“This isn’t your normal shift Chief.” Captain Jan’Inar said to Chief Engineer Ura’Boron.
She was laying on her back on one of those odd carts with wheels as she worked on a panel in main engineering. She peered up at the Captain through the clear touch panel, “Working on the secondaries panel.”
The Captain looked down through the panel to the Engineer, “I can see that Chief, but I know you were on primary shift, we’re almost through secondary now.”
Putting down her tools she slid the cart out from under the panel and sat up, wiping her hands on a red rag she pulled from her pocket, the electrolytic grease for the contacts had managed to get everywhere thanks to gravity. “It’s been glitching, Riven can’t figure out what it is through diagnostics so I’m rewiring the whole panel.”
The Captain nodded, but continued, “That could have waited until tomorrow you know.”
Wiping a stray strand of black hair from her face she shook her head, “Five days until the big fight Captain, can’t have anything not running perfectly. Plenty to break between now and then and I don’t want us to lose secondary control of engineering in a fight.”
“Just don’t wear yourself thin, we’ll need you in the fight.” Jan’Inar stated plainly.
Grinning as she got to her feet and put away her red rag, “Same goes for you Ma’am, why may I ask are you in Engineering at this time of night?”
“I often walk the ship at odd hours. It’s good for the crew to see me, even when it isn’t my normal duty shift.” She shrugged.
Chief Engineer Ura’Boron walked over to the metal panel on the wall and unlocked it with her fingerprint before throwing a breaker. The panel came to life in front of the Captain, then Ura’Boron walked over and inspected the marvel of Human engineering. “Riven, can you run another set of diagnostics please?”
Riven’s voice answered from speakers in the ceiling, “Yes Chief, starting now, checking every circuit and connection. Full Pass Chief, but it has passed inspection before, keep an eye on it.”
The Engineer looked up to the ceiling, even though there was no reason to do so, “Thanks Riven, that will be all for me tonight.” Then turning to the Captain, “I’ll take my leave now Ma’am.”
Captain Jan’Inar nodded as she watched the Chief Engineer leave the compartment. “Thank you Riven, I’m a bit worried about her too. She’s been putting in far too many extra hours and I’ll need my crew fresh for combat.”
Riven’s tiny form shimmered into being on the freshly rewired panel. “You are welcome Ma’am, she’s fixated on everything being perfect, even though all my normal diagnostics show all systems are working fine.”
Looking over to the small version of Riven she nodded, “Just pre-combat jitters, not a bad thing for an engineer, but if she wears herself out chasing ghosts in the machines she won’t be in any shape when things really start going wrong.”
Riven looked up to the Captain, “With that, you should also get some rest Ma’am.”
Nodding to the small figure, “I know, heading to my quarters now. Good night Riven.”
The tiny figure shimmered out of existence, “Good night Ma’am.”
_________________________________
“They’re splitting up.” Erin stated aloud as she and Kara watched the holo-tank.
Alex whipped his head around from his strategy corner. “What?! Why?” He asked as he stomped over to the holo.
Erin manipulated the long range scans coming from the probes outside the Oort Cloud, “The five Ulraar vessels are changing course, they are heading directly for Alandra.”
“Fuck, that’s exactly what we didn’t want them to do!” Alex cursed as he watched the holo.
Kara watched him start pacing, “This was always one of the scenarios Alex.” She said in an almost whisper.
Alex stopped for a moment before running his hand through his close cropped hair, “I know, and it’s the one we fail in simulations more often than not.”
Erin looked over to Alex, “Change course on the ripple torpedoes?”
Alex shook his head, “No, the only time we’ve successfully won this scenario is when we kept the torpedoes on the pine cones.” Pinching the bridge of his nose he continued, “Message Admiral Nar’Vala, have her strike force setup near the mine field, then message everyone else, we’re on planetary defense.”
“Done.” Both Kara and Erin said at the same time before looking to each other and grinning.
Wiping his hand down his face he grinned at the two, “Yeah, that wasn’t creepy at all.”
“One of us! One of us!” They both chorused together before laughing at the face Alex was making at them.
Monty and Kelly popped into the common VR. Monty was the first to pipe up, “Not good big guy, you want me to stay on the ripple torps?”
Alex turned to face the two, “Yeah, stay on em, any chance the second batch will be up to speed in time to help?”
Monty shook her head, “Might get em up to 1%, which would work for the pine cones, but you’ve seen the Ulraar point defense, they’d have a little better chance than a regular torpedo, but not much better. Even at that speed there just won’t be enough momentum to break through those shields.”
“Keep em coming anyways, ten more of those big ass torpedoes might help somehow.” Alex said as he put his hands on his hips. “Kelly, keep the Empress informed of our new predicament, then spend as much time as you can by the communicator we took. Feed them whatever bullshit you can to tip this in our favor.”
John and Luke popped in along with Ally a few moments later, John was the first to speak, “We’ve been working out fleet maneuvers together, you sure about staying un-stealthed Alex?”
Shaking his head, Alex answered, “Hell no, but it’s worked in the simulations, if they decide to pop off a full scanner pulse they’ll see tons of stuff in the system, but they’ll focus on the decoy and the only ship with powered flight, hopefully if you stay in stealth and low power mode they’ll think you’re just extra equipment.”
Luke looked over to John, “If you’re running a powered orbit around Alandra it’ll take us a while to build up speed to catch up to you or them, you’ll be on your own for a while.”
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Sighing Alex turned to Kara, “That’s what the planetary defenses are for after all.”
Kara nodded, “Hopefully that will keep them busy long enough for you two to help.”
Riven, Izzy and Valarie then popped into the common VR. Alex turned to them, “Well, we know their battle plan now. Run your simulations with the crews on the current scenario, we have four days to prepare.”
All three nodded, “We’ve got our end, which will be the easier part. Still staying with the original plan?” Izzy asked.
“Yeah, unless someone comes up with something better that we can run scenarios on the Missive will be bait to bring them into range of the planetary defenses. We’re going to take a pounding.” Alex said looking down at his feet, hands still on his hips.
Luke turned to John, “We’d better get back to running simulations, catch the rest of you later tonight for poker at the pub?”
Nods and waves of agreements followed as the two popped out of the VR, followed by everyone but Alex and Kara. She walked over from the holo-tank to Alex and hugged him as he put his arms around her. “I haven’t been this worried since Birmingham.”
Rubbing her back Alex kissed her on the forehead, “Me too, but splitting the fleet can only mean one thing.”
“They’ve decided to wipe out the Alandran population?” Kara said quietly.
Alex nodded to her, “Give your enemy no ground to run to.” He said as he contemplated that the Ulraar were planning genocide. “Just like Birmingham, we have to make our stand here.”
_______________________________
John, Alex and Luke watched as the long range stealth probe left the system under ripple drive for the New Human Republic. “Good thing the girls came up with that new ripple torpedo, otherwise this would have taken us forever.” Luke said as they watched the holo-tank in Alex’s strategic corner.
“More like forever, but yeah, it didn’t need the massive engines to get it up to speed, so we could strip that out and put in a string radio and stealth field generator.” John said as he rubbed his back. Not really necessary in VR, but stretching and rubbing his muscles still felt good.
Alex swiped off the holo, “It won’t reach Human space until long after this battle is done, if we fail here, they need to know what happened.”
Luke sighed, “Feels like we’re sending out our tombstone.”
Alex and John both looked over to Luke, “Damn, that was dark.” John said as he gave Luke a raised eyebrow.
Luke blushed, “Yeah, my bad. Just a little on edge over the upcoming fight.”
“Don’t say anything like that around the girls, ok?” Alex said as he patted Lukes shoulder.
Nodding, he continued. “We’d better get to the pub, they’ll be waiting on us.”
As one, they all three popped out of the common VR and into the pub VR that John and Erin created.
The mood was the exact opposite from the one they left behind in the strategy corner. Monty was by far the loudest, pouring wine into glasses around the table while Izzy told a funny story about some ensigns on her ship who flooded their quarters with sewage trying to make a alcohol still from plumbing in their bathroom.
Tears were streaming down Izzy’s face as she told her story, “Captain Iri’Lon had me bypass the door lock only to find her two crew members covered from head to toe trying to sweep the mess back into the bathroom!”
“What did she do?!” Valarie asked as she raised her wine glass for Monty to refill.
Catching her breath she wheezed, “After retching a few times she asked me what happened, it took me a few mils to figure out they broke into a pressurized sewer line instead of the potable water line, it exploded out covering every surface of the bathroom and them! I had to shut down the waste management system and reverse the pumps to keep every liter of waste from pouring out through their room!”
Listening to the story John asked, “Why did they want to make a still? The galley has plenty of booze.”
Taking a drink from her wine glass and calming down a bit Izzy continued. “They wanted something stronger than in the galley, and they wanted to get around the ‘rum ration’ that the Captain has in effect.”
Valarie shook her head in disbelief, “Why did they need potable water for a still?”
Izzy laughed, “They didn’t! They just wanted the copper lines to make the still, and evidently they didn’t know that the big cylinder was a pressurized accumulator tank to stabilize the pressure of the waste in the lines before it went through the management system. They wanted the tank to construct the main body of the still.”
Erin chuckled, “So the second they cut into one of the lines it exploded the whole system into their bathroom?”
“Not just their bathroom, it went into their living quarters and out into the hallway of the ship as well.” Izzy said as she leaned back in her chair.
Kara leaned into Alex as he pulled up a chair beside her, “I take it the Captain was a bit upset?” He asked.
Nodding as she put her wine glass on the table, Izzy leaned forward, elbows on each side of her beverage, “She was furious! She had them and their whole shift working on cleanup, which didn’t win them any favors. Some of the names they’ve been called were a bit mean, if not accurate.”
“Wait, surely we label all our lines, even those in the walls when we construct the ships, right?” Monty asked as she poured Luke a beer from a huge pitcher.
Kara spoke up, understanding what happened. “Oh, we do, but those behind the walls are labeled in Imperial Gothic, not Alandran.”
The table erupted in laughter, Valarie giggled, “So they had a fifty-fifty chance of breaking into the water line or the sewer line and they got it wrong?”
“So wrong, and the worst thing is, if they broke into the water line there were automatic cut offs that would have prevented a flood, but their room was the last room on the way to engineering and the waste management system, so the last automatic cut off was in the room adjacent to them!” Izzy laughed.
Riven clicked her tongue, “Oh, that’s bad! So with the accumulator tank it would have taken some time for the system to shut down.”
“Hence why they were covered head to toe. I’m glad I don’t have olfactory sensors on board the ship, the crew said it was the worst thing they had ever smelled in their life.” Izzy coughed as she tried to regain her composure.
John raised his beer stein, “A Toast! To knowing Humans aren’t the only screw-ups in the universe!”
Everyone raised their drink of choice, clanking them together and laughing. After a moment or two Alex asked, “How’s the morale on the Alandran ships?”
Riven, Izzy and Valarie looked at one another before Riven answered, “Pretty high actually. They’re no fools, they know the only reason the Howron and Ulraar would split their forces and send the strongest part to Alandra was to scour it of all life. But unlike us, they’ve lived with that threat over their heads their whole lives. They see this as their one chance to throw off their oppressors.”
Nodding to himself Alex flourished his hands and a deck of cards appeared. “Alright then, who’s up for a few games?” He asked to the assembled crew of AI and Replicants.
Everyone cheered as he started dealing out cards, “Five card hold-em, Jokers wild. One chip starting bet.” He said as each person had a stack of chips materialize on the table in front of them.
Grimacing at his hand Luke said, “Gimmie three.” Tossing three cards into the center of the table as Alex tossed him three new cards in rapid succession. “Hey Riven, how is Admiral Nar’Vala holding up?”
Riven looked up from her cards, “Pretty good, she’s coordinating her strike group pretty well, so long as Captain Jan’Inar is there.”
Raising an eyebrow at this statement John spoke up as Izzy received replacement cards, “What happens if she isn’t part of the simulation?”
Riven sighed before continuing, “Give me two Alex, call Izzy.” She said as she threw in a chip to the center of the table. “Captain Jan’Inar is an excellent commander, she is smart and resourceful, but her backup, Lieutenant Lar’Iel is a bit timid. I can’t really fault her, she was a logistics officer before being chosen for this role. She’s getting better every time we run simulations.”
Alex looked over to Riven as he dealt Monty two new cards that might as well have been in those two ensigns room by the way she looked at them, “Do we need to replace her before the big fight?”
Riven tapped her cards on the table, “No, there is no one else on board that would do better, she just isn’t as decisive as Jan’Inar.”
Kelly grinned at her hand, “Captain Jan’Inar comes from a long line of naval commanders, she was practically born for this. Give me one if you would please Alex.” She said as she slid a card into the center of the table, calling Riven and pushing a chip in as well.
Izzy spoke up as Erin asked for two replacement cards, “We’re about as ready as we’ll ever be right now.”
Nodding as he slid Erin two cards and she folded grumpily. “Nothing to do now but wait for them to come to us.” He said looking to Ally.
She studied her cards, then requested one. Once receiving it she called and slid a chip into the center of the table.
Finally after everyone else it came to Kara, “No cards hun, I call Luke, and raise by three.”
Whistles and coughs came from around the table, John threw in his cards, “Too sweet for me with this terrible hand.”
“Same here.” Monty said as she threw in her cards
It came down to Kelly and Kara, everyone else folded, giving up their chance at the prize.
“Alright Kara, let’s see if you can beat… a full house, queens over threes.” Kelly stated, placing her hand down on the worn pub table.
Kara looked around before putting down her hand, four sevens. “Four of a kind, sevens.”
The table erupted with laughter, Kara reached in to gather her bounty of chips, pushing the cards over to Alex to reshuffle into the deck.
Kelly sat back and chuckled, “With a poker face like that, I would have recruited you into my ministry at once!”
They all laughed and played through the night.