Kelly waved the waitress off. “Candy, if we’re going to your place, we’d best start to sober up.”
“Well, you have a point there. My air car will fly by itself, but it doesn’t land very well by itself. I recommend we call the dessert cart over.”
Kelly called the waitress over with the dessert cart. They each had a large slice of cake and lots of coffee. Shortly after, Commander Timmons and Janey bid good night and departed. All three of Kelly’s ladies looked at each other and smiled the same mischievous smile. Kelly just chuckled.
After another pass at the dessert cart and lots more coffee, they were recovered enough to make the flight to Candy’s house. The three women paid a last visit to the ladies’ room and they were off.
They all piled in and Candy punched in the destination. They drove out the main gate, turned right, passed the power lines, then the car lifted straight up and headed west. They flew around the northwestern corner of the base, over the deep and cold western lakes, and into the craggy mountains. The air car started circling over the familiar mountain peak. Candy pushed a switch on the dash and lights came on in her high mountain field.
Candy expertly guided the air car to a landing next to her house perched on the mountain ledge. It was the first time Kelly had seen it as other than a 3D rendering. It was spectacular.
The house looked as if it had always been there. It was clad in a local stone similar to limestone, shining white in the landscape lights. Kelly noticed that the pool was in the back of the house, not in front as on the original plan, and asked her about it.
“The builder convinced me to put the pool in the back, so it could be fed by the natural spring. It cost a lot of credits to move several thousand liters of water up here. This way I only have to fill it once. When I’m not using the spring to top off the pool, it fills my cistern.”
Angie and Tammy had never seen the house, even as a plan, and were astounded. Candy ushered them inside.
The house was spacious and very tastefully decorated. The main room had a number of couches arranged in a large conversation area. A large fireplace stood in one corner, and the kitchen was opposite, similar to the one in a house Candy rented when she lived in the southern hemisphere, but slightly larger. It was well furnished and contained all the modern conveniences. The two remaining corners of the main room held matching sandblasted glass doors that opened into what appeared to be a library and, opposite, a music room.
Candy had decorated the house with numerous pieces of art. Alcoves carved into the walls held small statues. Art hung on the walls, including a large tapestry depicting the Antares system. Chandeliers made of Orion crystal hung above the conversation area, the front door, and the long kitchen counter.
Candy escorted them out the rear glass doors onto the patio.
“This is the best part of the house,” she said as she hit a switch on the wall. The back yard was flooded with light. Spotlights shone up through the shrubbery. The medium-sized pool was suffused with a pale blue light.
They walked out onto the patio, through a large portico. The portico sheltered an outdoor room outfitted with sturdy furniture, including a wooden dining set, rattan-style chairs and couches, and a large coffee table. There were three boxes, wrapped with bows, on the table.
Candy called them all over. “Here, I have a present for each of you. I know it is traditionally the guests at a housewarming that provide gifts, but I like to be a little different. Let me pass these out. Don’t open them until I say to.”
She picked up a box with a red ribbon and handed it to Kelly. The next box had a blue ribbon and it went to Tammy. The box with a white ribbon was passed to Angie.
“Okay, open your boxes.”
Each pulled the ribbon off their box and slipped the two halves apart. Tammy was the first. She let out an “Ooooh!” and held up two pair of blue silk lounging pajamas, similar to ones that Candy had worn when Kelly visited her in the south. Angie stood up with two white versions of the same. Kelly opened his box and found two pairs of red silk lounging pajamas.
Candy smiled at them, “Okay, as I said before, you don’t need to pack much in the way of clothing when you visit me. Let me take you upstairs and let you get settled in. Then I expect you to change into these new outfits and wear them or nothing else while you are here. Gather your bags and follow me.”
They went upstairs, and each went to one of three guest rooms on the second floor. Kelly remarked, “Candy, I thought you were only going to have three bedrooms.”
Candy smiled and replied, “Living this far out, I realized that visitors would be staying the night. So, I had them redesign it to have four bedrooms. In a pinch, the library and music room downstairs can be set up as spare bedrooms.” Candy pointed Kelly into his room and she went into her master bedroom.
Kelly changed into his new outfit and checked his visage in the mirror. The thin silk didn’t leave much to the imagination. Kelly remembered what they said in Fighter Force, “No guts, no glory.” He headed downstairs. As he went by her door, Candy called out for him to open a bottle of wine.
The kitchen was so similar to her former rented house that Kelly had no problem finding the wine, the opener, and four glasses. He poured four glasses, put them on a tray, and went out to the pool. As he looked down at his attire, it occurred to him that it was the perfect color for spilling wine upon.
The three ladies came downstairs together and out to the pool. Kelly’s jaw dropped. They were all ravishing in their pajamas. Candy was obviously comfortable in hers, but the other two were slightly self-conscious. Kelly looked on with a big grin on his face and Tammy and Angie smiled back.
Angie spoke first. “Well, it’s not like we’re showing anything you haven’t seen before or we haven’t seen ourselves.”
At that point they all broke into laughter. The ice had been broken. They all relaxed around each other and spent the rest of the weekend thoroughly enjoying each other’s company.
Valeri Yestepkin looked around at his laboratory. It was sparse and a far cry from what he enjoyed when he worked for the Blakes, but was sufficient to his needs. A non-competition clause in his previous contract with the Blakes prohibited him from working on projects using the same or similar technology as the Blakes developed, but he was content to be working on his own.
Valeri had an idea for a weapon, an idea he had gotten when working for the Blakes, but did not use their technology. It was a weapon that did what the transporter gate did in disassembling the molecules of an object, but it had no ability to put them together again. It was, in effect, a disrupter beam.
He had applied for and received a government research grant that paid for his laboratory and two assistants here on Shepard. He had already produced a prototype demonstration weapon, per the grant requirements. A team at Fleet Ordnance had his weapon prototype and was testing it to determine its efficacy and suitability.
Valeri was now working on scaling his system to different sizes. He worked with a computer assisted design program to bring the size down to that of a hand weapon. If he could get it that small, he could easily scale it up to an assault rifle-sized weapon. Valeri thought it would make a replacement for the heavy M57 blast rifles that assault troops currently carried. If his calculations were correct, the disrupter rifle would be half the weight of the M57 and shoot twice as far.
Scaling up beyond personal weapon size was a bit of a challenge, because the power requirements expanded faster than the size increased. A weapon scaled up to be a cruiser’s main armament would require its own engine for power. There was a way to make it more energy efficient, but it eluded him at the moment. Until he figured it out, he would work on the personal weapon design.