Spark the Runner Ch. 02

When they got to their cabin and Spark started to suit up and review the Comm checklist, Tonya excused herself and went to find Chief Schmidt. She hadn't returned by the time Spark had to head for his station. It only took half the normal time to finish his checklist, since a large part of it could be done jacked in. The reason it took even that long was because he kept going back over what he was finding. This was one seriously wounded bird, and they'd be lucky to make it to Mars in one piece.

It wasn't the worst job of cobbling he'd ever seen, but it was pretty close. The only advantage he could see was, the Blood Alliance would never look for Tonya on a bucket of bolts like this, because they would never consider her that suicidal. Spark took a look at the mission clock and decided he had time for a quick huddle with the other two Comm Ops crew. He found their P-com addresses and asked them to meet him in Communications, which they did a scant few minutes later.

The human male was a tall, gaunt man, looking more like a skeleton with skin stretched over it to Spark's eyes. But he had a pleasant, deep voice and an easy manner. His name was George Knill and he'd been working space vessels for more than fifteen years. Spark figured he wouldn't have any trouble with him. He said he preferred the graveyard shift, if Spark didn't mind and after checking with his other Comm officer, he let Knill take it.

That other officer was a silver-furred Canilupe bitch named Okami. She stood about 1.6 meters tall when full upright and by Spark's guess was probably 45 kilos, although she might be heavier because of her muscle mass. She had the six tits of a mature bitch and a very melodious voice. The Canilupes on Earth were part alien and part accident. A meteor, part of a long dead planet, crashed into the Great Southwestern Desert in North America carrying, among other things, intact alien DNA. The rock hounds who discovered it had the government swoop in, confiscate it all, classify it and remunerate the original discoverers very poorly. Typical. Then the dark labs set to work trying to figure the stuff out.

After several disasters, including one incinerated lab to contain a breach, somebody accidentally found out the stuff worked well with canine DNA. A few of the experiments developed into humanoids with vast intelligence, great adaptability, vocalization and so forth. They also developed into incredible escape artists. After that, they reproduced in the wild, evolving into two distinct strains... the Lupines, with wolf-like characteristics, and the Canines, with dog-like characteristics. Canilupe came from a contraction of Canis Lupis and referred to all of them.

For awhile, they were hunted as abominations, but as they made friends with humans and integrated themselves into human society, the government finally gave up and recognized them as a sentient life form with all the natural rights ascribed to humans, dolphins and whales. They had close to a hundred years of history with the humans, now, and in some ways were superior. Their slight builds, lightning reflexes and massive intelligence made them very desirable Spacers, so Spark wasn't all that surprised there was one on this crew, although to his mind, she could have done a lot better.

Spark made sure the other two knew the drill and didn't need babysitting, then offered to buy them a drink next chance they got, since they needed to get to their general quarters stations for lift-off. Okami was the one with the question.

"Chief, if you just got married, what the hell are you doing on a run to Mars? Would you not want to be boffing your bride's brains out?" Spark had to smile and chuckle a little.

"First off, Okami, don't let Chief Schmidt hear you call me 'Chief'... he would be mightily offended. I know it's customary, but he's a for-real Navy vet that earned it. Just call me Comm, or McLeod, or Jamie if we get really friendly. Second, Lizzie loves the idea of visiting exotic places, meeting exotic creatures, and just generally loves the idea of being in space. She's heard that 'boffing' in micro-gravity can be awesome and I'm sure she's got it in her sights. We'll get some time in on this trip, and we're staying on Mars for awhile, so I figure it falls in the 'keep the women happy' rule of marriage."

"And they said human males were stupid..." Okami smiled. "Not you, obviously."

"Okay, guys, head for your stations," Spark told them. "We've got ten minutes to lift-off. I've got to try and find my wife." Knill and Okami headed out and Spark got on his P-com, looking for Tonya. When she answered, he asked if she was secure in their quarters for lift-off.

"No," she told him. "I am with Chief Schmidt. I am about to head to Sick Bay. Even though I am a passenger, he has decided that I know my way around a galley and can work with him, but he has also decided my GQ station should be with Dr. Meade. And I have got to scoot. Ring me back when it is okay."

"As you wish," Spark smiled, thinking of the inside joke. Even now, Princess Bride was still a classic.

"I love you, too, husband," Tonya told him. "Bye." And she rang off.

Spark turned his attention back to the ship. Why is it, from the earliest days, he thought, that take-off and landing are the most dangerous part of the flight? Jacking into the ship, to be able to render immediate assistance if needed, he settled into his station and waited. He didn't have to wait long.

The heavy thrum of the maneuvering thrusters coming online vibrated throughout the ship. A few moments later, the PA squawked.

"Attention! Attention! Lift off is imminent. Lift off is imminent. Ship condition -- General Quarters. All duty stations report." All the section heads and gang chiefs cycled through their affirmations that they were ready. Then the final status check.

"Engineering -- Green." "Life Support -- Green." "Navigation -- Online." "Communications -- Online." "Deck Ops -- Green." "Medical -- Green."

And finally, "Bridge -- Online, taking Command. Stand by for lift-off." The thrumming increased as did the vibration of the hull until the ship lurched upwards, free of its docking clamps.

"Lift off," the PA announced. Spark knew they had to get at least two diameters out, or about 7,000km, before they could cut in the Queron Plasma drives. In the meantime, they were a mass of shuddering, shaking, steadily decreasing gravity. The ship's artificial gravity was dependent on the plasma drives.

This is going to be one hell of an experience for Tonya, he thought as he monitored the ship's datastream. I bet I hear all about it tonight.

* * * * *

The ship didn't use the old Bells system of marking time, but it did use an annoying chime at the end of the shift. When Okami showed up to relieve him, Spark pulled out his P-com as he unbuckled and called Tonya.

"So... where are you?" he asked when she answered.

"Still in the galley." He could hear the smile. "Learning a lot. And putting some dinner together for us. Meet me? Or do I schlep it to our quarters?"

"Where'd you learn the word schlep?" he asked. It just seemed so incongruous, given her background.

"I have learned a lot of things. Here? Or there?"

"I'll come there," Spark decided. "See you in a few." The Captain was saving on some of the power by running the Grav at about three-quarters Earth normal. Spark had to remember how to navigate around a spacecraft again. These interplanetary freighters were actually worse than the interstellar spaceships. The big boys tended to run a full Earth environment where possible. Not the military, though. They tended to go light and save their energy for their weapons and sensors. So did the Marus -- the merchant ships like this one. Live and learn...

By the time Spark got to the mess, he could see Tonya at a small table, talking to a hulk that had to be Chief Schmidt, even though his back was turned. Spark made his way over and Tonya lit up when she saw him, which made the Chief turn around.

"So she's yours?" he asked in his gruff voice. "Damn good catch, Comm." Spark noted that the Chief called him by his station abbreviation, a habit of the military. "She knows her way around a galley, and what she don't know, she learns fast."

"Thanks, Chief," Spark smiled as he moved to slide into the seat opposite Tonya. "I definitely agree. I have no idea why the Universe was kind enough to put her in my way, or why I was lucky enough to win her, but she is definitely one in a billion." Actually, she's unique, he thought, but I'm not telling him that.

"She tells me this is your honeymoon... a junket to Mars," the Chief nodded. "You're a weird pair o' birds, you are. If you hang on a bit, though, I've got somethin' for you."

"We're not going anywhere, Chief," Spark told him. "Not til we're done eating whatever she put together." He looked at the plastic boxes Tonya had on the table that were the universal slop buckets aboard ship. He didn't have a clue what she might have put together. The Chief nodded again and headed off.

"So, dearest love," Spark turned to Tonya, "what treasure hast thou prepared?"

"Husband, listen," she told him in a low voice, "so no one can overhear." Then she shifted to their link. I do not know that I know what love is, but I think you are making me fall into it. I have a number of emotional responses occurring that do not have referential data. I am having to synthesize as I go and I think I need your help understanding what is happening to me. When we have private time.

The Helena syndrome, Spark replied in the link. Sure. When we're in quarters and I've swept it for any monitoring systems. Tonya smiled and pushed one of the boxes towards him, along with a spork pack. Spark finished drawing it to him and looked inside. He let the surprise register on his face.

"Okay, this is a lot fancier than I'm used to aboard ship," he told her. "What is it?"

"It is actually three foods in one," she explained with a grin. "Even Chief Schmidt said it was creative."

"Okay," Spark agreed, "but what is it?" Tonya laughed.

"The yellowish blob on the side is a variant on a quiche," she told him. "It appears spaceships do not carry a lot of fresh perishables. Think of it as an open-faced bacon, egg, cream and cheese flan on a light pastry. Three quarters of it is synthetic, unfortunately, but I think it will fool your taste buds. The green glob is a green bean, mushroom and grilled onion casserole sort of thing, which I hope you will like. And the brown stuff is beef in brown sauce. I talked Chief out of some real beef reserved for the officers. I think he likes me."

"I can't imagine anyone not liking you," Spark commented as he broke out the spoon-fork utensil and its accompanying flimsy knife. "Unless you're trying to kill them." Having been in her programming, he had no illusions about her capabilities. He tentatively tasted her concoctions, and shook his head in amazement. "This is awesome, Lizzie. You can't tell any of it is synthesized." Tonya cast him a sideways glance, alerting him to the approach of the Chief, carrying a bottle.

"Silderian Ice Wine," he told them as he reached the table and presented it to them. "I've only got a few bottles for special occasions, but I figure a honeymoon is a special occasion. I hope your marriage lasts a lot longer than mine did."

"Wow, Chief, that's... just wow! You sure you can spare it?" Silderian Ice Wine was a very rare treat and Spark knew it.

"For you two? Sure," he told them. "Drink it in good health. It's supposed to have aphrodisiac type effects. I don't know, personally."

"Chief, this is awesome," Spark told him, taking the bottle. "Let me know if I can do a favor for you, sometime."

"You already did, Comm," he told Spark, nodding in Tonya's direction. Spark smiled.

"I'd say 'she's all yours, Chief,' but she isn't," he told him. "I'll share, though." The Chief just laughed and told them to enjoy themselves, then turned and walked away. Spark went back to eating his dinner while Tonya tucked into hers.

"You know, Lizzie," Spark told her between mouthfuls, "that's something I don't get. How is it a, um..." He switched to their link. How is it you need food? Or even processes it? But you've got all the systems a human would need. What gives with that?

Spark felt some kind of metaphysical shielding drop around him. He took a close look at Tonya, who was just smiling slightly as she watched him back.

I believe my creators intentionally made me more of an enhanced human than a construct, she answered. I can go without food, water, even air, for extended periods of time, but I am at optimal operating efficiency when I eat, drink and breathe as a human. As you have pointed out, they put an obscene amount of money into designing and building me. I think it was important to them that I be able to pass as a human. Perhaps a wirehead, like you.

Spark nodded in agreement as he finished his very delicious meal.

"I may not be able to do this well for the entire flight, Jamie," Tonya told him. "We may be living on the standard mess slop. But as long as the Chief lets me get creative with what is available, I think I can make life better for the entire crew. And speaking of which, he has definitely decided he wants me on first shift. Mess is offset an hour earlier, so I have to be on station at oh-seven-hundred SNT. The advantage is, I get off at fifteen-hundred and can beat you back to our quarters and be adequately prepared for your arrival." Spark's cock was twitching at the thought.

"So after this fantastic dinner," he ventured, "would you like to go back to our quarters and..."

"Discuss matter of great mission import while you fuck my brains out?" she asked. "Yes."

Spark chuckled and slugged down the last of his synthetic coffee.

* * * * *

"Why are you looking puzzled, Jamie?"

They were back in their quarters. Spark had done a thorough search, both physically and via the ship's dataplex, for any monitoring devices. One camera and one microphone in their quarters had "accidentally" suffered catastrophic errors in the process, which was fine by Spark. Engineering was getting used to shit breaking.

"Okami," he told her. To her inquisitive look, he added, "run this one with me..."

Tonya moved over to sit beside him on the bed, taking out a small remote and plugging it in to her primary access port, hidden under her hair. At once, she was joined with Spark, who was using a hardline to get into the ship's systems. The flow of data looked like the familiar multicolored stream rushing by and she had to tell Spark, focus me.

He adjusted his perceptions, and by doing so also directed hers. She found herself looking at a grey lump in the datamesh, a data repository... the functional equivalent of a filing cabinet.

So what is your concern? she asked. This looks like the crew's personnel records.

"They are," he acknowledged. "Some of them. Now, you follow along and tell me if I've missed something, or made an error in logic or linkage." She nodded and rested her head on his shoulder. Earlier, she had found her desire for such intimate contact to be disturbing. Now, she was used to it and just gave in, enjoying the strange sensations it gave her programming to deal with.

"Okami is a Lupine bitch," Spark told Tonya aloud, mostly out of habit, isolating a set of records. "Even the simplest of Canilupes outperform humans in just about every spacecraft operations task. She could have a berth on one of the big luxury liners, or even an IDS boat if she wanted, at a lot better pay and much better living conditions. The Interplanetary Defense Service is always hard up for competent personnel. So why would she be flying on this rust bucket?

"Her background looks flawless," Spark continued, displaying a datastream to Tonya.

Constructed, Tonya commented and gave Spark pause.

"Yeah... that was one of the things that crossed my mind as well," he told her. "Glad you see it, too. So, I went looking for the overlay tags. The real datapaths. And there aren't any."

So it would appear, Tonya agreed. Someone cleaned up after themselves very well.

"So, do I go all paranoid and figure she's a spy? An Al'yans krovi operative, looking for you?"

Perhaps, Tonya agreed. Did you run a tertiary integration, to look for background convergence?

Spark looked at her with a newfound respect. "No, not yet," he admitted. "That's a fairly complex analysis to set up, especially with limited ship's personnel data."

Do not forget the medical files. Allow me, Tonya told him, taking over the presentation processes. There was a sudden shift in the data aspect, then another, then another. Rapidly rearranging patterns emerged, simplifying a little after each shift. Eventually, they looked at each other's in-stream avatar.

"She's on the run," Spark said at the same time that Tonya was saying, she is running.

"Busted, convicted, sentenced and now she's a fugitive from a government bordello," Spark added. "Holy fuck." There were some more pattern changes as Tonya continued to dig.

She was charged with being a subversive. A rebel, she commented to Spark. One of those supporting interspecies marriage and breeding, she added a moment later. And according to her prison medical records, her libido is off the charts.

"Which is really weird," Spark told Tonya, "because as far as work goes, she is the soul of control."

Would you not need to be, Tonya asked, to get off planet Earth, under the radar?

Spark sat back. "Okay, unjacking," he told Tonya and they both broke their connections at the same time. "She's my second shift Comm Ops," he told her. "Now what the fuck do I do?"

"Boff her?" Tonya suggested.

Spark gave her a look like she'd just lost her sanity.

"Or maybe I should?" Tonya continued. "I have never been in a non-human's metasphere."

"Are you trying on 'deranged madwoman' as a personality type?" Spark asked her.

"A little," Tonya smiled. "I did say I wanted to expand my friendships to include nonhumans, did I not?"

"Presuming you heard me when I told you Canilupe sex could be incredibly intense, what do you have in the way of information regarding what Lupines like to eat and drink?" Spark asked.

"I have a fairly extensive library," Tonya answered, "on everything. What do you want to know? And you only said I had to be very, very careful."

"Okay, I'm revising that to incredibly intense. What I'm thinking, though, is we invite her to share a private meal with us, to talk, and provide something particularly special, within whatever you can crib from the galley. We let her know, indirectly, that we know she might need some help, and see if we can. And if you wanted to seduce her, that would be the most private way you could, using these quarters."

"That, husband, sounds like a plan," Tonya smiled. "She has second and you have first, so I should try to set it up for a third shift. You can sleep second, to be rested."

"You really like that husband thing, don't you?" Spark asked, noting her use of the term, or his cover name, in most of their conversations.

"Yes," she answered him seriously, "I do."

"Okay... well, set it up with Okami and let's do it," he told her. "Let's find out what we're dealing with."

* * * * *

Three days later, at Tonya's invitation, Okami came to their quarters and started dinner with a very unusual statement.

"I noticed the surveillance for these quarters is damaged, McLeod," she commented.

"Yeah... shame about that," he smiled. "This appears to be a monitoring deadspace."