If you like Star Trek...

Welcome to my private jungle - this blog is by invitation and not a money making site. 

It's here for you to enjoy the new adventures of 

Captain Thomas K. Jackson and his crew of the S S Linus Pauling. 

Before you delve into the stories, let me set the time and give you a little background. The Science Ship Linus Pauling was commissioned in 2149, and Jackson took command in 2152 at age forty.

Captain Jackson is a graduate of Caltech and entered the US Navy as submarine lieutenant, and as a lieutenant commander flying manned fighters. With over a decade in the service, he then spent a few years at Jet Propulsion Labs as an aerospace engineer before entering the Space Administration as a pilot and an engineer. Those positions were short lived and he was promoted from Mission Specialist to Lieutenant Commander, to Commander, and to Captain within 22 months and was given his own command, the S S Linus Pauling.

 He finds the interactions with scientists and doctors on his ship more rewarding than some of the swashbuckling frontiersmen he'd teamed up with in his early aviation days. Chess games are significantly more challenging, and their quirky personalities are predictably unpredictable. In his opinion, and that of many others in the Space Admin, his crew is the finest assembly of people on any science spaceship. His reputation precedes him as a smart, serious, and affable leader; he has no shortage of candidates that want to serve under his command.

Based out of Old San Diego in North America, Jackson has an affinity for the water that he can never really identify but, nevertheless, it compels him to return home whenever possible. He's not a man to sit still long and whether sitting or running down the corridor, he'll often be found with a cup of coffee at his side. His dry, wry, witty sense of humor gets him in trouble now and then when interacting with aliens or even new crew members, but he does his best to keep in it check. Surprisingly he's a very private person with more modesty than the average bear. Keeping fit is one of his passions, not just a requirement of the Space Admin.

With the exception of his on again off again astrophysicist, Dr. Scott Gregory, his crew is unencumbered by family and spend significantly more time in space than on Earth. At the speed of one light year per month, distances between stars are still a lengthy journey by most standards.

Two officers have stayed with him throughout his command and appear in all the episodic adventures: Chen Lee, his helmsman, and Diti Balasubramanian, his navigator. She insists everyone address her as Bala.

Novellas are documented as his individual missions in the early years of the Linus Pauling's history.

Novels begin at the end of a mission when Linus Pauling is destroyed and continue on with a focus on Jackson and the trouble he gets himself into. He must redefine himself after a decade of commanding a deep space science ship, and how he can return to that life again when so much has changed. He finds new meanings in places he never searched, and his perspective changes, bringing a new reality he has to face when he adventures back into space.

Jackson's life evolves over the years, including his marriage to an alien woman, Rianya, from Beta Hydri IV, followed by the swift and serendipitous arrival of their daughter, Zalara. The new challenges of balancing his love and care for them, with his love of space and technology, rise to the top of his agenda over and over. Xenophobia on Earth, females from his single years, even aliens from his past dog his missions in directions no one could anticipate.

His long time friend, a reptilian alien he calls Quixote, is a non-gendered, 2- meter tall engineer. Having arrived as one of the first alien species on Earth, and educated in English at Oxford, has accompanied him for most of the longer missions.

His oldest friend, Scott Gregory, he has been close to since college days where they met, at California Institute of Technology. Always leaving a wife and two children on Earth, his invaluable skills as an astrophysicist, and as Jackson's part time conscience, he's also joined the science teams on many a mission. Never having joined a military service, Jackson and he lost track of each other for some time before the captain drafted into the Space Administration.