FTL-18... Faster Than Life.

Previously…..

“Yay me, so how bad was the damage from that kick?”

“Whiplash and a concussion, you’d have lived but its better we fixed you up so you could think straight with us leaving and getting back on schedule.”
“Yay, me.”

She grins at me and helps me sit up. “You’ll live it’s just some really heavy bruising, you’ll get used to it.”

“Why would I get used to it?”

“Because you haven’t gone into the main academy Erin, just wait for the combat trials and the survival courses.”

“But I’m in fleet. I’m not a combat MOS.”

“Sure and the training is scaled that way but ships get attacked, they take firs and get boarded and even crash in bad places.”

“Oh…”

She laughs and heads out of my room. “See now you have so much to look forward to cadet.”

I’d be tempted to say something snarky but my painkillers don’t have me that looped out of it. And now that I’m sitting up my bladder is telling me I need to pee.

Ow…that bathroom door looks a long way off.

And currently…….

It was a long trip to the bathroom, actually for the next couple of days it was a long time and a lot of effort to do anything.

Walking wounded training they call it.

Good enough to do training and my regular duties I wasn’t spared the time really to get completely rested instead I was set off of PT (Physical Training) for a week and that’s it. I still had to get up, get dressed into uniform and do all my shift training at Sense-Nav and live with being tired and sore and just drug out from healing.

Oh rejuv-tanks are great medicine and we have some things that will fix you back up but that eats energy, even with feeding tubes and drips our body is put through faster…boosted healing. You feel like a left too long ramen noodle cup really.

On the plus side my make-up skills get a good boost as I’ve been learning how to look fresh and not too tired. Dark circles and stuff under your eyes are actually frowned on while you’re part of the command/bridge crew even in Sense-Nav.

Business professional is the way we’re expected to look under non-combat conditions.

And even though my regular PT is exempted Stillwater has me still at the firearm ranges and at sword drill.

More ow’s.

I pass Major Phillips her tea after making sure I looked good and crisp. She one of my new instructor officers and being a bridge officer she’s a stickler for all of the women under her care to be really ship shape all the time.

She’s a stickler for posture too while we’re sitting or at attention or parade rest. She’s damned hard on the rest of us girls.

I like her though since not only is she like that but she did show all of us new cadet girls things about the make-up and posture and even had us all re-measured for our undergarments.

I wasn’t wearing the right kind of bra for my job, or my body type. I hadn’t known that and neither did any other of the girls I’m training with…even the naturals. Apparently regular (read as civilian.) undergarments don’t cut it for actually being uniform dressed.

It’s actually been instruction that I’ve enjoyed besides my job.

“Stone, take your seat at chair sigma and get booted up to the telemetry satellites and start feeding the pilots their points.”

We’re just coming into Durandal system to pick up some more fresh recruits and we come out of FTL out of the system and we are flying in the rest of the way and the entire time we’re training in learning the sensors, experiencing as much as we can while we’re feeding what we’re seeing to the com people and the pilots.

We fly or they fly the patrols and shuttle and skiff runs and training missions all the way in as they’re picking up the basics of piloting and everything involved in that.

Being plugged into the telemetry satellites is a trip and it’s hard to get used to. You connect in and the data that the probes are getting is streamed right into you through your O.B.C. and you have to process all of that while you’re actually piloting the probe you’re connected to.

And I’m running six of them so it’s hopping from one POV to another and another with each switching to auto-pilot when you jump out of control with them.

Very easy to get headaches from for a lot of people, vertigo and motion sickness too. But then there’s the part that has me able to got through all of that and be one of the ones who’s pretty good at this.

The camera’s…It’s like my own eyes in the probes POV and you only get this kind of so close to things view in a space walk situation or in some piloting situations.

But only doing this are you flying though space through asteroids or going over other ships like you’re out there flying yourself and then there’s the rush of those flare drive thrusters letting you do all of this at like speeds of twelve hundred kilometers a minute.

My breath catches in my throat a little when I’m in four and I’m seeing Durandal from space just as we are getting close. The colony is the fifth moon and the planet is a gas giant but there are metals in there heated to a gas state? I’m no chemistry person as to why or what they are but the planet looks like this cascading prismatic pearl.

They mine the gasses here and it’s an industrial colony so the locals are probably blasé about it but I think it’s seriously an amazing sight.

Then it’s all business all too soon as we get to the traffic threshold and we’re all busy guiding and talking and massively co-coordinating with all our people out there and the traffic there too.

Industrial colonies so there’s a lot of trade and even if some ships are drones a lot aren’t and it’s a very busy sky out here.

I actually kind of like that about this job.

I know I’ve seen action and done a lot of sort of scary and over the top busy things but I do love this. The math and computations of tracking so many things it’s right in my math zone and if that’s one thing I’ve had that been good to me is Math.

Math is solid, it doesn’t care what your appearance is or your gender is or even your sexuality it’s just there.

And using it to do dozens of vital things so much of the time is one of the reasons why I love my job actually.

Theirs is something exciting about checking the rated speed of another ship and confirming it’s speeds and mass to project its movements. We do that with us and anything close to us…even if their beacon is saying they’re doing this maneuver or flight plan it doesn’t mean the can or will. There’s deviations and flubbs all the time so we tack and do our own numbers on as much out around us as we can.

And when something does happen it’s very cool that we’re already tracking it and working with the rest of the ship to either avoid it or do something.

Being actually useful is a really good thing, even plugged in this is very much more being alive than my old life was.

But then again me now and me then.

I was never meant to be that person.

I smile though at just feeling in my right place in the universe really, kind of a big thing thee days too considering how big the universe actually is.

Well not literally since we’ve never left the galaxy, but in that the world is that big and the possibilities are endless kind of way. You just have to be brave enough.

………….. Shift done, We’re docked at the orbital platforms now we have shore leave as we’ll be here a full day.

I wait until we switch out and the next person takes my chair with a happy expression. Sense-Nav is always working but docked the drones are the least boring of the jobs we’d be doing.

I head to quarters nodding and chatting at a few people as we pass each other. Lots of piloting stuff still going on and engineering too. We’re docked and that means flying all around the ship and inspecting things and of course cleaning it.

I see Care, Sun and Nelle there getting changed and I join them. “Anyone scan stats for the colony?”

Sunshine smiles as she’s slipping on her thigh highs and linking the garter stays. “Yeah I did and it sounds different, I’ve never been to a mining colony before so I’m looking forward to the big burly guys.”

Carrington smiles at me. “I’m going to try some of the food.”

“Food?”

“Durandal is a mostly old earth french colony culture ethically.”

“So….” I don’t get it and I’m not really going to net-link to find out trivia.

“Well the french culture is well known for their foods.”

Nelle pipes in. “They eat frogs.”

“What!” Care and I both are looking at her.

“It’s true, I went to New-Par-ree in a Simi venture and they had frog’s legs in a casino.”

Sunshine snickers. “Oh well if it was in a sim then it has to be true right? What’d they taste like?”

Nelle grins. “Like sim chicken.”

We all grin at the ancient joke and keep getting dressed. We’re all dong some variation on the uniform. No we’re not unreging them but I’m in the slacks and the short sleeved tunic and ladies cap and Carrington is too and Nelle and Sunshine are both going with the skirt and blouse and jacket look only Nelle’s going bare legged to flaunt her freckles and Sunshine is doing that sexy lingerie under her uniform thing.

We’re not breaking code by wearing them and they’re our everyday use ones and off duty you can wear whatever underwear you want to.

But Sunshine’s a companion so she’s almost in her actual uniform with the lingerie underneath.

Me I’m wearing synth-lace satin black underwear and hopefully they’re sexy if anyone gets to see them. But we all head out to the shuttle dressed in our naval uniforms and feeling pretty good about ourselves.

The shuttle takes us down to the moon colony and it’s instantly interesting as we clear the atmosphere and looking out the windows I see lots of water with the bulk of the land here being large islands all interconnected with causeways ad bridges and all the major cities and dwellings seem to follow the coastlines. I can see serious farms here with all these planted fields of greenery that sort of reminds me of home but done differently and of course likely far different from the grain fields of Avalon.

I see the industrial sections too whole islands made into factories the size of small cities it has this very separate feel to it from the other places here and we bank over and head into landing at their capitol of Lumiere.

It’s very pretty here with very odd and I’d say old architecture mixed with modern things here as well and like home there are people hooked into the networks but they’re also using it so differently than I’ve seen.

They seem far more active than we were home but they also completely more laid back here as well. Not lazy, or sedate but less…well less hide bound like home. I’m linking to their net and trying to adjust to the french language. And things are popping up in my optic interface…I see a vendor selling fruit and there’s info on her and her farm even the berries I’m looking over.

It’s just a whole different way of doing things and there’s even a core net name exchange and she greets me by name as she sells me this strange tart with a huge strawberry inside with jam but the crust isn’t crust but this egg white crusty thing called a meringue?

She made my eyelids flicker with yay as I bit into it.

I bought a dozen which the girls and I eat right off the paper she gave us as we head to go shopping.

Yes shopping, we have so much room in storage each but we’re very good at packing things too. But shopping is definitely fun for all of us and here it’s not the big galleries but all these cute very specific little shops that’s just so amazing to just see things in as it is to buy something.

It’s expensive though. I get this floral organic crafted made lipsticks for thirty credits each a tube of the regular brands are five at the PX. I spent a couple of hundred there and so did the other girls.

And we do some serious clothing shopping too and I end up with two nice country off the shoulder dresses with half sleeves and a lace up back and waist and I get a very sexy, very nice little black dress with a built in shelf push up and waist nipper.

The shoes though are nixed shoes and boots take up more space than clothes that can be tube packed or vacc-flat sealed for storage.

You can’t exactly flat pack shoes or boots and we as cadets have very limited space in personal stores. That’s a benefit or rank is extra room in personal storage. It’s also why the whole military theme works in space even with commercial ships. Uniforms are a lot easier to deal with than so much personal effects.

Still it’s fun in a way that all of us have held close inside and it’s just a good day or shore leave and shopping and even flirting.

Oh and the men here are truly not bad.

I get the whole ancient rumor about french speaking me and they dress very well and casually and they are very mannerly or at least they are to us.

Maybe they have a thing for ladies in uniforms.

We were looking at these series of places to eat called Bistros when several young men about six of them came over smiling and offering greetings and there’s that networking thing that says who they are and these fellows have theirs set to tell you their jobs and a hobby in a nano-flash file.

Like Jean-Marc who is twenty four and likes dancing and music and he plays a thing called a mandolin and he works as a fisherman.

I’m flashed this nano-clip of him in just pants in this small boat with sunglasses on as he’s sorting his catch into sea water bins to keep them live unto market.

Great smile, a nice job or I think it is and a nice body okay he’s got more hair than I’m used to seeing but it works with him and then there’s the cropped dirty blonde almost brown hair and a nice smile.

In realtime he’s wearing sandals with his faded denims and a very light thin and hugging his body brown sweater and just like that we’re shaking hands and they’re all welcoming me and the girls to our shore leave on Lumiere and we’re asking where they like to eat instead of the places that look like they’re catering to us tourists and it’s minutes, just minutes and they are escorting us and carrying our shopping bags down the streets and through a few small lanes to this down by the water bakery that does food along with all the things that they cook.

Jean-Marc holds my chair for me and he slides me in and then they us another table for our bags and we start to order or well look at the menu and we’re actually sort of talking and debating the food.

I look at JM and ask. “You fish so I suppose that you cook fish and eat in much of the time so…what do you recommend?”

“Well if we’re all having fish then I would suggest the bread and ocean stew.”

“Bread and ocean stew?”

“It’s a fish and shellfish broth with white wine and some vegetables but mostly shellfish and some other things added to it.”

“Other things?”

“Squid, sometime Uni and some pieces of fried real fish or small whole ones.”

“Uni?”

“It is the edible part of the sea urchin.”

“Oh that sounds good, girls?”

We all agree and it comes out four bottles of wine later in this shallow but long bowl and it smells very strange. There is this red from the shells broth with like he said these finely dice vegetables in it and then there’s these huge prawns and there’s clams and mussels along with razor clams and hidden here and there are these large black olives and there’s sun dried tomatoes softened by the broth and topping it all off on the top are these breaded and deep fried small crabs that you eat whole and battered spicy oysters and there’s fillets of fish pan fired with the skin al crispy and some grilled sardines.

It’s actually lovely looking and it comes with this huge basket of baguette and rolls along with three different butters and a big mixed green salad on the side for all of us and there’s just saucers or these small plates to have for the salad or to hold under the food as we dip the bread in and we use our fingers to get things from the bowl.

JM teaches me how to eat it without getting messy or too messy and he shows me how to dip the bread so you don’t mess with the compound butter and to eat a prawn and to suck the heads.

By that time I’ve had enough wine that him or me sucking on anything is interesting.

It’s one of those really good days that makes up for so much in my life that wasn’t.

We actually keep eating after that with dessert this amazing pie that is like a cake but with seven layers of pastry with these fillings and creams in different layers but they all play extremely well together and after that we walk to the shuttle station and we all sort of split up with each other as we take the time to privately thank the guys for such a wonderful night.

I mean well we do verbally thank them and there’s a whole lot of kissing and tongue on tongue between myself and JM.

We kiss and we make out and we get pretty close to doing other things when they’re announcing our flight.

I pull myself from his amazing mouth and handsomely rugged features. “I’m sorry I have to go.”

“I no, I wish we had more time it was an amazing evening Erin.”

“For me too, I’ve had such a great time here. I’ve done things here that I’ve always wanted to do.”

“Well I hope that you will come back to do the rest?’

“I will definitely come back here someday Jean-Marc.”

“Good.” He kisses me some more and he takes off his wrist watch and gives it to me.

“You don’t have to give me anything.”

“I want you to have a keepsake to pull at your heart so you will want to come back and see me.”

“Jean-Marc…”

“Take it I insist.”

He kisses me again and he slips it onto my wrist and its heavy and metal and a man’s watch but the strap self adjusts and it fits and there’s something sort of like how it’s a good thing to wear a guys shirt with this.

I kiss him back really darned hard and if we never hook up together and be together there is this part of my ego that want’s him at least getting a sore wrist out of all of this.

I break the kiss and walk backwards towards the check in and the others were making out too because not one of us has intact make up are we’re getting our bags and we just get the wipes out and cleaned off before we’re back in with everyone else that’s headed back well except for Sunshine who had vanished with Luc and Thedioux and she came back smiling like she was so…well she was still getting dresses and her stockings were ripped and it’s Sunshine…she might do stuff like that but she’s still Sunshine.

It’s not back to work but it’s just enough time off for our sleep shift and to get really cleaned up and Nelle flash cooks us some popped corn as a snack and we sit in our quarters and we dish over the day and the men and each one of us except Sunshine has a token from the men there. Sunny has two.

Apparently it’s a local spacer tradition for one to give the other a little something to make you wistful while you’re away.

All in all it was a good shore leave and we crash all pretty satisfied and yeah I’ve ready to get moving again and see what else my new life’s going to bring me.