Moving Forward

Dustin coughed again, trying to ignore the implications of Rye’s glance and pulled up Meli’s old crew-holo of the ship. Two of the question marks were now replaced with tiny spinning pictures of Rye and Emely, and he smiled to himself for a moment as the four pictures - Meli had clearly added his and her likenesses to the diagram after their first discussions - sparkled gently as they turned. “Right then. Well, while we’ve a day to go, I’d like to figure out our next steps. Sola, any chance the sensors gave you any indication of where that weave-jump our attacker sent was connected to?” He asked.

“Negative, captain. The jump displacement was not sustained nor large enough for me to get a clear link to potential target systems.” Came the disappointing but expected answer. With no further leads there, Dustin turned his attention back to his crew. “Very well then. So we could be flying blindly into hostiles on our next jump or two - but there’s not much we can do about that other than deal with it when or if it comes. So, with that out of the way our first order of business - where next? The way I see it, we’d narrowed our next crew mate down to either a cook or a security officer, but in light of recent events Meli has made a good case for a doctor. Once we’ve finalized where we’re going, we can then plan out a journey as well as make arrangements to pick up a few more jobs here and there to boost my species’ reputation - back to business as usual.” His fiancé was grinning at him by the end of his speech, clearly happy that he was viewing things about their journey as “normal” by now.

Emely shifted in her seat a little and said something half-under her breath. The lack of the usual level of bubbliness from the redhead caused all three of the others to turn to her. “What was that, comms officer?” Dustin said, hoping that being official would at least get her to present her opinion clearly. The Feliax squirmed a little before setting her hands on the table in front of her. “I think we should prioritize a doctor above everything else. We’ve got the automat for meals, and could all try our hand at cooking - I’m not very good, but I’d like to practice for you three…” and here she blushed before continuing, her normal bounce coming back “…but what if Meli gets injured? I’m sure we all know a little first aid, but having just one medic aboard is dangerous. From what Rye’s been telling me, Sola’s fire control systems can probably handle any kind of ship combat short of a pirate fleet, and Dustin’s not going to make the mistake of going unarmed into hostile environments away from the ship again, right?”

The others nodded for her to continue; she was making some good points as she worked through the reasons why a security officer was secondary to a medic. “Cook we can rule right out, it’s not vital to the mission even if it would be nice to have fresh-cooked food rather than automat reheats. Security we can work around not having, Doctor we need as soon as possible so that Meli can move to being our backup medic in the event the doctor gets injured. All other roles are secondary. At least, that’s what I think.” The silence after she finished talking was broken by Dustin. “I agree with our comms officer, but I want the opinion of all the senior staff on this one. Any other views?”

Rye shook her head, and Meli just smiled before tapping her tablet. The holo on the table shifted to a scrolling list of species, some of which Dustin had been reviewing earlier. “I agree entirely with Emely. If it had been me and you down there instead of Rye and you, or if we’d both been injured the risk of a more serious outcome than a couple of days in medbay would have been significant. Do you wish to solely discuss sponsor species for our new chief medical officer, or shall I widen the search?” Dustin shrugged. “Widen the search. I reviewed the other three sponsor species already and none of them are ideal for either doctor or security officer roles. Some potential for cooks though, so we’ll keep their locations in mind while looking at other options.”

Meli nodded, her hands flickering over her tablet. “These are the species within a one-month travel time from a sponsor species” she said as the list expanded significantly. “I’ll cross-filter for medical professional skill, potential interest in joining a mission of this type and then run some…” and here she paused to glance briefly at the other two women “…general compatibility filters I’ve assembled and see what we get.” Dustin filed that under deeply suspicious, but guessed it was probably some kind of ‘make sure the new person plays nice with the harem’ plan on Meli’s part. For his part, he was a little uncomfortable about the possibility of adding in anyone new so soon, but that was a problem for later Dustin and co to work out. Right now they needed a medic as soon as possible for safety reasons, social and romantic comfort be damned.

The list contracted again, and the Velca woman gave a flicking motion with her hand. The screens built into the desk in front of each of them flickered on, letting all four of them view what she’d found. “Review and hit highlight everyone” the science officer said, adding “the holo will show the ones we pick, the one with the most interest ends up on top, then we can discuss our choices once we’ve narrowed it down a bit.” Dustin and the others nodded, and for a while the room was filled with the soft sounds of a group of people reading intently along with the occasionally tap of a finger on a touchscreen.

Eventually, the four of them sat back and looked at the holo. Twenty small images span in the light, outlines of the forms of the relevant species. “Twenty total, but just four that got votes from more than two of us. Do you want to start with those captain, or shall we review all of them?” Meli asked, one finger hovering over the controls. Dustin thought for a moment, before answering her. “Let me grab some drinks then we’ll review those four to start. If there’s a suitable candidate and no reason for the rest of us to turn that species down, we’ll just go for the one most of us think is best. If there’s no good options there we’ll re-widen the search.” He said, stretching and standing as he did so.

Drinks dispensed a moment later, Meli gestured to Emely. “This is your area of expertise, comms officer. Would you lead the discussion please?” The Feliax took a deep gulp of her juice before setting the glass down and glancing at the holo. “Okay. Let’s review - we have four options. The Vent, the Queri, the Pel and the Maytrr. None of the four are currently signature species for our mission, nor are any of them council species. Additionally, the Queri are class nines while the others are borderline between class eight and seven. In terms of medical capabilities, all four species produce highly skilled doctors.” She took a breath, before flicking open one of the four profiles, the details scrolling on the screens in front of the group.

“The Vent, first of all - they specialized in medicine due to a higher-than-average number of diseases on their home world due to the bulk of the planet being what humans would consider tropical. Asides from their tails and eyes they are remarkably similar to humans physically speaking, and interestingly enough share some of the humans concerns around larger relationship groups. They are quite a timid race in many regards.” She smiled at that, and Dustin got the distinct impression that the fox-girl admired the first of the species she was reviewing. “Secondly, we have the Queri. They only became eligible as a class-nine species around the time Sola was having her final fitting, but their ambassadorial mission was a topic of discussion at the academy so I know a little more about them. They almost exclusively traded medical work during their mission, an oddity as it delayed their acceptance by nearly four years.”

She paused, musing for a moment before adding “biologically, they’re a complicated case as their species is a inorganic-organic symbiosis.” Meli chipped in at that, seeing Dustin’s puzzled expression. “Think about human depictions of slime people and you’d be in the vague ballpark. Although in their defence, they mostly change shape depending on who they’re dealing with to make it easier for other species to interact with them.” Dustin glanced at Rye as Meli mentioned slime people, his memory of the Rabyth’s aversion to the Thossa springing to mind. To his surprise the bunny girl looked up from where she’d been reading the details of the Queri and grinned at him. “Doesn’t look like they leave slime anywhere Dusty, I’ve no issues.”

Emely coughed at that, before bringing up the next option. “The Pel, meanwhile are a synthetic life form; their designers created them just before a disease wiped them out and while they’ve developed far beyond that now they have an underlying passion for medicine. With that said, they are probably the hardest of all the species listed to get to join us - we’d need a really convincing argument to get them to deploy a unit to the ship and we don’t have much they’d want or need in trade.” Dustin interrupted at that point. “Any reason they are superior to the others to the point we’d want to put the extra work in?” Meli and Emely exchanged a glance and then both shook their heads. “In that case, lets discount them. And the Maytrr?”

The fox-girl tapped her console again and shrugged. “An interesting bunch, low level psychics according to their file. They like a very hands-on approach to medicine, using their psionic capabilities to ‘take on’ some of a patient’s injuries to reduce the healing time. As far as appearances go - nobody’s entirely sure; all reports say they look like different species and their skin tone appears to take on the favourite colour and shade of the person looking at them, with a slight bias towards green and purple. More of the psychic stuff it’s been speculated.” Dustin glanced at the others. “Psychic…?” he left the question hanging, and to his surprise it was Rye rather than the others who answered. “Any higher order dimensional interactions caused by non-engineered means. Weave-jumps are just one fun interaction of dimensions above the third interacting with the universe, some species can generate localised weirdness. It’s usually used for hive-mind communication, but sometimes it’s just plain odd abilities.”

With that, the three women looked at Dustin who winced. “This is where you all want me to make a decision as captain, right?” He groaned, before looking at the list again. “Not the Pel or the Maytrr. We’ve enough going on and I want a medical officer as soon as possible - and adding space magic or an awkward hiring process to our to-do-list is not something I want to think about. So, the Queri or the Vent. Both are equally capable?” His comms and science officers nodded. “Any issues with environmental systems with either aboard?” He glanced at Rye who shook her head. “Both are fine in our atmo, and the ship’s gravity is well within their tolerance range. Will need to do some humidity adjustments for either of them, both come from pretty swampy-aired planets, but nothing beyond minor tweaking to their quarters I could do in my sleep.”

Dustin frowned. “So the choice is quiet, probably uncomfortable around our pride’s intimacy Vent or our first - at least partially - inorganic crew member.” Meli smiled at him, and Rye rolled her eyes. “The nerd’s shared some pre-contact human media with me, Dusty. And we all know you want everyone to be happy - so hurry up and just say we’re getting a slime girl so we can start making plans to get there and I can get started on reconfiguring one of the crew cabins.” The Rabyth said, causing Dustin to blush before he gave up. “Fine. We’ll go see the Queri. So, now we’re done with that - second order of business, what we need to do next. Rye and Emely are finishing off things in the system for the next day - Meli, that should give you enough time to plot a beneficial route with Sola. Then, once you’ve done that we need a proper rota. Both for the bridge and…” he paused for a moment, judging their expressions before adding “…for date nights. I want to spend some time individually with each of you as well as all of us together, especially if we’re likely to be adding someone else to our family sooner than planned. I’ll work on planning the two rotas out tomorrow myself, but if anyone has any suggestions let me know. Any other issues? No? In that case, let’s get a good night’s sleep and then get to work.” At that, Meli and Emely stood and headed off in the direction of their own cabins but Rye hung back. Once the door had closed on the other two she turned to Dustin and gave him a smouldering look. “Before you start grumbling, Dusty, I factored time for this into my one-day estimate.” She said, undoing the clasps of her dungarees and stepping out of them - revealing that she was wearing nothing else on her lower half. “I promised you a proper Rabyth thank you for saving me, and I intend to keep that promise.”