Fantasy Journey to Year 1,000,000,000

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[Note: This is a Science Fiction story with some erotic scenes. It is not a story with erotic scenes in every chapter. Some chapters have incredible sex scenes, but many others have none.]

The USS Devonshire​

The Devonshire was an old ship.

The Survey Service, after throwing away three of its best ships (one of which, admittedly, returned, but without a living crew), had no appetite for sending a top of the line vessel into the Black Box. It didn't seem to matter what they sent. The Service had first sent a dedicate science ship, the Aurora, which never came back; a top of the line battle cruiser, the Judicator, which also never came back; and a deep space cruiser, the Exeter, which came back... along with the liquefied remains of eight members of the crew.

And so they sent Taylor on an old ship. The Devonshire was the first of the Dorsetshire class frigates, and was a state of the art amazing feat of engineering... some forty years ago. It had been upgraded no less than four times since then, and was slated for retirement in another year... until it had been assigned to this mission.

Taylor didn't mind. Until now he had only dreamed of commanding a Survey Service warship. He didn't care how old it was. The Devonshire had two massive plasma cannons, and four megajoulers, two in front and two in back. It had a crew of 54 and for this mission, 14 scientists as passengers.

He had never commanded such a large complement before. Admiral Von Windhoek had used all his influence to get Taylor this command, which really merited at least a full Commander.

The Devonshire was not just an old ship.

It was also an unhappy one.

He, Taylor, was a volunteer on this extremely hazardous mission.

So was Jennifer Hale, his first officer, and his medical officer, Doctor McCrae, and his second officer, Bill Carey.

And so were the scientists, volunteers all, from Doctor Elizabeth Shaw on down.

But not so the crew.

The crew had not been given a choice. They were officers and members of the Survey Service, and were expected to serve wherever the Service sent them.

Sixteen crewmembers resigned their commissions rather than report for duty. They were quickly replaced with sixteen other crewmen, who also had been assigned against their wishes.

The Devonshire was not a happy ship.

The crew, rightly or wrongly, blamed Taylor for their predicament. They also weren't happy to see Commander Gorsky removed as Captain and replaced with a Lieutenant Commander who had never captained a warship before. Many felt he was unqualified. Many who knew of his past would never have served under him, given the choice. Bill Carey, the former first officer, now turned second officer, wasn't exactly one of Taylor's biggest supporters either. He clearly had doubts about his new Captain, which is why he had volunteered to stay on.

The crew were not the only ones unhappy with him. Doctor Shaw had spread the poison thickly among her scientists. They were polite enough to Taylor, but kept their distance from him.

And so Taylor had very few friends on the Devonshire.

He held a ship wide meeting on the hanger deck, the only place which could accommodate the entire crew.

Taylor took a deep breath. He had never addressed so many people before... at least, not since he had been a god. And that had been years ago. He had gotten rusty. How exactly did one inspire large numbers of people again?

Jennifer Hale sensed his anxiety, and brushed some imaginary lint off his shoulder. "You're going to do fine. Knock them dead, Captain," she said, giving him her little smile.

Taylor nodded and stepped forward to address the crew. All eyes were on him.

"You all know why we're here," he said bluntly. A holo of the Black Box hung above him.

"This thing is slowly ripping the Earth apart," said Taylor. "The Survey Service sent three ships into it. They couldn't stop it."

"But I have news for you. We are going to succeed. We are going to succeed where they failed," said Taylor. He looked into their disbelieving eyes. They all thought they were going to die when the ship entered the Black Box. He had to convince them otherwise.

"I've beaten worse odds," said Taylor. "You all know that. Not all of you want to be here. To be blunt, not all of you want to be under my command."

Jennifer's eyebrows lifted, as did some of the crew's. It was a startling admission to make.

"But you're all members of the Survey Service. We do things not because we want to, but because we have to. Because we are the shield and the sword which protects the Earth. If we do nothing, that thing out there is going to slice up our planet. The Survey Service won't let that happen. I won't let that happen. And neither will you."

Jennifer Hale started to clap. A crewer joined in. Then another, then another. Before long half the crewers were clapping.

Taylor turned to Hale, who nodded, with a tight smile on her face.

As the ship made final preparations to get underway, Taylor found his mind drifting to thoughts of the Black Box. If it really was a passage for time travel, he might never see Earth, his Earth, ever again. He had made his goodbyes to his parents, and his brother Darden and his sister Val, and his friends.

But he found himself thinking most about Pam. It could well be that he and Pam would be separated by 200,000 years of time. She would be long dead by then.

Theoretically, it should not matter to him. Pam had already given him up, pushed him out the door. What did another 200,000 years matter?

But somehow, it did.

Taylor went to the bridge. He checked in with his officers: Jennifer Hale, his XO; Bill Carey, his second officer; his security chief, Obongo Babangida; Bill Collins, his sensor officer, and Suki Tanaka, his navigator. All signaled they were ready to depart.

Taylor turned to Doctor Elizabeth Shaw. Her brown hair was perfectly encapsulated in a bun, as always. "Doctor, are your scientists ready to go?"

"Yes, Lieutenant Commander," said Shaw in a neutral tone.

Lieutenant Commander. Not Captain.

"Sir, there's an incoming message from Survey Service Command," said Ensign Tanaka.

"Put it on main viewer," said Taylor.

It was Admiral Von Windhoek. "Captain Taylor. Are you ready to depart?"

"Yes, sir," said Taylor.

"We hope you succeed. We will give you a few days to carry out your mission. But if we don't hear from you... extraordinary measures may be taken."

"Nova bombs, sir?" said Taylor.

Von Windhoek nodded. "Political pressure may force us to send a few of those through. I just hope you're not near any of them when they go off."

"I hope so too, sir," said Taylor.

"Good luck, Captain," said Von Windhoek.

"Thank you, sir," said Taylor.

He felt the eyes of the bridge crew on him.

"Ensign Tanaka, set a course for the Black Box."

He felt a wave of apprehension from the crew. Or was it just from himself? He tried to ignore it.

"Course laid in and set, sir," said Tanaka.

"Mr. Babangida, raise forcefields to maximum."

"Forcefields now at maximum, sir," said the large black man behind him.

"Everyone... we're going in," said Taylor. "Take us in, Suki."

"Yes, sir," said Tanaka.

The Devonshire started to move into the Black Box. It looked like they were going into a black hole. The entire bridge crew was tense.

Taylor looked over at Jennifer Hale. She gave him a nervous look, and reached out and squeezed his hand. Taylor wondered how it would look to the rest of the crew; but since they might die in the next few seconds, what did it really matter?

They raced ahead, into blackness....

And then the Devonshire entered the Black Box.

The ship shuddered, and shook wildly, and accelerated rapidly, and....

nothing.

They were still alive.

"Report," said Taylor.

"We are inside the Black Box," said Ensign Collins.

"Velocity is off the scale," said Ensign Tanaka.

"Readings?" Taylor asked.

"Nothing," said Ensign Collins. "We're in some kind of corridor, which soaks up all our sensor energy."

"We're moving incredibly fast, in the dark," said Taylor, checking the instrumentation. If they were in a time tunnel, how long would they be there for? Minutes? Hours? Days? There was no way to know.

As nothing happened, and their flight continued, the crew found itself relaxing slightly. Boredom started to set in.

When Taylor's watch ended without incident, he nodded to himself. Wherever they were going, it would take a while to get there.

He went down to the cafeteria. He saw Doctor Shaw and her scientists huddled together at one table. Taylor saw members of his crew looking away at another table as he walked by. He decided to sit alone at an empty table, and started eating.

"May I join you?"

Taylor nodded even before he looked up. To his surprise, it was one of Dr. Shaw's scientists.

"You're...."

"Victor Berman," said the scientist, giving him a smile. "So nice to meet you, Captain," he said, extending a hand.

After a brief pause, Taylor shook his hand. "Aren't you sitting at the wrong table?"

"What, you mean with them?" said Victor looking over at the scientist table. "I don't think so. They're all just a bunch of boring egotists."

Taylor smiled despite himself. "Boring egotists?"

"Isn't that how most people view scientists?" Victor asked, with a smile.

Taylor stared at Victor. He saw a balding, middle aged man. "You're different from the others."

"Why thank you. That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me today," said Victor.

Taylor stared at him, trying to figure the man out. "What is your specialty?"

"Exosociology. Foreign cultures and all that," said Victor. "The Survey Service thought I might be useful if we come across some alien cultures that need deciphering. I told them of course! I would be essential to this mission." Then he lowered his voice mockingly, as if he were telling a secret. "Truthfully, though, I would be as much in the dark as the rest of you. Imagine a culture 200,000 years in advance of our own. Yes, I heard the theory about the Black Box's origins. 200,000 years in the future, if my fellow eggheads are right. By that time scale, humanity would be so far advanced that we wouldn't even begin to have the first idea how to relate to them."

"So why did you come?"

"Why not?" said Victor, shrugging with another smile.

"It's likely to be a one way trip," said Taylor.

"To a very interesting place, if it's the future we're really going to," said Victor. "Captain, I've lived a good life. A long life. And by now, kind of a dull life. I could go to sociology symposiums and write papers for another twenty years. I choose to do this instead."

Taylor smiled at him. He found himself liking the man. "I look forward to using your expertise. I just hope I can work as smoothly with the entire scientific team."

Victor smiled back at him. "By entire scientific team, you mean Elizabeth, don't you?"

Victor was very perceptive.

"She doesn't seem to like me very much."

"To the contrary. I think she likes you a great deal," said Victor.

"What makes you say that?" Taylor asked.

"She told us four times that you are unqualified to lead this expedition. She went on with great length and passion as to why you are temperamentally unsuited to be in command," said Victor.

"And that means she likes me because...."

"She only gets animated about people she likes," said Victor.

"I really don't think Elizabeth, I mean Doctor Shaw, likes me," said Taylor.

"Really?" said Victor. His eyebrows furled. "Then why is she looking at you right now?"

Taylor slowly turned his head, and saw Elizabeth staring right at him. She blushed, and turned away.

Taylor looked at Victor with an odd expression. Could he be right?

After dinner, Elizabeth made her way out of the cafeteria. On the way out she practically bumped into Vincent Roman.

Vincent!

"Oh, sorry," said Vincent, backing up.

"That's all right," said Elizabeth, self consciously touching her hair, which of course was in a bun. She started to go around him, but he moved to block her.

"Elizabeth, can I ask you a question?" said Vincent.

"Sure, Vincent," said Elizabeth. Go away, Vincent.

"I... I heard you didn't want me on your team."

I didn't, but the admiralty overruled me. They said I needed an exoanthropologist, and you were it.

"Where did you hear that?" Elizabeth asked.

"I hope... I hope our past is not going to be a problem," said Vincent.

"Not for me," said Elizabeth.

"Good," said Vincent, giving a weak smile. He found himself staring at her small breasts. She noticed his stare and blushed. Vincent bit his lip, forced himself to look away, and started walking in the other direction.

That night, after checking in with the bridge to make sure the situation was unchanged, Taylor lay down on his back in bed and closed his eyes.

Sleep was long in coming.

He kept thinking about Pam.

Pam!

It was too late to have regrets now; there were probably thousands of years separating the two. By now, Pam was long, long dead and buried.

But on top of all his other worries, the thought of it made him even more unsettled.

Everyone who had boarded the Devonshire had their own reasons for coming.

Taylor's was one of patriotism, to the Survey Service, and to Earth. Victor was in search of excitement. Bill Carey came out of loyalty to his ship--he didn't think Taylor could handle the command, and wanted to be there to protect the crew. Jennifer Hale was there out of loyalty to the Survey Service... and to Taylor.

Suki Tanaka, the navigator, came because of her disappointing career in the Survey Service thus far. She had entered the academy in the hopes of exploring the stars, and so was elated when her first assignment was to the Bonadventure, a deep space scoutship with a crew of three, assigned to explore the Magellan Sector. She thought nothing would make her happier.

In reality, the assignment was deathly dull. All they ended up doing was cataloging star after star for ten months. And then there was Captain Waters. Actually, technically speaking, Waters was only a lieutenant, as a three man scoutship didn't rate more than a one-ringer as Captain. The first week he had cornered her in a maintenance pod, and gave her a hug that startled her.

"Captain Waters, what are you doing?" Suki asked.

"Giving you a kiss," he said, and then he did just that. Suki's eyes widened as the Captain pressed his lips against hers. She felt his need, and his very masculine body pressed against her breasts, and her body responded. Suki was not very sexually experienced, except for that one time at that late night party in the Academy-

She felt Water's burgeoning erection pressing against her belly through his clothes. This was a dangerous game to play. "But Captain-"

"Who will it be," said Waters. "Me, or Sean?" Ensign Sean Flaherty was the other member of their crew.

"What?"

"Don't you know anything?" said Waters. "We always pair up on these long scoutship missions. You can be with me, or with Sean." He kissed her again. "Wouldn't you rather be a Captain's girl?" he murmured.

Suki felt his breath on her lips. His hands were on her breasts, rubbing her nipples, nipping them, caressing them through her Survey Service casual daydress. Meanwhile Waters' penis now felt as hard as a rock between them.

"What will it be, Suki? Wouldn't you rather be a Captain's girl?"

Suki felt a wave of attraction. Mark Waters was handsome, and dashing, and squeezing her breasts, and-"Yes," she whispered, overcome by her brash young captain.

Waters took her to his small compartment and made it official.

But it didn't end there. In a three module scoutship the size of the Bonadventure, it was impossible to keep intimacy secret. But Waters didn't even try. He started kissing her in the control module. At first, whenever Ensign Flaherty would come in, Suki would whisper "no" and pull from his grasp.

But Waters became more and more insistent, and soon Suki was kissing him with abandon even while Flaherty watched. Somehow, things progressed from there, and soon Waters was making love to Suki with the cabin door open, while Suki was vaguely aware of Ensign Flaherty standing by the door and watching.

It was purely a power trip on the part of Lieutenant Waters, to show Flaherty that he thoroughly dominated Suki, that she was essentially his sex slave. For Mark Waters, it made the sex all the more exciting. For Suki, it made it all the more degrading--until, to her horror, she found herself getting used to it, until one day she found herself thinking nothing of it as she passed Ensign Flaherty in the corridor while she was totally nude, with sperm dripping from between her legs.

By the end of the trip, Suki felt thoroughly degraded and used, like a whore. She never filed a complaint with Survey Service command, unsure of how much she had willingly participated in all of it, but she requested an immediate transfer. When the Devonshire's navigator resigned his commission and Suki was assigned to replace him, she didn't fight it; on the contrary, she relished the opportunity, despite the obvious risks. This was the reason she had joined the Survey Service in the first place, not to be some man's plaything.

Unlike the rest of the crew who were there involuntarily, she actually had some sympathy for Captain Taylor. She knew of his past history, but in her mind that made him a creative, brave leader, not the reckless playboy that many in the Survey Service looked down on him as. She didn't think he was anything like Captain Waters, and despite his known history with women, didn't think he would ever take advantage of her. She tried to smile at him whenever she could, and was pleased whenever he gave her a shy smile in return.

Doctor Elizabeth Shaw also had her own reasons for coming on the mission. It wouldn't be much of an exaggeration to say that her reason were directly related to the size of her breasts.

Elizabeth's breasts were not exactly small. Certainly by the standards of white women, they weren't; they were modest B cup breasts. But compared to her older sister Darlene, they were tiny. Darlene had huge, D cup breasts in the shape of eggplants. All the boys in high school loved them. Elizabeth, barely a year behind, usually didn't get a second glance. Her mother, who had more than once caught her daughter cupping her breasts in the mirror, had hugged her and assured her that she was simply a late bloomer.

She wasn't. Elizabeth grew modest B cups, and that was all. On an Asian body frame they would have looked big; on a black woman they would have looked small; and on a white female such as herself, they looked small-to-average sized. Certainly nothing to be ashamed of.

And so she watched as Darlene got all the attention in high school and even college. Her father tried to console her, hugging her and saying, "Girls with big titties have children. But girls with small titties have brains."

"Roger! How dare you say such a sexist thing!" her mother declared, smacking him on the back of the head.

"But it's true," said her father, smiling, and pointing at her mother's breasts... which were large and heavy.

That remark stuck in Elizabeth's mind and shaped her career. She ignored the siren call of the boys, and later the men, and focused like a laser beam on her career, getting first a master's and then a Ph.D. in exobiology. And then she joined the Survey Service. She was surrounded by men, but she ignored their advances. Perhaps she would have been more open to them if it hadn't been for Henry.

Henry was a fellow student in her Ph.D. program. He had kind eyes. He took her out to dinner, and romanced her. Unlike other men, who were looking for quick sex on the first date, Henry moved slowly. It was three dates before he kissed her. Five dates before he touched her titties. When the time came for dinner at his apartment, on the seventh date, Elizabeth felt she was ready.

Elizabeth eagerly spread her legs for him. She didn't find the first time enjoyable; in fact, she was embarrassed when Henry pierced her hymen, getting blood on his member, driving home the fact that he was having sex with a 28 year old virgin. But he completed the act, saying nothing, and kissing her tenderly.

And that was the last time Henry ever spoke to her again. He avoided her entirely for the rest of the semester, and even transferred to another program. Elizabeth had no idea what had gone wrong, except that there must have been something deficient about her.

And that was the only man she ever been with. In her 30's, she kept her brown hair up in a bun, and never smiled at men. They all thought she was a lesbian, and never asked her out. None of them... except Vincent. But after Vincent asked her out, and she agreed, hesitantly, to go on a date with him, he canceled. With no explanation.

And so Elizabeth buckled down and focused on the science. But great discoveries seem to elude her. They always seemed to be made by other scientists. Usually, men.

She had applied to be on the science ship Aurora, which was lost in the Black Box, and turned down. The Judicator hadn't carried a science team, but the Exeter did, and she had also applied for that, and was turned down; and then, finally, when the Devonshire's turn came, she was accepted, but only after no one else really wanted the position.

Elizabeth had reached a point where she had nothing else to live for, except science, and so she treaded where others feared to follow, and she took the post as lead scientist for the team. But she had to work under the command of that notorious playboy, Michael Taylor, whose blotted record somehow earned him this assignment. Elizabeth didn't think he was the right man for the job, and yet, when she looked at him... there was something about his wavy brown hair, about his green eyes, and his rough smile... it could almost be endearing. Almost.

Vincent Roman, the staff exoanthropologist, also had his own reasons for being on the Devonshire; he just wasn't sure what they were. All scientists from the Scientific Branch were volunteers, unlike the regular crew. When Vincent heard the opportunity came up to be on the mission, the first thing he saw was Elizabeth's name, on the top of the roster.

If Elizabeth Shaw was almost a virgin, then Vincent Roman was an actual one, at the age of 32. Vincent was socially awkward around women. He found himself staring at their breasts. Staring at their breasts made him feel socially awkward. It was a circular problem.

He had worked with Doctor Elizabeth Shaw for six months in the Geneva research labs of the Survey Service before he worked up the courage to ask her out on a date. She hadn't smiled at him, not exactly, but he got the sense that she enjoyed his company, and they sometimes had lunch together. When he asked her out, Elizabeth looked shocked, but then said, after a pause, "All right. Sure. Why not?"

That drove Vincent into a panic. He had never considered it going this far. Usually women turned him down with an excuse that they were busy, or needed to wash their hair for days on end.

Vincent spent a day and a night worrying about it. He knew he wasn't up to it. The thought of being alone with Elizabeth made him so nervous that it gave him panic attacks. So a day later, he cancelled, saying he was busy and would have to reschedule. He didn't think Elizabeth would believe it if he said he had to wash his hair, since his hair was short and obviously quickly washable.

Elizabeth nodded and accepted it, and things returned to the way they were, except they no longer had lunch together, which Vincent missed. He still found himself staring at her breasts at awkward times and looking away when he got noticed.

When he saw that Elizabeth was leading the science team for this mission, Vincent signed up without thinking. He wasn't sure if it was because of the mission, or Elizabeth, or... yes, it was probably because of Elizabeth.

Elizabeth didn't seem happy to have him on her team, but didn't seem unhappy either; she treated him neutrally, coolly, like a writing stylus or an implement. And that was where things stood between them when Vincent boarded the Devonshire.

When Taylor awoke the next morning, he checked in with the bridge. There was no change. They were still in the time tunnel, if indeed it was a time tunnel. Admiral Von Windhoek's theory that they were traveling in time was just that, a theory. In reality they could be traveling through space, rather than time, or perhaps...

Or perhaps they not traveling at all. The black tunnel they were in gave the illusion of motion, but what if they weren't traveling at all? What if they were simply caught in a spatial phenomenon that went nowhere?

But then Taylor remembered the Exeter. It had come back from somewhere, and there were only the bodies of eight crewmembers on it. The rest of the crew had disembarked, or been taken off the ship. They must have gotten off somewhere.

He went to the cafeteria and got some breakfast. As he looked for a place to sit, he saw Victor smiling and waving him over. "Over here, Michael," said Victor.

Michael. No one on this ship was permitted to call him that; except perhaps Jennifer, when they were in private together. And yet here was Victor Bergman, yelling "Michael" at the top of his lungs.

But he was such a friendly man. If any other man had said his first name, it would have come out mockingly, as an attempt to embarrass him; but Taylor instinctively felt that Victor was just being outgoing, and somehow it didn't bother him in the least.

He came over to Victor's table and almost stopped in his tracks.

Victor was sitting next to Elizabeth Shaw and some of the other scientists.

"Come, sit down, join us," said Victor, making space for him.

Taylor, feeling self conscious, sat down. "Thank you. Good morning, Doctor Shaw."

"Lieutenant Commander," she said stiffly. Once again, she refused to call him Captain. She emphasized his rank, which was technically junior to hers.

Taylor felt his phony smile wilt.

"We were just talking about the situation, Michael," said Victor. "Has there been any change?"

"I just checked with the bridge when I got up. We're still in this time tunnel, if it really is a time tunnel."

"I was just debating that with Elizabeth," said Victor. "Do you know, I think the Survey Service may have gotten it wrong about this being a time corridor."

"The Survey Service doesn't make mistakes," said Taylor.

"The Survey Service makes mistakes all the time," said Elizabeth, staring at him pointedly.

Taylor frowned.

Victor pretended not to notice. "I had a look at that image of the sun, pulled from the scrambled logs of the Exeter. The one purporting to show a sun 200,000 years in our future."

"What about it?" said Taylor, starting to eat his eggs.

"It was heavily enhanced. I saw the original image. It was badly scrambled. There's no way to be sure that that image reliably showed a sun from the future. It was too badly garbled."

"But it was an image of our sun," said Taylor, chewing on a piece of toast.

"Apparently," said Victor. "The amazing thing about space is how little we truly know about it. We've explored less than two percent of our galaxy, and our galaxy is one of... what, millions? Billions?"

"The universe is infinite, some people think," said Elizabeth.

"Exactly," said Victor. "We can't be sure where or when we're going."

"And what about the melted bodies from the Exeter?" said Taylor. "Do you think it could be a delayed reaction to travel inside this phenomenon?"

"Well, we haven't started melting yet, have we?" Victor grinned. "No, I think the crew went somewhere, and encountered something that changed them. A spatial phenomenon distinct and separate from the Black Box, perhaps."

"Or perhaps aliens, who experimented on them," said Bill Carey. He and Jennifer Hale sat down in empty spaces vacated by departing scientists who had finished eating.

"That's why we've got plasma cannons and megajoulers," said Taylor.

"The other ships had them as well, and it didn't seem to do them a whole lot of good," said Carey. "Captain, I would recommend battle drills for each of the three watches."

Captain.

"Agreed. See to it." It seemed sensible enough.

"Let's hope if we do meet aliens, that they are in the mood to talk first," said Victor.

"And let's hope we're in the right frame of mind to talk to them," said Carey.

"What does that mean?" Taylor asked sharply.

"Well, Captain...." His voice trailed off.

"Out with it, Mister," said Taylor.

Carey lowered his fork. "Sir, I don't know how to say this, so I'm just going to say it. Your experience on PR-52981 has some of the crew... concerned."

"Some of the crew?" said Jennifer Hale sharply. "Or you?"

"Sir, you landed in an alien culture, and by the time you had left, the entire planet was at war with itself, and you murdered thousands of-"

Jennifer dropped her fork with a clatter. "That's out of line, Mister! Captain Taylor saved thousands of lives, and if you don't realize that-"

"Jennifer!" said Taylor sharply. "Thank you, but I can defend myself." He turned to Carey. "Mr. Carey, you carry the permanent rank of Lieutenant Commander."

"Yes sir," said Carey.

"And your former Captain, Emil Gorsky, carried the rank of full Commander, did he not?"

"Yes sir," said Carey.

"And yet, neither you nor he is in command here. I am," said Taylor. "Why do you think that is?"

Carey gulped. "The... The Survey Service thought-"

"Yes, the Survey Service thought. And they probably think a lot better than you do. We sent three ships into the Black Box, three ships led by Captains with stellar records. Conventional thinkers all. None of them returned. The Survey Service decided something different was required. Whatever you may think of my service record, I'm a survivor. Whether you like me or deride me, the time may come when you're grateful for it."

Carey bit his lip. He lowered his tone. "Sir, I never meant to demean you-"

"I know what you meant," Taylor said sharply. "But I think there are a few things we can agree on. One of them is that we are going to have to work together, cohesively, as a team, if we are going to have any chance of carrying out our mission. Are we agreed, Lieutenant?"

"Yes sir," said Carey.

"Doctor Shaw?"

"Of course, Captain," she said. And she meant it.

Something remarkable had just happened in Elizabeth's eyes. Bill Carey had shrunk and Taylor had grown taller. Not just taller, but braver, bolder. Even more manly. It excited her, in a way she wanted to deny. She turned her head away, worried that she might betray an expression.

Jennifer Hale raised an approving thumb. "Best breakfast ever!" she said, half-mockingly.​