Location, USS Camper Van, deep space
“Oh you have got to be kidding me.” Elliott whined as a priority message from the ship's captain popped up in the corner of his heads up display.
“I swear, that bitch only messages me for two reasons. Either she wants me to make something do something that it's not supposed to, or she wants me to fix something.” He continues complaining, while bringing up the ship's self diagnostic.
“Nothing seems out of the ordinary…” He sighs. “Alright, let's see what she wants me to break this time” He says, finally pulling up the message to view it.
Valerie Williams:
| Navigation systems aren't working properly. Fix it.
“You couldn't have been any more vague?” He sighs again, before putting together a response
Elliott Carter:
| The ship says everything is in working order, can you describe the issue?
He waits a few minutes for a reply, absentmindedly stroking a nearby pipe. If it really was urgent, she would reply. Otherwise she would forget and not respond, and he wouldn't have to deal with it.
Valerie Williams:
| Come to the bridge and see for yourself.
He sighed. “Nothing else to it, captain's orders.” He mutters, gathering the miscellaneous tools of the floor of his previous worksite before making his way to the nearest access shaft, and begins his gentle float ‘up’ the shaft.
Exiting the shaft once he arrives at the primary level of the ship, he takes a moment to reorient himself, the sudden changes in gravity not playing nice with his senses.
‘I want to pummel whoever decided those shafts were a good idea. Not only are they another thing I have to maintain, but the nausea and disorientation could get you killed in an emergency.’ This time he kept his thoughts to himself, as he wasn't on any of the engineering levels of the ship. Here, someone might actually hear him.
After taking a minute or so to get his bearings, he reluctantly continues his short trek to the bridge.
It really was short, taking just under a minute to arrive at the door. Pressing the button on the side, and waiting for the captain to let him in.
Not ten seconds later, the door opens. ‘Faster than usual, whatever isn't working must really be pissing her off’ he thinks, stepping into the bridge-
“Ah, you are finally here” says the captain, her voice sounding Regal as ever. “Have a look at this.” She points to a rather impressive display, displaying what appeared to be a live feed of a star system, then to the navigation hologram being displayed in the center of the room.
The hologram is displaying the position of the USS Camper Van, relative to the star systems of the galaxy. “The navigation system is insisting that this star system doesn’t exist.”
Before the captain can start her next sentence, Elliott looks to the navigator and asks “Have you double checked the position of the system? You aren't just looking in the wrong spot?” Elliott felt bad bringing the poor navigator to the center of attention, he knew it was shy, he just couldn't stand to let that useless excuse of a captain utter one more word.
The navigator nods “I- I have, triple checked it even. I also even tried logging the system to the database, it worked, b- but not two seconds later it was gone again. I t- tried it again only to get the same results.”
Elliott made a mental note to get the navigator’s name, it had provided actually usable information, and had actually tried to remedy the situation.
Elliott had no idea what might be causing such a strange and specific issue, but he figured reinstalling the software would fix the issue. With a plan of attack in mind, he explained his plan.
“I am going to try and reinstall the navigation system from the backup, you haven't logged any star systems since we last synchronized with the net right?”
The navigator shook its head “n- no, I don't think so.”
“Alright then, I will be back with a copy from the backup” Elliott says, leaving the bridge before the captain starts her yapping again.
He regretted his decision the moment he got to the access shaft. Resigning himself to more discombobulation, he steps into the shaft and starts climbing ‘down’ to the main engineering deck.
After taking another minute to get his orientation back, Elliott heads for the room labeled ‘software engineering’
He quickly made for the leftmost terminal, painted all black and ominous, and separated from the rest of the systems in the ship.
The transfer device was already sitting in its slot, waiting for an occasion like this one.
Elliott powered up the tall black rectangle with a screen on it, and went about setting the data to transfer. Now all he had to do was wait.
.
.
.
So it turns out the map of the entire known galaxy, the hyperspace jump calculator, and whatever else fell under the category of navigation system, was a LOT of data. The transfer process was taking longer than he'd like. This fact was made even more apparent by the captain sending another message.
Valerie Williams:
| Where are you? It's almost been twenty minutes!
He sighed, and looked at the screen. It simply displayed a loading bar, with 99% over the center of it. Just like it had two minutes ago.
“Ninety nine percent my ass.”
Of course, right as he said that, it finished.
“Of course, right as I say that, it finishes. Guess I better tell her I'll be up soon” He says to himself as he makes sure to properly eject the transfer device.
Elliott Carter:
| Download is taking a while. Ninety eight percent done. I'll be up shortly.
Grabbing the transfer device, he shuts down the terminal, and sets course for the bridge again, only stopping to once again reorient himself after traversing the access shaft again.
Arriving at the bridge, he was let in before he could even hit the access button.
“Finally! About time. Now hurry up and get it working again.” The captain demanded impatiently.
He walked over to the navigation console, plugging in the transference device, and waited for it to do it's thing.
The captain looked to the navigator
“Well, what are you waiting for? Bring up the navigation holo!” she demanded.
“C- Captain… I can't. It's still d- downloading” replied the navigator.
“So, what. We're just dead in the void? We can't go anywhere?” Asked the captain exasperatedly.
“N- not necessarily” the navigator replied.
‘Why would you say that’ Elliott thought, doing the mental equivalent of a facepalm.
“Not necessarily? Explain.” said the captain.
“W-we could manually calculate the necessary information to make a jump and feed it directly into the…” he trailed off, realising his mistake.
‘You fucking dumbass. Did you seriously think that there was any possibility she wasn't going to tell you to do that?’ Elliott kept the rude remark in his head, not wanting to look bad in front of the rest of the bridge crew, who had wisely remained silent.
“Then do so, I am tired of waiting. I want to visit that star system.” the captain complained.
“That goes for all of you.” She continued. “I want all hands solving these calculations.”
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Elliott sighed, he knew this was coming. He knew making a jump like this was unsafe, but losing his reputation and his job was less so. At least the luxury yacht was equipped with the best sensors on the market, and he was getting paid handsomely for putting up with the captain's antics. Always good to look on the bright side of things.
‘Look. As long as no one fucks up the equations, well be fine.’ he consoled himself.
Then he had an idea. Being the heir to one of the megacorps of the galaxy, the captain had to have a good education.
‘Hell, I bet the captain could probably do most of the equations necessary in her head. She could probably cut off at least twenty percent of the calculations I would have to do, and she could probably do them better too.’ he thought.
“Captain, you’re smart, right?” Elliott queried
“Who do you think I am!?” She replied, sounding offended.
“Sorry, sorry, I was just thinking that you could probably do most of the calculations in your head, faster and more precisely than the rest of us. It would get us moving faster, and you would have to spend less time waiting. Win win for everyone” Elliott said, feeling a little bit smug.
“I- very well. I shall assist in these calculations” the captain replied, almost begrudgingly.
“Guess I have some work to do. I'll be in engineering if you need me, like usual” Elliott decided now was as good a time as any to take his leave.
Just the thought of spending a second longer than necessary in the presence of the captain was enough to make him cringe mentally.
.
.
.
Half an hour later, he had finished all the calculations the navigator had passed off to him, and sent them back for review. He was sure he hadn't missed anything, but it never hurt to have a trained pair of eyes check the calculations that could make the difference between life and death.
There was a reason only highly trained crew on exploration ships manually calculated their traversal of the stars. One wrong calculation could spaghettify the entire ship and spread you across the galaxy. That was an extreme example, but it had happened, and that was why people used computers to calculate things like that.
Yet here he was, waiting for the rest of their crew to finish their allotment of work, so they could jump manually. All because the captain was too impatient to wait for the navigation program to hard reset.
Elliott then remembered he had sent the malfunctioning copy to the software engineering room to figure out what went wrong with it, and perhaps send in the fix later for a moderate sum of credits. He might be able to afford real food next time they stopped by a somewhat developed spaceport, not just the shitty imitations you found at fast food restaurants.
He had to admit, the shitty imitations weren't that bad, they just weren't great.
Picking through the code, he decided to use what the navigator had found as a starting point. It didn't take him long to find the cause, simply tracking the code that ran within a second of the start system disappearing, and the code revealed itself.
“the fuck?!” Elliott exclaimed.
“which fuck built code to erase this specific system into the base code!?” he complained.
“If I just delete this- nope that just kills the entire program” he said as he tried to fix the issue.
“Is it just a troll on the dev team? Or…” he wondered aloud.
“Or is someone hiding something.” he finished, his voice taking on a more sinister tone.
Elliott seems to look at a whole slew of apparently random snippets of code
“The fuck? How is it that every fucking function of this entire program depends on that one code block” Elliott said, growing agitated
“Someone is definitely hiding something. That or someone is playing a very elaborate prank. I should probably tell the captain before she jumps into something she shouldn't” he concluded
Elliott sent an emergency comms request to the bridge as fast as the terminal would allow him. You would think that it would be easy, but no. He had to go through password after password, and confirmation after confirmation. Finally he managed to get the request sent.
The captain appeared on the screen.
“Engineer, we were about to engage the jump drive. What is the emergency?” The captain asks, sounding slightly irritated.
“I was digging through the code of the navigation system to see if I could figure out what went wrong. It's not an error. Someone doesn't want this system found. Either someone is hiding something, or someone is playing a very elaborate prank. I can't fix it without just about rewriting the entire thing. I'm serious. We might be in over our hea-” Elliott was speaking only to be interrupted by the captain.
“Someone is hiding something? Sounds like all the more reason to go look!” The captain says excitedly
“Engage!” She orders loudly
“Oh right. I have to press the button” she says, pressing the button.
The hyperfield lattice adorning the USS Camper Van begins to glow brightly, and Elliott can hear the hyperdrive begin to rev up. The bits, bobs, gears and other miscellaneous components start to sing their melodious song, a song that seemed to tell the tale of weaving between space, elegantly dancing among the stars, and a proud voyage.
It didn't take long for the USS Camper Van to get on its way, as expected of a luxury yacht.
Elliott sits there, taking a minute to process what just happened, then decides he needs to scream, quickly cutting the call. It wouldn't do to ruin his rep over carelessness after all.
“WE'RE ALL GONNA FUCKING DIEEEE” he screams, taking a second to refill his lungs.
“Guess I better make sure she's ready to make emergency maneuvers the moment we get back in real space. I don't want to get slapped by a giant laser or something as we enter” he mutters, sending a message to the pilot, giving them a heads up in case they didn't get the memo.
Elliott Carter:
| Hey, in case you didn't get the memo, it is highly likely that someone doesn't want this system found. The instant we get in realspace I want you to hit evasive maneuvers like we are about to die. We have no idea what is waiting for us on the other side. Could be a fleet of warships, could be a giant laser fed by a Dyson swarm. Just in case, I'm going to juice up the engines with my own special concoction, which should give you roughly 9.35 times the thrust you are used to. Only have enough to give you a hundred or so seconds of boost, but should get us out of Dodge for long enough to blind jump out of danger. And be ready, because the dampeners are only rated for double
Sending the message away, Elliott got up and quickly made his way to the place he kept his concoction. Grabbing the container adorned with a label that read ‘booster juice’ on it. Apparently it was an old Earth company that had sold drinks. He had thought it was funny at the time. Actually he still thought it was funny. He didn't have time to laugh right now though.
Somewhere along the way to the engine room he grabbed his tool box, and an extra vehicular activity suit.
Donning the suit once he reached the engine room, he prepared the makeshift injection apparatus he had built, something he had learned to do after his first encounter with pirates nearly got him killed
Attaching the container to the apparatus was not exactly easy, this was unfortunately necessary. If the container came loose mid injection, there might as well be a thruster firing in the engine room, requiring a complete engine shutdown to fix.
A little more than minute after he had finished securing the bottle the yacht gracefully began exiting hyperspace
Hearing the telltale signs of the song coming to its close, Elliott panicked a little, trying to find something to hold onto, he decided that the frame would probably be his best bet. It probably wasn't, but it's better than holding onto a pipe and risking whatever systems relied on said pipe.
Elliott clamped his arms and legs around the doorframe, and not a moment too soon. Seconds later, he felt immense G-forces as the ship began to lurch and rotate, the hull groaning under the pressure. He was pretty sure this was at least twice the force he had calculated for.
“C'mon girl, you got this, you got this.” he tried encouraging the ship.
It wasn't enough. The USS Camper Van shook violently as it was grazed by a projectile traveling at unreasonable speeds, tearing a large gash in the side of the ship.
The thrusters were still firing. This was good. It meant that they weren't dead in the void.
It was then that Elliott realised he could see outside of the ship, and he was very glad he was already holding on for dear life, and wearing an E.V.A. suit
In hindsight he probably should have depressurized the area, but oh well.
he bet if they were to make it out of this alone that pilot was going to get a party raise.
He looked at the counter ticking down in the corner of his heads up display.
[75]
He hoped his captain would be competent enough to hit the blind jump in the next 25 seconds
[70]
Then he hoped she wasn't, because the hyperfield lattice was compromised.
[65]
Elliott wasn't sure what he could do at this point, surely, after all he'd been through, it wouldn't end this time. Right?
[60]
Something didn't feel right. Elliott could quite put his finger on it though.
[55]
Was it just Elliot? Or was it warmer than usual in here?
[50]
The insane G-forces stopped.
“Fuck, looks like time is up.” No sooner had he said that, the call for all hands to abandon ship rang through the ship. Or rather just the sections that had air left at all. Of course, this did not include the engine room.
[40]
Elliott got to work fast. He realised that if he ever wanted to leave this system, he needed the ship in orbit, with the hyperdrive intact.
[30]
He found his way to the main engineering console, which he knew could mimic most of the consoles on the ship. It was a well guarded secret among engineers. Many captains didn't like the idea that someone else could access their controls.
[20]
He keyed in the necessary commands to access the pilot’s console.
[10]
He programmed the ship's autopilot to head for the orbit of the nearest habitable looking world.
[0]
The engines blazed, beginning to push the ship onto an orbital trajectory.
Eventually, the ship informed him that it had achieved a stable orbit, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
“Holy fuck, alright. Maybe I can make it out of this alive after all. I might even get compensated if I can rescue the captain.” he said optimistically.
The next projectile chose that exact moment to make a large hole from one side of the ship to the other, erasing the ship's reactor in the process.
“Oh fuck me, I jinxed it” Elliott whined.
“Now what… I guess I just sit here and hope they don't decide to evaporate the remains of the USS Camper Van, and me along with it?” Elliott mutters
A flashing notification on the engineering terminal grabs his attention. It reads:
Warning: collision course with undiscovered planet. Estimated time to impact: seventy hours .
“Oh well fuck me sideways and around the corner. The situation has not gotten better since I woke up. This day keeps getting worse.”