by Peter Grant
“I suppose we don’t have much choice, Chief. Let’s see if we can do better tomorrow.”
That night Steve took a cup of coffee to his cabin, sat down at his terminal, and called up a three–dimensional holographic schematic of Shuttle Pod Two’s circuitry. He set to work tracing every wire, dissecting connections, and trying to figure out what could be at the root of the problem. Three hours and several cups of coffee later, he was no nearer a solution. Bleary–eyed, he closed down his display and climbed into his bunk.
He sat bolt upright in bed at four the next morning, suddenly awake. Out of nowhere, a possible solution had come to him. He couldn’t sleep for thinking about it, so he spent an hour at his terminal checking his theory against diagrams of the shuttle pod’s systems and their interface with those of the ship.
He ate a hasty breakfast, then headed for Lieutenant–Commander Ergal’s office. The Engineer Officer’s eyebrows rose. “You’re looking very tired for so early in the morning?”
“I am, Sir, but that’s because of a lot of skull–sweat last night. I think I may have the answer to our problem with Shuttle Pod Two.”
“You do? Hang on a moment, then. I want Backhouse to hear this, too.”
Steve waited while Warrant Officer Backhouse was summoned. He was one of the two Warrant Officers who’d been brought aboard to fill slots usually occupied by commissioned officers — in his case, second–in–command of the Engineering Department. Steve had already found his combination of vast experience and in–depth technical knowledge to be invaluable. He was learning that a highly competent Warrant Officer might be even more useful than a better–qualified but less experienced commissioned officer in some technical and specialist functions.
Once Backhouse had arrived, and they’d all helped themselves to cups of alleged coffee from the departmental urn, they sat down around a small conference table. “All right, Ensign, what have you found?” Ergal asked.
Steve called up a three–dimensional structural schematic of Achilles, then zoomed in on the bottom of the shuttle pod and its interfaces to the ship’s systems, which were trunked and piped along the ship’s spine and keel to reach all sections of the hull.
“This caught my eye, Sir.” He pointed to a red triangle on the schematic, below the pod, next to its interface with the ship’s cable trunk. It contained a red capital letter ‘P’. “I understand that’s an overpressure release valve on the reaction mass tank below the cable trunk.”
“That’s right. There’s another at the far end of the pod. You can see its symbol half–hidden beneath that reinforcing bracket.”
“I see it, Sir. I note that the tank below Shuttle Pod One doesn’t have a valve in the same position.”
“Let me check… You’re right, it doesn’t. The valves on the tank below that pod are in different locations, being on the other side of the ship. However, the valves aren’t connected to the shuttle pod, or related to it in any way, so I don’t see how they’re relevant to our problem.”
“With respect, Sir, they might be. Shuttle Pod Two draws power for all its internal systems through a connection right here, above that valve, and very close to it.” Steve pointed to the connection on the schematic. “Its power demands are unusually low at present, because there are no Marines using its berthing compartment; but when it charges its capacitors, the power intake jumps considerably. Sir, what happens to a connection when you draw a lot of power through it?”
Ergal frowned. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Ensign.”
Backhouse stroked his chin thoughtfully. “I think I see, Sir. You’re saying the connection gets warm, aren’t you, Ensign?”
“Yes, Warrant Officer — and given the amount of current we’re talking about, wouldn’t the heat generated be enough to warm the overpressure release valve beneath the connection?”
Ergal slapped the table with his hand as he suddenly realized what Steve was suggesting. “If the valve had a slight defect, it might not show itself in normal service — certainly not if a missile cell was above it as usual, because they don’t have power connections in that location — but if it was warmed by thermal radiation from that connection, it might expand just enough to allow a mist of reaction mass to escape!”
Steve nodded. “Yes, Sir; and that mist might produce enough liquid contamination to short out the connection. It’d evaporate quickly, too, on the warm surfaces, so by the time someone physically checked the connection, there’d probably be no trace of what had caused the problem.”
Ergal’s eyes blazed. “Dammit, Backhouse, why didn’t we think of that.”
The Warrant Officer shook his head, grimacing. “I should have, Sir, but I was completely focused on potential problems inside the pod. It’s not an obvious issue, Sir. There’s no record of problems with that bay before, when it was occupied by its usual missile cell and there was no electrical connection at that point. We’re the first to deploy these shuttle pods, so it stands to reason we’re the first to run into this sort of problem.”
“I could be wrong, Sir,” Steve warned, “but this is the only answer I could think of. That pressure release valve seems to me to be the most likely source of trouble. After all, we’ve looked at everything else.”
Backhouse observed, “Sir, our pressurized tanks have inspection hatches, to allow us to get inside to carry out maintenance or repair battle damage. If we drain that tank, we can unbolt the hatch and send someone inside. They can test both overpressure release valves from the inside. If this one’s leaking, they can seal it internally. That should take care of any leak contaminating the electrical socket above it. The second valve on the other end of the tank can handle any problems in the short term until we can get this one repaired.”
Ergal nodded vigorously. “Yes, and if that solves the problem, when we get to Midrash we can have their orbital dockyard pull the shuttle pod, so we can get to the valve and replace it. It won’t take more than a day or two, including reinserting the pod.”
He took the display controller from Steve and tapped commands into it. The tank wiring schematic vanished, to be replaced by a list of figures. He ran his finger down one column. “That tank’s currently full, but we can transfer most of its contents into the overflow holding tank beneath the docking bay. We’ll have to vent the rest to space, but that’ll still leave us plenty of reaction mass reserves for this trip. We’ll refuel at Midrash. I’ll check with the Loadmaster to make sure we can redistribute our internal mass like that. If he can compensate for it, we’ll start pumping out that tank at once. We can send in a team by lunchtime to check the valve from the inside. Will you set that up, please, Warrant Officer?”
“Yes, Sir. I’ll go inside myself.”
Steve quailed inwardly. “What if I’m wrong, Sir? I’d hate to waste all that reaction mass if we don’t need to.”
“That’s my responsibility, Ensign. I think it’s worth the gamble.” He looked at him curiously. “What made you consider that valve? None of us gave it a second thought.”
“Well, Sir, that tank wasn’t filled until our last day at Lancaster, when we topped off our supplies of reaction mass, water and air before departure. Prior to that there wouldn’t have been any pressure on the valve, so it wouldn’t have caused any difficulty. I was trying to understand why our problems only started a day out from Lancaster. After all, we’d been charging the capacitors prior to that without any difficulty. The only difference I could think of between then and now was that the tank had been filled. The rest followed, Sir.”
“And a damn fine piece of deduction it was.” Backhouse said with a grin. “We don’t yet know for sure, of course, but I agree with you — if that’s the only factor that changed, the odds are pretty good it’s the cause of the problem.”
Steve wasn’t able to join the team that opened the tank. He was in the Operations Center, understudying the Navigating Officer and mastering the intricacies of the Plot, the three–dimensional holographic display of surround
ing space. It was central to the OpCen’s mission, showing each and every contact from close range to many millions of kilometers away, relaying target range and bearing to the Weapons console, aiding the Navigator in conning the ship, and providing tactical control of the Division to Captain Hutchinson. It was by far the most complex station in the OpCen.
Commander Mars chose that afternoon to put the OpCen team through a tactical exercise. All information about the ‘hostile force’ was provided by the battle computers, which fed it to the Plot as if the ship’s sensors had detected it. The team plotted the ‘approach’ of an ‘enemy squadron’ whilst observing stealth precautions themselves, worked out a firing solution, simulated the launch of a full salvo of missiles, and guided them through a blizzard of ‘enemy counter–measures’ to strike their targets. By the time the exercise was over, everyone was perspiring freely.
“Not too bad,” Commander Mars said slowly, “but it could have been better. Plot, you were too slow in forwarding new information to Weapons as it came in. You’ve got to be faster. Don’t wait for a request, send the updates automatically. Without them, our targeting information is out–of–date.”
“Aye aye, Ma’am,” Senior Lieutenant Rashid, the Tactics Officer, acknowledged from his seat at the Plot console.
“EW, you have to anticipate what the enemy may throw at our fire control systems to blind or jam them, and have countermeasures ready. On two occasions our mid–course guidance corrections couldn’t reach our missiles in flight. You compensated for that with follow–up signals, but they shouldn’t have been necessary.”
“Aye aye, Ma’am,” Senior Lieutenant Fulghum replied crisply from the Electronic Warfare console.
“Still, not a bad effort overall,” Mars said judiciously. “I’m sure that by now, you can all see the need for each of you to be able to operate any console in the OpCen. If this compartment was damaged early in an engagement, that’s precisely what would happen as the survivors tried to operate all the consoles that remained functional. I hope this has driven home the need for regular cross–training in each others’ jobs.” A muttered chorus of assent. “Good. I’ll give you all two days to work on that, then we’ll try another exercise like this — and I’ll rotate all of you to other consoles, to make it more interesting.” Groans, mingled with chuckles. “What? You surely don’t expect me to make it easy for you? An enemy won’t!”
The door slid open and Lieutenant–Commander Ergal strode into the Opcen, still wearing stained overalls, face glowing with triumph. He braced to attention beside the Command console.
Commander Mars looked up at him. “You seem happy about something, Lieutenant–Commander?”
“Yes, Ma’am. I’m pleased to report that Ensign Maxwell identified a faulty valve in one of the ship’s reaction mass tanks. Turns out it was the cause of our problems with Shuttle Pod Two. We’ve put in a temporary fix. We’ll need the services of the orbital dockyard at Midrash to make a permanent repair, but it shouldn’t take more than a day or two. We’re the first to run into this particular problem, because we’re the first to deploy the new shuttle pods. I’m going to write it up for the Fleet Technical Bulletin when we reach Midrash, and also send an urgent signal to the project team handling the River class light assault transport conversions. I doubt very much whether they’ve taken something like this into consideration. They’ll need to look at their plans, and the prototype conversion now in progress, to make sure they can work around it.”
Commander Mars nodded at Steve, a smile spreading over her face. “Well done, Ensign. I’m pleased to see you’re making good use of your time in the Engineering Division.”
“Thank you, Ma’am,” he managed to say.
Ergal strode over and wrung his hand. “A personal ‘thank you’ from me, too, Ensign, plus a collective one from the rest of the Division. I was beginning to worry I’d lose what little remains of my hair over that damned shuttle pod!” Grinning, he turned back to the Commander, braced to attention, and hurried out.
The warm glow of satisfaction stayed with Steve for the rest of the afternoon.
~ ~ ~
Another one of his new responsibilities wasn’t going so smoothly. Two days later, he was Assistant Officer of the Deck to Lieutenant–Commander Kilian during the afternoon watch. After taking over the watch and making sure that all was in order, the Exec spent half an hour going through the entries in the ship’s log, annotating those he considered worthy of comment and discussing them with Steve as a training opportunity. At last he closed the file on his terminal and sat back.
“How are your various responsibilities going, Ensign? I don’t want a formal report, just quick verbal feedback.”
Steve spent a few minutes discussing the ship’s small craft, the now–fully–functional Shuttle Pod Two, the state of Berthing Compartment Echo, for which he’d assumed responsibility, and his navigational work with Senior Lieutenant Ellis. “She’s going to have me calculate and execute the final hyper–jump on our approach to Midrash, Sir. She reckons every Navigating Officer has to ‘lose his virginity’, as she puts it, and this is how you do it.”
Kilian laughed. “She’s right. You’re arriving in the close proximity of a star that can swallow you and your ship if you haven’t calculated the jump correctly. That adds a whole new element of stress! Well, that takes care of three of your responsibilities, but you haven’t mentioned the commissary. How’s that going?”
“I haven’t taken over yet, Sir. The stock–take and audit haven’t yet been completed.”
Kilian frowned, glanced around the OpCen at the other personnel on duty, and lowered his voice so as not to be overheard over the rush of forced–draft air conditioning, the hum of electronic consoles, and other conversations. “I assigned you that responsibility almost two weeks ago! Why didn’t you tell me about the delay before now? What’s causing it?”
Steve responded equally quietly. “I approached Senior Lieutenant Fulghum about it the very next day, Sir, but up–to–date information on which to base the handover wasn’t available at that time. PO O’Grady’s doing a stock–take, but when I last checked with him, two days ago, he said he hadn’t had time to complete it yet. Senior Chief Luculle assigned PO Jorgensson to assist him, but I haven’t spoken to him, Sir.”
“And the audit of the shop’s finances?”
“I presume Senior Lieutenant Fulghum is having that done, Sir.”
“You ‘presume’? You don’t know for sure?”
“Sir, I told him I couldn’t accept responsibility for the commissary without an up–to–date inventory and audit. He instructed me to tell PO O’Grady to begin the stock–take, and we agreed that we’d delay the audit until the pressures of preparing for departure were over. I haven’t heard anything from him since then, Sir.”
Kilian was visibly annoyed. “You should have kept after him about it. Ensign, when I assign a responsibility to one of my officers, even a minor one like the commissary, I don’t expect there to be any delay in assuming it — and I particularly don’t expect to find that out two weeks later! You should have informed me as soon as you became aware of the problem.”
“I’m sorry, Sir.”
“All our departments are required by Regulations to maintain current, up–to–date inventories and accounts. I’m responsible to the Captain for making sure that the Regulations are observed. If the commissary didn’t have them immediately available, that’s a shortcoming I need to address right away. Did Senior Lieutenant Fulghum tell you why they weren’t available?”
Steve mentally crossed his fingers. He didn’t want to repeat Fulghum’s explanation, because he knew it wouldn’t go down well. “Er… not specifically, Sir.”
“Not specifically? What do you mean? What exactly did he say?”
Steve knew he could no longer evade the issue. “He said he’d never been able to give the commissary enough time and attention, because he’d had too many other important things to do, Sir.”
“He said what?”
“Er… that’s what he said, Sir.”
“I see.” The Exec’s face wore a thunderous expression. “Let me make an educated guess here. He wanted you to take over the commissary without waiting for a stock–take and audit. Am I right?”
“Er… I’d rather not say, Sir.”
Kilian looked at him very narrowly. “I think you’re trying to cover for him, Ensign. I appreciate this puts you on the spot, but you can’t take his lumps for him.”
He turned to the command console, picked up a comm unit, and dialed Fulghum’s code. “Lieutenant, this is the Exec. What’s your duty schedule today?… Very well. I want to see you in my office at sixteen–thirty to discuss the commissary handover. Kindly bring the latest information about the stock–take and audit with you… At sixteen–thirty, then.” He replaced the comm unit on the console.
“This doesn’t excuse your failing to keep me informed, Ensign. Consider this a formal rebuke, albeit verbal rather than written. Remember, your superiors really, really don’t like unpleasant surprises! If you keep them informed at every stage, they’ll have early warning if things begin to go pear–shaped and be able to help you do something about them.
“Remember, too, that a problem like this can get much worse, very quickly. For example, when we arrive at Midrash, what if a Sector audit team comes aboard to conduct an unannounced operational readiness inspection? It’s happened before, and will again. They look for any shortcomings they can find, no matter how minor, and this would be right up their alley. It would put a black mark on the ship’s record. That would earn Commander Mars a roasting from Captain Hutchinson. She’d give one to me in turn, and I’d pass it on down the chain of command, through Senior Lieutenant Fulghum and yourself, all the way to PO O’Grady. See how quickly a minor administrative issue can balloon into something much more nasty?”
Steve nodded, crestfallen. “I see, Sir. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
