Noah - 17. Chapter 17

Date: 3rd November 2419
Location: MMV Noah, Unknown

I realised I had made a good choice of Admiral almost immediately. My suspicions were confirmed when she arranged to speak with the Pallner ambassador as soon as my debriefing was over.

“Well, Commander, I have to say you have done a remarkable job under exceptional circumstances. Not only have you brought the ship through the initial accident, but you have done so with a clearly immature crew and on top of that, made contact with the Pallner. I think that the best course of action here is clear, Captain.” She stepped over to the sequencer and created a uniform shirt with Captain’s insignia; Two horizontal gold bars to replace my current silver bar over gold. I stared at the gold bars for a few moments before changing shirts.

“Thank you, Ma’am.” I said proudly, standing at attention until she released me with a small wave.

“Unfortunately, as admirable a job as he has done, 2Lt Bodgit is simply not experienced enough to continue running the engineering department. He will have to cede control to a more senior officer once one is cloned.” I was expecting that; as, I suspected, was Bodgit. However well he had done, he had only recently been promoted toSecond Lieutenant, and it was the norm for a chief engineer to hold the rank of Commander. I nodded my understanding. “I do have someone in mind for the job, assuming he is in the database, that is.”

“If you give me his name, I’ll check the database. I would like for Bodgit to retain a position of some authority, though; he’s definitely advanced a lot over the last few months and I believe he can live up to whatever we give him.”

“From these reports, I have to agree,” she replied admiringly, tapping some more holopads, “It’s a little unusual for such a junior officer, but I think he can be kept on as Second Engineer.” She tapped a few notes onto a holopad before picking up another. “Now, this rock embedded on the ship; when can it be removed?”

I shook my head and handed her a holopad containing several reports from the scientists dating back to just after the impact. “Unfortunately, the asteroid has embedded itself into the ship in such a way that removing it would cause massive structural damage. There is no way we could remove it, even in sections. It may actually be an advantage.” I handed her yet another holopad, this one containing a proposal from one of the scientists, “If we install heavy bulkheads as airlocks into the corridors we have already carved out of it, the asteroid could become a large life boat; A few Omni stores, sequencers and barracks blocks and it could house the whole crew in an emergency.”

“Well if we can’t get rid of it, we might as well use it,” she agreed, before placing the holopad on the ‘stack’ strewn over the table and standing. “Well Captain, I think I need some time to process all of these and prepare for my meeting with the Pallner. I trust you’ll be there to help me?”

“Of course,” I confirmed, rising to my feet. “I’ve developed something of a rapport with the ambassador; I think he’ll be quite interested to meet you.”

“Thank you,” She handed me a deactivated holopad, “The new Chief Engineer.”

“I’ll go check the database at once,” I said, standing briefly to attention before leaving the room.

Back in the cloning facility, I activated the holopad the Admiral had given me, revealing the name and number of her preferred candidate for Chief Engineer, and headed to one of the consoles. After inputting his number into the system I waited for a moment as the computer searched the three million strong database of neural maps and DNA codes before displaying the officer’s bio: Commander Julian Wye. According to the service record, he had served under the Admiral on her previous posting aboard the MMV Sevastopol, one of the two Ukraine class cruisers defending Europa. Handily, he was also a part of the Spaceborer project, which meant he could possibly analyse and repair the damaged wormhole generator.

“Something I can do for you, Comm…Captain?” The high-pitched, singing voice of Sii’nour asked from behind me, noticing the new rank insignia on my shoulder.

“The Admiral’s preference for Chief Engineer,” I commented. “See to it that he is added to the top of the cloning list, would you?”

“Yes, sir.” He replied, activating the console next to the one I was using and adding the commander to the top of the list. “Would you like to start the process now?”

“No, not just yet. Schedule his awakening for 55:00; I’d like him to be briefed and ready just as we return from the Horstur.”

“Done. The process will begin at 53:00,” he confirmed after tapping the console a few more times.

“Thank you, Sii’nour,” I said before leaving the facility and returning to my quarters for some rest.

“Horstur, this is Caravan Able, requesting docking clearance and a berth.” The pilot transmitted as we approached the sleek silver ship. The Admiral and I had been invited aboard to speak with the Ambassador, and after briefing her on the essentials of communication with the Pallner, we were coming in to land in the Pallner cruiser Horstur’s shuttle bay.

A bright green light briefly lit the cabin as we passed through the atmospheric force field, and moments later we were locking into one of the docking arms the Pallner used to secure shuttlecraft. Through the limited view afforded by the cockpit window, the shuttle bay was approximately the same size as Noah’s old fighter bay before the refit, but due to the Pallner docking system, less craft were stored.

Lining the three interior walls were around ten sleek silver craft with no visible external means of propulsion or navigation. The walls were themselves a bright cream colour and seemed to exude a gentle glow.

From my past experience aboard the first Pallner shuttle to land on Noah and several past visits to the Horstur, I was prepared for the strong sulphuric smell that hung in the air, which despite her attempts to repress it, caused the Admiral to gag.

“You get used to it, Ma’am.” I commented with a smile as the door swung open, revealing the umbilical linking to the airlock.

“I think we may have a suitable punishment duty here, Captain.” She jokingly replied.

As the internal airlock door opened after the pressure cycle was complete, I saw the Ambassador, San-louur waiting for us.

“Greetings again, Commander Richter; Welcome back aboard.” He reached out to shake my hand, a gesture he had started after reviewing a copy of human etiquette. Unfortunately, as many Pallner social pleasantries involved slight pheromones and blushes, I was unable to return the courtesy of a native greeting. Though his three-fingered hand was awkward at first to grasp, over the course of several visits to each other’s ships, we had managed to find a way that worked.

“Thank you, Ambassador. May I introduce you to Admiral Calloway, my new Commanding Officer.” I stepped aside, allowing San-louur to again extend his hand. “Admiral, Pallner Ambassador San-louur.”

Having been briefed on the likelihood of the first meeting, I had taught the admiral the correct way to shake hands and was happy to see a flush around the Ambassador’s aural canals; the equivalent to a smile when she successfully shook his hand.

“Ambassador, before we go any further, I would like to thank you personally for preventing the Noah’s destruction and for assisting her crew. Your actions were more than generous.” She gratefully opened.

“The Commander revived and protected a Pallner citizen; we were in your peoples’ debt before we ever met.” He sang in response. Like Sii’nour and every other Pallner I had heard speak, his voice held a high, almost soprano quality. “Please, come with me to the meeting chamber.”

Following the Ambassador through the ship, I saw the Admiral taking in the design of the vessel. Internally, it was almost the polar opposite of an M vessel. The walls were lined with a smooth, beige-coloured material that felt slightly warm to the touch, and exuded the soft glow that lit the ship. The floor was covered in something similar to a carpet, with edges the same colour as the walls and a central inlay in a slightly darker colour, with a hint of brown.

The doors we passed were all a pearlescent, beige colour with what would appear to be a label running around the rim of the frame in the Pallner alphabet. Upon approaching the door to the meeting chamber, it split into a pair of S-shaped doors, each of which slid into the wall on either side of the frame.

Inside the chamber was a single large, oval table which held the same pearlescent finish as the doors, and was surrounded by a number of matching ‘seats’. On one side, two chairs differed from the others in that they lacked the gaps for rear legs and had a much smaller seat; these two had been created and installed before my first visit to the ship, to be more comfortable for humans. Adapting the designs taken from scans of the Lahstey, we had done the same when creating the conference room aboard Noah, which was very similar in design to this one, albeit in the darker M colour scheme.

“Thank you for seeing us,” the admiral said, taking the seat on the left while I sat next to her. “I understand that you have developed a good relationship with Captain Richter and I hope to continue that.”

“As do I, Admiral.” The ambassador replied and turned to me, “And I believe congratulations are in order, Captain. Please forgive me, I noticed your new insignia but have not yet committed your ranks to memory.”

“Not a problem,” I waved, “As you recall, during our negotiations, my abilities to make certain concessions have been limited. Now that the Admiral is here, without such limitations, I hope we can begin to make even more progress in coming to trade arrangements, as well as helping each other in our situation.”

“That would be most advantageous to both of us. By your time scale, without your assistance it would take us more than three years to return home. In return for your wormhole technology, we would be willing to provide the designs and theory for our energy generation systems.”

The admiral looked thoughtful for a moment. “That technology is still very experimental and has a number of problems; it is a very early prototype. The main issue we have with it is power usage. I feel currently that the technology is not ready for trading, but if we could come to a compromise; a joint project between our scientists. With both of our people working together, we could create a much more advanced and stable system.”

“The Horstur has a small scientific staff. None would be able to contribute significantly to any such project.” The ambassador paused, “Perhaps there is another option. If we were to provide you with the coordinates for our home system and a second generator, you could use the prototype to open a wormhole there. We will arrive home far sooner than normally possible, and our entire scientific expertise would be available to undertake your proposed project. I can assure you, for however long the project takes, your whole crew would be treated with utmost respect and freedom in our system as the first alien species we have encountered.”

“That could work well, Admiral.” I quietly said. “Returning the Horstur to their home system would be an excellent show of good faith. They did save us too, Ma’am; I think we owe them that much.”

“It will likely take some time to repair the device.” She said, “And once we have the coordinates, it will take at least three months to perform the required calculations.”

“However long it takes, Admiral, it will still mean that our journey is far shorter.”

“That’s true. In exchange for a second generator, we will establish a wormhole to your system. We can have our science teams begin work on further projects then.”

“Excellent. I will have a generator prepared for installation. Now, there is another request we have to make of you. As Captain Richter knows, we have a vested interest in your cloning technology.”

“Yes, we have discussed this in the past,” I interrupted. “Admiral, over the months we have been in contact, we have come to a preliminary arrangement with the Pallner; if we use the same techniques to resurrect the rest of the Lahstey’s crew as we did Sii’nour, the Ambassador has agreed to allow us to salvage the ship. We will give them the ship back, but will have unlimited access to its systems. We just need your authorisation and we can begin operations immediately.”

“Sounds like a good arrangement,” the admiral commented while San-louur nodded. “I want to prioritise re-crewing Noah, but you can proceed once the major positions have been filled.”

“Thank you, Admiral. This will shed much light on what is happening here.” San-louur replied gladly. “Perhaps in time we can negotiate for the technology itself.”

“If our current agreements pan out well, I believe that could be arranged,” the admiral agreed. “It is clear we can learn a lot from each other, and you have clearly developed a good working relationship with the Captain. If you have no objection, I would like to assign him as a liaison between us; he still won’t have the authorisation for technology trading, but will be able to deal with our day-to-day relationship as he has apparently been doing quite adequately up to now.”

“We have no objection to that. Captain Richter is a very capable and diplomatic person; we will be happy to continue our relations with him.” The ambassador replied, looking at me and flushing in such a way as to display admiration and respect.

“I have no problem with that,” I said.

“Excellent,” the admiral remarked, standing. “Unless you have any more business, I am afraid we must return to Noah.”

“I believe that is all for now, Admiral.” San-louur replied, his ‘expression’ showing a little surprise at the abruptness with which the admiral ended the meeting. “I will show you back to your ship.”

“Thank you, ambassador. Captain?” I was also surprised by how quickly the admiral had finished business. I had a couple more items to raise, but took her cue and stood with her.

It was a short trip to the airlock, but one which was made in silence. It was only a couple of minutes before the shuttle was exiting the Horstur’s shuttle bay.

“Really, Captain, I don’t know how you managed to stand that for so long.” The admiral commented, slowly exhaling, enjoying the clear air.

“The sulphur? I suppose I’ve gotten used to it. After a couple of minutes aboard now I barely notice it.”

“Well I’m glad you’re happy to serve as ambassador to the Pallner; I couldn’t stand another five minutes aboard.”

“I’ll try to arrange any meetings that require your presence to take place aboard Noah.” I chuckled. “The Pallner need a small amount of sulphur to live, on their ships and I guess on their planet, they can get it from the atmosphere. Sii’nour takes a supplement of it with his meals. It’s perfectly safe for us to breathe it; it just takes a little while to get used to.”

“For you to get used to,” she smiled back. “How is the cloning going? Did you find my engineer in the database?”

The pilot started speaking over the radio, negotiating access to the shuttle bay with the control room. Since the fighter bay had been moved, the old fighter bay had been re-designated and now housed the ship’s sole Caravan and two Ant-configuration shuttles. We now had five Bee-configuration shuttles which operated out of the mining bay.

“Commander Wye was in the database and should be being briefed as we speak. Doctor Shen thinks that we should be able to produce up to three crewmembers a day on the energy surplus or ten if we allow them to use the stored Omni. I think it would be best if we stick to just three; there is no rush and we still consider this to be hostile territory, so I’d like to get our Omni stores to maximum capacity, just in case.”

“Agreed. Where is the Commander’s briefing scheduled to take place?”

“As we’re only cloning one person at a time, I’m planning on having all briefings given in the person’s quarters.” I accessed Noah’s computer systems and looked up the Commander’s assigned quarters. “Commander Wye is assigned to quarters near the main engineering section: Level 61, Section 195, Room 5.”

The shuttle gently set down on the landing pad and the main hatch cracked open with a hiss, moving into the shuttle about an inch then splitting in two and sliding towards the front and rear of the cabin.

“I’d like you to come with me to meet him, then give him a brief tour of the ship.” She requested as she hopped down out of the door and onto the landing pad about a foot below. “I believe a familiar face giving the introductions will help smooth relations with the rest of the crew. I’m sure they’ve gotten used to Mister Bodgit by now and will be loathe to see him replaced.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I hopped out of the craft behind her. “I ensured that 2Lt Bodgit was made a part of the briefing; nobody knows the ship’s systems quite like him, and I doubt they bear much resemblance to the original blueprints.”

“No ship ever does after a few weeks out of dock with a good Chief Engineer aboard,” the admiral laughed. “Even if you involved him in the ship’s design, an engineer would find something to change.”

Chatting, we made our way out of the bay and towards the nearest grav lift. Given that the ship was a little over 3,500 metres long, it was a comparatively short walk once we were on level 61. We passed through fifteen sections from the grav lift to the Commander’s quarters. Modern ships were built like honeycombs, and Noah had thousands of sections. Each one of which had its own independent life support sequencer system, consisting of a small sequencer dedicated to atmosphere production and recycling, a small emergency food sequencer, capable of producing basic rations, and a cleanser which would recycle grime from a person and also remove any waste products from their bodies. Being sealed, and with all waste products being recycled at 100% efficiency, a single section could, in theory, provide support for a small number of crewmembers indefinitely, though in practice a small amount of energy would be lost over time as thermal conduction through the hull. During battles, each section was automatically sealed with large bulkheads, providing effective protection should any adjoining section be breached, and allowing the ship to operate with maximum effectiveness, even when badly damaged.

When we entered the Commander’s quarters, he and Bodgit were sitting at the table, excitedly swapping intricate details about the ship’s systems, what Bodgit had done to modify them and what he could possibly do. There were obviously no bad feelings from Bodgit for the Commander taking his place as Chief Engineer. The Lieutenant assigned to brief the Commander was sitting on the bed, apparently unable to get a word in edgewise.

“I see you’ve already met your predecessor,” the admiral interrupted, causing all three men to jump up and stand to attention. “Good to see you again, Jules.” She dismissed Bodgit and the Lieutenant and advanced to give the Commander a hug.

“You too, Admiral,” he replied, “Mike here was just filling me in on what’s been going on this last year or so. I don’t think I could have done better myself, given the circumstances. He’s a good lad.”

Even though the Commander’s fresh null body was matured to around the age of 21, the way he held himself and his gestures made him look much older than the young Bodgit.

“Well, you can thank Captain Richter for choosing him to be the Chief.” She pointed the Commander over to me, causing him to once again snap to attention.

“It wasn’t a hard decision; he was glowing so green that he was the only officer I saw in the Engineering room through the smoke.” I joked, relieving the commander and offering him my hand.

“Can’t beat throwing ‘em in at the deep end for building character,” he laughed, shaking my hand. “He’s done himself proud and he’ll make a good Second.” He put an arm around Bodgit.

“We didn’t have much choice,” I replied. “I stand by my decision, though. If it weren’t for protocols, I’d keep him on as my Chief in a heartbeat.”

“Give it a couple of years and I’m sure he could make it to be one of the youngest Chiefs.” He said, giving the slightly embarrassed Bodgit a tap on the head.

“As it seems you boys are all getting along well enough, I’ll head to the bridge,” the Admiral interrupted, “Call me later, Jules and we’ll have a drink; we’ve got a lot to catch up on. I’m sure you’re dying to see the ship now, so I’ll let the Captain show you around.”

“Sure thing, Admiral,” he replied as she left the room.

“Oh the stories I’ve got about that woman from the old days.” Wye chuckled once the door had closed, “I hope you know what you’ve gotten yourself in for, Cap’. A good choice nonetheless; from what Bodgit here’s been telling me about what’s happening out here, she should handle the situation well.”

“I’m glad someone else thinks so,” I replied half-jokingly. It was something of a relief that someone who knew the Admiral agreed that she would be able to deal with what we were facing. “Now, how about this tour? Oh, and you’re dismissed, lieutenant,” I said, turning to the officer, who had as yet not managed to say anything, who promptly came to attention, then left the room.

“Sounds good to me. Where shall we start?”

“Main Engineering makes sense to me, we’re right next to it.” I suggested, motioning the two engineers towards the door.

We made our way around the main engineering section, with myself mainly following as Bodgit pointed out the locations of interest, highlighting the changes he had made and introducing members of the engineering staff to the Commander. After main engineering, we moved to one of the thirty separate engine rooms, from where each of the massive SLD-51 plasma engines was controlled and maintained.

We moved through each of the old landing bays and the construction bay, which was now empty; the captured alien vessel had been completely disassembled, studied and recycled long ago. The Commander was amazed at the size of the new fighter bay when we made our way to the massive facility. As we entered, we were met by the sound of loud music echoing throughout the expansive space, accompanied by the whirr of power tools, sounds of hammering and the odd shout or laugh from the flight crew personnel working on the multiple half-built Blade fighters and Wing bombers sitting on pads in the first fifth of the bay. Virtually everything related to fighter, bomber or shuttle production and maintenance was handled by the flight crew rather than engineering staff, but it was important for the Chief to know all sections of the ship. Given our current energy surplus, I had given the go-ahead for the flight crews to begin building complements of fighters and bombers to fill the currently sparsely populated bay in preparation for when we could begin cloning more pilots. While many flight crew personnel had been press ganged into pilots, there were still a sizable number who were working in their old role.

“You could fit my last ship into this bay,” Wye commented in amazement.

“A ship this size needs a lot of fighters to cover it,” I replied simply.

Each of the side walls was lined with row upon row of landing pads, and in the centre of the bay, suspended from the ceiling, hung the large new Control room, responsible for coordinating all support craft in the ship’s vicinity. We had lost all but one fighter in the last attack, making us rely on the Horstur for our defence. On the pads nearest the control room, I currently counted five completed Blades and two Wings, all ready for flight. A further three Blades were currently on patrol away from the ship.

“There is one last thing you need to see, something Bodgit hasn’t been able to repair or even understand,” I said, leading the pair out of the bay and back into the heart of the ship.

After a long walk and a grav lift ride, we finally made it to our destination, a full bulkhead, taking up the entire section. I read the etching before logging into the ‘net, confirming my identity and opening the door.

L055S101-01 Spaceborer Control >>RESTRICTED ACCESS<<

This room still bore the scars of the original jump, and every fight we had been in since. Wires hung from the ceiling, a large number of the lighting panels were disabled or flickering, and control panels sat smashed, some thrown across the room. When we had first initiated the emergency jump, a huge amount of energy passed directly through this room to the Spaceborer device. Virtually everything in here had been destroyed. The smell of smoke and burned silicon still hung in the stale air. The forward wall consisted partially of a shattered glass partition which separated the Spaceborer’s control room, where under normal circumstances, a crew of specially trained officers would spend months calculating the exact trajectory and energy input of the wormhole to be created, from the device itself. Through the partition, I could see that the far side of the room was shaped like a funnel, in the centre of the funnel should have hung a special gyroscope, which instead now lay dented and useless on the floor.

Sequencing a torch, Wye jumped through one of the broken windows and examined the device carefully. After a few minutes rotating the device in his hands, thoroughly looking over every inch of it, he placed it back on the floor and walked over to the window.

“It looks like for the most part the important bits are still in one piece, it’s everything else that’s the bad news. The entire control room and focusing chamber will have to be pretty much rebuilt from scratch, but that’s the easy part. Your new computer doesn’t have the programming to control the device, and it’s the programming that took about fifteen years to develop.” He shook his head.

“That might not actually be a problem,” I replied, remembering a few months ago, when Crewman Long had approached me with several computer components. She claimed that whenever she attempted to install them into the new computer, they instantly rejected the system and shut down, requesting an authorisation code. When I attempted to use my own code, it was rejected and the system shut down again.

“There’s a good chance that those modules may be the Spaceborer control systems. They were programmed to require an Admiral’s authorisation to activate upon installation. Even if the data they hold is corrupt, it should shave a long time off how long it’ll take us to get this place operational again,” he replied happily.

“I’ll have the Admiral and Long join us at the Core.” I said, helping Wye back over the window. “Let’s get a start on going home.”