One of the guards looked over the area, then covered her mouth and looked away. "By identifying the area, we managed to fix the problem and clean up the mess. This robot and others like it do all sorts of things like that," he explained patiently, hoping the message was getting through to all of them.
The Chief nodded tightly. "You made your point. Next time, address your points to me, not my people," she said coldly.
He nodded. "Fair enough, you’re their boss; it's part of the chain of command," he said as he used full command presence and each of them straightened instinctively. There was something said to the warrior mindset, when command presence was felt, they snapped too. He nodded. The Chief gave her guards a long look over her shoulder then turned and left without a further word.
He nodded and returned to his quarters. "Point, set, match," Sprite observed almost gleefully. "Hardly," he snorted. "That was a little too easy don't you think?" he asked. He turned and made ready for bed again.
"Ah, that's because she was chewed out by the Captain on this very subject yesterday," Sprite answered smugly as she pulled up a video feed.
"Spare me the drama, just hit the highlights," he said. He pulled down the bed spread. "Well, she told the Chief to knock off the destruction and ease up on the paranoia. Curiously she called her granddaughter."
He looked up at the ceiling. "Great, just great. I think someone else said something about that earlier. Family resemblance?" he asked. That was probably how she got off the hook with that shoot up in the boat bay come to think of it, he thought.
Sprite projected an image of each of them, then karated facial recognition points. A subprogram scrolled through calculations for a moment. "A sixty eight percent match based on facial recognition software. I don't have the ability to do a genotype comparison,” she reported when the program finished.
He snorted and shut the lights off. "Night Sprite."
She closed the HUD as he closed his eyes. "Good night Admiral," she said softly.
"I heard you had quite the crowd the other night?" Jennie asked as she passed him a drill.
He chuckled. "Yeah, that was surprising." He tapped the hole, then handed the tool back and set the screw in.
"Not really, we've always wanted to learn how things worked, but no one had the time to learn or teach like you do," she said. He grunted. He wished he had thought of it earlier. Teaching them one at a time on the job was a pain.
"Yeah there's that," he admitted. He screwed in the holder, and then clipped it over the pipe. "There, that should keep it from rattling."
Jennie took the screwdriver and looked over her shoulder. "Such a simple thing, locking it down to keep it from vibrating,” she said.
He smiled. "Just takes a little common sense sometimes," he snorted.
"When I was an ensign an Admiral kept calling maintenance to fix a rattle in his quarters," he turned to her, eyes gleaming with mischief. "Turns out he pissed off a warrant, who retaliated by loosening a bracket. He had the team on his side, so they always fixed the bracket, and then loosened another." She giggled. "The Admiral was a real jerk, so the entire staff was enjoying his discomfort," he shook his head wryly. She giggled.
Jennie buttonholed him again the next morning. "Can you go beyond the basic theory; most of us have it down now," she asked.
He nodded. "Yes, but there are a lot of new faces each night, so I have to start over from the beginning," he said.
She nodded. "Yeah, but it's getting boring. I can show the ones who missed out," she perked up at that.
He nodded. "I can download my lesson plan and lecture notes for you to study," he said.
She blinked at him. "Lesson plan? Notes?" she asked, uncertain.
He chuckled. "They're a plan to teach. I taught at the academy and on ship, so I have them on file," he explained.
She looked confused. "Why would you teach on a ship? I would think everyone would have known right?" she asked. He cocked his head.
"Well, basic stuff like I am teaching now, yes, that was taught in earlier schools," he said. She blushed. "But ships always had a class or two going, military personnel learned early to keep their skills up to date and learn new ones," he explained and then smiled. “It also offers a change in routine, combating boredom,” he said.
She nodded. She and the crew had their own problems with that. "Well, we're certainly learning a lot! Whew! Sometimes I think my head is going to explode!" she said, clutching at her head.
That got a chuckle. "I'll get you the notes tonight. Check your e-mail," he said. She nodded and tossed off a jaunty salute whistling down the next passage.
He smiled. Inter ship e-mail was a new thing to the crew; the old one had been compromised by the viruses and system damage. Sprite had set it up earlier two months ago with his approval.
The grapevine had latched onto it with ferocious intensity, nearly overloading the server at one point with juicy gossip. The moral officer had been forced to come to him asking for help. He had taken the time to show her how to manage the server, and how to set up an intranet website for news.
Now others were clamoring for their own department sites and news listings. "She can even set up sites for classes, and chat rooms for discussions about various subjects. Recommended reading, all sorts of stuff," Sprite told him later.
The admiral grunted. "Great, more places for the grapevine gossips to infiltrate and take over." The AI chuckled.
The moral officer came to him hours later, asking for help again. "I can't seem to get it right," she said. She shook her head ruefully. "I don't know what I'm doing wrong. And now I'm getting swamped with people wanting to take classes!" She threw her hands up in the air exasperated.
Molly chuckled. "It's a good thing. With all this new equipment, we need to learn how to use it right and fix it to keep it running!" She fiddled with her glasses for a moment then gave the moral officer a challenging look.
"Oh all right, I don't have any qualms about that, it's just that we've never done something like that before. I mean, before, we learned from others who showed you how to do the job as she did it," she said and then shrugged. "It was the only way we knew."
The Admiral nodded. "Jennie is doing the basic introduction to gravity emitter class as well as the basic intro to computers class. We can set up others."
Sprite pulled up his academy course listings. "Hmm, we could do a mix of material, from grade school level to college," he said looking the list over. Sprite added that. "Not everyone needs to learn the same things, so they can pick and choose what they need, and take them when they're available," he suggested. He turned to the moral officer who was taking notes with the tablet.
"Does that sound about right?" he asked.
She nodded. "I have a few people trying to learn how to read and write," she said cautiously.
He nodded. "Basic math, basic reading and writing, basic ship knowledge... We can get teachers for each."
Molly looked up and smiled. "A space going college! I like it!" she smirked. He felt a start. In his time there had been space going college campuses, both on stations and even starships. It sometimes dismayed him to see how far they had fallen.
"Something like that. All ships have them; it keeps people from getting bored fast. Even the liners had them," Irons said, recovering. He turned and plugged the fiber optic cables into the junction box. "All set on my end."
She looked up. "I'm almost done here," she reported.
The moral officer nodded. "I'll go look for volunteers for the basic courses. See you at lunch?" she asked. They nodded. She waved. They chuckled as she left.
"Has anyone pieced together how the ship was damaged and became a derelict?" the admiral asked. The Admiral looked over the class.
Molly tentatively raised her hand. "It hit a mine," she said.
He smiled. “Right, but there's a sequence of events.”
He initialized the projector. Behind him the ship appeared, then a tangle of hyperspace around it. "The
ship hit a hyper mine while in transit. Actually, it hit the maximum threshold of the mine's detonation field." The sequence played out. "The ship's navigator detected the mine and tried to dodge it, but the mine's AI locked on and followed. It detonated when it decided it was going to lose the ship."
The detonation sequence played out in slow motion, and then the projector brought up a ship schematic. "When the mine detonated the ship's crew and AI tried to buffer the shields. That helped, but it overloaded them. When they did a crash translation out of hyper they were lost," he explained. He shook his head. "The ship reentered in the Oort cloud of the system. It was chewed up."
He played the sequence. “In seconds the ship was breached here, here, here and here. Each of these breaches cut off supplies and did significant spawling damage to the interior," he explained grimly. Molly nodded.
"So why's this important?" Trisha asked querulously.
He sighed. "To repair the ship you need to know what's damaged, or is likely to break down. For instance, these emitters are down, and this EPS conduit was overloaded.”
He tapped the controls and fed the next sequence. "And this is the other side of the coin, areas that weren't damaged by the mine or asteroids, but were overtaxed," he added.
Molly suddenly froze and then slowly nodded. "I get it," she said.
One of the other girls nodded as well. "So, you’re pointing out systems we'll need to overhaul soon," she said.
He nodded. “It's like running a yearling Dasha bird too hard," one of the girls muttered. The class looked over to her. She scrunched down into her seat. "Sorry, old habit," she said.
He nodded. "Farm bred?" he asked. She gave a choppy nod. "No problem," he said and smiled.
"Okay, that's what we're going to work on this trip, check each system and subsystem for problems. A power spike could have fried electronics or addled them," he said. He nodded to Molly.
Chapter 8
"Did you hear about that brawl on deck four after the game last night?" one of the techs asked another.
Jennie looked up alarmed. "What brawl?" She looked from one to the other, each were suddenly quiet. "Okay, spill it," she demanded. She tapped her foot, hands on her hips.
"There was a brawl on deck four, some of the cargo haulers, fuel girls, and a couple of the off duty security got into it pretty bad, sickbay has its hands full," the first girl admitted.
Trisha shrugged then grimaced. "Two of our people from graveyard got mixed up in the mess; Molly is trying to spring them now," she said with a grimace. She shook her head. "Good luck, the way the Chief is foaming at the mouth, she wants all of them to walk the plank!" she growled. She smacked the cart.
"Damn fools, got nothing better to do then smack each other around!"
"Maybe we should do something about that," the Admiral said. "But first, let’s get this shift sorted out. Trish, you have some repairs left over from yesterday?" he asked.
Trisha nodded. "Yeah, the heater coils on deck two and three are a pain," she grimaced. "Molly was supposed to help me with that."
He shook his head. "Well, we can't have you shorthanded. Take these two ladies, and get them up to speed. Jennie and I have to check on a few things, and then we have a meeting at 0900." He waved her off.
"Okay, what meeting?" Jennie asked as Trisha and her techs departed.
"Ship's council, I have a feeling it has something to do with the brawl,” he answered her. He shrugged at her expression.
"You heard about that?" she demanded.
He smiled. "I caught the highlights this morning," he said as her face soured.
He shrugged. "Come on, we need to make the rounds, then get to that meeting, you take decks four and up, I'll take five to eight."
She nodded picking up her tablet. "All right, meet you at the meeting." He waved as they left.
"I'm here for the meeting," he told the guard. His two guards stood behind him.
The door guard curled her lip slightly. "I don't think you’re invited," she said.
He shrugged. "The Captain asked me to be here for all meetings, if you don't agree, why don't you take that up with her," he said suggestively. He reached out and tapped the controls.
She tried to block him, but the door opened. "Ah Admiral, why don't you come in here," the Captain called.
"See?" He cocked an eyebrow at the guard then entered.
"Sorry I'm late, a little mix up with security," he said. He sat down at his usual place at the table. The Chief grunted at the captain's raised eyebrow. "I'll get it fixed," she muttered. "We have more important things to worry about. Forty three people were in that brawl that we know about!" She slapped the table. "Damn loudmouth fools, fighting over a game!" She shook her head.
"I heard injuries were high as well, two with internals." The Admiral observed, sitting back.
A girl dressed in a maid's uniform set a steaming cup of coffee in front of him. He ran a finger along the side. "My how far we've come," he said and smiled and nodded to her. "Thanks," he said. He took a sip then set the cafe down to see the Captain watching him.
"Do you have any ideas Admiral?" she asked as he set the cup down.
He shrugged. "Well, for one thing, there's entirely too much free time in some of the departments."
The purser's shoulders hunched. "What am I supposed to do with them? We need them when we load and unload, but...” her voice trailed off.
He waved. "Exactly. You needed them during transfers, but during flight they sat around bored and caused trouble," the admiral replied.
The Captain and Chief nodded. "I brigged the lot as soon as they were checked out, took most of the night," the Chief growled. "We need more medical personnel," she sighed. "One doctor and one nurse aren't enough," she said looking at the doctor. The exhausted doctor looked up and nodded.
He sat back and rubbed his right bicep. "Tell me about it. I had to stitch, patch, and glue them back together, and this isn't the first time," he said with a grimace and then shook his head. "
We need sickbay attendants. As well as extra help in engineering," Jennie tossed her tablet on the table. "There are over one hundred people in cargo, but only forty in engineering. We run the ship, we fix it, but we're undermanned, and over worked," She grumbled.
"And these constant requests for stupid stuff are driving us to distraction," she waved to the tablet. "Repairs to the rec deck, making new virtual goggles, we need to focus on critical ship's functions!" she slammed her fist onto the table. "Hinata and Sonja are going to be in sickbay for a couple days!" she snarled. She sat back disgusted.
"Wrong place wrong time," the Admiral replied.
She nodded. "And we have to fill in for them," she sighed, running her hands through her hair. The Captain watched her.
"Captain, I think we need to rearrange the roster here, and start moving people around," Jennie commented.
The purser looked up alarmed. "Now see here, we need those hands when we're loading and unloading! You can't just take my people!" she said. The Captain waved her off.
"What do you have in mind?" she asked Jennie, and then turned to the Admiral.
"Yes Captain, we need to pull people from the other departments and settle them in others," he said.
The purser started to protest again but the Captain held up her hand. "As to the all hands on deck during loading, we now have working cargo equipment correct?" she asked. He nodded. "I seem to recall a lot of your crews sitting around jawing while only a few did the real work dear," she turned to the purser. "Well, but I...” Vanessa sputtered.
"You’re more worried about losing your handball team I bet," The Chief observed dryly.
"That's not it at all!" the purser said affronted. "I demand you take that back!" she glared. The Chief's lip curled in response.
"Now now ladies, let’s not have a brawl here! We need to set a good example," the Captain's clipped tone made the two back down.
"Sorry Captain," Both mumbled after a moment.
&
nbsp; "I see everyone is a bit on edge today. Get me that proposal to look over,” she ordered. The Admiral silently passed her a tablet.
She smiled. "Anticipating things as usual," she said. She scrolled through the list, and then looked up. "You want twenty for your department, and six for medical?" she asked. She looked over to the doctor who looked up surprised.
"Why? They have no training?" he asked. He shook his head, looking over to the Admiral.
"They each took the basic CPR course, so they can help out a little in emergencies. Give them some additional training and they can serve as sick berth attendants. That'll free up you and nurse Mindy for other projects and it'll allow you time off at night."
The doctor suddenly looked relieved. He rubbed his chin. "Could work, they could handle the minor bumps and bruises you and the others send me while I focus on learning the more advanced equipment," he said. He sat back, then picked up his coffee cup and took a sip. The Admiral mirrored the action. "Yes, this sounds good," he said after a moment. He turned and nodded to the Captain who smiled. "Glad you approve," she said with a wry smile and then nodded.
"You could also use the help during emergencies; the attendants could be the first on scene, allowing you and nurse Mindy to triage in sickbay. They can also help when you're working on the stasis patients," the Admiral observed.
"No need to get your rockets flaring Admiral, we got the point," the Captain waved further discussion off. "But some of these others, you realize that some are, how do I say, hard to train?" she asked. He shrugged.
"Training takes time and patience. We have that in spades in hyper," he said. He waved to the view port with the view of stars. It was a simulation of course, a direct view into hyper was not possible for organics. "At the very least we can have them as gophers as they learn," he finished. The purser grunted. "A few might transfer back later," he said and then shrugged.
"Okay, I'll approve this," the captain said. She waved off the burgeoning protests from the purser and chief. "We're in hyper, what else are they going to do? Sit in the brig for a month?" She shook her head. "If it doesn't work out, we can transfer them back, no harm done."
New Dawn (Wandering Engineer) Page 26