The Nordia Incident - 4. Lt. Barinder Singh

Captain Scott announced, “The board calls Lt. Barinder Singh— Chief Engineer of the Callahan.”

Lt. Singh approached the witness box, was reminded that he was under oath, and Scott said, “Please be seated Lt. Singh. Could you tell us your part in the story.”

Singh said, “I was aboard Callahan the whole time sir. The skipper doesn’t let his chief snipe get out much.”

There were chuckles all around and Scott asked, “But you did play a significant role.”

“Once the XO took a communications relay over to Brisbane Maru, I was able to set up a remote telemetry link. I had access to her systems I could verify that the reactors were down and most of the hot drive plasma had been vented. I was also able to tell just how badly damaged she was.”

Scott said, “So it was your best judgment that Brisbane Maru was safe enough to dock at Nordia Station?”

“Yes sir.”

Captain Scott asked, “Once the survivors were in sick bay, Commander Glenn asked you to take a look at the flight data recorder. What did you find?”

Singh said, “Every jump capable-ship has a standardized flight data recorder. Its design and format are established by code. Once I had the FDR from Brisbane Maru, I had access to all of its flight data for its latest transit.”

Captain Scott said, “Please tell us what you found.”

“Brisbane Maru started her voyage at Pelenor in the Corporate Sector where she took on four large containers labeled complex organics. That is how it was written up on the manifest as well. The containers were all self-contained and required connections from the ship. The specifications for power requirements were included in the log: two hundred twenty volts and a draw about five thousand kilowatt hours per hour.”

Scott asked, “About how much is that in layman’s terms?”

“That’s enough to light up a modest suburb for about an hour or two. It sounds like a lot but given a ships reactor output, it was relatively minor.”

Scott said, “Thank you Mr. Singh. Please Continue.

“The four containers were installed and dogged down at Pelenor’s Bean Stalk Station— excuse me, at Pelenor’s space elevator. They had planned for a destination in the Corporate Sector that would require seven jumps. They ran into trouble on their fifth.

“The fire started in the container in the number two hold. It exploded and involved the container in the adjacent number one hold. It spread forward fast and forced the crew out of the bridge and down to auxiliary control. While the crew was fighting the fire forward, it spread aft into the three and four holds and their containers.

“Their Captain, First Officer and several other crewmen were killed when number three hold blew.

“Meanwhile, Hayakawa who had already been injured was in conning the ship from auxiliary control. He had been building up a charge in his jump capacitators. After the aft two compartments blew he knew he needed to be somewhere with assistance fast. He changed his jump orientation on the fly to the nearest available system which was Nordia at five light years.

“Hayakawa jumped the ship into the Nordia System and then vented atmosphere to put out the fires. He then executed a deceleration maneuver and did an emergency shut down of his reactors and vented their plasma into space.”

Captain Scott asked, “Was there anything else on the FDR?”

Singh said, “There was more data on the FDR but I couldn’t read it.”

Scott asked, “Was it damaged?”

Singh replied, “No sir. Those files were encrypted and none of my keys could make any headway decoding them.”

Captain Scott said, “Thank you Lt. Singh. I believe we’re done.”