Obsidian Ressurection

by T J Bryan

  At this point Abel went back to the top of the personnel menu and two options presented themselves; Transfer and Recruit. Abel clicked on Recruit. A new screen popped up with a form for name, grade, background, certifications, and a long list of entry items.

  I wonder thought Abel. Perhaps I'll be a bit mischievous but we have used up only three ID's and the recruit tab when processed may well provide more. Abel quickly returned to the Zanos profile and the casualty tab. He paused a moment and clicked on 'Killed in Action.' The screen refreshed. Immediately from down the passage he heard shouting. Abel got up with a smile on his face and proceeded down the circular passage to the simulator station. Lennie was standing and not exactly cursing but frustrated and muttering under his breath.

  "What's wrong Lennie?" he asked.

  "I don't know but this game just kicked me off. Said I was dead. Tried logging back in but nothing. And I was so close the a triple barrel roll around a spinning twin asteroid system in the grip of a gas giant and closing in on a Unity dreadnaught." Lennie shook his head but Larry laughed.

  "Give me a moment Lennie. I think I can fix this." Abel returned to the Captain's quarters and a few minutes later returned. "Lennie you are now officially Lennie Karrlson ID TQ637938727265. Try that."

  Lennie sat down and keyed in the new ID. The screen opened and asked Lennie for an iris scan. Lennie looked at Abel. "Go ahead Lennie. Do the iris scan." Lennie leaned into the scanner and the consul chimed and flashed "Iris Scan Accepted - Lennie Karrlson, Recruit Trainee - Pilot, Level 0"

  Abel laughed, "Looks like you will have to start at the bottom of the ladder of promotion Lennie, or is that Recruit Trainee Pilot Karrlson."

  Lennie looked annoyed but sat down and tried to resume play at the prior level, but the system forced him into basic exercises. "This is a mess," Lennie said, "But give me a day or two and I'll master this game and be back to level eight." It took a lot longer than a day or two for Lennie to achieve his goal of level eight but eventually he did.

  Abel left the simulator station and returned to the command center. Then it struck him. The simulator was supposed to be unconnected to the rest of the ship, yet when he killed off Zanos the system responded by forcing Lennie out. The simulator was obviously connected to the Captain's station in his quarters. We are going to have to look deeper into the documentation and perhaps start to physically examine the simulator in more detail. He then turned and lowered himself down to the 'B' deck. As he entered the weapons bay he was greeted by Helen and Silvi who were about to exit.

  Helen asked, "You want the long inventory story or the short one?"

  Abel smiled, "How about the complete one."

  Helen motioned toward a low cabinet and sat down. She patted a space next to her indicating that Abel should sit down as well. Abel thought for a moment that the complete story might be a long one. Silvi remained standing.

  It took Helen and Silvi almost an hour to complete their story of the inventory and assessment of the business end of 1033. They had explained that redundancy ruled in the weapons bay and that there were two or four of every system starting with the launch tubes, the auto loaders, pulsar cannons, and a variety of other weapons such as the 'sand caster' who's function was mystery. Silvi commented that the ship carried four anti-matter torpedoes but that Unity had removed the anti-matter containment bottles and that the torpedoes while functional had no 'ship killing' warhead. The 'K' gigaton missiles however were fully armed and ready for deployment. 1033 had only three missiles on board but there was storage space for sixty four. Helen speculated that perhaps a number had been launched in battle prior to the surrender. Abel had asked about the difference between torpedoes and missiles, and Helen explained that the missiles were intelligent, and once launched would track their target to impact. On the other hand the anti-matter torpedoes were not so smart. Apparently you could not place a lot of smarts near an anti-matter containment bottle. There was some kind of interference. However it probably did not matter because the torpedoes were on proximity fuses and when they went off everything within 40 kilometres was reduced to plasma. If you missed a shot by 39 klicks you still killed the bastard and any of his buddies who were within the 80 kilometre kill radius. Impressive thought Abel. On the other hand the missiles required a direct hit or a really close encounter. Either a direct hit or detonation within one klick or less would damage or kill a ship.

  The pulsar cannons were primarily for defence and could apparently be used to defeat incoming missiles about thirty five kilometres or less from the ship. That left no apparent defence against Unity anti-matter torpedoes which Helen speculated were probably inferior to that of the Greaysons, but still deadly. Perhaps she explained that was what the sand casters were for but understanding the mysterious weapon would take research. It was probably documented in the Defence Station's hard copy.

  Helen and Silvi continued with dozens of details about weapons systems, defence, redundancy, and other systems found in the weapons bay. Many were worth researching further, but Abel was tired and hungry as he knew the entire crew would be. We have to get the mess up and running he thought, but the food preparation apparatus was a cipher and a short look at it yesterday indicated that it was missing the basic components needed to manufacture and assemble food. He decided to make it a priority on tomorrows survey.

  Silvi yawned and Able decided to call it a day. Before he slept he had some personal changes to make to ship 1033 from the Captain's quarters.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jamon System - 1033 - Year 3245. June 16 ET: 22:55

  The 'deal' had been struck with the Pilot's Guild and this was the day they took control of Quark. Lennie and Silvi had been living aboard 1033, but the last two weeks of flights, once the Quark had been returned to service, had been frenetic. Abel had returned to the two shift a day schedule in order to transport as much critical supplies from the zone as possible before the Pilot's Guild took full control. The repair ship had proven to be as much of a mystery as 1033 and much of her machinery and fabricators were controlled by a system similar to the ships command comp. The repair ship's command comp and its' refit comp had both been slagged. Helen called it a rare example of Unity innovation. Apart from hand tools and a number of useful easily manipulated tools, like plasma welders, the bulk of the equipment of the ship had proven unusable. Emmitt was showing signs of distress as the lack of fabrication equipment and skills, combined with the continuing argument and invective on the ship build committee, made his life impossible. The propulsion problem was proving intractable. As compensation he was spending more and more of his 'free' time on 1033 and occasionally sleeping overnight as well.

  A frequent topic of discussion had been as to whether they should approve the maintenance schedule of the SAR that the MS said was needed. Nothing could be done about the critical items concerning the command comp, but the secondary items labelled urgent would eventually need attention. As long as the ship remained at the mining dock Abel felt it safe to delay those maintenance items. At least for the time being, but the idea of continued deferred maintenance nagged on everyone's conscience. They had all had enough of deferred maintenance while living in the Habitat. Deferred maintenance inevitably resulted in injury and often death. To Abel setting loose an automated repair system, about which they knew nothing, seemed risky. There were no hard copy manuals describing how automated maintenance was performed and Helen commented that was probably because it was so obvious to the Greayson's crew that it needed no documentation. Just like the lack of documentation how to repair the command comp.

  Helen had called in the Tach Binder from the Ag/Nutrition department of the Collegium to get the mess kitchen functioning. It had proven to be far more complicated that Abel had expected. Food production on 1033 required two ingredients and a lot of microbes and bacteria. First the ship required from the Habitat almost two tons of what Tach Binder called essential minerals and nutrients. These nutrients and minerals were then added to the p
rocessed sludge from the recycle systems on the ship and fed to the bacteria which the recycle system itself supplied. Abel understood what she meant by 'sludge' and did not ask for a further explanation. The resulting mix called 'biom excretions' were then fed into hidden tanks of water and other fluids to produce tiny creatures called plankton and other microscopic organisms. Little critters, the name of which Abel could not remember, got eaten by other critters, and those eaten by still others. Eventually the tanks were emptied and the critters along with algae was removed and processed into 'pre-food paste' or PFP. The PFP was further processed into sixteen basic types of paste from which everything from near-potatos to near-meat was processed in the mess auto-kitchen.

  After a week of fiddling about and refilling the essential nutrients and minerals tanks Binder got the system running. It produced paste. The paste was converted by the mess auto-kitchen into something that was simply inedible. Binder admitted something was wrong, and that the ship's system was not that different from systems in the Habitat that produced most of the limited fresh food for the Commonwealth. The difference being that the Habitat paste was converted to food, but the ships paste was converted to something indescribable. Binder kept scratching her head but after a week simply gave up and walked away. The crew continued to eat at the diner on the public dock.

  Larry came to the ship everyday after school, and with Lennie, they sat at the simulator and played their game. Larry sat in the pilot' s seat when Lennie had been off on Quark, but when Lennie took the pilots chair, Larry moved to the weapons position. Now that they were no longer flying Quark, Lennie seemed to have adopted the pilots position on the simulator. Lennie called the simulator 'relaxing.' Buddy Brunner, a classmate of Lennie's joined in the game and played the position of defence. Buddy had agreed to Able's shipboard rules, which were common sense in a habitat surrounded by a vacuum, and he always wore a Greayson ship suit while on board. His color of shorts was a shocking violet, but Buddy did not seem to mind as long as he could play the game. They were often quite noisy but Abel found the noise comforting in a ship that had probably been silent for 200 years.

  Abel caught Silvi occasionally playing the game, but she spent most of here free time sitting in the captain's chair reading the ships many hard copy manuals. Every so often she would discover something and together with Helen they would set off to a ships location and spend hours examining a sub-system or component. Helen had taken a laser measure tool and mapped out the entire ship down to the nearest micrometer and discovered that apart from 'C' deck which remained locked about 30 percent of the interior space could not be accounted for. In other words there were hidden compartments or voids to which they had no access. Soon after completing the initial survey they had found that almost every bulkhead, deck plate, or ceiling overhead was easily removed and the interior space inspected. Sludge tanks, fiber optic distribution lines, gravity compensator flush tracings, and everything else necessary for an enclosed space on a ship was accessible. But still there were sections that seemed inaccessible.

  Access to 'C' deck and the gravity well engines continued to defy the crew. They had brainstormed access ideas and searched through the manuals for some indication of how to enter, but they kept coming up without a solution.

  Abel spent some time observing all of his crew, but it was Silvi that most caught his attention. That she was very smart and rapidly gaining what Helen called 'ship knowledge' was readily apparent. But it was her calm demeanour combined with quick reasoning that most impressed Abel. He realized that she would have made a very good police officer or VacEm team leader, but her academic career and her obvious interest in engineering and physics led her to a different path. Further Abel noticed that the crew respected her, even the youngsters including her brother Lennie. 'Command presence' Abel saw developing. Command Presence combined with a very good head on those shoulders.

  Abel was about to turn in, but before sleep he accessed the captain's console in his quarters to review the several progress reports and notations made primarily by Helen and Emmitt. After paging through the reports he took a quick look at the personnel tab and noticed an attention notice for Larry, and Lennie. Abel clicked on Lennie's file first. The system reported that Lennie had achieved a Pilot Grade Four certification pending the captain's approval, and that Larry had advanced from level 0 to level 1 on the pilots scale. In addition Larry had achieved a level 2 rating on the weapons sub-system. However Larry's increase in rating did not require any approval and prior ratings increases for Lennie had required no approval either. Something about the level 4 in the pilots rating system was different. For a moment Abel wondered what all these levels were about. Larry and Lennie considered the 'level' just some way that indicated they were advancing in the game. As they advanced in levels the game became more difficult and recently, given the shouting and frustration, the game had become very, very hard to play. But the rating system reported on the captain's console was different. Clearly it meant something other than rank in a military system. They were ratings of some kind. Perhaps Silvi who was reading everything on the ship would know. He would ask her in the morning. From now on, or until the Pilot's Guild screwed up, they would have plenty of time on their hands.

  ...

  Jamon System - Nolo's Diner - Year 3245. June 17 ET: 11:40

  The entire crew, including Buddy Brunner, had assembled at Nolo's diner for a late breakfast or early lunch. After two weeks of intense work the crew had slept in and rose late. Emmitt had spent the night at his home in order to attend an early morning committee meeting, and as he arrived to greet the crew sitting at their favourite wobbly table, Abel saw a scowl on Emmitt's face. He was gong to ask Emmitt about the Committee meeting but decided it was best to let Emmitt raise the subject.

  Milli soon appeared with coffee for everyone and before the crew could order Milli proclaimed, "No wheat based food, like toast or pancakes are available today. Rationing. And if you want eggs I only have the powdered ones from deep storage. Ham we got, but no bacon." Abel looked at Milli and he could see she was disgusted, not with the crew, but with the growing food shortages. To make it simple for Milli they all ordered ham and the egg concoction and fried near-potatoes.

  As they ate Abel decided to tackle the issue of deferred maintenance. "I have been thinking that we should not continue the deferred maintenance on the urgent items." He paused and Emmitt nodded in agreement. "Since the forty some urgent items can proceed only if approved I suggest we approve one or two and watch what happens. What do you think Emmitt, your in charge of MS?"

  Emmitt, Abel noticed, had not touched the green tinged egg preparation. "I think that is a good approach. One at a time until we understand how auto maintenance works. I'd sure hate to be standing next to one of the fusion engines when some automated system decided to run a full power test. Probably loose my shorts." It was the first time Abel had seen Emmitt grin in a week.

  Silvi spoke, " I noticed on that list some codes for the replacement of contactor hubs in one of the mix tanks for the mess. Should be simple and if something were to go wrong were not using the mess as it is."

  Emmitt nodded in agreement. "Sounds like a simple and easy start. We can open the bulkhead and watch what happens to the contactor hub on the feed line."

  "Sound like a plan," agreed Abel. "Why don't you guys return to 1033. Silvi and I want to take a detour through the Maintenance Dock and check on Quark. She was scheduled to leave this morning at 08:30."

  Moments later the crew stood and returned to the ship as Abel and Silvi headed to the inter-dock lift. The old lift rose with a jerk and then a shudder as it climbed upward. They exited the lift at the far end of the Maintenance Dock and had to walk almost a kilometre to the birthing dock for Quark. To neither Abel's or Silvi's surprise the Quark lay in her dock. It was almost 13:00 There was no one around. They proceeded to the nearby airlock hatch complex that separated the Maintenance Dock from the Habitat proper and turned into the small watch station o
ffice. Watch Superintendant Ollie Ivarson was on duty.

  Abel spoke first as Ollie rose from his seat. "Anyone come over to take out Quark?"

  Ollie shook his head and picked up his inter-tab. "Says here she was scheduled to go out this morning about 08:30. The docking crew showed up but no one else. After an hour they left. But no pilots arrived to check her out. Been pretty silent this morning other than the supplies you left on the dock a few days ago that needed moving, not much is happening."

  "No word from the Guild on why they didn't take her out?"

  Ollie looked at his inter-tab again. "Nope. None that I can see, and I would be the first to be told if something needed fixing or the schedule needed changing."

  "Thanks Ollie. Ollie can you do me a favor?"

  "Sure Chief, anything you ask."

  "Can you send me a message on inter-tab or vid-com if the Guild shows up?"

  "Sure." Ollie nodded.

  "And if you hear of a schedule change or a maintenance call, anything about the Quark will you let me know."

  "Worried about them Guild Pilots?" Ollie asked.

  "Well not so much worried as curious."

  Ollie frowned, "Well, If I was you, I'd be worried about those old fogies taking out a ship like Quark. She's about all we have to get us to build a new starship and I'm worried plenty."

  "Thanks Ollie, I'm going to rely on you to keep both of us out of trouble."