Ride The Rising Tide (The Maxwell Saga)

by Peter Grant

  “You Maxwell?”

  “Aye aye, PO.” Steve rose and snapped to attention.

  “Good to have you aboard.” His handshake was strong, testing. Steve had learned by now to give as good as he got, rather than let himself be dominated in that way, so he returned the grip with interest. Garza didn’t comment, but his eyes flickered. “Bring your gear and follow me.”

  They didn’t take the high–speed conveyor, but walked along the passage below it — almost certainly, Steve presumed, in order for Garza to have time to ask a few questions. He was soon proved right.

  The older man glanced at the chevron–over–star rank insignia on his left arm. “When we were told you were coming, a month ago, the signal listed you as a Spacer Second Class. You completed Boot Camp a little over a year ago, and you’d been in training since then, so how did you get First Class rank so quickly? Most spacers take at least two to three years to get there, often longer.”

  “I had a couple of years in the merchant service before enlisting, PO, plus a civilian pilot rating. That earned me Second Class rank as soon as I graduated from Boot Camp, and admission to Small Craft School. I finished top of the class there last month, which carried a one–step incentive promotion.”

  “Uh–huh. You’ll still be the most junior pilot aboard Hebe, though, so don’t put on any airs!”

  “I won’t, PO. I know I’ve got to get a thousand hours under my belt as second pilot before I qualify as Pilot In Command. I’ve got only eighty at present, and a long way to go.”

  “Don’t expect to build up that much stick time in a hurry. Most of our pilots don’t need a second pilot for their usual missions. They’re also required to do a lot more than just fly. They try to weasel out of all sorts of crappy work details by claiming that NCO’s aren’t supposed to do that sort of stuff. As junior pilot, you’ll end up catching a lot of that.”

  Steve mentally braced himself. He daren’t equivocate on this issue if he wanted to get ahead in a hurry. He tried to choose his words carefully. “That’s fair, PO. All I ask for is the chance to fly often enough to reach a thousand hours of stick time and get my Pilot–In–Command rating by the end of my first year aboard. I’ve got to have at least that much time in grade as a Spacer First to be eligible for promotion to PO3, and I’ll need that rank before I can be rated as PIC. If you’ll help me get everything together in that time frame, I’ll do all I can to help you with the dirty jobs.”

  Garza stopped in his tracks, frowning angrily. “Just who do you think you are, trying to make deals with me? This is the Fleet, not some tramp freighter, and Hebe’s your first ship since Boot Camp! No matter that you’re wearing First Class badges — as far as I’m concerned you’re still a beginner!”

  Steve stood his ground. “In a warship you’d be right, PO, but Hebe’s not a warship. She’s the same size as the freighter I worked aboard in the merchant service — in fact, I reckon that’s why I was assigned to her in the first place, because I already know my way around this type of ship. Also, you’ll have noticed I’m wearing the Superior Unit Award ribbon, from when my merchant ship was chartered as a Fleet auxiliary. We exceeded the Fleet’s standards, which is why the Fleet spacers we had aboard nominated us for it. I’ll be productive from day one, and I’ll work harder, smarter and faster than any newbie spacer on his first shipboard assignment. In return, all I’m asking for is the chance to build up my stick time. I don’t want favoritism — just fairness.”

  Garza looked at him thunderously for a long moment, then unbent. “Well… I’m not used to new arrivals taking that line with me, but you may have a point. Prove it to me, Spacer. Work hard and smart, show me you’re worth it, and I’ll see about getting you ten to fifteen hours of stick time a week. You’ll probably have to work overtime to fit in that much flying, mind you!”

  “Thanks, PO. I understand. The overtime’s no problem.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Garza was as good as his word. He loaded Steve down with as many dirty, unpleasant jobs as he could find; but when Steve proved he was ready, willing and able to tackle them all, and did them well, the Petty Officer kept his side of the bargain. Steve found himself flying many missions aboard Hebe’s big cargo shuttles, which had more need of a second pilot than her smaller cutters and lone gig for the Captain’s use. The ship’s senior pilots gave him plenty of stick time, even if only so they could brew coffee and relax for a change. He seized every opportunity he could get, and his hours of experience as second pilot mounted steadily.

  All the pilots bitched and moaned about the amount of non–flying work that came their way. On a smaller auxiliary such as Hebe there were never enough crew to tackle everything that had to be done, so everyone had to fill in by doing multiple jobs. At times their secondary tasks became so onerous that their flying and maintenance duties suffered; but Lieutenant–Commander Wollaston pointed out unsympathetically that they had off–duty hours, just as he did. If he could spend some of them catching up with his backlog, so could they. Muttering to themselves, they followed his example.

  One morning, three months after Steve had joined the ship, the pilots and small craft crew members paraded as usual to hear the day’s assignments. PO Garza was in a particularly irascible mood.

  “PO3 Smith, take two Spacers and report to Senior Lieutenant Dickerson. She’s having the devil of a time getting the new refrigeration coil bedded down. She’s asked for someone with a strong back and a weak head to shove it around for her. I told her you’d be perfect for the job!” The formation chuckled. “It’ll be dirty work, so change into your oldest coveralls.”

  Smith came to attention. “Aye aye, PO. Any preference who I take for my work party?”

  “It’ll be a long job, so pick people who won’t be required anywhere else for the rest of the day.”

  “Aye aye, PO.”

  Smith relaxed to the ‘at ease’ position again, grinning wryly at Steve standing beside her. “There goes the quiet day I was hoping for,” she murmured.

  “Goes to show — no peace for the wicked!”, Steve teased her sotto voce.

  “Quiet there!” Garza snapped. “Maxwell, I’ve got a dirty job for you, too. Yesterday evening the dockyard took away four of our eight lifeboats for overhaul, and installed four refurbished lifeboats in their place. The new boats need to be checked and cleaned, and have their life support systems charged and activated, before we bring them online. I know they’re supposed to arrive spick–and–span from the dockyard, but we all know better than that, don’t we?” Hollow laughter rose from his audience.

  “This isn’t one of our normal responsibilities,” Garza continued, “so you can’t use our cleaning gear and supplies. We don’t have enough for ourselves, let alone other departments! Explain that to Stores, and ask them to issue you what you need for the job. See if you can’t ‘lose’ some of it in our direction when you finish with it!” More laughter. “Our cleaning locker’s getting low on the good stuff, and our department budget doesn’t have any slack in it right now.”

  Steve came to attention. “Aye aye, PO.”

  “I’ve got far too much on my plate this morning to check on you all the time, so get the whole job done before you call me to inspect your work, OK?”

  “Aye aye, PO.”

  As Steve relaxed into the rest position, Smith murmured, “That’s a bit much! Cleaning even one lifeboat would occupy half a dozen spacers for an hour. Even with their robotic systems to help, you’ve got to deal with four of ’em!”

  Steve shrugged. “You know what they say — ‘you shouldn’t have joined if you can’t take a joke!’ This isn’t the first time that’s happened to me, or to you either, and it won’t be the last.”

  “True. I reckon he’s picking on you, though. You work hard, and do a good job, and don’t complain, so he’s taking advantage of that to pile the difficult and dirty jobs on your back.”

  “Hey, I’m the most junior pilot aboard. That makes me low man on the totem pole
, and the low man always gets the shitty jobs. That’s just the way it is. Besides, Garza’s having a tough time. His slot should be filled by a Chief Petty Officer, according to our Table of Organization and Equipment. He’s trying to do his job without either the rank or the experience usually needed for it. He’s doing his best — and it’s a pretty good best, most of the time. Having to ride herd on a bunch of boisterous pilots isn’t the easiest job in the Fleet!”

  “Yeah, we’re not exactly backward in coming forward, are we?”

  Garza finished making the last assignment and closed his electronic clipboard. “You’ve all got your jobs for the day, so why are you still here? Ten–hut! Dis–miss!”

  Steve changed into an old set of work coveralls, then headed for Stores, trying to beat the rush from other departments as their people received their assignments and figured out what they’d need to accomplish them. He managed to be first in line with his requirements as the clerk opened his counter’s security shutter.

  “Dammit, you’re supposed to have most of this stuff already!” the clerk groused as he scanned Steve’s list.

  “We do, but only for internal use in our department. This isn’t part of our normal responsibilities. We’re just helping out, so PO Garza won’t let me use our supplies for it. If you won’t give me the gear, the job won’t get done. That’ll get back to the Engineer Officer in no time — and you know as well as I do what he’s likely to say about that!” They shared a mutual grimace.

  “All right. Why so much concentrate?”

  “Lifeboats are shipped with their internal systems purged. I’ll have to charge their tanks before we can bring them online. At the moment they’re plugged into the ship’s environmental systems, which is great while they’re aboard, but not much use if we need to evacuate. It helps to be able to recycle air and water after we’ve done that, you know?”

  “Tell me about it! It’s kinda hard to breathe vacuum! This stuff’s expensive, though. Can you make do with three packets of concentrate for each lifeboat, instead of four? That should be enough to charge their environmental systems to the point they can produce more on their own.”

  “It’s a bit marginal, but if that’s all you can spare, it’ll have to do. Can you give me an extra packet or two, to split between the four of them?”

  “There might be a couple of partly–used packets back there we can spare. Are these soap and scrub packs for their robotic cleaning systems?”

  “Most of ’em, plus a few for manual use along with the buckets, brushes and sponges. I’ll hurry things along by doing some of the work by hand. The sooner we’ve got a full complement of operational lifeboats, instead of having half of them offline, the better.”

  “We’re not likely to need ’em while we’re in orbit around Vesta, but I take your point.” The clerk crossed his fingers as he spoke, then touched his imitation wood countertop.

  Steve smiled to see such old–fashioned superstition. “I think when they say ‘touch wood’, they mean the real thing, not this cheap plastic crap,” he pointed out.

  “Cheap? D’you know what the Fleet paid for this stuff?”

  “No — how much?”

  “Enough that touching it should work even better than the real thing!”

  Steve laughed as the clerk finished entering details into an electronic form, then pushed a plasglass tablet in front of him. He passed his left wrist over the tablet. It picked up the chip embedded in his ID bracelet and displayed his name, code and department, confirming that the equipment and materials were now logged in the ship’s systems as having been issued to him.

  The clerk glanced at the tablet, making sure that Steve had used his own ID bracelet instead of ‘borrowing’ someone else’s — a favorite trick of those trying to obtain supplies illicitly. “Make sure you bring it back when you’ve finished, you hear me?”

  “I’ll probably use it all. I doubt there’ll be anything to return to stores.”

  “That’s what they all say! You might use all the consumables, but I still want the buckets and brushes back!”

  Steve grinned. It was hard to put one over on supply clerks after they’d spent years listening to every excuse in the book — and a few that weren’t. He waited for robotic conveyors to bring the supplies from racks hidden in the gloom behind the counter, loaded them onto his cart, and waved a cheery farewell to the clerk as he pushed it out of the door.

  At Lifeboat Four he used the intercom to contact the ship’s Damage Control Center, which monitored and controlled access to all lifeboats. A familiar voice crackled over the speaker. “DCC, go ahead.”

  He smiled as he responded, “Hey, Maisie, it’s Steve.” They’d developed a better than professional relationship in recent weeks.

  “Hey yourself. What’s up?” He could hear the warmth in her tone.

  “I’ve been assigned to work on Lifeboats One through Four. I’ve got to charge their environmental systems, and check that everything’s clean and shipshape.” He knew she’d be able to see the cart and its supplies through the security camera positioned above the lifeboat trunk.

  “Gotcha. Four’s unlocked.” The sound of disengaging locking bars in front of him punctuated the speaker’s words. “Call when you’ve finished, so I can lock it again; then I’ll unlock each of the others as you get to them.”

  “Will do, thanks, Maisie.” He grinned. “Wanna come play hide and seek when you’re relieved? We’ll have a lifeboat all to ourselves.”

  He heard her giggle. “Fat chance! I know what you’ll be seeking!”

  “But you keep it so well hidden!”

  Still chuckling, he opened the access door and walked down a narrow trunk. It was secured over a flange surrounding the lifeboat’s outer door. A flexible expanding seal rendered the trunk airtight against the vacuum of space surrounding the lifeboat in its docking clamps.

  Steve entered the standard access code into the lock on the lifeboat’s door. It slid open to reveal a small airlock. He repeated the process on the inner door, then went back through the trunk to load his arms with concentrate and cleaning gear, carrying it into the main compartment of the lifeboat. Lights came on automatically as the boat’s systems sensed his presence.

  He stopped just inside the entrance and sniffed, frowning. There was a strange musty smell in the air. That shouldn’t be here, he thought to himself. They connected the lifeboat’s environmental systems to the ship when they installed it yesterday. The fresh supply of air should have removed any smell by now — not that there should be a smell in the first place!

  He stacked the containers and cleaning gear on a fold–out table next to the inner door, then looked around. There was no obvious source for the smell, no stain or… no, there it was. Around and on the screen over the intake vent for air recirculation, there was a faint brown discoloration. He walked over to it, squatted, and examined it carefully. He wiped the screen with his finger, noting that the discoloration came off easily. Could it be some sort of dust?

  Frowning, he reached for the multitool suspended from his belt, knelt, and removed the fasteners holding the screen over the vent. He pulled it away, then stopped, staring. A brown, dry, powdery–looking substance covered the sides of the vent in a thin layer. He took a flashlight from his belt, lay down, stuck his head and hand inside the vent, and looked up. The substance covered its internal surfaces as far as he could see.

  “Looks like mold of some kind,” he muttered aloud to himself. “How the hell did that get into a sealed lifeboat? It’s had plenty of time to be sucked into the ship’s environmental systems by now. That could mean trouble.”

  He got to his feet, leaving the cover off the vent, and walked back through the trunk to the intercom station. Picking up the handset, he placed a call.

  “Garza, Engineering. What is it?” His boss’s voice was curt, clipped.

  “Maxwell here, PO. There’s some kind of crud in Number Four lifeboat — ”

  “Don’t bother me with your c
leaning problems, dammit! I’ve got more than enough on my plate right now, and no time for minor hassles! Deal with the crud yourself!” The comm unit clicked as Garza cut the circuit.

  Steve blinked in surprise. He debated whether to call back, but decided against it. Garza would get even more annoyed, and he’d get nowhere.

  What the hell do I do now?, he pondered. I could just go ahead and clean it all up. I can get some cleaning nanobots from Stores, let ’em loose in that duct, and have them eat up every trace of that stuff… but what is it? How did it get there in the first place?

  He recalled the words of PO1 Robinson, his Platoon Instructor at Boot Camp. “Strive to do more than the minimum. Seek to excel in everything!” He could simply obey Garza’s order and clean up this crud, but that might prove dangerously inadequate. It wouldn’t help to plead that he’d obeyed orders if this mold, or whatever it was, turned out to be a health or environmental hazard. He daren’t take a chance on something so important. He’d just have to risk Garza’s wrath, and take it to the next level without consulting him.

  He walked a hundred meters up the main passage to the sick bay. A PO2 Clinical Assistant sat behind a desk in the reception area, poring over what looked like a holographic representation of an X–ray image.

  She looked up. “What can I do for you, Spacer?”

  “Hi, PO. I’m working on Lifeboat Four, and I’ve found something that looks like it might be mold. Can you analyze it for me, to see if it’s dangerous or contagious or anything like that?”

  Her face sobered. “Mold? Our environmental systems are supposed to automatically filter mold spores out of the ship’s atmosphere. How did it get there?”

  He explained about the newly–delivered lifeboats. “They were sealed at the refurbishment facility. They’ve been in transit, still sealed, probably for months. This stuff could have been growing in them all that time. They were only connected to our environmental systems yesterday, so you may not have detected it yet. How often do you check the filters?”