Wes looked at the two of them and then turned and stormed back up the hall toward his room. He slammed the door at the end of the hall. Sprig stuck his head out from the other end of the hall and said, “I had no idea the system had that much pressure.”
With that both Tommy and Captain Dodd were unable to breathe through their laughter.
Twenty minutes later after a cleanup detail had been sent to clean up the mess, Captain Dodd returned to the bridge to find the entire bridge crew trying to look normal; they had been following the chase on the ship’s monitors. They all returned to their seats and fought hard to maintain a straight face. Captain Dodd looked at them with the sternest face she could manage and then said, “Lt. Ortiz, please make an announcement that the wash room on deck three is out of order.”
The crew couldn’t help it, everyone doubled over laughing and even Dodd joined in. Wes’ new nickname from that day forward was “3D” which was short hand for “Deck 3”.
Chapter 5 W es finally came to terms with Sprig after Captain Dodd made both of them sit down and discuss what happened. Sprig apologized profusely and said he was leaving to get the tools to make a repair when it happened. Eventually Wes understood that education is not a well planned adventure and that accidents can happen. Sprig for his part felt awful for Wes and from that day forward swore he would make it up to him. Wes left the meeting feeling better but knew that the nickname was his no matter what. He decided 3D was better than red spot.
Tommy would leave the ship occasionally to work with Atlas but they were making no progress at developing a faster form of propulsion. Atlas was at the pinnacle of his race’s technology and the Stars Realm was millions of years behind anything close to Atlas. They kept hitting walls in coming up with anything that would start to work. After eight months of effort, Tommy went back to Dorg-Ross no closer to a solution.
The two adolescents had made remarkable progress in their education. Only two hours a day was used in downloading new information and ten hours for processing all they had learned. Tommy had an idea and asked Sprig and Twig to meet him in the conference room with Captain Dodd. He decided that he needed help and that maybe the Adolescents could use their enormous storage of knowledge to help turn him in the right direction. Unfortunately, he was going to have to tell Captain Dodd what he intended because some experiments could be dangerous to her ship.
The four of them sat in the conference room and Captain Dodd still had her stern demeanor that seemed to never change when she was around Tommy. Tommy looked at the three and said, “What we are about to discuss falls under the category of “Safety of The State” and will not leave this room.” Captain Dodd sat up straighter in her chair and wondered what was going on. Tommy looked at Captain Dodd and said, “The adolescents know part of this but they know that what I’m about to tell you can never be revealed. However, I’m at a point where I am going to have to explore avenues that I would not ordinarily explore.”
Twig thought to Tommy where Captain Dodd could hear, “Are you sure you want to discuss this?”
Dodd looked at the Algean and knew that something big was about to happen. Tommy said, “I may not like the Captain, but I admire and trust her professionalism. I have observed her since we’ve been on the ship and I am of the opinion that she can be trusted with the knowledge. If she does not agree to take part, we will go to another ship.” Twig leaned from side to side showing her agreement.
Sprig said, “I do not think you can find a better ship than this one.”
Tommy looked at Captain Dodd and answered, “I agree, but I suspect that what I’m going to ask of you will involve a high degree of danger. This is a decision she