Commander Goddard was the first one out of the jump tubes. Since it was not the norm for one of the cadets, particularly Rosie, to call everyone to the Command Post, he was expecting a shock. He nearly expected to see an asteroid headed their way or a Spung Killcruiser looming up ahead. Instead...
"Ms. Ianni, did you call us all to the Command Post just to see -- a planet?!"
"That's it?" Suzee exclaimed, wringing out her hair. "You ruined a perfectly good shower for that?"
"You got the floor wet," Harlan pointed out, but THELMA was already mopping it up.
"Yes, but-but," Rosie shone slightly and the others were reminded that if upset, she might overheat and unintentionally put them in danger. "It's just that we haven't seen a single planet in... months! And Bova says that if we don't alter our course right away, we won't be able to get a good look at it." She bit her lip, embarrassed. "It... It reminds me of Mercury."
Rosie wasn't overheating, but the crew was starting to melt.
This was the moment when Goddard realized he had gone soft.
"I suppose we could... pass by."
Miss Davenport gave him a side-long glance and a small smile.
"It wouldn't take much, really," Bova spoke up, unusually open to the idea of checking out the planet and having nothing gloomy to say about the situation.
(For Rosie, though, Bova might do anything.)
"Commander, before you arrived, I searched the SpaceNet to see if it might have any information about this sector. That planet is named Ozonia because the ground-level ozone on the planet is lethal. No species could survive there..."
"I could." Suzee couldn't resist reminding everyone that she could breathe in any atmosphere. Even high concentrations of ground-level ozone.
" But the atmosphere surrounding the planet isn't harmful," Bova went on. "We couldn't land on it... not that we wanted to... but it wouldn't do any harm to pass by for a closer look. And altering our course would be fairly..." He trailed off.
Bova had almost said 'simple.' Then he had glanced at Radu and remembered that his Andromedan sense of direction was out of whack, along with everything else.
"Whoa, what happened to you?" Bova exclaimed, doing a double take at Radu's new look.
Radu blushed furiously as the others did the same thing as Bova.
"There are three times in my life that I can cut my hair," Radu reluctantly explained. "This is one of them."
"You might want to even it out a little," Suzee snickered, seeing that it was still long on the left side and bluntly cut above his ears on the right.
Radu didn't get the joke. "I'm not done," he said, flatly. "Rosie interrupted me."
"Sorry," Rosie whispered, a little put off by Radu's attitude.
"Mr. Radu, will you be able to plot the course, given your situation?" Ms. Davenport asked the same thing that Bova had been wondering, in an attempt to avert the focus from Radu's astranged hairstyle back to the matter at hand.
"Um..." Radu fidgeted. His sense of direction had been the first thing to go. Last week, when the whole ordeal had begun, he misguided Harlan during a practice session and took the ship in the wrong direction by a long shot. He had been hassled by Harlan and interrogated by Goddard. But neither had learned the true reason for Radu's troubles at the time.
"Well?" Goddard demanded an answer right away. His patience with Radu was running out.
"I-I can do it." Radu sounded fairly confident. He closed his eyes, thinking for a minute. It required a great deal of precision to make the change. He concentrated, and amazingly, it came to him. Clearer than ever before. It was so obvious that he almost laughed.
"Alter the course to Y-axis 118.24. Just turn the nose a hair, and we're close enough for a good look. A-and still a safe distance away from the planet."
He opened his eyes to meet Commander Goddard's; Goddard didn't look nearly as convinced as he typically did when Radu spouted off a coordinate. With good reason.
But Radu smiled. "I couldn't be more sure on this one, Commander." He meant that, wholeheartedly.
"That's good enough for me, Commander," Harlan put in. The others nodded in agreement.
That was good enough for Goddard; he gave in. "Go to it, Mr. Radu."
"Good to have you back," Harlan knudged Radu and grinned.
Radu tried to return the friendly gesture. But he couldn't even manage that. He couldn't help wondering what the sudden return of his sense of direction might mean. It couldn't mean what he thought it meant, could it?
The thought lingered, and distracted Radu. He managed to hide his preoccupation from the crew as he plotted the course.
Or so he thought. Little did he know, Harlan had taken notice.
A/N: I changed my penname. I wanted something that could be my nickname and since I'm a girl, Radu doesn't exactly fit :/ I've named myself after Sofiana Mrtz, who appeared on an episode of Space Cases. So, just call me Sofiana!
