My alarm blared into my ear, alerting me that yes, now was the time to wake up fucker, get moving. I slapped the damn thing to shut it up and disengaged my privacy screen. In the berth, Emily and a member of the crew I didn’t know were playing cards.
She smiled and said, “Bout to have your first watch aboard?”
“Yeah,” I yawned. “Gonna be on the slipspace drive. Should be fun.”
The other person at the table, a woman with black hair in a short buzz cut, held out her hand from her seat. “Hey. ST1 Kamala Samaan.”
I shook her hand, yawning once more. “EN3 Damien… Manelis. Sorry, need some coffee or something.”
She smiled. “Hey, it’s all good man,” she said. “You’re still adjusting. Give it some time, and you’ll be flying out of bed ready to go every time.”
“I hope so,” I mused, then went to my locker to grab the clean suit. As I opened it, I saw the back panel of the locker open up, and a robotic arm extended from the space behind the locker and deposited my other freshly cleaned suit on a hook. I shrugged, then shut the locker and went to have a shower and make a trip to the head.
After bidding farewell to Emily and Kamala, I went to the mess to grab my food, some kind of stew, and a large mug of coffee for myself. I headed over to Phil, and a large man I had not yet met, who introduced himself as EN2 Joseph Cheng. The three of us ate mostly in silence until all of us were notified by our tablets that our watch would begin in 15 minutes.
As we all walked down to engineering, Phil turned to me and asked, “You on the slipspace drive?”
“Yup. Going to be pretty much constantly monitoring the thing, and I’ve got to do both a visual inspection and a deeper scan of the fuel and coolant lines at some point,” I replied, double checking my tablet.
“Well that'll be fun,” said Joseph with just a hint of sarcasm. “I’m on primary propulsion today, so all I’m really going to need to do is sit there and monitor the automatic self checks.”
We soon reached engineering, and split off to head to our separate duties. I arrived at the slipspace drive, where I was met by Layla. “Hey, Damien. Have a good nap?” she asked, smiling.
“Yeah, I’m still a bit tired but I’ve got some coffee in me and I should be fine. My standing orders are the same as yours, monitor the drive and send up an alert if any problems arise”
“Alright, good. So, the logs…”
We spent the next few minutes going over the logs, AI generated reports and diagnostics that had been performed during her watch. A few stray neutrinos here, a minor energy spike within slipspace there, nothing major. She had performed inspections of the strong nuclear force regulator and the particle collision sensors as had been ordered, and the drive was ready for me to take over the watch.
“Well,” she said, stretching her arms over her head. “I guess we’re good to go then.”
“Alright,” I responded. “EN1 Emmerson you are relieved of duty, I have the watch.”
She stood. “EN3 Manelis, you have the watch.”
She made her way out of the area and I took a look up at the slipspace drive. Contrary to the design aesthetics of the rest of the ship, it was a bulky thing. A mass of pipelines and reaction chambers and exotic matter containment units, thrumming with astronomical quantities of energy. I shook my head at the dichotomy of it all and sat at the primary terminal to begin my watch.
—
The watch was pretty uneventful. Sit at the terminal, watch the logs, acknowledge all of the automated diagnostics. The only time anything really happened was when I went to do my inspections of the fuel and coolant lines, and even then it was just because I was multitasking to some small extent. I just slaved my tablet to the terminal and kept an eye on the logs as I made my way around the drive and through the crawl spaces, alternating between scanning the pipelines and inspecting the data on my tablet. Soon enough, Galina showed up to take over.
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“Hey Galina,” I said as she entered.
“Hi,” she replied quietly.
We performed the same song and dance Layla and I had done six hours previously, going over logs, checking diagnostics, blah blah blah. The clock soon hit 0000 and it was time.
“EN3 Manelis you are relieved of duty,” she stated formally. “I have the watch.”
“EN2 Romanova, you have the watch.” I left the room, and she settled in for what was sure to be another uneventful time on duty. Phil and Joseph met with me as I left engineering and we headed up to the mess together.
“So Damien, how was your first time on watch aboard the Ozzie?” asked Phil, an easy smile on his face.
“Eh, pretty standard to be honest,” I replied. “The automated diagnostics fired off more often than I’m used to, but then again the Cairo didn’t usually spend much time in slipspace.”
“That was your old ship right?” inquired Joseph. “What was it like over there?”
“I mean, from what I understand it was your typical cruiser,” I said. “I was an ordinary spacer for most of my time over there, so there were a lot of errands for the most part. Hauling supplies, roving watches, that sort of thing. There were a lot more people on board and we didn’t really have as much AI support as we’ve got over here, so there was a lot of menial labor.”
“Not a lot of time in engineering then?” asked Phil.
“Eh, I mean, I spent a couple of months shadowing the engineering guys after the captain suggested it, but there weren’t any slots in the crew for me to take over after I got my rating so I got sent over here.”
“Huh,” mused Joseph.
We all ate our meals and headed off to enjoy our time off. I went to borrow a set of weights from the rec closet, and to return the neural patch that I had forgotten about in all of the activity surrounding our departure. I spent the next hour or so exercising, frequently referencing materials regarding exercise and fitness on long haul spacecraft. My session with the Doc would be soon, so I grabbed a quick shower and made my way to his office.
—
“Come in,” came the stern voice after I buzzed the door to signal my arrival. I had only seen him in passing before. He was rather short, with a face that looked like it would brook no bullshit from anyone. The red mark I had seen on his nose had noticeably faded since I had first come aboard. His uniform marked him as a lieutenant and there was a Deep Space Medical insignia attached to the breast. As I entered, another enlisted man I vaguely remembered from the Maelstrom exited the room, nodding to me as he did so.
“EN3 Manelis, reporting for mandatory psychological evaluation as ordered, sir,” I said.
“At ease, spacer,” he said calmly. “Sit please.” I did so, taking the seat in front of his desk in the cramped space and he continued. “I am Lieutenant Takeda Hitoshi, though I prefer to be referred to by my title as Doctor. Or perhaps Doc, as is the tradition. The one who just left is my aide, HM1 Matthias Cranston.”
“A pleasure to meet you sir,” I replied.
“Likewise. Now, let’s jump right into it shall we? I understand you grew up in the Rigel colony…”
We spent the next hour talking about my life. Growing up with just my mom, living on a space station, helping out in a lab, everything. He was quite good at nudging me towards the important details and then just letting me elaborate. Soon though, our time was up.
“Well Damien, it looks like that will be all for today,” he said, saving and closing out the notes he had been taking. He stood and held out his hand for me to shake, and I followed suit. “Again, it has been a pleasure to meet you.”
“Thank you sir,” I responded, and was dismissed. I headed back to my berth to relax for a while. I’d had a lot going on for the past couple of days, and I needed to unwind. After a few hours of reading, chatting with those of my bunkmates who I was familiar with and eating the final meal of my day, I fell asleep.
—
The next couple of weeks followed the same pattern. Six on, twelve off. Wake up, get food, stand watch, get food, do whatever, get food, sleep. Occasionally the “do whatever” portion of my schedule would contain maintenance tasks or cleaning that the AI controlled robots weren’t quite able to perform, but they were mostly routine and didn’t break up the schedule too much. When a ship is a closed system there aren’t many places where new dirt can come from.
It was shortly before my watch, at 1730 when the announcement reverberated throughout the ship. “All hands, we are transitioning back down to realspace in two minutes, I repeat, transition back down to realspace in two minutes.”
I placed my tablet down on the table where I was seated in the mess, and waited. A few moments later, everything seemed to contract slightly and the background hum of the slipspace drive faded away.
“All hands, transition successful. Set the regular holding watch.”
From what I understood, the holding watch was easy street for those of us in the engineering crew, simply doing regular maintenance and making sure nothing broke. The ship wasn’t moving, so the drives wouldn’t be getting stressed. For the sensor and comm techs it was go time. They had to make sure that nobody could find us and that we would be able to quickly comply with any firing orders if they ever came.
I ate my meal and headed down to engineering to begin my watch. I had the vaunted and grand privilege of performing the highly comprehensive post-drop inspection of the slipspace drive. Fun.