“Never fear, lass,” Spalding said with a soothing smile, “you’ll always be a girl, in my book.”
The former Construction Manager turned Yard Supervisor turned a brilliant shade of purple before taking a few deep breaths.
“I mean, I respect you, of course,” the Old Engineer said cautiously, “why, I don’t have a more qualified person in the yard to run the yard, and being a grandmother only raises you in my eyes…” he trailed off, seeing that no matter what he said, it only seemed to make things worse.
After a tense, awkward silence, Spalding asked cautiously, “Was there some specific reason in particular you chose today to come and take a peek at this top secret project? Some problem with the Armor Prince, perhaps?” he asked, hoping to divert the conversation back to safer paths.
Glenda Baldwin took several deep, calming breaths before shaking her head at him. “Yes,” she said flatly.
“And?” he asked leadingly.
“We’ve got a new repair job,” she ground out.
“I understood that already,” he sighed. Honestly, talking with women was almost like pulling teeth sometimes, he thought exasperatedly. “There’s always a new job to be done; what makes this one special enough to drag me away from here?”
“Well, after the way you sent away that Cutter off with the New Dream—you remember, the one Admiral Montagne sent over here for repair—I’m not entirely sure you will be interested,” the former Construction Managed sneered.
“New ships?” the Old Engineer asked eagerly, but seeing the angry expression still on the yard’s second in command, he took a deep breath. It looked like he was going to have to address that Cutter, “Now, see here, lass; I need those reactors and generators from the broken up Settler Ship over in AZT, and that Constructor of yours needed to get out of here somethin’ terrible. Lettin’ the Constructor do the repairs on the little Cutter on the way meant that Minority Owner-on-board got himself the escort he’d been belly-aching about for weeks, and he was out of my hair before something terminal happened.”
Baldwin snorted derisively, making it perfectly clear what she thought about sending away the Constructor with nothing more than a damaged Cutter in need of repairs to defend her.
“Yes, new ships,” she said almost reluctantly, and then as if a dam had broken, the aging lady engineer became more animated. “Apparently there was a big raid of some kind; we’ve got a battered Cutter, a Corvette that keeps losing power during combat, and…,” she paused for effect, “a trio of newly captured ships: a Light Destroyer and a pair of armed Freighters. ‘Tribute ships,’ I think the officers who brought her in on that damaged Cutter and Corvette called them. Anyway, they’re all knocked up and banged around, in need of repairs.”
“Oh,” Spalding said feeling intrigued, despite the critical nature of the project right in front of him.
“So are you coming, or do I need to come back with a couple T-95 construction robots and drag you out of here by your non-existent hair?” she asked mildly.
“Hey, no digs about the hair,” the Spalding said defensively, his hands going back up to where his magnificent ‘do used to be located before realizing how he must have looked doing so. He stiffened and scowled down at her, “Besides, that kind of talk’s mutiny!”
Glenda Baldwin narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m sure you’d do worse if you’d a mind you had to,” she said evenly.
“Yes, well…that’s not the point,” he glowered before finally throwing his hands in the air and stomping out of the lander.
Chapter 44: Spalding Reminisces on the Prince
“This is what you called me all the way out here to deal with?” the old Engineer blurted, unable to believe his own eyes.
“I just thought we’d take a small detour,” Glenda said with a smile.
“Misappropriation of resources, and the deceiving of a Confederation Engineer!” he shouted, feeling his ears turning red right before a side party of Engineers descended on him, all of them eager to for his advice.
“No-no-no,” he said testily, “you can’t cross-connect an environmental sub-node controller to one of the ship’s backup generators because you’re running out of connection points on the nearest power junction. You have to either put in a new port, or,” he lifted a finger when the young engineer looked like he was about to interrupt, “run a new connection all the way from another junction further up the line.”
“But on the Clover I saw that Environmental had a sub-node in the same location tied in directly to the backup,” protested the younger engineer.
Spalding glared at the young lad. “Never you mind all that, lad; you get the line boosters and run it in right. And don’t even think about splicing in on another line instead of running it right to a power relay!”
“But back on the Clover—” started the young lad, and for a moment all the Old Engineer could see was red.
“Listen here, you young sprout: this here is a yard operation, see?” Spalding growled, activating the plasma torch in his pointer finger and shoving it up until the tip of the flame was almost touching the underside of the young engineer’s chin. The younger man cried out and backed away as Spalding continued, “We don’t need any battlefield modifications being done here in the shipyard. You do the job, and you do it right the first time. Why, if I catch you so much as using our sweet girl’s name in vain one more time to excuse your miserable attempts at engineering, I’ll-I’ll-I’ll,” he stammered and all the other torches in his fingers activated.
“Now, now,” said the sweet voice of reason, grabbing his elbow and frog-stepping him away from the growing confrontation.
The Old Engineer took several deep breaths but didn’t seem able to calm himself. Looking around the shuttle dock and then the corridors as Glenda escorted him through the ship to the Chief Engineer’s office onboard, he felt his heart clench. It was so much like, and yet at the same time so unlike, his beloved ship it made him want to cry or break something—or somebody—in half. Preference heavily on the breaking something, of course; it was a terrible urge for any Engineer to have, but he couldn’t deny it.
“It breaks my heart every time I step aboard the Prince,” he said sadly.
Glenda looked at him with surprise. “Really? I would have thought you’d prefer the familiar surrounds of a Dreadnaught after having spent so many years in one. I mean, after the way you go on and on about the Lucky Clover,” she said finally.
“You know, I got turned around the other day when I was here,” he said finally.
Glenda shook her head inquisitively.
“I was headed for one of the machine shops to rebuild a part for the lander,” he explained, ignoring the way her face shuttered at the mention of the top secret project. He knew he shouldn’t be mentioning anything about the Lander Project because of operational security, but if he couldn’t trust the lady who held his heart in her hands and was running the yard while he focused on the more important stuff, then who could he turn to?
“Anyway,” he continued after a long moment, “everything here seems so similar that at times I can almost convince myself that I’m back on her—on the Clover, that is—but then I’ll be going along, just mindin’ my own business and a maintenance hatch’ll pop up where no maintenance hatch in its proper mind would be located, and I’m forced to remember.”
“Remember your lost ship?” she asked sympathetically.
Spalding looked over at her in surprise and then shook his head. “No…I mean yes, in a way, but it’s not the remembering that cuts the deepest,” he tried to explain.
“Then what is it,” she asked.
“This ship, he’s a good lad—even though it’s not proper for most ships to be anything other than girls, you understand,” said hurriedly. “I mean, all us original engineering teams knew he was a lad the first time we set foot on him.”
“Yes, I’m quite familiar with the common Naval tradition of referring to their ships as ladies,” Baldwin said, shaking her h
ead.
“Well, in Capria it just didn’t make sense to call a Prince a girl,” Spalding expounded, happy to divert off the painful subject for a moment. “I mean, the Queenie was easy, the Queen Anabella first and the Clover now, she never really felt like no man. Not even when she was called the Larry, but the Prince, now he didn’t seem to take to being referred to as a girl very well.”
Hearing no response, he looked over to see Glenda with her eyes closed and muttering something under her breath. Probably about the superstitious nature of old spacers, he supposed. Not that she’d be entirely wrong to shake her head or roll her eyes. After all, spacers could go a touch overboard betimes; it’s just that she wouldn’t be entirely right, especially at those critically important times when a person needed to believe the most!
“So what is it that’s so different about the Clover, other than the location of the maintenance hatches and other internal rearrangements? If you don’t mind sharing,” Glenda inquired politely.
“It’s his heart and his soul,” Spalding said, his shoulders slumping as he absentmindedly kicked his foot against the deck like he was kicking a stone on a dirt road back home. Only there was no stone and no road, just the cold, metal corridor.
“His heart…you mean, the ship’s…soul?” Glenda asked, her brows shooting for the ceiling.
“No,” Spalding said despondently. “His soul is stout, same as our fine lady. Even after a few decades with the pirates, the Prince is still ready for action—a man can feel it in his bones if he knows how to look for it,” he heaved a weary sigh. “I suppose I just got used to talking with my old ship. You know, the feeling of danger and excitement just isn’t here, not in the same way as on the old girl. Why, the Clover has more heart in her bow-thrusters than all the rest of the Dreadnaught class ships combined! Too much sometimes, I suppose,” he admitted, grinding to a halt, “although that’s probably half the thrill of workin’ with her.”
“I see,” Glenda said in a voice that even as lost in his old memories of the Clover as he was, the Old Engineer could see that she didn’t, and was at best humoring him.
“Anyway, I’m sure we have more work to do,” he said refocusing on the present.
“We’ll take a look at the new ships while they’re still on arrival from the Chief Engineer’s office and then head on over to the yard,” the former Construction Manager said.
“We should have just headed over to the yard directly and saved the time,” he grumbled.
“Well…” Baldwin grinned, “I did have a few other items I wanted to go over with you, regarding the Prince,” she said devilishly.
“I knew it!” Spalding grumped. “Getting’ me over here didn’t have anything to do with those new ships. This is nothing but treachery and deceit!”
“Don’t you know it,” Baldwin said with satisfaction, and then waited until they were in the office with a holo-screen activated before going into detail, “now, about those fusion generators. We’ve replaced all the missing ones with new models, but I’m half a mind to tear out the remaining ones as well and replace them with new models.”
“Are you daft lass?” he cried waving a hand through the holo-image and disrupting the picture. “The only way to do it is to replace…”
Chapter 45: Spalding Takes Over
He was the very model of an exasperated space engineer.
“So this is the new ship the Admiral’s sent up,” Spalding scowled at the inside of the Light Destroyer. “Don’t look like much.”
“McCruise sent up,” said the temporary Captain of the Destroyer ship.
“Pardon?” Spalding rounded on the acting Captain.
“The Commodore sent us, not the Admiral,” the destroyer’s Captain explained, “we were on a detached assignment.”
“Druid sent you?” the old Engineer asked with surprise, “I’m surprised that Guardsman managed it.”
“No, Commander,” the destroyer’s Captain said with a confused look. “Synthia McCruise, the Captain of the Heavy Destroyer detached from Easy Haven and Commodore of the task force which Admiral Montagne assigned to her, sent us over to the rendezvous point for Gambit with the prizes after the battle.”
“Commodores,” Spalding muttered under his breath, “LeGodat, Druid, and now this McCruise, we’re getting entirely too top-heavy for this few ships if you, ask me. There’s so many, a man can’t hardly keep ‘em all straight in his own head.”
“I’m sorry, Commander, I didn’t catch that last,” the acting Captain said.
“Oh, nothing but a bunch of stuff and nonsense, and never you mind,” Spalding declared. “Out to space, I was—but you try putting too many cycles inside a fusion reactor and I guarantee things will tend to take a might longer than had before.”
“Alright,” the woman in command of the Light Destroyer said slowly.
“Never fear, Captain,” Spalding hastened to reassure her, “we’ll get your fine new filly set to rights, lickity-split.”
“My top priority is getting back to my primary assignment,” the temporary Captain explained. “This was just a prize crew assignment.”
“We don’t have enough hulls yet to be running personnel all across the great beyond,” Spalding grunted, “so you can either wait until this one gets a fixer-upper and ride her back, or you can try and hitch a ride back on one of the other two warships that came with you—that Cutter, or the Corvette.”
“Whichever is faster,” she sighed in response as she adjusted her Confederation officer’s uniform.
“Hmm,” the Chief Engineer said, scratching the itchy part of his scalp where the metal met the meat.
The other Officer’s face twisted with distaste before blanking clean of expression.
“Well, the Cutter is all shot to pieces and that Corvette failed in combat twice with only minimal damage. With that record, we’re not only going to have to run a diagnostic, but we’ll practically need to tear her apart replacing internal power lines and anything else that went wrong under those blasted pirates who rode her hard and put her away wet. I mean, we fixed her up before but if she’s still acting buggy…” the old engineer trailed to a halt as he considered the myriad engineering problems currently facing them.
“How long, Chief Engineer?” prodded the Captain, who, like all Captains everywhere, was always in a rush to go somewhere.
Spalding frowned at her severely. “Might be if all this here destroyer’s dealing with is hull and engine damage that we can have her done before the others—or at least, close to around the same time,” he amended, not wanting to make any promises he couldn’t keep.
“What are you talking about?” the Captain asked with disbelief. “The Corvette’s hardly damaged, just a faulty power system and the Cutter isn’t a quarter the size of a Destroyer!”
“Do I tell you how to do your job?” Spalding demanded, sticking a finger in the Captain’s chest. “I’m assumin’ it’s the hardware side, rather’n a software glitch and that there’s nothing else wrong with her. I honestly can’t say for sure at the moment; I’ve also got a new shipyard under construction, a battleship in our only working yard that’s still under repair its own self, a factory complex to man with an attached foundry, and a small mining operation that needs to feed everything else. Toppin’ it all off, I’ve not half the men I need—and more than half of the men I do have are rank greenhorns!” He emphasized his words with another stab at her chest.
“I’ll thank you to keep your hands to yourself, Commander,” the acting Captain said stiffly.
The old Engineer threw his hands in the air and turned to stalk off.
“Hey,” she called after him, “what about my ship?!”
“We’ll get back to you when we’re done with her,” he yelled back at her. He had more important things to deal with than a beached captain. “Until then, have some R&R or help the work crews. I’ve got other projects that need my attention.”
He left behind him a fuming and spluttering acting Captain.<
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Chapter 46: Harbinger, Thy Name is Middleton
“I thought you said we were getting close, Captain Middleton,” said the Representative.
“We are getting close, Sir,” the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet Captain whose extended patrol had turned out to be much more extended than any of them had ever suspected, said as patiently as possible. “But let me remind the Representative that the Pride of Prometheus isn’t the fastest ship—either on normal space or at hyperspace point transfers.”
“I just hope this Confederation Admiral you’ve told us so much about is actually able to help us,,” the Representative said with a sigh. “Ever since the Empire withdrew, it’s been one disaster after another for our sectors.”
“I understand your concern, Sir,” Middleton said evenly, “however, I think it’s a little late for that. We’ve already passed the border of Sector 24 and are back in the edge of 25.”
“We are committed,” the Representative agreed with a slump.
Seeing the Representative in the doldrums, Middleton decided to try and cheer him up. “Listen, Representative, no one despises the Imperials for what they’ve done more than Admiral Jason Montagne,” the Pride’s captain said stoutly, remembering the battle for Easy Haven against Captain Cornwallis with a shudder. “Besides, this sort of situation that the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet was created for—Man, not Machine, Sir!”
“Long live the Confederation,” the Representative said tiredly. “Let’s just pray that your Commander is both able and willing,” he sighed, turning toward the blast doors leading off the Pride of Prometheus’ bridge, “assuming we can even find him at this Tracto of yours. It’s possible that he and the rest of your fleet are already out on patrol somewhere. My people don’t have months to wait, and with the blasted Com-Stat network of the Imperials down for the count…”
“If he’s not at Tracto we’ll head straight to Easy Haven, I’m sure between the two we’ll find out where the Admiral’s at!” Middleton called after him. “This is too important to wait; we have to find help for your worlds!”
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