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Homebrew - A Blog Science Fiction Novel

Hand-tossing pizza in micro-gravity is an art. For one thing, even the slightest push to the side causes the spinning dough to drift away, far more rapidly than it sinks back down.

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Location: Citrus Heights, California
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Sunday, November 19, 2006

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."

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