by P F Walsh
“Long, but wonderful night on Hhearn.” He said to himself.
Allister, silent, agreed.
Sean had begun recruitment for Discovery’s crew as soon as they got back to Hhearn. First on the list was an engineering inspection of the ship. In response to Sean’s request, the Senior Councilor reached out and found the best engineer they knew for starships and sent him over to see Sean on the Discovery.
Sean was sitting in a chair at the cargo entrance to the ship reading a new translation of the latest Hhearn City news. He was expecting a candidate to arrive for a crew interview. A man approached the ship, he pulled a large suspensor-trunk full of tools trailing behind him. Sean had learned in his tours that those trunks were very expensive since anti-grav systems were exotic from the world Nexxu. Only one was known to have been sold for a reasonable price, and only because they needed his help on one of their ships. He was a short stocky man, powerfully built and suited to handling heavy machines by his looks. He had a dour facial look that was offset by his cutting sense of humor that could make a room cry with laughing. His name was Welkt-Tor from the clan of Tor.
“You be Captain Flynn?” He asked
“Yes, I am,” he said through his translator, “and you are...?”
“My name is Welkt-Tor, but most of the crews and friends call me Welly.” He said with a smile that transformed his face from the dour look to one of mischievousness.
“Permission to come aboard Captain?”
“Permission granted, are you the engineer that the Senior Councilor said he was sending over?”
“Yes sir, that is me. I understand you would like me to make an assessment of your ship, in general or in specific?”
“In general Welly, paying particular attention to engine and weapons systems. Nav seems to work fine but there is a lot I don’t know about this ship and I would like to get a reliable opinion before I go racing off into the big dark in it.”
“New, is she?” he asked.
“New to me.” Sean replied.
“Well, let’s start with the important part first and take a look at the engines.” He came aboard and after looking each way, turned and started for the aft section going to the second stairway down and dragging his anti-grav trunk behind him.
Sean followed and asked,
“How did you know which stairway to take down, have you been on this model before?“ He asked.
“Never seen this one before, I have no idea who built it, but the engines need to be in a place of balance weight-wise, otherwise there’s a tendency for tumbling during travel in ‘no-space,’ very irritating when that happens. Second staircase was right about mid ship.”
They entered the engine room and as they did, bright lights came on chasing away even the smallest of shadows anywhere in the room.
“Love the lights, can’t have too much when you need to see very small or dangerous things. I wonder if they are on the backup circuit. Let’s have a look at these engines.” Welly proceeded to get some instruments out of his trunk and began scanning the engine housing. His eyebrows went up as the readings came on the screen. He shut off the device, then turned it on again and repeated the scan. Same result.
“Captain, there are two engines under this cowling but the readings I am seeing indicate the engines should be three times bigger in size than these are. These are very powerful engines Captain. I would caution you that the indicated power vs the estimated weight of a ship this size would allow it to achieve speeds anyone on this ship would not be able to survive. This is a very fast ship Captain. Who built it and how do they make an engine this powerful in that size?”
“Welly, I have no idea.” Answered Sean. “I don’t know who made it and have no history, that’s why you’re here, to bring me some information I do not have. We’ve flown her on some trips and everything seems to work well, but this is the first chance I have had for a good inspection. What about the transition drive?”
“Looks built-in Captain. Very efficient but I do notice a recent repair on the power conduit next to that section.”
“Yes, the other ship I command sent parts and drones over to make that repair.”
“Other ship?”
“Yes, Seeker eighteen.”
“Ah, you’re that Captain!”
“Yep, that’s me, I seem to get myself involved with very interesting situations.”
“Captain, you have my compliments on getting rid of that Zakar ship. They’re all filthy and poorly made!” He said with distaste. He went on,
“There’s not much I can see on the engines; they’re sealed and usually last for over a hundred annuals of use before they need any maintenance. Let me check out the rest of the ship. That will take, maybe four hours or so.”
He put his instrument away and began examining the power distribution in the engine room and the environmental system.
As Sean prepared to leave him to his work, he saw him pull out some of the environmental filters and heard him mentioning with amazement,
“M’god, they’re self-cleaning. Brilliant!” As he slid them back into place.
A little over five hours later, Welly hunted down the Captain in the Dining Room. Sean motioned for him to help himself to a cold drink which he did and came over to sit with the Captain.
“Captain, this is one of the most beautifully made ships I think I have ever seen. It’s in very fine condition. Frankly, I would sail this ship anywhere she wanted to go without a wisp of concern.”
“What about in-flight repairs. When you are in the deep dark and something breaks, it’s nice to know it can be repaired. Is this ship so well put together that repair is not possible without a shipyard?”
No sir, the only area that is not repairable is the engine itself. But when they are properly built, they just don’t fail, and this one is definitely properly built. With regard to the rest of the systems, I checked the spares stores and she’s full up, lots of miscellaneous parts, a small shop with machines, and a 3D printer It’s hard to imagine what couldn’t be repaired if you had a good engineer on board.” He took another drink of the cold soft drink.
“Say, what is this stuff? It’s very tasty”
“That’s an Earth world drink called Diet Cherry Pepsi, or at least the ship’s synthesizer version of it.”
Welly drank the glass to empty and went back for more.
“Welly, you looking for a job?” Sean asked.
“Well, sir, I wasn’t until I came on board this beauty. I would be very interested in the job if its open Sir,”
“Welly, it is not only open, but you have the job if you can provide me with good references I can check.” Sean told him.
“No problem there, Sir, I can have those to you tomorrow. I think you will find them in order. When do you plan on your next trip, Sir?”
“I think in the next week or two, I have more crew members to recruit, and so you know, it will be for a long duration. I’ll tell you more once I see the references and I am satisfied I have the right man.”
“Thank you, Captain. I’ll be here tomorrow with those references.” he said as he rose, he shook Sean’s hand and towing his trunk, left the ship.
Sean closed up the ship for the day, advised the AI to remind him to acquire a spare power conduit to add to the spares, and to allow no entries. He went to Nasht-Mer’s apartment where, at her persuasion, he had moved in. She was waiting for him sipping a small glass of Earth wine and began pouring him one.
The next day, Welly came by with his references. The list read like it was the ‘Who’s who’ on Hhearn including the personal ship of the Senior Councilor. After a few calls to the list, it was clear Welly was the most wanted ship engineer on the planet. Everyone said he knew more about starships than anyone on the planet. He had been so highly paid that he really didn’t need to work anymore, and if he’s willing to sign on to your ship you must have some special ship or a really lucrative mission. Sean concluded that solved the problem of having a good engineer o
n board. Now, to work on the rest of the crew.
After the engineer had left the ship, Sean locked up and went over to the Seeker. He went to the bridge and called Allister.
“Allister, I have a tricky mission for you if you can handle it for me. As you know, the Discovery has been transferred to me as owner. I am planning to take her back to the home planet shown in her nav system. What I would like you to do is to carefully examine the software in Discovery and look for software ‘back doors’ that would allow the former owners to surreptitiously take control of the ship and lock me out. I am almost certain that there will be some. Do you think you can find those and remove those lines of code?” He asked.
Allister responded affirmatively and remarked it would be an interesting task he would enjoy. He scanned the files declaring that it may take a day or two to look at every line of code and trace its purpose but he would get started right away. Sean felt better knowing this was being looked at as he imagined such an event happening to lose the ship many light years away from Hhearn would not be a good thing.
Within a few more days, word had circulated about the Captain’s hunt for crew and there were so many applicants that Sean had to hire a resources person to sort out the best of the applicants so he could interview them. It seemed some applied just to meet the Captain.
Another applicant sent over by the Senior Councilor was sitting nervously in front of Sean while he read his resume. Sean was skeptical of this one because of his age. He was only seventeen annuals old, still a teenager, but his resume was so impressive Sean thought it must be partially false. His name was Rookt-Nab.
“I am a person who goes straight to a point. Is this all accurate, no exaggerations?” Prodded Sean.
“Yes sir, all accurate. and actually, does not include my abilities with language absorption. You see Sir, I have exceptional abilities that I never wanted. I just wanted to be a normal child to go out and play with the other children, but I have these abilities which my parents induced me to develop. Regrettably, many of my schoolmates called me a freak of nature since I was in higher education with grown adults who couldn’t keep up with me. it’s been more than difficult to find a place where I don’t feel like a freak.” He answered with clear sincerity.
“Tell me about those linguistic skills.” Sean asked.
“Well Sir, I find that languages are a complex amalgam of convenient utterances that do not challenge the physical means of speaking, along with a vague symmetry that seems to trace among similar species. It’s very hard to explain, but at some point, in an interchange, I begin to know what they are saying, maybe not the precise words, but the meaning. Some have called it ‘spooky’.” Sean could see that the level of intelligence here was very high just in the manner in which he answered questions, direct and clear. Now the next question,
“And your legal skills?”
“I am a DS, Doctor of Skill in Law, graduate with distinction, and have been offered a position with every major law firm on Hhearn.” He answered.
“Why haven’t you accepted one of those positions?”
“Sir, it’s the freak factor again. The other much older practitioners all see me as not only an aberration, but a threat to their years of work to reach their seniority and income share. There seems to be no shedding that along with the prospect of boredom.” explained Rookt-Nab.
“Rookt-Nab, may I call you Rookt?” asked Sean.
“Yes Sir, but my few friends all call me Rooky, I prefer that.”
“Very well, Rooky, we are getting prepared to embark on a very long trip to places no one from here has ever been. I expect alien languages, alien rules and laws, alien cultures and we will need to approach these without offending or breeching social customs. Then, there will be the need possibly to establish some sort of diplomatic connections, and so on. In other words, we really don’t know what we will run into, so ‘normal’ is not something we are going to have a lot of when we get where we are going. Does this concern you?” Asked Sean.
“Concern me? Sir, it sounds ideal!”
“Rooky, you are a young adult, possibly a bit under age to commit to this job. Can you bring me some type of consent by another legal adult to permit you to join this ship as crew?” Sean asked.
“Yes Sir, I can. I will bring that to you tomorrow if that is satisfactory, do I have the job?”
“Bring me that consent and you can assume you have a job. I will have a lot for you to do immediately since there is a complete law library on board of two worlds you have not been to, Earth and another one we do not yet know much about. It will be your immediate task to read and understand the second one right away. Thank you for coming in.”
“I think once again, I have found the right man (boy?) For the job. My crew complement is almost complete” He thought.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Book One
A few days later, several recruits applied for navigation officer. All were experienced cowmen aboard CW freighters with a long list of successful trips in their log books. Sean chose one that had experience in prospecting searches among the asteroids and asteroid belts. Each of those jumps were new and unknown, off the heavy traffic routes that had been used for over a century. This required careful calculations and clever use of an exploratory drone of which Sean promptly added several to the Discovery. The Discovery already had launch tubes, but no drones when found. There was no way to tell if all the drones had been used and lost, or if the ship never was equipped. Sean thought to question the AI on this later.
Since the plans were to go where no one from the Council of Worlds had been, this candidate seemed second best to having a Seeker AI as a navigator. His name was Halkt-Bar, an outworlder who had emigrated to Hhearn.
After a tiring week of interviews, Sean was ready for a break and went over to the Seeker to relax in the upper Lounge with a glass of toddy while he ruminated in his thoughts about how the upcoming mission into the unknown was likely to go. Sean had become comfortable in the Seeker over the months he had command and traveled in it. There was no one else aboard this late in the day. The memory sink repair team had left for the day. Their work was extremely delicate with multiple sessions of lengthy backup before another sector was examined and certified. They knew which section was unfunctional, but not whether any others had been damaged.
Allister appeared,
“Captain, I apologize for disturbing you, it appears you are deep in thought and calculations, but I was certain you would want this report I wish to provide in private.”
“Yes, Allister, what is it?”
“First Captain, I must commend you on your perceptive suspicions regarding ‘back doors’ into the Discovery’s software. There was indeed several of them. Some I estimate were placed there by the software programmers who always have those to access a crashed system when the customary interfaces are not responsive. There were others though, I am sure those were placed there exactly for the reason you were concerned about. Those also allowed control from outside the ship. In addition, I scanned the entire wiring harness throughout the ship and found three hidden data ports that would allow someone to insert a memory stick with commandeering software on it and gain control. These were quite devious since no software was in place, just a direct route to read the inserted memory stick. One of those ports is concealed in the cargo bay, another in the engine room, and the last one was in a room that was built to serve as a restraint room or brig. I can show you where those are.”
“Perhaps one of the more interesting finds was another bypass code to open the ship’s safe in the Captain’s cabin. I am not sure whether this was part of the deception planning or a customary inclusion to deal with a forgotten combination or a Captain’s demise. I have created a new combination for the safe which I believe you have not yet opened, and I will include that with the new ‘back door’ codes.” He continued,
“Finally, there are two removable panels in the main passageway on the bridge level. I believe these
may conceal arms; they are radiating very small levels of energy. I cannot tell how many or what is in there. The panel must have a manual release, since there are no electrical connections. You will have to examine those physically. There is one more issue, and it is the cargo. I have scanned the crates in the cargo hold and many contain soil samples with various metal ores within them. Those appear to be taken from the worlds they visited. Some of which, are in my database. These would be of low value and may be removed. Several crates contained food stuffs which are long out of date and should be discarded.”
“There are two crates however which contain very large machine parts of unknown intent. They may be of value to the home planet you seek to visit. I will print out a list of these crates and their suspected contents for you.”
“Captain, it appears that this ship has secrets regarding its mission. Our earlier assessment of it as an exploration ship may be incorrect. Regarding the power conduit sabotage, I might suggest another more intensive examination of the clothing and personal items of the deceased crew may disclose possession of those ‘back door’ codes and possibly reveal the person who may have disabled the ship. It is not likely that any of that person’s associates have survived after this long a time. However, any surviving organization he may have been loyal to, would bear viewing as potentially hostile”.
“I have erased all the existing ‘back door’ software coding including on all the backup files, and created our own. No one other than the new crew can now control the ship from inside or outside the hull. I will provide you with those new codes and methods of access. Your suspicions were well based. It raises a consideration that the society that built or managed this ship had a great deal of fear regarding undisclosed adversaries and I caution you to be aware deception may be an acceptable social tool for control.” Allister concluded.