by Jeff Sims
Captain Solear settled into his captain’s chair and instructed Ella to engage. The Sunflower jumped into hyperspace for the 11 hour journey to Opron. He decided to use spend the time reading a novel he had been neglecting. He began reading, but only made it 5 pages when his three female officers began an in depth conversation about hair-care products.
The chatter irritated him for some reason and he closed the reader application on his com pad. He briefly thought what would happen if the Navy brass replaced Arean with a human female. At this point he wasn’t sure which was worse; that the human female would attack the other 3 or join in the conversation.
Solear realized he hadn’t left the bridge area in days; not since he addressed the human pilots. He decided to take a walk through the cruiser. Arean was in his quarters, so Captain Solear announced to the three ladies that he was leaving the bridge and touring the ship. They were in a spirited debate about the effects of pre-rinse and didn’t look up or acknowledge him.
Solear looked back at Clowy. She was now standing and showing the other two how she prepared her long light blue hair before stepping into the sonic shower. The irony of the scene made him chuckle to himself. Altians are naturally hairless; at least on their heads or faces. He couldn’t remember from diversity training whether they had hair in other locations on their bodies.
When long(er) hair became the fashion trend for females on Advranki Prime, the new look was immediately copied on Solaria. The Altians must have felt left out, for they invented a method to grow real hair and implant it onto their scalps. The process involved conditioning the top of the head; then taking a growing head of hair similar to wig and fastening it to one’s head. It was quick, painless, relatively inexpensive, and continued to grow after application.
Captain Solear turned and left the bridge. He turned right and decided to visit engineering. He strolled down the corridor, admiring the caribou running alongside and the sunflowers blowing in the breeze. Walking through the corridor made him smile and temporarily forget whatever was bothering him. He supposed that was the point of the mural.
Solear reached the end of the corridor and watched the caribou jump through the doorway and disappear. He entered the power generation room. There were two engineers working at their stations. Neither noticed his entrance. Solear went to an empty station and looked at the system’s status. The hyperspace drive was performing within nominal range in every key area. He finally approached one of the engineers and said, “How is everything?”
The engineer looked up and said, “Hello Captain, I didn’t see you enter. Everything is going well for the most part. The ion cannon is okay, the hyper-drive is performing well, shield generators are fine, and both the primary and secondary power generators are good. There are no real ship issues.”
Solear responded, “You said for the most part. Is there a problem?”
The second engineer had approached and joined the conversation. The engineers looked at each other and finally the first one continued, “Well, we are having some problems tuning the fighters’ engines.”
Solear asked, “Why is that?”
The engineer responded, “Well, the humans are constantly performing status checks on the fighters. They perform about 20 checks a day on each fighter. That is over 400 checks that maintenance has to review for mechanical function and then we have to review and approve for engine readiness. It is creating a lot of unnecessary work.”
Solear said, “Okay.”
The engineer became rather loquacious. Now that he was finally talking and being listened to he seemed to have more issues he wanted to discuss. The engineer continued, “Plus, now maintenance is being strange. They are limiting access to the fighters. We can only work on them during the evening shift.”
Solear asked, “Why is that?”
The engineer responded, “Because maintenance has to be present to assist us with engine test and calibration.”
Solear answered, “Yes, I know that. I meant why is maintenance only working on them during the evening?”
Both engineers shook their heads. The second one said, “Maybe they are overwhelmed, I don’t know. What I do know is that we had to assign the other 3 engineers to evening shift to handle the increased workload. Well, let me correct that. It isn’t really an increased workload, just a reduction in the amount of hours available to do the job.”
Solear said, “Have you asked the humans why they are running so many checks?”
The engineer suddenly turned laconic. He simply said, “No.”
The second engineer continued the conversation. He said, “Well, we walked down there one time. There was a human on the other side of the entryway to the hangar. He was just standing there with his face about ten centimeters from the force field.”
The first recovered his speaking voice and said, “He was staring down at us, daring us to lower the force field. I could tell he wanted out. I think he wanted to tear off my arm and beat me with it.”
Solear asked, “What was he doing?”
The second added, “He was staring at us. It was really creepy.”
The first said, “He was holding a com pad in his hands. He was pointing to it. We thought he was trying to use it to break through the force field.”
Solear said, “You two designed that. You know that he can’t lower the force field.”
The second said, “True, but I didn’t realize how big and strong they are. This one towered over us. I bet he could have walked through that force field if he tried.”
Solear asked, “What did you do?”
The first said, “Simple, we gassed him to sleep and ran back to engineering.”
Solear asked, “Have you tried sending them a message?” The engineers shook their head no. Solear then said, “Well, did you contact Arean and see if he could resolve the issue?”
They both said, “No.” Then the second continued, “Yes, we probably should have contacted Arean and had him look into it. Basically, we have just been ignoring it.”
Captain Solear walked out of engineering and ducked his head into the infirmary. The room was dark. There were no patients present in any of the four beds. Battleships had a full time doctor, but the smaller class ships like destroyers and cruisers did not. The Sunflower had two medics that were trained in first aid and contagion containment.
Solear walked back into the caribou corridor. There were six doors, three on the left and three on the right. The doors were spaced evenly down the corridor and perfectly aligned across from each other. Solear suspected the design was less due to functionality and more to the fact that Lorano must have liked the simple elegance of it.
The three doors on the right led to the crew quarters, kitchen and dining area, and new entertainment area respectively. The three on the right led to maintenance, the bridge, and missile storage.
Solear walked nearly the length of the corridor and entered the third doorway on the left. He entered the missile storage room. To his right was a large door that connected missile storage to the hangar. To his left was an identical large door that connected the missile storage room to the maintenance area. He was currently standing in a large, empty area that served as a corridor connecting the two doors.
The large doors were used to move supplies from the hanger into maintenance and also to move missiles from storage to the fighters. Both doors were currently closed. They didn’t put force field over these doors because of their large size and ability to be physically shut and locked. There were force fields on the two person-sized exits to the room.
Directly in front of him were the missiles for both the ship and the fighters. They were stored in a rack system that extended from the floor to the ceiling. There were supposed to be anti-gravity carts at every intersection, but Solear noticed they were all missing. Strange, he thought.
The missile storage room was technically a part of maintenance, but it was physically separated from the rest of maintenance by an incredibly strong wall. It wasn’t quite as protective
as the bridge, but it was close. It was enclosed to protect the ship from an accidental missile explosion. If there was an explosion, the force of the blast would be directed to blow back into the hangar and out the hangar bay doors, hopefully preserving the ship’s integrity.
There was a below the floor conveyor system that took the missiles to each of the 10 missile launchers. Solear walked to the central loading spot and inspected the area. Everything seemed in place with the exception of the missing carts.
The room was otherwise empty, so Solear walked to the other person-sized exit in the room. It was the door leading directly from missile storage to maintenance. However, the door was physically locked from the other side and could not be opened. There was a force field generator over the door, but it was not functioning. Also, the anti-gravity platform that went down to the lower level of maintenance did not function. It read ‘Out of Order Due to Maintenance’.
Captain Solear read the sign twice. The words bothered him. He said to no one in particular, “If the anti-gravity platform is broken, the sign should simply read ‘Out of Order’ or possibly ‘Out of Order, Maintenance called’ or more than likely ‘Out of Order for Maintenance’. The words ‘Due to’ on the sign really mean from; not for. He thought if it was truly ‘Out of Order from Maintenance’ that would mean that maintenance had intentionally placed the platform out of order. If that were the case though, wouldn’t maintenance simply fix it since they were maintenance?
Solear retraced his steps through the missile room, back into the caribou corridor, past the bridge, and into the first door to maintenance. There were three levels in the maintenance area. The middle level, in which Solear was standing, was primarily used for storage and small projects. This level was smaller than the level above and below because the 5 missile launchers were housed here.
Solear walked across the maintenance bay and found two workers performing a preventative inspection on one of the missile launchers. Solear said, “Hello, what’s the status?”
The first technician said, “The launcher is fine. We are just giving it a routine check. It will fire when required.”
Solear said, “That’s good. How are the fighters?”
The response was a little less forthcoming. Finally the second technician said, “They’re okay, I guess.”
Solear responded, “That isn’t a great endorsement. What is the issue?”
The first said, “I’ll be honest. The issue is the humans.”
Solear said, “Please explain.”
The second technician said, “Well, there are several problems. The first one is that they sit in their fighters for hours every day. We walked into the hangar one day, started working on a fighter, and boom, all 20 hatches open. The humans start to get out of the fighters.”
The first continued the story, “We see them and they see us. We drop our equipment and start running out of the hangar as fast as we can. Three of the ones closest to us start chasing us. We have a big head start, but the humans are big and really fast. They’re gaining on us. We realized we weren’t going to make it, so I yell to the computer to close the main cargo door and gas the hangar. My partner here yells to the computer to inform our colleagues to come and retrieve us.”
The second technician said, “Yeah, I didn’t want to wake up and find I was trapped with twenty hungry humans just waking up from a long nap.”
Solear asked, “Why didn’t you report this?”
The first said, “We didn’t report it because technically we were in the wrong. We should have verified there were no humans in the hangar before entering. But, I just can’t figure out why they sit in their fighters all day long running status checks. It’s annoying.”
The second said, “Now, we only enter the hangar at night. Also, now we only enter the hanger from the lower level of maintenance. I don’t think the humans are aware of the lower level.”
Solear said, “So why is the door locked and the platform broken?”
The first technician said, “Well, we can’t prevent them from getting into the missile storage area. The force field over the small door leading from the missile storage area to maintenance doesn’t work because we would have had to break the integrity of the blast wall to wire it. So, we shut it and permanently locked it. We also disabled the anti-gravity platform in the room to keep them from going into the lower level.”
Captain Solear finally understood. Somehow, discovering that the sign was written correctly made him happy. He said, “Thanks” and turned to leave.
The first technician said, “Wait, that isn’t even the worst of it.”
The second seconded, “Not even close.”
Solear turned back and said, “Please continue.”
The first technician said, “We went to do an evening repair and we noticed that the humans had changed several of the missiles. Their fighters no longer had the standard package.”
The second said, “So, we simply changed them back to the correct ones. With the automatic carts it only takes a few minutes.”
The first said, “We come back the next night and the missiles had been changed again. So, this time we change them back and store the carts where the humans can’t get to them.
The first said, “And then. And then I saw it. I didn’t believe it at first. They, they…” His voice trailed off.
Solear asked, “They what?”
The second technician said, “The humans. They changed the missiles back without the carts. I don’t know how they did that.” He wanted to say more, but stopped. He appeared to be shivering slightly.
The first looked at the second and continued, “After they changed the missiles, they left us a message; a very clear message.” The Advranki shook his head.
Solear prompted, “What was the message?”
The second had calmed himself down a little and said, “The humans wrote ‘Leave missiles alone!’ on the side of the wall in big letters. They even included an exclamation mark and underlined the word alone.”
Solear said, “Okay, so they left a sign. Apparently they didn’t like you removing and changing the missiles.”
The first said, “No Captain, you don’t understand. They wrote the message in blood – their blood. The message was obvious. If you touch the missiles again it will be your blood smeared all over the walls.”
Solear said, “Blood? That is barbaric.” He couldn’t believe it.
The second technician said, “You know, you hear tales about humans as a kid and only half believe them. How can a race of beings be that dangerous you wonder? You assume that people are just making up stories. Then you see it. The reality was far worse than the stories.”
Solear thanked them and left. He walked back into the main corridor and considered returning to the bridge. He didn’t though. He kept walking forward, toward the hangar. He noticed that he had slowed down considerably. His mind wanted to go, but his feet seemed to have other ideas.
He eventually made it to the hangar. The force field was active. Solear said, “Computer, scan hangar. Identify location of all humans.”
…Scanning. All humans are in the living area. The hangar is unoccupied…
Captain Solear lowered the force field and entered the hangar. The force field snapped back into place after he had walked through. Well, Lexxi was certainly watching he thought. He walked across the hangar to the humans’ living area. The force field was down, but no one was racing toward him.
Solear walked through the door. One of the humans saw him and yelled. He saw a flurry of motion as all 20 humans came running toward him. Solear almost turned to leave and shout for the gas, but he hesitated. He wasn’t sure if was displaying bravery or if fear had rooted him in place.
Either way, the humans lined up in two rows facing him and put their hands to their heads. They were standing perfectly still, not exactly looking at him. Solear remembered the two phrases from last time. This time he said as loudly as he could, “Return to your duties.”
&nbs
p; The pilots dispersed almost as quickly as they had lined up. Two of them remained. One of them motioned to the nearby couch. He said, “Captain, thank you for visiting us. Please come in and have a seat.”
Solear walked over and sat on a couch. The two remaining humans sat down on the opposite couch. Solear forced himself to breathe. This wasn’t so bad. The humans looked less intimidating sitting down. Solear said, “How is everything?”
The human responded, “I am Jim and this is Russ. We are getting used to our quarters and to life aboard the ship.”
Solear asked, “Have you had any problems?”
Jim responded, “I don’t think our communication pads work properly. It appears that we are able to send and receive messages to Earth and we can send messages to each other, but we can’t send messages to Arean or other members of the crew.”
Russ said, “Or, if we are sending messages, none of the other crew members are responding.”
Solear looked incredulous and asked, “You can send and receive messages to Earth?”
Jim said, “We think so. We have each received three emails from our families so far. They appear to be legitimate. I doubt anyone would try to fake them. What would be the point?”
Solear remembered the message that Lorano had sent from Earth. He supposed that Lorano had left the hyper communications platform in Earth and functioning. Solear answered, “I can assure you that no one is forging messages to you. I think it is safe to assume that they are really from your families.”
Jim said, “Thanks.”
Solear responded, “I will check into the com pads. However, I have a couple of questions. Why do you guys sit in the fighters and run status checks?”
Jim responded, “Is that a problem?”
Solear answered, “Each time you run a status check, both maintenance and engineering have to review the results. The constant status checks are creating extra work for those departments.”
Jim said, “Sorry, every time you get in the fighter, it asks if you want to run a check before continuing. I will instruct the team to only run one check a day.”