Baxter Moon, Galactic Scout by John Zakour

you.”
    “Good computing,” I told SC.
    I personally was thrilled to have a room to myself. It probably stems from me being an only child back at home. I respect my crew and I’m use to having them around me all the time, but there are times when it would be great to have my own space. I looked at Zenna. She had that look about her, a cross between her trying to think and being worried.
    “What’s wrong, Zen?” I asked.
    She looked down and lowered her eyes. “Uh, nothing.”
    Then it hit me. Zenna, being a twin, probably had never had a room to herself. She was scared. Bloop, I had never seen Zenna scared before. I’ve seen her confused many times. I’ve seen her baffled. I’ve seen her confused and baffled, just never scared.
    “Don’t worry, Zen, it will be okay.”
    Zenna looked up at me. “It’s just that…”
    “All the rooms are connected,” SC said, being surprisingly helpful. “Your brother Elvin will be in the room to your right and Baxter will be in the room to your left.”
    Zenna thought about it for a tic. “Well,” she said slowly, “with having a room to myself, at least I don’t have to worry about my foot odor accidentally knocking anybody out.”
    “See, that’s a plus for all of us,” I said.
    Zenna forced a smile, I knew she was trying to convince herself. “It probably won’t be too bad.”
    “Of course it won’t be. Bloop, Zen, you’re stronger than all of us put together.”
    “I know that,” she told me, speaking as if I was denser than the core of a white dwarf star. “I just don’t want to be lonely.”
    “Your room has doors that open to your brother’s and Baxter’s room,” SC added.
    Zenna looked at Elvin. “Will you keep your door open?”
    “Sure, Sis,” he said.
    Zenna looked at me. “Will you leave your door open?” she asked.
    “I won’t lock it,” I offered.
    Zenna looked at me with big puppy dog eyes.
    “Fine, I’ll leave it open a little,” I sighed.
    “Great!” she said.
    Kymm leaned over to me. “Nice just easing the fears of a teammate,” she whispered. I wasn’t sure if she was being cynical or not. I decided to believe she wasn’t.
    “You guys are the best!” Zenna said.
    Almost on Zenna’s remark the elevator stopped. The doors opened.
    “We have reached the 13th level. Please proceed out of the elevator to the right,” SC said, acting like an electronic tour guide.
    We followed SC’s instruction and entered the hallway. There wasn’t much to it, it was just a hallway. I imagine hallways haven’t changed much in the last couple hundred years, just walls dotted with doors and cheap lights. The only thing special about this hallway is that it happened to be on a sphere that goes faster than light, which in my humble opinion made it pretty sweet.
    As we walked, GiS talked, well, more like lectured. “We have no time to waste. SC, how long before the warp engines are ready?”
    “I am charging them now. They will be ready for warp burst in one hour and forty-two minutes and thirteen tics.”
    “Very good,” GiS said.
    That’s the thing about warp burst engines, while they are way fast, they take a while to prepare. I’m not entirely sure about the physics involved (though I am sure Elvin, Chriz or Lobi would be all to happy to explain them to me) but I do know it consists of mixing matter and antimatter to create worm pathways in space. These pathways are cosmic short cuts from one place to other.
    The other problem with warp burst engines is they are energy hogs. Once you warp burst to someplace you are dead in the water for a good deal of time. This means warp burst equipped spheres are great to hop from place to place if you plan to stay there and look around for a while. It makes the Searcher-class ships great research ships but lousy war ships. Which most of the time is fine as Searchers are exactly that — searchers. It is their mission to explore and to search out new life and all that jazz. We don’t want