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undress.

 
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter 3

    THE GENTLE WHINE of the tracking station’s
generators faded under the ventilator’s steady hiss. To the
twelve-man crew of the Quarter Watch it was unnoticed white noise,
especially when more pressing matters commanded their
attention.
    “ Christ, what a disaster.”
    “ This is getting ridiculous—eh,
Chief?”
    “ Shut up and deal,” said Yeoman Chief
Huslander, the shift leader. The Chief was in no mood for small
talk. Dropping two hundred credits in one sitting to a tyro was no
laughing matter. He had his reputation to think of, quite aside
from his money. If he didn’t recoup his losses by watch change,
he’d be the laughing stock of the base. Even Commander Ashton had
never cleaned him out so thoroughly. And, for an officer, Ashton
knew how to play cards.
    It was a while before anyone noticed the
flashing yellow light atop Monitor Six. The computer had caught a
hailing signal from a Crutchtan chaser hovering barely past the
Neutral Zone. Erupting into purposeful chaos, Huslander’s shift
raced to their stations. The yeoman hurried to the control desk to
acknowledge the signal. One crewman went directly to Number Six to
engage the manual controls; the others assumed positions at the
support station, trying to get a fix on the chaser’s position and
watching the remaining screens.
    Huslander pushed the yellow switch on his
control panel, then hit the terminal’s transmit key. Instantly, a
message flashed into a receiver on Starbase 117:
    ATS 8—BEGIN RECEIPT ALIEN TX: MORE TO
FOLLOW.
    He logged the time and activated the
speaker. “Commander Ashton,” he said, his voice coursing throughout
the base. “Please come to the control room.”
     
    * * *
    Lt. Commander Jeremy
Ashton walked briskly down the central corridor. He was a tall man,
with a Ceresian’s light brown skin and tightly curled hair. As
Executive Officer on the frigate R. B.
Fuller , he’d let his subordinates call him “Mr. A,” at
least as long as the skipper was out of earshot. A third-generation
CosGuarder, and his family’s first Academy graduate, he favored an
enlightened, liberal style of command, aiming to lead by example
rather than intimidation. Bright and conscientious, he’d compiled
an outstanding service record aboard the frigate. But upon
promotion to lieutenant commander he hadn’t gotten what he wanted
more than anything else. Instead of his own ship, he was given
command of a tiny, lonely outpost on the edge of nowhere, with
nothing but space, stars, and interstellar rubble for light years
in all directions. In silent protest he’d grown a beard—short,
well-trimmed, and becoming, but entirely non-regulation—and his men
loved him for it.
    Today, Jeremy’s mind was not on his job.
He’d requested a transfer again. It was his third request, but
before retiring from the service Admiral Folino at the starbase
strongly hinted that Jeremy was nearing the top of the promotion
list, and promotion to full commander usually meant a rotation of
duty. A new posting would do much to lift his flagging spirits, he
told himself. In his heart, he knew that everyone had dues to pay,
but after five cosmic months in a tracking station—more than a full
solar year, by the old calendar—he’d come to hate his current
assignment. The change, any change, would do him good, and as long
as he was dreaming, he would let his imagination soar. He’d already
asked for deep space duty. A sleek, fast cruiser would do quite
nicely, he told himself a hundred times. But he would settle for
anything, from a rusting old freight hauler to a lowly escort, if
it would get him away from here.
    He still remembered his tour of duty
on the Fuller , and every
mistake Commander Fletcher had made. Jeremy was resolved to repeat
none of them. He would have the finest ship and the proudest crew
in the whole fleet, whatever its class. No sweat-shopping the crew,
or bullying them at captain’s mast. A crew returned