Moot by Blaze Ward

Moot by Blaze Ward

Author:Blaze Ward
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781644703694
Publisher: Knotted Road Press


Scene Fourteen

Fin studied the stars against his memory and his charts. Tessa and Brianna were both up on the bridge with him. Auntie was back in her machine shop, probably sticking pins in her Fin voodoo doll.

“We did it,” he said, dialing the gyros a shade to bring the planet below them up where everyone could see it out the forward window. “That’s Beaumonde.”

Brianna muttered something quietly, maybe in case Auntie felt the need to wash her mouth out with soap. Tessa leaned over and kissed him on the head, then leaned around and got him on the mouth.

Life was good.

She stood up again, towering over him as she pulled down the microphone and the cord.

“Beaumonde Orbital Control, this is Captain Tessa Sladek aboard Last Stand,” she announced, and did so on the primary channel that everyone would be monitoring around here. “We are six and a half days out of Atwick and bring news of a medical emergency. I need you to contact the Governor’s office and the biggest hospital, as there has been an outbreak of Red Cough at the Atwick Moot and we’ve come to gather up vaccines for the ill.”

Then she sat down.

Didn’t take long for folks to get off their asses, for some reason.

“Last Stand, my scans show that you are still in orbit,” some grumbly woman replied.

“Affirmative, Orbital Control,” she said. “My crew and I have all been exposed, so we are not going to come down and maybe release it on Beaumonde. We need someone else to bring up the cargo from the ground, then transfer it via EVA. Safest, according to the medical professionals I consulted on Atwick.”

Longer pause this time.

“Last Stand, confirming a Red Cough outbreak?” the woman asked.

“That is correct, Beaumonde,” Tessa said. Then she coughed herself, with the microphone open.

It was all Fin could do to not laugh out loud.

Mean as hell, but Governor Callahan might still be a little pissed at them. This way, he either got to be the hero, or the heel. And he got to do so on the public airwaves, where EVERYONE got to listen.

But Fin already knew that his wife could play rough when she wanted to.

He simply beamed.

“Last Stand, please stand by while we contact the authorities,” the woman on the station over there said. “Did you say six and a half days, Last Stand?”

“That is correct. Beaumonde,” Tessa said, smiling. “Six and a half days, Atwick to Beaumonde. We’re going to try to beat that on the run home, once we have all the drugs we need.”

Fin snorted when she released the button. THAT would get around almost as fast as news of a Red Cough outbreak. Some dumb punk would probably end up blowing his systems trying to beat that, not understanding that navigation was only about one-third of the secret. Auntie Maru, back on the machines, was the other two-thirds.

And he knew how hard they’d run things. Hopefully, somebody else would be willing to pay for a full maintenance



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