The Girl in the Tank: Galactic Consortium, Season 1

Episode Six: Are there Closets in Space? Ch.12

Kleppie saw Kavi coming down the hall arm in arm with the pilot, Tellki, talking. The excited feeling that had been fluttering in his stomach since Kavi asked to spend the afternoon with him, sank. He fought back against the bile forming in his stomach.

Tellki was everything Kleppie was not. He was suave, sophisticated, educated, successful. Of course Kavi would like him, not Kleppie. Kleppie swallowed hard, fighting down the jealousy.

When she said she had a special treat for him, what had he thought? That she would say she liked him too? How could he have been so foolish?

When the two reached him, Kavi switched casually to Kleppie's arm. His heart fluttered at the touch. He urged it to be still. It would only hurt more if he let himself believe this touch.

She dragged him down the hall, oblivious to the war going on inside him. "I have been trying to think of some way to say thank you for talking to me, helping me to feel better. I didn't know what to do, though."

They came to one of the regular lifts and slid inside. "Then the other day you said something. I guessed your secret, then," she gave him a mischievous smile.

"Third floor," Tellki told the lift.

"Restricted access, uncertified passenger," the lift said.

"Tellki, pilot, override, civilian tour, code..." Tellki rattled off a series of codes.

Kleppies eyes went wide, everything forgotten in his excitement. He looked at Kavi, his jaw wide. She was grinning from ear to ear. "You have space fever," she whispered. "And somebody owes me favors," she nodded at Tellki.

"Any intelligent person would have space fever," Tellki replied. "Who in their right mind would sit at the bottom of a gravity well when the universe beckons." He stepped outside of the lift and gestured. "Level three," he said. "First stop, flight command deck."

The command deck was a large round room. Rohanna, the chief pilot, sat on a low bench in the center. Her goggles were on and she stared intently at nothing, or nothing they could see. Wires sprouted from her fingers and her hands moved, performing actions in the empty air in front of her. Two more pilots stood, circulating the round room and checking various instruments and displays.

Su'nin, the data officer entered. She held a slate up in Rohanna's periphery vision. It came to life, lines of incomprehensible symbols flowing past. Rohanna made a slight motion to indicate that she had seen the script. Su'nin nodded and retrieved the slate.

"Is there a problem?" Tellki asked quietly as Su'nin made to pass.

She shook her head. "A meteor dinged the supply pod, no more. It's off course. Not much but enough that it will not hit the airlock. Rohanna is correcting our course by a few feet to compensate."

Tellki spoke in a low voice as they watched the others work. "People think we pilots have it easy, aim for the next planet and you're done. But we are constantly busy. In space not only are you in motion, so is everything around you. Space itself presents more than a trifling hazard. Just meters beyond where we stand is instant death. If the hull were breached or any of a dozen systems failed, we would all die instantly. We work in shifts, three on duty at any time, and we work the whole shift as well. Making minor adjustments, monitoring near by objects, tracking the ships systems."

When they were done touring the command center, Tellki took them to one of the airlocks. There he turned the pair over to Luu, second in command to the space walkers, the technicians that did space walks to repair the outside of the ship.