Chapter 7: Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself?
I was sitting in the Admiral’s throne and receiving all kinds of conflicting reports. Environmental said it looked like a possible sensor problem, while engineering was almost hysterical, insisting that everyone on three deck was dead. The intercom to that level was on the fritz, so trying to reach an actual person down there was currently impossible.
On top of that, the Chief Engineer was nowhere to be found and Shift Supervisor Castwell thought he’d died along with the repair team.
The ship was melting down around my ears and on the bridge there was nothing but confusion. I had to find out how bad it was down there before my brain exploded.
I made my way out as quietly as possible, then sealed the bridge crew in using the command crystals to lock the blast doors and then headed for a lift.
I took a deep breath and pressed the appropriate button before sealing the suit helmet. The power armored battle suit was built to be self-contained, and could even be used in vacuum. So I knew that whatever was wrong on three deck, the suit should be able to survive it.
The door opened up to an empty corridor. There wasn't any smoke, nor were there dead bodies strewn across the deck plates, which seemed like a good sign. Unfortunately, if the suit had a scanning function then I didn’t know how to access it to find out about the various gas levels. And I wasn’t quite brave enough to unseal my helmet and test the air quality personally.
I instead opted to proceed down the hallway and soon came to a T intersection. A quick glance to one side showed a series of doors. A look to the other side made my heart stop.
Sprawled out against one wall and naked except for his underwear was an ancient, balding figure with wild grey hear splayed out to either side of his ears. It was the missing Chief Engineer.
I felt like throwing up (and probably would have, were it not for my previous episode). It was true. Everyone on deck three really was dead. Then paranoia set in. A problem with the air supply just happened to take out Lieutenant Spalding, the Chief of Engineering. I looked around wildly. Maybe this was a trap. When no one jumped out of any doors or demanded I pay for the crimes of my ancestors, I heaved a sigh of relief.
Cautiously I approached the body of the Chief Engineer. It was a humiliating way to die, sprawled naked in a public corridor where anyone could see all of his wrinkled, sagging skin. It was hardly the last image I would have wanted the world to see if I was the Chief Engineer.
Then through my suit’s speakers I heard the Chief Engineer's body make a horrible rattling sound.
“What!” I exclaimed and nearly jumped out of my skin. In fact, that's probably exactly what would have happened if I weren't wearing a full suit of vacuum-tested power armor. I did manage to cause the suit itself to jump into the air and land back on the deck with a thump, which woke up the snoring Spalding.
Eyes bulging out of my head, I stared at the Lieutenant. I had thought the Chief Engineer was on his way to a date with the waste recycler or the welcome arms of the systems primary, and he’d just been sleeping in the middle of a crisis. Perhaps the stress of the situation had over powered him.
Spalding looked around blearily for a second before focusing on my face, or helmet, as it were. “If it isn’t the Little Admiral,” he said with a smile.
I grimaced at the name and crouched down next to the Chief Engineer, servos whining with every motion. “What have they done to you, Lieutenant,” I asked.
“Huh,” said Spalding forehead wrinkling before looking down at his scantily clad body. “Oh this, this is nothing. I had to inspire the men, lead by example and all that, you know,” he said dismissively.
I simply stared at him for a moment, unable to form a coherent picture of what he might have been trying to convey. It was like the man was speaking Greek.
“That, and motivate them with my plasma torch,” the Chief Engineer said with a chuckle.
“What are you talking about? Were you attacked,” I asked, still trying to piece together what series of events could lead to this particular scene. I stood myself back up, and the servos whirred in their increasingly familiar fashion.
“Oh, they thought about it. But they knew what was good for them and decided to do like I told ’em to in the first place,” the Chief Engineer said with satisfaction.
“Say, that’s the suit I was rebuilding for you,” the Chief Engineer’s eyes lit up, “sounds like the servos need adjustment.” Spalding laboriously climbed to his feet.
“I don’t understand,” I said, still desperately trying to decipher the nature of the emergency on deck three, and the Chief Engineer's role in it, “was there a plot?”
“A plot,” mused the Chief Engineer, his hand fumbling around on his waist before he seemed to realize he didn’t have his tool belt. He then reached up to grab my suit's arm. “I don’t think there was anything as deep as a plot, it's more like irrational fear filled the men’s heads and caused their brains to ooze out their ears.”
“Uhhh… you don’t mean to say you killed any of them, did you,” I asked, careful to keep my arm still. I vividly recalled the last time a man got too close to my power-armored arm. I tried to step away but the Engineer followed me.
“There,” the Engineer said in triumph and I was suddenly unable to move. “Let’s get rid of that awful whine.” He looked up at me apologetically. “I don’t have my proper tools with me so this’ll just be a temporary fix.”
I swore and jerked my arms and legs but I was stuck. Somehow the Engineer had locked down the suit’s servos. I couldn’t even pop open my helmet or try to escape. I was trapped.
This could be it, I thought. My breath began to come in rapid, shallow bursts. The Chief Engineer played dead long enough to lull me into a false sense of security before shutting down my suit, or maybe just long enough to get me off the bridge and let the new first officer take over the ship. Meanwhile, they hauled me off to the brig.
“Now this won’t take but just a moment,” the engineer said, tongue clenched between his teeth.
Sweat rolled down my temples. The world began to spin, my vision narrowed, I was sure I was about pass out, and why not? There was no real need to be awake for any of the inevitable humiliation, was there? I let myself relax, and I began to make peace with my fate. It wasn't what I'd hoped for, but at least this insanity would soon be over.
I heard a loud clicking sound, followed by an elated "Ah-ha!" My vision returned and I found that my arms and legs were no longer trapped, and I could move again.
Which I did, quickly backing away from the engineer, who now sported a beatific smile.
“What did you just do?” I demanded.
The Chief Engineer’s brow wrinkled before clearing. “Temporary fix on those noisy servos. Really need to get that suit over to the shop for another overhaul. Thing’s still a work in progress. It wasn’t really meant to be used just yet, I had a few more upgrades planned for that thing,” he said with a wink.
“You’re not part of some sort of plot, are you,” I asked suspiciously.
The chief engineer looked a bit guilty. “I assure the Admiral if there’s any discrepancy in the equipment register that I had nothing to do with it. The new head of Supply Department’s been out to get me from the start,” he said indignantly.
“No. I don’t mean a supply discrepancy,” I felt like pressing the issue, but I merely waved my hand and abandoned that particular line of inquiry, remembering rather abruptly why I had come down here in the first place.
“Why are you naked in the middle of a public corridor,” I asked trying to regain composure. “Obviously, reports on the oxygen levels on deck three have been somewhat inaccurate.”
The Engineer opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off before he could say a word.
“On second thought, I really don’t want to know. All I care about is getting whatever it is fixed and restoring order on the ship.”
Again the Engineer looked guilty, proba
bly because he’d been caught naked in the middle of a public corridor.
“Ah yes…,” he muttered, “I’m pretty sure it’s not an engineering problem. My guess is we need a systems analyst to take a gander at the sub-processing node.” He looked nervous, shuffling from one foot to the other, his hands working their way across his waist-line. “That’s just a guess,” he hastily added. “No one can know for sure.”
I shook my head and rolled my eyes, instantly thankful for the face-shield's presence to hide the gesture from the guilty-looking Spalding. “I’ll have one of those sent down here right away. Just get yourself dressed and figure out what’s wrong with the ship.” I turned to go, hoping to put this entire scene behind me.
“Right away, your Admiralship,” said the engineer, “We’ll have her right as rain in just a jiff. Expect we’ll need to run a few more drills, though,” the Chief Engineer said to my recently presented back.
I grunted in response and hurried to the lift. Maybe the Chief Engineer hadn’t been part of any plot, but that didn’t mean that this little non-emergency hadn’t been engineered by someone else. Someone with the intent of getting me off the bridge long enough to start a coup.
Then something occurred to me, and over my shoulder I yelled, “How long does it take for the ship’s hyper drive to spin up?”
“About twelve hours to get a full charge,” said Lieutenant Spalding, now following close behind. “Why?”
I stepped into the lift and turned around, careful not to bump anything with the bulky armor suit.
“When the ship’s ready, we need to secure those two pirate ships, as soon as possible.” The doors started cycling closed. “I’ll let you know when to spin up the drives, Lieutenant.” The doors clicked shut during the middle of the sentence. I shrugged and punched in the Flag Bridge.
Arriving back on the Flag deck I made my way to the bulkheads to find them still closed. The command key unlocked them and I peered inside. I breathed out a sigh of relief when I saw that everything was the same as I’d left it. It looked like there had been no coup attempt this time, so with a weary sigh (and blessedly silent servos), I went back to the Admiral’s Throne and resumed my previous position. It was going to be a long night.
Chapter 8: Time To Get Changed
The next morning I, red eyed from lack of sleep, clomped my way to the Armory.
I’d only managed to catch a few winks while sitting on that throne they called an Admiral’s chair. I’d stayed up all night, certain that something bad was bound to happen and determined to be prepared to face the revolution when it stormed its way onto the bridge.
Instead last night I was greeted by a sight that would scar me for life. I was sure anyone who had seen the new Chief Engineer in all his sagging glory, decked out in nothing more than his underwear and a plasma torch, would agree.
Fortunately the problem was with the ship’s old distributed intelligence system, not with the air supply. It looked like time and a general lack of use had left a few Bugs in the system, because there was nothing at all wrong with the sensor units themselves. It seemed the problem originated in one of the ship’s sub-processing cores.
The maintenance teams and the members of deck 3, roused from their sleep by the alarm klaxons, had gone back to bed and a system’s technician was called in to deal with the faulty sub-processor.
The sheer amount of panic on the bridge and the half hour it had taken for first responders to arrive from other decks had showcased how badly the Lucky Clover needed to run some basic emergency drills. A half hour to respond in a real emergency would have seen everyone on that deck dead of asphyxiation. I shuddered to think how we would have done with an actual threat or, stars forbid, if somebody was actually shooting at us.
One thing was certain (other than this ship’s crew needing more drills), and that was this battle suit was killing me. The padding was very much not working in some places, which was why I found myself on the way down to the armory. I was hoping to turn in the power armor for some further work (read: padding improvements), and check out something a little less obtrusive in the way of protective gear.
Over at the armory, Crewman Gants was a sight for sore eyes. His two friends standing guard outside the blast door, armed with pipe wrenches, not so much.
“Don’t worry, Admiral Sir,” he hastened to assure me when I glanced sideways at the pair of them. “I don’t let them have anything more powerful than those wrenches while they’re on guard outside the armory. Just in case someone gets any ideas,” he said laying a finger alongside his nose before leading me inside the armory proper.
If the two pipe wrench wielding guards had given me pause, his half dozen friends inside the armory itself nearly gave me a heart attack. Decked out in everything from strings of sonic hand grenades to flash-shotguns and outright plasma rifles, with one person carrying so many blaster pistols they were literally falling out of not only his pockets, but also his oversized utility belt. The group looked like they were ready to start a war. I wasn’t sure how much damage they could do to anyone other than themselves, but they’d enthusiastically loaded themselves down with as many weapons of war as they could individually carry.
I imagine that my voice, when it finally emerged, resembled a choking sound more than anything else, “Not quite what I had in mind when I asked you to guard the Armory, Mr. Gants.” I took a moment to gather myself together.
“I know,” Gants said with a grin. “This is much better, isn’t it?”
“It sure is something,” I said with a false tone of appreciation. “They look like they’re wearing half the Armory.” I looked around at the ‘friends’ helping Gants guard the armory and shook my head in dismay when the crewman with all the pistols brushed against the wall and several of the loaded weapons fell crashing to the ground.
“Oh. Not even close,” Gants hastened to assure me, but I felt anything but assured. “These are just from one of the light arms lockers, we didn’t even put a dent in it when we took these ones out for cleaning,” he said proudly.
“You were working on these,” I asked, waving my arm to encompass the whole motley-crew and their assorted weaponry. “Fixing them?”
“Yep. A few were down checked for basic repairs, so we just pulled them out and started working on them. Since we were stuck down here anyway,” he said proudly. “Might as well make ourselves useful.”
“I hope no one got hurt,” I said genuinely, trying not to imagine all the trouble they could have gotten into. An image of an exploding power cell from one of the blast pistols flitted through my head, right past the one of poor Jean-Luc's final moments.
“Oleander set off one of the sonic grenades,” Gants admitted, and then hastily added, “It was an accident. Don’t worry, I've got him on duty outside with a pipe wrench, guarding the door.” Gants leaned closer and muttered, “It seemed safer to keep him away from the heavier ordinance, at least until after someone with more skill had a chance to look them over first.”
By someone with more skill he clearly meant himself or one of the other happy hoodlums inside here with him. I felt my blood pressure rising.
I couldn’t risk leaving them in here all by themselves, who knew what kind of trouble they’d get into. On the other hand, could I risk replacing them with a random selection of strangers from the crew? At least from the looks on the faces of these grinning fools, they were happy enough to be down here playing around with the guns and pretending to guard the door.
Although on second thought and after another glance at all the weaponry, I wasn’t sure just how much pretend was going into the guarding part. Pretending could turn deadly serious with this many over-armed and overeager volunteers.
I decided on a half measure, at least until I had time to make a better decision.
“How many of these men are checked out on the weapons they’re carrying?” I asked.
“Checked out, Sir,” Gants asked cautiously, looking concerned. “Uh,” he glanced around
the room, “well, I’m not entirely sure, Admiral,” he said, like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar, refusing to meet my eyes.
I frowned for effect. “Then for the meantime, it's sonic weapons only, Mister Gants. See to it that everything else is returned to the small arms locker and sonic weapons are issued to the men down here in the armory. Until your people have been trained in their use, and I mean properly trained, Mister Gants,” I said sternly, “there’s no point in carrying around weaponry they don’t know how to use.”
Gants opened his mouth and his fellow temporary armory guards looked dismayed, but I overrode them all.
“Help me get out of this suit of battle armor,” I said imperiously. “I need something more comfortable to wear while I’m on the Flag Bridge, power armor is simply too big and clunky to be effective bridge wear.” I was pretending that this had only occurred to me after I’d spent the last day and night wearing the suit.
Admiral Who? (A Spineward Sectors Novel:) Page 8
