Chapter 17
Lt. Aruna Boddu was piloting the shuttle that took Captain Sheehan to the Philadelphia. It was an impromptu trip up, to avoid ceremony. He hated pomp and circumstance, but he loved his ship, the idea of it, and the idea of exploring the universe with a team of people. His people. He loved tech and finding tech, and the idea of being on the frontier and finding new tech to improve the lives of citizens and improve fleet was just pure joy. They were finding tech all the time, but there was a delay of about 60 years in introducing it to society- to avoid the Trojan Horse Scenario. That had happened once before, and Earth had learned its lesson the hard way with the loss of at Atlantis. Also, since that event, a genetically imposed fear of telepathy and psi in general had been distributed into the population- by the very people who had given the Gift Horse. Emmitt was so enraptured by being promoted and given a ship, that he spoke Boddu’s first name before having earned it. And therein, discovered a mistake. “Isn’t she just absolutely magnificent, Vithika,” Emmitt said.
Boddu looked at him. She was not happy. He blinked, Garcia clearly saying, ‘you just fucked up, Sir.’ Vithika translated ‘pathway.’ Pathfinder. Garcia’s ship was the Pathfinder. She served with him in the alternative time line. The Admirals had just hinted at there was another timeline. Emmitt was connected to something alien! Did they know? They met Loxy. They had to know! Had he summoned her from that other timeline to here? Was she his Tulpa, or Garcia’s Tulpa? ‘Emmitt,” it was Loxy, in his head. “You’re going to be experiencing more Déjà vu over the next couple days, as there is an alignment happening. Echoes of a parallel, past universes infringing on this space. This will pass. This is normal.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to assume liberties by using your first name,” Emmitt said. And still fucked up.
“Vithika is my sister. I am Aruna,” Boddu said.
“Oh?” Emmitt asked. She was not the Amano Group’s Aruna. He assumed Aruna was a popular Indian name, perhaps her nickname because people might say Vithika incorrectly. What other explanation could he use?
“How do you know my sister?” Boddu demanded defensively. “Do you think I am compromised because of her life choices? What must I do to prove my loyalties to Fleet?” “Your integrity and position is solid,” Emmitt said. Humans in space still have human problems. “I am sorry, Aruna. I have been known to say inexplicable things. Some people say I am psychic, because I have died a couple times. I do qualify for being a handler in the Active Stargate program. But I don’t see auras, or read tea leaves. I just speak crazy stuff. I am not finished reviewing the crew manifest, I have only browsed. I have not studied you.” Boddu looked at him as if he were crazy. Another assumption on his part: just because she was an Indian, of East India descent, did not mean she would be able to relate to metaphysical concepts. She was from off world, and so her paradigm would be different. Her world was considered a failed colony. Life continued there, though. How is perseverance failure? Emmitt wondered. So, they were not prospering and making ships, but did everything have to be measured in Earth levels of success? Earth was known as one of the most biologically active planets in the galaxy. Biological success was not necessarily a technological prosperity, but genetics were the coin of the New Realm. There was a Galactic joke that you couldn’t throw a stone at planet Earth without getting a Pet Rock.
Emmitt returned to silently watching the Philadelphia grow larger before him. Boddu would forget this. His social faux pas would blow over. It always did. People don’t pursue ‘crazy,’ because it suggested deeper, psychic connections, and people hated that. Especially the scientifically minded. If he polled his crew, most of them would not believe in time travel. Some might not even accept telepathy, even with active telepaths on the ship. They would assume they’re just good at reading physical tells.
He suspected Boddu was spinning explanations, perhaps wondering if she was given her position because of her strengths, or because Fleet had a secret desire to one manipulate her sister, but she would go no deeper. And why wouldn’t she wonder? People spin. Some of the ‘mercenary’ types that Space Force had dealt with had actually done that sort of manipulative stuff to others; they had kidnapped, raped, and dissected aliens in the name of scientific advancement. They did it with a green light from the government, who had felt an urgency to catch up before the enemy state caught up. Whoever got AI first, they won everything. Time travel without AI, was just crazy. Whoever time traveled first, they won everything. And now that the paradigm was shifting, the need for military involvement was increasing; the Military increased accountability that was not present in the public sector. Mercenary types had been needed, too. Government hired outside agencies to backwards engineer stuff, because they could think out of the box. Government benefits, private industry benefitted, government expanded, citizenry caught up and were compelled to bring things back in alignment with group thought, military expanded and brought private industry back into ethical oversight.
Then again, he himself was just encountering High Manipulation with the Admirals, who have even more knowledge about what’s going on than he. Even humans don’t spin linearly; there is a temporal vector. Space is easy, time is easy, space-time is hard as fuck. He had to trust that the Admirals had knowledge greater than his and what they were asking was reasonable. That was trust. That was letting go. Not a letting go of responsibility or ethics; even they would have a preference for him to work within a framework of reasonableness, so if it did blow up, it was reasonably human but enough plausible deniability would be had that they could use the pieces that fell out.
Emmitt still had choices. He could not bed the Empress. He didn’t have to decide that now. He knew, deep down, given the opportunity, he would not turn her down. Even pre Chaon experience, if he were trapped in a lift with her, and she came onto him, he would so do that. ‘Could a Chaon stuck in a space with human not engage? Are they biologically compelled?’ People assumed biology drove sex, but in truth, psychic energy drove sex. ‘Could you avoid engagement?’ Garcia asked. No. A part of him liked the sensation of being psychically manipulated. People always gave into a greater psychic presence- they gave in by running, fighting, or submission. He would submit to the Chaon female. Pretty much, any female.
He returned to Boddu’s reflection in the forward view. Her eyes shifted enough that her reflection was looking back. She frowned, apologized, and touched a button. The room went dark and now there was more light outside than inside. Inner cabin reflection went away and the view was so clear you might wonder if there was even a barrier between them and the vacuum of space. He didn’t respond to her apology. He barely registered it. HE could still see her in his mind’s eye, even without looking directly at her. There was still enough periphery of her, he could see make out more than side silhouette. He found himself contemplating her beauty. If this were a Bollywood movie, she would not be the lead because she would be considered ‘too dark.’ Her sister, Vithika, she would be the lighter skinned Indian who got the lead, even though Aruna was the better actress. Vithika was eye candy, some talent, no substance. Aruna was all substance, skill sets that was derived from hard work. Hard work that had been pushed through a fierce, borderline obsessiveness to overcome not being handed shit. Vithika smiled and people gave her shit for no reason. Human women may not be Chaon, but they had just as much ability to manipulate a weakness in males. It wasn’t just that males were stupid; humans are stupid. They favor tall, beautiful people, even if there is no substance, no skills.
Aruna had a prominent Indian nose. Her face wasn’t awkward, but it was just enough not perfect that gave her character and made your eyes linger. She was beautiful, and strong, and… “What?” Boddu asked.
“Did you ever watch Bollywood Hero?” Emmitt asked.
“Because I am Indian you think I sit around and watch fluff all day?” Boddu asked.
“I do. Did. I mean I watch. If we could diverge into a song and dance in the rain with roses, I would love a way to relate that’s better than fighting,” Emmitt said.
“I am a fighter. You want to spar, I will spar, but don’t think for a moment I will take it easy on you because you’re the Captain,” Boddu said.
“I would expect nothing less, Lt.,” Emmitt said. “Oh, but you will learn to dance. In fact, I want you to add a variety of dance to the crew curricula. And yoga.”
“Seriously?” Boddu asked.
“Yes, please,” Emmitt said.
Boddu didn’t speak her mind, but there was evidence on her face she was not happy. If she had been stuck wondering if she were exploitable, then she would be thinking right; Space Force as it was now would exploit her connection with Vithika if it helped their agenda. Now she was fighting the idea of dance, maybe because of stereotypes, or maybe because dancing opened different pathways in the brain. A dancing mindset allowed for different perspective that straight fighting didn’t allow. Sensuality allowed for different mindset. Specifically, it increased the likelihood of empathy. Dance created empathy in self and others, because if you dance long enough, you can entrain your partner. ‘Or they entrain you,’ Garcia pointed out.
Emmitt had an abundance of empathy. He was always in danger of overshooting appropriate rapport into enmeshment. Hell, if Space Force told him to sleep with Vithika, he would do that, too. If he had a choice, he would rather bed Aruna, but Vithika made sense. Vithika was definitely exploitable; manipulators can always be manipulated. Roque groups like the Trek’s Marque gave some tactical advantages and potential anonymity of the state accomplishing things they couldn’t do directly. Mercenaries were necessary, short game, but long game- that was a dead end path. He wondered if there was someone in the Marque Equivalent he might be interested in. What would Kirk or Bond do if he had to bed another male to accomplish the goal? Fuck, the world end here with me, Emmitt thought.
Fuck, stop thinking about sex. Compassion. He tuned into an old explanation from Bliss, a kind tape: This is just stress. As stress goes up, the need for sex goes up. Sex is a barometer for bio-stress, psychological stress, and social stress. Three indicators, three motivators; it was never as straight forward simple as anyone ever tried to gauge it. People had no more control over their sexual energy than how fast their bladder filled with urine; when it’s time to go, it’s time to go. In fact, very few people, outside of some tantra circles, were trying to gauge it. Trauma victims tended to be either pathologically hypersexual, or pathologically hyposexual- rarely in between. Even outside of that, there was no accepted definition of normal, even though everyone acted as if there were an acceptable norm. Hell, the DSM VII defined abnormality, without defining normality. Seven version of the damn statistical manual, and still no one had a clue what normalcy was!
Emmitt stood up and focused on the ship. The Philadelphia wasn’t what he expected. It was everything he expected and more! At least it didn’t look like the Orville. Or that damn Galaxy Quest ship, the Protector. It wasn’t a galaxy class starship, either. If anything, it was a modified Korolev class starship. He heard Garcia saying it was bigger than he remembered. The main shuttle bay passed completely through the main fuselage. This was Battlestar Galactica meets Trek, meets Wars; this ship was a fusion of tech and philosophy. Fighter pilots could do ‘touch and go’s’ and fly around, come back. There were launch tubes that could launch up to thirty fighters in about ten minutes, and it made Battle Star Galactic look like the Coast Guard. This Philadelphia was practically an oversized aircraft carrier in space. It was city built for war. Boddu landed them, touching down a quarter of the way in. There was a shuttle departing even as they landed. If the tower was guiding her, it was done in her head. Emmitt was confident she was piloting manually, showing off her skills. Any AI could land on a ship. Humans took practice. Another shuttle was going down an elevator to be stowed. They could manufacture one shuttle a week, if they marginalized safety concerns.
“If you got this, I am going to take a walk, alone,” Emmitt said. “You don’t want me to show you around?” Boddu asked.
“No, thank you,” Emmitt said.
“But…”
“I don’t like spoilers,” Emmitt said, and hurried away.
He was off the shuttle before she could recommend otherwise. He probably left her too soon; he let go. He trusted she could deal with her own insecurities. He had to. Helping her led to talking, talking led to touching, and touching led to sex. He realized a part of him was in a hurry to get out of there because he liked her. And she had exploitable insecurities. She wore them on her sleeve. She was aware enough of them; consequently she would always have her guard up with everyone, which made her good at her job. It also was invitation to dance. Emmitt wanted to dance with her, engage in the death spiral. He wanted to unarm her, let her air down, bed her and give her piece. He wanted to rescue her. The game was to win and leave them both alive and wanting more, maybe both be better, definitely different, people. Death. A death spiral with her would result in both of their deaths, they would be reborn as new people, or they would just survive.
Or don’t engage her and let her remain who she is. It wasn’t like he wanted to destroy her. He wanted to help her. That was his nature, too. He was a fixer. He brought systems together. She was broken. He would love her, fix her, heal her, and then release her back to the wild. He would lose all interest in her once she was healed because she would no longer need him. A lesser soul would sabotage the healing process, keep her dependent.
‘All relationships are predicated on growth or destructions,’ Bliss reminded him. The aftermath had an ‘interpretive’ variable. Victim, survivor, participator, collaborator… A million other hats to wear.
In all relationships, he had always been either the master, the parent, or the healer.
Inevitably, when the student has learned all the master has to offer, the student graduates, leaves. When the parent has raised the child, they leave. When the healer has repaired the injury, the patient returns to life.
Her name reminded him of his other Aruna. Engaging Boddu would also be trying to reconnect to the other one named Aruna. ‘Why is this so damn complicated all the time?’ Bliss responded: ‘it is not. We are all one. You cannot engage other without engaging yourself. Though engaging yourself, you engage everyone else. You don’t have to go to Mecca. You are Mecca. Just spin. You are the center of God’s thoughts. Everyone is the center of God’s thoughts. Just look out from your place in the Universe and see this is true.’ ‘I love you.’ Bliss words were louder than thought: ‘I love you more.’ It was so loud he wondered how no one else could hear this.
He quickly forgot about Boddu as he walked the decks. He walked with love. An excess of love. He walked with Bliss! And distractions. Uniforms were much more colorful. They ranged the spectrum. And there was freedom to mix and match. Departments, careers, and philosophical camps had schema- and people fell within in a rainbow spectrum. The Uniforms had a Trek meets Power Ranger feel. The true color wheel was represented, Cyan, Magenta,
Yellow…
Every woman on board a Star Ship was drop dead gorgeous. You would think Space
Force only recruited females from Victoria Secrets and Frederick’s of Hollywood! Perhaps, like the Vikings, Space Force stole all the hot women of Earth; Greenland was over represented here. Well, they didn’t all have Hollywood teeth, so not perfectly perfect. Guys were gorgeous, too, almost caricature, stereotype, a variety of types, but in terms of categorizing favorability status, he only saw the females in this way. Engaging some of the females was tangibly weird. They spoke like models that were trying to be actresses but didn’t have an ounce of acting ability; they had been simply hired for their looks, and probably only got the gig because she slept with the producer and the director. Men would give up the art for the sake of a good fuck; no, more precise, good or bad fuck, they would give up everything to touch beauty. If she fucked like she acted, Emmitt would prefer the art.
‘Liar,’ Garcia called him out.
‘Not a lie,’ Emmitt said.
‘You’d turn that down if she were a bad fuck?’ Garcia asked.
‘No. I’d have to fuck her first to determine if she is good fuck,’ Emmitt argued.
‘It’s all the same in the dark,’ Garcia said.
‘Oh! The hell it is!’ Emmitt said. ‘Taste is different. Smells is different. Energy is different. Enthusiasm and collaboration differs….’ “Boys,’ Bliss said.
‘You want to be in a boy’s locker room, you get to hear how we talk,’ Garcia said.
‘Talk away. Girl locker room talk is much severe than you boys can handle,’ Bliss said. ‘I am just saying both of you are wrong.’
‘Can I come to the girl locker room talk?’ Emmitt asked.
‘You want to come?’ Bliss asked.
‘Yes, please,” Emmitt said.
‘You want the truth?’ Garcia said. They all laughed and said, ‘You can’t handle the truth.’
Some of the women on a Starship would be the epitome of nerds, and would have the mannerisms of someone with autism and or having been homeschooled. Surprisingly, autism and homeschool had the same flavor, socially speaking. There were autistic people on the ship, because they had talents Space Force needed. Some of the women would be socially awkward on Earth simply because they were space born, and or were aliens, or were aliens using Android containers. There were aliens that were confined to their quarters due to not being able to exist in human atmosphere: they used robotics and androids and virtual assists to get needs met. And they, too, liked to fuck, and would use their avatars to have sex with humans. Sex was sex, and those confined in their quarters would have a higher rate of promiscuity. There were aliens that had two android remote-avatar bodies; male and female, to satisfy a variety of personal needs. Sometimes it was their own android on android, and sometimes it was using both with extra partners.
The rules for sexual engagement in Space Force was not the same as Earth Military. Fraternization was not only condoned, it was expected. Keep it on the ship was motto. Leaving donations on colony human colony worlds had to be approved, not just through a ship board committee, but the collective conscious of the colony. Colonies did need genetic infusion from outside sources from time to time, but they were selective; either wanting to amplify a biological pathway, or soften it. Interplanetary breeding was more purposeful, not random, and was necessary to maintain new world viability and exploit non Earth niches.
In terms of social life on a ship, the Captain was high game. There would be competition to bed the Captain. This completely ruined the game for Emmitt. True enough, he would sleep with an AI couch, or even just a regular couch, but he did kind of like the game of pursuit. He liked the risk of rejection. He was less likely engage someone pursuing him, not a hundred percent, but just less likely. The game had to be subtle. And enough people on the ship knew this and would play it, which would be game enough for him to engage to see if they really meant interest, or they were just fucking him to be fucking with him. His new game would have to be minimizing interactions. Crew and civilians on board would have the game to see who could attract his attention, who could maintain his attention. He had no doubt the Amano group were already making bets. And he could continue to engage them, as they would be seen as his core group. Another potential game would be there, crew wanting to be his new primary circle over origin group. Civilians on the ship would vie for primary circle. Circle within circles.
‘Fuck, I am out of my league and will lose my mind.’
‘We still got you, Em,’ Bliss said.
Emmitt was poverty that had won the lottery. He was invisible, suddenly made manifest. An overnight movie star that took Hollywood by surprise.
‘Fuck me, if I am not another Mat Damon. Please let me be Mat and not Ben Affleck…’ ‘Jennifer Garner,’ was all Garcia had to say.
“Okay, sometimes, I want to be Ben,’ Emmitt admitted. ‘What the fuck is wrong with me?’
‘Absolutely nothing,’ Bliss said.
“Sandrine,” Emmitt whispered. “If there is betting, help discover the nature of the bets and find a way to engage and collect by me doing something exploit-ably unexpected.” “Like abstaining?” Sandrine asked, laughing. “Games with in games. I am game. With-in the confines of this game, may I participate?
“You exploiting me wouldn’t be fair,” Emmitt said.
“AI’s like to play, too. No players will be harmed in our interaction,” Sandrine said.
“I am intrigued. Play through,” Emmitt said.
“Are you going with the Kirk gambit, a kiss in every episode, or the Picard gambit, pretend to be not interested and maybe one love interest a season?”
“Ummmm,” Emmitt deliberated. “Yes. Coupled with the Wayne-Stark playboy image, which we will amplify so when I am alter ego, the Captain, that hero gets amplified.” It wasn’t just an image. Wayne and Stark did fuck to keep the image. They couldn’t allow a rumor of being impotent to bring down the power of the alias.
Emmitt minimized eye contact with crew. One of the most interesting insights he had about himself was that the greater his initial level of attraction the greater the level of chaos the female was experiencing in life- generally speaking. The reason why he found all women attractive, was that he could see things in all of them that needed fixing. If a girl had no flaw, he wouldn’t see her at all. Bliss didn’t have to say it- ‘All humans have flaws.’ This self-knowledge alone was a good reason to practice celibacy. His flaw was still engaging knowing his predisposition to engage through flaws. People in Space Force were humans, but they were extreme humans ‘socially’ and so their issues tended to be extreme. There was no way in hell he was going to go five years being celibate! He would have to find a steady, quiet hook up to keep libido in check. Boddu came back to mind again, probably because he thought she was an easy fix, The problem is she was his tactical officer. Their working relationship would require a lot of contact. Proximity increased odds. Talking leads to touching, touching leads to sex. No. It was a firm internal no. He needed her to not be emotionally distracted by his overt and secretive behaviors. If he was going to bed Nelvana, there would be enough secrecy to fuel her paranoia.
Everyone tapped in on the paranoia scale. Not tapping in resulted in not being in Space Force. Some paranoia was healthy. Too much was crazy. Just enough in a relationship kept people together. Too much blew up relationships.
USSF would deny his secret mission. Emmitt engaging target could be misconstrued as duplicity, or worse. Even this tangent could be an exploitable situation. People thinking he was a traitor would spin things that could increase his favor with Nelvana. Plausible deniability and spin made him look credible to the target. Fucking games!
‘You love this,’ Garcia said.
‘You love this more.’
‘Hence why I came back as you.’
Andrea would be a great, regular partner. Anyone of the Amano group would make great regular partners. Marijić definitely would. He was not alone. He had options. ‘People with options tend not to engage,’ he said; this was born out statistically by the number of people not committing as the number of single apps increased. People are strange. This decline in engagement rule was not applicable to him. He didn’t like sweets. He liked salty, spicy. Chips and salsa over cookies. But if you leave a cookie out on the table long enough, he would fucking eat a cookie just cause it’s in eye sight. He would fuck, sorting first by mutuality, second by proximity, third by level of game.
Emmitt passed crew and they paused, hesitantly, saluting. He acknowledged everyone who acknowledged him, but he resisted the urge to talk. He kept a pace about him to suggest he was on a mission. Fast pace was a shield. He was curious about their opinions, but didn’t want to explore them presently. He didn’t need that. He would earn that or not; regardless of their disposition towards him. He would learn who thought what soon enough. Still, his mind lingered there. He imagined they thought ‘he is young,’ and compared to his senior officers, that was absolutely true. He was likely the youngest Captain since Captain Kirk.
‘Your fiction,’ Garcia pointed out. ‘My reality.’
Emmitt made his way to Sickbay and found a Gray- ‘Blue’ Doctor by the name of Setene working with a nurse to treat a crew member who had broken his arm. There was a child in her office, perhaps the age of five or six. He had a child size desk in line with his mother’s desk. He was doing lessons on his computer.
Emmitt felt as if he knew Setene, but clearly he didn’t- he had never met her before, ever. He had ‘first’ knowledge of her because he had skimmed the crew records looking for Grays. Grays were hard to come by in Space Force, but he knew he wanted one on board. Grays were hard to come by because they were still ‘recovering’ from the loss of their primary planet. Space
Force was a part of the ‘recovery,’ and in some sense, partly because of access to USSF tech, but mostly because humans were generally helpful. Humans genuinely wanted to help everyone, but the Grays were favored for some strange reason no one could understand. Emmitt believed he understood, but no one had denied or confirmed his suspicions. There was also a great risk for them being around humans because humans were a distraction.
Em