Homebrew - a NaNoWriMo Novel - Day 21

Wow! Twenty-one days into the NaNo event and I've written 42,000 words! That is TWICE what I wrote last year for the entire month! I may have the hang of this. Here's yesterday's addition to my novel.

"And you'd be even more starving had you wasted the food. I'm okay with eating; can we agree to discuss our plans while we do so?" Ellen waited for everyone's approval, then she helped Dermot set forth the meal. Dermot had sweet-talked the kitchen staff to prepare several containers filled with generous amounts of stuffing, gravy, candied sweet potatoes and jellied cranberries as well as rolls - all taken from what was being prepared for the special 'holiday' meal. On top of that, he convinced them to make eight large sandwiches, filled to overflowing with turkey, lettuce, mayonnaise and more jellied cranberries - and four slices of pumpkin pie. All the ingredients had been shipped skyward, at great expense, to provide the work crews with a taste of home as most of them had not visited Earth in more than six months - missing most of the groundside holiday celebrations.
As they laid the feast out in front of the others, Dora exclaimed, "How did you two manage this! Did you bribe one of the kitchen staff? J'Shawn? Answer me, I have got to know your secret! I've never been able to wheedle more than an extra ration bar or meal pack."
"Girl, don't go snoopin' for my secrets. A man has to have some tricks up his sleeve."
"He bought a couple of bottles of sipping bourbon for the head cook. The woman told him she wants to fix something special for an upcoming birthday." Dermot revealed.
"Damn, Bro'. You weren't supposed to tell anyone that. At least you said it over here, not back on the station."
"You're smuggling booze?" asked Ellen. "You can get in serious trouble smuggling booze. Singhman is death on alcoholic beverages up on station." She turned to Dermot. "You didn't help him did you? No. I don't want to know!"
"It's okay. If these two bums get caught and fired, we'll just find a smarter pair." Dora's smile at the two men held wicked promise. "Now let's enjoy this fine repast."
"Only if I get dibs on Patrick's slice of pie." Ellen snagged a second piece, pulling out of Dermot's reach. Dora mirrored her example, snatching J'Shawn's away from him before he could pull it to safety.
"Aw, Babe. Now that's just cruel. I'm a growing man; how do you expect me to maintain my fine-tuned physique if you go stealing all my food? Besides, you know I don't want you spoiling that beautiful figure of yours." He turned to Dermot. "Aren't you going to help me here?"
"Not me. I've learned my lesson; what say we enjoy what they left us?"
For a few minutes they tucked in and ate in silence. the only sounds that of hungry people savoring rich food. Finally, nothing remained but the desserts. Dora examined the two slices of pie in front of her, then glanced at Ellen.
"Can you really eat both slices of pie?" she asked.
"Not on my life. And my man has behaved himself during dinner." She slid her second slice to J'Shawn. "Here. I wouldn't want my sexy guy to get too weak on me. You need to build your strength." Dora placed hers in front of Dermot as well, motioning him to eat as she bit into her own.
As they ate their desserts, the men wolfing their down, Ellen asked, "Now what were you hoping to do with the OCVs? You mentioned providing 'taxi' services?"
"That's exactly my idea." J'Shawn replied. "Ryk Spoor was talking to me these last few days about how management has been getting requests to schedule in time and guest quarters for visitors - VIP visitors to start, but even some business types might come up."
"I've been hearing similar rumors," said Dermot. "The first groundside receiving rectenna is complete and they're going to have a ceremony when the power grid distribution substation comes on line. Supposed to have one of the bigwigs up here 'throwing the switch' - all captured on video, of course - at the same time as one of them cuts a ribbon down below."
"Okay," said Dora, "I've read about the groundside ceremony - it's all over the news sites - but I didn't know about the upper-level management person or the camera crew coming topside."
"That's great! All of you have heard about this and I didn't have a clue. I have to listen more to the chatter around me. You guys must think I'm not pulling my weight."
The other three gaped at her.
"Not pulling your weight?" Dermot responded. "Where did that come from? We all have seen how much work you put into learning about and then straightening out the legal aspects of our purchase. You're doing what you're good at, just as we do what we know."
"Still, I want to do more. I want to do something that gives me hands-on work, not just all the legal mumbo-jumbo. Yes, I know I work right alongside you guys assembling the power arrays, but that gets so mind-numbing after a while."
"Whereas I'm perfectly happy putting tab A into slot B all day. And I think Dora is as well. I guess you're a bit like J'Shawn."
"If you are, girl, maybe you should let Ryk teach you how to fly one of our OCVs. We need to have another one of us trained on them. Of course, that brings up the issue of finding time to train all of you on the tow boats. When can we do that? It will only take two days to do if you can schedule the whole class at once. If we have to break it down, there's about an extra four hours you'll have to do as a refresh of the first half, before you get into the heavy stuff in the second half."
Dora asked, "Are the bigwigs coming up within the next two weeks? Or do we have time to get one of us trained on the OCV? Because if we can't get OCV training, we have to decide whether we hire Spoor as our second pilot, even for a short-term contract, or accept we will not have use of the OCV for trips out here while J'Shawn is running them around."
"Good point, Babe. Patrick, are you hearing the same timeline as I am?"
"I'm hearing they should be up here in two to three weeks. It won't be sooner because while the camera crew has passed skinsuit training, the VIPs haven't. Plus, one of the VIPs has to have a custom suit made - something about girth. Or so I hear." He grinned as he told them.
"Which one is he?" Ellen asked.
"She. Definitely she. And I'm hearing she's Deputy Undersecretary for Space Affairs, Ekatarina Mishkova." he added. "She would have been fine with the regular suits, but she's about forty pounds over weight for a woman who only stands four feet, eleven inches."
"Ouch! How did she manage to pass the physical? I had a hard time and I was only five pounds over their chart weight." Ellen sleeked her hands down her sides. "Not that I have a problem any more."
"Elle, sweetheart. You were never overweight. They simply wanted to give you a hard time."
"Patrick, you are so forgiven for the booze."
"Thank you. No, Ms. Mishkova's problem is that she was a weightlifter, champion in in the Olympics in 2008. They never proved anything, but she's got the massive chest and abdomen of all serious heavy lifters, and I understand her chest augmented after she had and nursed four children."
"Bro'. Why am I visualizing a battleship?"
"You wouldn't be far off the mark, " Dora said. "I have read a lot of her public comments and position statements when I was working for my dad on the skinsuit development and marketing. She's a real hard-case. And if she's as vocal in private as she is in public, she's going to be a problem for everyone.
"That might work as an advantage for us. If we get J'Shawn hired as an outside contractor to ferry her and her entourage around, we will allow on-station management to distance themselves from any of her complaints, and management will find it easier to keep the dissident pilots away from her.
"When you put it that way, Patrick, you may have a point. J'Shawn, baby, can you keep your mouth shut about their issues?"
"I can. None of the pilots who are actually involved have talked to me about the guild. I can play dumb and happy. Ryk might have a problem doing so, because he just loves shooting off his trap whenever he gets a chance."
"Then we hire him to ferry the camera crews or other VIPs around and to train us to fly the rest of our wonderful new ships. That keeps him out of the way of management and gets us the training we need." said Ellen. "And I want first crack at OCV training. Do you two mind?"
"No sweetheart. I want to learn, but as long as we get me up to speed on the tow boats, I can wait."
"And I really need to dig into more of our paperwork and bookkeeping for the next few weeks. Go for it roomie. What about pay for Spoor? How much does he get from OPS?"
"Same as I do, plus ten percent additional for being a qualified instructor. And he's already told me that if he gets the same basic pay for any flight time, he'll waive other bennies. He already gets them on his UN-OPS contract, same as we do."
"But we will have to figure those in to our fee estimate to OPS management. They will expect the additional charges." said Dora.
"You know what's best."
"Is there anything else we need to discuss?" Ellen asked. "If not, I'd like a more complete tour of our habitat."
The business meeting broke up on that note.

* * *

"We're home. Everyone awake and shake a leg." J'Shawn's voice woke Dermot from the nap he'd been taking.
"People." Spoor's voice broke into their conversation, "could I have a moment of your time?" His tension came through very clear.
"Ryk, my man. Could it wait? I just got done shuttling Patrick and our two fine ladies out to our new offices for a Christmas surprise. We're all stuffed and tuckered out."
"This won't take but a moment. Please, I'm just outside the airlock. May I come aboard?"
J'Shawn and Dermot twisted around to look at Dora and Ellen. The two women shrugged approval.
"Sure, come on over. Patrick will meet you at the hatch."
Once inside, Spoor said, "Hi everyone. I had to know, quick-quick whether you people had a good time." At the same time he held up his finger to where his mouth was behind his helmet, in the time-honored signal for quiet. Then he pointed at his radio antenna and indicated they switch to channel four on the reserve radio. After they did so, he continued. "Okay, sorry for the spot of bother, but I needed to let you know. If you're going to bid on providing those taxi services we discussed, do so quickly. I've overheard from my friends that the OPG instigators are planning to brace our Very Special Visitor about the Orbital Pilots Guild and their request for changes in the working conditions when she gets up here."
"No! We were just discussing that, and we think it would be crazy even if she weren't here. She's known for taking harsh action against those she considers troublemakers," Dora said.
"That may be, but they will do it. They've voted unanimously in favor. I tried to explain to my friends it wasn't the right move or the right time, but they wouldn't listen. And I have no doubt that Singhman will lump me with the sods for quick dismissal."
"That won't be a problem." she replied. "We're going to hire you as one of our pilots. If that meets with your approval?"
"Bloody Hell! That's the best possible news for Christmas Day! You'll never regret this."

Homebrew - a NaNoWriMo Novel - Day 20

Not as productive on Monday as I'd like to have been, but I struggled through to 40,000 words. Here you go.

They crowded into the airlock by Dora and J'Shawn orienting to one floor while Ellen and Dermot moved to the other end, their helmets almost overlapping. J'Shawn managed to pull the outer hatch shut and secured it. Then Dora, facing the inner hatch, initiated airlock pressurization. The red lights continued to strobe until the lock's air pressure reached Earth-normal, at which time they switched to green. On that confirmation, Dora opened the inner hatch and they moved into the main cargo bay.
"Wow! Dora, look at this place! I can't believe how huge it is. We could put four of our cabins inside this place."
"You got that right. Say, Patrick, what are those things in the corner over there?"
"Those are the various attachment arms. We mount them on the bow of 'Vuffie' so she can grab onto objects too big to shove into her cargo bay. If we know the object is small, we can use one or two of the arms. Or all four if it's very big. And we can switch between five different clamps, claws or hooks, depending on what attach points the item has." J'Shawn replied. "But that's not the big surprise." He pointed to the opposite wall. "That is."
"What? The wall? And why is it so lumpy?" asked Dora. "Aren't bay walls supposed to be smooth?"
"That's not a wall. That's the passenger module for 'Vuffie'."
"Oh my god. You're kidding! Tell me you're kidding."
"Dora, I don't think he's kidding. That's a top hatch." Ellen drifted over to the detachable cabin and inspected its exterior. "But why does it have two sections?"
"J'Shawn explained that to me yesterday. When the original specifications were made, they asked for the ability to transport people in quarantine, because some of the downside officials were afraid we might discover bacteria or viruses up here which could infect us. Renault just made it impossible for the people inside their passenger transport module to move into the OTV cabin without exiting the module into space. Mitsubishi decided to add the ability to seal two people into the rear quarantine section, flush the chamber to space and hook them up to an independent air supply."
"What a scary and depressing thought. Not something I wanted as a surprise on Christmas Day. How about you, Dora?"
"Me neither. And while this is all well and good, it remains a cargo bay. I've seen plenty of those over at OPS-1. I want to see the rest of our new habitat."
She turned back to Dermot and J'Shawn. "Can we see inside? Is the power up and is the environment good?"
"More important," Ellen added, "can we take off our helmets? As Patrick said earlier, I'm getting hungry. You guys didn't feed us breakfast, remember."
"There's air in here and the rest of our new home." With that, J'Shawn unlocked his helmet and let it drop down his back, hanging on its retaining strap. The others followed suit.
"C'mon." He moved to the more distant of the two inner hatches. "We want to go this way."
As they entered the hallway beyond, Ellen noticed their breath didn't fog. She nudged Dora and demonstrated.
"It's warm in here." Dermot said, noticing Ellen's action. "That's one of the things we did yesterday, bring its environmental controls fully on line. And we brought over extra air and propane tanks. We topped off our reserves and filled the fuel cells. We have enough to power this module for about five months."
"Don't forget. We also replaced several worn-out light bars and changed out the CO2 scrubbers. But Patrick wants to bounce an idea off you gals." As they went down the corridor, J'Shawn pointed out various other features, including the emergency oxygen supplies and the power switching modules. After moving up two levels, he led them into a darkened chamber.
"Surprise!" he and Dermot shouted, as he flipped on the lights. The two women found themselves facing an elongated table behind which a series of round-cornered trapezoidal viewports looked out on the nearby orbital power station. Around the solar power arrays, skinsuited workers crawled, looking more like miniature aphids on rose petals than humans, while tow boats and personnel scooters flitted like mayflies. The nearer power array shone with reflected sunlight, throwing out a rainbow off it's panels.
"Oh my god! This is wonderful! You guys made a great gift!" Ellen threw herself at Dermot, crushing him in her embrace.
Dora followed close behind, wrapping herself around J'Shawn. "My Big Guy! Thank you! You sure know how to give a girl a gift worth keeping." She laid a passionate kiss upon him.
"Don't I get a kiss? I helped." Dermot pouted.
Ellen did not reply, save to pull his head to hers, relying upon her own wet and noisy lips to show her feelings.
After some time, the two couples came up for air and separated enough to move to the table. There, Dermot pulled up the bags containing his burden and opened them, spilling the contents to drift across the table's surface.
"Patrick!" Dora said, diving across the table to snatch two thermal packs before they had a chance to bounce off the far wall and ricochet under the table. "Those two are hot! That means they might bust open if they hit too hard!" As she moved past the rest of the items, she used one hand to push the other hot pack boxes towards Ellen. She barely had time to snag the errant boxes before her other arm touched the wall. She let her elbow bend slightly to absorb the recoil, tumbled to face back the other way and grabbed the edge of the table and pulled herself to the other three, frowning at Dermot.
"I managed to prevent a food disaster. The least you could do is say you're sorry."
"Yeah." Ellen agreed, elbowing him. "Say you're sorry. Or no goodies for you."
"Ouch! Okay. Okay. I'm sorry Dora. That was careless of me. Please chalk it up to exuberance and hunger." He grinned. "Now can we eat? I'm still starving."

Homebrew - a NaNoWriMo Novel - Day 18

Hooray! I made it to 39K yesterday! (Okay, 39,029 words, but what are 29 words amongst friends?) 971 words will put me at 40K, which means I'll be eighty percent of the way to the NaNoWriMo finish line! So here's yesterday's snippet. Enjoy.

He reached up and released his helmet, saying, "We're under pressure, everyone. You can remove your helmets."
As the cabin had filled with air, the shadows softened. Finally, he turned on the main cabin lights, allowing them to see more of the inside of the OCV.
Unlike the smaller OTV, the interior of the OCV presented a finished appearance. Most of that came from smooth walls with flush-mounted locker doors, so different from the webbing and wire-frame bins that crammed an OTV's cabin. And the OCV seats spread out for three rows, including the pilot and copilot stations, with a central aisle separating the seats; the OTV craft used a single fixed seat frame for the pilot with a fold-out jump seat built into the hatch on the rear wall. Then there were the viewing ports; Renault's design used a single flat plate for the front port and placed three, much smaller, round ports above, and on either side of the pilot, putting a severe limit on the pilot's visibility. Combined with the minimal radar and video imaging available on the OTV's main piloting display, the OTV took careful attention and concentration to operate.
Mitsubishi had chosen a different approach.
While the OCV had a divided front port as well as side and top ports aligned with the pilot and copilot stations, it also had cameras mounted along the lower edge of each of the ports - and between the upper ports. It also had cameras mounted facing to the rear and along the bottom of the craft. The operators wore a monocle over the dominant eye which showed a virtual external 'windowless' image in any direction, as if the ship were transparent. A separate display panel to the right of the two main panels, one for each pilot's station, could be set, with the flip of a switch to either repeat the current 'view' the pilot saw, or it would slowly cycle through the images from the individual cameras.
The craft had four other viewports along the sides of the craft at each passenger station. Thus each person in the main cabin could see outside the craft. According to the documentation provided with the OCV, this helped alleviate the tendency to claustrophobia, something which the passenger in the Renault OTV cabin could experience.
Ellen did not know the reason behind the design of the Mitsubishi OCV, she only knew it felt more comfortable to her than the Renault OTV.
"I don't know about you, but I am glad for our luck," she said. "I hated riding in those OTVs. If it flies as well as it looks, I think I could get used to this ship."
"Yeah," added Dora, "Riding in a Cadillac instead of a Smartcar. That reminds me, did we get the basic tow boats, or are those different as well?"
Dermot answered. "Sorry, but we're stuck with the standard tow boats. However, these OCVs are even more of a blessing than you may think. J'Shawn showed me the figures on it's performance envelope."
"Envelope?" Ellen interrupted. "What's that?"
"How it handles under different conditions, what stresses it can take, what it's top acceleration, velocity and engine burn time on a full tank of fuel. Also, what accessories can be attached to it and how much it can haul."
"He's got it right. Baby, this bird can sustain three times the acceleration of the OTV. It has enough fuel capacity for four times the total main engine burn time. It's twice as agile; that means this ship will roll, yaw and pitch faster. In old-fashioned terms, our ship will fly rings around the competition."
"But we're just using this to make trips back and forth to the station? Do we need all that capability?" asked Ellen.
"You're forgetting our idea to go out and retrieve those worn out and broken satellites." J'Shawn said.
"Yeah, I remember, but don't we just boost to get started and then coast the rest of the way?"
"Sure do. However, the power in this means we can boost to speed faster. And if we boost at the higher acceleration for the same time as we would in an OTV, we'll make the trip faster. You have to figure that as soon as we start doing this, someone else will try the same thing. But our better ships means we'll be able to do the job faster - or we'll be able to go farther on the same consumable supplies. That means we'll be able to reach more satellites and be able to do the job for more customers."
"And that translates to more income, which I can support." added Dora. "Okay. So this OCV is a good thing for us. Will we need special equipment to fully utilize them? If we will, getting them up here will drain our bank account."
"Yet another surprise gift. We got the whole expansion package for each of them. That means we will be able to handle larger cargo loads. And we got the rear-cargo-bay passenger module - for each of them. So we can shuttle up to eight people around in a pressurized environment, above and beyond the four passengers we can stuff in this cabin. I'm thinking either a taxi service, a backup ambulance service or even a tour shuttle service for VIPs who come up to check out OPS-1."
Dora pondered Dermot's words. "Wow. You've given some thought to the whole 'taxi service' idea. Would UN-OPS management hire us? And how are we going to do this if J'Shawn's out picking up a satellite to repair? Neither Ellen, you or myself are certified to pilot one of these."
"J'Shawn has some ideas about that. His fellow OTV pilot, Ryk Spoor, is certified as an OCV pilot and he has experience in training people to fly. Furthermore, he's willing to hire on with us even after he trains one of us on the OCV."
"Why would he do that?" Ellen asked. "If he's a pilot and instructor, he's got to be making some good money working for UN-OPS. So why dump out and go with a small start-up."
"There are reasons, good ones, for him to find another home." J'Shawn answered. "This stays between us, but some of the pilots, both tow boat and OTV, are agitating for better working conditions - not money - it's about safety. And to gain those concessions, they're trying to form a guild, an Orbital Pilots Guild. Management has heard about it and there will be a confrontation soon, with the probable likelihood that all those involved will lose their licenses and their jobs. Spoor's not part of that group, but he's got plenty of friends in the thick of it. When you add in that he's got a mild case of gambling addiction, he's most likely looking at being fired right along with the rest."
"So? Where do we fit in? We can't hire him. We don't have ships for him to... Oh! We do have ships, don't we."
"Okay, I get what you're saying, but Elle forgot one thing. He's going to have his license pulled. Without a license, he can't fly. How do you propose to get around that obstacle?"
"May I?" Dermot asked. Without waiting for J'Shawn's permission, he responded, "But we are a valid corporation, licensed to own and operate a fleet of orbital vessels. And we have a Chief Pilot. J'Shawn said Spoor pointed it out, so I took the time to research the regulations. What it boils down to is this: we have the authority to issue a pilot's license to any qualified pilots for the operation of vehicles in our possession. What Spoor is asking is we license him on the OCV and the tow boat. Then, as Chief Pilot, J'Shawn can assign him the position of instructor-pilot. As instructor-pilot, Spoor can then train us and any others as pilots for the OCVs and tow boats."
"That sounds way too complicated!" Dora protested. "I'm not going to agree to this until I can review those regulations. And which one of us gets the training?"
"I think all of us should be trained on the tow boats, Dora. Then maybe Patrick can train on the OCV and both our men can run them. That would leave the tow boats for us to use as scooters if we needed to make a run to the station."
"Fine. Assuming the laws will allow it, I'll give my tentative support. Say? When are we going to start up and get going to those habitats you wanted to show us?"
"We're already on the way. Stop talking and look out your viewport. Off to the starboard side, you will see the glory of the Post-Orbital Power Array. Notice the beautiful rainbow of color as the Sun reflects from the solar panels already installed." J'Shawn said, intoning the words with a deeper vibrancy of a tour guide. "And off to port you will see stars. Many stars."
"We're moving? Already? J'Shawn, honey, I want you to drive all the time. Doesn't matter what Dora says."
"Girl, you already have a man. Now how long until we get to our property?"
"About fifteen minutes. We have to take it slow until we get past the work zone. And since we don't have that far to go, I decided, as pilot and captain of this fine vessel, to make the entire trip at this velocity."
"And as chief cook and bottle washer, I support my Captain. You ladies sit back and enjoy the ride."
For the remainder of the trip, they pointed out constellations to each other.

* * *

One final burst from the forward maneuvering thruster ceased their motion, leaving OCV 'Vuffie' drifting alongside Genesis III unit 384, with a mere ten meters separating the ship from the habitat. Inside, Dermot followed along as J'Shawn completed the shut-down of the OCV. After de-pressurizing the cabin, J'Shawn and the others unbuckled from their seats and made their way to the port side hatch.
"Remember, I'll go first and take the line with me." J'Shawn said, "And someone make a note that we need to pick up three more hand-thrusters. Once the line is secure, I'l give it a double tug and call you over the radio."
"Aye, aye, Captain!"
"Good one, Dora. Just remember to wait 'til I give the signal."
With that said, he clipped one end of the safety line to the hull of 'Vuffie' and gave himself a light push with his legs, drifting to the habitat. He used short bursts from his thruster to pull himself to the main personnel airlock and he then clipped that end in place. After he double-checked the connection and tightened the line, he gave two sharp tugs.
"Okay, you can come on over."
He didn't wait to see if they started. Instead, he turned to the control panel set next to the airlock's hatch and keyed in the Open Outer Hatch command. Inside, the warning lights flashed red, and he felt the hatch pop open under his hand.
Before he could turn around, one of them tapped him on the shoulder, startling him. He hadn't thought they would come over so fast.
"Boo!" Ellen's voice came through his speakers. "Did I scare you?"
"Naw, girl. But you did startle about two months off my life. I figured you three to still be pulling across." He pushed back against her, pulling the hatch out. "Back up a bit so I can get this open all the way."
"You got it Bossman. But you better hurry. They weren't that far behind me."
"No, we're not. Say, can you hurry up? I'm starving here. And I can't imagine the girls are any better off."

Homebrew - a NaNoWriMo Novel - Day 19

Hooray! I made it to 39K yesterday! (Okay, 39,029 words, but what are 29 words amongst friends?) 971 words will put me at 40K, which means I'll be eighty percent of the way to the NaNoWriMo finish line! So here's yesterday's snippet. Enjoy.

He reached up and released his helmet, saying, "We're under pressure, everyone. You can remove your helmets."
As the cabin had filled with air, the shadows softened. Finally, he turned on the main cabin lights, allowing them to see more of the inside of the OCV.
Unlike the smaller OTV, the interior of the OCV presented a finished appearance. Most of that came from smooth walls with flush-mounted locker doors, so different from the webbing and wire-frame bins that crammed an OTV's cabin. And the OCV seats spread out for three rows, including the pilot and copilot stations, with a central aisle separating the seats; the OTV craft used a single fixed seat frame for the pilot with a fold-out jump seat built into the hatch on the rear wall. Then there were the viewing ports; Renault's design used a single flat plate for the front port and placed three, much smaller, round ports above, and on either side of the pilot, putting a severe limit on the pilot's visibility. Combined with the minimal radar and video imaging available on the OTV's main piloting display, the OTV took careful attention and concentration to operate.
Mitsubishi had chosen a different approach.
While the OCV had a divided front port as well as side and top ports aligned with the pilot and copilot stations, it also had cameras mounted along the lower edge of each of the ports - and between the upper ports. It also had cameras mounted facing to the rear and along the bottom of the craft. The operators wore a monocle over the dominant eye which showed a virtual external 'windowless' image in any direction, as if the ship were transparent. A separate display panel to the right of the two main panels, one for each pilot's station, could be set, with the flip of a switch to either repeat the current 'view' the pilot saw, or it would slowly cycle through the images from the individual cameras.
The craft had four other viewports along the sides of the craft at each passenger station. Thus each person in the main cabin could see outside the craft. According to the documentation provided with the OCV, this helped alleviate the tendency to claustrophobia, something which the passenger in the Renault OTV cabin could experience.
Ellen did not know the reason behind the design of the Mitsubishi OCV, she only knew it felt more comfortable to her than the Renault OTV.
"I don't know about you, but I am glad for our luck," she said. "I hated riding in those OTVs. If it flies as well as it looks, I think I could get used to this ship."
"Yeah," added Dora, "Riding in a Cadillac instead of a Smartcar. That reminds me, did we get the basic tow boats, or are those different as well?"
Dermot answered. "Sorry, but we're stuck with the standard tow boats. However, these OCVs are even more of a blessing than you may think. J'Shawn showed me the figures on it's performance envelope."
"Envelope?" Ellen interrupted. "What's that?"
"How it handles under different conditions, what stresses it can take, what it's top acceleration, velocity and engine burn time on a full tank of fuel. Also, what accessories can be attached to it and how much it can haul."
"He's got it right. Baby, this bird can sustain three times the acceleration of the OTV. It has enough fuel capacity for four times the total main engine burn time. It's twice as agile; that means this ship will roll, yaw and pitch faster. In old-fashioned terms, our ship will fly rings around the competition."
"But we're just using this to make trips back and forth to the station? Do we need all that capability?" asked Ellen.
"You're forgetting our idea to go out and retrieve those worn out and broken satellites." J'Shawn said.
"Yeah, I remember, but don't we just boost to get started and then coast the rest of the way?"
"Sure do. However, the power in this means we can boost to speed faster. And if we boost at the higher acceleration for the same time as we would in an OTV, we'll make the trip faster. You have to figure that as soon as we start doing this, someone else will try the same thing. But our better ships means we'll be able to do the job faster - or we'll be able to go farther on the same consumable supplies. That means we'll be able to reach more satellites and be able to do the job for more customers."
"And that translates to more income, which I can support." added Dora. "Okay. So this OCV is a good thing for us. Will we need special equipment to fully utilize them? If we will, getting them up here will drain our bank account."
"Yet another surprise gift. We got the whole expansion package for each of them. That means we will be able to handle larger cargo loads. And we got the rear-cargo-bay passenger module - for each of them. So we can shuttle up to eight people around in a pressurized environment, above and beyond the four passengers we can stuff in this cabin. I'm thinking either a taxi service, a backup ambulance service or even a tour shuttle service for VIPs who come up to check out OPS-1."
Dora pondered Dermot's words. "Wow. You've given some thought to the whole 'taxi service' idea. Would UN-OPS management hire us? And how are we going to do this if J'Shawn's out picking up a satellite to repair? Neither Ellen, you or myself are certified to pilot one of these."
"J'Shawn has some ideas about that. His fellow OTV pilot, Ryk Spoor, is certified as an OCV pilot and he has experience in training people to fly. Furthermore, he's willing to hire on with us even after he trains one of us on the OCV."
"Why would he do that?" Ellen asked. "If he's a pilot and instructor, he's got to be making some good money working for UN-OPS. So why dump out and go with a small start-up."
"There are reasons, good ones, for him to find another home." J'Shawn answered. "This stays between us, but some of the pilots, both tow boat and OTV, are agitating for better working conditions - not money - it's about safety. And to gain those concessions, they're trying to form a guild, an Orbital Pilots Guild. Management has heard about it and there will be a confrontation soon, with the probable likelihood that all those involved will lose their licenses and their jobs. Spoor's not part of that group, but he's got plenty of friends in the thick of it. When you add in that he's got a mild case of gambling addiction, he's most likely looking at being fired right along with the rest."
"So? Where do we fit in? We can't hire him. We don't have ships for him to... Oh! We do have ships, don't we."
"Okay, I get what you're saying, but Elle forgot one thing. He's going to have his license pulled. Without a license, he can't fly. How do you propose to get around that obstacle?"
"May I?" Dermot asked. Without waiting for J'Shawn's permission, he responded, "But we are a valid corporation, licensed to own and operate a fleet of orbital vessels. And we have a Chief Pilot. J'Shawn said Spoor pointed it out, so I took the time to research the regulations. What it boils down to is this: we have the authority to issue a pilot's license to any qualified pilots for the operation of vehicles in our possession. What Spoor is asking is we license him on the OCV and the tow boat. Then, as Chief Pilot, J'Shawn can assign him the position of instructor-pilot. As instructor-pilot, Spoor can then train us and any others as pilots for the OCVs and tow boats."
"That sounds way too complicated!" Dora protested. "I'm not going to agree to this until I can review those regulations. And which one of us gets the training?"
"I think all of us should be trained on the tow boats, Dora. Then maybe Patrick can train on the OCV and both our men can run them. That would leave the tow boats for us to use as scooters if we needed to make a run to the station."
"Fine. Assuming the laws will allow it, I'll give my tentative support. Say? When are we going to start up and get going to those habitats you wanted to show us?"
"We're already on the way. Stop talking and look out your viewport. Off to the starboard side, you will see the glory of the Post-Orbital Power Array. Notice the beautiful rainbow of color as the Sun reflects from the solar panels already installed." J'Shawn said, intoning the words with a deeper vibrancy of a tour guide. "And off to port you will see stars. Many stars."
"We're moving? Already? J'Shawn, honey, I want you to drive all the time. Doesn't matter what Dora says."
"Girl, you already have a man. Now how long until we get to our property?"
"About fifteen minutes. We have to take it slow until we get past the work zone. And since we don't have that far to go, I decided, as pilot and captain of this fine vessel, to make the entire trip at this velocity."
"And as chief cook and bottle washer, I support my Captain. You ladies sit back and enjoy the ride."
For the remainder of the trip, they pointed out constellations to each other.

* * *

One final burst from the forward maneuvering thruster ceased their motion, leaving OCV 'Vuffie' drifting alongside Genesis III unit 384, with a mere ten meters separating the ship from the habitat. Inside, Dermot followed along as J'Shawn completed the shut-down of the OCV. After de-pressurizing the cabin, J'Shawn and the others unbuckled from their seats and made their way to the port side hatch.
"Remember, I'll go first and take the line with me." J'Shawn said, "And someone make a note that we need to pick up three more hand-thrusters. Once the line is secure, I'l give it a double tug and call you over the radio."
"Aye, aye, Captain!"
"Good one, Dora. Just remember to wait 'til I give the signal."
With that said, he clipped one end of the safety line to the hull of 'Vuffie' and gave himself a light push with his legs, drifting to the habitat. He used short bursts from his thruster to pull himself to the main personnel airlock and he then clipped that end in place. After he double-checked the connection and tightened the line, he gave two sharp tugs.
"Okay, you can come on over."
He didn't wait to see if they started. Instead, he turned to the control panel set next to the airlock's hatch and keyed in the Open Outer Hatch command. Inside, the warning lights flashed red, and he felt the hatch pop open under his hand.
Before he could turn around, one of them tapped him on the shoulder, startling him. He hadn't thought they would come over so fast.
"Boo!" Ellen's voice came through his speakers. "Did I scare you?"
"Naw, girl. But you did startle about two months off my life. I figured you three to still be pulling across." He pushed back against her, pulling the hatch out. "Back up a bit so I can get this open all the way."
"You got it Bossman. But you better hurry. They weren't that far behind me."
"No, we're not. Say, can you hurry up? I'm starving here. And I can't imagine the girls are any better off."

Homebrew - a NaNoWriMo Novel - Day 17

I'm up above 37,000 words. I should reach 40,000 words by the end of the day, Sunday. I've also started a new chapter. Enjoy!

A little Paint, Some new Furniture

“Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground floor.”
-Oliver Wendell Holmes

December 25, 2011

"Merry Christmas!" Dermot bowled through the hatch, followed by J'Shawn, who closed the door as he passed by. Ellen, coming out of the shared bathroom, had to stop to avoid their charge.
"And a Merry Christmas back at you guys." she said. "Now could you cease this thundering around our cabin and sit down! Some of us are still trying to dress!" She snatched her suit from the hook by the bathroom door with one hand, the other keeping firm grip on the towel surrounding her, backed from where she came. "Talk to Dora, while I get..." the closing hatch cut off the rest of her words.
"Yes," Dora took up the conversation, waving her friends to the chairs, "please take a seat. But before you do, I want to see those hands, boys. Empty hands mean empty seats. Come on,” she said when neither man brought his hands into view, “this is Christmas. You know… the day when person is supposed to shower gifts upon his favorite female?”
“Ummm…” Dermot temporized.
“Well, you see…” J’Shawn followed suit. “It’s not really a gift I could just bring to you. You’re going to have to come to where it is.”
“Unh Hunh. I’m not buying what you’re selling, my man.” She transferred her tinder-dry gaze to Dermot. “And I know Ellen feels the same way. Especially after you both bailed on us. We had a date-night, dinner and a movie, last night… all four of us.”
“Honest. He’s telling the truth. And we just couldn’t tell you why we missed the date; it would have spoiled a surprise.” He sputtered to a stop, as Ellen re-entered the room.
“Surprise? Did someone mention surprise?” She turned to face Dora. “I don’t know, Dora. It better be a great surprise to get back into our good graces, don’t you think?”
“Oh absolutely. I was counting on bling, around my neck, dangling from my ears, clasping my wrist; I’d even settle for a tiny piece fit on my finger.” Here she waggled her left ring finger at J’Shawn. “But I don’t see any bling. So this better be a spectacular surprise.”
“Baby, you can have all the bling you want. But first I want to show you our surprise.” He continued, his voice mirroring the smugness written on his face, “And then I don’t believe you’ll want any bling this Christmas.”
“Hush. Dora, don’t cry. He’s a man and can’t possibly understand. And don’t even think of agreeing with him, Patrick, or you’ll lose something near and dear to yourself – for at least a week.”
“What? Me put my foot in it that badly? Sweetie, if you say the moon is hot pink, I’ll agree.” Dermot turned to his friend, “You’re on your own on this one. I’m not about to jump in and help you dig that grave you’re so eager to finish. But before you do, may I remind you we have people to go, places to do, things to be?”
“Pax.” pleaded J’Shawn. “Baby, I will never again even hint you don’t need bling for either Christmas or your glorious birthday.”
“See that you don’t. I’m a woman of refinement and discriminating taste. I need to be pampered. Now come over here and give me a kiss.” J’Shawn complied.
As he did so, Ellen sank into Dermot’s lap, draped her arms around him and asked, “Would my strong, handsome man happen to have a stocking stuffer for me?” She snuggled close, molding herself to his hips.
“Um…” Dermot tried to focus on her words, rather than the warmth of her body. “Stocking stuffer?”
“Yes,” She reached one arm behind her and trailed her fingers up his inner thigh, leaning closer and whispering, “Stocking stuffer.”
Unable to form words, he took the only option available and, diverting her hand from further passes, he wrapped his arms around her, his lips met hers in a passion-filled kiss. Once again, he experienced the time-dilation physicists stated could only be noticed in objects whose velocity exceeded a significant fraction of the speed of light. Without warning the wave-front collapsed and he found himself back in the cabin.
“That stocking stuffer,” he managed to force out. “What were we talking about?”
“You said you two had a surprise for us. What is it? And if you didn’t bring it with you, where is it?”
He shook his head to clear it. In the background, at a low volume, he could, with difficulty, make out the broadcast over the main communications channel.

“… Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen.
And that concludes the non-denominational service on this scheduled holiday.”

“Did I just hear them give the Agnostic’s Prayer as part of the Christmas Service?”
“Yep.” he responded. “And it’s nice to have you two back with us. Elle wants to know where we are going. She even wants us to spoil the surprise.”
“Not likely. Not likely at all. For once we have the advantage; you ladies are going to have to wait. I will tell you we have to get suited up.”
“That reminds me. J’Shawn, girls, I asked for a special set of box lunches for us. They should be ready and waiting in the cafeteria.”
It took them a little more than fifteen minutes to gather their meals and don their breather packs, the helmets hanging from the neckline of the packs. Then Dermot and J'Shawn led the others to another access hatch closer to the post-orbital power array.
"We'll have to suit up here because there's no access tube on the other side of the outer hatch," Dermot said. "But J'Shawn and I laid on a line to the ship."
"Ugh!" said Dora. "Not an OTV! Those things are so cramped, even if we are in a micro-g environment."
"Wait and see." With that said, J'Shawn waved the two women ahead of him into the airlock. After Dermot had entered and closed the inner hatch, the four of them donned their helmets and checked for suit integrity. Once each suit's status lights flashed green, J'Shawn held up three fingers followed by two, indicating he wanted them to set the reserve radio to it's second channel.
"Got it." said Dermot
"I heard that."
"Me too."
"Good," he replied. "Dora, could you dump the air?"
She reached out and punched the code sequence to initiate the process. They heard the thump of the pumps and the steady whistle of air for a short while until the chamber neared a vacuum. When the red lights on all eight corners flashed, they knew the dump was complete and they could open the outer hatch.
Pulling herself outside, Ellen went first, her sealed meal tucked into her shoulder bag which was secured to the shoulder of her suit. At first, she couldn't make out the dim shape in front of her. Then her eyes adjusted to the lower light levels. She paused, blocking Dora from following.
"What is that?" she asked. "It's not an OTV, but I've never seen a ship like that before."
"Move out of the way and let me see," Dora protested behind her. She grabbed the safety line and pulled forward, assisted by a push from behind. "C'mon, girlfriend. I still can't see... Whoa! That's new." Dora followed as Ellen pulled farther out, heading for the ship's hatch.
"Dora! Look over there!"
"Over where?" Dora first glanced at the hatch, then when she couldn't see anything that caught her attention, she shifted back to Ellen and realized her friend pointed at the bow of the craft. "I can't make it out, that module box is blocking part of my view. Is that 'ffie'?"
"No, it's 'Vuffie'," Ellen snorted. "Who in the world came up with 'Vuffie'?"
"Now who do you think! Only one man I know has read the complete works of L. Neil Smith. Am I right big guy?"
"Girl. You wound me. I would never just read L Neil's stories; I have them burned into my computer's permanent memory - and I have them in old-style book format." He came out of the hatch and snagged the line. "Could you move forward? Patrick's still stuck in the lock."
"Yes I am. And it is rather boring in here."
As the last person to exit, Dermot closed the airlock's outer hatch and unclipped the safety line, rolling up as he followed his friends. Within minutes they had reached the OCV and entered the main cabin. Once the four found seats and strapped in, J'Shawn taking the pilot's position and Dermot the copilot's chair, J'Shawn started the power-up checklist.
"Wait a bit," said Dermot, "and we'll bring up cabin pressure."
"This thing has a pressurized cabin?" asked Ellen.
"Sure does."
"You never got around to telling Ellen and me what kind of ship this is? I mean, we both saw the name, but what type is it, and where did it come from?"
J'Shawn paused his power-up activity. "It's an Orbital Cargo Vessel, Series B, hull number 1875B. Mitsubishi made them. They're up to Series D now, and I hear they're about to release Series E. Where it came from... It's ours, Babe. We bought it; we own it."
"When did we buy this!" Dora said, shock and worry evident in her voice. "I know I didn't place an order for one!"
"You sure did. And you paid for it, along with it's identical sister ship. hull number 1876B. Remember the line item for two orbital transfer vehicles?"
"I remember, but those were OTVs, not this OCV!"
"Wrong. The receipt clearly stated they were 'orbital transfer vehicles', not OTVs. And these are, generically speaking, orbital transfer vehicles. And they're all ours. Vuffie and Muffie."
"But if you have these, does that mean...?" curious, Ellen asked what Dora wished to know.
"Yep, they're here! Four massive marshmallows of inflated, kevlar goodness. We thought you ladies would like to see our new property."

Homebrew - a NaNoWriMo Novel - Day 16

I had to make up for my slacker behavior of Thursday, so I logged in 3,000 words yesterday and pulled to 35,000 words. I'm going to try to do around 2,500-2,700 words both today and tomorrow, which will leave me at 40,000 words. If I can do that, I may well have a chance to reach 50,000 words by the end of the day on Wednesday. I'd love to be able to spend Turkey Day not writing, secure in the knowledge I'd already crossed the 50K 'finish line'.

Anyway, here's yesterday's snippet. Enjoy!

"Go ahead and keep complaining. Keep complaining. Need I point out you guys drink your beer warm?" He kept working his way through the startup checklist. So far all the indicators had come up green, The cabin interior glowed with the emerald light, rendering the reds and magentas of their suit controls a darker gray against the pale blue of their breather packs.
"Beats all Hell out of chilling down near zero just to disguise the lack of character. A real beer doesn't need to freeze the taste buds, it has a character pleasing to the bloody palate. Something you colonials never figured out. Say, could you go back a step?"
J'Shawn reversed his last step, which brought the main display to one of several nested menu screens. "What did you see?"
"There, that last option. Do you see it?" The choice read 'Defensive Systems'.
"I see it, but I don't believe it. Why would anyone put a defensive system on an OCV?" He selected the menu choice. Another screen of options appeared. "Electro-static Discharge Anti-theft System? Kinetic Energy Anti-Intrusion System? Thermal-Optical Collision Elimination System? Automatic Collision Avoidance System? Just what did Mitsubishi expect this thing to have to deal with?"
"Did you notice all but the anti-theft and collision-avoidance systems are listed as 'inoperative/not installed'? Those two are showing up as 'disengaged'. Old chum, I think that means you could turn them on. I'd dearly love to see what that Electro-static Discharge Anti-theft System does, but I'm volunteering you to test it. As for the anti-collision system, it probably acts the same way as the avoidance systems on airliners, or so I would presume."
"You may be right. But I'm not going to turn either on until I've had a chance to read the manuals - thoroughly!" He resumed working through the startup checklist. "I think for now it will be better to get this puppy ready to fly and get some time behind the controls bringing back to OPS-1. You have to admit this is a much nicer crew cabin than on your bird."
"No doubt," the other pilot replied, "but do you think it's wise to bring this close to the station? We don't know what the systems are capable of."
"Yeah, but I have no plans to install either of the two 'inoperative' systems. And I'm not going to turn on the others anywhere near the station. They may be nice options, but have you noticed the rest of the controls and programs are what we have on the OTVs and use the same switches, joysticks and execution commands? This shouldn't be that hard to fly. What do you say to a short flight around the habitats? I'll even let you have some stick time."
He could hear Spoor's breath in his earphones. Long seconds passed. "I'm less worried about rules and regs than many of the other pilots, but we've a bit of a long hike back if anything goes wrong. Still, everything checked out green, and by the gauges we've got enough fuel, even with the paltry bit we dumped in, to go to OPS and back twice. I'm game."
"Great! Then let's do it!" J'Shawn reached for the control yoke.
"Hold on. You didn't let me finish. You colonials are always in a bloody hurry."
At that comment J'Shawn stopped. "What now?"
"How much time do you have flying these crates? The OTVs, I mean?"
"You know I've only the 100 hours they allowed in flight training."
"And have you ever flown aircraft?" Spoor continued. "I'm not trying to be insulting; my questions are relevant."
"No. I wasn't rich enough to afford to pay for lessons," he said, not quite able to hide his resentment at the direction the conversation was taking.
"Well I have. I've got my ticket punched for rotary, single and multi-engine craft and I'm both visual and instrument flight rules certified. The last I looked, I've logged over 2,000 hours down below, in several different types of aircraft. And that's on top of my 1,600 hours of OTV flight time."
"Look, I'm not trying to spoil your fun. But I'd really rather be the one to take us away from your big marshmallow over there. While neither of us has flown one of these crates, I'm the only one who's had real experience in flying different craft. I promise, once we're clear, I'll gladly relinquish the controls to you."
J'Shawn listened through the pulse of his anger. This was, after all, his craft. Still, what Spoor said made sense. And the others would not be happy if he damaged their property the very day they received it.
"Okay. You're right. So why don't you take us out a few hundred meters and get us a bit of elbow room to practice in?" He removed his hands from the controls and watched Ryk ready himself to take control.

* * *

The OCV slowed its tumble, ending the skew-flip maneuver with the engine bells facing along its path, the vibration of the thunderous deceleration burn reaching through the control yoke into J'Shawn's hands. Before he could react to the zero-count flashing onto the main screen, by mashing the cutoff switch, the engines went silent. The sudden cessation of deceleration threw him against the safety harness."
"YEOW! What a blast!" he shouted, staring out the cabin's pilot-side port at the nearby inflatable habitat, now hanging motionless 100 meters from the OCV. "What a rush! This thing can stop on a dime! Did you feel the deceleration? We were pulling almost three-tenths of a G!"
"Do tell. Good thing I wasn't taking a sip of tea, now, wasn't it? Two things. First, I believe you have the hang of flying this beast. Second, I strongly recommend you not attempt any of these high-delta-v hijinks near OPS-1. They'd surely take your ticket away from you. And fire you. And ship your arse back groundside. Now please allow me to catch my breath, slow my heart rate. I'd like a calm, genteel trip back to my ship, if you will."
"One slow, gentle, calming trip coming up. You know, you didn't do so bad yourself. If you decide you still want to moonlight for us, and if any opportunities come up that we can offer you, I am willing to convince the others to hire you. Are you still up for that?" J'Shawn turned to watch his passenger. Once again, the seconds ticked by. While he waited, he set up a course back to the OTV.
"Did you know a group of tow-boat and OTV pilots have been agitating for better working conditions?" Spoor asked. "They're trying to form, of all things, an Orbital Pilots Guild. More emphasis on safety, fewer 12 to 14 hour shifts, better monitoring of flight paths, certain training courses not currently being taught, that kind of thing."
"No. I hadn't heard about this. But then, I just finished flight training two weeks ago and I haven't really gotten to know my fellow pilots. You, on the other hand, have been flying those tow boats and the OTVs for months. If you're not involved with it, I'd still bet you know all about it." While talking, J'Shawn initiated the trip instructions stored in the flight computer. With a soft push, Screaming Eagle One began it's voyage back to the first habitat and the OTV.
"I do. And I support the basic concept. The problem is, management doesn't want it to happen. Which means it won't happen. Or I should say, it won't happen without some sort of fight."
"I'm not one of the organizers, and I haven't formally signed on, but I'm friendly enough with those who are part of the movement that management may well decide I'm not worth keeping around. After all, they know about my wee gambling issue."
"Yeah, but from what I've seen, you keep it under control. You may be a bit short at times, but it's not like you're dropping tens of thousands beyond what you make."
"But I do occasionally drop several hundred beyond my income." Ryk sighed. "And that will be enough. I made the mistake of telling Singhman, in front of about a dozen others, that he was a bloody, hypocritical prick for his judgmental attitude about my gambling. Which means that when, not if, this Orbital Pilots Guild nonsense comes to a head, I'll be run off with them. He's done this to others."
"But that's a side issue to the point I was going to make. You, Dora, Dermot and Ellen are the sole legal owners of those puffy orbital marshmallows and the attached vehicles. You are a licensed orbital pilot, duly certified. And as one of the owners of this bloody wonderful ship, you're the Chief Pilot of your concern."
"So?" J'Shawn couldn't see where this was leading. "Big deal. I'm still a rookie orbital pilot. Machs nichts."
"There's where you're wrong. As owner and Chief Pilot, you have the authority to license other pilots - including myself. Which means you can certify me on this OCV and issue a license, independent of the one I hold through UN-OPS. I rather like the idea of having an orbital pilot's license that can't be pulled by OPS management."
"The Hell you say! It can't be that easy! And you are forgetting I'm not an instructor-pilot."
"But I am. And I just gave you a check flight on an orbit-to-orbit transfer vehicle. Oh sure. It's a bit hincky, but if you and your fellow owners accept the validity of it, your company can issue a license based upon my certification."
Silence descended in the cabin. For the remainder of the journey, each man pondered the words spoken.
As they neared their destination, Spoor spoke up again. "One other pertinent fact. As a duly registered corporation, with offices, personnel and vehicles in orbit, you could also hire yourselves out to OPS. Look it up, it's in the regulations. That puts the onus of meeting safety and training requirements on you, but it also means you can, if things go the way I believe they will, charge whatever the market will bear for services rendered. If possible, I'd like to complete a transfer from employment under UN-OPS to you before the pilots guild idiots get OPS management all stirred up."
After easing to a stop, J'Shawn unbuckled and followed Spoor to the hatch. There, his passenger stopped, hand on the hatch release handle. "Just think about it," he said.
"I will, and if we decide to follow your advice, you'll be the first one we call."
With that, Spoor exited the craft and shot over to his own ship. Once inside, he called out to J'Shawn, "I'm in. Would you hang around a bit until I get this bloody crate fired up?"
"Sure thing. I figured it would be less surprising to flight control if I followed you back home."
"Like some bloody great puppy, you mean?"
"Exactly. And I expect you to go all gushy and wide-eyed-innocent-child on them. Remember, you're trying to win a job with us."
"Right. One sodding innocent waif act coming up. May I assume you're not going to tell them your ship's new name? I do believe 'Screaming Eagle One' has a rather, violent, connotation to it. Not that it's any of my business, of course, but that might make the gushiness sound somewhat... contrived, wouldn't you agree? How about I call it 'Fluffy'?"
"Fluffy?" J'Shawn couldn't restrain a guffaw. "Fluffy! I like it. No. Wait. Call her 'Vuffie'!"
"Vuffy? What the bugger is a 'Vuffy'!" Outraged curiousity echoed in Spoors voice. J'Shawn made his way to the pilot's seat and strapped in as he laughed.
"You mean you've never read the classics?"
"Classics? I've read every single one of Shakespeare's plays, all of Dickinson's works and even Mary Shelly's writings. Nowhere have I ever heard of 'Vuffy'."
"Wrong classics. You need to have read from L. Neil Smith's stories. Specifically, you have to find a copy of "Their Majesties' Bucketeers". And it's spelled 'Vuffie'. That's 'V', 'u', 'f', 'f', 'i' and 'e'."
"Effing colonials. They'll always suprised you. Are you ready? I'm all warmed up and set to go."
"Just finishing setting up my flight plans. There. You can proceed at any time."
"Before we proceed, you might want to check out the reserve channels, make sure they're working. How about we test Reserve Channel Two?"
"Sure." J'Shawn hadn't thought of testing the reserve radio channel. It was most often used by the pilots to chat between themselves during multi-ship operations to relieve the traffic on both the main station-to-ship channels and the standard ship-to-ship channels. "Switching to Reserve Channel Two, now." He activated that radio and set it to channel two. "Can you hear me, Ryk?"
"Loud and clear. Say, while we're hanging out here with no one listening, how about you keep your ship's special features quiet? No need bragging on them, what?"
"You're coming through five by five. Vuffie out."

* * *

The trip back to OPS-1 was uneventful. However, after the powerful acceleration they had put his OCV through during the shakedown flight, the sedate initial push and slow drift to home mandated by UN-OPS regulations left him frustrated. Still, the snail's pace as well as the hint from Ryk to not discuss what he had shared left J'Shawn a great deal of time to review what he had heard, and to make plans.
It took them forty-five minutes to accelerate up to maximum prescribed velocity, travel the five miles to OPS-1 and decelerate down to one-half meter per second, the allowed velocity for close-in maneuvering, that being any maneuver performed within 200 meters of the station. After another six and a half minutes, J'Shawn successfully docked the OCV at his assigned mooring clamp. Before he shut the bird down, he recharged his air supply from the on-board tanks. Then he fished the technical manuals out of the locked cabinet where they had been stored, placing them in a net shoulder bag, called the 'purse' by one and all. Damned if it didn't look like a shoulder purse, he thought, not for the last time.
As he exited the locker room where he had stripped off his helmet and breather pack, he was hailed from behind.
"Williams. J'Shawn Williams." He recognized the voice; it belonged to his shift supervisor, Aaron Solomon.
Turning he replied, "Yes, Aaron? Do you need me?" He hoped this wasn't about an off-schedule flight. The excursion had left him tired and hungry. Solomon pulled even with him.
"I was wondering if you could explain, Williams, that craft you have hanging off the mooring clamp. You stated in your request you would be bringing over an OTV. From the chatter I overheard, it's an OCV. Where did you get it?"
"To tell the truth, Aaron finding it was as big a shock to me as it was to you. The receipts we received stated two orbital transfer vehicles, one of which bore the hull number 1875A. And when I opened up the cargo bay, there she was, an orbital craft, a Mitsubishi OCV class, Series B ship, Orbital Cargo Vessel 1875A. I scanned back through all our records and she's definitely ours."
"We'll have to revise our agreement with you as this is a much more massive vessel than we agreed upon. We may have to change your docking point."
"I'm good with that, even if it means a slightly higher docking fee." He watched Solomon stare at him, expecting a reaction which J'Shawn couldn't begin to guess at. Finally he asked the man, "Is that all? I've only got ten hours until my shift starts and I'd like to catch a meal before I go to sleep."
"Yes. But stop by my office this week so we can make other arrangements."
"Sure thing." He turned and walked away, heading straight for the cafeteria. According to his watch, he had five minutes left to scrounge up his meal.
Later, as he showered in preparation for sleep, he thought back on how Solomon had acted. It was almost as if Solomon expected him to pull a 'better-than-thou' act, simply because he now owned his own ship. And there may have been a bit of fear in the man's eyes. Like he expected J'Shawn to refuse to move to a new docking point or pay higher fees.
The more he pondered, the more he wondered just how bad the feelings between the Orbital Pilots Guild agitators and management had become. Could Ryk be correct? Were the guild people ready to push for greater power?
On the one hand, it could present a wonderful opportunity to hire out his orbital ships to OPS. And that meant better money for all four of them. On the other hand, he sympathized with the pilots. Even with what time he'd spent these past two weeks, he could agree that some of their ideas - they really weren't 'demands' yet, were they? - made sense. And they'd resent him if he 'took' their jobs away by doing 'work-for-hire' for OPS. Still, they would probably already have been fired if OPS decided to throw contract work his way.
The only thing he knew for sure was that either way, he needed to get Dermot, Ellen or Dora up to speed on the OCVs, and he didn't have enough experience to teach them. Which meant they might well take Ryk Spoor up on his plan to be licensed as one of their OCV pilots, an instructor-pilot. Ryk could probably handle the job.
"Damn." he said out loud. "'Vuffie'! That's gonna spread all over the station! May as well make it official." He called up the flight control office on the com line built into his notebook.
"Flight Ops."
"I need to register my ship."
"Your ship? What do you mean? They aren't private property. All ships are owned by UN-OPS. Thus, they're already registered."
"Not this one. It's owned by me and my friends. And it's not one of the OTVs. Look in your records for an OCV, Series B vessel, hull number 1875A."
"I heard rumors about it." the woman continued. "Let me see... Nope, you're already registered. Don't need to do a thing."
"What name does it show?"
"Name? Why would it need a name?"
"Because we own it, not UN-OPS or one of the big multi-national corporations. And I like the idea of it having a name."
"Well, we usually don't, but it appears there is a place on the form for a name. What do you want to call it?"
"Vuffie. That's spelled 'V', 'u', 'f', 'f', 'i' and 'e', Vuffie." He heard a sharp laugh from the other end.
"Are you sure you want to call it that? And not something more noble, like Mighty Emerald Dragon of the Eastern Dawn?"
"Nope. My mind's made up."
"Then 'Vuffie' it is." The woman paused. "Um... Could I take a look sometime at this ship you felt inspired to call 'Vuffie'?"
"Sure thing. Just not tonight. Good night." And he cut the connection.

Homebrew - a NaNoWriMo Novel - Day 15

And by the skin of my teeth, I managed to add 1,908 words on Day 15. Started a new chapter as well. Enjoy!

It ain’t Much to Look At

It's dependable and not much to look at but it's mine, it's paid for and it's the only way I can get to work!
-Sanchovilla

December 23, 2011

Points of hard light scattered across his vision, as if a careless jeweler had tossed a bucket of diamond dust on a jet floor. Random specks of red, orange and even blue brightness lent a variety to the image. A white, puffy cylinder drifted into his view. Despite being only eighty-feet by forty feet in size, he couldn't shake the feeling he was staring up at a giant Sta-Puff marshmallow ever so slowly falling down to crush him as he would an ant.
Unlike working out on the OPS power arrays, which were so large as to stretch from one edge of his vision to the other, as J'Shawn approached the closest of the four Genesis III orbital habitats he and his friends had purchased so many months ago. Out here, he had discovered during O2O flight school, where nothing could block the vastness of space, he felt the loneliness so many of the writers, poets and the older astronauts spoke of. This is where he most felt displaced, unsure, as if he didn't belong. He had been raised in apartments, had been crammed into a dorm room for years. Even on his own, he'd found a single bedroom apartment. Small quarters and tight spaces had defined all of his life, walking or driving outside, he had rarely left the canyons of the city in which he'd been born.
Here, the emptiness, the magnitude ripped from the depths of his mind a fear, and a drive for self-examination he'd never quite known before. The fear came from seeing and understanding the total lack of anything within range of his orbital transfer vehicle. At times, he felt a desperate need to talk to whoever was listening on his assigned channel; he'd even experienced an occasional inability to engage the OTV's engines, to leave the docking bay. Each time, he had managed to calm down by re-doing his voyage checklist, focusing completely upon the task, not hesitating to run the 'execute' command.
Once he was moving, the fear disappeared. But the nature of orbit-to-orbit transfers was such as to ensure plenty of time for introspection. With the sheer simplicity of the OTV design, it could be handled by a single operator/pilot. And UN-OPS chose to specify all but the longest trips be conducted by one pilot, unless the cargo required special handling, in which case a technician rode 'shotgun' in the fold-out jumpseat.
On this trip he was the 'mission specialist', the technician hitching a ride. Along with the four habitats and their attached booster units and storage/garage modules, the sale price had included four older, but quite serviceable crew towboats and two OTVs. According to the manifest transmitted by the sales agents, this habitat held one OTV inside, complete with two grappling arm units. The OTV bringing him out here also carried fuel for his OTV. They would unload the fuel tanks and their shade screen, haul out the OTV and do whatever else was necessary to bring it online. They would also check the habitat's environmental systems.
"Coming up on your new home." Ryk Spoor's voice crackled through his helmet speakers. "Sure is pretty. Say, what do you guys plan on doing with these things? Weren't they part of that orbital hotel that Bigelow Aerospace runs?"
"They were. But Bigelow stripped all the furnishings and most of the room dividers out of these before they let us have them." He paused, wondering just what else he could safely say. Dora had cautioned him against letting people know their plans. "We haven't really decided what we're going to use them for. We've got a few wild ideas, but until we get a better look-see inside, we don't really know."
"Well, if it involves doing a little orbit-to-orbit work, I wouldn't mind picking up a few hours on the side," his fellow OTV pilot said, "strictly cash, if you can afford that."
"Is that you talking... or your bookie?" Ryk was well known for his habit of betting on any professional sports event - and losing so regularly as to leave him borrowing money from any fellow worker who he could badger into it. He had even bet on the outcome of a curling match.
"My bookie, of course." For all his abysmal judgment of sports teams, he was a skilled OTV pilot. They docked at the storage module docking port with the barest of jars. "All out for space habitat G-III 384. Please fold your chairs into the stored position and take all personal luggage with you. Thank you for flying OPS Space Lines."
"Dude, you must have been saving that one for years. If you happen to have any more, please remember, they're not helping your chances of moonlighting for us."
"Duly noted and logged." Spoor completed his shutdown and followed J'Shawn through the top-mounted hatch. "Do you want to check everything out on the hab first, or do you want to pull the fuel tanks and get them stored?"
"Let's get them stored. We'll want them offloaded before I fuel up my OTV, so it makes sense to move them into position now."
"You're the customer." With that, they floated over to the open-frame cargo bay and hooked the pallet containing the fuel canisters out with the articulated arm. Working slow to minimize the probability of damaging the canisters, OTV or habitat, they finished moving and shading the fuel can in a little more than forty-five minutes.
By then, both their air tanks had dropped to less than half of rated capacity. It had been a major design change, but the first work crews had demanded, and got an external connector and an internal pressurized air canister on the later model OTVs. Both Ryk and J'Shawn topped off their breather pack tanks before moving to the individual-entry hatch mounted in the cargo bay hatch. It was a matter of minutes for each to pass through into the bay.
"Wow. This is dark squared." J'Shawn whistled softly as his external helmet lamp painted a small circle of light on the bay's far wall. The rest of the bay, except for the wandering circle formed by Spoor's lamp, remained black, sucking the photons from their lights into the pitch darkness.
"I hope you remember where they put the light switch, because I don't see one."
"Yeah. It's over here, about two feet to the left of the hatch we just crawled through." He turned, scanning the cargo bay's hatch frame. "Here it is, one standard keypad and environment control panel. Lights are now..." he keyed in the correct code, flooding the chamber in harsh brilliance, "on!"
"Geez! You could warn a guy before doing that! I'll be seeing spots for the rest of the trip ho... holy crap!" At that, J'Shawn whirled around. And stopped, facing the object which had caused such eloquence from Ryk.
"Man. Punch me, quick! I'm not seeing what I think I'm seeing am I?"
"If you aren't, J'Shawn old man, you must be delusional, because I'm looking at a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries OCV 800, Series B, I think."
UN-OPS had chosen to accept the bid from Renault for the construction of the two generations of OTVs. Renault had created a very basic orbital transfer vehicle, capable of hauling approximately 1 metric ton of cargo in the open rear bay, room for a pilot and mission specialist in the unpressurized cabin and having two bow attach points for articulated arms and tow claws. Pushing a five metric ton object, it could thrust for 240 minutes at it's max Isp.
The Mitsubishi OCV 800 resting before them had room for three times the cargo in it's rear bay and had four attach points on the bow. It also featured a command and passenger cabin capable of being pressurized and carrying four passengers plus the pilot and mission specialist. Further, the cargo bay could hold a separate-environment passenger cabin with life-support for 72 hours for eight passengers. And it could boost at max Isp for up to 960 minutes. Looking past the OCV, which held the closed-environment cargo insert, J'Shawn could see one of the passenger modules.
"I don't think you asked for enough fuel."
"No, I didn't, did I?" J'Shawn floated over and ran his gloved hand along it's flank. "I'm going to need a new paint job."
"Paint job? Why in Hell would you want to mar that pristine beauty with a different color?"
"Not color. Colors. I want flames. And an eagle's beak." He rounded on Spoor. "You're not looking at OCV 800 - 1857A."
"I'm not?"
"Of course you're not. You're looking at Screaming Eagle One." J'Shawn turned back to the craft. "And you're mine, all mine. Aren't you baby?"
Ryk's cough brought him back to the present. "That's all well and good, but we've got to get it out of the bay, fueled and we've got to check out the habitat. And we don't have that much time before we both have to return to OPS-1. Are you still planning to fly that one back to the station?"
"Yes, so we better get started."
Opening the cargo bay's main hatch took far less time than they anticipated as the main power system had been in sleep rather than completely powered down. The power meters on the batteries read 143 hours capacity at full load. Which was good because that meant J'Shawn could expect over ten weeks of capacity in sleep mode, plenty of time to install and fuel the fuel cells they had purchased.
Once outside, the two of them drained all the fuel from the canisters into the OCV's tanks.
"Can I watch as you work through the power-up checklist? I've never seen the inside of one of these babies."
"Sure. In fact, I was planning to ask you for help. I figure if you do end up working for us, it would be better if you were checked out on our orbital craft." He opened the hatch and pulled himself inside, saying, "Welcome aboard Screaming Eagle One."
"Thanks."
J'Shawn was relieved to see the control panels layout was the same as the OTV's. He'd heard Mitsubishi had submitted a bid for the OTV contract, but now he had confirmation.
"I wonder why UN-OPS didn't go for this vehicle? It clearly meets the needs of the OPS crew."
"J'Shawn, you haven't lived in Europe, so I can understand why you've never experienced this. The UN doesn't like giving contracts to the 'big boys' based in Japan, the US or England. And the only other serious bidder was from France. France is a big deal in the UN, despite everything it does to frustrate the UN's basic goals."
"Then they're stupid."
"How long have you worked for UN-OPS? And you're just now realizing that the UN is stupid?" J'Shawn heard the humor in Ryk's voice. "But there's hope for you. You have me to explain everything."
"Good thing. Because I've never understood the European mind."
"And I've never understood how you Americans can drink American beer. I guess we all have our personal ideosyncracies."

Homebrew - a NaNoWriMo Novel - Day 14

RL (Real Life) intruded a bit today. Yet I managed to hit another 1,000 words bringing my 14 day total to 30,110 words! Enjoy.

"Do you have any other ideas for those modules? Because each habitat is something like eighty feet long and forty feet wide. That's a lot of cubage to use. If we rotated them around their long axis, say even five rotations per minute, we could simulate about 0.1g at the rim. Enough to keep things in place from centripedal force. Among other things, we could maybe build a truck garden in one, complete with veggies, fruit and maybe even a honeybee hive."
"Do you like to garden?" Dermot asked, wondering how he'd not discovered this about J'Shawn.
"Not me. But given the number of people up here, I'll lay odds several do. And some of those may know about raising fruit bushes and trees as well as all sorts of vegetable crops. Wouldn't you want to have fresh fruit and maybe veggies that haven't been either frozen or dried to the point of flavorlessness?"
Through all of this, Dora had taken notes, but with the latest turn in the discussion, she added, "Guys! Please! No mention of fresh fruit. I'd just about kill to have a fresh grapefruit; I'd eat it like you would an orange and skip the sugar just to have one in front of me"
"Me too! Not the grapefruit, but some honeydew melon or cantaloupe would do the trick. And I think Dora and I are a pretty good representation of what all the women up here crave. Yes, we get nutritious, wholesome, well-balanced meals, but none of it is fresh!"
"Those are actually good ideas. We could ask someone to send us a mix of fresh, whole fruit picked from dwarf fruit trees. Then we could save the seeds." Dermot turned to Ellen, "Didn't you say your mother loved to give out fruit from her trees to people in her neighborhood? Could you ask her to send some up, we'd all chip in on the cost of shipping. Is that okay?"
"Okay, that accounts for three of the four habitat modules. Do we know what we want to use the fourth one for? Or are we going to wait a bit until a good idea comes along?" asked Dora.
"We could put in eight levels of office space and rent some of it out to others who want to put people up here." J'Shawn suggested. "I'd want to keep at least one office for our own operations. In fact, given the size of these things, there's really no reason we can't make about half of the pizzeria module into freezer space and storage lockers for rent."
"Great idea!" She entered more notes into her notepad. "Okay, these ideas give us something to think about. We don't need to rush into any of them until we feel confident we can either get the supplies and equipment, but we can start setting up the skeleton of a business plan and timeline for each of them."
In the pause that followed, J'Shawn rubbed the back of his neck, clearly fumbling for words that seemed to fix in his throat. Finally, he spoke, looking down and not meeting their eyes.
"I've been meaning to bring this up, but Singhman had me into his office just before shift today. He's asking me to consider advanced pilot training."
"You mean the shuttles? He wants to send you to flight school?" Dora was stunned, she thought they had plans, plans including each other.
"No. No, not full flight school, but advance orbit-to-orbit training. Seem's my football reflexes are still good. It won't mean going back down, but the school runs nearly two months. So I won't be working the regular assembly shift. I'll stay right where I am, I just won't be working in our group for a couple of months, that's all." He watched Dora's face, trying to gauge her reaction to the news. At first, she had seemed appalled, but apparently the rest of his statement had calmed her down.
" I was meaning to tell you, Dora, but I just thought it would be better if all of you heard it in one go-round. That's why I didn't say anything earlier." He paused. "Well, that and I wasn't sure I wanted to take the training. But if we are going to do this, the pizza shop, the garden, offices and repair shop. I think one of us had better get as much flight training as possible on their dime. Is that okay, by you?"
Dermot caught the small negative shake of Ellen's head and refrained from letting J'Shawn know he supported the idea. Instead, all three waited to see what Dora would say.
"I... guess that's... Hell! I'm pissed you could not say a word through the whole shift, nor even afterwords, when we got back here! You were quick enough to have sex with me, but you couldn't let me know you were going to split up the group?"
"Baby. No. It wasn't like that. Until Patrick and Ellen came in here to talk about these ideas they had, I was gonna turn him down. And I was gonna do that because I don't want to split up our team. You know I love you, Babe. I figured since I was gonna turn him down there wasn't any reason to even bring it up."
"If you love me, you should have talked to me about it, even so!" she shouted.
"You're right. I should have. And I won't forget that. I promise you, I won't forget that." He shrugged, helpless, "I've never really had to share things like this with anyone before. So I don't always know how to handle them. Can you forgive me for being stupid?"
Anger fought a losing battle with acceptance across her face. "You big dope. You're forgiven. And don't go calling yourself stupid. Ignorant, ill-advise, un-trained, but never stupid." She pushed off and floated into his waiting arms. "As if I could keep up an angry snit against you for a decent length of time."

Homebrew - a NaNoWriMo Novel - Day 13

Another caveat. The post below has graphic content of a sexual nature. I don't know that I'll keep all of this in the edited version of my book, but I needed to break through and learn more about two of my characters, Dora Rodriguez and J'Shawn Williams. So just as I did yesterday with Dermot Hardin and Ellen Connoly, I explored their sensuality and sexual attraction. If you don't want to get into this, skip to tomorrows post as I'm completely onto the rest of the story.

Good news is that I had a 'personal best' yesterday, weighing in at 4,005 words. So enjoy.


"Would you believe the smell of this place!" Dora's voice echoed into Ellen's dreams. "You'd think a whole herd of wild hogs had mad, passionate sex in here! And look here, J'Shawn, here are the wild hogs on the bottom bunk!"
"Man, oh man. I've heard of funky sex, crazy sex, even kinky sex, but I've never, ever heard of stinky sex! Bro', just what were you and her thinking!" Ellen was having the most peculiar dream, it sounded so real, so life-like, so... She shot upright, tangling in the security netting and exposing herself, and Dermot, to two sets of very amused eyes.
"Oh... My God! You're back already! You can't be! Your shift isn't over yet!" She tried, without success to snag her clothing. Failing that, she burrowed back down and wrapped the cloth of the netting over her and Dermot, who, by now had woken enough to gaze at her, with sleep-fogged eyes.
With an almost zombie-like motion, he rolled over and said, "Hey... what are you guys doing back so soon? Shouldn't you two still be hauling things around?" He rolled back to Ellen, a stupid smile on his face. "Lookie, Elle, They're home early."
"You nitwit!" Ellen grabbed his wadded clothing and stuffed them in his face. Then, pulling the sheet up and around her, she turned to the others, striving for as much dignity as the situation would allow. "Could you please give us a few moments to get decent?"
"Sure thing." J'Shawn replied, making no move to leave the room, although Dora tried to slide past him and through the door. "You two go ahead and do what you have to do. Dora and I will watch."
"C'mon big guy. You don't need a peek show to get you turned on. I swear I'm going to tell the cafeteria staff to put saltpeter in your meals." Dora said, finally managing to pry his hand loose from the grab bar by the door. "We'll leave you two some privacy; come over to our room when you're ready." With that, she pushed J'Shawn into the corridor, shutting the hatch behind her.
"Damn. Another opportunity to start a promising career as a porn star blown by the morality squad." Dermot said, shoving the clothes off his face and pulling Ellen back down to his level. "Now that we have privacy, what say we practice those docking procedures again?" He stroked his hand along her belly and breasts, warming her skin, tickling the fine hairs of her mound.
"Patrick!" she protested, raising herself away from him, "they're going to be waiting for us."
"Yeah, they are. And you heard J'Shawn, he's not going to mind at all if they have to wait a bit longer. And I don't think Dora will thank you for interrupting them in five or ten minutes." He bent forward and kissed the hollow of her throat and felt her shudder beneath his caresses. "We have time..."
"Do you think?" she managed to force the words out past her thickening tongue, holding off by force of will her desire to melt into him. "Or should we give them a full hour?"
"An hour should do," he murmured against her.

* * *

"So..." J'Shawn asked, as he and Dora entered her room, "one hour or two?"
"What are you blathering about now?" She floated down to her bunk and he followed, perching on the edge. "And what was that business about watching? Don't get comfortable, big guy. They're going to be here any minute now."
"That's what I'm talking about. Those two won't get here for at least another hour. If I know my dawg Patrick, they didn't even get out of the bunk. He wants seconds on dessert."
"Oh! You're disgusting!" She punched him in the shoulder, hard, which pushed him to the end of the bunk while she slid into the bulkhead at the head of her bunk. "Ow! See what you made me do!" she pouted.
"Babe," he said, using his rebound from the bunk post to slide closer to her, "you need some of J's special healing magic." He reached up and brushed her hair back from her eyes, letting his fingers stop at the back of her neck, where they began to massage, straying down to her upper shoulders and back.
"That feels so good," she responded, her eyes closed. Then she opened them and asked, "You really think they're not going to be here right away?"
"Yep. He had that look, and she didn't appear all that eager to bounce out and get on with her day, if you know what I mean."
"In that case," she rolled over onto her stomach, "give me one of your patented back rubs. I want the full treatment. Pushing aluminum all day isn't easy; I feel the need to be pampered."
"Your wish is my command, babe." Hooking one leg around the frame of the bunk, he bent forward to fulfill his promise.
Starting with her shoulders, he moved his fingers along her muscles, probing with a light pressure, seeking out knots and other tightness.
"Wait a moment," she said. Then she stripped out of her skinsuit, leaving on just her panties. She placed the clothing on her desk and retrieved scented oil from inside. "I like the feeling this gives," she said, handing him the squeeze bottle and stretching out again.
For a while, he worked his hands over her body, kneading, stroking, caressing and pummeling, into which her body softened. He ignored no area in his ministrations, letting the oil warm in his hands and sink into her skin as he smoothed and rolled her underlying muscles. Her breathing first softened, then quickened it's pace as she spread her limbs, opening herself to him. Eventually, at his slightest touch, she allowed herself to be turned over, giving her front to his questing hands.
As his fingers stroked her belly, it quivered and she arched her back, urging him to move up to her breasts, to give them the attention they sought. When he complied, she moaned, "Ooohhh... Please, touch them, stroke them, make them warm and loved."
"Them and you, babe. Them and you." he breathed. Continuing his slow strokes, he teased her, alternately pulling and caressing, feeling her flesh firm under his touch. Every so often, he let one hand wander down, further along her body, gently tapping and massaging her flanks, pressing in along her thighs and pulling up with just his fingertips on the insides of her loins. He let his fingers of that hand gentle the lips of her crevice, sliding them just inside, touching her moisture. Then he would draw them up the crease formed by her thigh and groin, meandering up to her belly button, playing with it for a bit and then continuing back down the crease on her other side, reaching yet again for her heat.
On the third such voyage, she bucked her hips upward, causing his fingers to plunge deeper into her warm moistness. "Yessss..." she groaned. "do that some more." And she grabbed his hand with hers, directing his now-glistening fingers over her swollen knob. At the same time, she used her other hand to pull his head forward and down to her rigid and lengthened nipples. He gave in and sucked the closest one into his mouth, nibbling the length of it's sides and pulling it outward. Almost releasing it, he spread his lips further out around the mound of her breast and tasted her flesh, rolling his tongue over its velvety expanse.
While he did so, she continued to use his fingers as a bundle of rods, plunging them deep within her, withdrawing their wet length and rubbing her hard button of sex with them, faster and faster, moving his hand in time with the bucking of her hips. Her other hand left his head, and pressed against her belly, pushing up and down its length, while his other hand pressed against her back, urging her body closer to his.
Suddenly, he felt her pull away from his one hand, leaving it inside her. Then she fumbled for the seals to his suit. Opening it, she pulled it away from his shoulders and down his sweat-dampened body. He lifted slightly and she continued to push, rolling his clothes down until he could kick loose from them, suit and shorts. With that done, she lifted her own hips and he pulled off her remaining garment, even as she moved her own hands down, seeking his swelling maleness. With a few swift strokes along its purple shaft, she had coated it with her own juices, then she helped position him to enter her and she guided his length as he pushed far inside, accepting it all within her. His throbbing threatened to send her over the edge of climax even as he drove deeper. When he pulled it back, she felt the vacuum inside her start a standing wave of contractions, racing up and down the length of her being. On his next downstroke, she grabbed his cheeks with both hands and pulled him to her, grinding his mound against hers, once, twice, thrice, four times. Joy exploded within her, rumbling outward, tightening her limbs even as her moist tunnel went into an overload of sensation, waves reverberating up and down it's length, squeezing him, bonding to him, feeling his own wetness explode deep within her.
"Damn, woman." he managed to get out. "Warn a man before you get that intense." Then he dropped down to lay full-length against her, his rigidity draining. He made no move to withdraw from within her, content to stay joined body and soul, reveling in the closeness of having her wrapped around him. He lifted his face and with a sensual gentleness, he placed his lips on hers, wrapping his arms around her as he shared the touch, the taste, the warmth of her mouth and his, lips, teeth and tongue. At the same time, without pulling from inside her, he wrapped his lower legs out and around hers, locking her within his tender embrace. She allowed this and her own arms moved to complete the embrace, molding herself to him, sharing his warmth.
For uncounted moments they nestled together, kissing and stroking each other along their flanks, buttocks and backs, basking in the afterglow of their lovemaking. But the languorous movements re-kindled the flames of their passion. Within her tunnel, she felt his flaccid length expand, hardening as it grew. It throbbed upward along the roof, tickling her womb with it's heart-beat insistence. Not yet making a conscious decision, her own body eagerly matched his movements, forming a matching rhythm that enticed his body to push deeper again inside her.
In her ear, he whispered, "Woman, I believe you have managed to stir my passion."
She chortled, "And mine, O Wondrous Man of mine." She kissed him and continued, "Since you're so willing, I thought I'd let you know I'm eager." She kissed him again, this time pushing her tongue alongside his in time with the thrusting of her hips. He joined her motion, taking it slow, the need for a fast release spent during their first passion.
Holding her with a firm embrace, he rolled over, pulling her on top of him. Once there, he slid his hands along her flanks, pushing down and forward on her hips. In reaction she arched her upper body, breaking from their kiss. She writhed and moaned, grinding herself against him as she scratched her fingers into his chest. Her vaginal muscles rippled, demanding, grasping him and bringing him deeper inside her.
"More... Harder..." she pled. "I want all of you. I need every bit of you. Fill me. Don't stop." With every plea she clamped her thighs harder around him, willing herself to stroke his shaft, forcing it to plough against her inner wall, milking it, demanding he release himself into her. As she did so, she ran her hands over her breasts, rough and hard. She squeezed them together as her whole body convulsed in an unending wave of orgasms, the thrumming of her sex breaking through his own concentration and ripping loose his own climax. Even as she felt his seed shooting into her, merging his warmth with her own moistness, she flushed and bucked, each of her movements, even the slightest starting yet another shuddering climax.
Finally, she collapsed onto his chest, heart racing, her gasps and his thundering in her ears. Her very skin felt on fire from the flush of blood raised to its surface. Spent, his staff slowly softened, yet every stage of his collapse triggered further mini-orgasms within her. She felt her vision begin to fade, as her body responded to his continued strokes and kisses, quivering and jerking slightly as it separated from her control. So this is what it's like, she thought, to literally faint from orgasms, as she gave herself over to the final peak.
An immeasurable time later, she felt him withdraw, taking his sweet warmth from her.
"Baby, it's been almost an hour and a half." he breathed into her ear, "If we don't want them doing to us what we did to them, we have to get up and get clean." His voice sounded near, yet so distant, almost unreal.
"Do we have to? Couldn't we just keep going as we were?" she begged, her limbs unable to move even at the languorous pace his hands took over her tingling body. She rolled in the direction of his voice and opened her eyes, staring into the brown depths of his, her desire so plain to see mirrored in his own. "Why don't we lock the door and give them an excuse to go back to their own pleasure? You know I can never get enough of you."
"I would love that, but I can hear them in the next room and they've definitely gotten up. And I think Ellen wanted to tell us something." He paused and grinned. "Besides, this will give me time to eat and build up my strength! But if you need something to tide you over, I'm happy to oblige." He slid down out of sight, and with a gentle push, laid her on her back. She could follow his motion by the feathery kisses trailing down her front, meandering a bit to take in each breast - which side trips caused her to experience two separate mini-orgasms - and then his lips moved further south, taking in her belly button and finally sliding over her mound and onto her hot, swollen folds. Flicking between her fleshy lips and her rapidly firming clitoris, he hummed, licked, sucked and nibbled until she convulsed and clamped her thighs, forcing his head against her dripping opening as her latest orgasm racked her.
When she finally relaxed, he slid forward, scooping her in his arms and wrapping her in his embrace. "That will have to hold you until we hear what they have to say. Then I want a rematch," he promised.

* * *

"Are you back together," Dermot teased. "No hair out of place? No smeared lipstick? Nothing to give our little secret away to the neighbors?"
"Tease!" She slapped his shoulder, not enough to set him adrift, but enough to get her point across. "As if J'Shawn and Dora haven't figured out what we were doing. I just hope they had enough time for their own needs."
"If I heard correctly, although I'll admit the bulkhead is a reasonable sound deadener, I think they had time and more." He smirked at her. "No, I meant our 'other' neighbors."
She halted her hand inches before it contacted the buzzer set alongside Dora's hatch, spinning to face him. "Are you joking? You are joking, right? We didn't make that much noise... did we?" She paled. "Patrick, I have to work alongside these people. What will they think?"
"Funny, I thought you'd be more upset about Dora finding out."
"I am! She probably thinks I'm some kind of slut. I didn't even try to get back to our room last night." She moaned. "I am a slut."
"First, do you really want to be saying things like this in a public corridor when anyone could happen along." He reached out and pulled her to him. "Second, what we shared is something beautiful, something no slut could possibly experience or understand. Third, Dora's the last person who'd criticize her best friend and roommate for having feelings..." He couldn't finish because her lips found his for a moment. "What was that for?"
"For loving me." She turned and pushed the buzzer. The hatch swung open, revealing J'Shawn standing next to it. Behind him they saw Dora closing her skinsuit.
"Come on in guys. We've been expecting you. What took you so long?" J'Shawn asked, a smile on his face.
"J'Shawn!" Dora said, flushing almost in concert with Ellen, "Do you have to?"
"Have to, what, girl. I'm just saying 'Hello'. Can't a man say 'Hello' to his friends? What's the matter, Elle?" he teased Ellen, winking over her head at Dermot, "You got the same fever as Dora?"
"She does," Dermot replied, "Stigmatus Orgasmus Multiplex combined with a sudden onset of Feverus Embarrassus. It's obviously quite contagious. I hear that much bed rest and stimulation of the nerve endings is a sure fire cure." He high-fived J'Shawn as he stepped past the hatch and closed it.
"Can you believe these guys?" Dora said. "It's as if they have to tell the whole world they're doing it with us!"
"Hey, you can't lay that claim on me. It was Ellen who wanted to discuss our love life in the passage. I'm a gentleman, and a gentleman never kisses and tells." His statement caused Ellen to blush even deeper.
"Is this true?" J'Shawn asked. "Were you talking about it out in the hallway? Damn, man," he turned to Dermot, "you done made her proud with your skills if she's willing to talk about it in public. Way to go!"
"All right. Enough! You two have proven a woman can die of terminal embarrassment." Ellen moved over to Dora's bunk, pulling Dora with her. "Can we move on to something else?"
"What she said, guys. Let's hear what Ellen wanted to say."
Dermot and J'Shawn folded out the chairs and sat.
"It's really Patrick's idea," Ellen said, "Or rather, the first one is, and I think he should be the one to tell you."
"M'man. You couldn't ask for a better intro than that," said J'Shawn. "Take it away. She's got my interest piqued."
"You all know that we've got those four habitat modules arriving in our orbit in about a month." At his words, they nodded.
There had been delays in completing all the necessary paperwork and getting approval for the orbits they'd selected, but after about a three month delay, the Genesis III hotel/garage modules started their two month trip to match the new orbits. By this time, they could, if the conditions were right, see a diamond pattern of moving objects just above the Earth's horizon. Already the four modules were swinging around to begin the braking burn. If all went well, about the last week in November the modules should assume a position about 25,000 feet behind the main part of OPS-1, or a little less than four miles from the trailing edge of the Post-Orbital Array.
Bringing the modules so close to OPS-1 had almost been a deal-breaker. While the orbital position was outside the restricted zone, bureaucrats on Earth has demanded each module be equipped with a booster package mounted on the end facing the power arrays - a booster package powerful enough to force the modules out of orbit within 120 seconds. Those boosters had not come cheap.
"What's the one thing you miss most about being groundside?" he continued. "The crowds? The constant ID-checking? Maybe it's the air?"
"No, I miss the food," said Dora, her eyes tearing up and wistfulness thickening her voice. "I really do. Look at me, I'm tearing up over the idea of a cheeseburger or a pizza and a salad."
"Me too. I'm a hard-working man. Mama always told me a strong man needs his food. I'd give my right arm for some fried chicken, although I'll not say no to Mongolian Barbecue or, yes, even a slice of hot, fresh pizza; make mine with plenty of mushrooms, onions, some of that linguica sausage and canadian bacon."
"Exactly! We miss the food. And while each of us has our favorite dishes, there isn't a one of us up here who hasn't eaten pizza and loved it."
"So? Bro', I don't know if anyone told you, but it's a long way for the pizza guy to come and make a delivery."
"What if we made our own pizza?" Dermot asked. "What if we turned one of our modules into a pizzeria, complete with brick oven, tables and even some game systems?" All we have to do is figure out how to heat the oven. The rest can be ordered up. Onions, peppers, tomatoes, they can all be grown up here. The cheese we'll have to ship up, but like the meat, we can order it in bulk form and slice and shred it up here. That leaves the flour, seasonings, oil and water. Again, we can order in bulk - even the cartons of egg substitute. Sure, we're going to have to charge more than what they'd pay down there, but it will still be cheaper than trying to have whole pizzas shipped up here."
"I like the idea," Dora said, "Everyone complains that there's nothing to do, no place to go except to the break rooms and the cafeteria. This would give them another place to go, some place different. And it would not be OPS property."
"I don't know... It could work, but it might be a bit more than we can chew, right now. We need to get some experience with the habitats, clean them out, bring in some other money."
"For that, we have Ellen's idea." Dermot nodded to her.
"What's that, girl? You can tell me; I won't bite."
"As if!" she said. "Now Dora, Dora I would trust not to bite."
"You wound me! I have her bite marks right here, and there ain't none on her."
"Just kill me now, J'Shawn. And I have a few you forgot about." Dora turned to Ellen, smiling. "Go on, ignore the brute. Tell Mama Dora your idea."
"I had the same concerns as J'Shawn, about the pizzeria, I mean. We would have to take a lot of time, finding suppliers, coming up with a working brick oven, learning how to make pizza. That's time we're not recouping our costs by bringing in an income from our habitat modules."
"My idea is to use one of the modules as a repair shop for crippled satellites. We could go out, retrieve them, swap out old and failing boards and recharge their maneuvering tanks, then place them back in orbit. Obviously, we'd have to do the first few 'on spec' and we'd have to choose ones which are small enough for the scooters, the ones included with the habitats, to handle. But as our reputation grows, we could upgrade to larger craft and start charging an up-front fee for each one 'recovered' and 'repaired'."
"I get it. And we can plough part of our profits back into our other idea - ideas, I should say, because I'm sure we'll have more. I can get behind this. And with this one working I can even get behind the pizzeria." He stopped and waggled his eyebrows at them, "But we better hurry 'cause when everybody sees us working on a pizza oven, they're gonna start a stampede our way."