Space Relations Pt. 12

"Yes, we are." Cummings nodded back.

"Captain?" Ensign Braxton, who was manning the Systems Station in lieu of the absent Ensign Smith, raised her head in Washington's direction. Since the woman still didn't feel as if she was part of the crew, she was still observing protocol.

"Go ahead, ensign."

"I've hailed all Space Corps starships and satellites in the vicinity to our presence. They've all formally replied, except for one. The Edgeworth Observation Platform is simply not responding."

"How many times have you attempted to communicate with them?"

"I've been sending out a standard greeting every ten minutes for the past hour and half." Braxton replied. "If someone was manning their communications console, all the beeping from my messages must be driving them crazy by now."

"We've got ourselves a mystery to solve." Washington nodded. "Ensign Cummings, change course for the Edgeworth Platform."

"Speed, captain?"

"Oh, I suppose we're not in too much of a hurry." Washington considered. "Medium speed will suffice."

At this, Ensigns Brukenfooken and Smith entered the bridge. Before they took their stations, they were briefed on the situation. Braxton would normally take either Thor's or Willow's station while they were off the bridge. Both ensigns were grateful for it, since it allowed them to roam about more freely than they normally would.

Now that both ensigns had come in together, Braxton retreated next to the captain's chair. A simple lounge chair, with no controls on it whatsoever, was left there waiting for her. The former commander had been given the choice between sitting there and observing the goings-on on the bridge, or heading back into the bowels of the ship and doing something else. More often than not, Braxton could be found sitting patiently at the captain's side.

Like a cork, Cummings popped out of his chair. "Be right back. I've got to hit the head."

The navigator scurried away a second later.

The scene settled down quickly, as it always did. It gave the captain a good injection of mental solace. He briefly glanced aside at Braxton.

Washington was trying to be more lenient with the penitent woman. He'd pretended that she was a brand new member of the fleet, a rookie fresh out of the Academy, at first. That way he couldn't hold her many past faults against her.

Once he'd allowed Braxton to participate in the running of the vessel, however, and after she'd begun wearing a uniform more appropriate for the job, the captain frequently found his resentments for her surfacing. Washington didn't hate her, exactly, for he didn't really hate anybody for very long. He did harbor a strong dislike for Braxton, every time he was reminded of how long she'd been in command, and how long she'd needlessly been dishing out harassment to the people below her rank. If Washington felt that he had an adversary on this side of the universe, it undoubtedly would have been Braxton, and the woman was presently sitting only a couple of feet away from him.

His two science officers had encouraged Washington to sympathize with her. The captain was trying, he really was, but sometimes that wasn't quite so easy. Like now, for instance, he imagined that Braxton was cursing him in her thoughts. On occasion, he wished he had Mary's psychic abilities, or even Barbie's more limited ones. That way he could probe into Braxton's mind and see for himself what she really thought about him.

"Ensign Braxton," Washington spoke up. "I'd like for you to speak freely when you reply to this question: What do you really think of me?"

It was a loaded question and they both knew it.

"You are a very competent captain." Braxton replied. "It seems that I severely underestimated your abilities, as well as the abilities of your crew, when you first arrived on the Starship Neptune. It was a premature judgment. I am sorry such a rash notion ever crossed my mind."

It was a tactful and professional statement, but Washington wasn't any closer to knowing if Braxton thought him a buffoon, or merely adequate at his job. He tried another tactic. "If I asked you to perform a striptease for me at this very moment, what would your response be?"

"Unless you could convince me that such a thing was crucial for the running of this ship, I would refuse to do it." Braxton answered. "It would demean everything I've worked for during my career with Space Corps. Your personal gratification to see me humiliated is located nowhere on my list of priorities."

Washington chuckled. Braxton considered him closer.

"Are you toying with me, captain?" She asked.

"No. Honestly, I'm not. What if we do this? You scoot your chair closer to mine and I'll open up my hand. You will place your hand in mine and we'll hold hands together for the next hour."

"For what purpose?"

"Two reasons." Washington explained. "One, because I keep seeing you as the Braxton I met on the Neptune, and not as the Braxton that you are now. I believe that if we hold hands long enough, I will see you more as a human being and less as a tyrant. The second reason, is that I want to satisfy my personal curiosity, that you no longer see me as being some sort of subhuman animal."

"I never thought of you as an animal." Braxton sounded defensive. "I'll admit that I considered your people as being less intelligent than I was. I've already told you that I've misjudged you, all of you, but I never equated you with an animal. Animals don't walk upright and speak different languages, or wear Space Corps uniforms and get college degrees. Never, never for once did I equate your people with animals."

Washington felt relieved, as he hadn't known the extent of Braxton's prejudice, and he'd been too disgruntled to ask Mary to tell him. "They're not exactly 'my' people."

"It's just a term. I'm not trying to be divisive by it."

"Then show me." He rested his arm on his chair's armrest, and wiggled his fingers for her attention. "For the next hour, hold my hand. Part of me wants to accept you into my crew, while the other part of me wants to kick you out the main hatch. This will go a long way to making me feel at ease about you."

Braxton stood up and grabbed the edges of her chair, but no, she did not proceed to pick it up and throw it at him. She slid her seat closer to the captain, even though it would hinder the command chair's turn radius. Once she sat down, the woman did indeed bring her hand and interlock their fingers together.

"Good." She said. "Your hand feels just like a normal hand."

"What did you expect it to feel like?" The captain asked.

"You have to understand that my family taught me to dislike black people ever since I was a little girl. They taught me to pretty much dislike every group of foreigners they ran across. I grew up that way. It's not so easy for me to let go of all these bad habits."

"I understand." Washington said, and he really was trying to. "Let's keep our hands together for the next hour. Unless it's an absolute emergency, we won't let go. Deal?"

"Yes, captain. It's a deal."

Not five minutes later, Ensign Cummings stepped in, happily humming to himself now that his bladder was empty. The stout man halted in mid-stride when he saw how close the captain and Braxton were sitting and that their hands were clasped together. He soon passed it off as one of those strange, undecipherable things that were always taking place on board, before he moved on to his station.

About five minutes after that, there was a flurry of activity by the sliding doors. The remaining members of the crew, Barbie, Cruz, Margo and Mary, swept in like a small tidal wave of conversation and action. Cruz had some kind of wheel of fortune in his arms, made out of cardboard and divided into colored wedges. Each colored wedge had a crewperson's name on it. As he stood his latest innovation on the empty section between the Combat Station and the Systems Analyst Station, Barbie stepped over and scrutinized the situation developing near the captain's chair.

The curvy woman looked at Washington with a stern countenance, before she set her hands on her hips. "I see you've found yourself another sweetheart."

"It's not what you think." Washington said. "We are trying to improve relations between the two of us."

Barbie took in Braxton's hand. "With Cruella?" She looked her former boss in the eye. "No offense."

"I'm sure." Braxton replied, in that subdued tone that always came out like ice.

Margo looked them over as well. "Are you two getting married or something?"

"No, Margo, we are not getting married." Washington denied the charge.

Mary simply read both their minds, and gave them both the thumbs-up.

"Thanks, Mary. At least one of you understands why I'm doing this." Washington said, motioning over to Cruz's project. "What's going on there?"

"Oh, that's the latest evolution of the 'spin the dildo' game we've been working on." Mary announced, she turned toward her best buddy. "Sweetie, can you explain it to the captain?"

"Of course I will, baby." Cruz nodded, giving the wheel one test spin and apparently finding it adequate for his purposes. He faced the small crowd, as if he were about to give a lecture. "I've modified the original concept somewhat, into this hastily fabricated creation you see here. The hardest part was in getting the pointer to spin around enough times, and not to always have it point south. We could have used a digital randomizer, I suppose, but I believe the suspense is much greater this way."

He pointed at the various names on the wheel. "It works much better the more people there are who participate. What happens is this; a neutral agent spins the wheel, first to get one name, and a second time for another name. Then I turn the wheel around, like so. As you can see, on the opposite side I've listed all the possible locations where two people can fraternize in the entire ship. This way, we'll have two randomly chosen people meeting at a randomly chosen location. We've come up with a time limit of one hour where these two people must stay together."

Washington recalled their earlier discussion. "Wasn't there a concern where two people who would not sleep with each other, under any circumstances, might end up paired together?"

Cruz held up an index finger. "Well, here's the beauty of it. The option of sex is always there and highly encouraged, but it is no longer obligatory. If I were to end up with say, Cummings for example, I would still have to spend an hour with him at the set location, but I would not have to sleep with him. We could have ourselves a good chat instead. In any case, two people from this ship will be bonding together, when they may not have gotten the opportunity to do so otherwise."

In his most suggestive and nasally voice, the navigator said, "Oh, you're just saying that because you don't want them to know about the two of us."

"Stop that, you cad." Cruz lambasted. "Do not even direct the barest hint of homoerotic man-love in my direction." He huffed indignantly. "As I was saying, the sex is not mandatory. The two selectees can talk about whatever they want to, or they can do whatever they want to, as long as they stay in close proximity with one another and don't compromise the location with anyone else. It should be a good way for us to get to know one another, and this way everybody can participate."

"Can anybody think of a reason why this would be a bad idea?" Washington asked. He scanned the eight faces in the room. "Thor, what do you think about this?"

"I would have said an emphatic no not too long ago." The Viking admitted. "But I think it might be a good idea now."

"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid of Margo." Willow admitted.

The cook blew the smaller woman a kiss. "Oh, I'll be gentle with you. For the first five seconds. After that, I'm ripping your clothes off!"

"Margo." Washington warned.

"I'm just kidding, Cappy." The cook snickered.

"Margo, if our selectees have to carry a panic button around with them, it kind of defeats the purpose of the exercise." Cruz admonished her.

"I said I was kidding. I promise, I won't do anything unless the other person wants me to. After that, it's a free for all."

Cruz turned to Mary. "Is she lying to us?"

Mary quickly read the cook's mind. "No. At least I don't think so."

Margo gave Cruz a lusty look. "I hope I get you, Cruz. Just thinking about how you tried to take me on, right before the Worfs attacked us, is starting to give me an itch."

Cruz looked at Mary. "Is she lying about that?"

"No. Well, it depends. She wants you and me both to bowl her over and rip her clothes off. She wouldn't mind at all if we did it right here on the bridge."

"We'll schedule you in for later, Margo." Cruz decided. "But for now, who would like to give my Wheel of Fate a go? You cannot back out, once a partner has been chosen for you. If we're agreed on that, I'll give this thing a spin."

Washington could feel Braxton's hand tensing up on his. The former tyrant knew how many people on board had a problem with her. It was pretty much everybody in the ship, except for Cruz, Mary, and probably Cummings.

"How do we choose who's going to spin?" Margo asked.

"Well, this first time, it'll be Mary and I." Cruz resolved. "After that, it can be whoever went through the exercise successfully. Are we ready? Does anybody want to back out before I do this? Are we all okay with the game?"

When nobody protested, Cruz gave the spinner a whirl, and it ended up going around and around like a top.

"Too much lubricant." He grumbled.

Eventually, the thing settled down. All heads drew forward to see who the lucky Guinea Pig was going to be.

"It's Ensign Braxton!" Cruz sounded off like a game show host.

"Oh, no." The former commander said. "Why me? I just knew it was going to be me."

"Mary, will you do the next spin?" Cruz asked.

"Sure I will." Mary shuffled forward. "Here goes!"

The pretty blonde spun the dial, and again it went around. This time it stopped on Thor's name. Instantly, half the room started razzing him.

The big Viking crossed his arms impatiently. "You should spin it again. I'm not hanging out with Braxton for a whole hour."

"I don't think so." Cruz shook his head. "We're not going to start making exceptions with the very first couple. You and Braxton are the hot ticket!" Quickly, Cruz turned his board around. "One more time, Mary, for their location."

"I said I'm not doing it!" Thor grouched at them.

Mary made the spin, and the marker eventually came to a halt on...

"The pantry?" Cummings cried out. "Why in the heck did you include the pantry as a location?"

"Well, I had to fill up the board." Cruz defended his action. "Besides, there are a lot of things two people can do in the pantry, if they just use their imagination."

"You should see what I do with the cucumbers." Margo grinned "When I'm in there by myself."

"I wish you hadn't said that out loud." Washington brought his free hand up to his forehead. "I swear, I will never eat another one of your salads, ever again."

"Oh, go stuff yourself, Cappy." Margo leaned over and pushed the man's shoulder. "It's not like you've never been there."

"I had cucumber slices just a little while ago." Willow looked squeamish.

"Well, anyway," Washington called their attention back. "We've got two people and a location. What happens next?"

"We walk Braxton and Thor to the pantry, and we leave them in there for one hour." Cruz explained. "When the time is up, we'll go and set them free. They can then fill us in on all the juicy details of their encounter."

"There won't be any juicy details." Thor shook his head and grumbled.

"Oh, you don't know that." Mary said. "Who knows, maybe Braxton will put on her cute little maid outfit for you."

"Cummings?" Washington asked. "Can you tell me how much time remains, before we reach the Edgeworth satellite?"

The navigator strolled over to his station to check. "One hour, eight minutes."

The captain looked at all the others. "So, are we doing this before or after we investigate the satellite?"

"I'm not doing it." Thor said.

"Oh, yes you are." Mary urged him. "I'm sure you and Braxton will have plenty to talk about, once you stop being so grumpy."

"I really don't think so." Braxton said.

"If you two get started right away," Barbie calculated. "We can spin again once we come back from the satellite."

"You want to play this game too, Barbie?" Washington asked.

"I might get Willow!" Barbie smiled. "All we need after that is some music, and maybe twice the time limit."

"You stop it!" Willow looked embarrassed.

"Wait, did we miss something between Barbie and Willow?" Cruz asked.

"I'll say you did." Cummings nodded. "Oh, doctor, did you miss something! It's gonna cost you moolah if you want to see the video!"

"Hands up, if anybody thinks Braxton should dress up like a maid." Mary announced.

Except for Braxton and Thor, all hands went up.

"I'm not sitting in the pantry with Braxton and that's final!" Thor insisted.

"You need a costume too, you big baby." Mary suggested. She put an index finger up to her lips, thoughtfully. "I don't know if I have one in his size."

"I'm not wearing a costume, because I'm not going into the pantry with Braxton!" Thor roared.

"Wait, Mary," Cruz stated. "I might have something packed away in the storage compartment, back from when I worked at the Senior Center."

Thor growled at everyone on the bridge. "I am absolutely, positively, not going to put on any costume, and that's final!"