Penance (RN: Book 2) (8 page)

Avery leaned against a support column of the engine room with his arms crossed, as a slim moustachioed man in orange overalls pointed at the second furthest concentric ring in a series of eight that diminished in size as the followed the narrowing hull to the rear. He had understood the problem from the get-go, but the chief engineer insisted on a further elaborate explanation as to how the creatures bite had indented the rear hull displacing rings six and seven, pushing them beyond critical alignment and affecting the ship’s ability to gate.

Avery’s eyes narrowed from impatience and stress, “So can we gate or not?” There was nothing he could do here and he had other critical duties to perform. Repairing the hull and realigning the rings required a major dockyard, so why the engineer insisted on holding him here, he had no idea.

A man of few unnecessary words, the chief engineer narrowed his gaze in return, with his bushy eye brows separating from his mop of wild black hair just enough for his short thick forehead to become visible as stared at Avery as if here were a simpleton. The chief engineer chewed his tongue, something he did when pensive, which hollowed his cheeks to an unnatural degree and making his pale face appear more gaunt than usual.

“I don’t think you’re hearing me when I speak. That ring there, and that one,” the chief engineer pointed to the rearmost drive rings as he spoke, “they’re out of alignment, but the engine was designed to jump with five rings, with the others being ancillaries. So yes, we can still gate out but it’ll take the torol a bit longer to generate and we’ll lose some top end. Take a bit longer getting there, so, but we’ll get there.” He began chewing his tongue again.

Avery followed the engineer’s pointing finger for pure effect. Like most of the crew, he had a basic understanding of how the rings developed a torol, a large magnetic auger that drove into the space fabric behind the ship compressing it, like a screw compressing a spring, only for the screw to vanish and the spring recover. In a similar way the recovering space fabric catapulted the ship forward with no further energy expenditure. Like many scientific principles that are easily explained, the actuality was a complex balancing act of enormous magnetic forces that could easily send separate parts of the ship in different directions at different velocities if not carefully controlled. This was the fate that befell the RNO’s first FTL capable carrier, the Ark Royal, during her initial shakedown run.

“But I need to tell you, Lieutenant, that if it had been rings five and six out of alignment we’d be in a pretty state, as we need five consecutive rings, minimum! To be able to make gate-way.”

“But ring five is OK! So what you’re telling me is irrelevant, and we have gate ability. Good! What about the other critical systems?”

The engineer gave Avery something of a peeved look, which made what could be seen of his thin triangular face past the bushy moustache and thick eye brows appear more grieved than usual. “Well,” the engineer’s fingers disappeared into his horse shoe of wild black hair up to the wrist as he chased an itch or dislodged a thought. “Life and science systems are all alright. The reactors are fully contained and the main batteries and the secondary weapon systems are good. But the vertical launch system is currently inoperative if we raise the shields.”

“Why?”

“Two banding generators shorted when they were displaced by the hull movement leaving a gap in the speculative shielding. The shield bands to either side can compensate to some degree, but they’ve lost the shutter element in doing so. So this section of the hull either has all or nothing.” The engineer referred to the donut shaped predictive shielding that encircled the length of the ship, with each donut powered by two generators. The shields could be partially collapsed, or shuttered, in the areas above the engine thrust emitters, munitions ports and main batteries to permit firing. If a section of shielding failed those to either side could compensate to some degree by expanding to cover the exposed section of hull, but it lost the ability to shutter in doing so.

“So the weapons are all ok, except for the long axis weapon which –

“What’s wrong with the LAW,” Avery said uncrossing his arms.

“Well as I was about to say, I’ve no idea how the LAW is as it’s a closed system we’re never meant to look at. And as we haven’t fired it since she was launched I don’t know if these parameters on this panel are true or not,” the engineer tapped a data cell on a wall mounted display. “There are a few hydraulic anomalies and it may be a bad sensor, but as we’re not allowed to go in and check without a Koll engineer present I don’t know for sure.” The chief said with a disgruntled look at the thought of The Koll. “The book says the readings are normal. But the book’s not fit to wipe my arse with. I think I’ll need to make an access request to check everything’s still connected as a sensor may have shaken loose during the incident.”

“But they’re in spec according to the book?” A tall figure on a lower catwalk of the engineering bay looked toward Avery and patted himself on the head. In response Avery spread the four fingers of his right hand across his left bicep. The man nodded and moved on.

“According to the book, but -”

“Then I guess there’s no need to enter the restricted area.”

“Maybe so, but I still think I should –“

Avery took an authoritative step toward the engineer, “Chief, if the risk systems say the LAW is capable then there’s no requirement to enter restricted space. And as the allotted turnkey for the secure areas, I’m ordering you to put any requests for access directly through me, understood?”

The chief engineer found Avery’s intense stare a little disturbing, “If you insist so, any request will go through you.”

“And the motive systems?”

“Well, the chemical engines are all good. Tough as nails, they are. It’d take a mad monkey with a hammer to do anythin’ to them. But the sub-light engines, well ...” the engineer scratched his cheek as he considered the sub-light drive. “They took a lot of heat and the insulation on the drive coils was smokin’ like a steam train by the time he’d finished pushing them so far into the red. Why’d he do that by the way? All we heard down here was someone’s lizard had escaped.”

“Chief, if you’d seen what was holding us back and what was trying to eat us, you’d have run the engines to melt down.” Avery said with an intriguing raise of the eyebrows.

“But what was it then?”

“I’ve no idea chief. The sub-light engines?” Avery nodded toward the long curved intrusions that ran the length of the engineering bay.

“Oh, they’ll get us home as long as he doesn’t cook them again. But I’ve capped them at point six, and they’ll need to be physically checked when we get back as we lost a lot of lining.”

“Point six!” Avery said incredulously, “Jesus, Chief, we won’t outrun a kite on a windy day at point six.”

“Well it can’t be helped. We lost a lot of insulation and are down to the wire in a lot of places.”

“OK, I’ll make a note for a priority inspection as soon as we reach a suitable site,” Avery said looking down into the engineering bay. “Anything else?”

Something of a considering light came over the engineer and he took a step toward Avery, “Lieutenant. I’ve an odd idea about how that magnetic crap was holding us up back there, and if you’d give me a minute I’d like to give you some idea as to –“ The chief engineer’s fingers moved as if they were constructing a 3D model in the air as he spoke.

“Is it a priority as I have other urgent duties?” Avery said making as to leave.

“Why, no, but if you can spare a few minutes later I’d –“

“As soon as I’m free. Thank you, Chief,” Avery said leaving the bewildered engineer staring after him as he exited the control bay in something of a hurry. He initially turned left to give the impression of heading to the rear weapons bay, only to slip down three flights of hand rails navy style before entering a lower section of the engineering bay covered from observation above. He passed through several hatchways towards the lower center sections of the ship, eventually reaching an armoured bulkhead door with a fifty symbol keypad. Avery entered a long pass code and the door opened to a small room that was essentially a slim corridor running around a large center obstruction. He moved to the rear of the room where two figures stared cautiously from the shadowed recess of a series of vertical glass pipes tinted blood red by the fluid inside.

The two men, one very tall, the other much shorter and squatter with dirty blonde hair, slipped from between the pipes as Avery approached. The shorter man moved to a junction in the pipes as Levre greeted Avery.

“A-ver-ree!” Levre called, his huge mouth spread in a loose skinned grin and one hand held high in anticipation of a salutary hand slap as the Lieutenant approached.

The top of Avery’s head barely reached Levre’s shoulders, but the taller man spat out a choking cough when Avery struck his solar plexus with the base of a closed fist. A man of little substance, Levre staggered backwards to collide with the wall where he stood rubbing his chest, his face sagging and protruding eyes fixed on Avery in pained wonder. The blonde haired man smirked at Levre’s distress and turned his attention back to the valve he was fiddling with.

“What the hell, Captain Avery. I was just saying hello,” Levre said, as he rubbed his chest.

“You dumb piece of shit!” Avery said to Levre. “And you Peters.” The other man’s smirk dropped in an instant and returned his gaze to the slow stream of the crimson fluid that drained into a glass jar. “Where’s the other one? Where’s Stain?” Avery glanced around him but no other man could be seen.

“He was sent forward to fix the shield generators the big monster broke,” Levre said with the curious fear of a child speaking about closet monsters.

Avery gave Levre a low disparaging stare as he again considered his involvement with the tall man. Levre was essentially a child who had scraped into RN service through his tolerance to the gate drive and some natural mechanical ability, though his apathy to learn or pursue greater ideals kept him at the base of the engineering crew structure. With their incessant petulant antics and sexual advances, he and his cohorts were the bane of the female crew to the extent that many of them avoided walking alone in the more secluded parts of the ship for fear of an encounter. Levre readily used his height as intimidation in gaining what he desired from those to weak or scared to resist, falling back on the potent
Sangre de gato
, or cat’s blood, as a final solution to the more resilient.

Cat’s blood! A drink concocted from the blood red alcohol based lubricant used in the attenuator control systems of the LAW, or Long Axis Weapon, the Bristol’s main energy projection weapon that occupied an entire lower deck, with the focus and emitter array running the length of the hull.

When the lubricant was mixed with currents, sugar and other items begged, borrowed or stolen from the mess; then heated and distilled. The result was a thin red liquorice smelling liquid that could be consumed directly or mixed with certain base powders, dried and consumed in pill form. The liquid form produced a sense of mild euphoria and unbounded energy, and dispelled the need to eat and sleep for days without harbouring any residual traces once consumed, thus rendering use near undetectable. The tablet form produced the same high and made the taker strongly susceptible to suggestion, something Levre found very useful.

Avery watched in disbelief as Levre made puerile noises whilst repeatedly drummed Peters on the back as the man prepared the cat’s blood. He cursed for becoming aware of Cat’s blood, and then cursed himself again for allowing himself to develop a need that saw him engaging with these people two times a week. He had convinced himself it wasn’t an addiction, yet the need had developed to a dependence that required he give these fools the pass code to the LAW area, the most secure and off limit part the ship that only Koll engineers were suppose to have access to.

And yet there was something more troubling than developing addictions or corruption of trust placed in him by his superiors in keeping this area sealed and secure. It was the over familiarity generated by his involvement in illicit affairs with people of Levre’s ilk. They had grown to assume a rank familiarity that bestowed a certain invulnerability for their actions against the female crew members. He had used his influence as second officer to prevent any of the initial scandals from reaching the ear of the commander, but Levre and co were upping the ante. They took greater risks and committed grosser crimes than he could subdue, Levre’s incident with Brula being one.

He had been a fool protecting them in the very first instance, but as they were party to his own illegal actions there was little he could do. The more he took from them, the more he dug himself in, and it wouldn’t be long before they stopped asking for favours and demanded them? This needed to stop.

Peters closed the valve and the frothy remnants of the crimson fluid dribbled into the container. He had drawn close to half a litre, which lowered the LAW reservoir a perceptible degree.

“You’ve taken too much they’re going to sense it in engineering,” Avery said with a concerned expression as he eyed the fluid level. He knew this fluid had been especially refined for the direction actuator of the LAW and cost tens of thousands per litre.

“No, Cap, it’s all good. The Peters man here has all the answers,” Levre said slapping Peters on the shoulder.