While this was going on, Kreaving and Grentix pulled me and Jeff aside. “Is it impertinent or insulting if we request to go with you?” Kreaving asked.
Jeff looked around. “What, all of you?”
Grentix laughed. “No, just the two of us. The others want to stay home—some to ensure that your family and retainers are well cared for, some because we spent much time thinking we might never see our homes again.”
“So why do you two want to come, then?” Jeff asked.
“We’re scientists and explorers,” Kreaving said. “And we heard that you were going to leave the galaxy.” He sounded excited, versus scared. A nice change from most of the Cabinet.
“We think we are, yeah,” I said. “And that means it’s a dangerous mission. We’d leave more of our crew here if we thought we could get away with it. And we don’t mean that your system wouldn’t be welcoming. Those going with us want to go.”
“We do, too,” Grentix said. “Very much. Wheatles and I are disappointed that our mission was disrupted, but the results were amazing. The idea that you’re leaving the galaxy is overwhelming. We truly want to be a part of it.”
“And you could use more scientists with you,” Kreaving added. “You’re very, ah, light in that regard.”
“Sold,” Jeff said. “Because you’re right. And you’re both well trained and, frankly, good company. We’ll be happy to have you. Will coming with us cause any issues, though?”
“No, it will smooth them over,” Grentix replied. “Now we will be a part of your continuing mission and that means we will return with glory for Apata.”
Refrained from making a Star Trek reference because why bother when no one I was talking to would get it? Of all the old TV shows that Jeff was addicted to, he wasn’t excited about watching any of the science fiction ones, probably because he, like the rest of the A-Cs, wasn’t into documentaries. “And it indicates we aren’t trying to get rid of people we don’t like, too, I’d imagine.”
Kreaving grinned. “Yes.”
“We might not come back.” Hey, had to point this out. Truth in Advertising and all that jazz. “I mean, not by choice.”
They both nodded. “We understand that risk,” Kreaving said. “We almost didn’t return. It’s a risk we all understand. Grentix and I are willing to take that risk because the reward is worthwhile.”
“Super and duper, how long do you need to be ready?”
“We’re ready now,” Grentix said. “We had supplies on the space station.”
“We’ve replaced what we needed, added some things in, and so forth.” Kreaving indicated two rectangular things on wheels that looked a lot like rolling suitcases made for Real Naked Apes if I was any judge, and I was. “We can leave right now.”
“Then let’s do this thing.”
Two Real Naked Apes back and ready for action on board, we got the rest of our flock settled in and accounted for. Miraculously, everyone was where they were supposed to be. It was easy for Christopher to verify since everyone who wasn’t assigned to the command deck was in the Observation Lounge, getting ready to watch us take off.
I assigned Kreaving and Grentix to the command deck because I’d seen enough Star Trek to know that you wanted your Science Officers close at hand so they could share pithy info at just the right time.
Drax had done a long commune with Mother and somehow convinced her that, with him not being on the ship, she needed to break down and let Brian fly her. For whatever reason, she acquiesced. Per Mossy, easily. Decided that as the Many Mysteries of Mother went, this one could be deciphered later.
Brian had insisted on being on the command deck, and he’d actually won the argument with Mother about who was going to be the Commander for this part of the mission. Well, sort of. Tim was still the Top Man as far as Mother was concerned, but Brian was going to be allowed to sit in the Commander’s seat. It was a small victory, but we took it.
Tito was also allowed to be relieved of duty, though not allowed to leave the command deck. Jeff and I, however, were required to sit our butts in our assigned seats and do our Mother-assigned jobs, thank you very much. Ignored Kreaving and Grentix asking those not at posts why we were all allowing our AI to order us around, but the sarcasm from the guys’ replies was at least a twelve on the one-to-ten scale.
Brian, Hughes, Walker, me, Jeff, and Randy were at the controls, with Tim, Joe, Tito, Jerry, Chuckie, and Reader assigned as our respective backups.
Drax, being the genius designer he was, had added on standing restraints for those doing backup as well as those just hanging out on the command deck. This had only taken him a short time while we were docked thanks to some supplies from the space station and having Dazzlers On Duty do the speedy lifting.
So, everyone strapped in. In addition to the twelve of us flying or backing up flying the ship and our two Real Naked Apes, Mossy and Wruck were here strapped in as well. Lilith was with us, too, but she needed no harness.
Managed not to mention that this was a crowded command deck, because I didn’t want Mother to demand that the others head for the crash couches and I just knew she would if I complained in any way.
Might have been the hardest landing, so to speak, but the departure was by far the easiest we’d ever had. Some probably due to the fact that Brian was finally getting to do his job, but mostly because we were floating in space and therefore had no escape velocity to worry about.
Once we were well away from the space station and I’d said our good-byes to Apata Mission Control, Chuckie had me pull out the picture of our final destination. Really hoped that my thinking of it that way wasn’t going to mean we were trying to escape inevitable death in a bad movie sort of thing. Actively chose not to say this aloud.
The picture was studied and Mother overlaid our known maps. After some discussion, it was determined that, galactically speaking, we weren’t all that far away, and it would be much safer if we went around the galactic perimeter, versus trying to get through the more crowded center.
“It’s definitely on its way to Andromeda,” Chuckie said finally. “Not that they have a prayer of getting there before their sun dies.”
“Is their sun dying?”
“Hard to tell from this picture, Kitty, but the space between galaxies makes the actual galaxies look tiny. Even the youngest star would be likely to burn out before a solar system floating through space were to reach the next galaxy. And, based on what we’ve looked at, this system’s sun is not young.”
“Two billion years from now, give or take, they’ll hit Andromeda, or get smashed between Andromeda and the Milky Way, because our two galaxies are heading for each other,” Grentix said. “So, it’s very safe to say that this system will not survive the journey.”
“I have a question sure to be unpopular,” Brian said. “But why are we bothering?”
This got the room’s attention. “Excuse me?” Jeff asked.
“I want to know why we’re doing this,” Brian repeated. “Trying to get to this particular solar system.”