Spinward Fringe Broadcast 5: Fracture Page 5

  “All the more reason to stay here, surrounded by witnesses,” Ashley said as she pulled her vacsuit up under her towel.

  “So you're actually going to stay in the bunks.”

  “Well, yeah. Besides, maybe I can clear some time and set up to fly with Ronin.” She sealed the vacsuit up most of the way and put on some lipstick and eye liner.

  “You mean Minh, everyone on the bridge calls him Minh.”

  “I like Ronin. Find anything else out about him?”

  “I'm Chief of security.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “I can't use that information for personal reasons.”

  “Oh come on! If you can't get the goods on your crew mates what good is being Chief? Besides, I have to know who I'm flying with.”

  “Good point. You have the access, why don't you look him up?”

  “He might check his Crewcast logs and see that I've been looking at him.”

  Stephanie rolled her eyes. “You know you're not in high school anymore, right?”

  “I never went. Is this what it's like?”

  “Rampant insecurity and raging hormones? Yup.”

  “I thought that was pregnancy.”

  “Nope that's morning sickness, swollen feet, constant trips to the bathroom and raging hormones.”

  “Right, gotcha,” Ashley followed Stephanie to the lift, waving at a group of pilots just coming in from being on standby for the last shift. “So, you and Frost?”

  “He was over last night. Bugger refuses to take the foot medical grew for him. He won't take anything our new Chief of Medical made for him because she's nafalli. I told him she just started the whole process, that humans took care of the rest because she can only put in half shifts but he won't listen.”

  “Oh, so you two are back together.”

  Stephanie gave Ashley a wilting look as the lift doors closed. “He was over last night.”

  “Oh, all night? Okay, I guess that's back together. He doesn't know about you and Captain?”

  “No, and he won't. It's just not worth the grief.”

  “I'd tell him. If it's meant to be he'll just go blow off steam and come back. Besides, you were kind of on a break.”

  “Not really.”

  “Well, he pissed you off.”

  “That's not any kind of reason to-” the lift doors opened to admit three maintenance members laden with tools and a cart with spare parts. “well, it's not a good enough reason.”

  “True.” Ashley nodded. “Just trying to be on your side.”

  They were silent until they arrived on the command deck. It was obvious that important things were about to happen. The hustle and bustle of people moving between communications, conference rooms, flight control and the bridge was intense. They strode across the dark decked concourse and through the officer's observation lounges automatic double doors.

  There were only a few seats left, the rest were filled with command deck personnel who were organizing transmission packets and having a bite before their shifts began. The pair looked around and spotted a small two seated table beside the transparent outer hull. On their way to their seats they stopped at a materializer where Ashley ordered a tall, steamy blended coffee and a morning meal bar for them both.

  The blue topped, glossy table for two reflected the dim light shed by the asteroid field outside. Black, grey and white; the expansive, quickly rotating field of stone and ice stretched well out of sight. Some kind of gravitational source had directed it to settle into a thin, circular shape.

  The light reflected towards them was from a distant dwarf star. Observation areas that faced the rear of the ship would have a clear view of it and the shadow of the planet nearest as it crossed in front every three hours.

  Ashley sipped from the safety cup and sighed. “I can't believe the blends Ayan programmed into the fabber. I've never seen a hazel nut, but it's like she reinvented coffee.”

  “I can't believe they call materializers 'fabbers' on Earth,” Stephanie smirked.

  “It's a lot easier to say than; 'materializer' or 'energy to matter fabricator' like some people do. It's catching on too, I even heard Captain say it yesterday.” Ashley brought up the social display on her thin, five centimetre wide comm unit.

  “Thirty eight messages?” Stephanie boggled. “You weren't kidding when you said you were starting to get popular.”

  “There are what, three thousand people on the ship? I'd have to be a hermit not to have a few.”

  “I think I got four yesterday, one was from Laura, another from March and the other two were people who were trying to apply for security positions. I've had to cut several of my security people's access to Crewcast off during their shifts. People are obsessed. I don't see the point, really. If I wanted to hang out with crew members I'd rather do it face to face.”

  “Aw, don't be bitter. You'll have more than you can handle before you know it. I can see why you'd have a harder time getting to know people on the ship though, you are the head of security. People just have to notice you're not a buzz kill. Oh, and what did March want?”

  “To give me crap for revoking his certifications. I told him that if he cheated on his qualifiers then there's no way he's getting out of grade one maintenance.”

  “Oh, so that's where they put him.”

  “Yup, he's carting equipment around, hauling refuse to mass converters and cleaning the last few unexplored parts of the ship. Captain assigned him the rank of Crewman's Mate.”

  Ashley chuckled to herself. “I thought Crewman was the lowest rank. Serves him right for nearly blowing us up over Sheffield. Hope he likes being a maintenance monkey, I don't think he'll be getting promoted.”

  “I thought you'd like that. He's still pissed though, and he's hanging out with Shamus now.”

  “That's gotta be awkward.”

  “He wants Shamus to set him up with you.”

  “Hell no. Not in a billion, trillion, frivillion years.”

  “I don't think frivillion is a proper measure of time,” Agameg said from behind Ashley.

  “Just made it up. It means as long as anyone has ever imagined plus a day.” Ashley grinned up at him. “Steal a chair and have a seat.”

  Agameg did just that and sat down with his chocolaty breakfast drink. “Finn is finishing the last trial of the wormhole transmission systems before the first burst transmission, he says hello.”

  “I know, he sent me a message. I guess he didn't sleep last night.”

  “He said he couldn't. When he found out Ayan wasn't going to take over the permanent installation of our stolen wormhole generator and hypertransmitter he started taking things much more seriously. He doesn't blame her, not with her and Laura working on enhancing the engine rebuild that's set to start as soon as we find a safe port.”

  “Like he wasn't taking that thing seriously before? I don't think there's anyone who understands it better.”

  “You may be right. Working with Chief Grady he even managed to get the micro fusion cells working with the rest of the ship, increasing our power output twenty percent while leaving enough independent cells inside the wormhole generator so it can power itself in an emergency.”

  “I love having an escape route,” Ashley said. “I'm going to have to thank Finn after he gets a couple days sleep.”

  “How are the repairs on the bridge coming?” Stephanie asked.

  “They're finished. Ayan seems to know how to motivate people while maintaining good relations. Frankly I've never seen any ship so busy but people seem to be happy following her and Chief Grady.”

  “Wow, that only took what, four days?”

  “Three and a half. Everyone has already transferred there. It's like nothing happened only the ready quarters have been moved. They're on top of the bridge now.”

  Ashley checked Alice's status and frowned.

  “No change?” Stephanie asked, finishing the last bite of her breakfast bar.

  “No, she's still out. Says here she
might need some kind of synaptic therapy.”

  “You can see that?” Agameg asked. “I was only able to see her basic status on Crewcast.”

  “I guess Commander Everin added me to Alice's circle of friends when he set up the Crewcast system. I've gotta thank him for giving everyone this software, it's so much fun.”

  “I think he set it up to make up for the lack of artificial intelligences aboard. There's no other efficient way to sort through waiting messages and other information.”

  “It's so annoying,” Stephanie grumbled. “Shamus keeps looking up my location and leaving message bombs.”

  “What's a message bomb?”

  “He marks a place on the ship, records something and when I pass by it activates a message. I was on my way to the botanical gallery yesterday to check on Doctor Murlen's newest litter when out of nowhere an automated message comes through my comm.”

  “What did it say?” Ashley asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “It was obnoxious! You know, I understand why the automated message triggers can be placed, I've already used them to mark patrol routes for some of my people, but using them as message bombs-”

  “Oh, come on, what did it say?” she interrupted, anxious and pounding her feet on the deck.

  “It whistled and said; 'Nice tail!' I was so surprised I didn't realize it was over the comm and stopped in the middle of the main causeway, looking for him for a few seconds.”

  “Classy,” Ashley giggled.

  Even Agameg couldn't help but chuckle, squeezing his big, round green eyes closed to slits and huffing air. The fine tendrils adorning his face flipped and rippled.

  “I swear he wouldn't know class if he were on a college campus.”

  “But you like him, otherwise you wouldn't let him into your quarters.”

  “Don't remind me,” Stephanie groaned.

  Agameg looked at his comm unit. “They'll be completing the scan of the immediate area and starting the hypertransmitter systems in a few minutes. We should go to the bridge.”

  “Do you think they'd mind? None of us are on duty,” Ashley asked. “I mean, I could just catch my comm update here.”

  “All bridge officers, Commanders and Chiefs are invited.”

  “Let's go.”

  The bridge was only two doors down from the officers observation lounge. The large double doors had been rebuilt as sliding doors just as thick as the old ones. The antiquated arms that once pulled the thick armoured hatches out of the doorway and drew them aside were nowhere to be seen. The walls the doors slid into were much thicker, however. It was plain to see by the narrowing of the concourse as they reached the main secure upper entrance.

  At their approach the heavy, meter thick ergranian enhanced armoured doors moved to the sides, their passage along the smooth slots in the floor and ceiling was accentuated by a slight rumbling underfoot.

  All three of them couldn't help but stare at the wonder of the rebuilt bridge. Most of the damage had been done to the bow conference room and the bridge office beside it. The colour chosen for the semi-transparent deck plating was crimson. The crew stations and other fixtures, including the captain's chair had been made to match with seat padding furnished in jet black.

  There was a wall of holographic status reports between the four command seats flanking the captain's chair and the other stations. The walls made the entire place look like it was made of windows, convincingly displaying the vista around the ship, including the ceiling. The field of stars above Triton was breathtaking.

  The main bridge was fully crewed with Captain Jacob Valance in the centre. To his right was Ayan in a variation of the black vacsuit Triton uniform. She wore a long grey coat that was open at the front enough for all to see that she was as well armed as any crew member with a heavy side arm strapped to her leg. It was cut for style as well with long lines to make her look taller.

  To Captain Valance's left was Terry Ozark McPatrick, or Oz as people had come to call him. Commander Jason Everin was beside him, working at a holographic interface and two dimensional panel that was attached to the bottom of his seat with a thin arm.

  Holographic representations of other key crew members such as Engineering Chief Grady, Lead Technician Finn and Gunnery Chief Frost were distributed along the edges of the bridge. All together there were another dozen crew members on that level, and when the trio looked down through the semi-transparent floor there was another area entirely.

  The flight control Centre was located below the main bridge and could be accessed via two man ramp ways or through the secondary command deck just beneath them. That was where any ships around Triton were directed from, fighter missions were observed and many other off ship endeavours were monitored. They had very little to do with the activation of the hypertransmitter systems that would open hundreds of miniature wormholes near the ship so they could communicate effectively with the known galaxy but they were quite busy nonetheless.

  There was something going on, something very interesting that few people outside of the flight control Centre knew about. Anyone who had spent time on the temporary bridge knew that it was important, however, and that it warranted the first mass mobilization of Triton fighters and gunships. Chief Angelo Vercelli sat in the centre seat beneath. He was positioned so the Captain could look down and see his control and monitoring systems and the Flight Commander.

  Oz would be taking over after the hypertransmitter was brought on line so he could personally oversee the direction of traffic around the ship and help direct the Wing Commander's mission. Everywhere the trio looked there was something interesting going on, some different activity that interacted with the most exciting morning Triton had seen since anyone had gotten aboard.

  “I thought you'd be here,” Larry, Ashley's copilot said as he came to stand beside her. “Ready to dodge asteroids all day?”

  “We're not going in are we? The flight plan said-”

  “No, but they've been talking about taking Triton closer to the edge and skirting along so it's harder for Regent Galactic or anyone else to pick us up at a distance.”

  “Sounds fun,” Ashley smiled.

  “I thought you'd say that. It'll be just you and I at the helm for the first six hours.”

  “Just the way I like it. No newbie navigator to yap in my right ear. Whose joining us late in the shift?”

  “Warren. That is if we're not pulled to prevent fatigue.”

  “Oh, good, he's not bad.”

  “Yup, he's getting better. Who are you transmitting to?”

  “A few old friends. Just want to see if they're okay. You?”

  “I have an uncle who settled coreward, he'll probably be happy I'm all right.”

  “Probably?”

  “He's a bit of a recluse. We haven't been too chatty for a few years.”

  “Ah, well at least you have someone. I'm surprised at how many people just don't have anyone to send a message to.”

  “Well, the war comes with a cost. Looks like they're about to start things off.” Larry nodded towards the centre of the bridge and the command seat where Captain Jacob Valance was standing. A whistle sounded over the ship wide communications network, indicating that the Captain or commanding officer was about to address the ship.

  Silence fell over the bridge and flight control centre. “Soon communications between Triton and the civilized worlds will be something we take for granted,” Captain Valance started, hoping he sounded pleasant but authoritative. There were fifteen essential crew members on the bridge and another ten non-essential onlookers. “But today we're taking three big steps that will make this ship feel like a home. Most of the messages you've sent to our comm office will be forwarded to their destinations after our new hypertransmitter comes online for the first time. We'll reopen communications with those same communications hubs and major worlds to accept replies when we can. We'll also be downloading news packets, entertainment and any messages that are addressed to registered members of the crew.
Your comm units will be updated as we scan and clear incoming data.

  The next first step we're taking today is the deployment of a full fighter wing and our larger refitted combat vessels led by Wing Commander Minh-Chu Buu. Those of you who lurk and compete in the training simulations would know him as Ronin. There are raiders attacking the station we've come to trade with and we plan on making a good impression. When we've secured the area we'll begin replacing the pair of primary thrusters that have been offline since Pandem. Once those repairs are complete I can start fulfilling my promises to you. We'll bring the fight to Regent Galactic and the Order of Eden by using our communications systems and fighters to locate the enemy. I also promise that we'll try to find a port where everyone can at the very least take shore leave on a nice sandy beach or great big entertainment centre. Let's get to work. Triton!”

  “Triton!” Everyone within earshot called back. An enthusiastic cheer spread across the entire ship. Jake knew as he sat down that people were mostly excited at the prospect of leave, of better days and the rest of his speech had been informational as far as most of the crew was concerned. He didn't care, the confidence and order he'd seen fall into place since basic rank had been imposed along with some rudimentary military principles was worth celebrating as far as he was concerned.

  It had been a busy time to say the least. As soon as he woke from utter exhaustion it seemed he was put to work. Triton spent two weeks in a wormhole en route to a broad, unnamed asteroid field that boasted several heavy points of gravity surrounding one large one. It was claimed by a fringe harvesting company called Orrico. He expected to be confronted when Triton arrived, and hoped that he could strike a bargain that would win them a safe harbour while they repaired two of their main engines. Alice's notes said it was a well hidden, well defended outpost. According to the scans they'd taken it was evident that the post and a large area around it was hidden and everything outside it was electronically dead.

  There was wreckage of all size scattered throughout and around the gargantuan asteroid ring, more wrecked hardware than he'd ever seen Raiders leave behind. Something else had happened, and the key to finding the details was inside the protected area, Jake was certain. The wealth of raw materials in the asteroid belt alone would be good enough to feed their matter converters and if there was a place to hide in the middle of the field they could make repairs in peace.