Sixth Sun Ch. 03

We got to the mess hall at oh six hundred on the dot. Half a dozen tables were stacked in the hallway, as well as a few rows of chairs.

"We set up some cameras, I'm pretty sure some historians will wet their knickers if we don't. One will be looking at you from behind the crew, one will be at the far wall and film us from the side. We'll do the official business first, then you'll meet the zombie horde." She gave me a reassuring smile. "Just relax and be yourself, they'll ask for enthusiastic consent before they bite."

Sure. Relax. Be yourself. What am I like? I tried to remember so that I could act like it. I gave her a nod. How bad could it be? The double door parted and we entered. About twenty pairs of eyes snapped to the door and then to me.

"Nobody told me he's hot!" I couldn't make out who shouted, but everyone chuckled.

The captain went to the front of the little mess hall, sighed and pressed the balls of her thumbs to her eyes for a few seconds and then straightened herself out again.

"Lana! Are you shitting me?"

"Captain! I'm right here, captain!" Lana took a few quick strides towards the captain and stood toe to toe with her. She was saluting in a way that you knew she understood how one salutes correctly in order to salute so shockingly incorrectly. Now that would only be half as weird if Lana wasn't easily six foot ten and wearing a deep green onesie, complete with hood and floppy frog eyes on top. A massive platinum blonde braid was snaking out of the hood and came down to her belly button. She was staring right ahead, keeping up the farcical salute.

"Miner Ashcroft, I believe I ordered full dress for this meeting." Captain Greenwood glared up at what must have been an uncomfortable angle. She didn't even reach up to Lana's clavicle.

"Captain, I'm more fully dressed than usual, Captain!"

Some suppressed laughs came from the rest of the group. Clearly people weren't explicitly trying as hard to get on the captain's shit list.

"I will have you in full dress uniform as fast as humanly possible. Don't fuck with me right now." She squinted just the tiniest amount to indicate that she was serious.

"Understood captain, right away, captain." Came the reply with a beaming smile that could have launched a thousand ships in ancient Greece. Lana pulled down the zipper, splitting her bright white frog belly. Standing just an inch away from the captain, her hand brushed against the captain's chest on the way down, but the captain didn't flinch. Lana dropped the hood and whipped her braid around, missing the captain's face by maybe half an inch. Her bangs fell back into her face and I knew I was done for. She didn't look older than 25, but her emerald eyes had the kind of tiny crow's feet you get from smiling too much. She glanced over to me when she pushed the onesie down her shoulders, revealing her full dress uniform she had worn underneath. I don't know if regulation requires the uniform to be painted on, but hers was definitely tighter than mine. Broad shoulders sat on top of a V shaped back and her arms showed exceptional definition through the tight sleeves. Her charcoal tie and white dress shirt were just set dressing for the cleavage that tried to break free between her lapels on top of the two by two buttons that lay snug against what you could only assume were well chiseled abs. She turned to her left and bent down at her waist so that she could step out of the onesie without taking a step back from the captain. I have no idea what her ass or legs looked like because my brain struggled to keep my basic functions online while diverting every ounce of available blood to my crotch. She flipped back up as if she was spring loaded and chucked the onesie into a corner. She gave me a wicked smile and a wink and saluted properly this time.

"My apologies captain. You know how it is."

The captain returned her salute the same way way Lana had messed up hers just a minute ago. "Every other day, Miner Ashcroft, I do know how it is. The next ten minutes, you keep it together. Now, everybody, formation please."

Lana gave a court nod and went back to the others, who arranged themselves in a standard two row assembly formation, shorter people in front. Lana of course stood in the back, next to another woman her size who looked very much like her and behind nurse Ikeda, who had hovered past us shortly after we arrived.

The Stonehenge clearly was a utilitarian ship and did not have a space to waste, so the crew and the captain were only separated by a few paces. You could see where the tables had been unhooked from their safety latches in the floor. The access to the kitchen appeared to be closed with a shutter for the occasion.

"Alright, listen up. We'll do the official stuff first and then we'll do a Q and A after you're dismissed. Protocol requires that I ask if you have any questions when making official proclamations and all that." The captain focused a young wide eyed girl in the second row who sported unnaturally pink hair. "Do not ask questions before I dismiss you. You can ask questions later."

Things getting back on organizational track helped me to return from my Lana induced fugue state. The captain had told me on our way up that I should stand by her left shoulder, so I lined myself up two feet to her left and behind, which is pretty much as much space that there was behind her.

The door swished open and in came Bettina followed by a woman around my age, a brunette with a girl next door vibe. Bettina flashed me a smile and lined up in formation. The other woman walked up to the captain. "That's everyone. I started recording when I left the bridge." The captain nodded and the new arrival extended her hand to me.

"Gina, first officer, hi."

I returned her firm handshake. "Lucas, overwhelmed, my pleasure."

She laughed and took a position opposite myself on the captain's right side. She grabbed a whistle that hung off a golden strap on her shoulder and blew it. Murmurs stopped and everyone stood at attention. The captain cleared her throat and looked at the datapad in her hand before she looked back up to the crew.

"Greetings, everyone. I have called a formal ship counsel for today, January sixteenth twenty seven eighty. At ease."

Everyone stood at ease. It might appear weird to have formal military traditions on a civilian ship, but when a ship's in trouble, people have to follow orders, so it makes sense to at least have a basic command tradition.

"As some of you are aware, roughly six hours ago we have pulled aboard a stranded shuttle craft, officially registered as 'Vessel Four', originally of the ISS Guadeloupe out of Terra.

On board of the craft we found Mr. Lucas Shaw in cryostasis. We endeavor to return Mr. Shaw home as soon as possible." Some of the crew exchanged questioning looks. "As is required by the shipwreck assistance act of twenty three thirty three, any able bodied personnel rescued in space have to put themselves under the command of the rescue vessel. I hereby formally welcome Engineer Lucas Shaw to the crew of the ISS Stonehenge. You will report to Ensign Bettina Jarno during your stay on board." She turned to me and saluted, which I returned before she turned back to the crew. "As is protocol with persons returning from stasis after a long period of time, please assist Mr. Shaw as best you can to catch up to the present. Are there any questions?" The arm of the pink haired girl shot up, but the woman next to her apparently had seen it coming and intercepted her arm before she could get it up high enough to be seen on camera.

"Very well, thank you all. You are dismissed." The captain took a deep breath. "Amber?" she asked the pink haired girl, who was blushing red with embarrassment.

"Yes, captain?" she asked meekly.

"Amber, you can ask a question now, it's ok."

"Oh, thank you captain. I'm so sorry. I wanted to ask if I can bring out the snacks now? I made finger food for everyone."

Captain Greenwood blinked a few times, obvious bewilderment on her face. "You know what, that's a great idea. Why don't you grab Aamina to help you with that and the rest of these fine people get the furniture back in here?"

Itching for the first normal thing to do in this century, I popped open the buttons on my jacket and went into the hallway to grab a table. I was closest to the door and three crew members took suspiciously quick steps to get in the hallway with me, where I grabbed one end of a table that was tuned upside down on top of another. The quickest one grabbed the other end and the other two slowed down to wait for the table underneath to become available, staring daggers at the winner of their little race.

"Hey, first day out of cryo and they have you schlepping tables?" she smiled.

I shrugged before turning the table sideways so we could get it through the door. "I was just shanghaied into a mining crew. I don't want to know what the penalty for laziness is."

Her and the other women chuckled. Ashley and the other girl that looked just like her almost overtook us, carrying a table each. Within a minute or two the mess hall was back to being furnished, and Amber as well as her helper, Aamina, brought out platters with nachos, dips and what looked like tiny corndogs. Aamina wore a hijab and was one of the few women who opted to wear the uniform skirt instead of pants. The shutters behind which I had suspected the kitchen rolled up. I was about to walk over and ask if they were serving soda when Hideko appeared out of nowhere and held another juice box with a straw in my face. She also had opted for the skirt and looked very sharp in the uniform.

"My apologies Mr. Shaw, I'm afraid you have to take one more before you can eat and drink normally again."

I was really craving some sugar, but I resigned myself to another round of starchy fruit drink. This one was supposed to be banana, but I doubt anyone would confirm that in a blind taste test.

"Alright you degenerates, time for round two." Came the voice from the end of the room where the captain stood.

"Mr. Shaw, would you mind standing over here for a minute?"

Standing at the front of the class like a show and tell project while slowly sucking on a straw from a juice box isn't the sexiest I felt in my life, but that didn't matter to the majority of women who got worse and worse by the second at hiding the fact they hadn't seen a man in a while. Doctor Galanis stood next to me, leaned over and spoke with a hushed voice.

"Look, technically, the state of your, you know, junk, is medically privileged information that you could insist I don't share. But let's face it, we need to tell them, so if you could consent to that, that would be great." I snorted, almost getting banana stuff in my nose.

"That's fine, doc, can't leave people in the dark about my junk." I winked and she nodded to the captain who was watching us.

"So, I got good news and bad news, and like the fiercely smart person I am, I'm giving you the bad news first. We're dropping the rock in the mining bay, and we're sending the hopper straight to station as it is right now."

Several women jumped up as if they had been poked.

"What the fuck, Jade?"

"That's millions of credits in the hole."

"Nobody agreed to that!"

"Does he have an appointment on Olympus?"

This went on for a minute without the captain answering any of the hollering. I caught a few death glares, as the clear and present source of the disturbance of their mining schedule. Lana and her twin were just watching, but had drifted away from the wall they leaned against. They didn't seem like they expected fisticuffs, but they acted like people who don't take chances. Things slowly quieted down when people started to understand this was not up for discussion right now.

"See, knowing that you would see it my way, I have to give you the good news now. Mr. Shaw has done a bit of a round trip. Most importantly, he wasn't around since twenty four fourty four." The eyes were back on me.

"Did you have a long trip?" Amber piped up. A few people suppressed a reaction.

"Yes, Amber," Aamina interjected "he had a very long trip. And yes, I'm sure he had a lot of fun." I was starting to think Amber was sent to this universe to make me question my sanity, but she smiled, seemingly content with the answer given.

"Now, Doc, would you like to share your homework with the class?" Doctor Galanis took a step forward.

"Sure, captain. Mr. Shaw here was not in any solar system at the time of the Five Suns event and we have run some preliminary tests." She looked over to Hideko, who couldn't turn any further red without the aid of makeup. "I don't have a big shot genetic sequencer here or the vast majority of machines I would need, so this is very much preliminary."

The room had gotten more silent by the second as more and more of them connected the dots as to what the doctor was about to confirm.

"However, given the circumstances and the data I do have, I'm confident that Lucas here is entirely healthy, meaning, he would be expected to father a son roughly fifty percent of the time." The doctor was beaming as she finished the sentence and the entire world fell silent for a minute.

Most of them were just staring at the doctor, me and back to the doctor. Someone started sobbing in the back, and the dam broke. One of the middle aged women who had leaned against a wall close to me walked up to me and squeezed me like I've never been squeezed. A huddle of women formed who just wanted to hug it out with me and each other for a while. In between hugs I saw Amber trying to choke back tears and ultimately failing, full on ugly crying in the back. Lana came over for her turn. She mashed me right to her chest, whether I wanted or not. Let the record reflect that I wanted. I looked up to her, my arms pinned to my sides.

"Hey, you come here often?" was the best I could come up with.

She threw her head back and laughed. "Not nearly as much as I'd like." She split to make room for the next in line. She wasn't the first who had pinched me in the butt, but she was the only one that made me wish for an ice pack. I barely had time to readjust, because another chest appeared in front of me and started restricting my movement. She was however more reserved and gave me room to breathe after just a few seconds. "I'm so happy we found you." She smiled down on me.

"Hi, Lucas, pleased to meet you." I introduced myself.

"Lindsay, I see you met my sister." She cracked a smile almost as radiant as Lana's.

"Meet? More 'ran over by'.." I said, making air quotes, "not that I'm complaining." I added quickly, unwilling to ruin my chances to get run over by her sister in the future.

A few more women cut in, exchanging hugs and pleasantries. Things had settled down around us for the most part. Lana was kneeling in front of Amber and apparently had enlisted the help of Hideko to see what the trouble was.

The captain had returned to the front of the room, things mostly settling back down.

Hideko pulled Amber up and escorted her out. Amber threw me a deeply sad look that for reasons I couldn't fathom almost broke my heart on the spot.

The captain waited for them to leave, clearly showing concern. When the doors had closed, she put on a business appropriate expression and loudly clapped her hands together. "I assume you now understand why we're dropping everything to get this guy back to civilization." She squeezed my shoulder. "Now, for the real kicker. Mr. Shaw, please tell these nice ladies where you went and most importantly, what you left behind."

I maneuvered myself towards the middle of the wall. "Aye aye, captain." The doctor had seen me finish the banana lie earlier and had brought me a small bottle of water, so I took a sip. "The Guadeloupe is the transit ship for Mbappe Gate eighteen, establishing interstellar contact to E-Tauri 5. That gate is currently operational as a receiving gate, but it can not send. The reason for that is that the original coordinates were compromised and the gate had to be built on a different location. Unfortunately, the sending locations are baked into the hardware. The Guadeloupe's fabricator that could build parts of that nature broke and we couldn't get it back online." I was looking forward to speaking more than three consecutive sentences about things I actually understood, but I got the sense that the captain wanted me to get to the good part. "So the decision was made that I'd take one of the shuttles to Boone's World, which was the closest via Zhukov drive and have the part fabricated, get in touch with the exploration committee and bring the missing part and a fabricator as a failsafe back to E-Tauri 5. In the meantime," I gave myself a little break, just to build a little bit of suspense. "We would put the entire crew in stasis. There's currently five hundred forty three people in stasis a single bap away, two hundred sixty one of them men in what I expect to be good health."

Two of them just fainted in their chairs. In a more severe repeat of the first incident, people were getting emotional all over the room. Some who hadn't come up to me for a hug came forward for their turn, some came around for seconds. Some thanked me. They didn't say for what, but I understood they all had their own reasons. Things settled down again after a few minutes. People started digging into snacks, talking amongst each other, while I exchanged pleasantries with two of the other miners that had waited their turn.

"Engineer Shaw, a question?" Aamina had raised her hand from the second row of tables, while she was lazily dipping a corndog in mayonnaise.

The captain gestured her to go ahead.

"I just have to ask, are you some sort of romantic or do we just draw numbers to see who you knock up first?"

If you ever encounter a inappropriate, rude or otherwise strange question in a meeting and you don't know where the wind is blowing, here's a neat trick. If people are upset or embarrassed, they look to the authority figure in the room to see how they react. If they actually want to know the answer, they look to the person holding the information.

Nobody was looking at the captain.

I tried my best to not come across too flustered. I'm sure I did great. "Erm, that's, you know..." I closed my eyes for a second and took a deep breath. "Look, I've been in this century a little over six hours. I can assure you I'm no prude and someone has already warned me, and I quote, 'the universe will throw pussy at you with a catapult', end quote."

The doctor got up and took a bow, not interested in me chivalrously protecting her identity, which earned her some applause from the crew. ".. And you're all spectacular women that me or anyone I know anyone would be lucky to get a date with." I can be charming at times, but I'm not sure if I can pull it off for entire rooms. I hung in there for a second before I continued. "However, I hope you understand that I still have to catch my bearings. You'll be the first one to know when I know the answer to that question."

I gave her what I hope is a reassuring smile. What I got back was a cocky smile and her licking a glob of mayonnaise off her corndog before sucking it in her full, dark lips while she maintained eye contact.

These women would would probably be the death of me.

At least I assumed they were until Lindsay got everyones' attention. She had been busy with a datapad for a minute. "Not to say these gorgeous ladies won't give you all the time you need, but it seems like you already made up your mind about some things."

And with that a large screen on the far wall came to life. It showed the recording from the meeting earlier. Well, technically before the meeting. Gina had mentioned the cameras had been hot. Lindsay had found the moment her sister shed the onesie. And there I was, just gaping at this amazonian picture of perfection, bending down to drop a silly green onesie. My facial expression ranged somewhere between 'premature ejaculation' and 'concussion'. The whole room erupted as Lindsay started looping the event, which was just a few seconds in total, and put it on the other two large wall screens, zoomed in all the way to my face.

Now I had confirmation that these women would be the death of me. I met Lana's gaze, who returned a knowing smile.

Lindsay went for the killing blow. "I guess I know who's going first."

To which I responded. "I'm afraid first isn't available any more." Was that stupid to admit? Yes. Was it fun seeing everyone lose their shit? Also yes.

A lot of "Whoa whoa whoa!"s and "Oooooooooooh"s were had with a jovial "Which one of you broads got to him?" thrown in.

Bettina was the first one to get off a clean shot. "But Engineer Shaw, you have been in this century for merely six hours. You should really take your time to make up your mind about these things!" Cackling and laughter ensued, made worse by my display of regressing to a teenager who has seen his first set of breasts still looping on screen.

"Lindsay, get that stuff off my screens, we're not finished here" the captain interjected

"Thank you!" she said moments later when the exact moment of my rapture were replaced by a generic background. "Yellow shift just finished, so red shift needs to drop the rock and seal the hopper and then we send that thing on to station so we can get paid." The captain laid out her plans.

"Sorry, captain, Lana's shift just drew slabs from the rock, so the processor is full, all three lanes." Lindsay responded. "The processor has no reverse, so either Bettina has to disassemble the entire thing so we can push the slabs out, or we process what we have and then compress and send the hopper."

"Thanks, Lindsay. How long do you need to clear it?" The captain wanted to know.

"If we stick to the shifts, two days. We can triple up and work each lane with a full team at the same time and do it in maybe twelve hours." She pointed at her sister, as if to ask for her agreement, who nodded, then pointed at another miner, a short, middle aged woman, who also nodded. "Alright, twelve to fourteen hours cutting, six hours to compress and launch the hopper, an hour or so to fold up the externals. That's twenty one. Can we make it an even twenty four hours for extra breaks? I don't want anyone to shear off their foot just because we're mining sixteen hours without sleep."

I was sure that if you mine asteroids for a living, all of that made sense.

The captain had ah-hummed along. "Happy to. Aamina, I need a course to the gate for tomorrow, oh nine hundred start, ninety five percent engines. Bettina, batten down for transit and Gina, please assign Mr. Shaw quarters. Miners, report to your shift supers who will assign you as they see fit. Dismissed!"

She got a couple "aye, sir!" and "aye ma'am!" and a long "Yuuuup" that I was sure came from where Lana was sitting.

The captain and crew started filing out of the mess hall. Gina tucked on my sleeve to indicate I should let them go ahead. Most of the women made every effort to check me out again. Last in line were Lana and her sister, who slapped Lana on the ass just as she waved goodbye in my direction. Lana took the opportunity and severely overplay her reaction and moan as if she had just gotten off. All I could think of was that I needed to hear that sound again and as soon as possible.

"Have a seat." Gina said as soon as we were by ourselves. "Anything to drink?" She sauntered over to the soft drink fridge.

I was finally ready for some sugar. "I'll take a cola, thank you."

"What's cola?"

Fuck.

"It's a type of soda, dark, lots of caffeine, nobody can describe what it tastes like."

"Sorry," she shrugged. "We got lemon, orange, cherry and watermelon."

"I'll take the cherry then."

And here I was thinking repopulating the universe was my greatest problem. No cola? What do people have with pizza? Oh wait, no tomatoes. So, maybe no pizza means people don't need cola? I took the black and red plastic bottle. It had a traditional Kabuki mask on the front and lots of Japanese text. The only thing I could read was the name, Onibaba. I twisted it open.

"Well, cheers to twenty seven eighty, the most depressing year of my life!" I offered and Gina touched my bottle with her own Onibaba. I took a big gulp, hoping this stuff would at least take me closer to an end via diabetes.

You have to hand it to the Japanese. They make really good cola. Gina was grinning ear to ear.

"I'm so sorry. It was just too easy."

I didn't believe her apology.

"I'm three hundred sixty five years old. I don't think that's a nice way to treat a senior citizen." I said, imitating a cranky old man voice and pointing a shaky finger at her.

"Oh no, I'm really not prepared to explain a current communicator to a tricentennial." She pulled a communicator out of her pocket that was about the size of her palm.

Fortunately for the last seven hundred years, communication interfaces have never really changed. It's really difficult to improve on the speed at which fingers operate touch screens. Every ten years or so someone would propose some harebrained alternative and after some back and forth, people will be back to menus and touch screens. It's quite comforting, really. If you paid attention and knew the history of it, you knew that the last ten times someone wanted you to write messages with your eyes, or control your thermostat with fart noises, it went nowhere. We were done setting up an account on the ship's communication system, access to media, work schedules and the fabricator queue. I also got signed into engineering, which gave me fifty alerts at once. Before zooking and bapping around, you generally had to run through preflight checklists of various kinds, so by being added to the engineering roster I was automatically assigned a bevy of stuff to take care of.

"Guess I have to get certified really quickly on some of these." I worried out loud.

"You'll be fine. Bettina basically has everyone trained on a piece of flight prep and you do very little of the busy work, you'll probably mostly do troubleshooting." Gina assured me.

"Besides, you're not a union member, so we wouldn't give you any real work anyway. Insurance reasons."

"You're in a union?" I asked.

She extended her hand across the table. "Gina Howard, duly elected president of Stonehenge Miners United."

"Lucas Shaw, apparent Scab." I shook it.

"We'll allow that for now. Something Shipwreck act of twenty three something, something, I guess. Besides, we're not on strike. Not that we weren't close half an hour ago."

"Who would you strike against?" I asked.

"Captain owns the boat. The rest of the crew just works here. I'll actually have to write an official complaint with them now. Captain can make decisions like that in emergencies, but she's supposed to run it by me first so we can vote on it." She looked very relaxed for someone who was about to file a complaint.

"You look very relaxed for someone who is about to file a complaint."

"When we have problems, she usually lets us win instead of calling her lawyer, so we kind of owe her a favor here or there." She shrugged.

"Is her lawyer that good?"

"She's her own lawyer." She said with a grin. "Used to be some kind of big shot until she bought the boat five years ago as far as we know. She doesn't talk a lot about the before time or how she got her captain's license. Not that she can't pilot the boat, she can, but being a captain is ninety percent maritime law anyway."

I had raised my eyebrows.

"Yeah, it's not the most obvious career choice. Most of us think she's made enough money and now spends her time out here to be away from it all. We just charter the boat from her for a lot less than you'd expect while she gets to read crime novels and annoy people that have a real job."

I grabbed a hand full of nachos while she went on.

"Speaking of people with real jobs, I'm pretty sure I know exactly where you were and where everyone else was. It was pretty stupid telling the crew you got your beak wet. Especially considering the immense ethics violation that would represent if it was who I think it was." She stared at me intently, clearly expecting an explanation.

I hurriedly finished chewing "I'm sorry, I don't have any reasonable justification for that. By the time I realized it, it was already out. Look, I don't know the crew, any suggestion how to make it right?" I offered sheepishly.

She was clearly letting that hang in the air for a moment, deliberating with herself whether she should let me suffer for my crimes or not. "If I ask Hideko whether you had established consent, will I like the answer?" She asked.

"Absolutely." I confirmed.

"If I ask Hideko whether she enjoyed herself, will I like the answer?" She asked with a smile.

"I wouldn't want to give myself too much credit. However, the captain said she saw her hovering." I shrugged with another sheepish expression.

She was taking another moment to make up her mind. "Alright, I'm going to believe your boy scout act and fix it for you. Nobody would give the little one a hard time anyway, but I don't want people to turn over stones. So we'll just tell everyone." She poked the tabletop a few times. "You however, will make it up to her. The poor thing is a bundle of nerves on a good day. When she finds out you kissed and told, she'll need to be sedated. Fortunately she was taking care of Amber at the time, so she won't know until later."

"About that," I inserted. "I hope it's not insensitive to ask..."

"Amber?"

"Yeah, what's the deal with Amber?"

Gina sighed. "Amber is a two four two." She knew that explained little, but she was struggling to put it together it seemed. "We got really desperate. We started messing with genetics once we found out that men were getting rare. We were hoping that we could jump start that manually. These experiments all have a number to make sure people know if they have any special needs and whatnot. Lana and Lindsay for instance."

I gave her my best 'Are you kidding me?' look.

She chuckled. "Yeah, the amazons are two two ones. Increased muscle mass, larger frame, et cetera. They're actually rather small for their type. There's a list you can look up with all the different variants." She sighed again. "I actually don't know how the captain found her and why she hired her, but what I can tell you is that Amber has a rough time understanding most things to put it bluntly. But I'm the wrong person to explain that." She got up. "You'll need to get a talk about her from the doc. She sits everyone down when they join and gives them the talk." She motioned me to follow her, which I did.

She went on. "We'll go down to the miners, explain the situation with Hideko." She looked left and right leaving the mess hall. "If we get ambushed and one of the crew pulls you into a maintenance hatch, you're on your own."