Daughters of Demeter

"It's not exactly the circumstances I had in mind when I imagined getting my first look at a naked Rebecca," Sarah commented with a smile.

I knew she was trying to lighten things up with a joke, but I was still feeling kind of fragile. She had me drink a shot of the hard stuff to take the edge off, but it hadn't really helped. At least my knees didn't feel like they were going to give out again any time soon.

The two of us were in the secondary hold next to Jenny's Re/Gen capsule, while the timer counted down the last minute or so. Sarah was holding a nightshirt she'd grabbed for the boss, and I had Rebecca's necklace in my hand. And the boss's shoes were on the deck where I'd left them earlier.

I was still feeling anxious and maybe a bit nauseous. With the crisis more or less over my adrenaline had finally tapered off and left me feeling the raw emotions that I'd been suppressing while we worked on the ship.

Me and Sarah patched things up as best we could, and the ship didn't sustain any structural damage. Apart from the main airlock and pilot controls there wasn't any mechanical damage either. It was mostly just a bunch of little holes and one missing window.

In a few seconds the captain would emerge from Jenny's capsule, she'd be in perfect health and ready to take over command of her ship. I should have been relieved and happy, considering things could have gone so much worse.

I had no doubt we'd all be dead if that thing had detonated inside the hold. It would have torn the ship apart, there'd probably be nothing left but a smear of shredded scrap metal spread across a few light-minutes as the wreckage decelerated from Jump-0.

My girlfriend glanced at the little panel at the end of the capsule and commented, "Thirty seconds left on the timer. I hope she's not too upset about things."

"Which things?" I asked with a sigh. "Lebeau trying to blow us up? All the new holes in her ship? Or having her age reset to eighteen again?"

Sarah shrugged, "All of the above? Though going from twenty to eighteen isn't that big a jump. At least she's used to it."

She paused a moment then smiled, "I wonder if she'll still call us 'kids', considering she'll be younger than us now."

I just sighed quietly again as I waited with her.

It was only a few seconds later when the cylinder unsealed and the door swung aside. And like my girlfriend said, she and I both got a very good look at our captain's freshly-regenerated body.

Sarah was right in terms of the boss's age too. There wasn't a huge change from eighteen to twenty, but there were still differences. It varied from person to person, but most people weren't completely finished physical development until they were in their twenties.

And looking at our captain, I could immediately see some obvious discrepancies between her appearance nine hours ago and how she looked now. And suddenly I understood what she meant when she told us about her past and mentioned people treated her like a little girl fresh out of school. Her face was notably younger, but her hair didn't help either. It was longer than she usually wore it and the style felt like something a younger person would enjoy.

As expected her time in the capsule left her completely fit and healthy again. There was no sign of the injury to her midsection, no scar, no blemishes or imperfections of any kind.

The captain let out a sigh and opened her eyes. As she sat up she looked over at me and Sarah, then reached out and took her necklace from me. She slipped it on over her head and stated, "Jenny filled me in on the situation before she started the process. What's our status now?"

I responded, "The cockpit's been patched and repressurized, same with the main hold. We're cruising on conventional drive at the moment, and I have the sensors configured with the standard proximity alerts. We seem to be alone, no other ships around."

Sarah took over, "The main airlock and ramp are out of commission. The airlock's sealed and I've patched all the holes, and the ramp is raised and locked. I'm about ninety percent sure it'll survive an atmospheric landing, but if we lower it in gravity we're not raising it again till it's fixed. There were a dozen or so additional impacts. I could repair the ramp and airlock properly if I got my hands on some spare parts, but I assume you'd rather have your friend Mel take care of it."

My girlfriend hadn't offered the boss the nightshirt she was holding yet, though Rebecca hadn't asked or reached for it either. I knew she had to have noticed the garment, considering she didn't waste time retrieving her necklace from me. In fact the captain hadn't bothered trying to cover herself up at all yet, she just sat there on the edge of the open capsule as she listened to our reports.

Rebecca didn't respond to either my girlfriend or myself right away, she just had a slight frown on her face as she sat there in the opened pod.

After another few seconds I asked, "How are you feeling boss? Are you ok?"

"No," she replied with a sigh. Then she finally reached out and took the nightshirt from Sarah and pulled it on, before adding "I'm angry, but not with either of you."

She got up and pulled on the shoes I left for her, then asked "Sarah, can we operate the main airlock in zero or low gravity?"

The cute engineer shrugged, "Maybe once or twice? One of the ramp's struts was broken, I patched it with what we had on-hand. It might work in zero-g but it might not, it's pretty fragile. If it goes we'll need another EVA to patch it again."

"I could probably override the mechanism and operate it manually," she added after a moment. "That would let me take pressure off the damaged strut and just use the intact strut. It'll be slower than usual but that ought to let us open and close it without making things any worse."

The captain had a quiet thoughtful look on her face for a few seconds, before she finally came to a decision. "Amanda please get us back on a level-zero jump to the Fuminja Cluster. We didn't get any information from this shipment, I want to see if the research lab is going to send another shipment of mystery drugs to the mining colony."

"What about the repairs?" Sarah asked.

"After we leave Fuminja we'll head straight to Rolandan-2," Rebecca replied. She looked at me again and added, "Let's get moving."

I hesitated. It felt silly but I really wasn't ready to go back into the cockpit yet. I was afraid seeing that damaged window would get me freaked out again.

"Boss?" Sarah asked as she slipped her arm around me. "I think maybe Amanda could use some downtime. Me too."

The captain glanced at the two of us, she watched us for a second or so before she nodded "Understood. Let's head up to the main deck. I'll get us under way, then I think we could all use a drink."

My girlfriend smiled, "Thanks Rebecca."

The three of us used the lift in engineering, then while Piper continued forward to the cockpit Sarah manoeuvred me over to the table in the mess. The glasses from our earlier drinks were still there, and my girlfriend got out a third glass along with a bottle.

Jenny joined us while we were waiting for the captain, she activated one of her HPDs and came up the starboard ladderway then took a seat at the table.

The AI quietly greeted us both and asked, "How are you two doing?"

"We're managing," Sarah replied quietly as she poured three drinks. "Dealing with some post-crisis emotions."

Jenny nodded but didn't comment. Meanwhile my girlfriend placed a shot in front of me and another where the captain usually sat, and kept the third one for herself. Neither of us reached for the drinks yet, instead we waited for Rebecca to return.

That took another two or three minutes, before she finally emerged from the cockpit. She sealed the cockpit door behind her, the antechamber was still acting like a little airlock as a precaution on the off chance that the repairs might fail. And that didn't help my mood or confidence much at all.

Rebecca slumped down in her seat at the table.

"Thanks," she said as she picked up her drink and knocked it back in one go. Then as she set the empty glass back down she grimaced, "Time to break in the new liver I suppose."

"That's a rather unhealthy attitude," Jenny pointed out with a slight frown.

The boss shrugged, "It'll heal won't it? It's not like I'll ever get the chance to be old enough for the alcohol to do any real damage."

The AI looked uncomfortable but she didn't have anything else to say on that topic. She just watched with a disapproving frown as Rebecca took the bottle and poured herself another drink.

Sarah drank hers down in one shot as well, but I just quietly sipped mine. My emotions were still a bit of a mess, but having the four of us sitting around the table together helped more than the booze. It was such a regular common occurrence, it was like everything was almost back to normal. Except Rebecca was noticeably younger than before, which was probably going to take me a bit to get used to.

Her height hadn't changed, but her face looked younger and I was sure she was slimmer. The Piper I was familiar with had a few more pounds on her, and better muscle definition.

After knocking back her second drink the boss commented, "We're about nine and a half days from the Fuminja Cluster. As usual we'll top up fuel while we're there. Then I think from there we'll do a level-one jump straight to Rolandan-2, to get the ship patched up."

"What if we run into trouble at Fuminja Epsilon?" Jenny asked. "If Lebeau meant to destroy us, he might have notified them that we weren't coming."

"We'll be ready for trouble," Rebecca stated. "We've got nine days to prepare. It's time I got you three up to speed on the ship's defences and armaments."

Once again that didn't help my mood any. I didn't comment, but I quietly knocked back the last of my drink.

The captain poured the three of us another round, then added "I doubt Lebeau will have told the people at Fuminja anything. He's expecting us to just disappear. He'll probably be waiting to get word from them that we missed our scheduled stop, that way he can act surprised and innocent. Not that anyone would bother to investigate, but if anyone did question I'm sure it won't be a stretch to blame it on mechanical failure. The Demeter's an old ship, it's an easy excuse."

Sarah scowled, "She might be old but she's in a lot better shape than most ships half her age."

That almost made me smile, that my engineer girlfriend would get upset about a hypothetical insult against this old ship we called home.

"Will we continue on to Regulon-4 to deliver the shipment after our visit to the shipyard?" Jenny asked. "I imagine we might be late, depending on how long the repairs take."

The boss frowned, then shrugged. "I'll worry about that when the time comes. Depending on what's in the shipment, I might just break it open so we can all get a closer look."

She looked at me and asked, "Amanda if it's more drugs, do you think you'd be able to figure out what it is?"

"Maybe?" I responded. "I'll certainly do my best. Between me and Sarah and Jenny we'll probably be able to at least identify whatever chemical compounds they use, if not what it does."

The captain nodded, "Good enough."

She knocked back her third drink and commented, "When we reach Mel's shipyard, I might just ask him to take care of our scheduled maintenance at the same time as the repairs. It's early, but if we're grounded for repairs anyways we may as well get it out of the way."

"Not a bad idea," Sarah agreed. "How long does the regular maintenance usually take?"

Rebecca replied, "Usually about ten or twelve days, depending how much work needs to be done."

Sarah turned and gave me a friendly grin, "If we have to be grounded for twelve days, at least we'll be on a world we both enjoy."

I nodded, but another worrying thought crossed my mind.

"What about the spy?" I asked. "Lebeau has someone on that world keeping an eye on Mel's shipyard."

The boss shook her head, "Not anymore he doesn't, Mel told me they caught the guy. Sorry, I guess I forgot to pass that news along. It was the same meeting where he told me he was sick and I guess I had a lot on my mind after that. Anyways, the leak's been fixed and I'm sure Mel won't let that happen again. He and his executive assistant are going to be a lot more vigilant going forward."

At least that was a bit of good news.

Jenny spoke up next with a question of her own, "Do you usually stay with the ship during the maintenance and repairs? Or would you be staying elsewhere, in temporary accommodations?"

Rebecca shrugged, "I prefer to stay with the ship, but sometimes Mel chases me off and I have to stay at a hotel. His people don't like having me hanging around while they're working."

"Do they ever need to fully shut things down?" Sarah asked. "Like the computer and everything else?"

Both me and the boss realized what my girlfriend was getting at. Rebecca looked at Jenny and said, "I'll make sure Mel knows not to completely cut power. Or if they have to do that, maybe we can work out some auxiliary power for you."

The AI grimaced, "Thank you. Shutting me off completely won't cause me any damage, but if it has to happen I'd appreciate some warning so I can be prepared."

Rebecca sighed, "Sorry Jenny. We'll talk with Mel when we get there and work out all those details."

I could guess from that exchange that in the past the ship had been completely powered down, and of course Jenny wouldn't have had any warning before her power was cut.

There was a brief awkward silence, until my girlfriend spoke up and changed the subject.

"So about nine days in Jump-0," Sarah commented. "What do you think Jenny, can we finish all the work on your sexbot body by then?"

Our AI crew-mate looked hopeful as she responded, "That would be nice Sarah. We might be able to finish the work in that time, assuming you're able to continue helping me as you've been doing the past two days."

"Of course," my girlfriend agreed immediately. "I can't wait to see you walking around enjoying your new body."

Jenny's expression became serious again as she sighed, "If it had been available today I could have handled the hazardous work in the hold. Then perhaps our captain wouldn't have been wounded."

Rebecca frowned, then shook her head. "I probably would have insisted on handling it myself anyways Jenny. I appreciate the sentiment though."