Morning Song: A Seeders Universe Novel by Dean Wesley Smith

area seemed state-of-the-art from what Roscoe could tell. He wasn’t much of a cook, but he tried at times.
    Roscoe could see a pantry stocked completely full just beyond one side of the kitchen. He knew that in other places on the ship there were enough supplies on board to feed the fifteen of them for a year, at least.
    He sure hoped this mission didn’t take that long, or a lot of people on those planets ahead of them were going to die.
    Maria seemed calm now, not as excited as she had been before they jumped into trans-tunnel flight. Her excitement had been almost infectious and he loved that feeling of looking at the good things in something instead of always the bad. She balanced him well.
    “This sure feels familiar,” Fisher said, smiling, seemingly not at all concerned about the situation as he opened the fridge and offered them water or something else to drink.
    Both Maria and Roscoe declined, so Fisher took out a bottle of a pink fluid and sat down at the kitchen table, indicating that they should join him.
    “Familiar?” Maria asked as she sat across from Fisher. “How?”
    Roscoe went over and leaned against a bulkhead near Maria, preferring to stand at the moment. It was going to take him some time to relax at this point.
    Fisher took a drink and sighed. “When my friend and I first ran into a large ship coming to rescue the population of the planet where we have the lodge, our ship, this ship, in a much more primitive state, was teleported inside a huge landing deck. It was a smaller deck by a long ways from what we are in now, but still huge by our little ship’s standards.”
    “Is it something about this ship that makes people want to do that?” Roscoe asked.
    Fisher laughed and Maria shook her head and smiled at him, which he appreciated more than he wanted to admit. The tension in the room seemed to ease a lot from his joke question and he loved it when those golden eyes of hers looked fondly at him.
    “Must be,” Fisher said.
    “What happened that first time?” Maria asked.
    “Scared to death, we just went outside to introduce ourselves. Seeders, by their very nature, are a peace-loving group. We didn’t know that at the time, but we do now.”
    Roscoe had to admit, that was true. But as Sector Justice forces knew so well, they still needed to know how to defend themselves. This huge ship clearly had good defenses.
    “So are you suggesting we go introduce ourselves?” Maria said.
    “Can you think of another option,” Fisher asked, “after we study what we are getting from the scans, of course. They sure know we are here. I have nothing on this ship that could even pretend to block a scan, even if we wanted to.”
    Roscoe nodded at that. “How long until preliminary scans will be done?”
    Fisher shrugged. “This ship we are in is bigger than many moons, so it’s going to take some time to really cover it. But honestly, we’ll know if we’re alone and the focus of our mission in two hours.”
    “Can you feed the scans to my people in a place in the ship where we could work?” Maria asked.
    Roscoe knew the answer, since he had checked out and helped Fisher set up the ship before the mission. But he let Fisher answer.
    “We can,” Fisher said. “We retrofitted our second exercise room with ten work and scanning stations before this mission.”
    He looked over at Roscoe. “I assume you are going to want to look at all the scans as well.”
    “I am,” Roscoe said. “And my second-in-command, Jonas, will as well. We’ll study monitors in the room with Chairman Boone’s team. The rest of my team will remain on guard with each group in case a group is transported off the ship without warning.”
    “Very good thinking,” Fisher said, nodding. “So in three hours, after the big ship drops back into real space, the three of us will meet here and decide how to proceed next.”
    Maria nodded and smiled at Roscoe as she stood. She patted him on the arm. “Let’s go to