After we finished eating a light meal, we made our way down to the squad bay to begin the day’s training with the Troopers. Once again, I did the best I could till Ani came and led me away for weapons training. This pattern continued for the next two weeks with me showing gradual improvement each day. While I would never have classified myself as a marksman, my shooting was improving all the time till it reached the point where I could mostly hit the targets in places that would kill or seriously wound an enemy. My reflexes were also starting to improve measurably as was my general stamina. By the end of those two weeks, we were practicing things like placing snap shots and Ani started to condition me so I would be able to make more reliable judgments about when to pull the trigger. During this time, I also took every opportunity I could to learn as much as possible about the ship and her systems. It was far more complex than I could have believed possible so this knowledge only came to me slowly. Still, this knowledge and understanding proved critical, both to me, and to the crew as a whole later in the voyage.
One day, perhaps a couple of weeks later, when I went for one of my regular visits to the medical bay, Eri asked me to climb up onto the bed as she did nearly every time I went there. She ran some scans around my head before announcing it was time to activate the implant. She asked me to sit still while she placed a sort of mesh skull cap on my head and connected it to some of the equipment she’d placed near the bed. She explained that once she started I would experience a variety of sensations, not all of them pleasant, but others exceedingly so. She reassured me that while the process was quite intense, it was not in any way harmful. She told me I needed to be conscious throughout the process for it to be effective. She explained that these effects were all due to the calibration routines and happened as each part of the implant interfaced with a different part of my brain. After she completed all the necessary preparations, Eri started the process of activating and calibrating my new implant. She had not lied to me about the sensations I began to experience. Everything from nausea, pain in various parts of the body to tastes and flavours, hot, cold, different smells and intense physical pleasure. These changing sensations continued for about two hours before she told me the implant was now ready for final activation.
Eri activated the implant, then after warning me about what was to come, she connected me to the ship network. I was almost immediately overwhelmed by the amount of information flooding into my mind. In fact, I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t even sit up, let alone stand or walk. When I tried to push myself up on the bed Eri gently restrained me, pushing me back down, telling me to relax and to not try to move just yet. She explained that my brain needed a little time to learn how to deal with the massive increase of incoming information and how to be able to control the implant, being able to filter as well as turn data on and off whenever I wanted to. She told me this was to be the final day for me to receive the medications she’d been giving me every second day. She also told me sleeping would be a good idea to let my brain and mind assimilate the flood of new information pouring into my mind via the connection to the ships computers. After explaining all this to me, Eri walked me through the steps necessary to ‘throttle’ the flow of information to a point where I would be able to absorb it. After the implant familiarisation, she connected the instrumentation and the drip then started it for the last time. As usual, I quickly went to sleep as the medications entered my bloodstream.
Next morning, I woke with all the monitoring equipment disconnected, Eri beside me checking that I was alright and Olin waiting near the door. When I tried to sit up, Olin came over and helped me off the bed. I was still a little unsteady on my feet at first so the two of them held me upright till I regained some semblance of my sense of balance. Eri explained to me I should only do light physical exercise that day and instead, I should spend most of my time working with the flow of additional information coming to me via the implant. She explained to me the steps I needed to follow in order to be able to adequately control it before suggesting I practice till I fully understood what I needed to do and could do it almost unconsciously. I agreed to follow her recommendations because I could see the need to be able to properly control the implant or it was likely to begin controlling me. I thought to myself, at least now I wouldn’t require an escort every time I left my cabin to move around the ship, at least not when I went to my normal destinations. I found myself hoping this would make me less of a burden for the Troopers from now on. None of them ever complained about having to babysit me, at least not in my presence, but I didn’t much like my need to be so dependent on them.
Over the next few days, as I practiced using the implant, I discovered there was a multitude of data I could now gain access to. This data included Federation history, quite a lot of data on the design of FNS Destiny, some information on the Federation military, scientific information, the Federation’s legal framework and much more. It quickly became clear to me, absorbing all this information could literally take years of study. I also began to explore the ship, or at least those parts of it I’d been granted access to so far. When I asked, I was reassured that things like airlocks were not implant activated, in fact no hatch in the ship would open without some very specific steps being carried out if there was any kind of pressure differential between the two sides. This, of course, was a safety feature built into the design of every Federation built ship so people couldn’t use their implant and just walk into vacuum or worse, evacuate large parts of a ship accidentally.
A few days, perhaps a week later, I was in my cabin, laying on my bunk, using the implant, looking at the available information when something that looked like a flashing light seemed to appear at the corner of my vision. I focused on the light, wondering what it was, when a message suddenly appeared. When I say a message appeared, the statement is a little misleading. The message was not like text scrolling across my eyeballs, nor was it like a sound heard in my ears, but at the same time it was like both of those things, almost exactly like a thought. The message was an invitation from Captain Carlon to dine with him, along with the time and directions. Of course, as soon as I worked out how, I immediately accepted the invitation. When I checked the time on the ships clock I realised I would have just enough time to clean myself up, change into fresh clothing and make my way up to the specified location. When I arrived at the Captain’s dining room I was met by Captain Carlon, Olin, Eri and two other officers who I’d not met before then. The two new officers who were introduced to me when I arrived, were Solan, FNS Destiny’s Chief Engineer and Harlo the ships Xenobiologist.
Introductions over, I apologised to the Captain for my behaviour on our previous meeting. He was gracious in accepting my apology and asked me how I was getting on. I told him of my observations of the ship and its crew, which he seemed pleased about as I’d had a very positive experience since waking on board FNS Destiny, at least as far as the ship and her crew were concerned. The crew were all kind, considerate and helpful. They hadn’t used my ignorance to entertain themselves, instead they patiently explained my errors before helping me correct them. The Troopers were working patiently to help me get back on my feet and develop a new sense of equilibrium. For an engineer such as me, the ship was an absolute marvel. It was clear to me, that we from Earth had not even begun to discover what was possible. Things we saw as leading edge on Earth, were either commonplace among the people of the Federation, or they were old fashioned and abandoned technologies, at least, that is how it seemed to me. I’d already seen elegant solutions to a number of engineering problems we were struggling with on Earth when I’d been injured in my accident.
After I finished telling the Captain about my impressions of his ship and crew, he suggested we sit for our meal. Of course, we all sat as he requested and prepared for the meal that was to come. The cutlery used by the Tangesha people during a meal consists of a two-pronged fork and a spoon. The Tangesha usually do not require a knife at the dinner table because their cooks and chefs cut the food u
p into bite sized pieces during preparation. I’d already been exposed to the available eating utensils used on the ship but was still surprised to see that even a relatively formal occasion such as this used the same basic utensils even when multiple courses were to be served.
The Tangesha cuisine tends towards fewer but more substantial courses than is often experienced during a formal dinner on Earth. Often they will have one substantial savoury course followed by a second course that may be either sweet or savory but will always be in some way a contrasting flavour. This second course is usually intended to cleanse the palate after the first course has been eaten. The food flavours are quite diverse, ranging from the quite bland, to my palate at least, to some dishes that have an almost overwhelming taste including some very hot, spicy foods somewhat akin to a hot curry such as a Vindaloo, though not exactly the same.
As the meal wound down, liquors and what seemed to be a type of wine were served and the after dinner conversation became much more interesting. It quickly became clear to me that these are a highly sophisticated and intelligent people as well as cultured. My experiences with them have also shown them, or at least the ones I’ve met, to be quite empathic, compassionate and caring. That day, our conversations ranged over many subjects but as they continued I began to realise they were pumping me for information about humanity. I was not overly concerned about this because I knew I wasn’t telling them much more than they could have already gathered from their signals intelligence and years of on-site surveillance. At least the extra information I was divulging tended to be on the more positive side of the human experience. I told them about the people who dedicated their lives to service to their communities, people such as Mother Teresa and the people who would sacrifice themselves to save others and a myriad other matters on a similar vein.
During a lull in the conversation later in the evening, Captain Carlon turned to me and said “You know Colin, if I could, I’d offer you a place on my crew. Unfortunately, I cannot as you are neither a Federation citizen nor even a citizen of a star-faring people. We do have humans who are Federation citizens but unfortunately, you’re not one of them. Our regulations simply don’t permit me to make this as a formal offer. I am not even able to offer you Federation citizenship.”
He then grew quite thoughtful for a few seconds before he continued “While I cannot make you a crew member I can still treat you as an honoured guest and give you access to most of our educational systems. This will allow you to gain access to the knowledge you will need to survive and prosper in our society, at least until you are able to return to your home. Until we reach our home port at least, you will be able to utilise the educational systems available on this ship and I will permit my crew to help you with the practical side of making a living in the Federation. I will also allow you to make yourself useful on this ship. Although you are not formally a crew member, I will permit my crew to allow or even request your assistance in performing their duties. This will at least give you something to occupy your time till we reach port.”
I’d already realised how much this ship’s crew were prepared to do in order to help me. They’d expended a considerable amount of effort already to take care of me so, of course, I thanked him for his consideration. He then told me that in another four weeks, we would be visiting a Tangesha colony to show the flag and pick up some fresh food supplies. This piece of news startled me a little. I’d always been a science fiction fan but now I almost felt as if I was living in one of the stories I was so fond of. The plan at the time, was for FNS Destiny to be back at her home port about seven weeks after we arrived at Zafar, the Tangesha colony we were going to visit. He suggested that if I wanted, he may be able to arrange for me to visit the planet with some of the crew who would be taking a little leave when we arrived. Now he was offering to allow me to visit an extra-terrestrial planet, I could feel myself becoming quite excited. This was a situation far beyond my wildest dreams and even though I’d been on-board FNS Destiny for some time now, I still needed more time to absorb the circumstances I found myself in. On one hand, I was still missing my wife and family terribly, on the other, much of what was happening was a dream come true for me. After he made his offer I thanked him once again but told him the crew should not be ordered to take me to the planet during their downtime. If they offered, that was fine and I would accept their kind offer, but I didn’t want the crew to begin resenting me by being forced to babysit me during their leave. After explaining all this to the Captain, I excused myself so I could go and retire for the night as, once again, I was beginning to feel very fatigued.
When access to the educational facilities on the ship was granted the following day, I found they interfaced directly with the implant. This meant knowledge could be transferred directly into my brain in an ongoing pattern. The net result, was I could both gain, and retain knowledge in a much more robust way than previously and this often happened almost unconsciously. I realised that by learning in this way, I could gain much of the knowledge I would need to function in this society far more quickly and reliably than could ever be achieved by the methods available to us on Earth. I decided that in the short term, I would only study a smattering of knowledge over as many subjects as I could manage. At the time, my reasoning was that everything is interconnected so often, something that is seemingly unrelated, will often supply the context to help with the understanding of something else. As well as this, it would furnish a more solid contextual base for me to relate my experiences to as time passed.
Of course, being an engineer I started out by studying some of the advanced maths and engineering concepts available in the database. Even though these were only theoretical studies, they proved to be both interesting and exciting for me. I quickly found that many of the concepts I studied were the same or at least very similar to the ones I already knew so well, while others extended my existing knowledge considerably. One difficulty I did have as I explored the learning systems, was that though many of the concepts proved to be the same, the way they were communicated were usually quite different than I was used to. In some cases, this allowed me to understand something far more quickly while in others, I struggled to grasp what they were about.
Of course, my curiosity went far beyond that, extending to political and military history, sociology, psychology, science and many other disciplines. By now, I realised I was probably going to be living in the Federation for several years at least. It was clearly going to be important for me to gather as much knowledge as I could about the cultures and people I expected I would be coming into contact with while in the Federation. After devoting a full day to engineering and mathematics concepts, I switched to Federation history and analysis of the various cultures making up the huge melting pot that is the Federation. I found Federation military history to be particularly interesting. I spent a few days studying the tactics these people used during the conflicts they’d become embroiled in throughout their history, including some that had taken place almost entirely in space.
One thing I found concerning about the Federation military or at least the parts comprising Tangesha troops, was that it seemed to be far more stratified than the military in Australia where I came from, or for that matter many of the human military organisations. I knew enough about human military organisation to know the most successful militaries almost always have a highly robust order of succession in place. This was intended to ensure there was almost always someone with the knowledge, skills and authority to take over if the commanding officer was killed or otherwise incapacitated in battle. While I didn’t know it then, it turned out this observation proved to be crucial to the survival of FNS Destiny a little over seven weeks later. I also studied various vocations within the Federation before sampling the educational system on each of these to see what I might be able to do and where I might be able to fit in after FNS Destiny reached her home port.
While all this was going on, I continued my physical exercises and training, all the time i
mproving my general physical fitness and also my capabilities with the weapon Ani instructed me on. By now, the medical treatments Eri had given me allowed my body to hold up much better under physical stresses than was possible prior to my accident. As each day passed, I noticed my general stamina improving as I rebuilt the strength in my body. During this period, I also took every opportunity I could to talk to various members of the crew I came across, and even to offer to help them in their duties. As the days passed, I also began to gradually build friendships with a number of FNS Destiny’s crew-members, sometimes socialising with them in the mess or recreational areas when they were off duty. Of course, my training with the military contingent continued, with my physical skills slowly expanding and improving as time passed. As we continued on our voyage towards Zafar, the Tangesha colony, I also began learning some basic hand to hand combat techniques from the Troopers.
Finally, the day came when FNS Destiny arrived in the Zafar system. Zafar is the name of the planet in this system that hosted the colony. This colony was the place FNS Destiny and her crew intended to visit before finally returning to her home port. Not long after we arrived in the system, I received a message from the Captain inviting me to come to the bridge so I could observe our approach. I readily agreed as I’d not been invited to the bridge before and was very curious about how they navigated FNS Destiny through space. I quickly made my way to the bridge where I waited quietly just inside the entry hatch till I was recognised by one of the crew who bought my presence to the Captains notice. The Captain greeted me before directing me to a spare seat where I would be out of the way but still able to observe what was happening during our approach. We dropped in-system for several hours while the bridge crew checked the sensors, looking for hazards and generally keeping an eye on what was going on.
Star Man 1: Star Bourne Page 5