Tramp Wars: The Enemy

by Larry Roberts

  After the Commander left the Chief turned to Mark. “Ok. Most ensigns and lieutenants put in charge love to hear themselves talk. Trying to get them not to talk while insisting their ideas are the best and THE only way, is a waste of time but here you are not even offering an idea or comment beyond agreeing most of the time. Another impossibility. And while most young junior officers are trying to command everything in sight including the cockroaches. During the hole afternoon you have gone out of your way actually giving command away of a project you have risked a court martial over which is just as amazing to me. But then I have spent the whole day being amazed.”

  “Well Chief, I did the fun part helping design and build the first one. Now it is just stamping out cookies. Hopefully better tasting and looking, but still cookies.” Taking a breath he got more serious. “Besides, they are the ones that need to know how to maintain their engines when we are done. I have my own Engine Space and a crew of misfits to worry about training in the new procedures.”

  The Chief’s face turned sour when Mark mentioned his Space. “You are a definite conundrum Mr. Collins. I am having a hard time figuring out why you seem a lot more mature than your age?”

  “I don’t feel mature Chief but maybe it’s my Father. He was head trader for most of my life and taught me that the best traders always let the clients, both buyers and sellers think they are running the show even if they aren't. That minor details not important to the deal screw up more good transactions than not. Letting the client win on the minor details makes them think they are getting more than they are paying for and even pulling one over on us. Besides sir, I never wanted to be an officer. Just a damn good engineer and build things and fly. Oh and by the way, I am glad your new implants are working out so good for you sir.”

  The Chief’s expression changed with a frown as Mark mentioned his father and then pissed for a few seconds at the mention of the eye implants. Then the Chief’s expression became stubborn. “Just remember, you didn’t buy these for me. The ship did.”

  Mark tried his best not to smile or chuckle as he said. “Yes Chief.”

  The Chief grunted and turned back to the schematics, bringing up the new fusion chamber and nozzles again. Shaking his head he turned to Mark. “Can you run a flow pattern simulation for me on the fusion process? I saw the engine work in the recordings but I still do not believe it.

  Mark shrugged knowing the Chief did not even come close to understanding the process even after spending so much time trying to explain it to him. But maybe the flowchart would help and tapped an icon that appeared amongst the rest on the side of the screen. A complex dance of fuel, plasma and shock waves appeared that Mark quickly resolved into a basic simple flow pattern in his head and then spent a few minutes transferring it as best as he could to the screen with Mickey’s help as his lips moved under his breath. Noticing the Chief staring at it still not seaming to comprehend. “Mickey, separate and simplify the different patterns of pressures and velocities, and contrast the colors of feed, compression, detonation and exhaust.”

  The Chief watched the changes and smiled. “That explains a lot.”

  Mark smiled. “One of the advantages is that the high velocity combustion wave is more stable with the pressure tube formed and maintained by the rebounding waves from the tapered walls of the cone. Making the fusion process less susceptible to changes in the magnetic fields around it.” Mark took a couple of breaths, thinking. “You know Chief, I think this would also make fusion process reliable enough to construct an engine with just one fusion chamber, reducing the diameter of the engine, upping the power and efficiency yet again while greatly reducing the cost since only one or two chambers are needed instead of 6.”

  “Now that is just crazy talk Commander. The reason we have 6 chambers instead of one on all engines is to make sure at least two are firing at all times and are able to automatically restart the other chambers within milliseconds from the cross over plasma feeds between fusion chambers. Just having one chamber or even two is simply too damn risky.” Rolling his eyes as he glanced at Mark. “And here I was starting to have hope for you son. Now I don’t know after that stupid comment.”

  “Mark. Ask the Chief if he knew someone tried to murder the Admiral last night so I can get a reading on his responses. See if he lies about anything.”

  Mark frowned. “Ah Chief did you know that the Admiral may have been murdered last night.”

  “Now how do you murder an A.I. Hologram Boy?” Without looking up from the screen.

  “You turn off the power to the AI’s human controller’s life support and he suffocates in his own poisons.”

  “Don’t be silly Mr. Collins, you would have to cut off both the main and secondary power supplies. Sabotage the emergency generator and cut all the alarms and then hope that nobody found out before the batteries went dead. It would take a lot of planning and help to kill the Admiral and why some fool would want to do that is ludicrous considering everything this ship depends on the Admiral to do. It would be like cutting your own throat. No; that is just plain crazy Mr. Collins.” Giving Mark a look of disbelief. “And that assumes that the AI the human controller was controlling died at the same time or it would have sounded the alarm itself with no way for anyone on the outside to stop it in plenty of time to repair the problem.”

  “But it happened Chief. Someone took the locks off the main and secondary power supply breakers and locked them open. The generator was locked off so it could not start, no alarms sounded since they were cut as well and the core tech was sent an E-mail given him the day off. But then, even if he had come in on time, there was no way for him to realize that the controller was dying. And with the AI locking itself into a repeating diagnostic loop it is possible that someone down loaded a virus that killed the AI now that you mention it.”

  “I do not think the Chief did it Mark. He is telling the truth. All my scans of his brain and physical signs indicate disbelief then surprise and shock. He is not responsible in any way for the Admirals attempted Murder.”

  “So that is what all the crap was going on in Sickbay while I was up there.” The Chief said. “They kept having doctors and techs going someplace important even taking a big portable Magnetic resonance scanner someplace and bitching about the elevator being out on that deck.”

  “Mickey; you can tell if someone is lying?”

  “Yes Mark. If you want I can add a colored indicator to the face of people that lie to or around you.”

  “Ok that should be interesting.”

  “When did this happen Mr. Collins?”

  “Evidentially some 15 minutes after you left MP-3 last night. The Admiral was talking to me and he just faded out in the middle of a statement. I should have checked on him then but I thought like you; what could possibly hurt the Admiral so I just went to bed and forgot about it until I was woke up hours later by... The ah. The AI telling me the power was off and where to turn it back on at.”

  “What took it so long to wake you?”

  “Something about running self-diagnostics. Evidentially even these super computers get stuck in loops. Which is why they need controllers. No one was there to turn the AI to safe minimum power mod. It only took a few hours to drain the batteries.”

  “That sounds like a computer for you. We will have to activate the Emergency Drive Control programs down here if the Main Core Computer is gone.” Turning to look at Mark. “You did down load the new Engine operating programs into the Engineering Core last night didn’t you Mr. Collins?”

  “Yes Chief, for basic idle up through full thrust here in the pit. Though we are going to have to fine tune the program once we get into orbit and at several points as we climb out of this systems Gravity well sir. Without the Admiral that is going to be a lot harder and very time consuming this first time as we leave this system. It would probably be a good idea to fine tune it again the first few times we enter and leave a Star system after that.”

  “Now that is an understat
ement if I have ever heard one Mr. Collins.” Shaking his head he went back to studying the plans and looking at the halo-gram.

  “Sir, it would be a great moral booster if we went into the MPR. So the men could see you and know you are giving your approval of what they are doing. Besides watching these men work is quite a pleasure sir.” Frankly; Mark was tired of standing in the truck deck and wanted something to do. Hopefully he could get his hands dirty turning a wrench or two helping.

  The Chief turned and looked at Mark and smiled. “Why of course Mr. Collins. Seeing the real McCoy take shape is a lot more entertaining anyway. Though you can bring the halo-gram along to. Just scale it down to fit in the corner where we can blow up sections when needed. I will be in MP-4 inspecting the progress.” He left leaving Mark to gather a crew and move everything.

  With the halo-gram in place inside the engine room Mark sat back and watched the men working. With the other officers making all the decisions he simply relaxed and enjoyed the view for a few minutes talking to Dian until he saw a group that looked like they could use some help and joined them only to be told politely that they really did not need the help.

  Mark tried several times more to join the different groups to help but each time he was politely asked to leave. Finally realizing that every group already had plenty of help and had specific assigned jobs for everyone to complete at specific times and all he was doing was getting in the way. Disappointed he went over to stand by Dian again so he could talk to her when she was not busy.

  Though crewmen kept coming up to him asking him to salve problems. Having to sending crewmen away to talk to the Space Commander to be taken to the Chief if needed every few minutes, unless it was something the crewman could handle or simply a matter of confusion or understanding a procedure. But mostly he tried to enjoy his time with Dian though she seemed preoccupied with something giving him a colder and colder shoulder as her answers to him grew shorter and shorter each time he tried to talk to her. After trying several times to find out what the problem was he gave up.

  Several minutes later Dian turned to him and smiled at Mark as he returned from the lunch table. “My father says the Council is going to have you taken to a Court Martial tomorrow and bring you up on charges of dereliction of duty and destruction of one of the elevator cars. They are going to take your Officer’s commission away from you. It is the only way to get you out of your appointment to Engine room Commander. You also have a girlfriend in the intensive care ward. She keeps calling your name wanting to see you.”

  “What you talking about? You’re my only girlfriend.” Mark said more interested in his chicken sandwich than some mysterious girl he did not know and as far as he was concerned they could have his whole damn uniform back.

  “Your little Miss Greedly who you took a shower with.” Her smile turned sour. “I thought all the Greedly’s hated you. How come the only one that survived is in love with you?”

  “What?” Mark finished chewing the bight of the sandwich he had stolen off the snack table just outside the emergency exit hatch into the truck deck as he tried to figure out what was going on with Dian. “I aa. I had my vac suit on Dian. I am still trying to figure out how she knew to use the shower and a towel to stay alive in the first place?”

  “She has a chemistry PHD. You bite her neck didn’t you? You damn near took a hunk out of her neck. It was still bleeding when I changed the bandage. No it wasn’t a bandage, it was a damn sanitary napkin that kept the air out to keep it bleeding.”

  Mickey flashed Mark as he took another bite and quickly read it over as he chewed. Then smiling at Dian.

  “Good, it has to keep bleeding for a while yet to wash out all the toxin residue from the wound. Cutting out the meat like they did my shoulder is not an option. I am surprised Doctor Wells did not tell you.”

  “He did tell me damn it but that does not answer why you did it in the first place.” Turning red. “Why did you bight her on the neck?” She said sternly trying to keep her voice down even though as noisy as the engine room was no one could hear someone using a plane voice more than a few steps.

  “Aaa. You will have to ask Doctor Wells that Hun.”

  “I did and he said it was to save her life and you would have to answer the rest. So start talking. When the hell did you become a doctor or a Vampire.” The last sentence could be heard by a work crew unpacking a piece of equipment nearby. Several of them looking around at them.

  “Aaaaa to save her life like I did you with a transfusion.” Her hand went up to her neck. “Sorry. But not here love. I will explain everything later. After the engine is done. Ok.”

  The Chief finely came over to Mark smiling. “I finely have figured you out Mr. Collins. You are a good programmer with a good understanding of the engine, the rebuild kit and what was done yesterday. Especially after the Admiral explained it to you.” Shaking his head and frowning. “But fact is, I would bet that Lt. Commander Johnson is actually the one that was running the overhaul while you just sat back passing orders the Admiral told you to pass while taking the credit. That explains why you keep passing the buck and making everyone else decide details you really know little about. Explains why you could not explain the fusion cone dynamics to me and are just getting in the way now. I think you need to leave and let the men work without your distraction.”

  The Chief smiled. “I will talk to the Captain about making Lieutenant Commander Johnson Engine room 3's Commander as soon as you are impeached from this posting tomorrow during your court-martial. Don't worry, I appreciate all you and the Admiral have done but with the Admiral sick or even dead, I really don't need your moronic help anymore. What I need you to do is go back up to MP-3’s office and get off your lazy ass and finish all the paper work and reports the Captain already told you to take care of and haven’t yet. Then tomorrow when you are again just a fucking Boot Ensign, I will put you in charge of a new work gang with all the fuck ups in it. You will make the rounds going from Engine room to Engine room cleaning the bilges so I don’t have to worry about you fucking anything up. Your access code for terminal is 1234. Now get out. "

  Mark's mouth dropped open staring as the Chief walked away. Finely he turned and walked past Dian who had been listening to the Chief with a frown on her face, he could not even look at her as he walked past, (he was so hurt and embarrassed,) and out through the control room and into MP- 3; shocked that he was fired by the Chief. Hurt then pissed that the Chief thought that he had only been a mouthpiece for the Admiral. Mark looked up through the tears in his eyes. After all the work his pride kept trying to push itself up at the sight of the big engines but the Chief’s words were pounding, echoing in his head to loudly to ignore.

  “Mark don’t. You accomplished an impossible task. Don’t let the Chiefs words do this. He does not know what he is talking about. He is letting his old prejudices against your glasses handicap and you for something else, drive his perception. I am proud of what you have done. No one else could have even gotten this engine rebuilt. Especially with all the advances, even if they had the Admiral helping them.”

  “No the Chief was right. The advances are all the Admiral’s doing, adapting advanced ancient technology from a thousand years ago. All I did was follow instructions like an automaton. A stupid robot.”

  “Bullshit Mark.” Mickey said as she materialized in front of him. “That was what you were supposed to do with the upgrade kit provided by the manufacture. Change the old parts A, B, C, D through Z, for the new parts A2, B2, C2, and D2 through Z2. Then when that critical set of parts came up missing you turned to the only help you had that could get around the problem and even then you continued to change things from the Admiral’s original plans. Understanding the principles and theory as well as the Admiral as he presented the plans to you, but with a more practical real world bent to expand and fine tune the installation.”

  Mark sat down at the control and test station in the engine room. Playing with the old ejectorsitting on th
e side corner as Mickey continued. “No, this engine is all yours. And don’t forget that no one else could have finished the originally planned upgrade even if all the parts had been there. The directions had been written for factory techs already trained in the advanced procedures to do the installation, leaving out much of the details no one but you with my help could have understood outside the factory. The factory techs and engineers would have the same problem understanding half of what we did with this upgrade. This technology is a good 10 years past what the original upgrade was, even past what the Admiral’s upgrade started out to be. Fact is, the Admiral kept telling me what a pain in the butt you were being as you kept turning what were nice safe mild advances to pushing each piece of new tech to the extreme. Putting the old grave coils back on is just one example that had the Admiral pulling out his hair for a good half hour working out all the problems that created. His towers temperature spiked 30 degrees forcing him to put on line cooling systems he never had to use before. Then that change with the injector nozzles to take full advantage of the velocity effects in the combustion chamber was all yours and had him going turbo for 2.3 hours adding another generator on line to get the swirl mixing right so it would even work. You should have heard him cussing you out in machine language the whole time as his core temp went up in spite of all the emergency cooling coils added.”

  Mark smiled. “No wonder he kept pestering me about those stupid nozzles. I just thought moving them to the top of the combustion chamber from the sides just made sense and in line with what he was doing with the lengthened chamber and throat into the main engine. I know that all the old combustion chambers use nozzle streams hitting each other form opposite sides, using the fuel colliding to get the needed pressure inside the ultra-high temperature plasma created by the previous fuel atom’s fusion detonation to ignite the new fuel. In my mind I could see the same effect of fuel streams from the nozzles hitting the fusion detonation wave bouncing off the coned sides of the throat the Admiral had designed, creating even more pressure in the center without worrying about the percentage of fuel atoms that always miss hitting each other and splattering out of the plasma ball before they could fuse and going to waste. It just seemed simply natural. I did not realize it caused any problems. Though I was beginning to wonder why the Admiral spent so much time with me going over the theory and Sims he was doing. I thought he was just fine tuning or something and being polite keeping me informed.”