Battleship Trafalgar

System Unknown

The engine room felt more like a cathedral, for the primary engine ran up through three decks. There were several balconies overlooking where Grace stood at the base. The lights were over lit and oppressive. She was sure there must be something easier on the eye, but her priority was finding the part she needed whilst she had air.

Grace had no idea what kind of timeframe she had to work in; the other ship could be docking at any moment, and she needed to get out. This ship was in good enough condition that the auxiliary craft could still be on board, but she had no time to waste checking if they were.

She needed to locate the part. Here it was worth nothing, but if she could get it off the ship, she would be a rich woman once she made it back to the cluster. So, for the moment, she was just going to work the problem and hope the rest fell into place. Previous to this expedition she had been meticulous, made plans, and stick to them. Something had changed in her character recently. Now she was someone who just jumped into escape pods and hoped for the best.

There was a small metallic ladder that ran adjacent to the engine and Grace climbed to the deck above and looked down. For a moment, she wondered what her chances would be of safely powering the engine up and getting the ship to work. On top of a nearby work station she had seen something that looked like it was an instruction manual, and it was so large that Grace was not entirely sure she could even hold it. Whilst paper books were not unusual, they were something of a novelty. Presumably, this was a hard copy for use in case of an emergency. Well, this is one of those, Grace noted wryly.

The part she sought was the Graviton Accelerator, a component in the jump drive that had not been manufactured in two hundred and fifty years. While most of the other components still were usually found in modern ships, this part was the one that would let someone convert a standard hyperdrive into a jump drive with relative ease, and more importantly, manufacture their own components based on this design.

Grace walked over to the engine housing and started to uncouple the panels. She did not know how heavy it would be; there were some ropes on the deck below if required. Could she it tie to her back? Failing that, perhaps she would drag it to the shuttlecraft. One way or another, Grace Dakota would have her payday.

She could only imagine the look on the people of the clusters’ faces when they saw the legendary battleship Trafalgar appear in the system under the flag of one Captain Grace Dakota. But she contemplated an unknown warship appearing unannounced would probably be fired on immediately, and even were she capable of running the engine room of the ship originally crewed by dozens on her own, she was not capable of running its defensive systems at the same time. No, it was for the best that she simply took what she needed and got out of there right away.

The panels were not coming away easily; she required more power. The ship’s internal power plant was on the deck above. She needed to get that working, so she headed up there and worked through the activation and initiation sequences. There were a series of dials that needed to be turned on to allow the backup batteries to initiate the main reactors. The batteries were behind a mesh door and she got nervous when she noticed that there was a lock on it. If they’d left that locked when everyone disembarked, this was going to be the end. She put her hands around the metallic door and pulled; to her relief, it came away and opened.

She stepped through into the cramped space; the indicator readout was green even after all this time. There was power in its batteries. She threw the switch and walked back over to the generators and started working through the warm-up sequence. It was loud, the whirring of various engine parts all starting up at once, and she wasn’t sure if she saw smoke coming out.

Dammit, she was probably overly ambitious to think that at almost three centuries old, this machine would simply start working again because she’d asked. She walked over and kicked the bulkhead, yelling in frustration.

Grace made her way down to the previous deck she’d wrap up her new Graviton Accelerator, and get out of there. Call it a day.

The power units started up again. She found a wrench and headed back down to the primary engine and started removing panels. The tool made the job exponentially easier; Grinning, she brushed her hair out of her face as she worked.

Taking an exterior piece of the unit and placed it on the deck beneath it; it was a twisted piece of metal with several coils for transferring energy. Yes! That looked like it.

She lifted her slate from her belt, Grace unfolded it to access the larger screen; she had a pictorial reference guide already in there and pulled up the page on Graviton Accelerators. It was an exact match.

Considering how few of these were ever manufactured, it was reasonably likely this was the exact unit they had taken an image of for this history book. Grace walked over to the maintenance kit that was mounted on the bulkhead and pulled it down, opening it. She found a screwdriver and started to remove the bolts holding the unit in place.

She used her slate to take photos to remember exactly how they went in and lifted it out; it was heavy but manageable.

The aft of the ship housed the main shuttle bay of the Trafalgar. As Grace had planned, she’d put the Graviton Accelerator on a rope across her back and dashed through the ship’s corridors as quickly as she could, hoping to get the hell out of there before anyone else showed up.

The ship’s internal computer indicated that the fastest way to the shuttle bay was through the main central corridor and directly through the express elevator. She panted as she ran, her suit’s faceplate threatening to steam up with every breath, sprinting as fast as she could. The corridors were clear, she was amazed at the ship’s good condition. Being exposed to space for so long had stopped microbes from eating away at things. She ran, trying to decide what her next step should be once she got to the elevator. If it worked, it would undoubtedly be the quickest way to the bay, but no one had used it in five times longer than Grace had been alive, and that meant that Grace considered the odds of it working absolutely as minimal at best.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

She opted instead to pull out the cover of the maintenance hatch and started climbing down the access ladder. It was at least ten decks and as she swung herself into the open maintenance shaft, she noticed that the weight of the engine unit on her back shifting her usual centre of gravity, and almost lost her footing. Were there time to think about it, she would have used some more secure rope to prevent her from folding down the shaft. There might also be an option to knock off the gravity for two minutes, but that was another thing that would have the clock ticking

She got to the deck with the shuttle bay and knocked out the maintenance hatch, where she found herself outside the main shuttle bay. An enormous set of double doors marked its entrance. They would, at least, be half again as tall as the standard doors and twice as wide. Unlike the others that Grace had encountered aboard the Trafalgar, these did not open when she approached them.

She took a step back and looked around. There was a control panel to the right and tapping away, it lit up the system presented a dialogue box indicating the need for security clearance.

“Dammit,” said Grace. She was going to need a way in. Surely there was some sort of override in case of emergency and there was the need to evacuate?

But The Trafalgar would have hundreds of escape pods across the ship. Any catastrophe requiring the evacuation of all hands would not necessarily mean they would need to get across the ship to a shuttle bay. Which begged the question: what had required the crew to evacuate? If there had been some kind of emergency, why did it look as good as the day it launched?

Grace had reviewed the mission logs during her time escaping from the Nomadic. The Trafalgar had only been in space a few days when it disappeared, So the condition not altogether surprising. It still had that new battleship smell. There was probably a pair of fuzzy dice hanging above the captain’s chair on the bridge if Grace had time to check.

She retrieved her slate and flipped through the pages on the Trafalgar. Her trick from the Nomadic might just work here. There was a general override code no longer in use in the modern navy, but was standard back in Trafalgar’s day. She tapped the five digits into the panel, and the doors opened with a slow groan.

“Works like a charm!” she said with a grin.

Stepped into the cavernous bay with its reflective dark grey deck plates and a bright, evenly lit ceiling. Above her was a control room from the next deck.

There were six small ships for her to choose from, all identical, bearing the Trafalgar’s name followed by a suffix number for each auxiliary craft. They looked like they could house dozens of people at a push. Scrolling through pages on her slate, They appeared to be hyperspace capable. They were hyperspace capable. She might just be home and dry.

Approaching the first one, she endeavoured to get the hatch open, but had no immediate luck and wondered if she could punch in the same code again that got her into the shuttle bay.

Searching around the access ramp. There was no obvious interface until she found a small flip-up hatch. She entered the code. The text turned red, and it buzzed at her, indicating the code had been rejected. Perhaps the shuttle bay had some sort of override, and a command from the control room was required to release a vehicle for boarding.

She started heading back to the main entranceway when a loud groan emitted from the docking bay doors. She turned to see the two-story-high bulkhead ascend, revealing the blue glow of a force field retaining the internal atmosphere, and beyond it, the stars and the planet she had flown over on her way in.

“That makes no sense,” Grace said aloud. “If the systems didn’t let me board the shuttle, they wouldn’t be prepping the door for a launch unless…” Peering beyond the force field, a small but very modern-looking shuttle craft was approaching the bay.

“Fuck,” said Grace. They’d probably already seen her. If not, she had no obvious place to hide in the bay, and no way to get into one of the ships.

She ran back toward the large doors to the corridor, planning to hide elsewhere in the ship, but if her number was up, she would go out fighting. Sure, she was small, but she had a big engine part she could hit with. Though, if they had guns, fat lot of good that would do.

Maybe hiding and bargaining would be the best options. She shrugged and sprinted the doors didn’t open. She tried to enter the code again with no response. She thought it was the same. Maybe she didn’t remember it; it had been five digits, completely random.

She pulled up her slate; it had reset to the home screen. Tapping it, she pulled up the history book, the cover appeared in front of—no, no, no, she said, trying not to panic, failing and panicking anyway.

Checking to see if recent places had been saved. They hadn’t.

Suddenly, the roar of engines filled the bay as they crossed the forcefields’ threshold and hit the air within. The shuttle came to a gentle landing.

Grace put the slate away and saw another door on the far side of the bay. Possibly one leading to the control room. It could be a maintenance cupboard. She didn’t know. But it was her only option left.

She looked. The shuttle doors opened and, three armed marines stepped out, pointing their large guns straight at her.

“You stop right there,” the first one said.