The Void Shaper by David Collins

Author:David Collins [Collins, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-09-23T04:00:00+00:00

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The crew shuffling took days; we lost Coella Eichel, the Chief of Science, Biologist Carlos Mendez, Botanical Expert Peter Nenes, Medical tech Musa Khaled, as well as many of the other scientists I did not personally know.

We also lost Prisha Geno, Melon Geno, and all the former pirates who had completed their sentences and asked to be relocated to a safe Mauron world.

Doki Maners left the ship and would be traveling to Earth for her retirement from the Darkness.

The non-Earth-born ones that stayed were Capadi Sapphire, the caster of stealth and blindness, and Zener Peers, the former police officer. The Projen Penner Whiles, the sensor and weapons expert, was staying. She was now in a relationship with Kayla Nilsen.

Our medical officer, Kayla Nilsen, had decided to stay and upgrade. No surprise, she had selected her Projen aspect. She went into one of the new Upgrade chambers later that day.

Mark Jefferson also went into one of the upgrade chambers; he would be a Projen when he emerged.

We were scheduled to depart in 22 days with a new shuttle, the upgrades and repairs, and most of the crew upgraded.

When we did leave, the ship would only have only four upgrade chambers. Two were being removed. It would have nine medi-beds, eight in the normal crew area and one in the brig. The four upgrade chambers we were keeping were replaced with different models; these could support faster upgrades and some, but not all, medi-bed functionality.

I called Zener Peers into the conference room.

She said, “Yes, you are wondering why I decided to stay?”

“I know the last few months have been hectic, sometimes boring, sometimes dangerous, so yes, why are you staying?”

“I wondered that as well. As a cop on a backwater Crudz hole planet, the main action I saw was drunks, petty vandalism, and stupid people doing stupid things. We had seventeen murders in the last three years, none of which were ever solved. All were somehow related to strands, and we didn't even keep track of who had them. Nobody spoke about it much, but we all knew that the Claws had gotten into politics, and we suspected that any that got caught were shifted over and just released in a different town. The adventures with you, we did something; we saved someone who was -+innocent and stopped a major Claw operation. I admit I was scared worse than I had ever been in my life. I don't ever need to see the inside of a Void again. When you pulled or drove the ship through a huge one that was more like FTL, I felt safe in the ship, well, sort of….”

“You want to fight the bad guys and do some good?”

“You humans, and former humans, you’re not a bad lot. Yeah, it’s crudz dangerous, but I want to stay with you, with the ship, for a bit more. I also like what you have done with the shipyard. The changes you did are making it a better place.”

After talking to Zener, I had Penner Whiles, the Projen, paged to the conference room.

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