My stomach did a little flip, those were NOT words you wanted to hear from anyone. For any reason. Ever.

  “Um... okay what do you need to talk about?” I said.

  She looked up at me, squirming, looking like a little kid who had something embaressing to confess.

  “I... think we need to formalize my position as a member of your crew. And maybe them as well.” She stuttered pit. And just like that the knot of tension in my stomach blew away.

  “Uh... we just basically abducted them. I am pretty sure they aren't going to be clamoring over themselves to join us heading into C.O.G. Space. I figured we'd drop them... I don't know, at a space station somewhere? In an escape pod.” I said.

  Carolina shook her head back and forth.

  “They're adrift now, they have nothing holding them to that planet.I think you'd be surprised at how willing they would be. Hwang has been checked out of her planet since the last election, Rekki... wait was that his name? The guy who was hurt when the APC ran into the ship is an ex-patriot from the alliance and I am fairly certain Hou Ji was just the first planet he landed on on the way out. The doctor has definitely traveled a lot, so I doubt he would mind... I'm not sure where he is even from actually...” Carolina trailed off.

  I took the chance to butt in.

  “Exactly, we don't know enough about them to make a proper decision on this.” I said. There were a dozen scenario's running through my head of them getting any kind of authority aboard the ship and then sabotaging it. The lieutenants... not exactly betrayal, I had known he was never really on my side, but attempt on my life had left me a little gun-shy where other people were concerned.

  “Then maybe we should take that chance to do so.” Carolina said matter of factly, putting her hands on her hips.

  God, assertive Carolina was a pain in the ass.

  Too bad it was also really hot.

  I put that thought away.

  “Well, if we have a chance before we have a chance to drop them off we will...” I began, then hesitated

  And now I had to ask a question I was dreading.

  “So... I take it by your request... you want to stay?” I said the question I had been avoiding for awhile, sheepishly, like a kid with a crush trying to ask a girl out.

  I cringed inwardly even as I said it.

  Carolina put her hands on her hips and looked up at the nearest camera. She didn't even have to search for it, just knew where it was.

  “What do you think?” She asked, smiling. Her face had adorable dimples when she smiled.

  My stomach did a little flip.

  “Um... okay. Welcome aboard, XO.”

  She made a face. A bad face. Like she just ate a lemon that had sucked all the sour out of all the other lemons on it's tree.

  “What? That's the highest rank other than captain what more could you want?” I asked, frustrated.

  “I'm just not XO material! It's all yelling at people and doing paperwork, followed by more yelling.” She said, gesticulating wildly, her pad coming so near the bulkhead on occasion that I was worried it was going to slam into it and shatter.

  Not that I couldn't replace it in minutes, but still.

  “Well then what were you thinking, I can't read your mind I swear.” I said in exasperation.

  “How about engineer.” She said.

  “CHIEF Engineer, sure!” I replied. I had figured her out and knew how to get her cornered.

  “Woah, hey, that's a little too much authority. I'm not an officer, I don't know how to office.” She started to whine, throwing her hands up between her and the camera in a 'pushing back' motion.

  “Too bad Chief, you are the only one I trust with any kind of authority on this ship.” I fired back.

  Two could brat at this game.

  She gave me a glare.

  “Fine.” She said.

  “You having a title will probably help with Megan too. She seems stuck on that.” I said.

  “Yeah... about that. I want to have a talk with her. Until then, I want to get you out of that chair and into bed mister. Doctor said you need rest and to NOT be connected to your ship, and we've already defied his orders long enough.”

  I sighed.

  “Fine, you got my meds?” I asked.

  She looked at the wall and typed something into her pad, and a hatch sprang open. She took out a little injector looking thing and stuck it in a vial, where it automatically extracted what I guessed was my dose.

  “Got it. See you there.” She said.

  I watched her make her way up to the bridge, and for once she didn't disappear from my sight.

  She arrived at the bridge soon enough and I let her in. We still hadn't cleaned up the bloodstains at the hatch, all of my repair drones were busy.

  “All right, let me just get this in you.” Carolina said, coming up beside me and trying to determine where to inject the medication.

  “Chief Engineer Carolina, there is a port on the command chair that will allow introduction of intravenous medication. The captain should be able to open it.” Hook intoned over the intercom, spooking both of us.

  “Uh, thanks Hook.” I said, as I looked for the command.

  I found it soon enough, under 'captain chair auxillary commands' and selected 'open auxillary medication port', which caused a hatch to slide back and an iris to open, revealing a rubber membrane.

  “At least I won't get more holes in me.” I said over the PA.

  Carolina nodded and pushed the needle into the membrane and injected the medication.

  “So how long do we need to wait?” She asked after pulling her arm back.

  “Doctor Smith didn't seem to think it would take long. I'll disconnect now.” I replied.

  I disconnected, and was hit by the normal wave of dizziness as suddenly my awareness was now crammed back into my meat body.

  “How do you feel?” Carolina asked next to me.

  “Um” I blinked.

  “Actually pretty okay.” I said. The dizziness had already passed, and I started to lever myself upright.

  Carolina stood ready to catch me, but other than a little wobble at the beginning, I was fairly stable.

  “Huh... you look better than you normally do.” Carolina said.

  “I feel a lot better than I normally do.” I said, and experimentally panned my head around, seeing if a dizzy spell hit me.

  Surprisingly, I was fine.

  “This is actually really cool. I kinda feel like going for a run or something.” I said. Feeling not sick was energizing.

  “Uh uh, we only have, what, three hours till we exit you said? By the way that is the shortest jump I've ever heard of, but you need to rest as much as you can till then. So... bed mister!” Carolina said, putting her hands on her hips, taking a comically stern stance.

  “Sure... right after we give you YOUR medication.” I shot back.

  Carolina's eyes widened and she emitted a high pitched whine as I turned the tables on her.

  ***********************************************************************************

  Carolina grumbled but eventually acquiesced and let me take her down to the medbay and administer her meds. With Hook's help we got her set up with what was essentially an arm band that acted as an IV and slowly administered the meds over time, and we headed to bed.

  I managed to get a solid two hours of sleep before Hook woke me up and I returned to the Bridge, upright and without aid I might add, and reconnected.

  The flashes, which thankfully I hadn't seen in my dreams, showed that we were just entering the cusp of the transit point when I awoke. By the time I got to the bridge we were near the epicenter.

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  A quick check of everyone in their rooms showed they were all still asleep. I had a theory about transiting that I wanted to try.

  I waited until the flashes showed me we had drifted directly into the epictenter of the transit point, and made sure to note the readings on the sensor that could detect it before I triggered the drive, transitioning us to realspace.

  The transition was smooth as silk, one second we were in transit, the next I could see stars.

  Interesting, proximity to the epicenter seemed to affect the smoothness of the transition.

  The first thing I checked was if there were any ships near us, and the answer to that sent icy sweat down my back, or it would if I could feel my body.

  Three vessels were very close right now, not appearing to be headed for the transit point, but apparently orbiting it.

  They were all small, and of similar design to the bounty hunter vessel we had dealt with in transit space.

  I held my breath, and felt more than anything their request for a transponder ID.

  I transmitted the C.O.G. One we had from way back when Bait had been a captain, presumably given to her by whatever passed for high command in C.O.G. , and waited.

  And waited.

  And they appeared to ignore me.

  “Good, they don't appear to be after us.” I said to myself, and I guess Hook too.

  “Of course not sir, the only ship that could have brought news of the bounty on you was the hunter vessel that was destroyed in transit. Until another comes through There will be no news of the bounty placed on this vessel.”

  “Alright... So we have at least a day to work with. How far out is the next transit point?” I asked.

  “Roughly eight hours at full burn. Also our transit time was very quick, it could likely take them three to get here with how... turbulent our transit was” Hook replied even as I answered my own question by bringing up a map of the system.

  I winced.

  “Our fuel reserves are getting low.” I said.

  “The combat and flight from the planet did significantly drain our reserves yes.” Hook replied.

  “Are we going to be able to make it all the way to prime without refueling?” I asked.

  “At our current burn rate, no, however it is only a few jumps to the last known edge of C.O.G. Territory, which we should be able to make at our current burn rate.” Hook replied.

  “And how much would we be left with at that burn rate when we arrive?” I asked.

  “Three percent.” Hook replied matter of factly.

  I winced.

  “So we would have no margin for error... Okay. How do C.O.G. Ships refuel again?” I asked.

  “The easiest way is docking with a station or C.O.G. Refueling platform, however all C.O.G. Ships by default are designed with ram-scoops to harvest hydrogen from gas giants.” Hook replied.

  I felt relief for a moment, then tensed up.

  “Bait didn't remove the ram-scoops from this ship to make it better in combat or anything did she?” I asked.

  “No, in fact they are oversized for a vessel this size. Hook intended this vessel to go for a long time without resupply, and limiting the range by forcing it to go to pre-built bases to re-fuel was counter to this intent.”

  “Right, because she and Joe were searching for the Ark... makes sense.” I said to myself.

  “Indeed Captain.” Hook replied.

  I brought up a map of the solar system, and gave a digital whistle.

  Which I oddly found returned.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

  Came a reply from out of nowhere, that came across in my head as... a whine?

  I sifted through the connections for where it was coming from and found the metadata of the transmission, including it's location on the ship.

  I quickly switched through my camera's till I found Carolina's cabin.

  It was a mess, and not a normal mess one might expect to find, with clothes everywhere.

  No, there was grease, and parts, and Carolina passed out on the floor.

  And dogbot's chassis, with a single glowing running light on.

  “You're alive! I honestly thought Carolina was just trying to make me feel better when she said she could fix you!” I said.

  STATUS: SUBOPTIMAL. MOVEMENT DISABLED. SENSORS DISABLED. WEAPONS DISABLED.

  The message held a hint of pain to it, not body pain but pain that it couldn't do things. With how energetic Dog-bot normally was, I could understand why this was torture. Much like the rest of C.O.G. Lack of stimulation was the worst fate Dog-bot could experience.

  “I know buddy, Carolina will have you running in no time.” I said.

  CONFIRMED.

  Came the reply. No whine this time. More like a huff. It didn't like that it had to wait but it understood.

  “Want to watch me plot a route through the system to grab some fuel?” I asked.

  AFFIRMATIVE.

  With the positive reply I looped Dog-bot into the navigation data I was looking at. Just to watch, it couldn't alter anything. From the return data I received from Dog-bot, I don't think it really understood much of what I was showing it, but it seemed to enjoy just having someone to interact with and 'be around' in a virtual sense.

  Very much like a dog.

  I checked on Cat-bot.

  It was... lurking in the halls of the ship. It had found a maintenance access hatch and stuffed itself buttfirst inside so it could look out, an ordinary person walking by wouldn't be able to tell it apart from the bulkheads, even the running lights blended in.

  This could be me projecting but it seemed way too similar to a cat stuffing itself into a box. I'd seen enough cat-videos that the thought came to me unbidden.

  I extended the same offer to cat-bot, but received nothing more than a virtual swat on the nose.

  Okay not really, but it felt like it. Was definitely a rude bit of code it threw at me.

  I began plotting a course, and while I could just tell the nav systems to 'take me there' and it would show me a simplified version of things... as soon as I hit advanced in the navigation panel I got a detailed breakdown of orbital mechanics.

  I really wished I had paid more attention in my astronomy electives. I understood some of it, but most of my understanding came from an old physics based 'build a rocket' simulator game from when I was young. All about putting inept astronauts in dangerous untested space shuttles, planes, and similar space vehicles, most of them resulting in death.

  Hopefully this navigation system will result in fewer kerbal deaths.

  I went back to what drew my attention in the first place.

  Four gas giants.

  Any one of which could give us all the hydrogen we needed.

  I plotted in a course, Dog-bot watching rapidly.

  At first I attempted to plot a course to the gas giant closest to the sun, but I realized it was on the opposite end of the solar system in it's orbit, and after a bit of searching and playing with orbits, came to the conclusion that the fastest route would be to the gas giant furthest out, which was going to take five hours to reach, and then about ten hours to the next transit point.

  “Not ideal... but let's do this.” I said to myself. I didn't like the extra time it was taking but I didn't want to be stranded without fuel.

  I convinced myself that with my ability to navigate the void we could make up time in transit.

  I almost believed myself.

  The firing of the main drives caused everyone on the ship to stir, despite my attempts to keep the acceleration smooth.

  Carolina sat right up. Blinked twice, and looked up at the nearest camera.