Читать книгу Adventures of Space Cadets 101: Weddings - Darryl Dean Wright - Страница 8

"Sir, we are entering the Tauri System," Captain Johnson, the helmsman said to the admiral. He asked, "Should we cloak or change our appearance, Sir?"

Austen felt like he was dragging in the muck. Dr. Fisher had told him the other day that either he had a case of lethargy, an extreme lack of energy and vitality, or that he just had a case of battle-fatigue from the struggles recently in the Sol System. But his job demanded that he be decisive and impervious.

Austen wondered why Derek was not feeling it too. He said, "Turtle, have us look like a Leo warship please, and Pilot, take us to Tauri." Then he excused himself from the bridge. He decided he would spend the rest of the day with Amy and take it easy.

The Turtle never made it to Tauri on Austen's shift. It was a day and a half out, but Dale decided not to correct his superior because Austen looked very, very tired.

Derek stopped in the corridor where Deana was poised in her hatchway smiling at him. She winked playfully at Derek and then did an about face and entered her room. Derek looked around to see if anyone else was in the corridor. When he was satisfied there was no one, he entered her room and shut the door saying, "Honey, I'm home."

They embraced and went into a long kiss. When they stopped sucking face, Deana asked him if he wanted breakfast or if he wanted breakfast. He answered, "Don't you know?" and slapped her butt as she grabbed his hand and escorted him to her bedside. He said that because he knew she could read his mind.

As they were taking off each other's outfits playfully, she said, "Dr. Smith said that the ionization indicative of the gamma and X-ray radiation may have caused my abilities. That and the fact that I'm no longer a virgin thanks to you, My Love, so yes, I do know what you want. I always do."

He pushed her onto the bed and jumped on her saying, "I love it when you talk dirty." Then as a second thought he asked, "Why don't we share a room, Honey?"

She said, "Because it wouldn't be fair to all your other girlfriends."

He said, "Cute. You know when everything settles down I want to marry you."

She answered, "I do… Now shut up and kiss me."

The Leonsian captured by Qworn and the boys was showing some of the Turtle's engineers everything they needed to know about the jump-engines from Leonsian ships. His name coincidentally was Leo, and he was not a prisoner. He was now part of the Turtle's crew. He was a vegetarian and vegetarians were not allowed on his planet. He had no friends or family and now he was at home on the Turtle. He was six and a half feet tall and he did look scary, but he was a teddy bear. He was just tall, that's all.

He showed the admirals where his star system was, and told them just how bad the sentient humans had it on their planet, Tauri. They were meat for the grinders. He was not the only vegetarian from his planet, but they all led secretive lives to survive.

Everybody got along with Leo, even Qworn's lizard people. Kirk was now six feet tall, he had grown so much. He liked Leo as much as he did Qworn, so all three now shared the same room which the Turtle had enlarged for their comfort. Qworn had told Leo of his people's sister planet, Scunrus, in his home solar system. He said that they ate each other if they bled, due to the fact it was genetic. The only reason his and their planet got along was the fact that Qworn's people bled green and the Casaurs' blood was red like everybody else's. Leo said, "There are many instances where my people eat each other. To me, it is the most despicable thing I know." Just stating that fact made Leo want to vomit.

Kirk had asked why Qworn's blood was green, and Qworn answered, "My people's origins are from copper-base unlike most planets that are iron-base. My people come from eggs."

The engineers were leaving the Leo ship in the Q-bay. They now had a complete understanding of the Leonsian jump-engine. Unless they had buoys in space or knew the exact coordinates of where they wanted to jump, they had no idea where their ship would jump to, which was very bad. They could jump inside of a star and not survive. In addition, if they did not use their jump-engine, the fuel for their rockets was pure gold. Their shields were gold too. A lot of the ship's components were gold, so flying a Leo-ship was very expensive. But they were conquerors. They never had to worry about where their gold came from. Even their thrones were one-hundred percent gold. They used certain crystals for their computer systems, and some of those were large diamonds. A combination of jewels and gold were intertwined into their uniforms, probably to deflect projectiles and laser-beams.

As the Turtle made a sonic boom entering Tauri's atmosphere, it changed into its normal state so it would not terrify the Tauri who might see it. Sherri Barber, Tim Johnson's girlfriend from Austen's crew, was also one of Derek's pilots. She had picked out a big city like the Admiral asked of her, but even as the Turtle flew lower to the ground, not a single person was seen.

The Turtle landed perfectly in a large intersection in the middle of the town, and Sherri was excited finally to land the large ship by herself. It was her first time landing, not flying. She turned to look at Derek on the upper level of the main bridge, smiled, and said, "We're here, Admiral."

Derek said, "Thank you, Pilot, and smooth landing." Then he turned to Lynda Clark and asked her if there were any life signs near the ship. Everybody on the bridge wanted to check out the planet and hoped the captain would pick them to go with him.

She was punching buttons on her science console and answered, "Sir, they're sporadic but there are no more than two hundred citizens in this big old town. Only two males are close to the ship, and the rest are spread out from two blocks to forty kilometers away."

The admiral looked to his left and asked his nephew, "Tactical, anything?"

Noah had been paying close attention to his screen all sixty miles down, so he turned to his uncle and said, "Nothing in the sky or space anywhere on this side of the planet, Sir."

Derek could not believe his son and nephew had grown into such strapping young men. Was he getting old or were the nanites in the food forcing the boys to grow faster? He didn't really care. Last week he had grown two of his teeth back that he had lost years ago, and his vision was better than ever, so it was all good. All of his scars had disappeared too, thanks to nanites.

He said, "Alright, Noah, let's go fishing." Noah saluted him and it showed that he was excited. Then Derek said, "I'll need one more volunteer so the two close by will be outnumbered in case they want to bring any harm to us Turtle beings."

Every hand on both levels of the bridge went up in the air so he said, "Clark, you're with us," and she gave Noah a high-five.

Toni Osborne stood up from the bottom level and in a loud voice that penned the admiral in place said, "Sir, according to the 'Turtle Procedure Manual', last chapter, first paragraph, it states that no Turtle admiral can set foot on any planet, including Earth, without at least one security officer escort, Sir."

Derek asked Noah if the Manual was out yet and if her statement was correct.

Noah laughed and said, "Since last night and I'm sure everybody's read it but you admirals, Sir."

Derek waved Toni up to their level of the bridge and said, "Very well, Osborne," and then he said to Noah, "I thought your dad and I wrote the book?"

Noah said, "Yes, you two and the Turtle wrote the book."

Derek ordered Sherri to be in charge. As she left the helm to take the captain's chair she said, "Aye, Sir. I'll take very good care of her." She was thrilled to be taking the captain's chair for her first time, even though they were not going anywhere.

The admiral and the three cadets took off to the armory to suit up and grab some weapons. Toni and Clark were crowding the admiral's personal space as he suited up. Then they headed to the small hangar bay to depart the ship.