Tymber Dalton - Out of Bight, Out of Mind

From the personnel files of Dr. Louis Graymard, Deep Space Mission Corps Chief Personnel Acquisitions Officer:

Mission Debriefing Summary #1

File #20-8720.2

Ship: DSMCV Tamora Bight

Base of Origin: New Phoenix, Arizona, Earth

Crew: Captain Aaron Lucio; First Officer Caphis Bates; Mate Ford Caliban; Medical Officer Dr. Emilia Hypatia

Following a stint of R&R on the Martian base, the crew was sent out on an exploratory mission. Unfortunately, a distress call and request for assistance from a Kal’moran ship diverted them. They towed the ship back to the Kal’moran space station. Through a series of events, the Moran leader asked them to the surface. Having been ordered to indulge diplomatic interaction, the crew went.

Apparently, the daughter of the Moran leader constructed a plot to frame Bates and Caliban in an attempt to take ownership of all three men from Dr. Hypatia. Fortunately, Dr. Hypatia perpetuated a ruse during the fight that allowed her to win and exposed the charade. All four crew members were released and allowed to return to their ship. The Kal’moran leader issued a recommendation that the crew be given commendations for their work, which under the circumstances we certainly will take under advisement.

Their next mission is to…

Before her, the greenish-blue swirls of Daxious Theta 2 resembled a marble suspended in the middle of a sea of black velvet. Dr. Emilia Hypatia sat in the command chair and stared out at the planet. Having the bridge of the Tamora Bight all to herself during nighttime watch allowed Emi plenty of time for contemplation. The planet, the fourth from its sun, was only five percent larger than Earth, had an iron core, a healthy mix of oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and other gasses for its atmosphere, and was only fifty percent saline ocean. Also, the largest life-forms on the planet were mammals equivalent to bears back on Earth. No intelligent life-forms.

In other words, it looked like a valid prospect for a settlement colony.

Emi knew somewhere on the backside of the planet orbited the Kendall Kant , another Deep Space Mission Corps exploration vessel that had arrived hours earlier to assist with the mission. On board, her best friend and roommate from college, Dr. Donna Stephens.

Emi wouldn’t mind the company. After their past couple of assignments, she looked forward to having backup close at hand in case something went wrong. It also didn’t hurt that she and Donna would be able to chat in real time instead of back-and-forths delayed by hours, or even days in some cases.

All three of Emi’s men were asleep in their shared quarters. Emi had volunteered to take the night watch once they’d stabilized their orbit around the uninhabited planet. Her scientific curiosity wouldn’t let her fall asleep. This wasn’t the first planet she’d been to outside of Earth, but it was her first true exploration mission. She enjoyed watching the automated scanner output screens and paused the results every so often when something caught her eye.

This was what she’d signed on for. What she’d trained for. It didn’t matter where in the universe the DSMC sent them, as long as they were together.

Her men, her family, were her home. The Tamora Bight was her home. Nowhere had truly felt like home since Bozeman, Montana, where she grew up with her parents. Before they were killed in an accident at their lunar research station.

Since then, emotionally, she’d been adrift and wrapped in her studies.

Now, she had a family.

Home.

And after their tenure in the DSMC ended and the Bight wasn’t their home any longer, that would be okay, too. Together, they were home, regardless of where they lived.

She drifted into thoughts about Bozeman, about tending the small garden they’d had at their house. Looking back on her childhood always made her smile. And made her miss her parents that much more.

The com link let out a whistle, startling her from her reverie. She hit the button. “DSMC Vessel Tamora Bight . Dr. Hypatia speaking.”

A woman’s voice sounded over the link. “ Tamora Bight , this is DSMC Vessel Kendall Kant . Hey, girl. Whassup?”

Emi giggled. “Chicken butt.”

From somewhere on the other side of the planet, Donna also giggled. “I’ve missed that.”

“Now all we need is Sophie and none of the guys stand a chance,” Emi said. Sophie being Dr. Sophie Vanderlin, now assigned to the Braynow Gaston . Sophie and her three men had been sent to Earth for training since Sophie joined them after Emi solved the crisis at the Aroykin colony. In the short time they’d known her, Emi and Donna had become fast friends with the woman. “You have night watch?” Emi asked.

“Yeah,” Donna said. “I had to order my hubbies to get their cute asses in bed. They don’t mind sharing a bunk if I’m there, but they still get a little weirded out sometimes if they have to all sleep together and I’m not there.” Emi had signed up for the DSMC before Donna. She had also met—and rejected—the crew of the K-2 due to their boorishly militaristic attitude.

Emi thought the condition’s medical term was acute stick-up-the-ass-itis , but she might have been mistaken. Fortunately, Donna had a more compatible attitude, allowing her to whip her former ISNC military men into a friendlier lot. It didn’t hurt that Dr. Graymard of the DSMC had sat the men down and had a heart-to-heart talk with Rob about them being assholes, and showed them videos of their sim sessions.

Donna had also demanded they build a group cabin for them to all share, much like Emi and her men had. It made sense for Emi’s guys, because they had been lovers with each other for years before Emi joined them.

The crew of the K-2 …not so much. It had been a pretty big adjustment for Donna’s hunky hetero men.

Not for a lack of trying on Donna’s part. Even her considerable powers of persuasion apparently had their limits. At least they’d entered into a group marriage with her.

“They’ll get over it,” Emi assured her with a grin she was glad Donna couldn’t see. “It’s only been a few months. Go easy on them.”

“Yeah, I know.” Emi heard Donna let out a wistful sigh. “So, what’ve we got down there?”

“I’m doing the prelim scans now. So far, the data I’m seeing backs up what’s in the records from the primary expedition party that orbited the planet.”

“This is so cool,” Donna said. “We are in fricking space !”

Emi smiled at her friend’s excited tone. “The ships weren’t a clue? And you’ve been in space for a while now.”

“Yeah, but Aroykin and Mars don’t count. This is exciting! This is the last fricking frontier. This is what people hundreds of years ago felt like settling the Old West back on Earth. When do we get to go down there?”

A cold chill swept through Emi. She rubbed her arms to smooth the gooseflesh rippling up them. “Not yet.” She couldn’t help but think of the terrifying spiderlike tals’tophk creatures she’d seen up close and personal, which inhabited the areas outside Kal’moran’s protective city walls.

Deadly poisonous. Even though it was five weeks earlier, she could still hear the creature’s dying screams in her memories.