I'm Your Venus by Diane Vallere

Author:Diane Vallere [Vallere, Diane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781939197498
Publisher: Polyester Press

20: Risky Business

I radioed the bridge. “Uniform ward to bridge. Lieutenant Stryker requesting a meeting with Commander Anatol.”

“Anatol here. What is the nature of the problem?”

“Confidential, sir. Request meeting face to face.”

“Meet me in Council Chambers immediately. Over and out.”

I used the HVPTS and arrived before Anatol. What I was about to do was either inspired or would bring our entire secret operation crashing down around our feet. If Neptune were listening in and thought this was a horrible idea, he would have said so. Which meant, for now, I was either on my own, or he was following along to see how my plan played out.

Council Chambers could only be opened by a senior officer, so I stood outside the room waiting for Anatol to arrive. He rounded the corner shortly thereafter.

“Lieutenant Stryker,” he said.

“Commander Anatol,” I returned.

He pressed his palm print on the scanner outside the room, and the doors slid open. Once we were inside with the doors closed behind me, Anatol faced me directly. “Your report, Lieutenant.”

Thanks to my experience with Neptune’s all work, no play communication style, I wasn’t surprised by Anatol’s directness.

“Earlier this evening, I saw what appeared to be a fire outside the rocket nozzle. I was on OB Two. I returned to the uniform ward and accessed the flight history and saw that we passed several comets. I believe one of the comets may have set fire to the exterior of the ship.”

“An exterior fire cannot sustain itself in space,” Anatol said. “The fire will have already extinguished.”

“Except the rocket nozzle is directly above the beryllium spheres we keep on board the ship for emergency fuel,” I said. “The fire could have transferred heat to the spheres through the aluminum exterior. Beryllium has a high heat capacity, so even if it picked up only a fraction of the heat from the comet fire, it would feed on itself and cause interior damage.”

Anatol shifted his position from hands folded in front of him to arms crossed over his chest. His lack of immediate reply indicated he was considering my intel and not dismissing it outright. He was smart enough to know what I said was possible, and if it were possible, then it would need to be checked.

Even better, if Anatol issued the work order, he’d be preoccupied with the oversight of the repair drones and wouldn’t be able to finish his report on Xina. Scientific knowledge for the win!

“What is your suggested course of action?” Anatol asked.

“The flight plan indicates we’re headed for an asteroid mine. The ship could turn off engines, which would minimize the heat index, and a fleet of repair drones could do the work before we reach the other side.”

Anatol turned away from me and picked up one of the tablet computers from the charging station. He inserted the tablet into the portal on the table and placed his hand on the screen. His credentials pulsed across it and a keyboard appeared on the lower portion of the display.

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