Chapter 1 "Not Enough Space"

I began to awake, with that odd feeling of wondering where I was at. The room came into focus and I saw a girl looking down at me. She had the same sort of expression on her face as someone who was just about to open a birthday present. She was wearing a big pretty smile of anticipation mixed with excitement across that pretty face of hers. Her dark hair, dark eyes, pretty-white teeth and tanned skin caused my heart to skip. She was wearing one of those tight, white, sleeveless, blouses with skinny straps and tight blue jeans with just enough space between her thighs to get me really excited. I immediately fell in love with her smile. It was refreshing and at the same time familiar, but I could not remember where I had seen her before. Her top corner teeth stuck out just a little. It gave her that slight imperfection to her otherwise perfect face that reminded me of angel who had a little devil in her. She did a playful swing of her head that caused her shoulder length hair to swing around behind her thin bare shoulder and at the same moment reveal the prettiest check bones. The surroundings were coming into focus slowly, but I knew I had been here before.

It was then I realized I was in The Tank, my favorite port-of-call; in fact it was the only port-of-call outside the Earth’s atmosphere. Although I don’t remember coming here and having a drink lately so I felt confused on exactly why I was here. She was leaning over with both her hands on the arms of my bar stool. Her familiarity was beginning to fade the longer I tried to place her face. I had to say something to her. I needed something witty, to keep her smiling at me. I felt that if I lost her attention that it would be like losing a spring morning. The kind of morning when the temperatures are just right, the sun is shining and the possibilities for the day seem endless. I would miss my opportunity to hold her attention soon. I know! I‘ll tell her she is beautiful. No! That is completely stupid, because she must have heard that a thousand times. The moment was definitely passing and if I didn’t say something soon she would assume I was either mute or inebriated. So I open my mouth to speak the words that I new would come to me as naturally as lifting my ship off, “I wasn’t passed out was I”? Brilliant! How completely stupid was that to say. If I had the ability to raise my palm to smack my forehead, I would have, but thank God I was still a little too sluggish.

First off, I probably was passed out and she was probably just getting ready to write ‘drunk’ on my forehead with lipstick or something else really hilarious. Secondly, if I were waking up to this beauty for some other reason, I just informed her of my propensity to be in The Tank and passed out. Third, if she didn’t know I was passed out and she was sneaking up to wake me with a kiss, I would have just given her good reason to pull back and wait for me to at least freshen up my breath. At that moment, out of the corner of my right eye I noticed a glass on the bar next to me, and made a small wish that it would be in its usual state, ‘empty’. Well I had gave it my best shot, now I needed to brace for impact and hope she wouldn’t use the glass to shower the cheap-brewed-in-the-back beer in my face, because this had to be my last clean shirt. There was a short pause and then she giggled. Man she was pretty. “That’s exactly how I like them”, she said with that beautiful crooked smile.

The bar tender began heating something up in a microwave oven and I couldn’t help but notice he was hanging on every word. Something is real weird here. When she spoke, the words seemed a little off from the movement of her lips, kind of like one of those old foreign movies where the dubbing was off. I don’t know what that was I was drinking tonight, but it still had a hold of me. It was then I had a terrible thought. Maybe she put something in the drink, maybe she really does like them passed out, and now she is preparing to take my pick my pocket. That makes perfect sense, because she is way out of my league. At first I thought that crack about ‘liking them that way’ was some sexual play-talk, but now that I think about it, that is usually ONLY ever said by men. The worst men, men like me. My right hand faded back slowly toward my holster as the lump between my legs receded like a balloon with a pin hole in it. I couldn’t help but wonder if the bar tender was in on it especially when I realized I had never seen him here before either!

Ahhh, I felt it. There is the holster with what had to be my great grandfather’s Colt .45 ACP. I added a big friendly smile to my face, as my thumb lifted the trigger lock, and I quickly decided to shoot the bar tender first. BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! It shocked us all as we turned to the microwave oven. BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! And strangely, nobody moved. We all three just kept staring at it. BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Suddenly, my arms and legs straightened out and my head snapped forward quickly. I was staring at the blinking, beeping proximity alert on the console of my ship. “Damn!” “That was a really good one!” I hate waking up from a good dream; they are exciting and a vacation from the day to day grind. “Bean”, I shouted as I placed the headset to my ear! “Bean, get down here we have picked up a ship,” and glancing down at the display screen, “uh, about 3000 kilos off of our port stern”! “Uh, yeah Captain, I am awake”, Bean said groggily seeming to miss the part about the ship in our proximity. I knew that was a complete lie. “Bean, get up here immediately, I need my navigator!

David Mercer steered the ship starboard about twenty degrees and pulled up about ten degrees from the previous heading and the ship rotated parallel with the oncoming vessel and then eventually further. As the ship disappeared from the radar system, Bean was entering the cockpit. “Could you tell if they saw us?” he asked nervously. “Nope”, Mercer said staring at the radar screen. “Come around another eighty degrees angle of attack twenty degrees”, Bean said excitedly. Mercer made the new changes and then punched the ships boosters. “Prepare to go silent,” Mercer said. As Bean began to make changes on the console, Mercer said, “Attention everyone, make all silent on my mark”. “Three”, he said slowly. “Two”. “Beep! Beep! Beep! The proximity detector had picked them up again, barely in rage or the radar. “Mark”, Mercer said over the intercom. At that instant, all power was cut to the engineers and all electronics went immediately dark. “Well, they definitely saw us”, Mercer said as the dim emergency lights began to glow. The two men stared stoically at the now blank radar screen as if it could tell them if the other ship was pursuing them. “I’ve got the port viewer”, Bean said as he slowly backed away towards the door. Mercer just did not respond, but just starred out the front viewer knowing that it wouldn’t matter, because if they were pursued, it would likely be picked up at the port or stern viewers. Now they just had to wait.
Doc Martin was watching the starboard viewer from his lab. He hated this maneuver. He always felt so helpless. The ship was still moving, and would have dropped off the other vessels radar, but there were still too many bad things that could still happen. The most likely would be that the other ship was able to get their position and heading before they blipped off the radar. With a few calculations the other ship could easily began searching an area of space and looking for a visual sighting or could start bombarding the area with bursts of radio waves and look for a reflection coming back to them. But there were other concerns, like gravity from other objects that could pull them off course or even into an under current that could eventually burn them up in some uncontrolled atmospheric catastrophe. Also, depending on whether or not Bean was able to compute a solution far enough ahead to keep them from colliding into something, there was always the chance they could slam straight into an asteroid and not have the time to change course. He continued to stare through the viewer as droplets of sweat began to form on his brow. Not to mention that at this point life support systems were offline and if the ship’s computers failed to re-boot, they could all slowly suffocate after a few hours. Doc tried to stop thinking about these problems and bowed his head to make a silent prayer.
Mercer knew he would be the last to see if the other ship was perusing, but still was starring straight ahead for other objects that they might be heading towards. “There is just not enough space,” he whispered inside his head. At that moment, Mercer heard someone scurrying up the ladder leading to the cockpit entrance. Beamer stumbles into the cockpit with a sick look on his face, “I have seen them out of the stern viewer and I am pretty sure they saw us”. “Damn!”, Mercer said as he paused to think, “Back to the engine room and take Splitter with you. If they move to overtake our position, send him running. I don’t want to be helpless. Bean is at the port viewer, send him back to me.” “Alright Merc”, Beamer said and now his expression was all business. Beamer turned and headed back towards the engine room. That is what Dave liked about Beamer; he didn’t get rattled under pressure. David “Merc” Mercer didn’t get rattled either. Years or SEAL missions had trained him to forever be stoic under pressure. Unable to fight back they now only had two options available: run or see what these guys wanted. First he would have to get a better look at them and for that he would need to get the ship’s computers back online.
A few minutes later, Bean came striding into the cockpit. This time he was wearing his samurai sword and a buck knife. As he entered he tossed Merc a duffel and said, “Well, this is gonna get fun real quick.” Bean wasn’t fooling anybody, he looked scared. Merc was grabbing his sword, knife, and pistol out of the bag, when a streaming rocket flew across the front view. Splitter stepped in and as Merc looked up, she said sarcastically, “Well I guess you know they have spotted us already!”