Chapter 17
"Beautiful; aren’t they, Lieutenant?"
"That they are, Chief." John’s helmet
echoes his reply. Once again it seems Chief Hanly has caught John staring
out at the brightly mirrored dents scattered out across the starry void.
"Like the inside of an exploding Christmas ornament."
"Very poetic, but highly disturbed.
You realize of course that I’m obliged to report any deviant
display of artistic expression to the Psych Review Board."
"As you see fit, Chief. As you see
fit."
"Never understood why they cross-train
you commo-types for outside work in the first place. Eventually all you
rear echelon types implode."
Fighting a stubborn grin John glances
down at the chief’s tiny holo at the edge of his helmet display. Chief
Hanly’s minute image battles a small smirk of its own. Both Chief Hanly
and John have been assigned to the same rigging crew since they first came
aboard the Flying Jib, and five Es and hundred of rigging EVAs has
vacuum-dried their sense of humor. As a matter of fact, the subtlety of
their nonverbal communication has become so crisp that their most recent
team performance review centered on the crews apparent insularity. Reviewers
never seem to appreciate just how much rigging crews actually do communicate.
From a crewman’s helmet-holo and suit archives John can tell their exact
state of a mind, state of body, and relative task completion. And while
a crew is at task, cross-chatter only serves as a dangerous distraction.
Flicking his tongue across his mouth-switch, a smooth piece of plastic
form-fitted to a set of John's lower molars, he moves both the chief and
himself out into the crew-com. Holo images of their faces pop up at the
edge of every helmet display of Rigging Crew 2-Alpha-2.
"Your team ready, Mister Hanly?" John’s
helmet display projects Team-One’s status, showing him the exact same reading
as Hanly’s. There’s no real reason to ask, but hopefully a few redundant
vocalizations will help appease the mission reviewers. Fortunately, this
rig-retraction is more drill than duty. Had the crew been tasked with a
more complicated maneuver this sort of chatter would drive his crew to
grumbled distraction. John watches as a slowly comprehending smirk spreads
across the Chief’s tiny holo. Hanly quickly concedes to John’s obvious
placation.
"Yes sir. All main and sub-spindles
on Eastern Jib line alpha-two-oh-one testing optimal on both remote and
local. All volatiles and consumables have been replenished. Crewmen Khalil
and Nishimura are both on scheduled rendezvous with the main spindle and
should proceed scheduled rendezvous by approximately fifteen minuets."
As he smiles down at the Chief's
tiny holo John slowly leans forward to bump the rigging-shuttle’s main
thrusters up to ninety-seven-point-nine percent of mission limits. If asked,
he’ll just tell them he's practicing a high priority rendezvous. They won’t
believe him, but neither will they question him further about it. Second
guessing a crew leader can lead to indecision, and out in space indecisions
lead to death. John's vacuum-gloved fingertip taps a tighter sync into
the shuttle’s main engines.
"Thank you, Mister Hanly. As you were."
The Chief’s tiny helmet-holo blinks flat.
"Mister Roche?" Using both his tongue
and a focal-point cursor generated by his eye movement John opens a small
flat frame of Ensign Nolan Roche. In his helmet the image of a young man
of about twenty-five Es glances up at John with nervous apprehension.
"Yes, Lieutenant?"
"Mister Roche, may I have your team’s
status?" Hopefully Roche has been paying attention. The ensign is an excellent
teamleader – fast, meticulous, precise – but he doesn’t perform well for
an audience. John watches as an arduous search for words twists the man's
face.
"Yes, sir… uhh… all tackle-spindles
on Eastern Jib line alpha-two-two-oh testing optimal on both remote and
local. And… uhh… volatiles and consumables have been replenished on all
but the last two spindlettes. Crewmen Ledin and Twilegar should leave their
respective sub-spindles on scheduled for rendezvous with the main spindle
here at 16:30 standard."
"Thank you, Mister Roche." A small
smile crosses John’s face at Roche’s abject look of relief. "As you were."
"Yes, sir." Ensign Roche’s
flat-frame image collapses into a sharp black point that immediately expands
back out into another flat-frame image, this one of John's youngest teamleader
Bosuns mate Mark Ingram. An annoyingly handsome kid with a square teutonic
jaw and short sandy brown hair. And he always seems to be smiling. By now
Ingram would have to be brandied not to know what’s coming.
"How’s Team Three doing per task,
Mister Ingram?" John asks.
At first Ingram flashes one of his
broad smiles at John, but his face quickly falls serious at his crew commander's
stern look. Around the bosun’s frame John quickly arrays several small
flatscreens of team-three’s other two members and their exact mission status.
"All tasks proceeding as per schedule,
sir. Team Three is seventy-eight percent complete on Eastern Jib line alpha-two-four.
All tackle-spindles currently testing optimal on both remotes and locals.
Volatiles and consumables are being replenished as per spec, and both spacemen
Milani and Bancroft are reporting sub-spindle and spindlette completions
well within simulation estimates. Main-spindle tasking is currently complete
to ninety-one percent."
"Very good, Mister Ingram. Considering
your excellent completion rate your scheduled rendezvous is updated one-half
hour to 17:30 standard." John watches the bosun’s eyes briefly flash wide
before snapping back to passive professionalism.
"Yes, sir." The man’s image
nods. John collapses team-three’s frames and returns his attention to re-synching
the shuttle’s thrusters.
Little smartass, I can read your
remotes too, you know! You rushed through the easy stuff so you could take
your time with the hard. A good strategy as long as you don’t start bragging
on yourself.
Chief Hanly’s icon begins blinking
up in their private workgroup at the corner of John’s vision.
"Yes, Chief?" John pulls up Hanly’s
helmet holo.
"So, what’s got your panties all
bunched up in a knot?"
"Spacers shouldn’t brag out loud,
Mike. You know that. Murphy’s always listening. And don’t tell me you’re
afraid you can’t keep up with an accelerated retrieval schedule?" John’s
grin quickly grows face-splitting. Hanly’s holo remains impassive.
"We’ll be taking coffee in the
break area when you make rendezvous. If it hasn’t gotten cold by the time
you get here you can have a shot."
"I’ll be checking your boy’s fuel
reserves when I dock. If they’ve overextended their pack-fuel by more than
a gram I’ll write all three of you up." John maintains his grin in the
face of Hanly’s growing scowl.
"You would too, wouldn’t you?"
"You bet you ass, Chief."
"Okay, Lieutenant. By your rules.
And, we’ll still have the coffee on when you get here."
"Try not to use up all the creamer
this time." John grins back at Hanly's tiny holo.
"Hanly out." The chief’s image
briefly smiles before evaporating.
Once John has coaxed the power-rating
his engine's synchronization up into the high nineties he gives both the
shuttle's cockpit and exterior a thorough inspection. Now that the gauntlet
has been cast John knows for certain Hanly will be scrutinizing the riggingshuttle’s
for the most minor omission. After rechecking the engine’s status on both
locals and remotes John physically glances back over his shoulder to inspect
the engine-ball.
Functioning in a monofilament intensive
environment has lead to some extremely odd looking craft. The densely woven
monofilament strands used for solar-sailship rigging are many times thicker
than human hair, but given the relative energy potentials involved in most
space travel even extremely small and "technically correct" maneuvers can
leave spacecraft crippled and crewmen dead. The engineers "solved" some
of these problems by producing shuttles with long dart-shaped hulls and
a protective ball for retros and thrusters at the rear. The craft’s hard
liquid curves look as if they could withstand anything, but only the monofilament
mesh bonded just beneath the smooth cerametal surface provides any real
protection.
John smiles back at the engine-ball.
The ridiculous looking contraption must have seemed simple enough to the
engineers back in the lab. Aero-spike engines are both inexpensive and
require no elaborate reaction chambers or sophisticated gimbals. And placing
them in a ball at the craft’s rear should theoretically allow for a complete
range of maneuvering directions while protecting vital engine parts from
loose or undetected rigging strands. But with only four tiny nose retros
for balance the long pointy craft maneuvers like a Roman candle, and also
proves an extremely inefficient configuration when traveling site-to-site.
Rigging shuttles also incorporate several other obvious conflicts between
a designer’s paranoia and the craft's stated purpose. The original "field
fabricated" riggingshuttle’s were little more than long open frames with
a main engine at one end and a control-well at the other. The craft's long
frames had been left uncovered owning to rigging EVAs often requiring outside
access in several different directions at once, and hopefully without crewmembers
having to actually leave the shuttle’s protective frame. As a compromise
the engineers had placed large oval hatches all around the shuttle’s hull
from nose to stern. With a full crew of riggers at work the shuttle looks
like a Swiss cheese spaceship infested by zero-g mice.
John does however like his cockpit.
This part of the shuttle always excites him. And after having sat through
several archives of riggingshuttle’s pilots being severed from the chest
up by loose rigging, their bodies exploding like viscera bombs into the
vacuum, John truly appreciates the engineer’s paranoia. The long monofilament
reinforced glass dome intends from down toward the nose-point, over John's
command station, and back down the hull giving the pilot an unobstructed
view of almost the entire craft. John suspects at least one member of the
engineering team had been a fan of millennium era combat aircraft. The
long pointed bubble resembles archives he's seen of American F-111s.
After re-examining both his course
and breaking routines, correcting and re-running the simulation several
times, John finally feels comfortable enough with the results to begin
reviewing his crew's rigging teams. Pulling up each team’s collective status
John then begins reviewing the individual member and finds himself smiling
at Bosun Ingram’s stress levels.
"Work just a little faster and you
just might make it." John whispers. "But don’t make any mistakes."
With the rendezvous set and his crew
accounted for, John decides now would be a good time to displace a bit
of isometric stiffness. Taking in several deep and well practiced breaths,
John begins his exercise by repeatedly shaking himself lightly then flexing
hard out against his harness restraints. After several thirty-second repetitions
John pushes his heart-rate up to twenty-percent above resting, then lets
himself relax.
Another half-hour until rendezvous.
Lost in the moment's pause John soon
finds his thoughts drifting in a not altogether surprising direction.
Blade.
That woman. John shakes his
head. I don't know whether to kiss her or kill her? Sexy at a cat. More
balls than most men I know. Hell, she walked into a reactant chamber. I
wouldn't even do that. And ever since she got out of the med-center I seem
to go stupid whenever she smiles at me.
Man, I think I’ve been out here
too long. I’m starting to lose my sexual perspective.
One of the shuttle’s main thrusters
tilts slowly out of phase and John's finger almost absently bumps it back
into sync.
"Huh!" He grunts at himself aloud.
Is that what this is all about?
Is this just about sex? I mean, not only is sex much easier to find in-company,
but sex isn’t something a spacer can afford to get all emotional about.
If she just wasn’t so damn…
Chief Hanly’s icon pops on at the
corner of John’s vision.
"Yes, Chief?"
"You… okay?" The chief’s tiny
holo looks uncharacteristically concerned. John glances down to recheck
the privacy status of their workgroup, then twists a squint back up at
the chief’s holo.
"I beg your pardon?"
Hanly’s holo smiles back.
"You’re not the only one who has access
to scan suit-archives, you know. Out of the middle of nowhere I see you
spike on three separate stress indicator, and now you look like you’re
about to piss a marble. What’s up? You mad because my boys are almost here
and you're not?" Hanly knows the assertion to be ridiculous, but coaxes
John with it all the same. Lately the Lieutenant’s life has become more
than just a little interesting. And despite a spacer's natural aversion
to discussing personal matters the Chief senses John might need to purge
his retros and restabilize.
"Yah, right." John replies with friendly
contempt.
"Well, if it’s not my crew’s sterling
performance then it has to be either the company or women."
"There’s a difference?" John chuckles
nervously.
"So, it’s the Czarina that’s set
your teeth to grinding?"
"No. Not really." John re-runs a privacy-scan
on the link’s security. "Since that thing with Roselene a few weeks ago
the Captain has actually started treating me as if I exist."
"So, what then? Sew… ahh… Specialist
DeSilva?" Hanly’s eyes dart away.
"You mean Sewer Girl?" John's
grin grows somewhat hard, but without loosing all its friendliness.
"Listen, John, I didn’t… I mean,
anything that…"
"Oh, relax, Mike." John somehow feels
better now, as if having discovered some previously undetected denial.
"Even I’ve called her that on occasion. But only to her face."
"Well, I’m cured of the expression.
But around ship it’s virtually her official name. Your in-law kind of attracts
attention, you know. I’m surprised the boys haven’t thought up something
a bit more… colorful."
"It’s no secret that Blade has a full-functioning
personality. She can be quite… interesting on occasion."
"Interesting? I’ll say. If
only half the edited archives making circuit around the Jib are true."
"Yah." John nods with little enthusiasm.
After a moments pause Hanly clears his throat and continues.
"John, can I ask you a personal
question?"
John’s brow cocks, but he nods back
at the holo without giving his question voice.
"How do you feel about that guy
berthing with Specialist DeSilva?" Hanly looks squarely into John’s
holo while tongue-switching in an overlay of John’s suit readings.
"Truth to tell, Fred is an all right
guy." A note of appreciation slips into John’s voice. "As a matter of fact,
he’s more than all right. Most of the time I’m really glad he’s there to
keep those two at bay. But every once in a while, I get just a little…"
"Jealous?" Hanly ventures.
"Not really, but yah, almost." John
laughs at his own contradictoryness. "Stupid, huh?"
"Not stupid, just human. Now cut
yourself slack and stand over here in the long-line with the rest of us
mere mortals." Hanly’s tiny holo smiles reassurance. "So, this Davis
guy, he passes?"
"Yah, he passes." John grins. "For
an iceteroid miner he seems reasonably sane. But, you should hear some
of the weird shit he comes up with."
"An iceteroid being wierd? That's
redundant!" The Chief laughs.
"Truth to tell." John nods back.
Chapter 18
Main Page