Chapter 114: 113. Shortcut

"I'm not sure Fuminja is our best option," I commented nervously. "If we follow the standard route from here it'll take us twelve days at jump-0. And I'm getting a fuel warning when I try and plot that course."

I added, "The Knight System and Marshal's World are closer, they're both only about nine days away. They're in a different direction from the Fuminja Cluster though."

Rebecca shook her head, "They might be closer but they're not good options. Marshal's World is a prison planet, and an airless rock like Regulon-4. Fuel will be expensive there. Knight's is a bunch more airless rocks, with a couple active mines. Fuel's even more expensive there than Marhsal's."

"Expensive but in range beats cheaper but too far away, doesn't it?" I asked.

The captain sighed, "It's not just the cost. Those worlds are a hassle to deal with. I'm more comfortable with Fuminja, we have a good relationship with the port there. Even if the folks at the research facility have reason to dislike us."

I frowned and looked at the sector navigational data again, while Rebecca kept control of the ship. We'd finally left Ganvis Station and Deveron-8 about an hour earlier, and fortunately that went without incident. The port controllers left us alone, assuming there were any. The captain picked her own vector as we left, now we were a good distance away from the world and the handful of ships and other things orbiting it.

While I continued studying the nav data I asked, "Out of morbid curiosity, what happens if we run out of fuel before we reach our next stop?"

"Engines and power plant shut down," Rebecca replied. "We're left adrift, with emergency power for life support and a few other essential systems. That'll last about a week. We can stretch it by cutting gravity, seal the lower deck and restrict life support to the main deck. After that it's just a matter of waiting for something to happen."

She added in a grim voice, "Around here if you send a distress call you're as likely to attract pirates as assistance. They'll either wait it out then claim the ship as salvage after life support fails and everyone on board dies. Or if they're in a hurry they'll shoot a few holes in the hull and speed that process along."

My stomach lurched slightly, "And you still want to push our luck by trying to make it to Fuminja?"

"We've got a couple more options that most people don't have," the captain smiled. "First, I'm about ninety-percent sure that if I send an FTL to the Persephone asking for help, they'll load up on fuel then fly out here and save us. I'm less certain we'd get that kind of assistance from the Kennington, but if the Persephone couldn't make it I'd get Sarah to contact her friend and call in a favour. I figure they owe us, assuming they have their jump drive fixed by now."

She had a point about the Persephone, I was fairly sure Gwen would stop at nothing to save the life of her princess. The Kennington was a lot more of a risk, I thought. Like they might come and help us, but that help might also come at a cost. If her captain really wanted to know how Sarah and I were saved it would be a perfect opportunity to extort that information out of us in return for fuel.

While all those thoughts were passing through my mind I still had the navigational data up on my screen, and I finally noticed something that I hadn't caught before.

"Wait," I commented with a frown. "We can shave two, maybe three days off the trip to Fuminja if we don't follow the suggested path. For some reason the standard route takes a wide detour around this one star system, but if we just go straight past it we'll get to the Fuminja Cluster with fuel to spare."

Rebecca asked, "That's Chalirma right? Maybe ask yourself why everyone gives it a wide berth instead of crossing its path?"

My shoulders slumped, "Ah. There's a reason people avoid it. It's dangerous?"

The captain nodded, "Yeah. It's not too dangerous to pass it in jump, but if you run into trouble and have to drop out of jump you could be in for a world of hurt. It's a trinary system, the main star's an unstable blue supergiant that's orbited by a pair of white dwarfs. Depending on their alignment and how close you pass by them, the gravity can be pretty unpredictable out to a couple light-hours away. And its radiation output is even more hazardous."

"It gets worse though, that's just the baseline," she added. "The main star's always flinging out coronal mass ejections this way and that. So generally, ships stay the hell away from it unless they have an especially good reason to take the risk."

I grimaced, "Like being critically low on fuel?"

"Right," she smiled. "That's a pretty good reason. So go ahead and plot a shortcut course to the Fuminja Cluster. Try not to get us any closer than five light-hours from Chalirma though, just to be on the safe side."

"On it," I replied as I revised my course. It took a few more minutes then I let her know, "Ok I have us on a fuel-friendly trajectory, pretty much a straight line from Deveron to Fuminja. At a level-zero jump we're looking at nine days, eight hours in transit. And we should have almost three percent fuel left when we arrive, to handle routine navigation and docking."

I tried to make that last part sound kind of dire, since as far as I was concerned it was serious. The boss just smiled though.

"Three percent's more than enough," she stated confidently. "Good job Amanda. Let's get underway, the more space we can put between us and Deveron-8 the better."

She let me take the ship into jump-0, not that there was anything special or dramatic about that. I left the nav system set to follow the course I'd laid out, and we had the usual automated routines running on the sensors to alert us of any trouble.

As we both got up out of our seats I commented, "Sorry things didn't work out with Ella as well as you'd hoped."

"It's fine," she replied with a shrug. We left the cockpit and headed aft to the mess as she added, "I'm going to try and look at the positives? She's alive, she's got a family, and people there seem to respect her. And I think meeting her and getting to see who she is, the sort of person she is now, has done more to help me move on than almost three decades of grieving."

I gave her a sad look, "I'm glad you're looking at the positives Rebecca. I'm still sorry things turned out the way they did."

"You're talking about Mrs. Wheeler?" Sarah asked as she joined us.

The captain nodded, "Yeah. And actually while it's just the three of us here, I want to remind you both that I'm going to need some time to process things, ok? So please don't take it the wrong way if I keep to myself for a bit."

"Of course Rebecca," I replied. I pulled her into a hug and let her know, "We're both here for you, and if you need to talk or anything you can always turn to us. But we also know sometimes being here for you means giving you some space."

Sarah joined us in the hug as she added, "Amanda already said everything boss. So just know that I agree with her. We're here for you, but we understand you need some time."

"Thanks you two," Rebecca replied with a smile, while we kept her caught between us in a double-hug. "I appreciate it."

We eventually let go, and the captain poured herself a glass of whiskey. She offered Sarah and I some as well but we both declined. The cute engineer got herself some soda, while I was good with a glass of water.

Then the three of us sat down around the dining table, and the boss raised her voice as she asked "Jenny? Are you around? Do you know how our passenger is doing?"

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After a moment the AI's voice came through the intercom speakers, "I am with Cam at the moment, in their cabin. I'm keeping them company while they deal with some emotions due to leaving their home, given that it wasn't entirely their choice."

"Is there anything we can do to help?" I asked.

Jenny responded, "Not at the moment Amanda. Perhaps I could suggest someone come and get them in person, when it's time to eat? That sort of personal touch might be better than simply calling them through the intercom."

Sarah volunteered, "I'll take care of that. We're friends now, since we worked on some machines together. It's how us mechanics bond."

I couldn't actually tell if she meant that last part as a joke or if she was serious, but either way I knew she was friendly with the cat-kin.

"Thanks Jenny," Rebecca added. "Let us know if they need anything. We're under way now, we'll be just over nine days at jump-0."

"Of course captain, thank you. I'll let Cam know," the AI replied, before the overhead speakers went quiet again.

I sighed, "I hope they'll be ok. I know they weren't happy about leaving, but the mayor made it pretty clear they weren't going to be welcome or accepted at Ganvis."

Rebecca scowled slightly but instead of commenting she stayed quiet and had a deep sip of her whiskey.

Sarah had a gulp of soda then commented, "I was a little worried how you'd take it when Mrs. Wheeler used that nickname for you boss. You seemed to handle it pretty well though."

"As soon as she saw it bothered the captain she made a point of using it all the time," I added with a frown.

"Yeah," the boss sighed. "That was just one of a dozen ways she went out of her way to antagonize me. And it did get to me at first? Brought back some bad memories. By the end I think she'd worn it out though? It stopped bothering me after the fifth or sixth time."

"That's a good thing isn't it?" I asked. "I don't mean about your ex making a point of trying to annoy you, but the fact that the nickname doesn't bother you any more."

Rebecca shrugged, "I guess. To be clear, that's not an invitation for you two to start calling me Becky."

"Of course," I responded, while Sarah nodded in agreement.

After that the three of us moved to the lounge and relaxed together for a while on the sofa. We didn't talk much, but it felt good to finally get away from that world. And it was good to be moving again. Even if we were only there for a couple days, it was still a lot longer than we planned. And so much happened in those few days, it felt like we were there a lot longer than we really were.

In fact so much happened over the past few days that I really hadn't time to process most of it. Like the fact that our routine cargo delivery got us dragged into a couple combat situations. I hadn't even really come to terms yet with getting shot, though thanks to Jenny and her Re/Gen pod there was no trace of that injury. Physically it's like it never happened, but mentally and emotionally I hadn't had a chance to deal with it yet.

Another thing I hadn't processed yet was the fact that I'd had to shoot people myself. I was pretty sure I'd taken at least two lives, and I didn't know how to deal with that. I worried about Jenny too, how she was coping. I knew she shot down a couple grav-sleds, she'd have killed more of the raiders than I did. And I had no idea how many people Rebecca faced when she was out alone in the fighter.

I was still lost in those thoughts some time later when the captain gave me a gentle squeeze and asked, "What do you say about getting some dinner ready Amanda?"

"Ok boss," I nodded as I got to my feet. Focusing on something mundane like cooking would be good for me I figured, to get my mind off the other topics.

Sarah stood up as well and said, "I'll go check on Cam and Jenny, let them know about the impending meal."

Rebecca moved from the lounge to the mess to keep me company, she even started setting the table while I got to work fixing us a nice meal.

While I was cooking I mentioned, "We're going to be eating very well for some time yet. With all the supplies we took on board before we started this trip, we're probably set for another fifteen or sixteen days."

"That's good to hear," the boss replied as she finished setting the table.

She got herself another drink, of the non-alcoholic kind this time, then took her seat before commenting "While we're at Fuminja I might ask around and see if I can find us a cargo there. The mines usually have their own shipments arranged in advance by contract, with big or medium freighters, but you never know when something might come up."

Before I could respond to that Sarah rejoined us, and she had Jenny and Cam in tow. The cat-kin looked uneasy, maybe a little emotional, but that was understandable. I pretty much felt the same way when I left home, even if it was what I wanted and I knew it was for the best. I was pretty emotional for most of the trip, when I was on that Navy ship that took me from my homeworld to the academy.

Sarah guided Cam to one of the chairs, while Jenny took her usual spot. Then our engineer got drinks for herself, our guest, and me. And when the food was ready I served it up for everyone.

The cat-kin's eyes widened as they gasped, "This is a feast! I haven't seen this much good food since before the drought started!"

I smiled, "Well I hope you enjoy it! The Demeter's pantry and stores are almost fully stocked, we'll be eating pretty well for some time yet."

"Wow," they mumbled. "Thank y'all! I mean it!"

The captain pointed out, "We don't eat this well all the time, but when we have access to quality supplies Amanda's a pretty fine cook."

I tried not to blush as we all started enjoying our dinner together.