Tom Gerald and Susan Dimietrie were sitting in a briefing room waiting for their guests to arrive. The guests were told they would be meeting in a random research facility but that wasn’t the case. In actuality they are at the site that holds the Alien Probe Destiny. Time was short theses days and they couldn’t relocate just yet. Since Destiny Online went active they haven’t had time for anything, even sleep. They both had dark bags under their eye’s and stress lines creased their faces. The stubborn Probe Destiny was the cause of their current miseries. Macky Dewelt wasn’t with them because he had his own problems overseeing Terran Binding Corp the public face for Destiny Online.
A guard that was stationed right outside of the door came in announcing, “Sir, ma’am, your guests have arrived. Do you want them to come in now?” Neither one of them really wanted to see their complaining guest. It wasn’t really their fault if Destiny wanted to be stubborn. They could technically tell there three guest about the Probe Destiny because these three had gotten the clearance to know but secrets are hard to divulge after keeping them for so long. Tom nodded his consent to the guard.
Two men and a woman walked in escorted by guards. One a male Caucasian and a male and female of Asian decent. Susan sent the escorting guards away because they did not have even a fraction of the clearance needed to overhear things spoken in that room. One of the men dressed in full militarily dress uniform of an admiral was about to speak when Tom held up his hand saying, “Say nothing yet. First the room has to scan all of us. Then it will lock down the room is such a way nothing will escape it, not even vibrations. We will have two hours of air.”
Everyone waited until a small light on the wall turned from red to green. Susan stood and walked towards the three newcomers, “Minister Janggok, Admiral Pontiff and Doctor Kazan we welcome you to this research center. We know its been a long trip for most of you. Please have a seat and we can begin going over recent events concerning you three.”
They All sat around a large table and Admiral James Pontiff a U.S. Navy Admiral spoke first, “You two know why were here. Can you explain what the hell happened at the launch of the game.”
Korean Minister of Health and Welfare, Moon Janggok asked, “Yes, why is our team the only ones here to get this briefing? We had more than a hundred teams that were locked out of our control of the game?” Doctor Mitsuko Kazan a calibrated Japanese scientist of terraforming science and even top of her field in physics just sat quietly listening to the conversation as it progressed.
Tom held up his hand, “Please, hold your questions tell I give you some background information into whats going on. You have just been given the highest security clearances on planet. Your lives now will be forever monitored.”
Tom began going down the list by telling them about the Probe Destiny. How it was the main designer of the game and still in ultimate control of the game. Project Destiny Online programmers had built the frame work of Destiny Online and built in hard coded controls for positions within the game. The theory was that they couldn’t force Destiny's to anything or risk getting locked out of all its information and technology. They had the idea of putting people in high political, military and scientific minds into the governing body's of the same positions within the game. It should of worked because it was hard coded into the main construct of the game and the positions were still their through all the trials but once the game started all those positions were locked out. Destiny had turned those positions over to NPC’s until real people worked up the latter's of power and discovery to claim them. Now the game was truly out of their control.
The only way they had left was to buy in-game currency that they could no longer make appear with some digital codes. Destiny had taken that ability away from them as well. The backing governments now had to buy the in game currency mcc’s with real money from players within the game. With this money they had hand to pick one team, Minister Janggok,
Admiral Pontiff and Doctor Kazan to support and setup up a power base in game. In order to begin tearing apart and researching the tech within the game and apply it to real life. The game was already showing marvels of technology that will help Project Hope sustain human life. It was not apparent to the public yet that all in-game tech could be converted to real life.
***
Ariel Miller was pissed beyond belief and it was all over a stupid man. A stupid inconsiderate man. Cyrus Drugain had pushed her buttons in mores ways than one since she had met him but this last insult was even worse than him forgetting her name. She was already frustrated because she had waited four days for Cyrus AKA Irish Fey to send her an contact invite in game. Her thinking was that he should be the one to ask for the in-game friends request. Little did she know Irish had forgotten about her again. Frustrated and embarrassed she finally sent Irish Fey a friend request but it has been two day since she sent it and he still has not accepted it. Making her more angry than she’s ever been in her life. ‘That arrogant asshole, what give him the right to do this to me?’
***
Cyrus looked up at the new clock on the wall of his real life work shop. It was an in-game timer he designed to help him keep track of the time dilation while he was in the real world. He had made one in the house and his workshop for obvious reasons. Once he had gotten on his way in-game towards the Idaho mining station he had set his avatar NPC system to deal with the journey. He had set it up to where his avatar would stop and the fuel at depot for 24 hours making the full journey a little over 67 hours long in-game to reach the Tangent Mining station.
It allowed him a little over 11 hours to work on a Hydrogen generator and cooling system to produce liquid Hydrogen. Making liquid Hydrogen was akin to producing explosives so Cyrus had to make sure the contract had the right licenses attached and verifying them through the FBI. The contractee is legit, a rocket hobbyist who had applied and received all the right licenses.
The generator was simply made it just need to pull the gaseous form of Hydrogen from water through electrolysis. More complicated was building a cooling system to change Hydrogen's gas form into liquid. The gas need to be cooled down to -268.93 calvin for it to become liquid.
The storage cylinder for the final product was the most difficult to get right. The cylinder had to protect from outside condition to keep the the liquid state of the Hydrogen and the inside of the cylinder had to be protected from the liquid hydrogen so cracks would not open in the cylinder. If either was done poorly rapid expansion of the liquid to gas could cause an explosive situation. The whole system besides the storage cylinder only took six hours to build and triple check its functions. However, the storage cylinder took three hours alone to build to licensed specification and since Cyrus prided himself on his work he tested and checked the cylinder over a dozen times before creating the whole system for pick up. He made sure when dealing with highly flammable or explosive material to make sure everything was as safe as possible. This job would net him over $37,000 dollars after materials and taxes.
Cyrus still had two hours before he needed to be back in game. First thing on the agenda was to call his trusted delivery service to deliver the final product to the contractee. Then he defiantly need a shower.
After a nice hot shower Cyrus sat down at the kitchen counter and eat a good afternoon meal of a large roast beef french dipped sandwich. Coal still wasn’t home from football practice and wouldn’t be until almost 8pm so Cyrus made extra fixings for his brother. Leaving a note saying, “I left you some dinner I know you’ll be worn out after practice. I also went around and fed all the animals. Remind me that we have to grind and reshaw a couple horses, their hooves are overgrowing their shoes. That's Dancer and Jackpot if I remembered right. Get your home work and studying done before you login to the game. I don’t care if you do it in home-space. Love you bro....Cyrus.”
***
The first thing Irish noticed when he logged back into the game was the grimy feel of sweat laced under-armor cloths beneath his spacesuit. ‘Man I am so glad I didn’t have to sit through that whole journey like this.’ He asked Laya aloud before he remembered all he had to do was think at her, “Laya are we still on course to rendezvous with Idaho mining station? Also how much more time do we have?” Irish wanted quick answers even though he could pull that information up on the ship displays.
‘We are still on the planed course and only three hours out. I would also like to remind you that the next time you have a chance please upgrade my programming. It can be slightly expanded as your brain has now developed enough synapse speed to run some more of my routines,’ Laya stated in her unemotional voice. Irish knew she was talking about him stopping by his game-space and the LAI orb that resided their. She just didn’t say so because to her that place wasn’t suppose to exist.
Irish responded in his head, ‘Will do honey.’
Laya responded, ‘Are you referring to me as honey as a jest?’
Irish waved his hands in front of him, ‘Forget it Laya. Anything else happen in the last 64 hours beside what was planned?’
‘Yes, you have two new messages. One is a contact request by an Arry Itano. The other is also a contact request by a Zena Fey with a video message attached. They both came in during our stay at the fuel depot. Do you not remember this,’ Laya responded.
Zena Fey was probably his sister Ria’s in-game name but the other name Arry Itano sounded familiar but he could not place his finger on it. He decided to accept the latter's request as well. ‘Laya accept both contact requests,’ Irish told Laya.
Irish pulled up the video message from Zena Fey, “Hey big brother. I just got into the game. It amazing, I haven’t ever seen anything like it. The setup was a bit creepy and scary though. I’ve already talked to little bro “Kaiden” live on video chat. He just arrived on Mars for some kind of training when I spawned near a station in Mars orbit and that's why me and Coal, I mean Kaiden can talk live. I failed the stupid flight test and Kaiden laughed his ass off at me. Kick his but when you see him. Its not like I got to do the tutorial like the two of you. Anyways, that doesn’t matter right now because this messages is costing $5 real dollars of real life money at 1mcc a minute. Kaiden told me all about the slavery thing and I remember reading it in the disclaimers so don’t worry ill be careful. Okay, I'm reaching the minute mark I gotta go, ill call in the real in a couple of days. Ill also try to visit you in homes-pace. Later big bro.”
Cyrus reminded himself he needed to setup a family get together for the three of them when Ria had some time off college.
Irish ran several system checks on his ship while waiting to arrive at Idaho mining station owned by Tangent Mining corp. The Hyper travel he was looking at, looked and felt just as normal as regular main thruster travel and 1g excel. The only difference are the two rings that were extended out around the ship. Their is no visual evidence that they are doing anything at all, at least in this visual spectrum. He knew full well that those extended rings were apart of the Hyper-drive also know as the Alcubierre Warp Drive. The Hyper-drive warped space around the ship allowing it to travel almost as fast as light depending how much power was exerted on the space warp. Most people hear the word Warp and assume it means Faster than Light Travel but that is not the case. Hence the word Hyper-drive. It just fits better and not to be confused with a FTL Drive or wormhole travel, neither of which is currently in the game. Terran's are currently still stuck below the speed of light in the game. However, that doesn’t mean Hyper drive ships haven’t been sent off to other stars at the slower than light Hyper-drive speeds.
Irish was surprised to hear from Idaho Mining Station over 50,000k out from the station, “DL-021 this is Idaho station control, please verify yourself, over.”
Irish was a bit confused by the request. As far as he knew that wasn’t normal procedure, “Idaho control this is DL-021, I am Irish Fey under contract by Captain Harlow and Tangent Mining Corps, over.”
“DL-021 Idaho control, welcome to Idaho station Mr. Fey. Sorry about bothering you but we had a raider attack a couple weeks back so were being extra careful. Continue your approach we’ll send you your flight plan at the normal approach standard of 5,000k, out.”
Irish got his first look at the Idaho station about a kilometer out. It was allot smaller than Javat station. The only parts of the station he could see were the com arrays and sensors sticking out of the hallowed out asteroid. His flight plan directed him to a huge hole in the top of the asteroid relative to the systems plane at that moment because the whole asteroid was rotating on two axis’s to create opposing poles to generate gravity on the station within.
Irish was amazed at the size of the hanger bay he set down in. This time he had gravity to pull his ship down into place but traveling through the tunnel to it was nerve racking because of the rotation of the asteroid and the sudden influences of gravity added in. He was relieved when the outer bay doors shut and all he had to do was taxi to his designated pad.
The bay was so large it held 8 Mining runabouts, 4 hauler Sloops and multiple fighters and Peniace's. Irish immediately noticed the 7,000 ton armed PC-Jumper Sloop. Their was no doubt about it being the Ravanger. It was 40 meters long and has a beam of 15 meters of armored hull plating. From his landing pad he could only see the Ravengers 5x starboard rail guns protruding menacingly off the armored hull. 2 rail guns are attached both nose and aft on the dorsal half and the same on the belly half with the 5th rail-gun directly center mid-beam on the starboard side. Everything slightly slants towards the nose at an angle allowing all 10 rail guns of the ship to come to bare nose on. He couldn’t tell from where he was but the rail-guns looked to be at the least 50mm or more.
Cyrus jumped down from the cockpit stretching his cramped limbs as a hanger bay crew-chief and two guards walked up to him to verify who he was with a thumb print, retinal scan and DNA analyzer. That done they welcomed him to the station and told him to make sure he went through the customs checkpoint. Pulling out his data-pad he sent a quick text message to Captain Harlow stating he was on Idaho station and just entered through customs. A quick reply came back telling him to meet up with Commander Bosick at the Tazers Cantina. Irish asked Laya, ‘Laya connect with the station and mark Tazers Cantina on the station map.’ Cyrus snatched his space-bag from the storage compartment on his ship and slung it over his shoulder.
Once they cleared the customs and moved into the station proper Laya put up the directions to Tazers Cantina on his visual HUD. Fallowing the arrow pointing the way.
Once Laya had a communications node and little did Irish know, that a pretty little Japanese girl by the name of Ariel Miller aka Arry Itano had lost all of her animosity towards Irish; the second he accepted her contact request. That just now went trough because he had been outside solar-wide com range. She didn’t know that Irish had forgotten her in-game name as well.
Tazers cantina was nothing like the movies like Star Wars. Well at least not the uppity music. Country Rock was playing as people smoked, drank and fondled slave girls who walked around handing out drinks to drunk asteroid miners and station crew. A haze of smoke enveloped most of the Cantina. Still in his now reeking spacesuit Irish made his way up to the center where slaver girls were striping down on the bar top. Almost leaning between bare legs, Irish yelled to the bartender. “Scotch on the rocks. Also do you know where a Commander Bosick is sitting. Captain Harlow sent me to find him.” The bartender nodded and held up one finger telling Irish to wait a second. While he grabbed a slave girl by the arm whispering in her ear then pointing to me.
The slave girl only had on a g-string bare tits sparkled with glitter. She was very good looking and young at that. Probably only 18 years old if that. The bartender handed her a glass half filled with scotch and ice and she made her way over to Irish breast swaying slightly as she walked over. She stood on tiptoe pressing her breast into is arm, speaking into his ear, “Follow me, I’ll take you to Abraham Bosick.” Irish blushed crimson. He hadn’t been that close to a naked girl in years.
Irish followed her naked ass to a circular cubical where a man with long sandy colored hair in his 30 plus sat with another half naked slave sitting in his lap. The slave that escort Irish to the table pointed at the man and handed him his drink. She leaned into again saying, “Abraham Bosick, ill come by in a bit to see if you need anything.” She turned and went about her business.
Irish set his drink down on table table, sitting across from Abraham Bosick, he slid his data-pad across the table to Commander Bosick with the message from Captain Harlow telling him to find the man sitting in front of him. It was too loud to yell across the table. Abraham, finally looked up at Irish than down at the data-pad. After a few moments he pulled his own data-pad, one that was allot newer and looked up his own messages. Nodding back to Irish and sliding Irish’s data-pad back to him he pointed at his scotch and mimed tilting it up to his mouth. Irish got the hint and gulped down his scotch. Quickly, pulling up the cantina’s menu and paying for the drink. 2mcc was a fucking rip off. It was scotch..., on a mining station though and not to bad at that.
Commander Bosick pushed the slave girl off his lap and stood up leading Irish out the cantina main doors. Out side Abraham greeted Irish, “Nice to finally meet you. The Captain said our new Ensign would be arriving any day now. Now we can kick this rust bucket and go earn some money soon. Your the last to arrive, the other two new sailors arrived almost a week ago. Names Abraham Bosick I’m the XO of the Ravengers.” The man extended his hand out to Irish.
Irish had to stop his hand in mid salute to shake hands with Abraham Bosick. Irish greeted the man, “Irish Fey, I’m glad I finally got here. The trip here was less than fun in my Ultralight.”
“Ah, no saluting off duty. I do like to see that you still have your military baring though. We run like a military organization but that's only when were on shift. We have a small 30 man crew now and most of us are all friends but in order to keep things running smoothly in dangerous situations we still need a military baring. As long as its off duty don't worry about military baring just don’t let any of the crew cross a line with you. You will still be an officer. Follow me and ill take you to see the Captain. He’s busy with last minute details of our trip or he probably would of come down to great a new officer,” Abraham said as he began to walk.
Irish followed saying, “Eh, sorry about disturbing your off time their, Sir.”
“No problem Irish. Call me Abraham off duty, Mr. Bosick or Commander Bosick on duty. Ill do the same with you and the rest of the crew will as well. Keep in mind that once your enter the ship on duty rules apply. The exception is in private quarters or the galley or going to and from those area’s. Those are considered off duty area’s unless you or they are in full uniform,” Abraham explained as they were walking back to the massive hanger bay.
Irish nodded keeping that in mind. They walked up to a private hatch that connected straight into the Ravanger from the corridor. “I’m going to bring you to engineering first to meet our chief engineer. He’s ranked Lieutenant Commander behind me. We need to let him know so he can decided whether to load your Ultralight. We still got the clamps in the ships hanger bay to secure another 5 small craft. Oh and welcome to the Ravenger. Were both still in civvies so its off duty protocol,” Abraham welcomed him to his new home.
The inside of the ship was fairly decent. The painted corridors had very little paint peeling. Everything looked to have been cleaned recently. As they made their way towards the aft of the ship and reactor compartments. Their was only two decks aboard not counting the belly compartment that held all the storage areas.
Irish walked into a tightly compacted engineering section to the sounds of something metal being pounded by a hammer, “Fuck, you son of a puta....(continuous cursing in Spanish ensued)” two boots were shifting out of a compartment led into a heat venting duct to the bow heat exchanger. The quickly spoken Spanish never stopping for a second as more pounding assaulted their ears.
Abraham kicked the feet of the man sticking out of the duct. The Spanish cursing and insistent pounding stopped and the feet started shimmying out. A short gray haired Mexican with a handle-bar mustache appeared. “Abraham what do you want, cant you seeing I'm busy. Oh, who do you have their?” The Mexican asked.
Abraham gestured to Irish, “Chief this here is our new Ensign Irish Fey. Irish this is Chief Engineer Sammy Rodgers.”
Irish held out his hand, “Chief its good to meet you. Do you prefer Sam or Sammy off duty.”
Chief laughed, “Neither, just call me Chief. I’ve been called that for over 20 years now. Almost forgot my real name till Abraham just brought it up. What can I do for the two of you.”
“Just checking with you to see if its fine to bring his Ultralight on board. I didn’t want to go over your planed weight for the ship,” Abraham asked.
“Na, the weights fine. You can tell Bosun Heller he can load it. Now if you boys will excuse me I got some pounding to do,” Chief turned to begin work again.
Irish couldn’t resits and asked, “Hey Chief whats the problem with the bow heat exchanger duct?”
Chief turned with a confused look. Abraham answered before the Chief could ask, “Irish he is also an engineer. He’ll be spending most of his time on the bridge but me and Skipper were going to send him down for you to show him a few things.” Chief nodded looking Irish up and down.
Chief answered Irish’s last question, “A couple weeks ago we had a run in with some Mongol raiders try to raid this station. The Mongol Block government of course denied it but anyways the skipper pushed the ship to long and hard in stealth mode. It warped part of the duct right into the path of tracks for the heat exchanger to open up and push into space for cooling.”
Irish looked at the duct hatched and asked, “Can have look Chief. Well if we have time Abraham?”
Abraham shrugged his consent. Chiefs eyebrow rose and he finally nodded to go ahead. Irish detached his helmet from his side and squirmed into the duct. The duct was barely big enough to fit his large frame, unlike the smaller Chief. Once he pushed himself far enough inside to see the actual stack of heat exchanger's he saw the problem the Chief mentioned. He also seen where the Chief was pounding at the warped ducting that was keeping the whole stack from pushing upwards. Irish came up with a quick idea and ran the angles through his data-pad. The angles were good enough so Irish popped his head out and asked the Chief for a hydraulic jack no longer than a foot. At first he didn’t want Irish to mess with anything but after Irish promised not to break anything, Chief acquiesced.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Irish’s plan was to use the housing bracket on the Heat exchanger stack to brace the jack. At the right angles and after using the jack on three pieces of warped ducting, reforming them back to their original form albeit dented the track for the Heat exchanger stack was clear and the duct wasn’t so warped anymore.
Irish wiggled back out of the duct. “Should be fixed Chief,” Irish said handing him the small jack.
The Chief set the jack down and crawled into the duct. A minute later he shimmied back out saying, “Well ill be a puta's uncle. You fixed it! I thought I was going to have to cut out that whole section of the ducting and replace it. Good job hermano(kid). You saved me a couple days work. The Skipper will be happy to. He didn’t want to leave to the rim of the systems without both heat exchanger working.”
“Damn now skippers gonna wanna leave dock sooner. No more shore leave!” Abraham said while frowning.
Irish shrugged off the comment, “Didn’t know.”
Abraham shook his head, “No big deal, we’ll keep that to us officers. The rest of the crew don’t need to know. Besides most everyone’s spent most of their pay because we’ve been at dock for to long so its not a big deal. Lets head up to the bridge, I already messaged Bosun(Boatswain) Heller to load up your ship while you were working. We’ll stop by your cabin on the way to see the Skipper.”
Chief held them up for a second, “Hold up let me put these tools away and ill go with you two.”
Irish saw a couple of the crew on the way to his cabin which right near the bridge. They didn’t stop to say hello to anyone. Irish was surprised when they made it to his cabin. It was twice as large as his room on Javat station. It was still small but a large improvement. The bathroom was the biggest improvement of all. It had a little room to walk around in. He didn’t have to step over the toilet to get to the shower or have to stay halfway in the other room to use the sink.
“Its not much but better than most accommodations aboard a ship this size. The crew has to share rooms this size with four people and share a communal bathroom. Drop your bag and we’ll head for the bridge,” Abraham said as hes turned and walked out. Irish tossed his bag on the bed. With a longing glance at the bathroom where the shower resides he turned and followed the two other officers to the bridge right down the corridor.
The bridge wasn’t overly large nor small. It was a circular room with the Captain chair sitting in the middle. Each of the other five stations faced out with towards the circular walls.The pilots station facing forward towards the nose of the ship. Each station was a self contained unit consisting of chair and console including the Captain station in the center. All the station stood about two feet off the floor held up by a single pillar. Irish asked what the purpose of that was.
Abraham answered, “The floors, ceiling and walls all become a perfect picture of space using optics and sensors. This gives us a perfect 3D view all around the ship including the space her belly’s facing. That the purpose of all the stations being on pedalstools. The projectors for turning a bridge into a 3D halo tank is pretty spendey and the expensive lenses for them burn out pretty fast. This way works just as well. Come on this way Skipper office.
The door to the Captains Office was flush with the walls like everything else on the bridge and Irish could barely tell it was even their. He thought that if he didn’t have his higher Perception reflexes he probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all. Abraham knocked once and waited for him to tell them to enter. A voice come from and unseen intercom near the door telling them to enter. Behind a metallic desk on the left side of the room the same older man Irish recognized from the video messages with darker hair and beard with gray running through out sat their looking up at the three of them who just entered.
No body spoke for a few second so Irish stepped up in front of the desk going to attention then holding a salute saying,
“Ensign Fey reporting as ordered, Sir.” Captain saluted him allowing Irish to drop his salute.
Captain Harlow gave the command, “Relax Ensign Fey. Sorry so formal when you just got here. It is good to keep a semblance of military baring on a merc ship or things could quickly get out of hand. I must say I wasn’t expecting all of my Officers. Sit down and relax, would you all, your cramping my neck looking up at you. What brings you here Chief?” He asked as the three of them sat down.
“Ask Ensign Fey their Skipper!” Chief gestured towards Irish.
Captain Harlow raised an eyebrow at Irish. Irish spoke up, “Well I think, Engineering would like to report the bow Heat exchanger should be running after a couple tests once we pull out of dock, Sir.” Irish left out the part where he had done it.
Captain Harlow gave Chief a questioning look. Chief slapped Irish on the back saying, “With a little inventive work Ensign Fey here fixed the Heat exchanger in about 5 minute of being on board. Never would have thought of doing what he did that's why I told you I would most likely have to replace the ducting around it. This Harmano just saved us about 4000mcc and two day’s lay over, Skipper.”
Captain Harlow looked back at Irish, “Well Mr. Fey looks like your already earning that large paycheck of yours and looks like you’ve already earned most of that hefty signing bonus. I am really thinking about switching banks because of that stunt your bank pulled. Okay, well we’ll keep the Ensigns name away from the reason why were pulling out earlier than what the crews been told. You three go get showered and changed and start rounding up the crew. We’ll leave in about four hours. Mr. Fey you have a L.A.I. correct? Use it to find your way down to shop B-5 I have already given your LAI permission to connect to the ships computer core. Ill have the Bosun down their to print you out a new uniform and get you a side arm issued.”
Abraham asked, “Skipper with your permission we’ll let Ensign Fey here get settled into his room. Ill handle getting the crew aboard while Chief starts spinning the old girls reactors up?”
Captain Harlow nodded, “That's fine you and Ensign be on the bridge in four hours. Alright, dismissed.”
Irish made his way down to B-5. When he got their a HUGE African guy was waiting for him with in the room. The mans muscular right arm snapped up into a salute. Irish didn’t wait to return the salute of a man that could probably beat him to death with one blow. Irish said, “Relax Bosun. I’m not even in uniform yet.”
The mans serious face split open into a hearty smile, “Good to meet Ensign Fey. Eh... At least your not a high and mighty type. Well the skipper called down saying you’d be here to pick up a uniform and side arm. Now I don’t have to tell you but I will. You, me and the other two officers are the only ones that will have a side arm at all times. The reason is simple. On long cruises the crew sometimes get irritated with their merc crew mates and with some liquor we get a bloody mess. We only hand them out to everyone when needed. Keep your sidearm on a lanyard at all times just in case someone gets a hair-brained idea to try and take it from you.” He motioned Irish to stand by the clothing printer so he could be scanned.
After a few seconds the printer began printing his new uniforms. “Now onto a few rules. It’s the officers and my duty as well as the section chiefs to keep order on this old spitfire. You see a crew member doing something wrong feel free to bust his or her head open. Doc can fix just about anything. If you can’t bust their head open on your own call me. Okay a few things you should know right off the bat. First we have a mixed crew and no slaves that means if you see one of our crew member of the fairer persuasion being harassed, or sexually assaulted bust the offenders heads open and throw them in the brig or ask me to come do it. If your see someone getting rapped just go ahead and shoot prick who done it. Ill even clean up the mess for you. Drinking is allowed off duty only. Everyone can get insta-sober pills from supply. The skipper is so against drinking on duty just like any other Captain out their, the penalty for drinking or drug use on duty is punished by spacing without suit. Drugs are a harder matter to deal with. Its a small ship so it not too bad but ill give you a list of whats allowed later. Point is Captain Harlow pretty lenient on what drugs can be used aboard as long as someone can insta-sober from them in an emergency. If their not on the approved list; again its punishable by spacing. Most of that you won’t have to worry about. We got a good hard working crew and beside the two other new crewmen I think you won’t have any problems. Oh, look your uniforms are done. Hears your rank Ensign and sidearm. It a 7mm auto Rail-pistol. You only get shatter shot while aboard. If need you can always get other rounds. Its simple and the skipper wouldn’t bring no one aboard that couldn’t handle a gun right?”
Irish just nodded at all the information taking the equipment, “Yeah, Ill be fine. Never fired this model but I can look up its operations. Is their a place to practice aboard?”
Bosun slapped his hand down on Irish’s shoulder saying, “This wouldn’t be much of a merc crew if we didn’t have a firing range. Its right next to the forward armory. Use it as much as you want. Theirs a sign-up sheet. Officers and myself get priority because of our hours and rank does have its privileges. Once we get underway ill talk to Chief about getting you some combat armor made, we already got your scans. Skipper says we ship out in about three and half hours.”
Irish breathed a sigh of relief when he stepped under the hot steaming water of his shower. It felt so good he stayed in the shower for 15 minutes. He didn’t have to worry about rationing water. He had read the ships manuals before even leaving Javat. The Ravanger had a full water reprocessor system that can support 45 people.
After the shower Irish sat down reading over all the crews names and positions including their full records. He had excess to them because he was an Officer. One caught his attention. The record file didn’t say right out that this person was a player but he could tell by the minimum record history along with the ownership of a Ultralight Peniace. He gave Laya a note to remind him to take time to introduce him self to Haley Scarlet. ‘The first names normal but the last name is a defiant give away. She’s a player.’
Next was reading through his pistol manuals. He should have enough time with how fast his mind was operating lately. The last time he logged out his brain felt like it was made of molasses. When he logged back in it felt like some deity had put his brain back together to its proper configuration.
The ship uniform was full black form fitting body suit, he had to adjust his junk several times to making his tool set less bulging even though their was a harder plastic-like material that ran between his leg and up his pine. The harder material also covered elbows and knee’s. ‘I can’t wait to see a woman in one of these.’ The uniform were made so you could still put on a spacesuit helmet and be sealed away from vacuum. Through out the ship their were back up air hose to hook into your helmet.
Side arm on his right side and helmet on his left Irish made his way to the bridge with a half an hour to spare. Commander Bosick was sitting in the captains station. When he noticed Irish come onto the bridge he smiled, “Ensign Fey, welcome. The Captain will be out in a few.” Irish salute as he approached and the Commander returned it.
Pointing to a station he said, “That's tactical, you can take that station and go through the menu's till the Captain gets here. Then you can switch to coms station and relieve Spacer Recruit Scarlet. She is another new crew member who just came aboard several days ago.”
The woman sitting at the coms station looked back at the mention of her station. She didn’t look happy about giving up her station but went along with it. She didn’t look like she realized Ensign Fey was another player. Irish wasn’t about to let on he was a player in the middle of the bridge.
Captain Harlow came out of his office a few minutes later. The sensors operator noticed him first shouting out, “Captain on the bridge!” Everyone stood to attention and saluted.
The Captain told everyone to continue their work. Even though at that time no one had anything to do. Captain Harlow took his seat and Commander Bosick took the tactical station from Irish. Irish was just about to take Miss Scarlet’s spot when the Captain said, “No Ensign Fey, You’ll be commanding and piloting from the Pilots station. You have command Ensign Fey, get my ship under way.”
Commander Bosick protested, “Skipper, Ensign Fey doesn’t have his Class-E license to pilot this ship, let alone assuming command. No offense given Ensign Fey. This is highly illegal and at are next inspection you could be....”
Captain Harlow cut the Commander off, “I’m doing nothing illegal Commander. Ensign Fey has his Class-E pilots license and has the full rights to command a ship of this size.” The Captain typed a text to the Commander not wanting to scold the man in front of the bridge crew, [Commander, I have sent you a memo four hours ago detailing the changes to Ensign Fey records. If you don’t start reading what I send you, ill stop informing you altogether and start ordering you around like a puppet. We’ll discuss this later.]
Irish walked up to the pilots chair, “Mr. Coseck, I relieve you.” Mr. Coseck responded, “I stand relieved.” He stood and headed towards the bridge lounge right across the corridor from the bridge. Irish had Laya inform him of names until he started to memorize them himself.
Irish sat down and used a little joystick to swivel his station towards the Captain, “Sir, I assume command?” Irish asked the Captain as a question. He responded, “You have command Ensign Fey, I stand relieved.” Unlike Mr. Coseck, Captain Harlow stayed in the Captain chair.
Irish turned his station back to its forward position then asked, “Miss Scarlet, prepare ship for undocking, announce green deck when all section report in green.”
Irish watched on his own console as Miss Scarlet console began lighting up with green check lights changing from red to amber to green signifying good to go. The only one that would only go to amber was the Chief Engineers light. Irish would have to call him personally to get the final go-ahead. Miss Scarlet finally announced, “Ensign, the deck is green.”
Irish com'ed Engineering, “Chief, This is Ensign Fey commanding. I got Ready Deck up here. Is the ship ready to shove off?”
The Chief responded, “Ah, first day and your already in the big chair. Don’t break my ship. Everything looks good down here. Don’t forget to test the Heat exchanger's before we set course out of here. Engineering reports ready.”
Normaly Irish would need to tell the pilot but since he was also the pilot he announced allowed, “Unmorring all umbilical's... Sealing all hatches. Miss Scarlet, com station control and request departure and flight plan. Send it to my station.”
Miss Scarlet immediately started talking to the Station Control. A few seconds later a data-packet popped onto his screen. He opened and set the flight plan as current, Miss Scarlet announced, “Control has given permission to depart without a taxi tug.” Usually larger ships need a tug ship to taxi them when entering or exiting a hanger bay. Ravanger was right at the border line of needing one. Most larger ship usual just dock on the outside of a station using docking arms and sealed gangways.
Irish began announcing commands he would use if he were in the Captains seat. “Mr. Riley, passive sensors till were out of the station. Then you can go active at 10% output. Miss Scarlet announce ship-wide ship is underway,” Irish told the sensors operator. It was standard operating procedure to use low powered sensors near stations and other friendly ships because some ships had powerful enough sensors to burn out other electronics. “Course change, Horizontal shift up, drifting ship laterally starboard.” Irish waited till the ship was in the right position before announcing, “Pitching, Rotating ship 35 degree’s starboard.” Irish did all his movement slow but fluid, angling the Ravenger towards the inner airlock of the hanger-bay. The ship slid smoothly into inner airlock. He could of moved the ship into the airlock laterally but he didn’t want to scare the Captain or Commander on his first day.
As they waited for the inner airlock to cycle and reseal Captain Harlow asked a vague question, “Ensign Fey is that the only way you could have done that?”
Irish shook his head, “No Sir, theirs allot I could have done different. If your talking about rotating the ship instead of latterly moving the ship to the air lock, then yes I could have done that. I decided not in favor of not spooking my Captain and Commander on the first day. I could have also relied more on the bridge crew experience to do their jobs properly without me voicing every command but since this is the first time working with this bridge crew I need to get to know them and be sure they know their jobs and procedures.”
Captain Harlow and Commander Bosick both nodded and smiled. The Captain said, “Okay Ensign Fey. Ill leave this to you. Go ahead and finish going through station controls flight plan then pull up course plot A-1 and get us heading towards our destination. Call me to the bridge before extending the Hyperdrive rings. I must always be present for this procedure unless im dead. Commander Bosick stay here just as an observer, it looks like our Ensign here as things under control.” Irish and Commander Bosick both responded with, “Aye.”
Once the outer hanger-bay air lock cycled open it was pretty easy getting the ship out into open space and following station controls flight plan. It wasn’t long before he needed to begin course plot A-1. Just when he was about to request it from tactical it already appeared on his console. Looking back at a Commander Bosick who smiled and nodded at him.
It was an hour total to move the ship from the hanger-bay airlock to where they needed to start spinning up the Hyperdrive. Irish clicked his coms to the Captains office, “Captain to the Bridge...Captain to the Bridge.” He said repeating it only once. Procedure said three times but he didn’t want to be annoying. He could always com the Captain again if needed. The Captain walked out and sat at his station. Nobody stood and saluted because it wasn’t necessary when in the middle of operations. Mr. Riley who’s Sensors station that faced the Captains office, announced his arrival.
“Proceed Ensign Fey,” Was all he said.
Irish continued the Hyperdrive operations, “Mr Riley switch to full active along our heading. Check for any obstruction or micro meteor showers along our path. Miss Scarlet give a ship wide announcement to the crew we are beginning Hyperdrive operation and to secure themselves. Bring the ship to amber alert. Get me a green deck for Hyperdrive activation.”
Yellow lights started flashing on the bridge. Irish looked at the sensors as well and it looked good. Mr. Riley informed him as such as well. He also seen the Captain checking as well along with Commander Bosick. One of the most dangerous things to do is trying to warp space with damaged Hyperdrive rings. Therefor the space around the ship is checked to make sure nothing hits or disrupts the warp rings before or while they begin warping the space around the ship. It could tare the ship apart it something like that happens. When the field is fully active the warp fields warp just about everything out of their way. Only large objects could effect the warp field when its active and their were hundreds of redundancy to kill the warp field if something large nears the fields bring them out of warp.
Scarlet gave him the Okay on a green deck and Irish called the Chief back, “Chief, Is the Hyperdrive rings fully operational and ready to be extended.” Chief replied to the affirmative and said he call up if he noticed anything going wrong.
Irish announced, “Bringing ship to 1g excel on a ecliptic roll. Course clear. Extending Hyperdrive rings, Now.” The reason for bring the ship to 1g excel in an elliptical roll is so the ship has gravity pressing down towards the belly of the ship. An elliptic roll looked almost like a stripper swinging around a pole. In this case it would be the ships belly pointing out of the spiral maneuver circling an imaginary pole.
Once the roll was complete and generating 1g and the rings extended Irish announced, “Initiating Hyper drive.” The ship slowly began to creep forward for hours under warp fields until it was moving almost as fast as light along their course to the rim of the solar system.
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My readers, I will not spoil anything for you but I have a little news I need to impart. I have had an epiphany that has changed part of the plot in my story. I think it was soooooo good that I had to rewrite all of Chapter 7, that was almost already finished. Not only that I had to go through and change things in the outline of two full volumes of chapter outlines, almost 30 chapters of outline, plot twists and characters. That's how awesome I think this new addition will make this novel. Just give me a couple extra days of patience and I should have Chapter 7 out their for you. I hope you will enjoy the change. It should be apparent once you read chapter 7. I don't really want to change my outline to often because it could effect the flow of all the plots I have planned but its safe to say that I think this will improve the story and needed to be dropped into your imagination.
P.S. I will start asking most of my reviewers for some advise on certain things for changes so please if your haven't reviewed and rated my work, do so. The bigger the pool of criticism the better as a novelist I can become. Please whether you hate, love or only care a bit about my writing please rate and review my work. I do want to get better and maybe one day be good enough to let my poor ass make a bit of money off of my imagination.
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