21. Coming Home

Tori couldn’t believe she was stranded AGAIN. It was like deja vu; for her and the rest of the Zapp family, it brought back the feelings of helplessness and isolation of their experiences in the escape pods. At least this time, they had the crew of the crippled ship, The Three Zees, to keep them …

18. Dangerous games.

Now they were safely in Earth orbit, Carli knew she only had a few days to prepare, but since the success or failure of the operation depended largely on keeping Lazzaro off balance and distracted, she had to spend at least some time each day working on him. Whether that meant finding an excuse to …

13. Kids.

Captain Toes was doing routine paperwork and ‘net surfing when his comm went off, “yeah?” “Capt’, we are about a week out from Earth…and we have received a request from Specter to pick up a traveler.” Crap, he hated these detours. They would have to drop out of hyper and restart… “How far out?” “They …

9. Hidden agendas.

As the IGV Alice Marie blasted her way across the vast interstellar void toward Earth, Carli and Diaz continued to quietly discuss the hatch failure that had so nearly caused a fatal incident on the trip out to NASA 6. “If that pin had sheared off whilst still in orbit, there’s no telling what kind …

2. Lazzaro.

First Officer Eric Lazzaro was strolling down the hallway on his way to the daily gripe ‘n’ groan session that was his esteemed captain’s morning meeting, when there was an ear-splitting crash, followed by the shrieking of tortured metal and one final BOOM!!! Then silence. “Uh-oh, that didn’t sound good.” A siren briefly sounded, then …

1. Toes.

He listened to the drives as they roared through space and sighed. He hated hyperdrive. Nothing but the noise of the tired GE Max Ion Drives and the creaks and groans of an aged freighter way out of specs but, by God, making money…Woohoo!! Captain Toes sighed again as the com buzzed; “Capt’ you gonna …

Countdown To Launch…

Starship Gypsies has main engine start… ***** 5 *** 4 *** 4 *** 3 *** 2 *** 1 …We have lift off!