by David Tatum
The talk with his captain had gone fairly well, as far as Chris was concerned. While he doubted Burkhard would take Admiral McCaffrey’s words to heart, the commander wasn’t offended by the advice.
The Gnat was about to arrive at the primary site for the Wargame, and everyone was getting ready for their set-up duties. After drawing straws with the other pilot assigned to the Chihuahua (Lauren), Schubert had won the honor of taking the first set of engineers over. Chris was on that engineering team, along with Environmental Tech Linda Flint, Engineering Assistant Eric Drake, Environmental Engineer Wayne Evans, Damage Control Officer Carol Verne, and Chief Engineer Jacques Rappaport. Several other enlisted engineering trainees were being selected at random, but there still was no final word on who the remaining personnel would be.
The three friends of Farmburg would not report to their own ship until its overhaul had been completed. With Schubert, Chris, and Flint scheduled to leave in about an hour, Rachel and Weber were looking for any means by which they could escape their cabin.
“I wish I could join you guys on the shuttle,” Rachel sighed.
“Hell, I wish I could fly the shuttle,” Weber snorted. “Are you sure you don’t need a copilot on this trip, Wolfie?”
Schubert shook his head. “Sorry, Lauren. No room for two pilots in the shuttle this time. But you’ll have the next trip out.”
Flint snickered behind the two pilots’ backs. “Of course, by then we’ll probably need two pilots, anyway. Assuming the hull’s still airtight, I’m gonna make sure we get the life support systems up and running our first trip out. There’ll still be the issue of the artificial gravity system, but with magnetic boots we should be able to start the heavy repair work that’ll require most of the crew’s participation. Oh, Rache, please have our cabin assignments ready by the time we get back. We’ll probably need them.”
Rachel shook her head. Flint wasn’t even an officer, and technically shouldn’t be making demands like that to her. She would also have to speak to her about that nickname – she already have to put up with it from the two clowns from her home dorm in the Academy. However, she wasn’t in any mood to argue, now.
“Will do,” she said tiredly. It was going to take an extra effort to be done by the time the engineering survey was complete, but she could do it. “I’d better get started right now, though. I think I’ll go to the lounge and get to work. Someone give me my hand comp, will you?”
Chris grabbed it and shoved it into her hands. “Here. Have fun.”
Rachel smiled halfheartedly at him. “Yeah, right. Well, at least I won’t be stuck here... and I’ll be on official ship’s business, so they won’t be able to kick me out after an hour.”
With the passenger cabins filled to capacity, time in the Gnat’s lounges had to be rationed. For most, it was limited to just one hour a day. If, however, a Cadet was using the room in order to work on official business, and had to maintain confidentiality from their bunkmates, he or she could gain an exception to the rule. Thanks to a word put in by Chris during their conversation, Burkhard had informed the staff at one of the lounges of her logistics assignment. When Chris had told her that he’d done that, Rachel had almost hugged him.
“I guess that means the lot of you are going to be leaving little old me all alone, aren’t you?” Weber complained good-naturedly as Rachel left.
“Attention. Arriving in system HD 19994. Will the engineering survey crews please report to the Shuttle Docking Facility. Thank you,” the loudspeakers announced.
Schubert glanced up at the offending speaker and sighed. “Guess so. Sorry, Lauren – we’re on call.”
Weber grinned. “Go on, get out of here! I’ll find something to occupy me, I’m sure.”
Chris stood up and tapped Schubert on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s get going. The sooner we get started, the sooner we can get everyone off this tub.”
Weber watched as her remaining shipmates left the room, then glanced across at the silent trio still in her room. Smiling slightly, she cracked her knuckles. “So, boys... am I going to have to deal with any problems from you while my friends are gone?” she asked.
The largest of them hesitated, remembering how she had rescued Schubert from them. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, ma’am. We never cause any trouble.”
Weber’s grin widened. “That’s good. If you were in the mood to cause some, though, I think I should warn you some Marine buddies of mine will be meeting me here shortly for dinner, and they’d be mighty upset if I wasn’t able to join them.”
The three men looked at each. “Well,” their spokesman answered. “We were just going out.”
Weber sighed dramatically. “What a shame. My friends were so looking forward to meeting you. Oh, well... I guess I’ll see you later.”
When she left, the trio huddled in a circle to discuss this turn of events. “Well, now what are we going to do?” one of them asked. “Joel said to wait until one of them was alone and see if we could arrange for them to have an ‘accident.’ But we can’t get them alone, so how are we going to do that?”
“Well, if we can’t do that, Franco, let’s try something else,” the man who had been their spokesman suggested.
“Like what, Nathan?”
“How about we get one of them in trouble like we did with Mr. Schubert?” Nathan suggested. “We got him into a bar fight, and he got into trouble. If it worked with him, why wouldn’t it work with the others?”
“I think we should call Joel, first,” the third member of their trio suggested.
Nathan rolled his eyes. “You always want to talk to Joel, first, before doing anything. Don’t you have your own mind?”
“Of course I do! But he was the one who lured Schubert into that fight in the first place, not us. Do you know what buttons to push to start bar fights with these people? And that’s a lot of bar fight to start, if we want to get rid of all of them. Don’t you think we need another plan?”
“Fine,” Nathan sighed. Pressing a button on a nearby comm unit, he said, “Nathan Priest, Franco Kobe, and Sergio Ramsey calling for Cadet Lieutenant Joel Farmburg, please.”
There was a moment before a synthesized voice replied, “I’m sorry, Lieutenant Farmburg is not available at this time. Would you like to leave a message?”
“No,” Nathan said, snapping the comm off. “Well, shit. And we don’t have time to wait for him, either. I’ve got a target in mind, but if we don’t act now we won’t be able to get her. Well, Sergio?”
Sergio gave a rather disgusted snort. “I won’t stop you, but it’s on your head if Joel gets pissed at us.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”
——————————
EAS Chihuahua
Chris grimaced as he inspected the Chihuahua. “Sorry, Linda... we’re going to have to hold off on starting up the environmental systems for a while,” he said into his biosuit’s radio.
“What’s the problem?” her voice asked.
“I’m seeing a bunch of cracks in the hull,” he said. “It looks like the ship was hit by a storm of micro-meteors some time ago. Until we’ve ascertained the extent of the damage, I don’t think it would be a good idea to pressurize the hull.”
“Understood,” Flint said.
“I’ll keep you updated.”
Chris continued superficial examinations, noting areas where more intense examinations would probably be required, until he got to the computers. He switched his suit radio’s channel. “Desaix to Rappaport.”
“Rappaport here,” the Chief Engineer answered.
“I’m at the main computer core now. Do I have your authorization to install the portable power unit and activate?”
“Install, but don’t activate until I’ve confirmed that everyone has been told that the wiring should be going live. Let’s hope this works – we may be replacing these computers later, this will go a lot faster if we can get these old systems to give us diagnostics in the meantime. Do
n’t be afraid to cut corners as long as you can maintain a decent safety factor – if a computer blows, we can just hold off until we have a new one.”
Chris frowned. He didn’t like the casual disregard for any antiques, even something as clunky as these elderly computers. “We might have trouble getting replacements, sir, so unless that’s a direct order I’ll go ahead and take the necessary precautions to keep the computer safe.”
“Whatever,” Rappaport said. Chris could almost hear the shrug in his voice. “I’ll contact you shortly.”
Chris removed the fuel cell system strapped on his back and set it down by the computer, activating the magnetic stand to secure it to the deck. Shaking his head, Chris wondered if he’d have been able to carry the thing throughout his inspection had it not been for the lack of gravity on board. He began setting up the safety features while waiting for the word.
“Everyone’s checked out, so you have the go ahead to get that computer up and running,” Rappaport announced. “I’ll join you shortly. I’m really interested in what that computer has to say.”
“Yes, sir,” Chris answered, starting to make the connections needed. He inspected some of the wiring critically. Taking out a spool of wire from one of his bio-suit’s storage packs, he measured what he felt was an appropriate length and cut, replacing a grounding wire in the computer with the new piece.
——————————
Rappaport came to witness the tail end of his repair work, and nodded to himself, grinning. Unknown to most of the cadets, the regular Navy officers weren’t just there to help crew the ships – they were also supposed to provide evaluations of the talent under them. His suggestion that Chris not worry too hard about keeping the old computers intact was one of his ways of testing the kid. The obvious care that the cadet was taking in repairing the archaic mainframe was proof enough that he had a proper respect for his craft. Rappaport made a mental note to include that in his daily report.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
Chris started slightly. “Some of the mainframe’s wiring was inadequate. It’s a quick fix. I’ll boot it up once I finish soldering this line.”
“Take your time but hurry up,” Rappaport said with a grin. It was an old joke, but all-too-often those were the expectations of an engineer. “I really need to check the automated damage control reports and see if I can find a blueprint.”
“A blueprint?” Chris asked, finishing his repairs. “I thought we had one.”
“My inspection shows me that the schematics we’ve got don’t quite match up to the Chihuahua’s configuration,” Rappaport explained. “It makes sense, since she was completely overhauled several times in her career. I’m hoping her old Chief Engineer kept the blueprints on the computer updated.”
“If he was any good, he would have,” Chris said, powering up the fuel cell. “But he didn’t necessarily store them on this computer.”
“No, but this is the most likely place,” Rappaport said, sitting down at one of the computer consoles. “Boot her up, Mr. Desaix.”
“Sure thing,” Chris said, flipping a few switches.
Rappaport sighed, and added to that report in his head that the cadet wasn’t very good about using the word “sir.” Oh, well – the boy was just a freshman, after all. By the time he graduated, he was bound to have the necessary formalities drilled into his head.
“Trainee Weapons Tech Jonathan Rosebaugh to whoever it is who just turned on the power,” a nervous voice said on the general attention channel.
Rappaport and Chris glanced at each other in surprise. “This is Rappaport. Mr. Desaix activated a temporary power unit under my direction just a minute ago. What do you want?”
“If wouldn’t be too much trouble, could you turn the power back off?” Rosebaugh asked. “I, uh, dropped a tool into an area with live wires.”
Rappaport rolled his eyes and glanced at Chris, who shook his head. “Sorry, Rosebaugh. It’s a fuel cell, and it’s fully cycled up. There’s no way of deactivating the power at the moment. You’ll just have to make do until we’re done.” He frowned. “Where are you? I might just be able to isolate your area once the computers have fully booted.”
“I’m in the ammunition storage room,” Rosebaugh replied.
“How many live wires could there be in that storage room?” Chris muttered to himself, disgusted.
“I’m not sure how to isolate that portion of the ship,” Rappaport sighed, not even sure why there were exposed live wires in the ammo storage room to begin with. “Just leave it for now. We’ll be sure to recover it after we deactivate the fuel cell.”
“Yes, sir,” Rosebaugh acknowledged. “I’ll make do, sir.”
“Damn,” Rappaport sighed as he changed his suit radio back to private chat. “How did we get probably the most crack crew in the entire Academy fleet, yet wind up with that guy?”
Chris winced. “That was probably my fault, sir. We were short one weapons tech, and he was the only one any of us knew. I figured getting someone qualified but accident prone was better than getting someone unknown and finding out they were completely incompetent. Jonathan’s good, I think, but he tends to lack focus from time to time. It makes him clumsy.”
Rappaport shook his head. “Well, what’s done is done. Help me out with this piece of crap computer, would you?”
“Hey, the computer isn’t a piece of crap,” Chris protested, taking a seat next to the Chief Engineer. “It’s in perfect condition, from what I can tell.”
“It’s a hundred years old!” Rappaport retorted.
“I never said it wasn’t,” Chris chuckled. “I just said it wasn’t a piece of crap. It’s an antique, true, but then so is the whole ship.” He glanced over the mainframes. “The operating systems they had in this ship’s day weren’t very efficient, so to run these complex systems the designers went for superior hardware and lots of it. It’s got enough computing power that we would be well within modern standards just by upgrading the software.”
Rappaport shook his head. “Not with the secondary propulsion system I was planning on installing. To manage both quantum wheels and a fusion drive effectively, we’re going to need more than ‘standard’ computing power.”
Chris’ eyes goggled. “Quantum wheels? In a corvette? Sir, why would you want to put a monstrosity like that in a ship like the Chihuahua?”
“I take it you are one of those people who isn’t overly fond of present design principles in propulsion,” Rappaport said, amused. “Well, normally I would agree with you. However, since we’ll have the extra power to burn once you put in your cold fusion plant, we might as well use it.”
“I had planned some upgrades to the weapons system, but I suppose that would work, too,” Chris frowned. “We’ll need magnetic plating, though. That’s going to be tricky to get at this stage.”
“So are most of the other things we’re going to need,” Rappaport sighed. “It’ll just be one more impossible obstacle we’re going to have to overcome.”
Chris smirked confidently. “Right. And, sir? I’ve got the blueprints, now. They’re already downloaded to my hand-comp.”
Rappaport nodded. “Good job. Now, let’s see what else we can find here before we have to head back, shall we?”
——————————
EAS Gnat
Rachel rubbed her eyes. They were starting to hurt from staring at her hand comp for so long. She needed her glasses, but she didn’t dare risk wearing them in such a public place. She normally wore contact lenses, but until she was able to unpack in her cabin on the Chihuahua they were stuck in storage. She had her glasses with her – she always took that precaution – but she wouldn’t wear them if she could help it. She was always afraid other officers, especially her teachers, would see her glasses as proof she couldn’t do everything a Naval officer should be capable of doing.
And, the truth was she couldn’t. She could never pilot a military vessel on her own, for example, even though
she was probably as competent in flight sims as an ace like Schubert. She didn’t understand how Chris could stand displaying this evidence of physical incompetence as much as he did.
Well, intellectually she did. After all, she knew that there were only a few things that really interested him in the Navy, and piloting was not one of them. Really, that was the only thing their eye problems prevented them from becoming.
Pondering such things wouldn’t help her headache any, though. Maybe she should go to the medical bay and see if she could get something for her headache. And then she might try finding somewhere private where she could use her glasses unobserved to finish her job.
“Hey, lookee here,” one of the three thugs from her cabin sneered. “If it isn’t our good ol’ roomy, Rachel Katz. How’re ya doing, Rache?”
Her head snapped up, seeing all three of her unwanted roommates approaching. “You should address me as either ‘ma’am’ or ‘Cadet Lt. Commander Rachel Katz, ma’am.’ You are never allowed to call me ‘Rache.’” She grinned dangerously. “Unlike certain other officers who’s informality I tolerate, you could be sent to the brig if I get too annoyed by you using that name.”
“Oh, sorry,” The largest of them apologized sarcastically. “Didn’t know you were too important to be dealt with as a normal human being in off-duty hours.”
Rachel sniffed. “Well, for one thing, I am not off duty. I’m using the lounge as an office to escape from people like you, yes, but only because I need a quiet place to work.”
“Oh, I’m sure that’s the only reason she needs to escape from us,” the last one to speak snorted.
“I think she’s scared of us,” the first one said. “What do you think, Franco?”
“Oh, definitely, Nathan,” the last of them answered back. Something about his tone of voice didn’t quite fit, but Rachel couldn’t quite place it.