Boarding the Ozymandias was an odd experience. I knew that the interior of the ship would be different from what I was used to on the Cairo, that much was obvious. Not only was the Ozymandias built for an entirely different purpose, it was built in an entirely different era. The Cairo was a slapped together warship built by the Terran Federation nearly three hundred years ago after its first contact with alien life, that being pirates and slavers. The Ozymandias was built 15 years ago and was purpose built to threaten our enemies. Yet even with that knowledge, I hadn’t expected the interior corridors to look so… sleek.
The walls were a dark gray color, occasionally broken up by polished steel access panels marked with words and eye catching identifiers. The ceiling was lined with long light strips, glowing with a warm, slightly yellow light. The floor was a dark brown, almost bark-like color with more occasional access panels. There wasn’t an exposed pipeline or air duct in sight.
Sitting on a chair by the airlock was a young man of about 21, reading something on a tablet, who looked up as we entered, then stood. He was shorter than me, standing at a bit under 6 feet, with sandy blonde hair and with what looked to be a pair of ocular implants, painting his eyes with a slightly metallic blue sheen. He gave the lieutenant an easy salute as we stepped forwards.
“Sir.”
“Eventful watch, Sven?”
“Not a chance in hell sir,” he said, a lazy grin spreading across his face.
“Damien, this is Sensor Technician Second Class Sven Eriksson. Sven, this is Engineman Third Class Damien Manelis, here to replace Carmichael,” said Lieutenant Michaels, as Sven offered me his hand.
“Nice to meet you Damien,” he said, as we shook hands. “Can’t believe we’re finally getting someone to replace that asshole.”
“Nice to meet you too,” I said, before his words caught up to me. “Asshole?”
The lieutenant cut in to ease my confusion. “Carmichael tends to pick fights with just about everyone, and in the four months he has been aboard, he has proven himself incapable of improving his behavior. He's been confined to quarters for the past three weeks after he struck the Doctor during a psychological evaluation. Not the kind of person you want aboard when you’re drifting lightyears from the nearest star for months at a time.”
“I... suppose that makes sense,” I said, then turned to Sven. “I have to ask, why’s a Sensor Tech standing watch by the door?”
“I drew the short straw,” he told me, shrugging. “It’s rare that we’re in port without it being shore leave, and when it’s shore leave, the Ozzie typically goes into drydock so sitting here in port like this is a pretty unusual situation. The AI could probably handle this on its own, but the captain likes there to always be someone monitoring the situation for redundancy’s sake.”
“I hate to cut this conversation short,” Lieutenant Michaels cut in, “But Damien here has an appointment to get to with the XO, and we wouldn’t want to make him late.”
“Sorry sir. I’ll get out of your way,” said Sven, sliding back into his chair as the lieutenant and I continued onwards down the corridor.
After a few moments of walking in silence, I looked towards the lieutenant.
“Sir,” I said carefully. “May I ask a question?”
“You just did,” Lieutenant Michaels said with a smile. “But you can ask another.”
“Is this ship really the one that…”
“Cracked Hexel 3 after the slaves were evacuated?”, he asked, chuckling to himself. “No. I’ve heard those rumors about the Ozzie as well, but no. That was the Helen of Troy. We cracked the station hidden above the north pole of Hexel 6, where the Yiaska pirate clans kept their hideout for the upper ranks of their hierarchy. The first time that beauty over there was really put through its paces,” he said pointing through a window along the hallway to our right.
I looked through the window and what I saw nearly caused me to stumble. An enormous pair of rails sat in a long narrow room that looked absolutely coated in armor and magnetic shielding, the faint silver light of the shields dancing over the thick plating. Two pairs of spikes jutted out of the floor at each end of the rails. The strange devices were powered down at the moment, but from the massive quantities of cables streaming out of the devices and into the floor, I could tell that they used a massive amount of energy.
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“Wormhole generators,” he said, his eyes following mine. “The payload is tractored onto the rails while the front of the ship opens up, then the rod is accelerated by the rails into the forward wormhole and out of the rear one. Takes a few hours to get the things up to speed before we disengage the wormholes and release the payload.”
Now I was just confused. I’d honestly never heard of artificial wormholes before. You’d think that if you could create a permanent way for non FTL-capable ships to get around I would have heard of someone using it, but no. No one, human or otherwise made artificial wormholes to travel.
“I don’t understand sir, aren’t artificial wormholes impossible?”
“No, it’s just that they have very limited range. What we have there is nearly the maximum distance of what we can make without the wormholes becoming unstable.”
“Huh.”
“Come on Damien, take your mind off the big fancy gun. You want to make a good impression with the command staff right? Just keep your head clear and focus on the meeting ahead. We’re almost there.”
—
Lieutenant Michaels hit the buzzer next to the door, and a voice rang out of a hidden intercom.
“Come in.”
The office that we entered was rather spartan for a Terran Navy Lieutenant Commander’s workspace. On the Cairo, it had been a comparatively enormous room, with a deep and intricately patterned carpet, multiple couches, and what had looked like a desk made from genuine wood. This room was the polar opposite. It was small, almost cramped, with a single shelf carrying stacks of files, two metal chairs bolted to the floor, and a desk that seemed to double as a holo-projector. The only concession to luxury was a tall, and very comfortable looking chair. On that chair sat Lieutenant Commander Tavarov.
He was a gruff looking man, with a short beard and clipped salt and pepper hair. His eyes carefully scrutinized me as the lieutenant and I stood at attention. He stared, searching me for something, though for the life of me I couldn’t say what. After a moment, he nodded to himself, seemingly in confirmation. A barely perceptible smile broke through his impassive mask.
“At ease, gentlemen,” he said, nodding to the two chairs. “Sit, please.”
I felt the tension in my shoulders drain away slightly as Lieutenant Michaels and I each took a seat.
“EN3 Manelis, I am Lieutenant Commander Anatoli Tavarov, the Executive Officer of this ship. On behalf of the captain and the crew, welcome aboard,” said the officer.
“Thank you sir, it’s an honor to be here.”
“Now let’s see here…” he muttered, bringing up a holographic display above his desk. “It says here you were born on a research vessel en route to the colony in the Rigel system, is that correct?”
“Yes sir,” I said. “My mother was immigrating for work. She’s a botanist, working on the terraforming project.”
“I see,” he said, his eyes scanning the screen before him. “Grew up on station, moved planetside at age ten, joined the navy at eighteen…”
I waited in silence until he found what he was looking for.
“Ah. So, spacer. I understand that your first posting was on the TNV Cairo as an Ordinary Spacer, is that correct?
“Yes sir.”
“And a year into your service, you were transferred into engineering and fast tracked to the rating of Engineman after a minor incident aboard the ship.”
“Yes sir.”
“Tell me what happened please, in your own words.”
I took a deep breath to blurt everything out, then stopped myself. If I was going to tell this story, I was going to tell it right.
“Well sir,” I began, “It started with a wobble in the magnetic containment field of the reactor. There was a bit of antimatter that escaped containment. Only a couple of atoms of antihydrogen really, but it was enough. It touched the shell of the reactor and annihilated with the matter there. Not enough to actually be noticeable at first, but enough that the energy from the annihilation put a tiny fracture in the shell.”
“It was fine at first but after a couple of days there started to be, I guess you could call it stuttering, in our power generation. There was a tiny amount of annihilation radiation leaking from the reactor. Not enough to harm humans, but enough to cause problems for the algae vats, and we started to drift from optimal conditions in environmental. The environment to keep the algae producing the right amount of oxygen is fragile anyway, so unexpected radiation pretty easily threw things off.”
“The environmental techs were tearing their hair out trying to figure out what was wrong. I was helping them haul components at the time and I suggested that maybe the reactor problems from a few days ago had disrupted something. They contacted engineering, found the problem, and we headed right back to port to get the shell repaired.”
“Soon after, the captain called me to his office and said he thought I had the right mindset for engineering, and he had me shadowing the engineering crew and studying until I got my rating. In all honesty sir, it was mostly just me being a third party that pointed out a lack of communication between two divisions, but I got my rating in the end. After that, I had to get a new posting due to the lack of open slots in the engineering crew on the Cairo.”
Lieutenant Commander Tavarov smiled then, a genuine, full smile. “And that’s when they sent you over to us.”
“Yes sir.”
“Well then, EN3 Manelis,” he said, getting to his feet. Lieutenant Michaels and I quickly got to our feet as well. “I think you’ll do just fine here. Lieutenant Michaels will show you to your bunk where you can deposit your personal belongings, then he’ll hand you over to our duty chief, Lieutenant de Soto who will give you the grand tour. You’ll have no duties today, as I’m sure this has been a bit fast for you, so take your time today and get to know the crew,” he said, taking my hand and giving it a firm shake. “Dismissed.”