Chapter 122: 121. Impatient

Our departure from Regulon-4 was as uneventful as our visit, which I thought was a huge relief considering how the previous two stops went. In fact I realized our previous three stops all included violence and gunfire, starting with our last visit to Port Ecclestone.

Not long after we landed there we had the shoot-out with Lebeau and his men. Then we got involved in a small war on Deveron-8. And finally there was the attempt on Rebecca's life at Fuminja Beta. I just hoped that was the end of the excitement and danger, at least for a while.

As soon as the ship was clear of the Regulon system the captain had me plot a level one jump back to Ecclestone's World. And after she verified it was good, she took the ship into jump. The deck shuddered as the drive engaged, stars outside shifted to blue and purple, then dissolved into the swirling mess that was jump-space.

"Three hours in jump," Rebecca stated as she got up out of her chair, "Then probably an hour for final approach and landing."

I followed her aft to the ship's mess, where we met the others. A few of us got drinks, then we all moved into the lounge to take advantage of the nicer seating. My girlfriends and I cuddled up together on the sofa, while Jenny and Cam relaxed in the comfy chairs around the little table.

"What's the plan once we reach Port Ecclestone?" I asked.

Rebecca had a sip of her drink as she thought it over. After a few moments she shrugged, "I imagine we'll hear from Gwen pretty soon after we've touched down. She'll probably want to meet with us right away? And I guess we can show her that recording Gabe left, see if that's enough proof for her."

She added after another sip, "If it's not enough then I'll head over to the local government registration office at some point. I should be able to get copies of whatever documentation Gabe filed. Assuming he followed through on what he said in that journal entry. Actually I'll do that regardless, it'll be nice to have some official-looking paperwork."

"Then I suppose we'll also be looking for work again?" I asked. "We definitely need more supplies, unless you're all happy with the sort of food we've been eating the past few days."

The boss smiled, "We'll fill up the pantry and freezers again, don't worry Amanda. And yeah, I'll be looking for work. Preferably another safe boring delivery job."

None of us could argue with that. We were all quiet for a bit after that little discussion, just relaxing and enjoying each other's company.

Eventually our cat-kin guest broke the silence, asking quietly "So um, about this Ecclestone's World? What's it like?"

That led to a bit of a discussion as we tried to give Cam a fair idea of what the place was like without making it sound too awful. And considering what their homeworld was like, it made Ecclestone's World sound kind of nice. Which was an uncomfortable assessment to make, I thought. Like we were basically saying our next destination was pretty awful, but nowhere near as awful as the place they came from. And true or not, it felt rather unkind to say.

Still, we didn't want to give Cam the wrong idea about the place. Like it definitely wasn't somewhere they ought to be wandering around exploring by themself. I wasn't even sure I'd be comfortable doing that yet myself. Even if Rebecca was confident I could handle myself in a fight, that didn't mean I wanted to test it.

Then both Sarah and Cam wanted to know what Regulon-4 was like, so I gave them my impression. Which basically boiled down to a smaller and more unpleasant version of Fuminja Beta, but with fewer assassination attempts.

By that point we were around half-way through the jump, so I got up and headed to the galley to prepare a light meal for everyone. The others joined me at the mess when the food was ready, but as we ate everyone agreed that we needed to take Cam to Gilly's for a good BBQ meal as soon as possible.

That conversation led the boss to make a decision. She looked to Sarah and said, "I guess I may as well lift the restriction on you leaving the ship. I wouldn't want you to miss out on a visit to Gilly's restaurant. I trust you've learned your lesson Sarah?"

Our engineer grimaced, "I have boss. I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't have gone behind your back. I really wanted to talk with Andy one last time, but I know should have cleared it with you first."

"Apology accepted," Rebecca replied.

With that out of the way the conversation picked up again as we all finished our meal. Then Sarah and Cam tidied up the galley, and by then it was just about time to come out of jump. Rebecca and Sarah and I headed to our stations, while Jenny kept Cam company in the ship's lounge.

As we approached Ecclestone's World I did my routine scans, and noticed that the ISS Kennington was no longer in orbit. I took that as a good sign, that they'd fixed their jump drive problem thanks to Sarah's suggestion. I pointed out the warship's absence to the captain, who just nodded quietly as she guided us towards the planet.

Like the last two times we were here, Rebecca didn't bother talking to the port controllers. She picked her own landing vector and brought the ship down manually, which was all mercifully uneventful. And soon enough the Demeter was safely on the ground at Port Ecclestone, at pad two-twenty-five.

We were still going through our landing checklist when Jenny announced via the intercom speakers, "Lady Magniveen is approaching the ship, along with Captain Nieves."

Rebecca rolled her eyes, "I guess they really couldn't wait. Can you go let them in Jenny? Bring them up to the mess, we'll meet you there as soon as we've finished up here."

"Of course captain," the AI replied.

It was only another minute or two before we finished the landing procedure. By then Jenny and our guests were waiting for us in the ship's mess, along with Sarah and Cam.

The captain and I arrived just in time to hear Tanya comment, "First a foxgirl, now a catgirl? I really didn't expect to encounter a single demi out here in the frontier, let alone end up working with two of them."

"Not that I mind," the Persephone's captain added quickly. "I didn't mean any disrespect, I'm just surprised. Demi-humans are rare enough in the Imperium, I didn't think anyone did that outside the core worlds."

I shook my head, "It's fine Tanya, no offence taken. Though I'm not sure it's a good idea to assume the 'girl' part? Cat-kin or fox-kin might be -"

"It's ok," Cam stated with a blush. "I really don't mind if folks call me a catgirl."

Rather than let that topic continue Rebecca looked to our engineer and asked, "Sarah could you pull another chair over from someplace? One of the cabins I guess?"

"Yes ma'am," the cute blonde replied as she headed forward to grab a chair.

Meanwhile our captain looked to our two guests and said, "Some quick introductions then we'll get on with business. This is Cam, they're another mechanic we picked up on our last trip. And Cam, these are Lady Gwen Magniveen, representing the government of Vysalis-4, and Captain Tanya Nieves of the MV Persephone, also from Vysalis-4."

Sarah was back with the extra chair, and as the others got seated around the dining table I got everyone drinks. Mostly coffee and soft drinks, or water. I figured it was up to the boss to decide when to offer liquor.

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Then Rebecca kicked off the meeting by asking Gwen and Tanya, "Is there a reason you're so impatient you didn't bother contacting us, before rushing over to see us in person?"

"Actually there is," Tan replied. She continued with a grimace, "The Persephone's comm panel is off-line. Along with her power plant. If not for a ground power feed the ship would be completely dead by now."

Sarah's eyebrows shot up as she asked, "What the heck happened? How did you manage to lose two completely separate unrelated systems? Especially something as critical as the power plant? And while you were on the ground, in port?"

Tanya sighed, "It was sabotage. It looks like the Regent had it set up before we even left home? Something was set up to trigger if we ever tried to send an FTL from the ship back to Vysalis-4. We tried sending a message to Gwen's family, the comm panel shorted out and the power plant was fried."

Rebecca sighed as well, "I assume you've got your mechanic working on it? Sergeant Bixby?"

"Blix has tried," Tan replied, but her expression and tone suggested she wasn't happy with the sergeant's work. "According to him the damage is too extensive. And he's not handling the situation in a very professional manner. I was hoping we could borrow your engineer? And if we need replacement parts, I'm hoping you'll know where we can find them."

The boss looked at Sarah and said, "It's up to you. If you want to go have a look at their ship that's fine with me."

"Sure, I don't mind having a look at it," she replied. "I'm not familiar enough with Port Ecclestone to know where we can get spare parts around here though. That's your forte I think boss? The only trustworthy place I know for parts in the whole sector would be Tamsin's shipyard."

"Have a look at the problem first. If they need parts then we'll worry about where to get them," Rebecca suggested.

"Will do," Sarah responded. Then she looked at Cam and asked, "You should come too, if you want? It never hurts to get more eyes on a problem."

The cat-kin - or maybe they were a catgirl after all - looked surprised, and maybe a bit reluctant. "Are you sure? I've never worked on a ship before. The biggest thing I ever fixed was an old automated combine harvester that Tate's great-granddaddy got his hands on way back when."

"I'm sure," our engineer stated. "Most of the skills transfer over, ships are just big piles of machines same as anything else. They're just put together a little differently than planet-bound equipment."

She glanced at Tanya and asked, "As long as you don't mind another mechanic taking a look at it?"

The tall brunette seemed a little uncertain, probably because Cam just admitted to their lack of experience working on ships. Instead of answering she responded with a question of her own, "Is Cam your apprentice or something? Actually, sorry if this is rude but can I ask what kind of experience you have Sarah?"

I noticed our two guests exchanged a bit of a look, and it wasn't hard to guess what they were thinking. I was positive it was about the age thing, they had to be wondering about all of us appearing to be teenage girls.

"I've got a few years experience working on ships and their engines," Sarah replied.

She wasn't lying, but obviously she wasn't giving them the whole answer either. And it was a plausible answer. It wasn't impossible for someone to start working on ships as a young teen. Or even as a child, assuming they grew up on a ship, perhaps with an engineer parent.

"I assume you both had something else you wanted to talk about?" Rebecca asked, steering the conversation away from that topic completely. "Gwen, you've been quiet the whole time but I'm guessing you have something to discuss with me?"

The young noblewoman had been following the discussion, and perhaps staring a bit at all five of us. I was positive she was still wondering about the age thing, but she seemed to push those concerns aside and got down to business.

"Yes your highness," she responded. "Right now all our plans are on hold pending proof of your identity, and proof of your relationship to Gabriel Piper. Until you can produce some sort of documentation or some other evidence to confirm that you're his daughter, there's nothing else we can do."

"I think we have something that might satisfy your family's requirements," Rebecca replied. "We looked through Gabe's personal logs and came across a video message he recorded."

She added, "If that's not enough, there's another option we can explore. That might take a day or two though, but we can show you the vid right now if you like?"

Lady Magniveen's eyes widened slightly, she seemed surprised and maybe excited to see what Gabe had to say. After a gulp of her coffee she asked, "Where can we view it?"

"I have it ready in the ship's lounge," Jenny suggested. "On the large entertainment screen in there."

Rebecca got to her feet and gestured, "Let's all move to the lounge. We can get comfortable and you can see what Gabe had to say."

As usual my girlfriends and I claimed the sofa. Rebecca sat at the end on the left, then I was next to her with my tail on her lap. Sarah sat to my right, and Jenny took the far end on Sarah's right. Cam, Gwen, and Tanya all settled into the large comfortable chairs around the little table, and everyone's attention was on the big screen on the left side of the lounge.

"Before we start," the boss spoke up, "Gwen so you know, we've clipped this from a longer video. The rest of it was a message Gabe left for me. It's rather personal, so I'd prefer not share the rest of it if you don't mind?"

The young noblewoman agreed, "If the section you're willing to show us has everything we need, then I don't see any problem with keeping the rest of his message private."

"Thanks," Rebecca responded. "And like I said, there's another angle we haven't explored yet. We can look into that if this isn't enough."

Then she added, "The vid we're going to show you is sort of like Gabe's last will and testament? A video will, I suppose."

Gwen nodded, and Rebecca finally motioned for Jenny.

All eyes turned to the big screen as our AI gestured at it, pretending like she was holding a tiny remote control hidden in her hand.