Star Tracking. Part 2

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CHAPTER THREE

CAPTAIN'S DIARY
My guests came on board last night. Naturally, I threw a small party for them, to make them feel right at home. One of the most beautiful women I've ever seen came on board - she's the daughter of a major shareholder - and if I'm not mistaken I'm in with a chance there. Steadfast was a gooseberry all evening. He never left her side. I could tell that she was totally bored with him but he wouldn't leave her alone. I even tried to give him a few hints but he wouldn't go. Before I could manage to force him to leave her alone, one of those other guests came and insisted on talking to me. I think he was her cousin or something. He was a total bore - I couldn't get away from him all evening. I tried to get him drunk but it didn't work. I woke up with a terrible headache and my beautiful guest is not to be found. I can't find Steadfast either - no one's seen them at all. If he's annoying her I'll have him dumped out of the nearest airlock - I'd sooner have one of those stupid ensigns as my First Officer than him!

~~~

Steadfast had guessed what was on the Captain's small mind (he was a one idea man) and he'd warned Judith that Dashing would try to spend all day with her. She'd gazed at him with her big blue eyes and asked him what she could do. Steadfast was quite pleased that it was his duty to protect her from any annoyances - and that included the Captain. He did wish, however, that her gaze would not affect him so much. Every time he caught her looking at him, he knew that he started blushing and First Officers were not supposed to walk around with a permanently red face. Well, not unless they drank a lot.

He suggested to Judith that she might like a tour of the ship. With some member of the senior crew who was not on duty.

"I believe that the Doctor is free. I'm sure that you and he must have a lot to talk about."

"Oh, no. I know that Dr. Lipton drank an awful lot last night, so he won't be feeling up to showing me the ship. Of course, if you're too busy to show me around, then I'm sure that Captain Dashing will be more than pleased to show me his engine room."

Steadfast was sure that he would. "Hmm. Unfortunately, the Captain also drank a little bit too much last night. Perhaps Mr. Henson will...."

Judith glared at him. Was he obtuse?

"I'm afraid that my father told me that the only people who would be suitable for giving tours are the Captain, the First Officer and the Doctor." She paused and gazed soulfully at the floor. "Of course, if you're too busy...I won't bother you any more."

"No! Er...I'd be delighted to give you a tour of the ship, Miss Elliot."

"Oh, that's settled then. But, Jason, you never used to be so shy about calling me Judith." She smiled encouragingly at him and was pleased to note that he had to swallow once or twice before he could answer.

Steadfast dutifully, and happily, showed her round the ship. Her high heels, however, seemed to be giving her some trouble and she insisted on holding his arm all the time. Steadfast's stomach spent the day doing somersaults. He did not really mind though - it was the goofish look on his face that was making him wonder.

Very strange.

~o0o~

CHAPTER FOUR

Judith hummed to herself as she brushed her hair. Things were going quite well, she decided. Her fear that Steadfast - Jason, what a lovely name - had fallen for some other woman had been proved wrong. True, he hadn't seemed too keen to escort her on that tour of the ship, but by the end of the day, he'd been putty in her hands. Now, if she could just convince him that he was the perfect man for her, then she was sure that everything would work out well. The problem was, she decided, that he didn't think enough of himself. That ape of a Captain had obviously decided that one glance from him would have her leaping into his arms, if not his bed (how wrong could a man be?) and although she didn't want Jason acting like that, why couldn't he have a little bit more confidence in himself?

Well, she could not do much about it tonight. She stood up and checked her dress in the mirror. The Captain had invited them all for dinner and he would make sure that she could not get to work on Jason right away. In fact, she was quite sure that Dashing would place her and Jason as far apart as possible.

She was right.

Steadfast was not seated next to her at dinner. No-one was seated next to her at dinner. When the Captain had invited her, he had failed to mention that it would be just the two of them.

She also realised that Dashing ('Call me Peter') was trying to get her drunk. She didn't mind that, she didn't even mind that he was boring on about his wonderful career, she just wished that he would drop the French accent he kept assuming every time he poured more wine. Which was quite often. As his voice droned on, and on, and on, she did her very best to stop the boredom from showing on her face. She succeeded. It grew harder, however, when he started complimenting her. Now, no woman objects to a real compliment, but Dashing appeared to have memorised a whole bookful of them - and he seemed intent on reciting the lot.

"Has anyone ever told you that you have the most beautiful eyes?" Dashing gazed deeply into her said eyes.

It's a very old compliment but if it's said sincerely enough it usually scrapes by, but Dashing obviously saw it as a prelude to taking her hand and leading her to the bedroom.

"Ever since I first saw you, I knew that we were meant for each other," he added, tenderly.

Judith's eyes widened slightly. She had heard the line before, but Dashing (call me Peter) seemed to be meaning something other than the bedroom.

"You were telling me about your mission to deliver vaccine to the Golian homeworld," she prompted.

"Judith." He savoured her name as though it were fine wine. "I've never really thought about marriage before. A Captain has to be devoted to his ship and his crew...but every once in a millennium...."

His hand was grasping hers. His mind was intent on making his proposal of marriage. Hers was intent on finding some kind of escape, wondering where Jason was, and hoping Dashing would die of heart failure before he managed to finish what he was saying.

"...a woman comes along...."

No Jason, no heart failure, at this moment she would have made a pact with the devil to get out of this situation. Any man worth his salt would have noticed by now that she was not excitedly waiting for those magic words.

"...and she changes your mind...oh, Judith...."

Oh, help. A thought occurred to her and she slid her left hand (her right was imprisoned between his sweating palms) towards the fancy candelabra that illuminated the table.

"...you're that woman...please, Judith...say aargh!"

His screams ripped through his marriage proposal as the candelabra tipped over and the candles threatened to set fire to his top.

He leapt back screaming. "You stupid cow! You clumsy old bag...I wouldn't marry you if you were the last woman in the universe!"

It seemed that he had not noticed that the table was on fire.

"What in hell did you think you were doing? I know that you were excited but for God's sake! Did you have to grab at the candlestick? If I hadn't moved so fast I could have been burned alive!"

Since he had neglected to let go of her hand until after he had made his record breaking backward leap, she had been in more danger of being burnt than he had, but that had not occurred to him. It also hadn't occurred to him that calling someone a stupid cow was no way to get them to persuade their father to get you a cushy job back at head office.

He continued to rant and rave about how much danger he'd been in and how badly he could have been hurt while she used the intercom to contact a certain First Officer and ask what she should do over the fact that the table was busy burning. While he rushed to the rescue, she also called the doctor and asked him for a sedative for the Captain.

Once the Captain was lying down on his bed, (the doctor had been all too happy to use the hypospray on him - it had been a slow day in the medlab), Judith was left with the unenviable task of calming down a rather irate First Officer.

Steadfast had spent half an hour racking his brains to come up with a sufficient excuse to burst in on his Captain who was having a private dinner. He had just decided to go in anyway, and shoot him with a sedative before he could demand an explanation when Judith's request for information had come through. While relieved to be given the perfect opportunity to go in and break up the party, he was furious to discover that Judith's sleeve had been burnt - as he pointed out, it could have been her arm.

Suffice it to say that once Steadfast had escorted Judith to her quarters, heated words passed and he left her quarters firmly resolved to never speak to her again. At least, not before she had apologised to him at great length whereupon he would, of course, forgive her. On her part she was determined to crush his superiority and make him eat every single one of the insults he had thrown at her.

At this point it is interesting to note that she did not mind the Captain's insults in the slightest, but criticism from Jason Steadfast really got her goat.

The argument had not been made up and neither party had gained their objective before the ship reached Judith's destination early the next morning.

~o0o~

CHAPTER FIVE

Dashing woke up. As sleep left him, memory returned. He was not sure that he got the best of the bargain. As he remembered the insults he had offered to Miss Judith Elliot (she who had managed to set the table on fire) he turned and bit his pillow.

As his memory demonstrated exactly what a jackass he had made of himself, he sank his teeth deeper into his pillow. His scream of anguish went unheard. What chance did he have now of persuading her to marry him?

Persuade her? His natural egotism reasserted itself. She had probably spent the night crying at her missed opportunity! Of course the poor girl got rather excited, and well, he could be magnaminous and forgive her for her little mishap. Any girl might do the same when offered the chance to marry him. There were women scattered across the universe who were going to spend several days and nights crying when they heard that Captain Peter Dashing had finally found the woman of his dreams. All he had to do was go and convince her that he had just been a little bit upset and that of course he still wanted to marry her and say goodbye to the Endeavour and hello to the office job (complete with blonde secretary).

Actually, thinking it over, he would get a brunette or a redhead as his secretary. With Judith being blonde he didn't want to get them confused. He had often found that to be a handy reminder when he was dating two women at once. Make sure that they had different hair colour and you would be fine. Of course, it hadn't worked with those triplets on Kilone V, but every man enjoys a challenge now and then.

Whistling to himself, he shaved, showered and dressed in record time. He thought that he'd better go to the bridge first and show Steadfast that he was fine. When he reached the bridge he was quite glad that he had made the decision to see Steadfast first - the man looked like hell. Once he'd reassured him that his Captain was still in working order, Dashing left to visit the Doctor and prove to him that there was nothing to worry about.

Lipton was quite surprised to be greeted with a smile. Obviously the Captain had not figured out that his trusty doctor had sedated him at the first opportunity.

Having done his duty, Dashing headed for pleasure and went to tell his fiancee that he was prepared to forgive and forget. Her quarters were empty and her luggage was gone. Dashing thumped the intercom button and demanded to know where she had gone to.

Steadfast's voice listlessly informed him that she and the other passengers had left the ship once they had reached their destination.

Dashing swore. She must have thought that she'd lost her chance and decided to save face by not saying goodbye. Well, he was the Captain of this ship, wasn't he? He would just turn the ship around and go back to Chrama and tell her that he still wanted to marry her.

When he gave the orders to Steadfast he didn't notice that Steadfast's face lit up. Dashing threw himself into his chair with a flourish, his mind running over all the things he would have to do before they could be married. Pity he couldn't perform the marriage ceremony himself, as Captain of the ship he had the authority. Mind you, the girl would probably be awkward and want to get married on Earth. Well, he was prepared to wait until they got back - she had just better not demand a huge Church wedding, that was all.

While his Captain's mind was dwelling on his future hypothetical secretary, the size of his future hypothetical desk, and how long (hypothetically speaking) it would take him to catch her, Steadfast was debating over how to persuade Judith that he was not really angry with her, and wondering whether she would forgive him if he crawled over broken glass to prove he was really, really, really sorry.

~o0o~

Judith was thinking along the same lines. But with her doing the crawling. She still believed that she had been right but she did realise that Jason would only have reacted that way because he had been worried over her. She decided that she had missed a good opportunity. If she had spent five minutes calming Jason down, he would, by a natural order of progression, have declared his love for her and Bob's your uncle (or in this case, Jason's your husband). She smiled at the young ensign who had been assigned to act as her porter and carry her luggage to her temporary quarters aboard the starship Pilgrim. After visiting Chrama, the Pilgrim was scheduled to return to Earth. The Endeavour was not due back for another six months.

However, when you are the only daughter of a major shareholder, you have ways and means of changing circumstances.

~o0o~

Part 3.