Angelika Queen Of Mars

Chapter 9

Chapter Nine Getting To Know You

After Jake finished talking to Mokora, he wasn't prepared for what she unloaded on him.

"How dare you presume to know how, or what I feel? That's the trouble with all you men, you're just so damn sure you know everything about us!" And so it went, then an angry comment only made things worse.

"Well then miss sweetness and light," snapped Jake. "Strike the male friend on Kagor, with an attitude like that; I'm sure we could fix you up with a female of the opposite persuasion, plenty of them that's for sure." This only made things worse as Mokora got a wicked look on her face.

"How about I just steal Dori from you, then Mr. smart-mouth might know what it's really like." Jake smirked,

"I don't think Dori is much into chicks, besides, she likes what I have that you don't!" This only brought a howl of laughter from Mokora,

"Believe me, when I start bedding her, she'll never go back to you!" Jake was pretty sure about Dori, but then again, who was to say what was normal for these alien women.

He then sought out Branak to get his advice on the situation.

"It's hard to say Jake, This ship is pretty small, then there's the fact that her father is on board. Then there's the fact that you and Dori are married and that she comes from another race which I know nothing about. She might get Dori to go along as a stunt, I'm afraid only you know the answers to these questions. All I can tell you is that this lesbianism among Nuel females is rather rare, but that's pretty much all I know of it." After that, Jake became a very worried man spending all his time watching. Not only watching Mokora who seemed to be doing most of the flying, to spending as much time as he could with Dori, and monitoring her behavior. There really weren't many places aboard ship to hide. The bunks were all open causing Jake to think of the ship as a submarine. The "head," was pretty small, but he was sure that if two women were determined, they could both get in there. The engine room was equally as small and the farthest out of the way. Finally the time came when both women turned up "missing." Making right for the engine room, Jake tried the door, it was locked.

"Crap!" thought Jake, what do I do now?" Putting his ear to the hatch, he thought he heard faint giggling. Then when he knocked, Mokora's voice snickered,

"Go away, don't bother us, I'm showing your wife how to have fun no feckless man like yourself could ever show her. Now just…Go away!" Jake now felt like the classic cuckold, but then decided to give Dori the benefit of the doubt.

Out of curiosity, he made his way to the front where Mokora's father was flying the ship; he asked if there was a camera situated in the engine room.

"I'm sure there is," replied Robarik, "Why?"

"My wife and your daughter are playing a trick on me and they're hiding in the engine room." This seemed to puzzle Robarik, who pointed to the co-pilot's station,

"You can activate the camera there, but I'm pretty sure when you do, a light on the camera goes on." Not wanting to give himself away, Jake stuck around and chatted with Robarik, then went and lay down on his bunk. Before long, the two women came past him, giggling. Mokora continued up to the bridge, while Dori crawled into her bunk and eventually went to sleep.

When Jake was sure she was asleep, he quietly snuck back to the engine room and disabled the light on the camera, now it was just a matter of waiting. Playing the "wronged man," to the hilt, Jake didn't have to wait long. When he was sure both had snuck off to the engine room, Jake made his way up to the front where he turned on the camera in the engine room. A warm smile came to his face as he saw both women with their ears to the hatch. Just to be on the save side, he raced to the rear of the ship and tried to open the hatch. Again he was re-buffed, with giggling. Back up front, he saw the two women laughing, but otherwise just sitting there. Switching to three other camera's before turning it off, he quickly went to his bunk, where turning to the bulkhead he maintained a grin on his face.

Deciding to carry this a little further, Jake waited until Dori and Mokora were sitting on a bunk then asked,

"Who's going to carry the baby?"

"What are you talking about?" asked Mokora.

"You heard me, who's going to carry the child and give birth?"

"Oh don't be so ridiculous, replied Dori, "How are we going to get pregnant?" Jake grinned,

"How about the three of us go back to that engine room, take our clothes off, and I'll show you."

Mokora than made an indistinguishable remark, adding,

"See Dori, what did I tell you about men. They only want one thing, and when they get it, they're off to someone else."

"That's why a smart woman doesn't give it away," snapped Jake. Mokora immediately came off her bunk and slapped him as hard as she could. Jake rubbed his cheek, then replied.

"I'm sorry Mokora, I had no right to say that, but you're really starting to piss me off, and I don't know why. Trying to seduce my wife perhaps, ulterior motives, trying to get back at the guy that hurt you through me, I don't know. I do know that I wasn't lying to you when I told you I knew someone who could make you forget all the hurt, but we live and learn I suppose." With that, Jake went to find Branak.

Jake explained his problem to Branak, who sympathized.

"Don't let it get to you Jake, Mokora is just one of those women who have to take their anger out on someone, she'll get over it." Before long, their conversation had drifted onto the subject of the problems of the Falthian marines. And effective training. Jake detailed his military experience, as well as combat in Afghanistan. Branak just sat there stunned by what he heard. If I can," added Jake, "I'll try and get some of my unit together, we're treading on shaky ground, but maybe a couple might be persuaded to come back to Falth with me and help with a training program. But like I said, technically we would be breaking the law by enlisting in a foreign power. If nothing else, I would have to have written assurances that your government had no intentions of invasion against earth. I don't want to sound crazy, and maybe I've seen too many science fiction films, but I would need some solid assurances."

"Oh I agree," Replied Branak, "Still it could be very worthwhile, I'll make some discreet inquires when we get back then we can go from there."

Three una's into the flight, Dori came to Jake with tears in her eyes.

"I'm so sorry Jake, Mokora said it would teach you a lesson, and that you were just like all men and needed to be taught a lesson. She made it seem like a game." Jake smiled and gave her a hug,

"Don't worry about it Dori, I'll talk with her again but just not right now." Jake waited for the right time when Mokora wasn't on duty.

"Are you happy now that you've gotten my wife all worked up, your father asking me questions, and life aboard this ship in a general uproar?" Mokora just sat and glared at him.

"Look Mokora," he began. "Surprisingly, I feel badly for you, I really do. I make no excuses for jerks but don't take your pain out on others. Give it another chance; like I told you, I've got friends." Mokora just looked at him saying,

"We'll see."

On the fifth una they snapped out of space warp drive only to discover they had a very serious problem.

Mokora reported that the craft had used far more power than they should have.

"According to the flight computer something is causing us to use twice the plasma fuel, it looks like our gravitic generator is malfunctioning, if we don't do something in a real big hurry, we won't have enough fuel to make it to Kagor." With her father's help Mokora was able to get the generator to operate at one quarter regeneration, which was better than nothing. Both father and daughter announced,

"Our only chance is to divert half the power from life support. That means a reduction in oxygen and water production. Dori, perhaps you can help us here create a program which will operate as an "on/off," set-up. By proper programming we won't suffer too much however as we enter Kagor's atmosphere things are going to get pretty dicey.

What I want to do is set up the navigation programming right now so that from this point every move and use of fuel will be directed towards that farm in the Black Hills Jake was telling me about. Everyone do whatever you can to conserve life support. The "necessary" uses only a very miniscule amount of power, so we're all right there, however consumption of water will be highly restricted, let's also go very easy on food consumption as well."

With Dori's help, they programmed the ship's navigation as well as diverting every available particle of fuel to the engines. Jake suggested heading for the base on Mars, but Robarik replied,

"Although we are closer, the re-adjustments, the searching and landing efforts would be too costly. Surprisingly, landing on Kagor is the best choice." Robarik then quietly asked Jake,

"What's the quality of scanning on Kagor?'

"What, are you talking about radar?"Asked Jake.

"I suppose, is that what your scanners are called?"

"Yeah. Why are you asking me this?" asked Jake. Robarik sighed,

"In order to conserve our fuel we're going to have to shut down the cloaking device. The one on this ship isn't the best but we will be tracked once it's off."

"It's pretty damn good Robarik. I've no doubt they'll be able to track us right to the ground, maybe we ought to re-think our landing site," replied Jake. "We're going to be up to our neck in fighter jets and black helicopters the moment we touch down."

Robarik frowned.

"Does this ship have any sort of life raft or escape pod?" Asked Jake.

"I believe there is an escape pod of sorts replied Robarik but I'm not sure we can all fit into it I suppose we'd better have a look." The pod was located under the bottom of the craft, and it certainly didn't look big enough for five of them.

"I know what your thinking Robarik," said Jake. "We'll make the room, I take it we can't transfer the power from this thing to the main ship?"

"No," replied Robarik, "It's a different type of power." He and Jake crawled down into the pod where Robarik checked the power level.

"Power's good, the system check shows positive."

"So what is the capability of one of these things," asked Jake.

"Basically to escape the mother craft, travel a short distance in space enter a planet's atmosphere, and make an emergency landing. However in this case we're going to have to make sure either of these craft cannot be recovered."

"Well before we do anything else," said Jake, "Let's see if all of us can fit in this thing."

With effort he and Robarik managed to pull out all the extra equipment and padding making for a very tight fit, but all of them were able to squeeze inside.

"I've got an idea," said Jake. "How well can these pods be navigated?"

"Within reason," replied Robarik, "Why what do you have in mind?"

"Earth has an awful lot of water," replied Jake. "There are parts of the pacific that are pretty deep, as we come in over earth simply program the main ship to crash into the ocean while we set our sights on Moreck's place."

"They will still pick us up," replied Robarik.

"Could I look at your scanner data," said Jake. "Especially terrain information."

Robarik showed him all the map data much of which Jake had a hard time understanding since there were no place names for anything. He was able to figure out the Rocky Mountains and bodies of water.

"Oh here's something," added Robarik. Plugging in a data crystal Robarik said.

"My grandfather had this, I brought it along thinking that if we had the time it might be possible to re-visit some of the places he and my great grandmother found." Jake carefully looked over the old map data enlarging the picture as needed.

Pointing to a spot on the northern part of the Rockies, Jake asked,

"What are these notations up here, this looks to be up around Montana or Idaho."

Robarik looked closer,

"I'm not sure; I've never really looked at this data crystal before. That number is a date 2028, Kith and Juko cave…Wait, I remember, that's the people who tried to kill my great grandparents and I think they had something to do with the Blessings as well."

Both studied the coordinates as Jake said,

"It looks like it's right along the Bitterroot River here or at least a tributary, if that is a cave we could hide the pod there drop the roof on it or pick it up at a later date." The problem was then discussed with everyone and a final plan drawn up.