The Independence Mutiny

Chapter 1: Fly Me To The Moon...

"Gas the quarterdeck," the Skipper said to his Number One. A wrinkled hand turned a knob increasing the G-force to 1.0, then the same hand pressed the touchscreen, where a green button flashed "ATMOSPHERE READY." After 10 seconds the screen flashed "29 in Hg," using imperial units as was traditional in nautical settings. The Skipper then grabbed the headset. He did not put it on but held the handset to his mouth, "All hands to the quarterdeck."

Within one minute, ten young men and women and the Skipper were on the deck. Other than the sun blazing brightly the boat was in an inky black void; an unusual sight for landlubbers but commonplace for these seasoned star sailors. Their demeanor was further subdue by their destination.

"In four days we'll be at Port Pleasant." The Bosun rolled his eyes. Johnny had been there over a dozen times. The Skipper's idea of a good learning experience to teach teenagers seamanship and have a good time was to go to a Moon honky-tonk in the middle of nowhere, the Skipper and Number One to disappear for three to four days, and leave the crew to their own devices in an agricultural plot. Often the adults would arrive back with redden noses and cheeks, with a truck and several unmarked cases. The Skipper continued with his usual speech addressing how he expected perfection, and how the crew was far short of that. Every member of the Star Scout ship FEDERATION joined for excitement and to learn how to navigate through the stars. What they got was boredom and beratings from their alcoholic adult leaders. "Now when we get there I'm cutting leave to half a day. You are NOT to go off and have your usual debauch, because we are going to head straight to Olympia, Jupiter. You are NOT to tell your parents."

"Aye-aye, Skipper," the crew responded in unison. Everyone had a different thought. Some were focused on what a big city would be like, others were worried about the heavy gravity the Jovian floating cities were known for. Johnny saw his opportunity. The Bosun had been surreptitiously changing the values on the gravostats, so most of the boat was operating at 1.2G, while officer country was at 0.8G. The Skipper and his XO assumed the alternating lightheadedness and heaviness were the result of nightly binges. Johnny had no idea why he had been doing it, maybe just the rebellion of doing something without permission, but the germ of a plan was forming.

After the crew was dismissed and the quarterdeck secured from atmosphere, Johnny held a meeting with most of the scouts in the crew quarters. The girls uncharged the electrified curtain between the boys and girls side and opened it, and everyone grabbed a chair. Alice, the bosun's mate was missing, manning navigation and being harried by the XO. Alice was conflicted by a devotion to duty and her deep desire to deck the old man. Jimmy the delinquent was at the helm and suffering the wrath of the Skipper. Jimmy was glad he was out of the galley. Both would be filled in when Johnny was supposed to be issuing them their S-detail.

"This has to stop. We need to do something," stated Johnny with all seriousness.

Ed, the Navigation Petty Officer was coiling some small line and chirped in, a scow on his face, "String them up by their manhood, turn the gravostats to eleven? Way ahead of you, Chief!" Ed gestured with the small line and quickly put a noose in it. Ed was the quickest on the crew to homicidal ideation. He used to be such a nice, quiet boy, thought Johnny. Two months on the FEDERATION changed that. Ed was the most technically gifted man on board, so the Bosun set Alice to have the first shift so Ed could be at the meeting. It was Ed that showed Johnny how to change the values on the gravostats by over clocking the mass accelerators, his input would be important. And if anyone could set the gravostats to eleven, thus increasing the felt gravity to eleven times Earth-level, it would be him.

"No. I'm sick of how we're treated. We can't turn them into the commodores because by the time they do anything, we'll be halfway through college. We can't go to the Space Guard because they are Skip's best customers. And anyway we've been knowing participants for the last three years, and we'll be branded smugglers, snitches, or just end up pushed out of the airlock of some mob-owned freighter.

"We will all get caught eventually. And for what? We get no cut of the profits, and even have to pay to participate in Scouts. None of us wanted to be smugglers. I'll never get into the Navy Academy, the closest I'll ever come to Fort Aldrin is Port Pleasant or the brig. We will be dead or in jail before this is through!"

Deb the Cook stood up, for all the good being 4 foot 10 that would do, "We can't kill them! They are human beings!" Deb was also ship's morale officer and tried to see the good in everybody. All she could muster for the Skipper and his Number One was that they were human beings.

Johnny was quick to reply, "No, that's not even on the table. No matter what we do we have no future, and adding blood on our hands is not going to change that. We need a clean break." Johnny outlined his plan. It was a very good plan with a lot of "we'll figure out when we get there," and "we'll cross that bridge when we cross it." Essentially it was a mutiny made to look like barratry with some piracy, bottomry, and smuggling thrown in for spice. "If we pull this off, we will still be pirates, but at least we will have our independence.

Ed had to laugh "How's that gonna look? The Federation's biggest pirates being based from the biggest Spacety port on Eros."