Away We Go

After they had ascended to space and then started to near the ship a couple of hours later, Dawn looked out the viewer and remarked, "Oh my! Seeing it in person it's a whole lot bigger than it looks like on paper or compared to the pieces y'all were making in your lab."

Rachel explained, "The pieces you saw us making were the inside pieces. All of the big pieces had already been sent up here and assembled."

"But what about that engine y'all kept working on?"

Stephan replied, "The engine in the lab was just the small test engine. Any changes were then sent up here to the robots because the full scale engine had already been shipped and assembled."

She then curiously looked at Stephan and asked, "So this engine is going to be more powerful than the one in the lab?" When Stephan nodded she then asked, "Is this thing so powerful it's gonna explode? Because the one in the lab came close a couple of times at least."

Rachel calmed her by saying, "We've got safety devices installed on this one that weren't on the one in the lab. We tested it in the lab without the mechanisms so that we could determine where to set the safeties and when they needed to kick in."

"And how to turn them off if we needed to make a fast getaway after pulling a prank on the boss he didn't like." Holly jokingly added.

They all then settled back until Greg and Angie had guided the shuttle into position and they had docked with the ship. Then they all looked expectantly at Stephan and, as the tension rose, Dawn finally asked, "So have we decided on a name yet?"

He grinned and then sheepishly replied, "Y'all aren't going to like it though."

Holly sighed and asked, "What boring name did you pick?"

He drew a breath and then answered, "I decided to call it 'Speedboat.'"

Holly and Dawn groaned theatrically but Rachel provided, "It's not that great of a name but at least it's better than some boring name like 'engine A' or 'rocket B' or some mysterious combination of letters and numbers."

Greg laughed too and told Rachel, "Don't forget him trying to be creative and calling it ET because it was an Engine Test."

Grinning in a jokingly menacing way, Stephan told them, "Well since you want me to be creative and wouldn't have accepted ET, let's instead go with Elliot." as he drew out the name imitating the movie and heartily laughed as the others all gave up and put their heads in their hands as they groaned.

They grudgingly accepted the name and all proceeded to board the ship. After they had situated themselves in their respective stations and reported back to the shuttle that they were good, Greg floated over and found a place to plug in the force field device he had brought for their ship.

While he was calibrating it to fit their ship Dawn watched him with an intense interest. As he proceeded to go through every step, she asked him what effect his action was having on the field until he finally had it adjusted for their ship.

As he started to finish up though, Stephan also finished checking his instruments and readings and urgently told Greg, "Oh! I almost forgot! Make sure this field feeds any energy it catches into the intake nozzle in the nose and that it doesn't block any incoming energy!"

Greg turned to him and calmly told him, "Chill man! Chill! I already had it set up to do that just from being able to see the ship during previous trips to this area to launch satellites over the past year or two. Plus, unlike the brass and the lawyers fighting for your patent, I actually read through the design and knew how to alter my device to work with your engine so that they could both work together."

"In fact," he continued, "according to your patent and how it said the engine works, if you do decide to teach them not to mess with either of us by hiring me, I could easily modify the device to use your engine as the battery and they would be, in essence, helping each other perform better by sharing the energy it was collecting."

Stephan raised an interested eyebrow and told him, "If it does we might be able to make a deal. When I get back, call Ranita and set up a good meeting time for you along with a good casual destination. That way the brass would have a harder time connecting the two of us until we have all our ducks in a row and can safely move forward with something."

"Done!" Greg thankfully answered. He then flew back over to the shuttle and disengaged their airlock tunnel from the ship and plotted a course to the space station so they could wait for their return in a couple of days. After he had engaged the thrusters to take them to the space station, Greg then called Stephan over the radio and told him, "Hey, Stephan sorry if I'm interrupting your firing sequence but I forgot to tell you I think that scent you had floating in the air made it actually seem like home and I liked it. Do you think you could drop some off on your return trip?"

"Honestly, I'm gonna have to ask HR and Dawn about it," Stephan regretfully admitted, "because I didn't send anything up and I never gave the bots the instructions to spray it so I can't say yay or nay till I get something from the girls."

As he prepared to approach and dock at the space station, Greg signed off by saying, "Well man, I hope you find it before we have to come pick you up and take you home. In the meantime, I hope your flight goes well and everything checks out good and all. Have fun. Over and out."

"Will do my best and, honestly, I hope it exceeds my expectations on this first trip." Stephan returned. He finished with, "You enjoy your short stay at the station and I'll see you again in a couple of days. Over and out as well."

Stephan then turned to the others and asked, "So which one of the three of you responsible for this air freshener odor?"

"Wasn't me." Dawn replied with a smirk, "The only thing I sent up here that might have a slight smell to it would be those bags I put in the elevator earlier."

Stephan started to fuss at her but, after taking a deep breath to begin the fussing, let that breath out and stated with resignation, "Why does this not surprise me? For someone who claims to always having to abide by all sorts of rules you seem to always find a way to slip through and still find a way to get your way."

"Look." Dawn replied in a serious voice, "These last few weeks have been my first opportunity to enjoy some freedom from those rules and so I have simply been finding ways to continue enjoying my newfound freedom. So keep on being jealous if you want but I'm not ready to give it up until I have to."

Stephan then looked at Holly and Rachel with a questioning look and a raised eye and they replied with a chuckle, "Despite your suspicions we didn't have any part in this either. But we're pretty sure if you follow the smell you'll find the culprit."

After looking at all three of them again for a minute with a hard stare while he tried to tell if they were keeping something from him, Stephan then sighed and told them, "We'll take this up again later because we only have five minutes to get this ship up and running and ready to roll before we lose our launch window. So HR I want you two to check over your controls and make sure they are all in spec. I will do the same and then we will start a quick countdown."

He then turned to Dawn and quickly ordered her, "Dawn, since you jumped that luggage up here, I want you to make sure it is all secured and won't be in danger of shaking loose and such. It don't matter if you use your muscles or your talents to take care of it. Just get it done as quickly as you can so we're ready for launch at the first opportunity."

"Aye aye Cap'n." Dawn snapped and concentrated on making sure the bags were all secured to the storage room's floor by using her mover ability to organize and then hook the bags to nearby hooks to keep them in place. She then told Stephan when she got done and added, "Luggage is secure but I think you probably need to double check it just to make sure because I think that smell is coming from a different bag that wasn't with the set that I sent up here earlier."

When Holly snickered, Stephan turned to her and snapped, "Status of controls? Everything checked out and operational to specs like I asked?"

"Yes sir. O great and powerful master." Holly sarcastically answered.

"Yeah yeah yeah." Stephan grumbled, "Are we ready to push off?"

"As ready as we're gonna get, boss." Rachel responded.

"Alright then, ladies," Stephan commanded, "keep the wheel straight and let's turn the engine on with a 5% energy feed to ease us out of the dock and start this journey."

"5% and holding. Current speed is reading 1% light speed and slowly climbing!" Rachel recited from her instrument panel.

"Good good good." Stephan congratulated. Then reading his own instrument panel, "We are now clear of the dock and able to fully maneuver. Holly, please take us to a bearing for the Alpha Centauri system and hold until we reach a constant speed to make sure we're holding steady."

"Will do, Cap'n" Holly contributed, "We'll holler when we reach a steady speed. Now you go have a chat with that air freshener. And grab that extra seat back from storage with you."

Realizing what Holly was hinting at, Stephan sighed and remarked as he stood up, "I don't know why I didn't already recognize this distinctive odor when we opened the hatch."

He then headed determinately to the storage room.