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bridge for his next rotation, the captain was already there. Lieutenant Guttmann was in the engine room. Ensign Chi had the watch, but his practical duties in that role were non-existent with two senior officers on the bridge. Price nodded to Chi and slipped into his co-pilot’s chair. His flight suit chafed slightly across his shoulders, but Price welcomed the feel. It meant his work-outs were paying off and the ladies would take notice when he walked by. He rubbed at the short blond stubble on his chin and hoped the captain would not notice his lack of a clean shave.
    The Hudson was ahead of schedule and gliding smoothly through space. She’d crossed Jupiter’s orbital path several hours before. The plotted course took them across the ellipses of each of the planets, but, due to the time of year, they would not approach Saturn or Uranus. Neptune, their first jump point, was still over a week away.
    “Lieutenant, the engine room is requesting a cut in the starboard engine output by half and a small turn to port. There’s something they want to test.” Ensign Chi said, interrupting the quiet of the bridge.
    The captain looked up from the report he was reading. “Con is yours, Lieutenant. Proceed as requested.”
    Price checked his heads up display and engaged the side thrusters to move the Hudson to port. He decreased their speed fractionally while at the same time dipping the nose of the craft and rolling them sideways slightly. He waited until he heard Chi announce that the engineers had completed their test.
    “Very well, Lieutenant. Please resume designated course.”
    Tony sighed and leaned back in his chair. A course correction engine test would probably be the most exciting thing to happen during his entire watch.
    ***
    In the engine room, Lieutenant Guttmann stooped over and peered down the horizontal shaft of the port engine. Everything was working perfectly, but Swede always worried and always double-checked his systems. At their current speed, the engine hummed slightly, but it wasn’t working as hard as it would during their jumps through the “twisted space” that formed the conduits between solar systems. During their two test jumps following the Hudson ‘s commissioning, the engines performed exactly as planned. Swede hoped that the following eight months went as smoothly.
    “Sir, Marissa Hill has filed a complaint that the waste management system on the colonists’ aft deck is malfunctioning.”
    Swede hung his head in dismay. When he wasn’t fretting constantly over the engines of the Hudson , and the sensor arrays and shields that comprised her primary functions, he was regularly bombarded with small technical difficulties surrounding the life support systems. The regular military crew was no better than the colonists, constantly complaining about water pressure, waste systems, air temperature, and the relative humidity of the crew decks. He had to routinely pull his engineering crew off their assigned duties and send them scurrying to fix a clogged filter or bent intake valve.
    “Sir? Should I file the complaint in our log? There are four other complaints that came in before this one.”
    “No specialist, we can’t let the captain’s sister-in-law think we are ignoring her. The last thing I want is the captain involved in this.” He straightened his uniform. “I’ll go up there myself. Have Rodgers join me with his kit. I want this fixed before dinner time.”
    “Aye, aye, sir.”
    The presence of the captain’s brother and sister-in-law among the colonists only increased the stress of a crew straining to maintain civility toward the civilian colonists. Ryan Hill was the vice chancellor of the colonial delegation. His wife was a noted sociologist specializing in terra-forming colonization. She was also a noted harridan who went out of her way to belittle and annoy anyone she perceived as being “below her.” Lieutenant Guttmann suspected that not many people were considered above