Star Watch by Mark Wayne McGinnis Page B

feet not quite reaching the deck. She placed her arms on the armrests, sat back, staring at the bemused faces, and said, “There’s a new Captain Reynolds on board … as you were, people.”
    That brought chuckles and several salutes. Jason winked at her and brought his attention to the forward right console where Granger, Ricket, and Bristol were involved in a heated discussion. The console was open, obviously going through some sort of modification.
    “Hello, Captain,” Ricket said. Both he and Bristol were on the deck, lying on their backs, holding handheld test equipment. Granger was seated in a chair in front of the console.
    “What do we have here?”
    Ricket sat up, then stood. “Captain … we understand we’ll be underway soon. In an attempt to get the Minian operating optimally, we’ve gone ahead and installed several upgrades.”
    “Doesn’t look like you’ve been successful,” Jason said, peering into the inside of the console; its wired bundles, he’d learned in the past, were called PhasePath Conduits.
    “Hi, Orion … report to your post!” said Boomer. Jason turned to see Gunny Orion entering the bridge as Boomer still play-acted captain.
    “Aye, Captain,” Gunny replied, sounding appropriately official and saluting the ten-year-old.
    Jason brought his attention back to the others.
    “This was a cluster-fuck from the get-go.”
    Jason took a step back as young, pimply-faced Bristol scooted out from underneath the console and sat up. Bristol was far from a military person. In fact, his past was checkered at best … brother to a psychotic pirate, Captain Stalls, who, among other things, was a mass murderer. But with all Bristol’s faults, the least of which were a bad temper and a foul mouth, his past genius had saved countless crewmembers’ lives, including Jason’s. So Jason was willing to tolerate some of Bristol’s shortcomings.
    “Just tell me what’s going on here. Our timetable for departure has been pushed up. We have to go.”
    “It’s another of Granger’s new Caldurian upgrades,” Bristol said.
    Jason looked down at Ricket; maybe he’d give him a straight answer.
    “It’s a problem tied to the communications system and the whole interchange wormhole process, Captain,” Ricket said, referring to another aspect of what the technologically advanced Caldurian vessels were capable of, including their unique means to travel virtually unlimited distances across the universe. That ability was accomplished through a unique, permission-based communication to an elusive being of higher-consciousness known now as the interchange. The interchange was not a single being but several, or many; Jason wasn’t sure how many. His only point of contact with the interchange was through an aquatic, wormlike being called a Drapple, who could be contacted through one of the onboard Zoo habitats. Staying within the Drapple’s—and the interchange’s—good graces was monumentally important, as it didn’t dole out permission to move unhindered across the universe arbitrarily. Those bestowed with this ability had to adhere to certain moral constraints. The simple fact that his three crewmembers were messing with something so important, especially before a crucial mission, was crazy.
    “Are you telling me we’ve lost the ability to call up an interchange wormhole?”
    All three shook their heads in unison. “No no,” Ricket said, “but Granger’s upgrade does seem to have instigated a negative byproduct.”
    “What?”
    “A significant time delay, Captain … it seems now to take close to an hour from the time we’ve communicated our interchange wormhole in-and-out coordinates request to when the wormhole actually appears.”
    “So we’ve gone from something that worked perfectly fine … took mere minutes to accomplish, to now taking an hour? That’s ridiculous … not to mention, the long delay could put both ship and crew in potentially dangerous situations!”
    “I assure