He checked his navigational scope and again fixed the position of the Global Ranger, the Company exploration ship he commanded. His remaining crew of five was back aboard the Ranger doing pre-burst checklists and minor repairs. This was their second long haul in the past two years, each one stretching past nine months and the crew was ready for a really long shut down. Maybe on Exceleron 6, always a nice R & R port to put into for overhaul and leave. No one thought too much about earth anymore, the planet had been too inhospitable for man for nearly a half a century.

Tank saw the polar cap glide beneath the left wing and did a role over to begin a sharper descent to the equatorial belt and the Company's biospere plant situated there. The Company had established this mining outpost twenty-six years ago and it had been quite productive. Over two hundred families and several thousand miners settled under the dome and worked the automated equipment that did the heavy mining work. An ore extractor put in about every six weeks and hauled the dug up minerals and ore to Carperia where it was processed and sold at auction to the highest bidders.

The Ranger had been checking Company outposts in this quadrant of the galaxy and everything had been normal until they'd sent a routine checkup call to Q422. There had been no response and the Ranger had maneuvered closer to ensure ionic storms were not deflecting their signals. Repeated calls failed to raise anyone on any of the standard Company frequencies but stranger still no Mayday calls were being emitted from the moon. Company policy dictated a senior flight personnel was to reconnoiter any establishment failing to properly respond to a Company signal while the remaining crew stood at alert status until the situation was cleared. Tank and Devon Bowman were the only two senior flight personnel on board and they had flipped a coin to start the present voyage to decide the rotation. According to the ship's log, Tank was up for this one.

Devon had come aboard at the start of their present mission sixteen months ago to replace Treavor Mains, Tanks number two for the last eight years. He had hated to lose Treavor to a new command position, not only the best damn navigator in this galaxy or any other galaxy around but a hell of a good guy to have by your side in a fix. Devon was still unproven, a smart cookie and level headed but not really tested in a real crunch.

She had that rough-cut look of the broad who'd spent too much time in the outer fringes. Muscles in places only a woman in a man's world could have them and the ability to drink anyone on board under the table at nay shithole they put into. Tank had at least an opportunity to test her sexual preferences in the early morning hours on Kung Mao when they were the only two still not comatose in the seedy bar.

"Yo, fly boy, want to party," the dark haired navigator slurred across the dim lit table.

"Is that an offer or a challenge, Devon?"

"Your choice," she said with a sly grin, brushing back the short-cropped dark hair from her gray eyes and picking up her drink. She tilted her head back and downed the stiff liquor in a single gulp, slamming the glass back on the table and shifting her look towards Tank.

"Well?"

......(cont)