Free Baxter Moon, Galactic Scout by John Zakour Page B

schedule, and we may be one shuttle down. To make matters worse we have no idea what went wrong with that shuttle.”
    I released my flight harness and stood up. I wanted to tell GiS to lighten up. He always had a way of finding the worst in any situation. The thing is, in this case he was right and I knew it. Last week I probably would have argued for the sake of arguing, but not today. This wasn’t the time. We had a mission to accomplish. This was my first real mission and I was determined to make it a success. Even if that meant not arguing with GiS.
    “You’re right, again, Commander,” I said, hanging my head just a bit.
    GiS unbuckled his harness and then just stood there. He was dumbfounded. He wasn’t expecting to me to agree that easily. It threw him off stride. He adjusted his uniform and straightened up.
    “Of course I’m right,” he said.
    He patted me on the shoulder with his foot.
    “You did good, Baxter.”
    “Thanks,” I said.
    “Of course with all the time I’ve spent training you, you better do good,” he added, though I swore he wasn’t quite as dead-on serious as he usually was when he said these things. “Now come on, we’ve got a job to do!”
    He walked off the shuttle.
    I looked at Elvin and Zenna. I shrugged.
    They shrugged.
    We followed GiS out of the shuttle on to the deck of the Searcher’s landing bay. You know how they say if you’ve been in one landing bay you’ve been on them all? Well, that doesn’t hold true when you are on a warp-class Sphere’s landing bay. Though it looked like a smaller version of the space station’s landing bay — a big open area surrounded by launch door — the thing was, knowing that this landing bay was inside a sphere that could go faster than light and travel to other galaxies made it special.
    We had all been on simulated Spheres before, but none of us, not even GiS, had ever been on a real one.
    “Zap!” Elvin exclaimed. “We’re on a real intergalactic faster-than-light sphere!” he said, echoing my thoughts.
    GiS looked around unimpressed. “No big deal. We’ve done this simulation module enough so you should all feel right at home.”
    I just looked at him.
    “Okay, maybe not right at home,” he admitted. “But close enough to get the job done.”
    We walked over to the exit elevator door where we were met by Kymm and her team. They looked a little shook up, but not much worse for the wear. It’s not like Lobi and Chriz were that much to look at even when they were at their best.
    Kymm extended her hand to me. “Nice work, Moon,” she said, “though I would have done the same for you, only with a smoother landing.”
    “A much smoother landing,” Chriz added.
    Kymm shot him a look. He sulked back. Yep, she had a thing for me alright.
    I shook Kymm’s hand. All I said was, “You’re welcome.”
    “Do you think what caused the malfunction on our shuttle could be related to what happened to Axel?” K-999 asked GiS.
    GiS rubbed his chin with his foot. “I don’t like to speculate,” he said.
    “Then just guess,” Zenna said.
    “I’d guess yes,” I said.
    GiS looked at me. “It’s still too early to know.” He looked at his watch. “It’s 0900 now; report to your quarters. We’ll meet in the conference room at 0930 to discuss options.”
    “That’s in thirty minutes,” Zenna whispered to me.
    “Thanks, I figured that out,” I told her.
    We all stepped on to the elevator.
    “SC-711, what floor are we staying on?” K-999 asked.
    “I have assigned you all adjacent rooms on level 13.”
    “Now, that’s an omen if ever I heard one,” I mumbled.
    “Will we have single rooms?” Kymm asked as the elevator started to rise.
    “Yes,” SC answered. “The rooms here are much smaller than your quarters but they are single occupancy. This sphere has room for up to two hundred crew and a hundred passengers, and since there are only eight of you, I thought it was logical to dedicate a floor to