The Apprentice Starship Engineer: Book One The Link (10 page)

“What they’re saying is they aren’t attracted to you.”

“Great. Thanks.”

“Any time, kid.”

I looked at him. We were silent for a moment. “Don’t worry, Drake. Bob will be okay. Just get well soon. I’ll need your help.”

“What’s up?” The pain pills had kicked in and I was feeling better.

“That’s right, you weren’t at the mission briefings. In three weeks, we’ll be dropping out of warp. We’ll be at the first of four planets that could support life. A team of scientists will go to the surface for an extended stay of six months. Bob was assigned to go, but now you’ll be taking his place.”

Chapter 6: You’ll be taking Bob’s place

Jenny and Kathy barged into the room. Kathy came over and put her hand on my forehead. “You feel hot,” she said, taking a seat next to me.

“Here, honey,” Jenny said as she passed me a glass of water. I took a large drink, feeling thirsty. She passed me Margret when I finished. I put her into my shirt pocket. “She says she likes to ride in your pants pocket. She feels closer to home there.” I blushed. Jack coughed, just stifling a laugh. I glared at Jenny, who batted her eyes at me. She has nice eyes, I thought.

“Jack. I’m beat. I have an appointment to get a mechanical eye tomorrow. I don’t know how long it’ll take. I’ll let you know as soon as possible. I should head back to medical while I still can,” I said.

“Yeah, go ahead, kid. Don’t even call tomorrow. Just get well.”

Jenny and Kathy both had to help me stand. “Wow, those pain pills are great. See you later, Jack.”

As we entered the hall, I called Margret. “Margret, we’re going on an excursion trip to a planet’s surface. I need to know everything.”

“That’s bull. You’re an apprentice. You can’t go alone,” Kathy said.

“Jack says management is calling it an emergency, so I’ll have to.”

“I’m going to have a talk with Linda. They might be able to send you, but they should pay you as a journeyman.”

“Planet 9732 is the driving reason for the
Armstrong’s
voyage. It’s inhabited and teaming with life. We’re sending over sixty scientists and technicians to study the planets eco system. They’ll be on planet for two hundred days. Your mission is to keep everything running, not a small order as there will be a lot of equipment delivered with the scientists,” Margret said.

I was getting tired and starting to hurt as we arrived at medical. Kathy and Jenny were helping me into bed when Sandra arrived.

“I have the night shift. You both can cut out when you want to. I’ll watch him tonight,” Sandra said.

Both Kathy and Jenny gave me a peck on the cheek, promising me they’d see me in the morning.

After they left Sandra came over, straightened my blankets, then put her hand on my arm. “Go to sleep, hero. I’ll keep watch.”

* * * *

Jenny woke me up. “Time for breakfast, sleepy head,” she said as she raised my bed and then slid a tray of food in front of me.

As I ate, I thought about Sandra. She thought I was a hero. That had to be good. By the time I was dressed it was nine thirty. We headed over to see the doc about my new eye.   

Dr. Weston looked me over. “How is he doing? Has he done any work or even gotten out of bed?”

“We went to engineering and talked to Jack for a few minutes, then came back here and went to bed,” Jenny said, giving me a smile.

“Sounds right and to be expected. Light duty indeed. I don’t make things up. It takes time to heal.” He shook his head. “Drake, I’m going to take several three dimensional pictures of your eye socket. Then I’ll build custom mounts for your new eye,” Dr. Weston said as he removed my eye patch and studied my eye socket. “I want you to remove your eye every night and wash out the socket. Hold still while I take the scan. You’ll have to use a special solution for washing. I don’t want you irritating your eyelids or tear ducts. That should do it.” He turned around and looked at a display that showed the inside of my eye socket. “I’ll need to download a program into your assistant.” I pulled out Margret and told her to prepare for program download. “This will allow you to make use of your new eye’s features—super magnification and infra-red modes of operation, to name a few.” He paused. “Young man, it’d be very rude of you to use this to view young women. If I find out you’re doing that, you’ll go without an eye. Understand?”

“So, doc, with IR I can see energy flows and check for good connections. This is awesome. It’s the best thing that ever happened,” I said.

Dr. Weston just stared at me. “You’re a strange kid.” He took Margret and tapped her display, downloading the program. “Margret, can you connect to the eye?”

“Yes, doctor. Do you want me to run the diagnosis on the eye now?”

Doc Weston looked at me and shook his head. “No, not now. Run them at the end of each day.”

A machine chimed. Doc Weston took the eye out of its box and placed it inside a small machine on the side of the desk. After a few seconds, another chime sounded.

The doctor rubbed gel onto his hands. “Most people report strange feelings when having an eye inserted for the first time,” he said.

Strange? Hell yes! I almost heaved. The new eye showed the room at a forty-five degree angle. The mixed picture was disorienting. It cleared quickly, and I could see everything crystal clear.

Doc Weston looked at Jenny. “Some people adjust faster than others to a mechanical eye. It’s common to lose your balance in the first few days.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him, Doc. Sandra said he woke up last night with a headache. Is that to be expected?”

“Meds run out?” Doc asked. She nodded. “Yeah, we did a lot of work on his head. It’ll get better in a few days.  Keep up on his pills. Drake, you should take Jenny out dancing. Moving around will get you settled with that eye faster than anything, and it might help you loosen up as well.”

I turned my head and almost threw up. The room spun as the mechanical eye tried to follow my movement. I grabbed the desk. “Ah, you have anything for motion sickness?”

“Sorry, not with the pain medication you’re taking. You’ll just have to white knuckle it, kid.”

I got up without tilting my head. The zoom was terrible. I looked at Jenny and all I could see out of my new eye was a single hair follicle. I need to read the manual, I thought. Jenny took my arm and guided me to my room.

“Jenny, one minute, then we’ll go to lunch.”

“We don’t have to. You’re white as a sheet. We can go tomorrow.” She sat me on the bed.

“Margret, list the settings for my eye.” It appeared. “Set normal day.” The room appeared in both eyes. “That’s better. Jen, let’s go to lunch!”

Jenny came over and helped me up. “Okay, but my name isn’t Jen. It’s Jenny. Got it?”

I felt better. We ran in to Kathy, and she joined us for lunch.

“He can’t dance. I have to go with you,” she said with a laugh.

I smiled at Kathy. My mom and dad had won many dance contests. Mom taught me how to dance. She called it physical education, teaching me the popular dances. Kathy was going to be surprised if I could get this damn eye to work.

“If he goes dancing, it’ll kill him,” Jenny said.

“He’s healing fast. The bots have stopped the bleeding and are fixing the last damage to his brain. He’ll be good by tonight,” Margret said.

“Margret, is this beer going to hurt me?”

“No.”

After lunch Jenny and I went to maintenance. Jack was out working on some water problems. I went into the conference room and studied the environmental controls used in the dorm modules. I thought Jenny had a pretty dull afternoon.

“Take me to dinner. I’m hungry,” Jenny said, interrupting my studies.

“Okay, okay,” I said, trying to put her off so I could finish the last page.

“Drake, I become mean if not fed on time.”

I glanced at her. She looked mean. I closed the display. “Let’s go,” I said, grabbing her hand.

We ran into Jack in the hall and invited him to come along. Jack and I talked shop as we ate, gaining scowls and frowns from Jenny.

“Jack, do you want to see something really funny tonight?” Jenny asked as we finished our dinner.

“I could use a good laugh,” Jack said.

“Come with us. We’re taking Drake dancing. It ought to be pretty funny,” Jenny said.

Jack looked at me and laughed. “I’ve got to see this.”

  Jenny took us to G-four where we met up with Kathy. I only danced a couple times. I was too tired. Sandra joined us and made me slow dance with her.

“You can at least do that, can’t you?” she’d asked.

She was nice to dance with, and for once, wasn’t rough with me. She felt good in my arms, and for an instant, I thought about her as more than a friend. The music stopped, but she kept holding me for just a moment. I thought she might kiss me. She let go and put her arm around my waist. We walked arm in arm to the table.

Sandra took her chair, shaking her head. “You have to be the dumbest guy I’ve ever met.”

“Yep, that’s me. Straight from the farm and dumb as they come,” I said, raising my glass.            

Brice, a few other guys I didn’t know and a couple girls joined us. Brice challenged me to a game of darts, which I promptly lost so I bought the next pitcher of beer. The next game I threw the dart as if it were a hard ball and made Brice buy the beer. Soon we had a row of pitchers, and were inviting everyone to join us. We partied late into the night and ended up at Kathy’s. I slept on her living room floor while Kathy, Jenny and Sandra shared the bed.

* * * *

Margret woke me up the next morning. I felt fine. Tired, but okay. I stuck my eye into its socket. Kathy, Sandra and Jenny had been disgusted when I’d popped it out the night before. Then they’d had to investigate everything, peering into my eye socket and asking all kinds of stupid questions. My eye had settled in and acted more like the real thing. Doc was right. Moving around had helped.

I got up and made breakfast. Jenny came into the kitchen. She looked bad. She’d drunk too much last night and had been funny on the way to Kathy’s.

“You aren’t supposed to be walking around without me or Kathy present.”

“I had to go to the bathroom.”

“Oh.” I handed her a cup of coffee. “Where did you learn to dance?” she asked.

I didn’t want to look like a Momma’s boy so I said, “School.”

“Oh, wait. Your mother taught you, didn’t she?”

“Yeah.”

“I have to meet your mother.”

Kathy came in and ruffled my hair. “Your mom taught you how to dance. Cute.”

I poured a cup of coffee for Kathy. “Want breakfast?”

“Coffee is fine,” Kathy said.

“No, thanks,” Jenny said.

I scooped up the eggs and sausage and then took a seat. They both watched me eat. I finished washing it down with coffee. Sandra staggered in, sat next to me and stole the rest of it. 

“It’s been fun. I’ve enjoyed your company, but the discovery launches in less than three weeks and I must be ready,” I said as I got up.

“Wait,” Jenny said, “let me get dressed.”

“You don’t need to help me anymore. I’m well, thank you,” I said

“Oh no, you don’t. That doctor will have my ass if I let you go walking around unescorted.” She ran into the bathroom. “Kathy, don’t let him leave without me,” she called.

“More coffee,” Kathy said. I looked at Sandra and nodded as I sat back down. “We, Linda and I, met with management on your behalf. They have agreed to pay you journeyman pay while you’re on discovery. We tried to get them to pay a premium, as you won’t be getting any hours toward your license, but they refused. You won’t be working under a journeyman so those hours won’t count toward it. Under normal circumstances you’d never be permitted to work alone, but management has called it an emergency. Doing that is a stretch, by the way. Jack thinks you’re capable of handling the discovery, and with his recommendation, we decided to let management call the discovery trip an emergency. Linda can call this off. Just say the word.”

Journeyman pay was four times more than I made now. The systems on
Discovery
were relatively simple. I smiled at Kathy. “Journeyman pay sounds great.”

Kathy nodded. Jenny interrupted. “Okay, ready,” she said, giving us both a quick glance.

“Kathy, tell Linda thanks. I guess I’ll be busy getting ready.” I looked at them. “See you when I get back then,” I said, feeling sad.

Kathy got up and gave me a hug and kiss. “You take care. I’ll see you once a week on Saturday. Margret put that on his schedule.”

“Drake, should I schedule it?” Margret asked.

“Yes, every Saturday at eighteen hundred, here at Kathy’s.”

“Jenny, Sandra, you too. Meet here every Saturday,” Kathy said.

Jenny nodded. “You can’t work all the time,” she said, shaking her head at me.

“Drake, meet me tonight at my apartment,” Sandra said, getting sharp looks from Kathy and Jenny. She laughed. “I’m going to get that shoulder of his loosened up. We can’t practice for at least two weeks.”

“Okay, but I have to work sometimes, as in today. Let’s get going,” I said, taking Jenny‘s hand and heading toward the door. “Goodbye, Kathy, Sandra.”

I took Jenny to medical and tried to talk Doc Weston in to letting Jenny go.

Dr. Weston wouldn’t listen to me. He said, “No, keep Jenny at your side, and light duty for at least two more days.”

We went to my room in medical. Jenny told me to sit while she used the bathroom.

“Margret, I need drawings on the extended excursion vehicles,” I said.

Built with anti-gravity plates they could land anywhere. Over twenty-five meters long and eight meters wide it could support twenty people for up to three weeks. The upper deck contained the living quarters while the lower held laboratories and work areas. I was three quarters of the way through the procedure to align the anti-gravity plates when Jenny stepped out of the bathroom.