Battleship Trafalgar

System Unknown

Grace followed Lieutenant Commander Chase into the Trafalgar’s main engine room, where several of his team were currently working on the ship’s systems. Chase had found a dark blue ship’s coverall for Grace so she could change out of her EV suit. It even had a battleship Trafalgar mission patch on the right shoulder

“What?” she asked defensively when he noticed she was taking occasional glances at it. “It’s iconic, retro, old school.” Chase couldn’t fault her logic. “Besides, it means we’re both military now,” Grace said with a cheeky smirk.

“Nope,” said Chase, not messing around; he had worked hard for the right to wear his uniform and was not amused by someone wearing one in jest.

Wokoma and Dryden were looking at various options to get the engine up and running.

“You’re right,” Wokoma was saying. “That should work,”

“Yes, I think so,” agreed Dryden. “All we need,” he said before Grace charged at him, throwing him off his feet, causing him to crash hard onto the deck. Chase heard the painful sound of Dryden’s head making contact with deck plating. Grace had Dryden pinned down and was shouting obscenities.

“You absolute bastard!” Grace screamed. “Where’s my ship?” while laying in body blows. She looked as if she was about to stand up, only to throw her fist into Dryden’s face. That was going to leave a black eye. He then managed to kick her off, sending Grace across the engine room as he did so.

“Get the hell off me!” he screamed, marching back at her. She was on her feet, and Chase was worried that Dryden would go for his sidearm.

Grace, however, was a different story. She spotted the weapon in its holster and lunged for it. Before she could reach the gun, Dryden jumped back against a bulkhead.

“The hell are you doing?” Dryden screamed at her. She took a second swing at him, and this time.

Wokoma dropped and pulled out her own sidearm, aiming it at the newcomer.

Hoping he could restore the situation before anyone was vaporised, Chase yelled, “Everyone calm down,” holding his arms out wide, palms out flat. Panting, Grace caught sight of Wokoma’s pistol and backed off. Clearly still furious.

“Miss. Dakota, would you mind telling me why you are assaulting our engineer?”

She kept her eyes fixed on Dryden.

“He’s not your engineer; he’s my ex, the one that left me for dead on that frozen wreck of—”

“Come off it” Dryden said. “You were never in any danger.” Grace’s eyes went wide at the suggestion.

“Of course, I was in danger! The only reason you’re saying I might not have been in danger is because I actually managed to get out of there, which I almost didn’t several times.” She was shaking, rage getting the better of her.

“Is this true, Dryden?” Chase demanded of him.

“No… sort of,” he admitted.

“Dryden, we’ll discuss this later,” Chase said. “Grace, what were we just talking about? The requirement to work together in the face of a common enemy. If what you’re saying is true, then Scott Dryden is the best engineer we have, and we’re gonna need him in what’s to come.”

This did not have the calming effect that Chase had hoped.

“He’s a mediocre engineer at best,” spat Grace.

“If I’m such a shit engineer, why did you offer to split the proceeds with me?” Dryden said.

“Because I couldn’t get Eric MacArthur,” said Grace, getting more exacerbated. Dryden was taken aback by this.

“You asked MacArthur before me?” he said.

“It was an insane plan. I’d asked ten engineers before I got to you,” said Grace, now hurting him more than when she had been landing blows.

“I didn’t even make the top ten!” yelled Dryden.

Chase started edging closer; moving quickly, Grace noticed and relaxed allowing him to grab the gun and get it out of Grace’s hands.

Wokoma stood up and holstered her weapon.

“Okay, now let’s let cooler heads prevail,” said Chase.

Looking down, he saw where Dryden had been thrown on the deck; items lay there with the ship’s logo embossed upon it, the things collectors tended to go for.

“What’s all this?” asked Chase.

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“Nothing,” said Dryden, wiping a bit of blood from his split lip.

“The hell are you doing stealing from a Navy warship, Dryden?” Chase asked.

“No one’s gonna miss it.”

“Stealing is what he does,” said Grace. “He stole my ship. What did you do with it? Are you giving it back?”

Dryden said, “No can do, I’m afraid. I can’t even split profits. You’re too late. “

“You sold my rental?!” Grace spat. She moved to punch again, but Chase held her back, grabbing both wrists behind her back. She struggled for a moment before giving up.

“I didn’t get much, but it was a quick sale,” said Dryden smugly.

“Fuck’s sake,” said Grace. “Do you have any idea how many years I will have to work to pay that off?”

“Now, don’t be like that,” said Dryden.

“What are you even doing here?” she asked.

“This is my day job. How do you think I knew the stuff we’d need to break an engine part out of that wreck? And which engine part we need? It’s because I’m part of the naval engineers,” said Dryden.

“I thought you operated a garbage scowl?!”

“I was on extended leave!”

Wokoma walked over to Chase. “Which one are you putting in the brig this time?” she asked him.

“You know how many people we have on the ship?” Chase asked her, “and how many of them are as good an engineer as Mr Dryden or have the historical knowledge of our archaeologist friend?”

“Well, neither are in overabundance,” agreed Wokoma.

“Exactly,” said Chase, attempting to keep his voice down.

“We need everyone we’ve got; we just can’t have them killing each other in the meantime.”

“Agreed,” he began, gathering the pieces and components from the deck and gave them to Wokoma to work on.

“So, you have a plan to get us up and running?” Chase asked the room.

“We think we can jumpstart it,” said Dryden.

“Jumpstart?” asked Chase, confused.

“It’s an outdated term; it has to do with cars,” explained Grace. “We can draw power from Mary Rose.”

“Yeah, that works,” agreed Dryden.

“What are you waiting for, Dryden? Get to it,” ordered Chase. Dryden didn’t exactly salute, but he gave a confirmation nod and headed back to the main engine drive. Dryden had committed theft, attempted murder, Chase wanted to throw the book at him, but that would have to wait until the mission was completed.

Grace stayed out of his way. Hopefully, Chase thought that would be it for now, but she wasn’t about to forgive someone like that, and Chase didn’t blame her.

Wokoma stared up at the Graviton Accelerator. The power systems hadn’t yet been restored, but Wokoma knew this was exactly what they needed to initiate start-up.

***

Chase watched as Wokoma, Dryden, and even Grace Dakota worked together to line up the systems for the power transfer from the Mary Rose.

“Okay,” Chase called out, “how are we looking?”

Dryden gave him the thumbs up. Chase walked over to his slate that he had rested on top of one of the Trafalgar’s engineering terminals. “This is it,” he tapped the comm. “Harding, we’re ready,” he said.

“Acknowledged,” came the reply. “Initiating transfer now.”

Chase braced himself, expecting the Trafalgar to shudder as if taking weapons fire, but of course, the systems transfer had no such side effects. Dryden had his own slate setup and was monitoring as it went across.

“Transfer is holding,” Dryden reported. It would take a couple of minutes to complete, but within moments, sounds began clanking and whirring, and lights flickered on. Various blue and red indicators lit up across the engine, and the deck plates below them started to vibrate as the ship woke up after centuries of slumber. The main lights in the engine room flashed on bright square light panels across the ceiling, activating one by one and filling the room with a balanced light that replicated daylight

“The engine is initialising,” reported Dryden.

“That’s excellent,” replied Chase. Dakota and Wokoma were looking around in wonderment, seeing an artefact come to life. “This is exactly how it would have been back when the ship first set out on its mission,” Wokoma said,

Suddenly, a glitch occurred, plunging them back into darkness and silence. A split second later, the emergency lighting kicked back in.