Sarah and the captain managed to keep up the innuendo and low-level flirting all through dinner and into the evening, while Jenny and I mostly abstained. Or rather, Jenny didn't play along, but I got drawn in a few times.
More than once I thought Sarah was about to suggest the captain join us for the night, or that we join her. Or at least, that she and the captain should hook up one way or another.
In the end that didn't happen, Sarah and I returned to our cabin together while Piper retired alone to hers. And Jenny headed down to the hold as usual, to charge her HPD.
"I thought you were going to proposition the captain a few times tonight," I whispered as me and Sarah cuddled together.
She gave me a kiss, "It was definitely on my mind, but I decided not to rush things. We'll be at the Hammersmith soon, I'll probably have some long EVA shifts with her. I think I'm going to try and talk to her then? I figure me and her can talk a bit in private that way, without you and Jenny there."
I frowned slightly, "Oh. You think she's shy or something? She didn't seem to have any trouble keeping up with the banter at dinner."
Sarah hugged me a little tighter and explained, "I think Piper's used to wearing masks around people. When we first met her she had that silent lone-wolf thing going on, remember? Now we're seeing glimpses of the real her, and I feel like since we left Ecclestone's World she's getting more comfortable and more herself around us? And I'm worried if I get too forward with her she might pull away again, especially if there's an audience."
After thinking that over for a few seconds I asked, "Do you think she'll be comfortable discussing that sort of thing when you two are sealed in e-suits and stuck together in the shuttle?"
She nodded, "She and I talked a lot last time we were there? I didn't really get to know her that well, she was asking most of the questions. She helped me deal with my emotions over losing the ship and the friends I had there. So yeah, I think she'll at least be open to some conversation."
"Ok Sarah. I hope it goes well."
I punctuated that by giving her a kiss, which made her smile.
Then she smirked, "Do you? Are you looking forward to three-in-a-bed sexy fun-times with our hot captain as much as I am?" Follow current novᴇls on novel fire.net
My cheeks went red and I mumbled, "I'm looking forward to all of us being closer and better friends. The other stuff... We'll see."
Sarah giggled softly, then her lips found mine as her hands started to roam. And that was the end of our serious conversation for the night.
The following morning we were all showered and properly dressed, since we'd be arriving at our next destination a short time after breakfast. I did the cooking as usual, and Sarah got out the dishes and set the table again.
I figured the conversation over breakfast would be about our next port of call, or perhaps we'd be discussing the mysterious cargo or the Navy's secret orders or something like that. Instead our captain started things off in a completely different direction.
"I've been thinking quite a bit about something you suggested Amanda," Piper said after a gulp of her coffee. She sort of braced herself, then stated "You three can start calling me Rebecca. If you want."
Before we could respond she quickly added, "No short-forms or nicknames though. And you can still call me Piper or boss. And for now this is just here on the ship, just between us. When we're off-ship or dealing with other people, stick to Piper. For now."
"Of course," I replied.
Sarah smiled, "Understood Rebecca. Amanda and Jenny and I will do our best."
Our AI crew-mate agreed, "I'm sure we'll do what we can to help."
The captain went quiet again, and I figured she was feeling weird about making such a big deal over her name. It reminded me of what Sarah said the night before though, about how we were finally getting to know our captain better and she was starting to open up to us more.
When we were done with breakfast I had a few minutes to tidy up the mess but not enough to properly clean up after the meal. Then all four of us were in the cockpit, as the ship was due to arrive at the Fuminja Cluster.
I had a feeling Sarah would rather be back in the engine room, but she was up front with us so she could see the new system and hear what else our captain had to say about the place. Same with Jenny. I was sure she had a better view through the ship's exterior cameras, but she preferred to join us in the cockpit.
The Fuminja system was unlike the other three we'd seen in this sector, in that it was dominated by a massive asteroid belt. There was one small rocky planet orbiting close to the local star and two gas giants way out in far orbits, but the entire habitable range from the star was a huge mess of asteroids in all shapes and sizes.
Rebecca commented, "The inner-most world's too close to the sun to be useful to anyone. There might be valuable minerals down there but it rotates so fast a day's only about four hours long, and the day-side is blasted by heat and radiation. The gas giants are a ready source of unrefined fuel, and the asteroid belt is chock-full of valuable minerals and ore, which is the only reason anybody ever decided to stay here."
We were about two hours out from our destination, and the captain was bringing us in under manual control. My sensor screens were quickly overwhelmed by the number of small objects out there, and I had to reduce the sensitivity threshold so only objects larger than five kilometres in diameter would register. And even that stressed the sensors' ability to track things.
"This looks like a nightmare to fly through," Jenny commented.
I agreed, "How do you know what's what out there?"
Sarah suggested, "Recalibrate the sensors to only pick up energy signatures? That ought to filter out the asteroids, so you can just focus on ships and habitations."
"But then how do you see all the asteroids?" I asked with a frown. "Like to avoid flying into them?"
Rebecca smiled, "They're not packed that close together. When we get nearer you'll see what I mean. Stuff that's big enough to damage the ship is usually big enough to see. Stuff that's too small to see is usually too small to hurt us. And there's plenty of room to navigate around the big stuff, but you mostly have to do it by eye."
"Ugh," I grimaced. "I'm not sure I'd be comfortable flying through this."
The captain was still smiling as she told me, "Give it time Amanda. You're still new to this job but the way you've been picking stuff up so quickly, I wouldn't be surprised if you took the controls next time we come back this way."
I wasn't so confident, but I kept an eye out and paid attention what she was doing and how she was doing it.
Like Rebecca said, the biggest asteroids were almost like small moons but they appeared to be floating in a sea of debris. And they generally weren't round, their shapes seemed almost random. From elongated ovals to irregular angular chunks.
I didn't know much about geology but I couldn't shake the feeling that the Fuminja Cluster was the result of two or three planets colliding and getting ripped apart. The largest pieces felt more like debris from some ancient cataclysm rather than rocky detritus that never formed into a planet in the first place.
We were contacted by the local port authority when we were about an hour out, and I handled the communications with them while I continued to watch Piper and the sensors. I informed them of our destination and they gave us a vector to rendezvous with Fuminja Epsilon.
I kept in contact with the port people as Rebecca followed the vector, which brought us in on an angle above the orbital plane of the asteroid belt.
As we got nearer I started to pick out movement among the asteroids, small points of light that moved in unnatural ways. It took a few moments before I realized they were ships, or more likely shuttles or mining pods.
"See that?" Rebecca pointed, it was one of the largest of the big asteroids. "That's Fuminja Beta, the port is built into that one. We can't see Fuminja Alpha from here, it's on the far side of the local star right now, but it's the biggest hunk of rock."
Sarah asked, "We'll be visiting the port later on right? You said we'll be topping up fuel there?"
The captain nodded, "That's right. I want to do a level-one jump when we're done here, so we'll want the fuel at a hundred percent when we leave. But like I've said before, it's always a good idea to refuel whenever you get the chance."
When we got to about fifteen minutes out from our destination the port controllers turned us over to the communications people at Fuminja Epsilon. Piper had to take the mic at one point to identify herself and our business there, since it was a private facility and they didn't let just anyone show up and dock.
By that point our vector had brought us down into the asteroid belt itself, and I could see what the captain meant about it not being as bad as it looked.
There were plenty of chunks of rock as big as our ship, and plenty more that were even bigger, but the gaps between ship-sized asteroids tended to be hundreds of kilometers across. Even shuttle-sized debris was spread out. The only thing we really had to watch for was fast-moving debris that was big enough to damage the ship. And apparently Rebecca already had a preset in the sensors to track that sort of thing, so I switched to those settings and suddenly my display was a lot less crowded.
"Jenny," the captain commented as we were on our final approach. "I'm sure you remember what we discussed? Tread softly and be careful. Stealth is the priority, and coming away with nothing is infinitely better than finding anything but getting caught."
The AI nodded, "Understood captain, I'll do my best."
At long last we docked with Fuminja Epsilon, and that was another new experience for me. The installation had some landing bays that were more than sufficient to let the Demeter enter and land like we did at the mining colony, but they didn't let us use them.
Instead we were guided to an external docking gantry, where the ship gently approached until it felt like we were going to scrape the bottom of the cockpit against the upper part of the dock structure.
Then clamps on both the ship and the dock engaged and held us firmly enough to get an airtight seal around our cargo ramp and main airlock.
The engines weren't completely shut down, but they were put into a standby mode to ensure we wouldn't have any accidents while we were here.
"Ok kids," the captain announced as she unbuckled her safety belt. "Sarah or Amanda, one of you is coming with me, the other stays up here with Jenny."
Somehow I got picked, so I unbuckled as well and followed Rebecca aft out of the cockpit.
"I don't actually need your help for this," she commented as I followed her to the starboard ladderway. "But I figured you should see what we're doing and how we do it."
"Ok boss," I replied. "I take it there'll be someone from the facility to handle the cargo?"
"Correct," she replied as we went down the ladder. "They'll have a couple dock-hands to offload the two containers, and bring two more on board. At least that's been the pattern."
Down in the main hold she checked the airlock controls to ensure it was safely pressurized outside. Then she opened up the ship. The big inner doors started sliding open first, then the ramp began to lower.
As the ramp came down I couldn't help feeling a little anxious. We were docked to a structure that looked like plastic stretched between a lattice of metal tubing. The walls and ceiling looked thin enough that you could poke a hole through it with a sharp fingernail. The plastic wasn't clear, but it was transparent enough to see the exterior of the asteroid, which also didn't fill me with confidence.
The floor was solid metal, and I assumed there was artificial gravity otherwise there'd be no need for a solid surface to walk on. The whole thing was just a little wider than our main airlock, and just a little higher, and about fifteen meters long.
The other end of the flimsy-looking corridor was a heavy cargo airlock, which was only just starting to open up.
"Is this safe?" I asked quietly as I glanced at the thin plastic that was separating us from the void. "It feels like any little fleck of debris could rip this wide open."
Piper nodded, "It's fine. They have deflectors set up around the docking area to keep the space clear."
That made me feel a little better, but not a lot.
Once the facility's doors were fully open, a couple dockhands emerged with a grav-assist cargo sled that held two shipping containers. Piper and I watched as the guys accompanied the sled along the corridor then up the ramp into our hold.
The men were mostly staring at me, specifically at my ears and tail. I was wary, but they didn't seem like Lebeau's people. And nobody was armed, this felt more like an actual boring delivery than any kind of clandestine smuggling operation.
The dockhands exchanged some simple pleasantries with me and the captain, and I got the feeling they knew Piper. Or at least, she'd been here often enough doing these freight runs that they were familiar with her and the Demeter.
The guys didn't waste any time, they got the two containers off the sled and into our hold, then the two we'd brought from Ecclestone's World were loaded up onto the sled. There wasn't any money or anything changing hands, they just swapped the cargo then turned around and left.
As soon as the guys were clear Piper hit the airlock controls, and the ramp started to rise up while the big doors slid shut. I followed her back up the ladderway, and we were ready to depart.