She laughed. “No, Vargit, when I get around to starting the auxes, I plan to start them the normal way – from the mains.”
For a few moments, there was silence. “OK, I may be old, but I'm not stupid. It sounds to me like you think you're going to start the main drives on that gate guard. Are you trying mess with me, or have you just cracked under the pressure?”
“Vargit, you just bring me a thousand liters of fuel, unlock full power on the umbilical, and I'll show you what I'm going to do with it.”
“Alright, you pup, I'll bring the fuel, but I'm checking your work before we pour a drop. If I gotta pump the fuel back out of there, you're gonna owe me one.”
Like Vargit had said, there were ways to jump start auxiliary generators, but unless the generators were designed for it, jump-starting them was a tricky business and damaging even if it worked. Self-starting generators were more complex and less efficient, so usually only military ships or frontier ships had a self-start capability.
Anyway, the auxiliaries had been pretty much the last thing on Anailu's list. She only needed them if she shut down the main drives when she couldn't hook up to to external power first. She'd finally looked over the auxiliary power generators yesterday, but that was one system that seemed to still be in spec. Tough buggers.
Of course, the next call was from Orym.
“Kid, what's this I hear about you trying to start the mains? You're gonna try some crazy jury-rig that could blow up my whole yard, aren't you? You can't afford that, not you and your whole family!”
“No, nothing crazy! It'll all be within specs. I'll show Vargit what I did, don't worry.”
“It had better be. Look, I'll be in just as soon as I finish breakfast here. Promise me you won't do anything until then!”
“Fine, I'll wait.”
Just a few minutes later, she got a call from Vargit. “Hey, you crazy pup, open the fuel port so I can start pumping.”
“Hang on, Vargit. I just promised Orym I wouldn't do anything until he got here.”
“Oh, don't worry about that. He just means don't do anything exciting until he gets here. He doesn't want to miss the show. Let's start this fuel pumping, and then you show me how you did what you think you did.”
“You don't want me to show you before you load the fuel?”
“Nah, I figure you actually know something about ships, so there's a better than even chance that maybe you really figured out something that I missed. Maybe.
“Anyway, this is just a little pump, so it will take some time. My bot Eefer here will watch over the transfer.”
A few minutes later, the fuel was pumping and Vargit was sitting, arms crossed, in the engineer's position on the bridge, like he owned the place.
“OK, kid, show me something magical, something miraculous. Show me how you think this ship's drive can actually operate. For starters, explain why we're up here in the idiot room rather than down looking at something useful, like, say, the actual drives.”
She reached over and tapped a button to turn on the screen. “Look for yourself. The ship says the main drives are both OK to start up.”
“I see it, but I still don't believe it. What did you do?”
“Not much, really. Sure, I did a lot of testing and calibration over the last few days, because I know better than to trust everything a diagnostic says – especially when I haven't checked it, and for certain when it's been sitting for so long. There were a lot of things out of spec, but I think those adjustments were just needed from sitting unmaintained for so long. I didn't install any components, and I didn't do a hardware bypass of any components. That's why we're up here rather than down there.”
“Are you claiming this ship could fly all this time? I know there's plenty of parts missing, and every one of them was a keystone component. I opened up the systems and checked on every part that the ship said was removed. What are you saying I missed?”
“When the ship said it couldn't fly, it was only partially true. See, these luxury ships have a lot of extra safety lockouts, because for the people who usually own them, it's better to not fly at all than fly with only part of the system working. And you can bypass those lockouts right here, if you know how to put the system into expert mode.”
“Yeah, when I checked her out the first time, I put it in expert mode, but she never told me she would run.”
“I don't know what to tell you, I just changed these configurations here.”
Vargit scratched his head. “Well, that's just odd. I'm sure I did all the same things, but maybe I'm remembering wrong? It has been twenty-something years. Or there could have been some hidden timer that expired?” He didn't sound convinced. He shrugged. “Hard to say, I guess. With so much automation, Telani ships are always a little different. So what did she tell you that she wouldn't tell me?”
“Mostly it's just the drives, though no more than idle power. No direct thrust output. And you can see that I didn't disable any of the core safety lockouts, so there's no additional danger.”
“Huh. And what will you do with the drives just idling?”
Anailu brought up a different screen. “Well, look at the projected power output! Even at idle, they put out enough to run the CG at full blow. And the idle fuel efficiency is pretty great for drives this big!”
Vargit looked at the displays, considered, then nodded slowly. “Yeah, I think you might be right. You might even get some good speed. You'll still be stuck in the gravity well, though. You OK with that?”
Anailu nodded fiercely. “I'm getting this ship aloft. Then I'll figure out how to get her the rest of the way.”
As Vargit shrugged, his comm pinged. Vargit whistled. “Damn, that boy still has perfect timing.”
It was Orym. “Well? Is she going to destroy everything I own?”
“Amazingly enough, I'm thinking maybe not. In fact, you may end up having give her that full tank of fuel. I guess we're about to see, though.”
“If she pulls it off, then I really will be amazed. But she's not trying until you're back over here with me. We can get a fine view from inside this little fully shielded hopper shuttle waaay over here. This way neither of us will have to answer to our wives for getting ourselves blown up. No matter how convinced you are, you know those drives haven't ticked over in thirty years.”
“Alright, don't worry so much. She can't start yet, I still gotta configure the umbilical for full power feed. See you in a minute.” He broke the connection and stood up. As he left the bridge, Vargit turned back for a moment. “Kid, show us something great.”
Anailu nodded, then turned back to the console. The fueling was finished, so she did a final check and started the drives priming. She saw the available power from the umbilical jump up from the trickle it had been providing, and a couple minutes afterward, Vargit called. “OK, kid, we're clear, the fuel truck's clear. You ready?”
“Yes, I'm ready for drive start. I'll go for the starboard drive first.”
Vargit laughed. “Well, that's mighty kind of you to light the engine on the side away from us first.”
Anailu smiled. “Yes, I thought that was best. Starboard drive start.”
She pressed in the button.
And felt nothing change.
She did see the gauges react, though, showing power climbing into the green – and staying right there in the green, rock solid and right on spec. That was odd. On every other ship she'd been on, you got a rumble, vibrations of some kind, especially at drive start. Usually, you felt vibration from the engine all the time. It let you know everything was running normally. At the least, there would be fluctuations in the engine until it settled down to operating temperatures. Was the ship just running a simulation?
Vargit answered that worry with a whoop. “Woohoo! We see that starboard drive purring! How's your readings?”
“They're already solid, and I mean crazy solid! Reaction's good, no vibration, no fluxes, just power on spec.”
“Yeah, that's how
some of these luxury ships are. I guess she's not just a piece of art on the outside, huh?”
“Fuel flow's a little above spec, but not by much.”
“Eh, she's been dry for a while. Maybe she's thirsty. You ready for the port side?”
“I guess so. Um, port drive start?”
She touched the port drive starter, and got the same response as before. Smooth perfection.
“We see port drive up. Nice work, kid.”
“Thanks. I thought I loved this ship before, but wow! OK, I'm switching to internal power.” With that, she remotely disconnected the umbilical.
The quiet and the smoothness was a little eerie. When you're out in space and you wake up to a silent, still ship, you get worried, because if your drives are down, you might be in real trouble. It would certainly take some getting used to.
With that done, she actuated the “hot” test suite for the control systems, drives and CG generators. Those would take several minutes. She saw Orym and Vargit debark from the hopper-shuttle and walk around the back of the ship, Vargit grinning and Orym shaking his head.
When the tests completed with all greens, she had only one more system to test, for now. She set the auxiliary power generators to activate and watched the readings as plasma was injected from the main drives to start them up. When they were up and running, she checked them as well. As she'd hoped, they were running fine, though the generators were also using more fuel than the specifications said they should. On its own, it was only a minor issue. As long as it didn't get worse, she could figure out what was causing it later, when she had the time. She would keep an eye on it, and she set the system to alert if it increased.
With the auxiliary generators up, running, and tested, Anailu shut down the mains to save fuel. The ship itself was ready, but there were steps she had to take care away from the ship before she could lift off legally.
She stepped out the main airlock just as Orym and Vargit came around to the boarding ramp. “I'm ready for the rest of my fuel load.”
Orym laughed and shook his head. “Yes, I guess you are. Vargit, I still don't know how you missed it. I never thought this thing would leave my lot in my lifetime.”
“I don't know how I missed it. I did all the same things as this young'un here. Disabled the extra safeties and all. But you know it's been a long time since we got this ship, so I don't know if I'm remembering wrong or if something else was going on we didn't know about. Maybe the ship just didn't like me. If I missed something, though, it's one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made.”
“That's alright, Vargit.” Orym finally smiled. “Hey, partnering with you is still the second best decision I ever made.”
“Thanks, buddy.” Vargit turned to her. “Well, I guess you have a few more things to take care of. CG's good?”
“Yeah, the zero lift test went fine.”
Orym rubbed his hands together. “That's great! Then before you actually lift, it's time to talk about traditions. When we bought this ship, we were told it was nameless, and we never found anything aboard that showed the previous name. I guess you've looked at her more closely than anyone has in thirty years – did you find a name anywhere?”
“Not a trace. I am positive she was intentionally denamed.”
“Do you plan to name her at first lift?”
“Of course, that's the tradition. You don't lift free on a nameless ship, and you don't name a ship until it is about to lift the first time.”
Orym nodded. “Well, then if you are willing to delay your 'departure' until this evening, I know some people who you might want to have here for the naming ceremony, and I'd be happy to put it together for you. I don't mean to push that on you, but if you want people to hire you, they need to know what you have on offer. At the least, my wife would kill me if she couldn't be here for this particular ship's launch. I'm not sure she's ever quite believed that it was worth buying.”
Anailu had not been planning to have a party. She'd kinda been planning to just get the registration, name the ship herself, and lift. That was enough to satisfy tradition. The only people she knew on Doran were Vargit and Orym, anyway. “Who would even come? Nobody on Doran knows me.”
Orym chuckled. “You wouldn't know, but this Dove has quite a reputation around the lots as 'the ship Orym can't sell and Vargit can't fix.' Trust me, when you lift, people will want to be here, whether we invite them or not.”
Orym's suggestion about getting business contacts made sense, so she nodded. “Well then, I'd appreciate any help you would give me with preparations and invitations.”
“No problem. After all, it's coming out of your pocket!”
Oh, yeah.
She'd forgotten that part of the tradition. With the other things she'd have to pay for today, she could just see what was left of her account shrinking away.
But, she had another issue. “Speaking of traditions, with a start that perfect, I don't intend to shut back down until after the ceremony. The problem is, I probably have, oh, thirty minutes of usable fuel left right now, even running just the auxiliaries. Any chance I could get that free fuel load now?”
Orym laughed. “That thing's got big tanks, but a deal's a deal. Vargit, if you wouldn't mind?”
Chapter 5: Fair Winds and Good Fortune
Anailu put in her application for a starship registration. They scheduled the inspector for late in the day, late enough that it would be cutting it close for the party. That was a little worrisome, but Anailu hoped it wouldn't be a problem. First, she knew the ship was in good shape. Second, she didn't need to pass the full inspection, she just needed to pass enough to get a “Temporary Permit to Operate for Testing.” That would be sufficient to allow lifting ship for the ceremony and party. It wasn't uncommon for ships to have their ceremonial launch followed by additional fitting out.
She spent most of the day making sure her ship would satisfy the registration requirements. The main problem was the communication systems. The internal comms were fine, but although the antennae and wiring were there, the long range modules were gone. Also, the ID transponder was missing. That wasn't surprising, since it was hardcoded to the registered ship ID.
She purchased both as cheaply as she could find, only meeting the minimum registration requirements. She'd just finished installing and testing her purchased gear when Orym showed up with the bill for the party.
It was tradition that the captain had to pay for naming party, but looking at the bill, she was pretty sure the party supplies listed had to cost far more than the total at the bottom. It was bad luck to suggest that she wasn't paying for the whole party herself, so she didn't say anything about it.
The inspector finally arrived, just after Orym and Vargit had each gone home to get ready for the party.
Anailu was surprised that the inspector didn't inspect the drives, the CG, or even hull integrity. He told her that the Dove's built-in status reporting systems were naval-certified. Since the ship said those parts of the ship were OK, that was good enough for inspection. Anailu was surprised enough that she asked about it, belatedly realizing that maybe she should have kept her mouth shut. The inspector wasn't phased by her question, though. He said it was just another privilege for the rich.
He did have to check those status reporting systems, but as far as Anailu could see, that seemed to mostly involve asking the systems themselves if they were working correctly. The inspector spent the most time and effort checking the comms, the transponder, emergency life support, and the ability to abandon ship. This ship had plenty of ways off – the entire aft lounge on the upper deck was an escape pod, each transport pod was an escape pod, and the whole nose of the ship, including the cargo lift, was another large escape pod. Individually testing each escape system would have taken a lot more time, but after some spot checks, since the ship said they were operational, he accepted that.
The life support systems were a different matter. Over the decades of sitting, seals had lost their flexibility, th
e life support recyclers were all dead, and even the survival bubbles stowed in the staterooms were way past their inspection dates. At least the ship agreed with that assessment.
In the end, the ship passed inspection, with the only limitation being a special requirement requiring vacc-suits for any high altitude and extra-atmospheric activity. That was fine with Anailu. She'd brought her personal vacc suit with her to Doran, and she was planning to operate alone. She saw no point worrying about replacing seals or getting full life support working until she needed to go out of the atmosphere, which she wouldn't need to do until she found or replaced the missing keystone parts.
Since tomorrow was a rest day, the party didn't start until late in the evening, The start of the event saw the guests gathered in front of the ship. On Doran, the whole ceremony was normally completed from the ground, but the bow of a Dove class ship was high enough above the ground that the normal location was impractical. Instead, a select group was on the ship's cargo lift including Anailu, Orym, Vargit, and their families. Vargit's family also included a number of grandchildren. The lift had a telescoping extension that slid out beyond the bow, to allow for nose-on docking and loading. In this situation, with the lift almost raised, it gave the new captain access to the extreme bow of her new ship.
At the completion of the ceremony, she broke the traditional bottle of very expensive Doran wine on the bow, and said the traditional words of the ancient tradition, “I name thee Silver Queen. May you bring fair winds and good fortune to all who sail in thee.”
After some applause, the guests watching from the ground below came up the ramp and boarded the ship, moving into into the cargo bay where the party was set up. After a quick welcome to her gathered guests, Anailu went to the bridge and brought the main drives online. As she lifted ship, all the guests gave a great cheer, and the party really got started.
When they were a few hundred feet up, Vargit, who was on the bridge with her, asked her to face the Queen into the wind and disable the stationkeeping system so it would drift in the evening breeze. “It's a tradition from my world to let the new ship get acquainted with the wind. Sure, she's a starship, but there's nothing wrong with a little extra luck, just in case.” Anailu didn't mind; she figured she could use all the good luck she could get. It wouldn't affect the party, either. There was just a gentle breeze this evening, but even if the winds were really strong, nobody inside the ship would feel it. Doves were fitted with very expensive inertial dampers.
The Sculpted Ship Page 4