Sunday, 059-1114: Late Morning
Manned And Ready
Having just gotten their ship back from the shipyard, the crew were eager to take the Upgrade out for a shakedown cruise to make sure everything was working as expected. They had to test all the new capabilities of their upgraded sensor suite, test those ship functions that depended on the rebuilt hull and check the camera mounts embedded into the hull as part of the new external security system. Jocelynn had volunteered to get into her battledress, and out on the hull to be a camera test dummy. Still, the crew had to decide if they wanted to land at the downport once more, to get the rest of their gear, or did they just want to burn out to the nearest gas giant?
Looking over the flight path again, they knew it would take them sixteen hours to reach the system's nearest asteroid belt at full burn. That would also bring them close to passing the jump shadow for the system's primary. Another twelve hours past that, they'd reach the system's inner-most gas giant. Since they were planning a shakedown cruise, they wanted to take it more slowly, and not push their systems. They also wanted to spend some time testing their basic and weapon sensors when they closed on the asteroid belt. Reaching the gas giant, they could test their hull integrity during a frontier refueling run. At a point of her choosing, Jocelynn would do a hull-crawl to test the newly installed cameras.
Plotting the run, the crew agreed to call the target gas giant "Fred" despite the official name, "Siidilik". Sekea checked the system charts for the moons of the gas giant's system, checking if they'd cause any problems with the micro-jump they planned? What he found was that all that world's moons were inside the gas giant's jump shadow. That told him they'd be beyond the effects of the moons when they were ready to jump, and the moons wouldn't matter at all. While Aiden and Sekea planned the route, Mikah joked about "nudging" one of the asteroids to impact on clan Erskin territory. Hearing that, the others laughed, but they all knew the Imperial Navy would track the sudden in-bound threat. Worse, after doing that, they'd back track how the event started and come down hard on Mikah and her crew. Even if, as Mikah joked, "it was only a small one."
Another "toy" which most of the crew had to deal with, except Colinne, were the new holographic control systems. Most of the crew had managed controls that had been flat since they'd taken control of the yacht in the Inthe system. They'd accidentally learned of the holograms existence after their upgrades on the civilian station, and the subsystem survived the Operating system hardening the naval crew completed. Even Zimzod and Jocelynn had to manage some settings in their stateroom or in the lounge. Only Colinne and Maur weren't aware of the change, and Maur was a passenger where Colinne had only just joined the crew. The rest were delighting in the new electronic toy and the freedom it gave them. Sekea could stand with his back to his navigation station and call up a holo-tank where he could enlarge and manage his work directly with his hands.
Even the entertainment systems were affected. Mikah was looking forward to watching the new 'Hiver vs K'Kree wars' movies projected from the trivee. It would later be ironic when Sekea wondered aloud what would happen if the holographics failed? When some of the crew joked about losing power, Aali suggested they'd likely have much larger problems to deal with if that were the case. Agreeing with that, Aiden and Sekea began planning the up-thrust from drifting to navigate out of the cluster of arcologies and then go to a steady burn and leave Denotam and the gas giant it orbited. Still, they decided not to go to "full" burn until they were ready to push the maneuver system.
With no role in flight operations, Jocelynn decided to do more research on trade from Denotam, and with the Ghandi system. What she knew from Fesic's notes were that the world was a small rock without even a down port. The "mainworld" was surrounded by many arcologies, from military to corporate to civilian and all of those needed to survive. To Fesic, that had screamed "Food", but he'd ignored the fact you'd need air and water before you had to eat. So, there were a lot more things the people of Ghandi needed, and part of that were shipments to sell. That was because Ghandi was a market system, above all things. They sold spacers recreation and entertainment and their markets sold anything that was brought in to freighters that would carry goods to the Regina and Jewell worlds, or back to Lanth, Rhylanor and the Imperium proper. So, the word of the day "every" day was "Profit!"
Zimzod started his day with physical therapy before checking the news and planning to watch vids or play strategy and single-person shooter games. After eating, Mikah checked on what Maur wanted to do, because she was the only member of the crew with enough time to play steward. Terin had been their last steward and, with him dead, everyone except Zimzod and Jocelynn had flight responsibilities. And Jocelynn had her planned EVA. So, Mikah was the only one she would let manage the passenger while the others did their work. What Mikah found was that Maur was still settling her gear into the stateroom they'd assigned her. Having never been on such a small ship, she told Mikah that when she was done with that, she expected Mikah and the crew to tell her what to do? That was because, as a passenger, she only had access than her stateroom and the ship's common areas.
Mikah then realized the only thing she could quickly think of was playing video games or reading, which she doubted Maur would like being left to all day. And that was just for the shakedown cruise, and didn't consider the two additional weeks of transit from Denotam to Lanth. So, if Mikah had to be their steward, she had to start thinking about handling that job. Especially since she didn't want their combat troopers handling the work. Certainly not Zimzod! She worried what he'd offer to "entertain" Maur? While others in the crew may have volunteered for the job, they had actual work to do and were reminded to think of that first, instead of volunteering for everything that comes along.
While the others moved to their duty stations and settled in, Colinne had only ever visited the ship while the engineers were working on it in dock. So, she'd never sat and manned or worked at her duty station during active operations. She'd also moved her gear into her assigned stateroom quickly before considering manning her post. Thanks to her stent skills, Colinne was able to remotely access the computer and do many things others would have had to "put hands on" to do. Because of that, she could concentrate remotely on her work while checking out the storage in her stateroom while stowing her gear. Colinne found she had to split the main space of her armoire in two. She'd use one side for her gown and long clothing items, and the other to store her gauss rifle. She could consider moving the rifle to the locker assigned to her in the cargo bay, but knew that meant it wouldn't be available to her immediately if there were issues aboard.
Tossing his gear into his stateroom to organize later, like most of the crew, Fesic manned the bridge weapons station and made sure not to activate anything but the sensor system. He was excited to see what the new sensors would let him do on this small a ship? He was mostly used to military-grade weapons sensors on larger naval vessels, and looked forward to small but more effective weapons controls from the Upgrade's guns. While he did that, Aali worked in engineering, checking out the new and old androids. Added to the old 'droids, Wall-E(Custom built), Thing 2(LSP) and Marvin(R2 class), they now had two 'Standard Engineering Androids'. Along with those 'droids, they had five "House-keeping 'droids which were "smaller than palm-sized". Those would climb into and clean internal vents, ducts and spaces no sentient could. Sitting down after his physical therapy, Zimzod sparked up the news and saw two new interstellar stories had been added to the news cycle:
Aramis (A6B0556-B 2 Ni De Cp G 710 Im M9 VI) Date: 059-1114
Following the success of the Second Spinward Marches Point to Point race, a third race 
has been announced. The Glisten Interstellar Craft Design Board have stated they
were pleased with the performance of all ships who competed in the second race.
The announcement further said that the race will continue the mandated jump-leg
between The Ivendo and Lanth systems. So, once again, the race is limited to craft
which can make the first part of a six-parsec jump while carrying the fuel needed
to complete the second. The announcement releases for this third race will include
a public release of data on construction of a deep space arcology to support the
Ivendo to Lanth leg. Construction on that facility is located three parsecs spinward of the Ivendo system. That leg would
be named the "Fruenelle Jump" in honor of Sir Yaricht Fruenelle, who was lost along with all hands in 1104, aboard his yacht
during the First Point-to-Point race.
Further data on the station named "Checkpoint" indicates that all craft participating on in the Point-to-Point race "must"
visit the station in their jump between the Ivendo and Lanth systems. Because all arrivals and departures will be time-
valued, special docking stations will be available for those craft. Other public and corporate docking bays will be coming
on-line as construction continues, with an eye toward eighty commercial bays. An additional fifteen bays will be held for
official use along with a separate twenty bay "military" arm supporting naval activity in the subsector.
Commercial docking fees are expected to range between Cr 500 and 2,000, depending on size and docking requirements. In an
attached statement, Duke Sir Radshiir Staeeini has granted his approval. That document further stated members of His Grace's
office have been working with various interstellar providers in hopes of improving commercial crossings of the Lanth Abyss.
Commenters have stated this new station should increase traffic across the abyss, though detractors have complained it would
not benefit the bulk of one or two parsec small traders who are the life of the Spinward Main. With continuing commentary
on this issue, it can be expected the issue may become a discussion for the Lanth Subsector Senate in the future.
For all those spacers and organizations who wish to participate in the race, registration can be completed at any Interstellar
Scout Service base. All competitors must be registered and at the docks in any of the race checkpoint locations by the date:
183-1114. This gives half a year for notification, registration and other actions, with the rest of the year to compete. Each
checkpoint system will have a specialized docking organization for competitors to use. The checkpoint systems are:
In the Aramis Subsector: The Junidy, Nasemin and Aramis systems.
In the Rhylanor Subsector: The Celepina, Rhylanor and Garrincski systems.
In the Mora Subsector: The Fosey, Mora, Hexos and Palique systems.
In the Trin's Veil Subsector: The Katarulu, Trin and Dodds systems.
In the Glisten Subsector: The Bendor, Glisten and Egypt systems.
In District 268: The Mertactor and Collace systems
In the Five Sisters Subsector: The Wonstar, Karen and Iderati systems.
In the Sword Worlds Subsector: The Flammarion and Caladbolg systems.
In the Lunion Subsector: The Adabicci, Lunion and Restin systems.
In the Lanth Subsector: The Ivendo, Lanth, Ghandi and Dinomn systems.
In the Regina Subsector: The Regina, Roup, Boughene and Efate systems.
In the Vilis Subsector: The Denotam, Frenzie and Garda-Vilis systems.
In the Jewell Subsector: The Lysen and Jewell systems.
Frenzie (A200436-A N Ni Va Cp G 110 Im M2 III M3 D) Date: 152-1114
News from the Court of Duke Sir Bondal a'Plena of Vilis provides no surprise as Arch Duke Norris continues his grand tour
of the fiefs in his Domain. Long known to be allies the Arch Duke and Duke fell immediately into planning while an
investigation of the Baron of Frenzie was perfunctory, there does not seem any chance the Arch Duke will make any changes
to the fiefs in that system. Indeed, it appears Arch Duke Norris has invited his Grace a'Plena to accompany himself and the
Prince to the Retinae system for ceremonies in that system later this year. Reports from this system suggest the Prince's
fleet is planning to move on to the Thanber system enroute to the naval base in Retinae.
It is expected that security in the Thanber system will be extremely tight given unrest in that system, as well as the
nearby Dekalb system. There is no way to estimate what effect the arrival of a Prince of the blood will have in a system
where citizens have revolted against the government for "not" suing to rejoin the Imperium. While the Admiralty of the
Marches have soothed some of those passions by rushing through a "Client State" status for those systems, it is uncertain
how long that will keep the pot from boiling over. Especially given the extremely rare visit from a member of the Imperial
ruling family to any system in the Spinward Marches.
While they watched the news, Jocelynn sparked up a terminal to write an X-mail to InstellArms in the Ghandi system. Checking the costs for simple data, she saw she'd be charged Cr 1 per jump "on the X-boat route". So, from Denotam to Extolay, to Dinomn to Ghandi would cost Cr 3, and take three weeks to deliver. In the letter, Jocelynn identified herself and said she was crew aboard the IMV Upgrade. She said she and her crew expected to arrive in the Ghandi system near the date of 085-1114 and wanted to pre-order ten sets of executive armor. Including her measurements, Jocelynn also included the model number of her battledress and said she wanted to add third-party "warblades" to her armor. Those were retractable blades fitted to the backs of the forearms, increasing close-combat damage and adding to the fearsome appearance of the armor. Jocelynn also added the model number to her grenade launcher and said she'd be shopping for ammunition for that device.
Working on her stateroom and mentally reviewing the computer system's organization, Colinne could see the files were newly updated and organized, thanks to the hardening of the OS. Colinne knew there were some custom files she'd like to add from her own computer when she had time and after she'd done performance baselines. So, she kicked off those tests while they drifted off the naval base before burning out-system. Colinne also identified and reviewed the log output of the installed packages, searching for errors that would have been left as "good enough" by the military. She did find Emkir's personal "sandbox", where she noted his observations when he worked on the lock pick software. She also saw large files and images from his linguistic work, and figured she could archive that and decide what to do with it later.
Colinne also began adding small applications that monitored the processes running or expected in the ship's computer. Under set conditions, those would send an emergency alert to her stent making her aware of the alarm. The alarm progs identified and rated events from one to ten with one to five sent to her stent and six to ten sent to her comms because they were less critical. In engineering, Aali was working monitoring system performances and preparing to manage the ship's acceleration on their out-system burn. She'd be in that compartment for much of her time after the journey began. Aiden took the command pilot station to start, and also reminded Mikah they'd be operational for the next two weeks, or more/ So, theyd have to set up a schedule to keep the bridge manned.
While that wasn't true during the jumps, it would be needed for the burns out of, and back into system on either side of the planned micro-jump. Mikah admitted that her skills were "care-taker" at best because she was certified on ship's boats. But the loss of Terin meant she only had Aiden, Sekea, Fesic and Colinne to pilot the ship. Given the people she had and the duties they had to cover, Mikah realized she'd have to give Fesic back bridge authorization. Still, she made it clear he should be watched at all times. They then discussed the shifts and decided Aiden would keep the "mainday" shift and Sekea would take the over-night shift. Then, Aiden could "stay late" and Sekea could "arrive early" to keep eyes on Fesic and prevent he pulling any pranks that might force Mikah to kill him.
During the talks on who would man what shift, Sekea started learning more about Mikah's anger at Fesic, and resolved to ask more about that later? Even though he'd been in the berth when Fesic had pulled the stunts with the toaster and first aid kit. Still, when he heard Fesic no longer had flight authorization, he realized the issue between Mikah and Fesic must have run much deeper. Still, he had to finish his research on the moons of the gas giant and then grab sleep because he'd have to work the over-night shift on the bridge. Especially because he planned to wake and start his shift early. He wanted to be in place because Mikah made it clear she wanted Fesic watched as much as possible.
Fesic also had to finish his work with the sensors and take a break, since he'd be working the swing shift. Aiden would continue his shift until five that evening. Colinne finished her tasks in time for lunch, and after eating she decided to work on the lock pick software until dinner time. But lunch had to be cooked and Mikah had to play steward, taking care of Maur's needs. So, she had to cook lunch. While she did that, Mikah looked forward to decanting Rol so he could make sure the menial stuff got done without her. After cooking and serving the meals, Mikah spent an hour talking with Maur and showing her options for things to do during the flight.
After her x-mails earlier, Jocelynn had wanted to send an application in advance, for trade certifications in the Ghandi system. So, she went to ask Fesic which office he'd gone to for the application. Fesic told her she had to not only be in that system to apply, but on their deck. He'd tried to apply from the freighter when they'd first arrived with the Hotel California as cargo from Lanth. But, he'd been told he had to apply in person. Learning that, Jocelynn shrugged and went looking for Colinne to see if they could do more stent and psi work? But, when she found Colinne, that woman was just an hour getting back into her research on the lock pick software. So, Colinne asked Jocelynn if she could wait a few hours? Jocelynn agreed, and heard Mikah discretely say, "I need a baby sitter" as she passed by getting something for Maur. Hearing that, Jocelynn agreed to sit with Maur and help keep her entertained.
While Mikah had spent time with Maur, Zimzod had done his best to join in until she handed Maur off to Jocelynn. With little else to do, Zimzod moved to his stateroom to properly organize his gear and do gear maintenance until dinner time. While he did that, Aali felt good handing off the engineering systems to the androids and taking a half hour's break in the ship's common spaces. There, she chatted with Jocelynn and Maur. After that break, Aali decided to start working on examining the pell 'droid parts until dinner time. Free from working with Maur, Mikah also went to her stateroom to organize and stow her gear properly.
Nearing three in the afternoon, Colinne came to a stopping point in her work and saved what she was doing. She then came looking for Jocelynn, so they could move forward on her psi work. Since Maur didn't have to be hand held 'every second of the day', Jocelynn made her excuses and went to work with Colinne. They slipped into Colinne's stateroom and planned to work at Jocelynn's psi needs for a few hours, because Colinne could hold a crew stent class later that day and work on Jocelynn's stent security while also teaching the others security and basics. So, there was a bit of "two pirates with one shot" in sharing with the others. And, holding the larger stent classes would keep the others from asking questions about the private sessions.
While he relaxed in the ship's common area, Fesic was available in case Maur had questions, or wanted to challenge him to a game. While she worked, Mikah considered what she knew of Imperial law regarding caring for passengers. Thinking about that, Mikah realized there was a requirement they had not covered. Moving back out into the common area, Mikah activated one of the ship's alarms and announced to all that it was time to carry out the ship's emergency evacuation drill! While some of the crew were caught by surprise and others tried to suppress their laughter, Mikah explained to Maur, "This is your muster point any time you hear this alarm." When Maur nodded, Mikah silenced the alarm, then told Maur she should gather there with the others in an emergency. They would then get her into her vacc suit. Mikah then showed Maur how to board the Probe in case they had to evacuate the ship for any reason.
In the various parts of the ship, the alarm had sounded and Sekea had been woken. When he checked in with the bridge, and Aiden checked with Mikah, he was told it was just a drill and he could go back to sleep. Working on the bridge, Aiden nodded when Mikah said it was just a drill, and he considered his own thoughts on surprising the crew. He then set up a plan to work on while Mikah played steward. After dinner, Aiden handed the bridge over to Fesic and said he'd stay on station to work on the scanners for several hours. That kept him on the bridge watching Fesic work, which Mikah wanted. Aiden also worked on his own personal projects and set sensor pre-sets while he worked. When he said he planned to do that, Mikah approved and told him, "Good job Aiden", which she'd regret later on that night.
After dinner, Aali did another check on the situation in engineering. That meant she had to sit and concentrate on retrieving the system reports with her stent, which was new to her. Because of that, she couldn't move about or multi-task as she trained her mind to do that. After that, Aali relaxed while checking and tracking parts for the pell 'droid until she went to bed. Jocelynn spent the rest of her time connecting to the distant port to research trade goods for Ghandi. Still, they were eleven hours into their flight at two gees to not stress the ship's systems. So, they were nearly eight million kilometers out of Denotam orbit and the comms time delay had climbed to nearly a minute one-way. The delay out at the gas giant would have grown to over an hour if not two as far as Jocelynn knew. So, she could end up wasting hours checking for simple updates from the port as the distance increased.
Beyond the comms lag, Jocelynn realized they had an issue with cargo storage. If Jocelynn were to buy a cargo from a seller, they would either want it out of their warehouses or charge to hold it until the Upgrade returned. And, if they didn't want to hold it for the ship, Jocelynn would have to find and negotiate storage with a warehousing company. All, while mired in the lagged signals between their shop and Denotam. And, the work would be much harder if she tried to do it via comms. Still, she could check the markets now, and see what she could learn from Fesic? While she did that, Colinne continued working at dissecting the lock pick program until relaxing before she went to bed.
Colinne found herself with a whole new computer OS installation to deal with. While there were a lot of things to do and consider, the things she had to target would more directly affect the ship's operations. Much of what she had to do, from security to system management and maintenance, could be done as needed. When things were calm. Added to that, she would also be the one handling system management and file swapping/processing during dynamic events. Those included improving processing or file swapping if the ship became engaged in combat, or had to deal with difficult flight situations.
She'd be loading evasion software which could help the duty pilot, or targeting software to help the gunners or even manage the turrets entirely. So, she had to design the file and system management drills on this new system which she'd have to carry out regularly in the future. With that done, the more she drilled, the better she could support the users of the ship's systems. Especially with their plans to carry out frontier refueling runs through the atmosphere of the gas giant shortly. That meant even more drills for her over the coming hours.
Darker Hours And Tales After having dinner, Fesic returned to his lock pick studies for the evening. While he did that, Jocelynn decided to meditate and do her best to process what she'd learned from Colinne before dinner. After that, Jocelynn did gear maintenance until she was ready to sleep. Mikah relaxed, but spent time on the bridge as well as in the lounge. Since Mikah seemed to have lots of free time, Zimzod made a play to try and get Mikah into bed early, but that failed because Mikah was too concerned about the other things happening aboard. Especially when Fesic took over as the command pilot. With little better to do, and not wanting to over-do his physical therapy, Zimzod struck up conversations with Maur, while also delving into entertainment vids about the legends and mysteries of interstellar space.
By ten pm, Sekea woke up, ate and had himself ready to take his post on the bridge. He planned to take his post early because he knew Mikah was concerned about leaving Fesic on his own. After he'd eaten, Sekea grabbed his hand computer so he could spark up the art program he used to draw while on-shift. After getting himself settled in his bridge station, Sekea found he could link his hand computer to the bridge systems and cast his work back and forth as he used the larger bridge screens or specialized applications on his hand-comp. When he was comfortable with that, Sekea figured it was time to do some digging.
Seeing Fesic wasn't very busy himself, Sekea asked, "So, Fesic. Why is it the Captain has you on such a short leash?" Hearing the question, Fesic grimaced a bit, but held back from saying Mikah had an attitude he didn't agree with. Instead, he told Sekea, "There was this one time when we had some auctions going, and you remember we told you about Terin?" When Sekea said he remembered, Fesic continued, "I was entertaining myself and trying to entertain the rest of the crew. And Terin just wasn't getting into the spirit of things." Sekea could hear a tone of firm innocence with just a hint of defensiveness in Fesic's tone. Towards the end of his comment, Fesic's words were definitely accusing Terin for what happened.
When Sekea waited for more, Fesic continued, "As a practical joke, I set up his hookah to be auctioned. And, he took that the wrong way, and reacted with violence. So, I decided to teach him a lesson. So, after he hid his hookah in his stateroom and locked that up, I waited until I had the ship to myself while the others had gone somewhere. Then, I used the bridge controls to access the crew door locks and unlocked his stateroom." To make that answer more complete, Fesic showed Sekea the steps he took until the point where the controls went grey, showing he was still locked out of some controls by Mikah. Still, Sekea could see where he was going and believed he had access to those controls himself. "Believed" because he'd never had a reason to try to use them.
After seeing Sekea nod, Fesic continued, "Then, I went into his stateroom and found where he'd hidden the hookah. So, I pulled it out of the box he had it in and re-filled the box with other stuff. I even put a note in, telling him what I did. Then, I set up a meet with a planetside buyer to sell his hookah off." Sekea could hear the tones of total innocence and justification in Fesic's "defense" of his actions, and could see for himself why Fesic might be considered a risk of sorts. But it still didn't go all the way to explaining Mikah's concerns and attitudes. Sekea felt there had to be something more behind the situation, which he didn't know.
Fesic then finished explaining how Terin caught on to what he was doing, and screamed, yelled and got more violent. And, how Mikah decided to stop him doing something like that again by taking away his bridge permissions. Sekea again nodded while thinking to himself, 'close but no cigar' while deciding he'd ask Mikah about the situation to better learn more. Still, Sekea figured he'd dig for more and see what he got, and asked, "Is that all?" Pausing, he reminded Fesic, "When I signed on board, she didn't like Terin much and even let his frozen corpse be kicked out the airlock. Is there anything else you did?" Sekea was about to continue when Fesic interrupted him, saying, "Well, anything else I did was pretty much just being a good Imperial citizen."
Knowing there Had to be a story behind that comment, Sekea asked, "OK. What does 'being a good Imperial citizen' entail from your viewpoint?" As he asked, Sekea had to fight not to smirk in humor because he'd heard some wildly interesting interpretations of a number of ideals in his time in the service. He could hardly keep his face straight while waiting for the coming whopper. Fesic told Sekea they'd been hired to carry some cargo, and told they couldn't open, look into or even scan the pod. Fesic's tone screamed that he'd very much disapproved of everything to do with that. Fesic said there were some cargos which, when found during smuggling inspections caused an "Ask questions before shooting" reaction. Beyond that, there were cargos that caused a "shoot first, then question the survivors" reaction.
Fesic also reminded Sekea that it wouldn't matter if he was involved in decisions to transport the cargo or not. If the situation became a "shoot first" event, he'd have been shot along with the others. So, he'd been nervous, and decided to protect himself. He added to that, the fact that if the cargo was that bad a thing, he could warn the others and help safe-guard them too. So, again, his tone was one of absolute 'correctness' while he made it obvious he had disobeyed orders. That certainly moved the clouds closer to "black" then grey, because orders were orders. No matter what. No one serving aboard any ship should be allowed to use their own personal logic as a basis to disobey the orders from their chain of command or conditions aboard any ship could descend to chaos. To an extent, Sekea had to wonder if that was what was happening, with the bizarre conditions aboard the Upgrade being part of the result?
Confirming Fesic felt they'd been shipping contraband and it was just his duty as a citizen to "take a peek", Sekea then asked "So, what was it, and what were the consequences?" From the second the words left his lips, he could see Fesic was uncomfortable giving him an answer and had to wonder what that meant? Still, Fesic answered him and Sekea had to wonder if the man was making up the answer out of whole cloth? Fesic said what he saw was a full-sized sentient Human Female replicant android! The type of android that was fodder for the horror trivid AI-gone-wild movies where mad IT science ignored the Shudusham Concords. Invariably, they built an android as able and intelligent as a Human and that device goes on to kill and maim many.
In this case, Fesic seemed very honest and convinced he'd seen an actual sentient AI replicant device, even though the facilities needed to make something like that would be amazingly expensive and very noticeable. Sekea also knew that the drive to create such a device couldn't be kept secret just based on the scale of the work they'd have to do. Not to mention the testing and any certification they'd have to carry out to insure it's "safety to use". In the end, Fesic seemed convinced he'd seen a nude human-female sentient android in the cargo pod he'd opened against orders. Sekea was most disturbed by the certainty, because if there had been a device, it could have been a very convincing "expert system", and not sentient. But it was just as possible Fesic could have convinced himself his "belief" in what he saw was an actual fact because of the firmness of his belief.
Of course, that didn't stop Sekea from probing with questions if Fesic could have been mistaken? Or, if the "android" could not have been a very convincing expert system-based device. In his mind, Sekea was recalling such devices he'd encountered, though not often. Even the Expert systems-based devices were amazingly expensive. While many common trivids over play the trope of wealthy men with 18-yr old looking sex 'droids, the fact is that expert 'droids were mostly found in media, as "spokes bots" programmed to convincingly project speeches and convince the sheep how to spend their credits. Fesic admitted that after he'd opened the box and realized he was in over his head, he'd called Mikah and Zimzod back from a meeting they'd gone to, and it was they who confirmed it was a sentient android.
When Sekea heard that, he was actually shocked, and wondered how close Fesic's description was to what happened? Or, if his description was colored by his perception of events at the time? Still, Sekea could only ask what happened to them and the android after that? Considering his answers to that question, Fesic only suggested Sekea ask Mikah about the outcome of that event. With no information on how the events played out, Sekea could only comment, "Hopefully, it's not one of the other crew members." in a tone which showed he wasn't nearly as comfortable with what he'd learned as he wished he could be. Switching tracks, Sekea started asking what made Fesic suspicious of that specific cargo pod? What drew him to open only that specific pod?
Fesic pointed out that shipment was "one pod", and while they had other cargo at the time, they were only told they couldn't open, scan or examine that one pod when they took it aboard. So, it had bothered him from the moment they received it. Especially when they knew what the Navy did when they caught people sneaking cargo around without the proper seals and certifications. Sekea had to admit that would have bothered him too. But Fesic seemed to have taken matters a good bit further than he would. So, Fesic said he felt he'd rather be safe than sorry. When Sekea suggested there were many reasons why someone might want a shipment kept quiet or have few questions raised, Fesic reminded him this was the first time Fesic had been asked to prevent customs inspections and it was the only time he felt endangered because of how a pod of cargo was treated.
Sekea then made the assumption there had been other cargo shipments treated that way, and that Fesic wouldn't, or was prevented from opening it. Fesic said that if it happened again, he wouldn't promise not to open it with a smile on his face. Realizing his assumption, Sekea thanked Fesic for correcting him, and for telling him about the situation with that shipment. He now thought he had a better understanding of Fesic's questions, but still had lots of questions himself. Sekea couldn't bring himself to quite believe the tale about the android, but felt he needed to ask other people questions about that and what had happened in general?
As they talked further, Sekea asked him about Mikah and Fesic said he felt Mikah had an irrational point of view on some things, and had anger management and violence issues. Over his naval career, Sekea had become used to people psycho-analyzing their commanders from their own points of view. So, he simply told Fesic, "The captain is the captain and you follow the captain's orders." From there, Sekea decided it was time to ask about the ship and the current shake down, and Fesic said the ship was handling as well as ever. Of course, he was very pleased about the holographic systems, and gave them high marks. He was especially pleased with how easy it made targeting, which Fesic had so far only tested in the installed simulations.
As Fesic spoke, Sekea noticed the control panel, which had only every really been a flat glass surface where controls were lit up and touch sensitive was now partitioned into four sections. The first, and largest was the closest to Fesic's body and Sekea recognized that as a flight control panel. The next was a smaller gunnery control station next to a similarly sized "sensor data display and alert" panel. The last panel was even smaller than the last two and seemed to be a configurations and controls panel used to manage the other stations Fesic had set up in front of himself. And, instead of being simply a flat stretch of color-lit touch-sensitive controls, it was a forest of holographic, touch sensitive structures which could be manipulated in many ways other than the simple touch and drag lights had been.
Sekea scanned over the displays, seeing how every vessel or arcology in the local area of space was identified and tracked. He'd rarely seen that except in the newer and more powerful naval vessels he'd served on. As he assessed Fesic's layout, he was mentally deciding how to configure his own panels. And while he'd not have a gunnery panel, he'd replace that with a navigational panel suited to his needs. He also looked forward to working the data in the larger frame of the holographic tank he saw he could project in a three by five-foot holotank between the back of his seat and the front of Mikah's bridge post. Before the end of Fesic's shift, Sekea set to drawing an image of him at his control panel. When he was happy with the image, Sekea saved it to a picture file and cast it to a smaller display on the side of Fesic's controls and told him he could save the image. Looking at it, Fesic was pleased and thanked Sekea while also saving it as a personal image file, and bounced it to the terminal in his own stateroom.
Monday, 060-1114: Even Blacker Than Space While they'd decided not to push their drives burning out to the gas giant, they would close on the asteroid belt during Sekea's shift, so they could do their tests and exercises early in the morning. Because of that, Sekea expected a quiet shift while he set up and adjusted his work space, and watched the distant asteroid belt grow closer. Then, not long after Fesic left to sleep, Sekea was testing the sensors for a data search when everything went entirely dark! He knew he hadn't lost consciousness, because he could feel himself strapped into his flight position. But everything in the compartment seemed to simultaneously shut off! Even the emergency lighting, which should have sparked up remained dark. So the closed bridge compartment had turned to a stygian hole within the bulkheads.
Sekea's first thought was that, while he couldn't "see" the controls, but couldn't guarantee they weren't active. Meaning he didn't want to flail around and hit surfaces uncontrollably, because he didn't know that might affect the ship or their course? The added 'sudden silence' in the compartment was also bothersome, because it suggested life support was down too! Still, Sekea could feel the ship's engines through the decking, so they were still firing. But could be firing blindly without the ship's computer systems controlling the burn. And, there was no way he could sense any change in vector, meaning they were not necessarily still on course, or even on a safe course. Sekea's first thought was to grab his comms and spark it up, for the very small amount of light the lit panel gave him.
What little he could see by that bit of glow confirmed Sekea's impressions, that there was no damage but also no power. He also had no information on the ship's status outside the bridge compartment. Sekea's second impulse was to raise an alarm ship-wide, because he had no understanding of the situation outside the compartment, or suggestion what caused the failure? Unfortunately, all the nearby control surfaces were both dark and dead. Not a very good advertisement for 'all electronic glass and holographic' control systems. Given that, Sekea had to try and remember where the "physical" 'all ship' alert button was, then determine how to get to it? Lucky for him, Sekea had both an eidetic memory and an obsession with safety measures and features. Because of that, he'd spotted that and other specific controls and knew exactly where they were.
The next surprise Sekea got came when he unstrapped himself. He drifted almost an inch off his seat as he realized there was no gravity in the compartment! Having training in zero-g operations, Sekea slowly unfolded both his right arm and left leg. Starting to float up, his arm movement would have pushed him into a right-wise slow spin but slowly stretching out his leg countered that. So, the dual movement provided him with both spin and counter-spin nearly of the same value, keeping him from being spun wildly from the location of his seat. Sekea also spared a moment's secondary thought for what would have happened if Fesic had been caught in this trap with no zero-G skills. Sekea was now able to take a full grip on the back of his chair and position himself to kick off a forward display unit on the bulkhead while aiming himself at the control he wanted.
Sekea's next move was to close his eyes and "see" the compartment fully lit in his memories. That told him where to grab for and what to try and take hold of while he gently "flew" across the bridge avoiding Mikah's command seat. Keeping that image in his mind, Sekea very gently pushed off, and began his drift. While he avoided Mikah's post directly, he did trail his right hand down and count until his fingers made contact with, and brushed her command chair. The count told him how much he "should count" before he slowly altered his arm configurations and tried to grab the 'grab hold' he remembered. This time, it was a 'count down' and a snatch move when he reached '2'. And, as he hoped and worked out in his mind, Sekea felt and grabbed the grab hold firmly. He next swung his hand and slapped the 'all ship' alarm button mounted not far from where he floated.
No Sound! Sekea knew he'd hit the right control because he could feel it. But there was no sound or reaction in the compartment, meaning this could be a lot worse than he'd first thought. Sealed in on the bridge, Sekea could open the hatch to get help or use his comms. So, he sparked up his comms, selected the entire crew and said, "The emergency alarm isn't working, anyone who can hear me, there's something wrong with the ship!" Outside the bridge, everyone had been asleep when they were all woken by the blaring ship's alarm! Most snapped alert, and most could see their comms start to light up in the dark of their staterooms. That meant someone was talking but the sound of the alarm kept them from hearing whoever it was?
Used to her crew and the constant state of crisis they represented, it wasn't a surprise when Mikah was the first to grab her comms, put a finger in her other ear and demand, "What's going on?" In the silence of the bridge, it was easy for Sekea to make out the fact the alarm was clearly alerting in Mikah's stateroom while he listened hard to make out her voice asking "what's going on?" The sounding alarm ironically made it hard for him to hear her or anyone else who answered his call. Sekea did his best to report his situation on the bridge and made it clear even the emergency systems were not working at all. His primary thought was that someone in one of the shipyard crews had screwed them over massively, and they'd have to work in the engineering compartments to fly the ship back in-system if that was even possible? On top of that, he regretted his rank on the ship would mean he wasn't the one who'd be selected to give that crew the reaming they certainly deserved!
Mikah and others confirmed the alarms were ringing in their staterooms, and Mikah said she'd be on the bridge with a team as soon as she could. At the same time, Maur was dragging her vacc suit with her to her muster point and waiting for someone from the crew to help her. Not sure what was causing the situation, Aali was ready to kill someone because the only thing worse than a major systems failure aboard was being woken from a sound sleep in the middle of the night to respond to that failure. So, at the moment, her target was the person who woke her. That might change if she found it was someone else's fault. But, it might not change if the person waking her up had made a mistake and didn't need to raise the alarm. At the moment, she was dressing to move to the bridge.
In a moment where the alarms still rang but no one was speaking, Jocelynn took the chance to ask, "Did you try turning it off, then turning it back on again?" Despite the situation, everyone in the crew laughed. Towards the end of that, Mikah growled, "Where's Fesic?" She was interrupted by Aiden's voice as he said, "Hold on a second or two". That was followed by a few beats before the ship's alarms suddenly cut off. At the same time, on the bridge, Sekea nearly fell when gravity, light and sound returned to the compartment. When Sekea reported that, Mikah asked, "OK. What happened?" To everyone's annoyance, Aiden only answered, "Get more sleep and I'll explain it in the morning." Then, to the surprise of all, he was ready to sign off and cut his comms even as Mikah demanded he explain it "now!"
With the systems now active again, even as Aiden had been speaking, Sekea rushed back to his station and began a 'top to bottom' assessment of the ship's condition, as if he'd just come on-shift and were verifying the previous pilot's handover. In circumstances like that, casual performers might just accept a handover, but proactive pilots would verify what they were being told. For Sekea, the "handover" was the situation he knew before the bridge went dark. So, he was validating the fact his instruments were working, confirming the sensor reads had not changed and confirming there were no new contacts on his screens. That meant it would be a up to ten minutes before he could respond to the conversation in more than a passing fashion.
While Sekea worked to check his boards, Mikah demanded, "Start talking Aiden." in a tone that suggested she'd rip through the bulkheads to reach him personally if he didn't answer her "now". Aiden only smirked and said, "I'd forgotten Fesic wouldn't be manning the bridge at this point." Starting to realize this had been intentional, Mikah could only choke out the words, "You're kidding." Again, Aiden shocked them all by shrugging and saying it wasn't anything big, then saying he was just getting even with Fesic. And while that coincided with Sekea's early confirmations nothing dangerous seems to have happened, the big thing, to the others, was the scope of his 'prank'.
Despite his work, Sekea heard Aiden's comment and demanded, "You mean it was a fucking practical joke?" in the type of angry tone a commanding officer might use while preparing to bring down thunder and lightning on a junior enlisted man. His anger was a nearly real thing the others could almost touch as Sekea cut lose like he'd never before while part of their crew. Sekea continued, "This is unconscionable behavior to endanger the ship in this manner." Reacting like a true scout, Aiden waived off Sekea's concerns because he knew how he set things up to work. So, knowing there would be no actual danger at all, Aiden smiled into his comms and told Sekea, "Welcome aboard the Upgrade." And despite the fact they had all dealt with Imperial scouts before and knew this was how they acted, Mikah growled. "Aiden? I am gonna find a way to punish you for this! Don't worry. I'll find it."
Knowing full well that Mikah could and would punish him fully, Aiden only nodded while Sekea asked, "You mean, someone else on the crew will have to be supervised like Fesic?" and Mikah answered, "I guess so." That was despite the fact Aiden was their command pilot and they needed to give him freedom to act when needed. So, there was a needle's eye through which punishment would have to thread when it happened. More annoyed than she was ready to put into words or actions, Aali said, "I'm going back to bed. Let me know if the hull depressurizes." and cut her comms. Following that, Aiden also cut his comms and went back to sleep! Left with no one to chew on, Mikah only said, "See? It was Fesic's fault." Hearing that, Fesic demanded how it was his fault, in a startled voice. Then added, "I was asleep". Mikah countered, "You weren't asleep. You just left the bridge." since it had happened just after the end of Fesic's shift.
Continuing to defend himself, Fesic snapped, "Aiden just said he did it!" Mikah persisted, "It's still your fault because he was planning to get even with you for what you did. But Aiden will get punished for it." Shifting tracks, Mikah ordered, Sekea, just get back to your normal routine." Sekea, still working his boards, answered saying he'd been enjoying the new control system because it was quite sophisticated. Fesic sourly asked how good sophisticated controls are if they become entirely useless when the power goes out? His comment made it clear that, in combat or other situations, sections of ship can be expected to lose power. But, if that happened in a critical situation, the ship could be lost "because" of a lack of control during the power loss. That was a disturbing thought, but nothing anyone could do anything about at the moment.
Sekea brought the remaining conversation back to Aiden's prank, saying, "I do have a suggestion, Captain. Whatever the fuck he did to turn off the power, should have some kind of password or security block to stop anyone from turning off the power as a practical joke." Mikah answered that she would look into what she could do, because they still didn't know what Aiden had actually done and what systems he'd used to do it? So, she didn't know what would or could be done to prevent it in the future? Or, how much work would be required? Or, if they could do it on the fly or would have to be in a work bay to do it? Sekea continued to angrily blast any actions which put the ship in danger, and how he felt about it over the comms, which wasn't helping anyone or anything. So, he was just out-gassing.
Mikah moved to shut him down saying, "We will take care of it." She added that everyone should start thinking about how to do their jobs if the power went out, which most knew could only be done from the engineering compartments. And doing it that way was much more difficult and dangerous. Zimzod grimly added, "Especially if we lose power because of damage." and Sekea agreed. Shutting Sekea down, Mikah agreed with Zimzod and told him, "Start working on that. Everyone else go back to sleep and we'll review this in the morning." Zimzod suggested they could review things in the morning after they've duct taped someone to the ship's hull in a vacc suit. That got laughs from those still on the comms.
After things settled down and people went back to sleep, Sekea had no other issues for the rest of his shift. While working, he planned to have his "dinner" while the others were having breakfast. And he planned to make sure certain conversations were started, at the least, while he expected Aiden would join them to eat. Because Mikah was the steward, she had to wake early and cook, because she had to serve Maur breakfast. And while she woke early to get to her tasks, Aiden also woke early so he could spend some time preparing for his bridge shift. So, Sekea was surprised when Aiden stepped into the compartment at seven that morning, an hour before his shift, to start checking things over and preparing for his day.
Aiden was surprised to find that Sekea was in no mood to talk when he arrived, and it seemed he'd be facing the silent treatment. Aiden could shrug that off, because he knew he'd planned out his prank very carefully. There would not have been "any chance" of putting the ship or crew in danger. So, as far as he was concerned, they were all, or would all be, over-reacting when they chose to say or do anything. And, he'd ignored that kind of behavior from superiors in the scout service all during his career. Even when they'd gotten nasty.
Cheerfully setting up his station, Aiden saw Sekea was still ignoring him and happily said, "Thank you for not venting my stateroom to space last night." with a smile on his face. With a glare back at Aiden, Sekea stiffly asked, "Why would I do that?" and Aiden could hear a hint of hostility in the man's voice. Aiden only shrugged and said, "Different people. Different reactions." because he could tell Sekea was holding his emotions back, and knew that wasn't healthy for the man. Sekea first answered, "No." then continued, "No. You have to understand... Sekea again stopped and reset himself before continuing, "You have to understand, I was in the Navy." Aiden ignored that since "everyone" already knew that. He wondered if Sekea thought repeating it meant he would care anymore after hearing it a hundred times? Meanwhile, Sekea had continued, "And you do not harm the crew or endanger the ship. Those are two things that are very important."
Aiden was quiet while Sekea spewed on, "That is why I was not very pleased with what you did, since I feel it did endanger the ship." Aiden heard Sekea say, '..I feel..', meaning the officer was acting on 'opinion' and not the facts. So Aiden nodded and shrugged before saying, "Well, I configured the computer to test all the sensors, and make certain the ship was operating normally. Confirming it wasn't in any danger before executing what I programmed it to do." Aiden hoped that explaining the "facts" would counter Sekea's "beliefs"." Aiden then added, "And, I thought it would happen during Fesic's shift and not yours." To Sekea, Aiden had just admitted he'd made a mistake configuring the time, so he could have made other mistakes too. So, Sekea felt all Aiden's responses could have been no more than arrogance. Aiden finished his comments by reminding Sekea the ship was not in danger and no one had been hurt. So, he told Sekea, "No Harm - No Foul."
While controlling his own anger, Sekea told him, "However, what you haven't taken into account if, and indeed, you planned for it to be Fesic in command. What would his reaction have been? Since the Captain already considers him to be untrustworthy, he may have done something which you didn't anticipate. So, I do not think that the jollies it may have given you playing this practical joke were worth the risk." Sekea continued, "Sadly, because you've done this, you will probably be under the same limits and suspicion as Fesic is." Aiden let Sekea finish his speech while figuring the navigator was just another 'typical officer'. He listened to Sekea "claiming" the ship was in danger while ignoring the fact he'd been told Aiden had deactivated all the controls. So, while Sekea whined that Fesic could have done "something" Aiden hadn't anticipated, Fesic "Couldn't" do Anything because the controls were dead. That meant Sekea's "what if" scenarios were complete and total fantasies. Aiden still watched while Sekea played 'the typical officer' and ignored the facts. Sekea was just angry and venting.
After letting Sekea vent a bit, Aiden decided to try to get Sekea to listen to the facts. He first pointed out, "Fesic was in both the Imperial Navy and the Scout service, having transferred from one to the other. So, he was also a trained professional. He would have known how to properly respond to such an emergency. And while he was in trouble with Mikah, that was for doing things she specifically told him not to do." The inference was that he had broken a 'direct order', not pulled a prank. Aiden admitted he'd likely get in trouble for the prank, but he was the ship's command pilot. So, he knew he couldn't be sidelined the way Fesic was. Aiden felt this would only be a learning opportunity. Aiden then pointedly told Sekea again that Fesic couldn't have done anything. Because the bridge systems had been turned off. So, Fesic could Not have endangered the ship. Aiden didn't go so far as to tell Sekea he had to learn to consider the facts before making accusations.
As angry as he was, Sekea had to admit to himself that everything on the bridge had been dead. So, his complaints about Fesic's possible actions were dead the moment they left his lips. Refusing to accept that he might have been wrong, Sekea ignored the facts Aiden had given him and changed his tack. Sekea then said, "You say Fesic disobeyed a direct order the Captain gave. But I think it's an inherent order from the Captain that you don't turn the fucking power off without authorization. Sorry!" Aiden only smiled at Sekea and said, "You've never served on a scout ship." That was because Sekea's words made it clear he wasn't angry about the ship being in danger, which it wasn't. He was angry because his toes had been stepped on. And Aiden knew those sorts of pranks "Did" happen on scout ships from time to time. It was part of the process of new crew members settling in with each other. Almost like hazing.
Sekea could only grasp at straws and make the ridiculous claim, "Presumably, lots of scout ships never return from their missions then." Sadly, Sekea's claim had no teeth because most scout missions did return. And most missions that failed had suffered events well outside "pranks". Aiden also knew the hierarchy of scout missions were very different than naval operations, and informal pranks during scout operations helped resolve crew issues. Facing the blowhard, Aiden tried to give Sekea answers that had impact. But Sekea only responded, "I understand your viewpoint somewhat, as a scout, because, in my childhood I had a friend Chel Laupbour. And we used to go on jaunts together, but he became a scout and I went into the Navy. But, when we went on these jaunts together, we watched each other's backs and we could trust each other and were very close friends. I hope that this can be possible with us if, we can build trust between each other.
Aiden was happy to listen to the officer's "warm and fuzzy" story, that didn't suggest how he understood Aiden's position at all? And he laughed to himself when Sekea offered him a carrot and only inferred a stick. Aiden answered, "Hold on a second." He then danced his fingers across his control and bounced what he'd pulled up to a display on Sekea's controls. What Sekea saw was a video showing a "very grand" tableau that he quickly realized was the court of some noble person. Watching, he was surprised to see the Grand Duchess Delphine, ruler of the entire Spinward Marches sector and all Imperial worlds in the sector! The only Imperial authorities more powerful than her in the Marches were the newly promoted Arch Duke Norris and the Emperor himself. Looking closer, Sekea was surprised to see Duchess Delphine was speaking to a kneeling and older version of Aiden himself! Dimly, Sekea remembered that Aiden had been much older than his 18-year old self, because he'd died and been cloned.
Sekea listened while the Grand Duchess spoke about the service of Aiden Radetsky while he'd been in the Interstellar Scout Service, in the year 1107. At the beginning of the Fifth Frontier War. She talked glowingly about how he'd been crew aboard the Scout ship Tracking Star, a four-man 100 ton starship. She explained how they arrived in the Caladbolg system on the 152-1107 day of the year, and had only 38 days before Sword Worlds forces invaded the system in the war's opening moves. Sekea knew, and had been told when he joined the crew, that Aiden had been in that battle. And the battle of Caladbolg was a legend of the Fifth Frontier War. Aiden knew that but chose that moment to nail it home again....Hard.
The Duchess spoke of how he and his crew fought for 74 days, desperately defending against the invaders. How the system's Lead Scout finally ordered everyone to scatter and try to reach friendly forces or bases as best they could. She then spoke glowingly about Aiden taking command of the Star, fleeing and trying and jump to the Caliburn system, not knowing that system was also embattled. Delphine then described the desperate situation Aiden and his crew found themselves in when their ship arrived. How their ship was damaged and boarded, and each of them wounded. Ironically, while Aiden had been laser-shot in the chest he was still the best off of the survivors!
Despite his serious wound, Delphine told how he'd been the most "able" of the crew after the fight. And, how, after they managed to fight off the borders, it fell to him to get them out of combat, manage repairs and treat their wounds. He then worked with his survivors to plot jumps from that system to safety in the Egypt System naval base. The run had taken Aiden and the other survivors forty five days on a battle-damaged ship where the damaged systems alone could have killed them. While a badly wounded Aiden Radetsky had been the lone "active" crew member. After the video played out, Aiden made it clear that he had earned his reputation.
He again said his preparations for his 'prank' made it absolutely certain the ship and crew would be safe. Beyond that, he pointedly said Sekea was the "new kid" on the ship. And that Sekea had not yet proven himself, except for throwing fits based on his beliefs while those didn't match the facts. Aiden then pointed out he'd been Knighted for keeping his crew, ship and himself alive where Sekea had been Knighted for being born. Letting that settle in, Aiden finished by saying, "I told you the ship was safe and there were safeguards against your fantasy 'what if's'. So maybe it is you who has to earn my trust."
Rather than admitting Aiden had made valid points and trying to reach some point of agreement between them, Sekea refused to offer any concessions. He pulled himself up straight and very formally said, "That is your opinion. And you may come to regret it, depending on how much trust the Captain has in you from now on." Aiden could only shake his head and think, 'typical officer'. Sekea continued, "You may not care about my trust in you, but you should be concerned about how much Mikah trusts you. So..." Aiden interrupted him with a smile on his face, shrugged and said, "Maybe she'll shoot me." After a demonstrable pause, Sekea let out a sigh and asked, "Why do you want her to shoot you?" Hearing that, Aiden could only guess this man couldn't understand "figurative" speech, and took everything far too literally. Rolling his eyes, Aiden said he'd been speaking facetiously, and Sekea should learn to read between the lines. He only answered that Mikah was known to threaten to shoot members of the crew and had shot Zimzod. Aiden then added, "More than once."
Ignoring Aiden's actual and implied points, Sekea said, "She won't shoot you, but will make life unpleasant for you. Is it really worth pulling these mindless practical jokes knowing how badly it will impact you?" Aiden shook his head because Sekea wasn't listening, or considering what he'd said. With a lack of concern, Aiden then said Mikah would get mad and punish him. Then, they'd move on. Knowing he wouldn't get through to 'Mr. Officer', Aiden gave up trying. Sekea only shook his head and said, "I hope we can work through this, Aiden, But I really recommend you think twice before endangering the ship with your practical jokes. There are other kinds of practical jokes you can play, like whoopie cushions, which won't affect the integrity of the ship." Aiden could see Sekea's words were firmly locked in a circle of broken logic, ignoring the facts he'd just been given. So, he let the man continue talking about harmless pranks being pulled in naval ship crews. Still, none of his words mattered and Aiden was just glad this 'officer man' wasn't in charge of his work. He did fight hard not to laugh at the mention of whoopie cushions.
In a last ditch attempt to get through to Sekea, Aiden interrupted him and started opening his control consoles to explain exactly what steps he'd taken to prevent any danger to the ship or crew. Doing so, Aiden hoped to punch through Sekea's firm belief "something could have" gone wrong, and prove they'd been safe from Sekea's fantasies. The only error Aiden admitted to was mis-timing the event. Unfortunately, Sekea wasn't bothering to listen to what Aiden was saying. Sekea replied by pointing out that people couldn't have told if the failure was real or not? Sadly, his attempt to make a point ignored the fact only he, or only Fesic, would have known anything before Aiden fixed it. Which is what had happened.
Sekea then tried to bring up the danger of 'crying fire when there was no fire'. He suggested it could lead to real situations in the future where they might just assume it was one of his practical jokes when it wasn't. From that, Sekea then launched into a diatribe about how such practical jokes might desensitize the crew against reacting to critical damage. A comment that was invalid because this had been a single event. Sekea suggested he should talk to Mikah about planning drills instead of playing jokes involving the ship's systems. In his ranting, Sekea suggested he might even help Aiden with his pranks where they didn't involve the ship's systems. Aiden let him argue in circles for a bit more before interrupting Sekea and looking the man seriously in the eye for the first time in the conversation."
Aiden then said, "If this weren't a prank and had been real, then when you made that 'all crew' call, everyone would already have reacted, or been dead. And that was because the situation would have been real and had consequences. And they would likely have already been affected. So, quite frankly, all your 'what if' fears are fake, and you were the only one who didn't know it. This is a 'chicken little' situation, where you're screaming about the sky falling. In the end, you did one of the only two things you could have done because everything on the bridge was dead. Added to that, if this weren't a drill, there would have been real damage. And, if something had hit the ship to cause it, you'd have felt it and known it was real. So, no. It's a one-time event, not a case of a 'boy calling wolf'..." Interrupting Aiden, Sekea pointed out they were on a shake-down cruise, and some component could have failed to cause the issue. And, if that were the case, no one would have known. Again, Sekea ignored the facts that would have broken that claim. Either, it would have been a one-time prank or real.
Nodding, Aiden said that could have been a valid situation. But, if that had happened his reaction, along with everyone else's, would have been very different when Sekea had raised his alarm. Then, they would have diagnosed the problem and worked to resolve it." He told Sekea, "So, maybe you should consider how just I told and showed you how I prepared. And listen to what I said. Consider the facts instead of being an 'I'm always right' naval officer. Just accept that this was just a fun way to pull a drill, and you didn't like it just because it got pulled on you." Maintaining his vacuum, Sekea went around his broken logic circle yet again. He answered, "No! I don't care that the joke was pulled on me. I care that is was pulled on the fucking ship! And the crew as a whole", even though he'd been shown that wasn't true.
When Aiden didn't accept that ride around the circle, Sekea said, "We're not going to agree on this. And you need to put more consideration into the crew's reactions. And the Captains. Because I don't think she's gonna appreciate it either. So, perhaps there is a compromise where your practical jokes don't involve the ship. And that's really not asking a lot." Aiden shook his head because the "compromise" to not involve the ship was everything Sekea had started demanding. So, Sekea wasn't offering a compromise at all. Given that, Aiden shrugged and said, "Well, you're a naval officer." and that was the end of it as far as he was concerned. He knew Sekea was stuck in his own definitions and would never admit he could even be wrong. So, Aiden turned back to his board and ignored any further venting Sekea had on the subject. He did consider it would be very interesting trying to work with someone who couldn't see past his own definitions into the future.
Introducing A Piper And Her Bill Soon enough, Sekea's shift had ended and Aiden had things set to a point he could step away from the bridge while the others gathered for breakfast. And, while Mikah had cooked a breakfast for everyone and served Maur, Sekea had to cook his own dinner. Mikah was in the common area explaining things to Maur when she saw Aiden leave the bridge. Seeing him, Mikah walked up to Aiden and swung an open-handed smack up the right side of his head. Expecting it, Aiden did his best not to react, or even flinch, as the slap came in and to 'take it like a man' when hit. As he'd said to himself, he'd been through this before. Smiling afterward, Aiden only said, "Thank you, Captain." That didn't please Mikah, who asked, "You want another?" in an angry tone. When he answered, "No thank you, Captain", she asked, "you sure?"
After Aiden answered, "Absolutely, Captain", Mikah slapped him again, harder the second time. Watching from the side, Aali nodded approvingly while Sekea was hoping this was just the beginning of a 'punish Aiden' festival where the man got what Sekea felt was coming to him. Just like after the first, Aiden simply stood before Mikah and said, "Thank you, Captain." Mikah again asked, "You want another?" and Aiden answered, "No thank you, Captain." Again, Mikah asked, "You sure?" and Aiden answered, "Absolutely, Captain." Because her hand was stinging a bit, Mikah kneed him in the crotch this time. She was appropriately pleased when he went straight down like a pile of rocks. Under his breath, Sekea showed he misunderstood the crew dynamic while joking to himself, "This guy must be a masochist or something."
While some of those watching started to laugh, Mikah only called out, "First aid!" and waited. When no one else moved, Mikah called out, "Jocelynn! Come on! First aid!" Caught by surprise, Jocelynn looked up suddenly and then moved to where she saw Aiden down, on the tile of the compartment. Assessing the situation while Aiden was too deeply 'wrapped in his symptoms' to notice, Jocelynn realized what must have happened and considered the best first aid response she could provide. Making her 'treatment decision', Jocelynn rushed to the galley's cooling unit while grabbing a hand towel. She then loaded the towel up with a handful of ice cubes and rushed back. Standing over Aiden, who was starting to recover, Jocelynn did her best to drop the ice-laden towel on Aiden's crotch. The others in the compartment broke out in uncontrolled laughter when Aiden reacted.
Despite the fact they were on a safe and locked course, with nothing on the scopes within hours of their position, Sekea was concerned about the bridge being unmanned. Because of that, he made his way around the "activity" and slipped into the compartment to man the boards. As he did, the others looked down on Aiden, who was in an embryonic ball with the towel having dropped just off target, letting the ice scatter all around him. Seeing Jocelynn's smile glowed over Aiden's groaning, Sekea passed by and suggested, "I'd say he needs more ice." Before anyone else acted, Mikah said, "Aiden?" and he groaned, "Yes Captain." After almost no pause, Mikah continued, "You made a mess. Clean it up." Even as she ordered him to clean it up, Aiden was already answering, "Yes Captain." while she spoke.
Still, her order registered on him and he slowly started to unfold and rise saying, "Give me a minute to get my toothbrush." Standing over him, Mikah said, "OK. You have one second." She barely paused after that before she said, "time's up." Not giving him a chance to react on his own, Mikah grabbed the back of his shirt neck and started pulling. That forced Aiden to rise a good bit faster than he'd planned, or was comfortable with. But he did rise to an unsteady stance. While he maintained his balance, Mikah pointed to the ice on the floor and said, "Clean it up." Aiden answered, "yes, Captain." and then, very gingerly started to bend over to grab the towel and start filling it with ice. About then, Jocelynn arrived with more ice cubes, having acted on Sekea's comment.
Seeing Aiden was standing, Jocelynn very quickly and briskly grabbed the waistband of his pants and pulled. She then dumped the new collection of cubes into the gap between his skin and pants, where they rattled down, either collecting in his crotch or dropping down to fall from the cuffs of his pant legs onto the floor. The adeptness with which Jocelynn pulled off the maneuver showed she'd done it more than a few times, which wasn't a surprise, because the Imperial military ignored gender. So, she and every other woman, had to deal with the failures of men under their own power. Aiden managed to keep himself upright, even if it was a near thing. Then, he did a small "dance" to shake loose the remaining cubes and let them fall to the compartment tiles.
Looking up at the others and forcing a smile on his face, Aiden grimaced more than smiled and said, "Ah. Ice compress." As the others laughed even more, and the last ice cubes hit the floor, Mikah snapped "Aiden" and he responded "Yes, Captain." You made a further mess." Hearing that, Colinne lost it completely and was face-down against the table as they all broke out laughing again. Aiden continued to bend over slowly as he said, "Yes Captain, I am cleaning it up even now." While he was catching and picking up cubes, Mikah again snapped, "Aiden." When he asked, "Yes Captain?" she continued, "Have you learned your lesson Aiden?" To everyone's surprise, Aiden just answered, "Probably not, Captain. I look forward to future education." because he knew Mikah wasn't done with him and decided not to pretend.
Nodding her head slowly, Mikah said, "I'm sure you do. And I'll be happy to provide it." Hearing that from where he worked the boards on the bridge, Sekea called out in a joking tone, "That confirms it. He must be a masochist." Following that, Mikah asked, "Aiden, what lesson have we learned this time?" Of course, while Mikah stressed the word "have", Sekea and Colinne focused on her phrase, "this time", realizing this sort of thing happens more often than once or twice with this crew. Of course, this was "more data" for both, because they'd both been present for Fesic and the toaster incident. Despite his situation, Aiden joked, "Not to turn myself into "Missus Captain" by which he meant 'the Captain's bitch'. Rolling her eyes, Mikah snarled, "And?" Aiden then answered, "And, not to ruin the Captain's beauty sleep, Captain." Surprised to get an answer that was "more clear" than she expected, Mikah said, "Very good!" in a happy tone.
Mikah then asked, "And?" Without waiting for Aiden, she then snarled, "Not to make mistakes!" Which suggested she'd be more forgiving if the prank had actually been played on Fesic. From the bridge, Sekea shouted, "And not to fuck with the ship!" even though he had been repeatedly shown Aiden hadn't "fucked with" the ship. Or put it in any danger. Aali added in, "Get the time right next time!" At that, much of the crew broke out laughing again though Fesic wasn't very happy with the direction of things. Especially since Aiden had made it clear he was supposed to have been Aiden's target. Still, they didn't have that much time to play with punishments because they were on approach for the asteroid belt and had a lot planned when they reached and passed through that region of space.
They expected that Sekea would go to sleep while Aiden flew them in and then also managed the sensors. At that point, Fesic planned to be awake and spend some of his early time second seating Aiden, so Aiden could concentrate on the sensors. "Normally", a small ship can be manned by as few as a lone crew member. And, while flying, their sensors could reach out hundreds of thousands of kilometers while "encounter range" was generally at or under 50,000 km. And the real difference between military and civilian grade sensors were "fine tuning" and "data analysis". The receivers in a military system were more intensely calibrated. What might be a smudge to a civilian system might be two or even three distinct "dots". And, the IT and AI power of the military electronics could confirm the difference between "ship" and "Not Ship" better and faster.
That meant they would "see" things shifting from blurry to sharp out to 700,000 km, which was about three to four hours flight at their top speed. Down to 500,000 km, they would still have a lot of "blurry", but could select regions of the belt to close on and start scanning those areas hard, to make sure there were no lone belters and other hermits to accidentally hit when they tested their weapons. By 300,000 km, they'd be 90 min from "direct encounter and 40 min from extreme targeting range. Added to that, they would see any ship or arcology in the neighborhood unless it was behind a rock of significant size. And, they'd still have detected its power usage from 500,000 km out. They would then be able to engage in both distant and close range exercises between 50,000 and 10,000 km distances.
Of course, the only thing Mikah kept fantasizing about was to "nudge" a rock so it would "fall" from its orbit in the belt to cross the solar plane and then fall onto the surface of Denotam and wipe out Clan Erskin or enough of their people to end them. Mikah didn't care about the small details, like the amazing amount of maths required to figure out just where Denotam would be when a rock could get there, and how they'd make sure it fell on Clan Erskin territory. But, to be very honest, Mikah didn't care how much "more" of the world would be damaged as long as the Erskin were caught in the destruction. Mikah also ignored the fact that the moment a rock was turned into a "world Impactor", the Imperial Navy would not only detect it, but back track to them as the "cause". This was because any Imperial world could be attacked in that way, so everywhere they had ships, they scanned for any aspect changes that turned rocks into world hitters. So, everyone was watching out for that and would stop it. And, arrest them.
Before he went to sleep, Sekea asked to speak to Mikah and said that while he was sharing the bridge with Fesic, he'd asked why he'd been in the dog house with her. So, he wanted to understand the events from her viewpoint so that he could better keep himself from annoying her. When Mikah agreed, she also said, "It won't be now." because they were about to become very busy on the ship and he had to sleep so he could work his next shift. Before Sekea sat for his dinner, then went to sleep, he made a note to himself to ask anyone aboard if they had a spare flash light? Failing that, he'd have to buy one on the next world or two they landed on. Because Denotam wasn't the best place to buy a good quality flash light. Or much for that matter.
Things settled down and the rest of the crew had breakfast, and Maur was the most bemused. She also had a better idea what Mikah meant when she said things tended to happen with this crew. While she wasn't entirely familiar with travel between the stars, she was certain this crew's performance was more unique than not. And while she'd certainly been very frightened the night before, and wasn't pleased by how things had played out, she was aboard for the ride. And they'd be going directly to her homeworld after the shakedown. So, she kept her opinions to herself as the crew chattered. Still, because she'd rushed to her "muster station" and then been told everything was OK, and to go back to sleep, Maur wanted to understand what really happened the night before? Especially since no one came to help her until it was all over, and none of what happened had been explained.
For an explanation, Mikah pointed to Aiden and said, "Well, you see that idiot right there?" Maur saw Mikah was pointing at the man who'd been introduced to her as the ship's command pilot and waited for more information. Aiden gave a brief smile and waved as Mikah continued, "That idiot decided to play a practical joke on that idiot" as she moved to point at Fesic. Rather than waving or smiling, Fesic only shot them a look that said, "What? It's not my fault." Mikah then went on, saying, "And this idiot got the timing wrong, and his practical joke ended up exploding in Sekea's face, and that caused everything." Mikah reset herself, then acerbically added, "It would have happened anyway, but it was just a stupid practical joke. Again, pointing at Aiden, Mikah said, "That's why that idiot got what he got, and there's more to come."
Flashing another smile, Aiden waived and repeated, "Yes, Captain." When Mikah darkly answered, "You want some more, don't you?" Aiden only answered, "No Captain." while the rest of the crew laughed more. This time, Mikah had a tight evil grin on her face before saying, "Don't worry. In a time and a place, you'll get it." Her tone assured them all that she'd make good on her warning soon enough. And, it would definitely hurt. Through all Mikah's comments, Sekea sat quietly and basked in the hope she would teach Aiden the lessons he hoped the scout would learn. The meal finally continued, but the events of the night before played a large role in their chatter.
Getting Serious While Playing With The Toys Soon, Sekea finished and went to bed while Aiden and Fesic moved onto the bridge and started setting up their stations. Aiden's most accessible boards were his flight controls and sensors. Fesic had a smaller flight control panel set up and larger "Above and below" weapons and sensor data stations. While they set up on the bridge, Aali manned engineering and began to work the over-night reports from the androids and computers. Her job in engineering was a mix of basic maintenance and over-sight. She'd be working the ship's maneuver and operations systems while making sure things didn't slip past the baselines too much. At the same time, she had prep-work to do "just to be sure" the jump systems were in 'ready state' for the planned micro-jump. It was Fesic's job to manage the weapons sub-system, but Aali would also have to be ready to assist with that. Just in case.
For Colinne, the morning would be a "for real" drill. While she was enough of an expert to be able to do things as required, she was new to the ship. Because the crew had very rarely run drills themselves, there was little data left behind by Emkir or anyone else on their expectations or issues. Especially because they'd only gotten this ship five months before. On top of that, many of the logs had been pruned or deleted with the work done on the ship's systems. So, she had a lot of basic administration work to get through. She also wanted to create baseline files for many of the activities she could expect the crew to carry out during the shake down. This would tell her how the ship "should work" in periods of 'basic flight', 'heavy sensor operations', 'weapon use' and more. Later in the cruise, she could set up base lines for operations entering and during jump. So, Colinne would do work collecting and monitoring baseline operations in between swapping software in and out of the computer's CPU.
Until they were ready to enter the asteroid belt's zone, Colinne also decided to offer a stent class to those with stents, and then have a private psi-training with Jocelynn. Of course, while she was holding the stent training, Aiden and Aali had other duties, so the class was just Zimzod, Jocelynn and her. Where he had the concentration to spare, Aiden could still try to connect to the class and what they were working on connecting to. That let him connect to a common device and work to sense what was being done by Colinne. Or, now that she'd been boosted, by Jocelynn too. As she did every day, Aali also tried to work using her stent into some of her tech-work. Because of that Aali was able to sense some small measure of advancement on her own.
Mikah manned her bridge post after eating, to see if and how improvements played out with both the gunnery and sensor systems. On top of her controls, this was a good chance for her to observe Fesic in action. Since he had been brought on as their chief gunner, Mikah wanted to see him in action when they weren't under threat. Not that she could fire him, though. Since they took ownership of the Upgrade, he was one of the equal owners of the ship, along with Mikah, Zimzod, Aiden, Jocelynn, Fesic, Aali and Rol. Emkir and Terin had also been owners before they died. So, Colinne and Sekea were the only ones Mikah could fire. Mikah also spent some time enjoying her new holographic controls. During his morning, while Mikah was busy, Zimzod did physical therapy and read his manual.
While everyone had to consider how they'd get things done if the controls went out, they were all enjoying the new mode of controls. The most so was Aali, who had so many types of controls to configure to 'cut back the forest' of displays and projections. Aali also knew her life would be the easiest if the holograms went away, because she had physical controls for damn near everything. Where the others, as Sekea had seen, would be faced with 'dead glass', Aali had buttons, dials and other manual tools to get things done. In fact, if the bridge were out, as Aiden had shut it down, the flight crew would have to man boards in the engineering compartments which were meant for status and maintenance instead of flight operations. It would Not be fun!
When they finally made their approach close to the asteroid belt, Aiden's work was most important. Before Fesic could start selecting and firing on targets, he and Aiden had to certify there were no ships, habitats or arcologies hidden in the belt. Especially the deeper mines which could have been dug into the larger asteroids. So, Aiden had to scan the rocks hard while Fesic also worked his sensors while broadcasting warnings to any spacers in the region that the IMV Upgrade would be carrying out life fire testing targeting mineral-based rocks. The warning also added that increased debris showers would be created until those dispersed following the weapons fire. During the exercise, Maur asked Mikah if she could see some of what was happening outside the ship, or view the asteroid belt? Mikah said that was fine, but set up a terminal with controls she could let Maur use to change the angles of view and hear either Fesic or Aiden when they gave descriptions what they were doing.
The work continued through the back of the morning leading up to the time Mikah had to serve lunch. After lunch was done, Aali went back into engineering briefly, to manage the files she'd started loading and save those after shutting down data collection. She then checked and learned the crew stent class had happened, so she did individual training on her own. Following that, Aali spent the rest of the time before dinner working on the pell 'droid parts. After spending the morning on computer operations and action-based software management, Colinne planned to drill for managing the flight packages she'd have to manage during both the gas giant refueling and preparation and entry into the micro-jump.
Colinne also spoke with Aali about placing androids in different compartments throughout the ship, and on both decks, to monitor in case they lost hull integrity during the refueling. Aali admitted that was a good idea and spent some time creating a deployment plan for the 'droids, including using the housekeeping units. They also decided to tie in all the cameras and alarm systems inside the ship, to make sure they covered everything. They next designed some tests for the fuel scoops, purification plant and tanks, to monitor everything from performance to pressurization. They hoped that could help cover every critical element of the refueling.
Fesic had wrapped things up after the fire exercises, and planned to relax until he had to go on shift. Jocelynn, who'd started preparing her battledress, armored up and went out for her space walk. During that, she worked with Mikah to confirm the hull-based cameras were working and did her best to map out blind spots. She did find that despite staying very low to the hull, the cameras caught her and covered 85% of the hull. Of course, someone not only had to be monitoring the cameras for them to work, but paying attention. While the short-range lidar they got would augment the cameras when they were on the ground, someone still had to spend the time closely watching the camera output. Mikah nodded at that, and considered having the video tied to some kind of proximity alert system. She could also assign Zimzod, Jocelynn or Rol to watch the video, if not all of them.
Seeing Mikah was busy, Zimzod decided to read up and watch training vids to keep up his medical skills. While they flew, Aiden worked through the rest of his bridge shift to track in on the ships that were located around the distant gas giant. His targets were the expected, ships waiting to refuel, ships adrift while their purification systems did their work, ships approaching and leaving and the naval formations keeping watch on it all. Leaving the asteroid belt, they had decided to play catch up and burn at their full four gees. That would get them to the gas giant later in Sekea's time on the bridge that night.
Dinner came and went, and Aiden stayed on the bridge working until 8pm. He then relaxed until going to bed. Aali was up for a game after the meal and Colinne was interested in playing too. Jocelynn finished her space walk, then came back in to do gear maintenance and set her battledress up to recharge. After dinner, she joined when Aali and Colinne said they wanted to game, as did Mikah and Zimzod. Sekea had woken and had his breakfast with their dinner. After he ate, Sekea asked Mikah if it was, perhaps, a better time for him to ask about Fesic? Mikah told him it wasn't and she wanted to play games. Nodding, Sekea showed Maur the portraits he'd done of four officers from the King George, and asked if she'd seen either of them on the pirate ship? She willingly viewed the images and told Sekea she hadn't seen any of them in a pirate role, but reminded Sekea she'd only seen a limited number of the pirates.
With nothing more to do after the brief conversations with Mikah and Maur, Sekea invited Maur to join in the game the others were playing. So, everyone had joined in to play until Aiden had to go to sleep and Sekea had to relieve Fesic on the bridge. They started out playing various forms of poker, and kept it friendly and cash-free. Especially when Maur joined in. While they didn't play for money, they kept points and Aali turned out to be the big winner. Mikah, Sekea and Zimzod followed Aali closely, and Jocelynn was the biggest loser of the evening. Of course, Sekea had to relieve Fesic and the gunner went right to bed because he hadn't gotten any extra sleep that morning.
Tuesday, 061-1114: More Hours Preparing To Prepare Soon enough, it was just Sekea alone on the bridge as he looked over the settings left for him. One thing Sekea was told was that Aiden was their "sensors man". And Aiden had left him some setting descriptions which he checked and had to admit they seemed finely tuned. Sekea certainly wasn't going to mess with them, but he did shunt images of various items to different displays while he worked. Closing on the area of space the gas giant was orbiting through, Sekea saw he'd have to make the settings for Aiden to use to burn into the planet's orbit. That way, Aiden wasn't going to be forced to rush the work when he woke and took his station.
The bad news for Fesic was that he'd have to be up early again to work with Aiden on the bridge. Still, he could sleep later into the morning because Aiden wouldn't need him for arrival and orbital entry. So, Fesic could sleep a bit later, have breakfast and arrive on the bridge well before he was needed. Added to that, the Imperial Navy was watching this space, so he could keep the weapons inactive unless something odd happened, and watch the sensors while playing pilot. While he played pilot, Aiden could more fully concentrate on the sensors while they were waiting for authorization to refuel. Then, he'd be the assistant when Aiden took over for the refueling run.
At the same time, Mikah took her seat on the bridge while Aali went down to engineering and Colinne moved into the computer room. For the four to five hour exercise, Jocelynn got on a terminal and tried to do more research on cargos. This time, the comms lag was between ten and ten point five minutes each way. So, any question and answer, or request for data would take her twenty minutes or more. That left her a lot of time to chat with Maur and the others. Mikah had also left a terminal open to show what the ship's camera systems were showing, which would get very exciting while they burned plasma through the gas giant's atmosphere, and Zimzod would certainly join them. During that run, everyone who could would likely be watching the fireworks.
Taking his post on the bridge, Aiden went over the schedule for the day for Maur, and also to comment on the details of the refueling for those who'd possibly not been through it before. He gave a layman's quick bit on orbital approach and a short back and forth on dealing with the Navy to get permission to refuel. He then explained that the refueling runs were a pressure game based on how much "gas pressure" was pushed against the sudden pressurization of the scoops as gas rushed in. So, there wouldn't be enough "gas" in the system after a single run to fill the tanks even if they held pure hydrogen. So, they'd make multiple passes until they filled both the main and holding tanks.
Since the holding tanks had to be voided soon after they'd filled, the purification plant pushed impurities to them while pushing pure hydrogen to the main tanks. Finally, the main tanks would be full and the holding tanks could be voided when they were done. The good news is that it would only take them four to five hours to get the gas they needed. Then, it would take twenty one more hours to purify the entire load, during which time they'd be drifting in space. During that time, the holding tanks would again be used to hold increasingly mixed non-hydrogen gas, so they'd have to dump the holding tanks again when they were ready. The good news there was that they'd planned for 24 hours, so they wouldn't lose time.
When Aiden did enter the shipping formations, he exchanged respects with any ships offering them, because the name of the Upgrade now had a reputation since it was associated with Lady Mikah. He also checked in with the Imperial Navy because their diapers got smelly if you didn't play by their rules. When he asked, Aiden learned the fueling queue was informal and not being enforced by the Navy, so he asked where he could fit his ship in the queue? While a small number of merchanters whined, the Upgrade eventually got a ninety minute go-ahead. So, instead of waiting for hours, or even days, they had just over one hour to wait. That meant Aiden would be working the refueling run until just past the end of his shift. Fesic would then take over and move the ship out to drift while the purifier started its work.
Because of that, they'd have to wait until late in Aiden's shift on the 62nd day of the year before they could burn out of the gas giant's shadow, which would take them ten hours. Then, between 2 and 3am on the 63rd day, they'd jump during Sekea's shift. The good news where that played out was that Sekea would be able to spend the early part of his shift plotting the nav data for the micro jump. With that planned, Aiden and Fesic waited their turn and got down to the job of beginning the refueling runs. As expected, the ship quickly built up around it a layer of plasma while burning their way through the atmosphere through which Siidilik's atmosphere was forced. The crew watched on many displays through out the ship as they made each of the multiple passes to fill their tanks.
While they waited to refuel, one of the things Jocelynn wanted to get moving was an investigation of the goods available for trade. With a data lag of over twenty minutes each exchange, her first attempt to connect to the port montage "actively" failed and cost her nearly an hour. When she made her second try, she asked for a static display to consider. That cost her nearly half an hour, but got her a display she could work with. Checking the "Pending Freight, she saw they could fill the hold easily for the trip to Ghandi. But, they'd only get paid Cr 1,000 per ton carried. And since they had five tons of their own cargo in the bay, and had to keep a ton available for Maur, they could only carry 33 dTons of cargo. So they'd only get paid Cr 33,000 for a trip that cost them Cr 194,000. That would be a loss of Cr 161,000. So, it wasn't a good idea.
Next, she looked at the cargos for speculation. She knew that she'd have to buy "whatever" as low as she could from the Denotam markets and sell for as much as she could in the Ghandi markets. Also, anything she didn't sell would remain in the cargo bay, blocking her from buying better cargos to sell on Lanth. So, a lot was built into choosing to buy for speculation. The first lot she saw were 115 tons of "Common Consumables", which Fesic said were things like atmospherics, water, etc. He also said that, since Ghandi's mainworld was a hellhole and most of the population lived in space, they'd need that.
When she asked if the per ton sales price was good, he began explaining his process. That involved calling them and telling them to hold the cargo, which none of the sale agents had yet been willing to do. But, he believed he'd eventually find polite sellers. Then, he described a multi-day process of computer research and calling to get opinions on the cargo. When she asked him if that worked, he admitted a number of cargos were bought by someone else before he decided to pull the trigger. To Jocelynn, that was a "NO!" so she'd find her own way.
The next lot Jocelynn looked at was a load of "common electronics". That meant some corporation had cut a deal with one or more of the clans hiring workers to assemble and complete common electronic parts and devices. According to Fesic, that normally happened on poor worlds with high population, because you wanted "a lot of people" assembling low priced crap instead of having to pay to ship that crap long distances. And since Denotam's clans had low populations, the deal must have been cut to "make friends and gain access" more than it was an economic choice. There were 73 tons of that available at Cr 16,000 each. Less unusual, there was a 138 ton load of common ores, selling for Cr 600 per ton which Fesic said might be good because there was no mining for common ores in Ghandi. So, they could only import that material, for local use or resale. Still, 33 tons of that material would cost them nearly Cr 20 k and they'd have to sell it for over Cr 180,000. Jocelynn looked at that gap and wondered.
Another cargo of "common raw materials" were more exciting than the ore because it had been processed and sorted into usable building block materials which were more than simply mixed and unprocessed minerals. Jocelynn also noted that the processing "step forward" meant a price of Cr 4,750 per ton. Jocelynn next saw four tons of radioactives, which would be in less demand in fusion-friendly systems but still had industrial or technical uses in those conditions. They would also sell well in fusion-friendly or even fusion-adopting systems. Especially where they couldn't produce radioactives themselves, and had to import them. Of course, the cost to by was Cr 800,000 per ton, because digging it up and processing it was expensive. Still, Jocelynn didn't know if that was a good price or not, or have any contacts Ghandi-side who might buy the cargo? The price certainly kept "fly-by-night operations from buying the cargo. And, at only four tons, they'd be able to carry 29 tons of "something else" in case Jocelynn made a mistake buying the lot. Of course, if she hit a home run, even 20% profit on the load would be over Cr 600,000.
There was also a 40-ton lot of "Amalgamated" spices for Cr 4,800 a ton. Thanks to Sekea's research on seed purchases, Jocelynn knew they didn't have the armies of people out gathering spices. Nor did they have the climate to grow managed fields of spice plants. And, they certainly didn't have the tech to grow and gather spice plants in large numbers. So, Jocelynn had to wonder how long those spices sat in hoppers in different clan territories until they could package the shipment? That meant Jocelynn had to wonder about the quality of the "spices". Of course, that wasn't her problem. Jocelynn only had to worry about the reputation of Denotam spices in other systems and how much she could get people to pay for it?
Jocelynn also saw a 67-ton lot of textiles and leathers, even though she'd been out in a Clan Erskin village and seen what they had and wore. And the seller was asking Cr 2,250 for those materials. There was also a 71-ton lot of "uncommon" ore, priced at Cr 4,250. Those would not be as valuable as 'rare earths' minerals, but would still be less than common or less easy to harvest. Part of the problem with buying a lot from those offered was that Jocelynn didn't know if any of the prices she was seeing were good. And Denotam's data networks were not high enough quality that they supported the sort of research into prices that Fesic had tried, even if she wanted to go that route. So, it would be difficult to do more than look back on the records Fesic, Emkir and others had kept on what they'd bought in the past. And even that was dicey, because "common electronics" meant something different in Denotam than they had in Equus or other systems.
Another issue Jocelynn had to consider was "storage". Hanging outside the gas giant with a day's worth of refueling and another of purification before they made a week-long micro jump and 16-hour drive back to the world, they'd have to have anything she bought stored for nine days before it could be loaded into their cargo bay. So, with a lag of twenty minutes each way, she'd have to set up storage costs and pay for them. Regardless if the seller would agree to hold the goods in their warehouses or she'd be forced to rent space. That was an added cost that would drag down their profits. Jocelynn also had to admit, the crew rarely ever made profits from their cargos, despite the fact they wanted to. But, she still wanted to do as good as the others, if not better.
One thing Jocelynn did find in their past records were research left behind by a former crew member named "Zach". Apparently, when he'd suggested buying radioactives on spec, Mikah had shot down hard the idea of shipping radioactives. He'd apparently tracked the costs and sales prices he could find in different markets which were, admittedly, on the trailing side of the sector. Still, the prices he'd seen were in the "millions of credits" for each ton of radioactives. And were still sold for healthy profits! So, it seemed radioactives sold in that range, even when they were cheap. The bad thing about this Zach-person's notes was that they were incomplete. He'd seemed to have had a bug up his hole about radioactives, so he tracked them. But, he tracked little more than what he'd bought and sold. So, she got the feeling he really wanted to traffic in them, but Mikah wouldn't let him.
The other issue which Jocelynn got more from what Fesic "didn't say", rather than what he said, was that the markets changed. On little visited or resource poor worlds, the markets wouldn't change much. But, on worlds like Denotam, where mega-freighters hauled much of the cargo, where lesser corporations moved what the megacorps didn't, where small firms like Denotam Traders haul what they can along with small time trading ships like the Upgrade bought or hauled what they could... In worlds like that, the cargos available changed either daily or every few days. In major trading systems like Rhylanor, the cargos changed throughout the day!
If forced to admit it, which he'd have to be, Fesic would have had to admit he'd lost what he thought were good cargos because he waited too long, or pretended he had the skills to predict what "might happen" one or more parsecs away. Or, because he pretended he understood the local economy enough to dig in and find data to force the local sales price down. And, while he worked to do that, someone with an actual clue saw the good deal and bought it out from under him. So, when Mikah told her to save the data to act on later, Jocelynn was realizing that the data she saved might well be entirely meaningless, and the market entirely different when they got back to Denotam.
Soon enough, while Jocelynn was learning her new job, Aali came up to grab snacks before Aiden started driving them into the gas giant's atmosphere. Hearing the questions Jocelynn was asking, Aali congratulated her on already being a better trade officer than Fesic had been. When Jocelynn said she had no idea what she was doing, Aali said that was good. She explained that Fesic never worried about "learning" because he was always certain he could dig into the local market and find what he needed to control it. And what he failed to do, ever, was admit that every market was like a group of private clubs, and you couldn't get the real truth and answers unless you found and joined enough of those clubs. The rest was just hard-core tracking of whatever real world data you could find. In that case, saving the data she had was good, because she could see if she could find corresponding sales data in Ghandi?
After the hours of refueling were done, Mikah tried to call back to the port for updates on news. Working on that for over an hour, Mikah finally confirmed there were no new or updated stories from the interstellar level. The local news continued to discuss things like the process of "settling" conditions between the Imperial Navy and Clan Arnstruther. The commentary on that was certain the clan would never let things settle, because they'd always be looking for the next thing they could demand or use as an excuse for armed reactions. It also seemed that the crew's recent activities may have slid relations between the Erskin and Glas clans closer towards hostile conditions. There were increased reports of low-level conflicts along their shared borders. Mikah considered buying a hat, sweater, pennant and big foamy "we're #1" finger so she could cheer for Clan Glas if a hot war started.
Aali finally got a chance to take a break as did Colinne, and Aali suggested they do a stent class. When Colinne was up for that, Aiden was good with handing the bridge over to Fesic so he could take charge. Zimzod and Jocelynn were also free, so they had everyone but Rol. Mikah submitted to more time working "passenger management". The crew relaxed while they hung in space off the orbital planes of the gas giant, while the fuel processer did its work. When Sekea woke to eat, before Aiden went to bed, he had a fresh group of images he'd drawn during his time manning the bridge the night before. When he showed them to Maur, she only shook her head and said she'd not remembered seeing any of them as pirates. She also reminded him her memory was not nearly as clear as his, and she also had seen a smaller number of pirates than he seemed to think she'd seen. When he had the time, she was willing to describe more of those faces she remembered.
Wednesday, 062-1114: Starships Getting Gas The night had worn on while the crew relaxed or checked and managed systems, and soon enough everyone was in bed except Sekea on the bridge. The Upgrade hung off the main orbital spaces used by other spacers while the fuel processor did its work. They'd have to hang there for twenty-one hours before they could begin the ten-hour burn out from the gas giant's jump shadow. That meant they wouldn't be able to make the micro jump until about two hours into Aiden's shift on the 63rd day of the year. So, they'd be sitting and drifting or burning out for the next day. During that time, those with duty stations managed their systems and did their work while those without responsibilities gamed, relaxed or supported those working. At a point during the day, the ship got a notification that Jocelynn's local trade certification had cleared investigation. So, she was clear to trade on Denotam's port. Colinne and Aali led a stent training while things simply waited. And Colinne and Jocelynn did more closed-door psi training.
Thursday, 063-1114: Jumping But Not Quite Leaving The crew had spent nearly a full day relaxing or working at their stations. Finally, after the purifier finished its work, Sekea began the burn away from the gas giant and relaxed or drew more portraits into his shift. There were few events to look at outside the ship, which turned out to be ships moving to claim their own patch of the sky and drift. Or, those ships whose captains chose not to purify their fuel and simply burned off to escape the gas giant's jump shadow and continue on their trip with unrefined fuel. It was a risk, but many traders working on a margin, or simply too cheap to care about it worked on unrefined fuel as long as they could. This was also one of the more dangerous parts of any transit, because pirates counted on ships refueling at the gas giant.
A pirate could figure out exactly where the line would be to make a jump after refueling. So, they could jump into a system and refuel while pretending to be just another civilian or merchant ship. If the registry they were using had not been reported, the naval or system defense craft may not know they were pirates, and they'd get away with that. Then, after refueling, they could drive off to a distance "close to" the jump limit. That spot would not only not be close enough for the trader to flee and jump, but also too far for any rescue to reach them before the pirate got their cargo and fled to make their jump. So, this was the easiest way to set up prey unless you had a spy on the port who could call with a departing trader's planned flight data.
Eventually, while Sekea drew for the early part of his shift, and worked to plot the micro-jump during the last hours of his shift, the others woke and had breakfast. Sekea showed Maur the new drawings he'd made, though he was running out of cruise ship officers to draw. Maur said she'd seen none of those as pirates and Sekea deleted the images he's shown her. After the meal, people secured anything they were not using and made sure things were locked down as Aiden, Fesic and Mikah took their places on the bridge. Zimzod also made sure to be ready to man a turret, "just in case", while they covered the last hundreds of thousands of miles. Because they likely wouldn't need a swing or over-night shift while in jump, Sekea stayed up and manned a secondary terminal on the bridge to fine tune the plot until he had to send it to Aiden for the jump. With Aali in engineering, Colinne managing the computer and the others in the lounge with Maur, Aiden confirmed their position, zeroed out their flight vector. He then dimmed the ship's lights and hit the control that released the capacitor-stored energy into the lanthanum grid as the ship silently tumbled into jump space.
As they passed slowly through time, it was now twenty-one days until Rol would be decanted. Just entering a micro-jump, the crew would reach their planned tangent point fourteen days before decanting Rol. They would then have to spend sixteen hours returning to Denotam, to pick up the last bits of their gear, conduct any trading and let Aali reset the jump systems. "If" they spent a week in their return to Denotam and resetting work, they'd leave the system seven days before decanting Rol. Depending on any delay, they would decant Rol just before or just after arriving in the Ghandi system. In the period after that, Mikah would have to play steward for Maur and Doctor and therapist for a newly decanted Rol. Any rushes or delays to change that would be up to Mikah.
Thursday, 063-1114: Just after 11am Where everyone is at the end of the session: Mikah, Aiden, Fesic and Sekea: On the Bridge after just having entered the micro-jump Aali: In the ship's engineering after just having entered the micro-jump Colinne: In the ship's computer room after just having entered the micro-jump Jocelynn, Zimzod and Maur: In the ship's common lounge after just having entered the micro-jump Rol: Decant in 21 days
_________________________________________________________________________ Next: Exit Unlocked!