We eased back slowly at first but gained momentum. The tugs towed us backwards for half a stan then cast us loose. The representations on my screen disappeared as first one, then the other cut out of our network data stream. We drifted backwards on our momentum as the tugs peeled off and went where ever tugs go. Perhaps to help the next ship dock in the now empty berth. Slowly, majestically even, the ship turned away from the orbital and began maneuvering to begin the long climb out of the Betrus gravity well.
The whole process of coming about, firing up the kickers to move us out of the immediate vicinity of the orbital, and eventually extending the gravity keel and solar sail fields took three solid stans but it flashed by in a heartbeat. I did not have time to think of all the people waiting it out in the galley or in environmental or anywhere else. Here, we sailed the ship. I could sense from the pace on the bridge when we were about to shift to normal operations and secure the navigation detail. It was as obvious and inevitable as the arc of a tossed ball. All the pieces came together, more and more of them locking down, until there was only one and then that, too, merged, and the captain said, finally, “Make the announcement, Mr. Pa. Secure from navigation detail, set normal operations, first section has the watch.”
“Secure from navigation detail, set normal operations, first section has the watch. Aye, aye, Captain.”
“Log it at 2353-June-18 16:35, Mr. Maxwell.”
“So logged, Captain.”
“Good work, people,” she said, then she stood and left the bridge.
I looked over to where Mr. von Ickles watched me, a little smile on his face. “So? Was it good for you?” he asked.
It was all I could do to not burst out laughing. “Yes, sar. That was something.”
“They say you always remember your first time.”
“I can see why, sar.” I chuckled. “Whew.”
“Well, you’ve got time to shower and get a run in before dinner. We’re off until mid-watch. Come up here then and I’ll work with you on the console and show you some things. We’ve got the afternoon tomorrow and you can work on the uh-oh box then.”
“Sounds good, sar.”
The next few days flew by in the blur as I attempted to find my way in the new environment. Putting together the portable was easy enough, right up to the point where we had to power it up. Mr. von Ickles had found where I reversed a jumper clip on the main board. After fixing that, we were up and running. We used the basic ShipNet code that I had modified before and loaded it on the portable’s drive so that it fired up as soon as the machine booted. We were as close as we could be to being ready, without actually taking down the ShipNet to test it.
“I think we should wait until we’re docked for that, okay?” Mr. von Ickles said with a laugh.
“Good idea.” I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. “Sar? I have another idea, but I don’t know how practical it is.”
“What’s that, Mr. Wang?” he asked.
“Could we build a spare main cage? Keep it powered down in a grounded locker. That way if we need it, we can just pull the old cage and load the new one up without playing poker with the damaged cards.”
“Spare cage?”
“Yes, sar. The cage is on sliders. If we have a spare one built, we just lift the burnt one out, plug the new one in, and we’re up and running. That’s the majority of the repairs that we had to do last time. We’d still have to track down the odd board here and there on the other racks, but that wouldn’t take much time compared to rebuilding the cage like we did.”
He looked at me, blinking mechanically as he processed what I was saying. “So elegantly simple,” he said. “We take the initial load with the uh-oh box, swap the cage, and replace the burnt boards. Voila!”
“Yes, sar.”
He thought about it for about a tick, before saying, “We have a spare cage, but only one. Let’s hold that idea for when we get to Niol. I think I can convince the captain to buy a second one.”
“Sounds like a plan, sar.”
“In the meantime, let’s rig up a grounded locker in Systems Main to store the uh-oh box in, and then get to work on solving the EMP problem.”
It didn’t take too long and soon we had settled in at a console.
“The first step is understanding what happened,” Mr. von Ickles told me. “I want you to pull the system logs and give me a breakdown of everything that happened starting five ticks before the event.” He sat beside me and demonstrated how to extract the logs for the time period in question. There was a lot of data and I knew it would keep me busy for a long time. He patted me on the shoulder as he headed out. I melted into the task and started digging in.
Fifteen days out of Betrus, I finally had a list of major events and took them to Mr. von Ickles.
“This makes no sense,” he said.
“True, sar, but those are the facts as near as I can reconstruct from the systems logs.”
“According to this, all that stuff burnt out after we were through the CME. Some of it as much as a full tick later.”
“Yes, sar.”
“Let’s go see what Mr. Kelley has to say about this.”
We headed on down to Mr. Kelley’s office. I could see Mr. von Ickles running what I had showed him through his head. He was deep in thought and I didn’t want to disturb him while we passed through the various passageways. When we presented it to Mr. Kelley he got that same confused expression.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“That’s what the logs say. These devices were recording data up to that point, sar,” I told him. “They may have been recording longer but when the main hub went off line, a lot of the data collection packets would have been dropped.”
“But, Mr. Wang, this says the hub was online half a tick after the main generators were blown down. At the velocity we were traveling, the whole event should have been over in less than half a second.”
“Yes, sar. And I recovered the logs from local data storage aft. Some of those controllers didn’t toast out until a full tick after the event.”
He held the list and looked at it for a long time, then looked at Mr. von Ickles. “Can you give me a simulation showing the locations by time for when these died?”
“Sure thing, Fred. You think it’s significant?”
“Maybe. What I’m seeing here is that we failed from stern to bow and back to stern.” He pointed to a reading. “This unit is in the stern, it’s one of the first ones that fried. I would have expected to lose one of these up in the bow first. Like this environmental sensor package here.” He pointed again. “This time stamp says we lost it almost fifteen seconds later. The main data hub blew after that, and then we really started losing things in a cascade all the way back to the engine room.”
“Does that mean what I think, Fred?” Mr. von Ickles asked.
“If you’re thinking that the damage wasn’t caused by the EMP, then yes.”
“Mr. Wang, can you put together a graphic display of this data? I think Mr. Kelley and I need to talk to the captain.”
It took a couple more watches, but I finally got a display I was happy with. When played back at one-tenth speed every second of real time was on the display for ten seconds. The pattern was unmistakable. Just as Mr. Kelley had picked out from the raw data, the failures started in the stern, worked forward, and then aft again.
Something about the pattern bothered me, but I couldn’t put my finger on what that was. I turned the simulation over to Mr. von Ickles and Mr. Kelley and let them worry about it awhile. In the meantime I set about learning my way around the ship’s systems.
Twenty-six days out of Betrus, we jumped into Niol. Any idea I had had that the transition would look differently from the bridge than it felt in the galley was quickly eradicated. Unlike getting underway, transition was as simple as if someone had changed the channel on the holo. One instant we were looking into one corner of the Deep Dark, and the next moment all the stars had moved and where it had been dark before, a b
rilliant dot of light marked the system’s primary. Welcome to Niol.
Chapter Eighteen
Niol System
2352-July-20
While on morning watch three days after transition, I sat back in my seat on the bridge and took a deep breath. It felt like the first one I’d had since leaving Betrus Orbital. My calendar indicated I had nine days until the next exam period but the opportunity to study had been limited to my off-duty hours. Between building the uh-oh box, wading hip deep in data logs, and working through the timed display, the first three weeks of the voyage had disappeared as if they had been sucked into the Deep Dark. For ten days I had been crawling through the virtual ship on my hands and knees—in some cases it required a literal trip as well. Mr. von Ickles had me tracking data runs to see how the physical components formed the web of information that kept the Lois safe, moving, and on course. He also had me doing the routine data management tasks, like backing up the systems and rotating log files.
The systems were amazing. I never really thought I knew all that much about computers, networks, and the like, but when I tried to talk to people—like Pip or even Brill—their faces would glaze over faster than when Francis started talking about charged particles. Speaking of Francis, he was spending a lot of time lately with Mr. Kelley, Mr. Maxwell, and the captain as I’m sure they were tapping his knowledge of astrophysics to try to explain what had happened to the ship. Trying to make sense of the data model had proved to be quite the puzzle. All of the officers and most of the people in the engineering section were trying to figure it out.
Looking around the bridge, I saw Mr. von Ickles had just finished his last log entry in preparation to turn over the watch to Mr. Maxwell. Noon was quickly approaching and my stomach grumbled at the delay. I stood up, stretched, shook out my legs, and arched my back to get some of the kinks out. I had been so absorbed in the systems work that I had hardly moved, and yet I was soaked in sweat as if I’d run five kilometers. Mr. von Ickles teased me about my ability to get so absorbed. “In the zone,” he called it.
While waiting for the watch change, I walked to the front of the bridge and looked out the forward port. The bright spot that had been dead ahead when we jumped in had shifted a bit as we lined up for the spot where Niol would be when we got there in about four weeks. Some of the spots out there were planets and some were stars, but I wasn’t a good enough astronomer to tell them apart. Behind me I heard Mr. Maxwell say, “I relieve you, Mr. von Ickles. I have the watch.” All around the bridge the rest of first section relayed the same message to their respective counterparts at helm, astrogation, and engineering.
I nodded toward Bev, who looked much better than she had at Betrus. She flashed me a warm smile in return as she settled into her routine at the helm. Mr. von Ickles waited for me at the ladder and I hurried to join him as my stomach gave another growl, reminding me how long it had been since I had eaten. From the sound it made, it could have been January.
Even Mr. von Ickles heard it and he laughed. “You’re not eating enough, Mr. Wang?”
“Doesn’t seem possible that I’d be so hungry from just sitting there, but I seem to be burning calories somewhere.”
“I’ll see about getting you a water-cooled helmet,” he said. “To keep your brain from melting.”
He peeled off at officer country to go wash up in his stateroom while I continued down to deck berthing. Hungry as I was, I really wanted to at least sluice the sweat off my face and hands before eating, and I got to the mess deck later than the crowd as a result. That worked in my favor because the line was short, and I could load up my plate without feeling guilty about not leaving enough for the people behind me. The menu included steamed fish with a spicy red sauce, rice, and some banapods. Sarah and Pip always had a smile for me as I went through the line but I could not remember the last time I had a good sit-down chat with Pip. We hadn’t even had a chance to pick a trade cargo while in Betrus, despite having been there for almost nine full days. Sarah still looked like she fit well in the galley, but Pip looked more out of place every time I saw him.
The down side of being late to lunch was finding a place to sit. I lucked out and spotted an empty spot beside Brill, who sat with Diane and Francis. I made a beeline for it. CC was not there, so I figured he must have the watch.
“Hi!” I said as I plopped down, after getting no response, and seeing their faces, I added, “What’s wrong?”
Diane said, “Guess.”
“One letter, repeated?” I asked.
They nodded glumly.
Brill said, “Give us some good news? Do you know if we can fire him?”
I shrugged. “I haven’t heard anything. There should be some information waiting for us in Niol when we pick up the beacon.”
Francis asked, “What’s the word on the electrical failures?”
“Well, it wasn’t the EMP—the charged particle field part—that blew out the systems like we thought. Nobody has any more ideas now than when we were at Betrus. Less really, because then we thought we knew why and how. Now we have tons of data that disputes our original theory, but none of it makes any sense.”
Brill said, “It’s been driving Fred Kelley crazy. The power team is tearing the ship apart trying to solve the mystery.”
Diane asked, “So, you’re adjusting to life on the bridge?”
I snorted. “As much as can be expected, I suppose. I’m not sure why I’m up there, to tell you the truth. I could work anywhere that there’s a console.”
Francis said, “Mr. von Ickles is too smart to let you float around loose. He wants to keep you where he can see you.”
We all laughed. “I’m actually glad to be there. It’s not like I have a lot of interaction with the gang on watch up there, but Mr. von Ickles keeps me on my toes. I suspect watch might be pretty nasty if I were back in the auxiliary bridge all the time.”
“A lot like being down in environmental, huh?” Diane teased.
“Well, not quite that bad,” I said.
“Sludge monkey!” she said, and grinned.
We all fell quiet then. I was eating and they were all picking at the remains of their lunches. Nobody was in any hurry to get up.
“So, what’s up with CC?” I asked at last.
Brill said, “Same old tricks. We got on him for not doing maintenance but logging it was done, so now he’s back to not doing it. I’ve written him up, docked his pay, everything short of taking him by the hand—”
“Or ear!” Diane broke in.
Brill chuckled. “Or ear and dragging him to do the work. I’m at my wit’s end. I can’t punish him any more than I have, other than putting him ashore. He seems totally impervious to any threat or disciplinary action. We can’t flog him.” She shrugged. “Even Mr. Kelley doesn’t know what to do.”
“Do we need to find a spanner?” I asked.
Brill snorted. “You know, when you said that back on Betrus I thought you were way off base, but having tried to deal with this chuckle-head for the last month, I’m a lot closer to dropping him out a airlock that I ever thought I could be.”
“Well, let me go see what I can uncover,” I said.
We drifted our separate ways after lunch. Brill wanted to check in on CC and Diane tagged along. Francis and I headed toward berthing. I was pretty sure I’d see him later in the afternoon in the gym. I headed for my bunk and started reviewing the Cargoman and Messman practice exams again. I had not been giving them a lot of attention but after a couple of stans I was back in the groove again. I dropped a calendar note to Mr. von Ickles to reserve a seat for my last two full share exams for the next cycle.
The chrono said 15:00 so I had three stans before I needed to get back on watch. I set my tablet to wake me at 16:30 and lay on my bunk to grab some sleep while I could. I left enough time to get in a run and a sauna before watch.
When I headed up the ladder to the bridge at 17:45, it was the first time since Betrus that I didn’t have a list of tasks wa
iting for me. I felt loose and alert from my run and sauna—almost relaxed. I sat down at the console and started running through the system inventories. Status was good, no backups were scheduled, and the log file rollover would happen automatically after midnight. I just needed to snag them in the morning and burn them to a cube for archiving.
I found myself looking at the time delayed graphic showing the cascade of sparks starting in the stern, running in a stream to the bow and then cascading back again. I could not shake the feeling that there was something there, but I just couldn’t see it.
Mr. von Ickles saw the display and came to look over my shoulder. “Maddening, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Yes, sar, it is. I’m missing something. I just don’t know what that something is.”
“Well, if you knew, then it wouldn’t be missing would it?” he asked with a grin.
“Speaking of maddening,” I said without turning my head. “Our friend in environmental is being resistant to efforts to modify his behavior to something approaching adequate.”
“I’ve heard that as well. There’s a lot of discussion in various places, but so far nobody has got any ideas. We’re still weeks from getting the orbital beacon so all we can do is keep an eye on him.”
“There wasn’t anything in the medical records?” I asked.
“Nothing damning. Blunt trauma to the back of the head.”
“He’s not responding to any of the normal disciplinary actions. Are there any abnormal techniques you can think of?” I asked.
“Nothing that won’t get us fired. He may be immune, although we haven’t established that yet,” Mr. von Ickles observed. “On the other hand, we are not.”
“Well, I know one crewman who can’t be fired.”
“Besides our friend?” he asked. “Who?”