Chapter 12. Reconciliation.

The newly added crew members were escorted to their quarters to be cleaned up and manicured by the robotic assistants. Eventually, the men gathered in the engineering deck to introduce Robert to the ship's technical equipment and make him feel as if he were one of them.

"This is more advanced than I'm familiar with," Robert reacted to what he had just seen. "I guess I have a lot of technology to catch up with."

"There's plenty of manuals in the system that will help you," Charles said. "It's our job to make sure that all the systems are up to specs and operating well. There's plenty of spare parts, so we should be good to go for some time."

Robert leaned back in his chair at the main engineering station. "I realize that this is not a tech question, but how have you been dealing with the women?"

Charles ran a hand through his hair and sighed as if he were presented with a difficult question. "We leave them alone," he finally replied, looking back up at Robert with a serious expression. "They're the scientists and we're the engineers. It's their job to come up with the science that can figure out what happened and maybe get us out of this situation we find ourselves in."

Carl pointed at Charles. "He's been appointed to be our commander. The women are satisfied with that."

Robert turned to Charles. "Do they obey you?" He paused. "Or should I say, do they obey Space Command regulations?"

"Yes, but the truth is, Space Command is no longer in existence. We're out here on our own, and I have no intention of making up rules." He paused again before continuing, "I don't think it's a good idea for us to form relationships with them because the last thing we would want to do is make one of them pregnant, even though the health exams indicate that we and they are sterile. I don't trust those results, mainly because we're in a situation that we're not familiar with and nothing seems to work the way we would expect. I think it's best that we respect them for their scientific expertise and let them do their thing."

"Yeah," Carl said. "We can entertain them, but it would be a bad idea for us to demand that they reciprocate."

"I agree," Dave said. "We've established a détente of sorts with them, and It's worked well so far."

"Yeah, I think you're right," Robert agreed. "If we would favor one or two of them it would cause a cat fight among the others." He sighed. "Besides, it was an unwritten rule among us at the Mars colony to avoid relationships. We had no provisions to handle children. That was something that would be relegated to a future colonization mission."

"Keep in mind, gentlemen, that they outnumber us," Charles told them. "And there's a possibility that we might find more of them out here in the space boonies."

They looked at him with confused expressions.

"What do you mean?" Dave said. "Are there other missions out here we don't know about?"

"I don't know, but the way things are going, anything is possible."

Just then, as if on cue, the communication system activated. "I think you should get back up here," Alice's voice said. "We contacted a ship returning from Mars. They claim that their ship is off course, and they can't fix the problem."

"We'll be right there," Charles replied. He turned to the other men and grinned. "What did I say?"

They laughed, even though they weren't sure it was a laughing matter.

When he arrived on the command deck, Charles sat down at the pilot's section. "How far away are they?"

"We're only sixty thousand kilometers away from them," Alice said. "Their communication system is not working well."

"I see them," Charles said after calling up a telescopic view of the problem vessel. "I'll set us on course to intercept." He turned to Alice. "Did they say how many of them there are?"

"They said there are four of them, all women."

"That's the ship that left Mars before the blackout," Robert said. "They were supposed to have reached Earth before the backout. Lucky for them that their vessel malfunctioned."

Charles turned to Carl, Dave and Robert with a grin.

They opted not to return his gesture, but they marveled at his visionary acumen.

It only took an hour to intercept a small space craft moving at a thousand kilometers per hour. After pulling the Proxima B Explorer up to it and adjusting its velocity to match the smaller craft, Charles stood up. "I'll do the honors."

"Do you need help?" Alice asked him.

"No. Their craft has a hatch that our shuttles can link to. Keep this vessel matched to their course."

She saluted. "Yes, sir."

Charles went to the hanger deck and boarded a shuttle. After evacuating the hanger's atmosphere and opening the main hatch, he moved the shuttle out of the hanger and slowly approached the derelict vessel. Using maneuvering jets, he moved the shuttle up to connect to the small ship's main hatch.

He didn't have long to wait before the hatch opened and four women entered his shuttle. After they were safe inside his shuttle, he disconnected from their ship and began a return trip to his ship.

"I'm Charles Westin," he told them after they were strapped into seats behind him."

One of the women, a blond with a pristine complexion, did the honors of introducing herself and her crew. "I'm Felicia North." She gestured to a raven-haired female sitting next to her. "This is Betty Hampton." She pointed to a red head with a nice smile sitting back of her. "That's Sally Homer." The last woman, another blond with green eyes, was introduced as Georgia Jadson.

"Welcome to the Proxima B," Charles exclaimed while trying to avoid sounding pretentious.

"Why did they name it for a planet?" Felicia asked.

"That's because we traveled to that planet to determine if it were habitable."

That resulted in a brief period of silence before she replied. "I was unaware of a mission of that importance."

Charles didn't reply. He was anxious to ask the big question. "By any chance did you experience a blackout?"

The answer didn't come right away, but when it did, Charles knew that it verified his belief that it was a cosmic event.

"Yes, we did, and when it subsided, we were unable to contact Space Command."

Charles sighed. He waited before responding to her statement. "There is no Space Command. When we experienced the blackout, we had just begun a return to Earth, a journey that would require five years, but when it subsided, we found ourselves in the Kuiper belt not far from Neptune. Since then, we've rescued a crew trapped at Enceladus, and people that were left on Mars Colony. But that's not the worst of it. Earth has been stripped clean of all life. We are all that remains of humanity."

A long period of silence was followed by Felicia's response to his completely unbelievable statement. "You're kidding us . . . aren't you?"

"I wish I were," he responded. "I know it sounds apocalyptic, but it's the reality that followed the blackout event."

That resulted in another long period of silence. Charles maneuvered the shuttle back into the hanger and began its recompression. After it was complete, he and his rescued astronauts were able to exit the shuttle and proceed to the quarters deck where he introduced them to Alice and Vicky.

Alice pointed to their quarters. "You'll find your names on the doors. Robotic assistants will help you clean up and provide you with clean clothes. Just let them do their thing. Ok?"

Felicia nodded.

"When you're done, you can join us for supper. The robots will escort you to the location."

The women just stared at Alice, who turned and walked away. The rescued women waited until she was out of sight before they discussed their situation. "Do you think what he said is true?" Georgia asked the other women.

"I don't see why she would lie to us," Felecia responded. "This vessel is humongous." She pointed to the corridor. "There must be dozens of quarters in this ship. It's as if we were on a space station."

Betty looked at a door nearby. "That's my quarters. I could use a freshen up." She walked to the doorway, and it swished open. She looked back at the other women. "Guess it recognized me."

The other women started searching for their quarters after Betty entered hers and the door swished shut.

Before Betty got a few feet inside her quarters, two humanoids approached her. They were essentially robots with a human fashioned head, hands and feet but obvious innards of mechanisms.

"We are here to serve you." One of them said in a mechanical sounding voice. "Please remove all your garments. If you need assistance, we can help you."

Betty held her hands up with palms facing them. "No, I can do it myself."

They didn't react.

She began by unzipping her top and removing it. One of the robots approached her and held out a mechanical hand. Betty handed the top to the robot, which turned and took it over to a wall near the bedroom door. An opening appeared and the robot inserted the top into it and it vanished.

Betty noted the other robot's stare before she removed her trousers and handed it to it. The other robot returned while the second robot took her trousers to the wall opening and deposited it into the opening.

"Where does that opening lead to?" Betty asked the robot.

"Your garments will be converted to new materials," The robot proclaimed. "Remove the rest of your garments."

Betty stared at the robot's uncaring stoic face before she removed her bra and watched the robot take it to the wall disposal. The second robot returned to order her to remove her remaining garments. She pulled down her brief and stepped out of it. Again, the robot disposed of it. Her shoes and socks went the same route leaving her naked, a status that made her nervous.

One of the robots pointed to a device that looked like a torture rack but was an adjustable metal chair rig with two long flexible rods with metal slabs between them that were adjusted to support her neck, back, buttocks and thighs. She realized that the robot expected her to get into it, which she did, and then watched as a robot adjusted the rods so that her body was stretched out with her ankles and wrists locked in place in metal restraints before they trimmed and manicured her nails and cut and styled her hair. Being restrained made her nervous, especially when her body was totally exposed to machines.

When they released her, the robots escorted her to her bathroom where they helped her bathe, a process that she was not accustomed to. The robots used sponges on the end of rods to cleanse her entire body with satisfying strokes that produced a subdued erotic feeling.

After her refreshing cleansing, the robots showed her a wardrobe which was replete with new fresh clothing, including well-fitting bra and panties and trousers, jersey and shoes that fit her perfectly. The entire grooming process made her think she was in a fantasy dream.

Maybe she was.