "Damn, I'm hungry."

Both Amelia and Atticus looked at him. "We're being hunted by every major power known to man while whipping around Jupiter doing a untested maneuver in a ship that's jury rigged to hell and you're thinking about a chicken sandwich?!"

Ben thought for a second "Well, it was more of a meatball sub, but .." Amelia interrupted "10..9..8..7..6..5..4..3..2..1..engaging".

Everyone felt the new force pushing them further down in their seat and then sky began to rotate. Amelia yelled "Shit! We're spinning, the field is rotating us! I thought I took that into account! Within seconds, Jupiter filled the entire front window.  Everyone was being thrown against their straps and then they were light in their seats. Jupiter disappeared again and they were thrown the other direction and back to being heavy . She yelled out  "It's accelerating and then decelerating us! Ben, can you adjust the field strength of the modules to make the field more even?" 

Ben punched on his pad which he had linked to the MFG's. "I'll try!"

Amelia said "OK, I am going to try to get more thrust out of the new plates to counter the rotation."

The captain spoke up "We may have to just shut it down!" 

Amelia yelled "No! I'm getting some effect from from the grav plates"

The rotation began to slow.  Then Ben said "OK, I decreased power to the back up number 2. It seemed to be the one that was creating an uneven field." 

With that, the rotation stopped, but again Jupiter was taking up the whole window. Amelia looked up "Oh, that's not right!" and within a few seconds Jupiter receded back off to the right.

Amelia let her head fall back into her chair "There! That should do it".

Everyone sat in their chairs for a few minutes just breathing. Atticus pointed out the window. "Wow! Look at that glow!"  Everyone leaned forward and they could see a purple glow from the intense ionization. 

Amelia smiled. "Its so beautiful! Look how it comes and goes in waves. You can actually see our field lines!"

Attie asked "So are our 'field lines' working like they should?"

Amelia looked at her display. "Actually, it's working better than I expected.  We are decelerating faster than expected and we will have to turn off all drives early.  That will put us into a slightly lower but faster orbit than Io and we will just catch up with it."

Attie asked "What about radiation?"

She looked at the sensors "Well, almost all of it is going through the center of the ship, but we are getting slightly elevated levels in here.  Mainly because we aren't using the MFG's like we are supposed to; but the levels are still safe." 

Attie, watched the beautiful colors out the window. "How long till we reach Io Station?"

Amelia replied "About 36 hours. But that could vary depending on the field strength as we circle Jupiter." 

Attie looked at Ben and Amelia and laughed "Haha! We did it! That BB ship is going to pass right by 6 hours before we even get there!

Amelia punched in some numbers "That puts our closest approach to the BB ship at about 188,000 km."

Ben said "No way they can hit us from that range. At least not long enough to do any damage."

Amelia spoke. "And as I predicted, we will have about two days lead time on the Big Sis ship that is decelerating."

Attie asked "What about the other Big Sis Cruisers?"

Amelia looked at him. "Um. Hmm..We were thinking they were going after the BB cruiser, but what if they took a shot at us? Is that what you are saying? Well, they are going to pass very near to us while we are at the station, but our closing velocities will be something really high. I don't think we are going to have to worry about them."