"What do you mean my ship doesn't have a full crew!" Jr. Lieutenant Hoyt growled in frustration as he stomped behind the hangar commander, Master Chief Vasquez trying to keep up with her unyielding pace across the launch apron.
Ignoring him she continued on with her hangar safety briefing. "You see these two coloured lines painted on the hanger deck over there?" Pointing towards a pair of yellow coloured warning lines that followed a few feet away from the outer bulkhead walls of the cavern like hangar. The surrounding assembly of officers, crew chiefs and captains nodded their heads.
"The yellow line q,is the C Drive field boundary safety demarcation. Or C Drive Line. You will not cross that for any reason without wearing a class three EM shielding suit. I don't need you crawling along the outer bulkhead babbling incoherently about little grey demons coming for you or any other Alice in Wonderland type hallucinations. If you need to enter those restricted areas denoted by the yellow line you come see me and I will outfit you properly like those men working over there.
The ensemble of crew turned their heads in unison following chief Vasquez' arm as she gestured toward the vehicle launch and retrieval airlock two hundred metres away. There Hoyt could see beyond the gaping doors of the monstrous launch chamber two men prepping to move a towed shuttle pad into position in preparation for receiving an incoming vessel.
Dressed in silvery metallic one piece suits and large bulbous helmets that protected them from the drive fields dangerous effects on their bodies they resembled the old 20th century depictions of space aliens. One glanced over towards them acknowledging them with an emotionless blank stare. The bright glare of the overhead lights reflecting off the large goggle like eyes of the helmet. The effect was spooky and he wondered what that used to look like to poor unshielded civilians back in the day. None of which knew no better when they were awoken in the middle of the night by the ubiquitous glow of Cerenkov radiation flooding through their window and similar dressed men invading their bedroom.
With the men falling in behind her. Vasquez continued her monologue as she marched towards a series of doors that lead from the hangar bulkhead to the outer most chambers of the Starswift. Purposely pausing just before reaching the yellow line she'd been talking about. "At each outer bulkhead door that second orange line signifies the demarcation for any lethal time rate gradients levels that bleed in from the drive field."
She looked around momentarily at the men making sure they were indeed paying attention. "Beyond those doors are our deep storage for all non essential supplies and our water reserves. You have no reason to be in there what so ever. Period! Full stop. End of story. Nothing cellular or living is permitted past those doors including yourself. We have drones and robots for a reason on board this ship. Am I understood?"
As the assembly of officers and crew grumbled their understanding Zach rolled his eyes in frustration. 'This is so stupid.' He thought to himself. Every single one of us has had this safety briefing a hundred times. They all knew this stuff. He needed to address more important issues like his ships incomplete crew compliment.
This was his first assignment as a captain of a vessel and he wasn't going to go about it hamstrung. Everyone else had a full roster and so would he. Even if he had to arrange crew to be pulled from the Starswift herself.
Impatiently Zach raised his hand. The master chief glaring at him as he did so.
"Yes JUN-ior Lieutenant Hoyt!" Vazquez said emphasising the junior part of his rank.
"Excuse me Chief." The lieutenant began to bring up his issue again. "But you mentioned my ship, the Machs Pride, is short crew members. I was wondering if we could address that issue now before we do the test run of the new Drive later today. I won't have time later as I'll be busy on the command deck of the Starsw-"
"Later!" The hanger chief retorted cutting him off. The look of death in her eyes. Another officer, the captain of the Gödel, gave him a understanding look. Don't piss her off was right Hoyt thought to himself. Suddenly he wasn't so excited about his new assignment.
Spinning around and resuming her frenetic pace and speech she lead the men towards the port side vehicle and craft bays. "On the port side are the vessel bays and launch prep areas for our scientific expeditionary fleet. Although you all know your individual ships I'll review them for everyone's benefit. From left to right are the DeSitter, Mach's Pride, Maxwell and Einstein."
Zach looked on at the four sleek triangular craft nestled in their cramped service bays. The Machs Pride in bay 2 being the largest of the ships. Her forward point protruding out beyond the bay doors. The Einstein, DeSitter and Maxwell were older models, equilateral in shape, and clad in dull slate grey metamaterials. The Machs Pride however, was as new and state of the art as the Starswift herself. Isosceles in shape, Her lighter grey hull glowed a soft pearlescent blue in the dimmed lights of the bay. Her hull's skin composed of stacked metamaterial composits that must have been creating a double negative refractive index under the wavelength of light the hangar was using for her to emit colours like that.
'Sweet!' He thought to himself 'she's capable of active optical camouflage.' Perfect for studying any primitive civilisations they might come across out there in the galaxy without the species ever being aware of a 100 metre wide isosceles triangle hovering overhead. Last thing they needed was for the octopus people of Rigel 7 worshiping triangle gods or hairless space monkies.
Starboard are the logistics and support vessel bays. We have the Hubble, Gödel, Huygens. In the corner over there is the Cantor. We call that old rust bucket the Impotency Express because of her notoriously unstable drive fields. I'd stay away from her. Unless you don't want to have kids anytime soon." A few of the captains chuckled.
"Wow! An old disc model. A Raytheon 23-A. That things ancient!" One of the captains remarked, whistling in astonishment.
Grinning in agreement, Vasquez nodded and thumbed behind her at a motley trio of small aging transport shuttles. "Back by the lifts to the crew decks you'll find our shuttles the Josephson, Aharanov and the Bohm.
In a few minutes we'll be receiving our combat vessel the Lucien. She will be in bay nine. Bay nine will be off limits to all unauthorized personnel. You will only be allowed in there if escorted directly by a Marine Command Element."
"Why does the Starswift have a combat vessel aboard let alone a Marine Command Element? Although we're navy, we're a scientific expeditionary vessel testing a new jump drive. We expecting trouble?" A perplexed officer remarked.
"No. But we don't know what the fuck were going to run into out there once we get to Kepler. We'll be a long way away from home and we can't detect any body else that may be out there from our local bubble of the galaxy. We're preparing for any possible unforseen contingencies... Just in case. " Vasquez reassured the men.
"Listen. The Lucien's packing some heavy shit. Were talking evanescent supercooled phase conjugates. So stay the hell away from her." The Master Chief warned.
"Positronic weaponry. Fuuuck that's a lotta ass were packing. Ain't 511 a bit much? We're talking WMDs depending on the beams yield setting." Zach blurted.
"Yep!" The Chief concurred.
"OK. That's my spiel. I know you all think I'm a bitch behind my back and I don't give a shit. Stay on my good side and you'll do just fine down here. Run you're field above idle and tear up my deck and I'll make you dock outside the ship for the remainder of the tour. Know your places, bays, prep areas and stay in them! Dismissed"
The group dispersed. Most heading towards the lifts, a few chiefs and captains ambled across the hangar to admire or inspect their respective ships.
Zach too wanted to get a closer look at his ship. He knew he'd have plenty of time after the test jump later today to get acquainted but couldn't resist and made for Bay 2 to get a gander.
A tall, skinny captain came up aside Zach ribbing him with his elbow. "The Machs Pride huh?"
"Yeah" Zach replied to the aging captain of the Maxwell as they walked together.
"Just so you know. I was supposed to get the Machs Pride" the captains anger and jealousy clearly evident. Taking Zach back a little.
"I'm just as surprised as you are" Zach offered suddenly uncomfortable.
" yeah well, I don't know what they were thinking giving her to a junior grade lieutenant like you. " the captain s vitriol leaving a sting as he stormed off before Zach could think of something witty to counter with.
"I'm also second to Senior Lieutenant Matthews on the Swifts Conn. " He shouted back but the man was already halfway to the lifts.
"I don't think that helped your situation lieutenant." Vasquez's voice
called from behind him.
"Last thing I need is to get ostracised down here." He sighed as he turned to face Vasquez.
Running her hands through her short cropped black hair she cracked her neck with a quick twist and then motioned for him to follow. Zach noticed that she was probably strong enough to beat up half the male crew.
"So they gave you the Machs Pride. That ships central to the science expeditionary fleet. So new you can still smell the fresh paint inside. She's a fantastic ship. State of the art. The new unmanned submersible drones for exploring Kepler's oceans that we're carrying in Bay Ten were purposely designed for the Machs modular bay. We got drones for land and aerial exploration that we can swap in and out of her too. " The Hangar Chief broke the momentary silence as the two of them navigated their way around some heavy cooling hoses and auxiliary power cables left strewn out across the hanger deck.
"Yeah. I wanna familiarisation tour by her engineer as soon as we complete our test jump this afternoon. We're docking at Proxima Orbital Station- Alpha, we can pick up any extra gear he recommends then before continuing on to Kepler. Besides I wanna see the science labs on board I hear they rival the Starswift's." Zach commented while the two of them waited as a power generator was wheeled past making its way toward the cables.
"And I'm hearing she can push 65C with the new powerplant they've built for her."" She added, her eyes widening, expressing how impressive a feat that was. The light glow of the Mach casted a blue hue onto them as Zach reached up and gently let his fingertips glide along the underside of her as they walked towards the hangar control tower.
Narrow and four stories tall it housed briefing rooms, offices, secondary command stations for the hangar facilites and an advanced navigational library constantly updated with each new location they visited or sensor scout probe uplink that came in. The top floor was the flight control centre its self. He could see the soft lighting of its computer and station terminals through its large floor to ceiling windows that afforded a full view of everything going on in the hangar below them.
Popping the hatch that lead inside open and then bypassing the briefing rooms along the first floor they accessed a stair well tucked around a corner at the end of the corridor. "Come on my office is on the second floor off the navigation library. We can talk about your crew situation in private up there." Vasquez said as they paused at the first landing.
Along side the wall was a interactive two metre touchscreen of the deck plans for the Starswift. The layout was similar to the Machs only several times larger. At 1600 metres from the tip to base of her elongated triangle shape she resembled a monolithic obsidian sharks tooth with gently tapering points on all three sides. Her habitable section a series of round bulkheads arranged in concentric rings like a slice of onion. The outermost compartments were reserved for storage purposes encircling the crew habitable areas, with the drive systems housed at each tip of the triangle. The idea was to keep everyone aboard as far away from the warp field as possible. In front of the habitual section and before the tip of the triangular shape of the Starswift, a secondary circular section of compartments housing the ships powerplant, auxiliary functions and life support was nestled.
"So your offices are off the navigational library and study? Why not keep them with the rest of the hangar staff on deck three? Hoyt asked as they exited the stairwell into the library antechamber.
" I took over one of the private research study rooms. Personally the views much better down here than in the utilitarian command centres a deck up. " Vasquez said as the door to the library its self slid open revealing a spectacular sight of a giant deep crimson orb floating in the centre of the darkened library. Planets of various sizes orbited the luminescent sphere with text hovering next to each giving brief descriptions and data. "I figure if you're going to serve aboard a starship, it mine as well feel like it. My view out of my office window is all this." She said sweeping her hands across the room.
Zach looked around the theatre like library in wonder. Although smaller than the Starswift's main navigational library on deck three, it was every bit as equipped while retaining a quieter, intimate atmosphere. Cozy study areas lined the walls spaced in between smaller floating holographs of various star systems. Zach noticed one in the corner serenely rotating. It was Ross-128. Once considered a likely candidate for habitability it's planet 128b turned out to be a disappointment like Proxima had been. The problem being their host stars were too active with solar flares that would radiate all potential life. On Ross-128b all that was found were various forms of resistant lichens and mild spores. Still scientists were eager to study the flora there in hopes of advancing genetic and cellular medicine.
On one of the desks a model of the old Daedalus Station sat every bit as lonely as its real life counterpart. The dream of a foolhardy rich entrepreneur who ignored all of his advisors. The derelict station floated in solitude around Bernard's Star. Abandoned after it became evident that there was no industry or discovery to be had in the system. Its rumoured the entrepreneur still lives there like some hermit. But nobody is going to waste their time travelling 70 plus days to a useless star to check if that rumour is true or not.
"That Luyten's Star?" Zach said nodding towards the giant six metre solar system dominating the room.
"Yeah...that's... The real reason we've got the Lucien aboard. Epsilon Eridani's outer system sensor array has reported that they've detected faint signals popping through the ionosphere of planet GJ273 ...uh Luyten-b. Latest stellar imagery from them is showing intermittent lights on the upper continent of the planet. The signals appear to be using OAM Wavelength Multiplexing, much like ours. It could be natural, a mistake or somebody's there that's using high speed data uplinks." Vasquez said in a hushed voice.
Zach walked closer to the floating star system and inspected the planet Luyten-b. There it was plain as day. A small constellation of lights piercing through the darkness of the night side of the planets upper continent. "Incredible! You think this is where our mysterious builders of the outer system ruins come from? This is the first sign of intelligent life we've come across out here. "
Vasquez just shrugged in response " We don't know. The signals are too weak to be detected from earth. Nobody knows about it except the Navy and a few of the governments back on earth. The public hasn't been told yet. We've been ordered to investigate Luyten's Star on our return from Kepler"
"This...is going to be some monumental expedition. So...you wanted to discuss the Mach's crew compliment disparity?" Zach questioned.
Vasquez leaned against one of the research study desks and folded her arms. "Well, its like this. The Starswift has nobody to do TDY on the Mach. I mean there's this one guy, but I don't think you'll want him...he's a bosun that's about to be shit canned from the fleet. Failed every aptitude test they can throw at him. We've got him working as a custodian. Literally swabbing decks and cleaning out the heads. He's a shit janitor too. Guys name is Dave Holden. From Los Angeles originally. He's out on the flight apron right now...doing... something I suppose. You can't miss him. And now...he's all yours."
Zach sighed "Great....I guess I have no choice. I'll work with him and get him up to standards."
The decking shuddered slightly as a pair of lights began to flash in each corner of the room and above the doorway of the navigational library.
"Attention all hangar personnel. Incoming Alpha Class assault boat inbound. Prepare to receive incoming vessel." A loudspeaker interrupted their conversation.
Vasquez punched Zach on the shoulder. " That's the Lucien. Come on you'll want to see this. Let's head up to the flight command centre and watch. "
From the height of the command centre Zach had a commanding view of the launch chambers doors. The doors stood 30 metres high and were nearly transparent. Through them he watched as the exterior airlock door for the chamber slowly slid open revealing the deep inky void of space beyond. A small flurry of slush and ice from the Oort cloud drifted past. And then it came into view. Almost the color of black smoke a flat starfish like shape dropped down and into view like a monster descending on its prey. The shimmer of its field drive blurring her extremities slightly as powdery blue filaments of light from her propulsion coils ran eerily up each of her arms. At the centre of he belly a deep pulsing red light throbbed ominously. Zack inhaled sharply at seeing it. That was her business end. The lens for a beam of incomprehensible destructive capability. He felt uneasy being around something so dangerous.
Gingerly she settled down onto the mobile pad the crew had set up earlier as the outer launch chamber doors slowly shut and sealed.
Crewmen in silver EM suits lined up outside the launch chamber's doors waiting for the orange flashing warning lights to cease so that they could tow the Lucien inside and secure her in Bay 9. "This Holden guy...you said he's down on the launch apron right now?" Zach asked once more.
"Yep, should be in front of Bay 3 right now. I didn't want him anywhere near the Lucien when she came in." Vasquez said looking down towards the port side ship bays.
Vasquez said he'd be easy enough to spot. She was right. He stuck out like a sore thumb. Short and portly, he looked like the results of what would happen if that classic early 21st century actor Jack Black and some Hobbit had a lovechild. " Hey. You Dave?" Zack shouted as he crossed the hangar towards Jr. Bosun Holden. The pathetic guy clung to his mop and looked nervously at the approaching Lieutenant and nodded.
"Good. I need you on the Mach's Pride." Zach pointed at the ship one Bay over. But the janitor looked confused and stared back dumbly.
"You want me to wash the Mach? " the bosun uttered stupidly.
"No...I ....need...you.....ON the Mach's Pride". Zach spoke slowly and deliberately.
"There's something inside the Mach's Pride you want me to clean?" Holden repeated clearly confused.
"What!! No!!! You've been TDY to the Mach's Pride as a crew member. I'm Jr. lieutenant Hoyt....your commanding officer. " Zach said to the bewildered bosun.
"Huh....but I'm the lowest scored boatswain on the Starswift. There must be some mistake." Dave the janitor stammered back. The poor guy had the lowest self esteem he'd ever seen in a man.
"Look. It's true you're lower than whale shit around here." Zach put his arm around his shoulder guiding him towards the Mach. "But you're with me now. Dave, I'm about to give you a 'no shitter.' Space Command is about to survey you out of the navy."
Dave looked down at the floor. His eyes like a puppy about to be put down. "I know..its...OK. I can go work with my dad. He said I could go work for his boss back in Pacoima servicing porta potties. Says it pays alright. "
"Hell no you won't. Dave..... Pacoima's a shit hole. You're here amongst the stars. I say you serve aboard the Mach's Pride with me. I'll take you under my wing. Have my crew train you. You do what we say and learn fast and become one of the best damned boatswain's this ships ever had! And once you do and your fitreps are outstanding you and I are going to go find the stupid prick that tried to flush you and we stick a foot so far up his ass he becomes a walking Uranus joke for the rest of his miserable life! That sound good to you!" Zach roared as he stuck his hand out for Dave to take.
"Sure does!!!". Dave Holden exclaimed as he reached out and shook Lieutenant Hoyt's hand vigorously. Beaming with renewed hope.
" Good! " Zach swatted his new bosun on the shoulder. "That's more like it. Welcome to the team. I'll see you at oh seven hundred tomorrow morning after the test jump to Proxima. No more fucking mops for you! Dismissed!!!!"
Well, this is chapter three of my Starswift series. In the next chapter they set course into the wilds of space and begin the adventure.
Hope you enjoyed reading this and that for a short time you were swept away into the world of the Starswift and her crew.
If you are interested in reading the previous chapters in this series please feel free to do so at the links below. I come out with a new chapter weekly. Sometimes soon depending on life.
Starswift:
Chapter 1
https://steemit.com/fiction/@steemydave/starswift
Chapter 2
https://steemit.com/scifi/@steemydave/starswift-chapter-2
Also please check out my fiance's Steemit page 
Again thank you for taking the time to read my story. I am humbled and appreciative.
Best,
Steemydave
All liquid rewards from upvotes go directly toward funding my fiance
All pictures supplied by pixabay.com
