Chapter 2 “Another Day”

“Ok people lets make the jump.” Simon reclined in his chair as his crew obeyed sending his ship, Menasha One, into a warp like state that would take them twelve light-years in about seven hours. His ship typified the expression “overkill”, at least in the medium transport category. It was equipped with twenty-eight laser turrets and eight missile turrets. It could definitely hold its own in a battle of ships its own class. The weapons system weren’t all that existed. The shields were class Alpha meaning they could ignore most shots less than 1600k joules, including kinetic. His ship wasn’t invulnerable however. The weapons system/shields required 60% of the power the ship produced when in use. Not only that, the main cannon on most government frigates could easily bypass the shields as though they weren’t even on. Not to mention the bigger ships. Simon decided a long time ago to avoid those.

“Alright, how much money do you think will get on this run, Simon?” Asked his first officer, Jake.

“I think it’s enough to make everyone aboard quite content. Hopefully enough to raise the spirits of people who knew the fallen ones.” He glanced past Jake and through the forward view port. “You know what was on that computer?”

Jake shook his head. “No… You didn’t look at it, right? The Boss strictly said that the data was not to be viewed except by him.”

“Screw that protocol, after all we did… Anyways,” he exhaled a sigh to clear his mind, ”it is financial data worth a hundred times what were getting. With it, if we had the necessary contacts, we could buy a really nice luxury cruiser. Sad isn’t it? How we are always on the shallow ends of our deals.” Jake just stared at him. “I guess that’s the life I chose a long time ago, being a smuggler and all. Doesn’t seem right. Since the day I first began, I have become a criminal, and a killer. Today I even killed an old colleague whom seemed to crack from old pressures that I thought had died away. I was wrong.”

“Danny…look Simon, despite your feelings about the mission and all you shouldn’t go through the Boss’s stuff. If he finds out we all could be in big trouble. Besides, we…” Jake looked past him as a person entered the bridge. Simon turned and followed his gazed.

“Melissa, its good to see you. How has morale been recently?” Simon turned to his first officer. “You have the bridge.”

“Aye, sir.”

Simon walked over to Melissa. “Morale has been good sir despite the loss of the three shipmates.” They walked into his ready room. “So how much do you think each person made individually, after the operation and ship costs?”

He sat down in his chair. “Profit-wise we made three million credits. Divide that by seventy-one and it equates to about forty-two thousand credits per person. Enough to have a bit of fun for a few months but not enough .”

She nodded. “Indeed. May I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Why did you take Ellona on the mission? She has few skills in espionage. I could have easily done better than her in regards to the mission.”

He shook his head. If it wasn’t for her I would have been dead by now. “No, she fulfilled her part of the mission.”

She looked at him skeptically. “Well in any case I wanted to let you know I’m quite ready for whatever mission the Boss gives us next.” He nodded. “Good, well that is all I really wanted to tell you… I’m be leaving now.”

He nodded again. “I’ll let you know about the next mission once we meet His men.”

“Thank you.” She opened the door to leave and let out a scream as she bumped into Ellona. “What the hell Ellona! Were you eavesdropping?!”

Not exactly, Ellona thought. “No. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Melissa glared at her and stormed onto the bridge.

“Ellona, it’s nice to see you.” Simon motioned for her to take the seat in front of her.

She obliged and glanced back to the door. “It would seem that she is getting jealous of me.”

“Yes, it would seem so.” He agreed. “Don’t worry she’ll get over it. How are you feeling?”

“Much better now that we are in warp.”

“Good. Also, I would like to let you know that what happened was not your fault. Danny suppressed those feeling for roughly thirteen years; hell I thought he had let go of it. Back then we were about seventeen, I had just joined Jacob, now the ‘Boss’, and we were too young to realize how much in the world we had left to learn. Anyways, his brother had also joined. About the end of the first year together we were on our third mission. In that one we all nearly died but I told Danny’s best friend to hold off our attackers…” He looked down at his desk.

Although his words were cryptic, Ellona easily realized their meaning without the use of her telepathic abilities. She nodded to him. “It wasn’t your fault. Your actions saved the rest of your team.”

“I always wonder why I chose Danny’s brother though. He was closer to me than most on the team. Danny sure didn’t like me for a long time, but I thought he had gotten over it.”

Trying to lighten the mood, Ellona took his hand and gently pulled him out of his chair. “How about we go back out to the bridge? We would do best to hang around the others instead of remaining in here.”

“Perhaps.”

He got up with her and together they walked onto the bridge where Melissa and Jake were conversing. About politics Ellona decided. When Melissa saw them Ellona could feel the topic of the conversation immediately change to her. Jake nodded to her but they became quiet as the two came within earshot.

“Well,” Simon inquired. “How much longer till we reach the Boss’s contacts?”

“Two more hours.” Jake acknowledged. He looked at Ellona with warmth. Ellona could tell that whatever Melissa said had no effect on him. Melissa just stared at her with piercing green eyes.

“Good.” Simon resumed his seat in his command chair.

Ellona began for the door. “I’ll be in my quarters until then.”

“Ok,” Simon called after her. “I’ll see you in two… huh hey?! I thought you brought me out here to talk as well.”

A little over two hours later they made the exchange for their credits along with new coordinates and a mission briefing. Thirty minutes later once the ship left port, Ellona left her room on the second deck and continued to the middle of the ship where the communication and flight control stations were. She said hi to Jim, the ship’s head electronics guru, and continued down the stairs to the flight deck. It was mostly empty at the moment with just three fighters and a shuttle nearby in case they were needed at a moments notice.

It was hard enough to find a landing pad that would accommodate the Menasha One; often the shuttle was needed to transport the cargo that it carried.

Ellona turned right and then right again once she got to the corridor. After she reached the first door on the right she walked in and joined Simon at the briefing room table where much of the ships officers were now gathered.