Exodus Earth: The Complete Series, page 22
The good news was we were able to recruit most of the personnel we needed to run the ship from retirees in the civilian population. We also started an academy to train new Marine recruits. Unfortunately, taking raw recruits and turning them into soldiers and technicians involved eight weeks of basic training and an additional sixteen weeks of advanced individual training. For those of you doing the math, that’s roughly six months.
Our plan was to shave off two of those months by having the trainees shadow crew members near the end of their training cycle. That still meant we would be operating with an inexperienced crew that was short-handed and undertrained… for an extended period. It was not an optimal situation.
Housing was another issue. Simple logistics mandated the crew and their families live in crew quarters near the operational centers of the ship. The problem was, the existing space set aside for this purpose had recently been the site of over three thousand deaths… by the time you add in the families of the crew that had died.
Fortunately, Survey One, like all the Survey-class ships, had been designed as a flexible generation ship. Its interior spaces were designed to be reconfigured. This included the drive module, which was everything behind the habitat dome. That said, I doubt anybody anticipated this massive of a reconfiguration this soon after launch.
We resolved the issue by converting the previous crew quarters into a memorial arboretum. The new crew quarters were split and reestablished as two housing zones—upper decks and lower decks. The upper decks housed senior officers and their families. It was located nearer the command deck. The lower decks were reserved for junior grade officers and enlisted personnel, as well as their families. It was located near main engineering and environmental.
Slowly, we got the ship in order. There were a thousand little details that I haven’t bothered to mention. It’s the little details that make or break any situation. That said, I hated the little details. That might explain why I hated my life right now. Running a one-woman operation on a small ship was orders of magnitude easier than managing a city in space.
I couldn’t have been more thankful for Matt, DeAndre, and Uncle Max those first few weeks. They handled all the low-level stuff and allowed me to focus on the big picture questions. Things like… Why the hell were we even here?
I had discovered part of the reason Survey One was where it was. Sabotage. The ship’s AI had overrode the original course and dropped the ship very neatly into the LaGrange point it currently occupied. The same aberrant programming had prevented the ship from leaving by simulating failure after failure. It had taken the crew awhile to figure out that they were playing a centuries-old game of “whack-a-mole” with the ship’s AI. They’d fix one issue only to have another pop-up somewhere else. That explained how the ship had gotten here and, to a limited degree, why it had stayed… but it didn’t address the fundamental question.
Why the hell were we here?
In the middle of trying to repair the ship, get a new crew in place, and keep the peace with over six million very nervous and suspicious passengers, I needed to solve a whole host of other mysteries. The
“why were we here” one sat at the top of that inauspicious list. A list I was forced to put on hold while I fought keep Survey One functioning.
My problem was inertia. I know that sounds strange, but it’s a reality I had to deal with. Communities as large as Survey One can exist on inertia alone for a little while. Six million people could continue to feed themselves, recycle trash, go to work, etc. Society could coast for a while. It took time for a disruption in one area to filter through to all areas—things as silly as a shortage of toilet paper causing a shortage of nose tissues; causing an increase in airborne pathogens; causing an increase in sick leave; causing a decrease in available services. You get the idea.
The reason inertia was a problem was because just as society could coast for a while, so too did it take time to reverse the slide. Maintaining a ship the size of Survey One was a balancing act. Unfortunately, the people trained and experienced in keeping things in balance were gone, and we were scrambling to fill the void.
I scratched my John Hancock on the bottom of an authorization form on my tablet. I hadn’t even read what I was authorizing. I realize that was lazy and perhaps irresponsible, but the simple fact was, I had to rely on the expertise of others to get this ship up and running. If somebody in engineering thought they needed sixteen hundred plasma injectors fabricated, then I had to accept their word for it.
I spent every free moment studying the ship’s major systems, from weapons to propulsion to environmental. I needed a high-level understanding of their capabilities and vulnerabilities. I also spent time learning who were my go-to people. People who would have the answers I needed when I needed them.
I put the tablet down on my desk and rubbed my eyes. I tried to think when—if ever, in the course of studying for my doctorate in xenoarchaeology, I had run into the notion that my chosen profession would put me in this position. If it had, and if I had been paying attention, I would gladly be doing something else, something honorable but low-risk, like sweeping streets or flipping burgers at the local Mighty Mac.
I sighed. All the self-pity in the world wasn’t going to get me through this. Coffee. I needed coffee. And bacon. And chocolate.
I got up and pushed back my way-too-comfortable chair. I started to walk towards the door to my office when I paused and reached down to grab the tablet I had just laid down. Bacon, chocolate, and coffee only required one hand. I still had too much reading to get caught up on.
* * *
The command deck’s mess was sparsely populated these days. Today was no exception. There were a few tables here and there with warm bodies nibbling on sandwiches and sipping tea or coffee. I recognized the occupants of one. DeAndre was sitting next to a man I was dying to spend some quality time with.
I was glad I kept that thought to myself because, upon reflection, that wouldn’t have come out of my mouth the way I would have intended it to. By “spend quality time with” I meant professionally. DeAndre was sitting with Jack Carter. The very same Jack Carter that purportedly had discovered a cache of Jabesh artifacts.
He was an older man in perhaps his late eighties. Not quite as old as the Cochrans, but certainly giving them a run for their money. His white hair, thick beard, and potbelly made him look like everybody’s favorite grandpa. I knew from what I had read about the man that he held a handful of doctorates in hard sciences and had taught at a number of universities. Interestingly enough, none of his degrees were related, even peripherally, to archaeology. And yet, here he was, the discoverer of what I suspected would be one of the most important xenoarchaeological finds of the modern era.
I couldn’t let myself get distracted. I had intended to find a different table. I knew that the minute I got into a conversation with the amateur archaeologist my ability to direct my focus on the very real needs of ship would become impossible.
Before I could find another spot to plant myself, my coffee, and my chocolate-dipped bacon, DeAndre waved me over. I lifted my tablet in what I hoped would be seen as an indication I had work to do. I might have been selling, but he wasn’t buying. He continued to wave me over.
I made the best of it and shifted to their table.
“Jack, good to see you again. DeAndre, I assume you’re staying out of trouble.”
“Not if I can help it, Admiral.”
I sighed. I really wish he would stop using that particular nickname. Especially when I was now the captain of record for Survey One.
I turned back to Jack. “I hope you haven’t thought I was avoiding you…”
The older man waved off my comment before I could finish.
“Oh, shoosh, Captain. I know you have, and I understand why. You have your hands full with a job you probably never expected to have. I also know that if you’re half the dirt geek that I am, you can’t afford to let yourself get hopelessly distracted by what I have to show you.”
I groaned on the inside. As I’ve said countless other times, the universe hates me. “Teasing me with hints about what you have to show me doesn’t help the situation.”
The older man smiled, but before he could say anything, Fitzy shimmered into existence, standing next to me and across from DeAndre. She pulled out a seat and sat down. “Good morning, peoples,” the hologram said cheerfully.
“Hey, Fitzy,” DeAndre said by way of acknowledgement. “How’s it down in the bit bucket?”
“Same old… same old. Random bytes of old code keep popping up in unexpected places,” she answered. “Say! Is that chocolate-covered bacon? Can I try a piece?”
Before I could answer, the phased photonic solid hologram picked up a piece from my plate. I quickly snatched it back. There were sins for which there could be no forgiveness. Drinking the last of a pot of coffee and stealing someone’s bacon were near the top of that exclusive two-item list.
“Holograms don’t eat” I growled protectively. “It’s one of the few advantages to being a meat bag. We have taste buds and I, unlike you, can enjoy chocolate covered bacon.”
“You don’t have to be a braggart about it,” Fitzy pouted.
I again turned back to Jack. “I believe you were in the process of teasing me?”
“You two have an interesting working relationship,” he observed.
“You don’t know the half of it. She’s my adopted daughter.”
Fitzy smiled and tilted her holographic chin up just a fraction.
“She’s also a bit of a brat sometimes and, since I’ve lost my only means of controlling her, she’s become impossible.”
Jack looked at DeAndre, then back to me.
DeAndre cleared his throat and tried to speak without letting a chuckle creep into his voice. For the record, he failed.
“It seems our beloved ship’s AI is partial to a long-running soap opera series called Luke and Laura.”
“And the connection here is?”
I looked at Jack with an exasperated sigh. “When we lost the Fitzgerald, we lost my cache of taped shows… over nine hundred years’ worth.”
Jack’s eyebrows furrowed. He repeated his earlier query. “And the connection here is?”
“The connection is, I can no longer use them as a bribe to solicit reasonable behavior.”
“Ahhh. They are a bribe. Why don’t you simply secure another copy?”
I shook my head. I had checked a week ago once enough metaphorical fires had been put out that I could come up for air.
“With all the cultural treasures preserved for posterity on the survey ships, somehow Luke and Laura got missed. The data archives make frequent mention of them, but no one thought to preserve copies.”
Jack scratched his beard. “I might know a guy who knows a guy who might know of a private collection.”
Fitzy’s eye lit up like a kid on Christmas morning.
“You, sir, are my new best friend,” she cooed.
* * *
Three hours later, as I was getting ready to hit the sack for six hours before I took my bridge shift, there was a gentle knock on my door.
“Come in.”
I had expected to see Matt or perhaps the officer of the watch. Instead, Jack Carter poked his head in my door.
“Do you have a few minutes for a grumpy old man?”
I chuckled. “The grumpier the better. I’ve been wanting to have a have a sit-down with you any way.”
“Thank you, Captain, or should I say, Admiral? I get confused about this rank etiquette thing when someone is in command of a ship.”
“Well, that’s one I can clear up easily enough. I’m a captain and I am the captain.”
Jack weaved his fingers absently through his long white beard.
“So how does the admiral thing work into all of this?”
I smiled. “Admiral is a nickname I picked up in school. It seems I had some ancestors…”
“Ahhh…. so, you’re THAT Riker!”
He must have seen my grimace, because he quickly added, “Captain… we really need to talk.”
28
HIGH POWERED WALNUTS
“Damn it. We need another problem like we need a hole in our heads and now you’re telling me it’s deliberate?”
Bernice looked every bit as frustrated as I felt. She and her husband had been trying for a week to get the Skip Space drive back online. Their efforts had been thwarted by a series of unexplained failures and accidents.
It seemed the “unexplained” component of the problem might now have an explanation. Sabotage was a betrayal at the most fundamental level… especially frustrating when it was apparently conducted by a trusted party or parties unknown. The revelation that this might be the cause of our current difficulties was a direct result of my recent conversation with Jack Carter.
Part of me wished I had found the time to speak with Carter sooner. That said, the brutal reality was it wouldn’t have made any difference. I was forced to admit we’d still be just as screwed as we were right now. We would still have needed to do all the things that we had been doing up to now. In short, we’d be right where we were at.
Knowing what I know now… earlier… would have just given me a head start on an ulcer. I think Carter understood this and so he hadn’t pushed for a meeting earlier.
Now that he had… well… where do I even start?
The problem was there were just too many ways to sabotage a vessel the size of a survey-ship. Add into the mix that you have a population measured in the millions, and the possibility of finding and recruiting enough malcontents to carry out said sabotage skyrocketed.
All they needed was a reason to organize. If I could believe what Jack Carter was telling me, they now had a good one—greed.
“We need to keep the circle of knowledge on this as small as we can for as long as we can. Who else knows at this point?”
Carter pulled absently at his beard. There was an undeniable pain in his voice.
“Everyone I told is draped in a flag. As I said earlier, Trans-Mashuta must have sleeper agents in the general population. How many is anybody’s guess.”
“Will they know about you?” I had to ask the question, but I knew the answer.
“It’s a good bet some will… at least in the broader sense. They’ll know what my knowledge represents.”
I nodded. I had expected as much.
The “circle,” as I was calling it, consisted of Matt, Max, DeAndre, the two Cochrans, our three AIs, as well as Major Chad Boseman and, of course, Doctor Jack Carter.
We were currently in a conference room off main engineering… some twenty kilometers “down-ship” from the bridge and city habitation dome, the latter being referred to as “up-ship.” The tram that had carried us down the spine of the ship had taken almost ten minutes to make the trip. That, more than anything else, impressed upon me the sheer size of Survey One.
We were here because I wanted to include the two senior engineers in the conversation, and it was easier to go to them then to ask them to leave their engines. Somehow, every experienced engineer onboard the ship had managed to get themselves hurt or killed—either by virtue of an ill-timed accident or being on the crew deck at the wrong time.
These accidents… and I now used the term with great reservation… had occurred before we came onboard the ship. The bottom-line was, the Cochrans were the most capable engineers left to repair and operate the engines.
Take a moment and think about how absolutely ridiculous that sounds. There are literally millions of people breathing the air on this ship, and two nonagenarians are the best we’ve got? The only good news was that Teddy had been part of the design team that had worked on the lateral thrusters for the Survey series of ships. They weren’t the main engines, but at least he had some background from which to start.
Chad interrupted my musings.
“Begging the captain’s pardon. I know you’ve explained this before, but help a poor ground pounder understand. What’s the big deal here? I get why Trans-Mashuta wants Survey One. They wanted to do some empire building. What better way to do that than by stealing a ready-made empire?
“But, if I understand what’s being said, this goes beyond that. Something Doctor Carter came across changed the calculus. It’s no longer just about getting their grubby little hands on Survey One. Now they want whatever it was he came across. A stash of high-energy walnuts or something.”
Jack chuckled. “High-energy walnuts! I like that. From now on I’m going to start calling QFRs HEWs. It’s as good a codename as any.”
The minute the word “codename” was mentioned I noticed my uncle’s eyes light up.
“Hey,” Max said quickly, “if we’re looking for new nicknames for Jabesh tech, how about ‘magic walnuts.’ Kind of like ‘magic mushrooms,’ but different.”
If my uncle was hoping for a reaction, he was disappointed. We all ignored him… Chad included.
“I don’t care what you call them,” Chad said. “HEWs, QEWs, Magic Walnuts, Aunt Betty’s Nickers… Quantum Fission something or other. They’re just batteries. Big batteries to be sure, but batteries nonetheless. So what?”
“Quark Fusion Reactor,” I corrected. “Major, don’t think of them as batteries. Think about them in terms of what you can do with those batteries. Put enough QFRs or HEWs or ‘magic walnuts’ together, say a couple hundred, and you can create a Jabesh Power Node.
“Power nodes aren’t just X number of walnuts big. Something strange happens when you put 100 QFRs together. You don’t get a power node 100 times as powerful as a QFR. You get a power node a hundred thousand times as powerful as a QFR. The ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ are beyond our understanding, but the point is there’s some type of synergistic power amplification going on.”
