New Dawn (Wandering Engineer) (34 page)

"Do you want to hear
it?" Sprite asked after a moment.

"No thank you." he sub
vocalized.

The AI chuckled. "I didn't
think so."

Twenty three hours of work and he
was tired. Running control runs was a young person's game, not his. He had
missed the memorial service, paying attention to it only when the crew he had
been working with stopped to listen. He made the turn to his quarters and noted
a young woman there. “I was wondering if you could show me what you meant about
how a gravity emitter works and the differences in applications?”

She was about sixteen and seemed
full of energy. Exuded it even. Tired as he was, he never could turn down a
student, let alone a pretty one. “All right,” he said. He thumbed the control
to the door. “Let’s start with how much you know.”

After the lecture he yawned and
stretched. She started, and then gave him a sheepish grin. “Oh, I'm so sorry, I
forgot you’re tired. We can do this another time,” she said.

He shrugged. “Well, now that you
know where a lot of the references are in the database, you can look them up
without me,” he said. A lot of the lecture had been to look it up and how to
look it up.

She nodded eagerly. “I never knew
there was so much there!” she said.

He chuckled. “A bit better than
studying a romance novella?” he teased.

She giggled. “Oh, I wouldn't go
that far, but so fascinating!” She opened the door and stopped, the Chief
barred her way. “What are you doing here? What's going on here?”

The girl ducked her head, and
tried to get past the Chief. “I'm just leaving. Excuse me; I have to get ready
for my next shift,” she muttered. She managed to make her escape as the Chief
turned.

“So now you’re luring them into
your quarters?” she almost snarled that.

He sighed, it was going to be one
of those days. “No Chief, she stopped by to ask some questions on engineering
principles. I answered,” he replied and then shrugged.

“Capitan to Chief. I think I told
you I wanted that inventory this shift?” the overhead speaker squawked. He
cocked his head to the speaker. She glared for a moment, and then opened her
communicator. “Roger that. On my way,” she growled. She turned and left.
Thumbing the door lock, he shook his head.

When he came off from the next
shift he found three more women at his door. "Um...Yes ladies?" They
seemed eager, one squirmed, and another bounced. He noted that they were
wearing coveralls. Basic coveralls were becoming a fashion trend in the
engineering department. It was a bit amusing.

“We were wondering if you could
show us the emitter like you did Casey?" the spokeswoman asked hopefully.
He nodded.

"Okay, my quarters are a bit
tight..." They looked crestfallen. "But I see no reason we can't do
this in the wardroom," he suggested.

They perked up at this.
"Really?" one of them squealed.

He chuckled. "Really. Let me
get a bite to eat and the holo projector and I'll meet you there in ten,"
he said. They nodded and rushed off.

When he entered the compartment
he was amused to find his three had grown into a dozen. "My, I guess my
lectures aren't as boring as my students led me to believe," he joked.
That earned a chuckle. "All right, let’s begin." He set the projector
on the table and plugged it in. He jacked in and Proteus pulled up an exploded
view of a basic gravity emitter.

"All right, this is the
exploded view of a basic gravity emitter...." He turned and pulled up the
emitter plate. "We have four main parts, the emitter plate, shown here,
the controls, the power feed, and the wave guides." Each part projected
briefly, and then the hologram returned to the platter shaped emitter.
"The emitter uses energy from the power grid to spin electrons. By
controlling the spin of the electrons we can generate a mass shadow." He
turned to study the faces. Some were struggling with the explanation. He
nodded. "I'm going to assume some of you don't know what an electron is so
we're going to do a little sidebar," he said. Some of the women looked
relieved, others further confused. He smiled.

"All right, this is an
atom." The hologram changed to project a sphere. "Atoms are the basic
building blocks of all things," he said, deciding to keep it simple and
build off of the basics. He tapped the desk, then the projector, then his
chest. "Everything made of matter is made of atoms." The screen
changed to show a chain of spheres. "Here's a molecule. Atoms form chains
of materials called molecules that form the basic things. Everyone got
that?" he asked. The audience nodded.

"Okay then. An atom has
three main parts." The image refocused on the sphere, then zoomed in. One
of the girls let slip an appreciative ohhh, as the image settled into a series
of spheres orbiting a center.

"Does this look
familiar?" he asked.

One of the girls cleared her
throat. "That's like a planet right?" she asked.

He nodded. "Good guess. The
electrons...” The electrons highlighted. "Orbit the center of the atom
called the nucleus. Inside are protons and neutrons." Each highlighted in
turn. "Different matter is made up of different atoms. The atoms are
different because they have different numbers of electrons, protons, or
neutrons." Each highlighted. "Now, electrons are what electrical
energy is made up of. We'll get back to that in a later class," he said
dryly. The group chuckled at this.

"As I was saying, the super
conductive plate focuses energy to spin the electrons and create the mass
shadow effect." The hologram returned to the image of the superconductor,
then zoomed in to a cross section. "The computer sends out a pulse at
different times to energize and control the system." The screen changed to
the entire assembly. "The waveguides channel the energy up to where you
want it." He tapped his foot.

"For simple things like
interior decking, we need only a few in each compartment, and they take a low
voltage charge every half hour or so to keep working. There are capacitors in
the controls that soak up the low voltage then spit it back out at certain
times," he explained. They looked a little confused. He smiled.
"Okay, I'll get to that in a minute too."

He pointed his free hand to the
superconductor. "Okay, does anyone know what usually breaks in one of
these?" he asked.

One of the ladies waved. He
nodded to her. "They just sort of stop working, or start and stop...or
reverse," she said making a face.

He nodded. "Do you know why
though?" he asked.

She shook her head. "We
usually just cut power and take one from another area," she said.

He nodded. "Yes and the
computer tries to compensate for the loss."

He pulled up the overall
schematic again. There are four points of failure. The first is the power, it
can become damaged. That's a cut out," he said. They nodded. "The
second is if the computer overheats or wears out. It sends random signals to
the emitter and it begins to go haywire," he said with a grimace.

The class chuckles.
"Remember Briana in the shuttle bay? She got stuck to the ceiling!"
The class tittered at that.

“Viruses can also mess the
control software up,” he said. Some nodded at this.

"Okay, well, related to the
controls are the capacitors, they can also overheat, wear out, or in some cases
explode," he continued. Some of the girls looked wary. "The last is
impedance."

He turned to a girl in the back
as she raised her hand. "I read about that in a maintenance manual. What
is it?" she asked, wrinkling her nose.

He cocked his head. "Okay,
short version? It means the superconductor has worn out. It's reached its
maximum designed life and stops working," he said. They looked confused.
"Equipment will only work for so long. Even with good maintenance, they
still wear out," he reminded them gently. Reluctantly some nodded. Others
grunted grimly.

"Metal fatigue, heat,
overwork, malicious abuse, and time. All these things and more are the enemy of
all things machined," he said and then waved. "And that's the basics
of emitters. Questions?"

He could hear the shouts, then a
couple shots. He got up and pulled his coverall on. "Report." Sprite
booted his HUD and fed him the camera of the corridor. "It looks like the
guards are shooting the cleaning robot," she replied in disgust.

He froze. "How could they be
stupid enough to do that? I just fixed it!" He slapped the door control.

 It opened and he stepped out.
One of the amazons was taking a bead on the wobbling drone. "BELAY
THAT!" He commanded, full volume. The woman started, her shot hitting the
ceiling as she whirled. She pointed the gun at him. The other turned and
glared. He came to attention and glowered. "Just what the hell do you two
think you’re doing?" he snarled and glared. One of them ducked her head;
the other with the weapon looked down and put the weapon away. She came up with
a defiant look. After sixteen hours of work he was in no mood to play power
struggle games, old habits of an officer came to the fore. "I want an
explanation," he growled.

The one looking down looked up
with a defiant glare. "Target practice," she said coldly. His lips
moved into a snarl.

"Target practice? On a
cleaning drone that took an hour to repair? You two morons couldn't hit the
broad side of a barn so you needed target practice?" One of the guards
froze and pulled out her communicator. He suppressed the urge to scramble her
signal. He glared from one to the other clenching his fists.

He sent a silent command to the
robot, which wobbled to him. "These robots are designed to clean the ship.
Apparently you two would prefer doing it the hard way?" he demanded. He
looked over the robot, then over to each of them. They couldn't hold their
defiant looks for long, both dropped their gaze.

"Trouble coming. The Chief
and a pair of guards," Sprite informed him. He looked them over as he
opened his door.

One of them looked triumphant. He
motioned the robot inside. "I understand the Chief is on the way. Good. We
need to get this settled now," he growled.

He had timed it just as she
rounded the corner in full wrath. She stopped, then shook herself and stepped
up to him. "What do you think you’re doing shooting your mouth off to my
people?" she said icily. He glared.

"What do your people think
they're doing shooting up robots and the corridor?" he demanded. He
pointed to the ceiling where a tile was burned. "Do you realize how
idiotic that is? Behind that panel is one of the buses for the navigational
suite," he snarled. She looked up to the panel, then over to the guards.
"They could have killed us all with their stupidity!” he finished. She
looked uncertain.

The two guards saw this and
blanched. "Shooting a weapon on a ship is a thing only idiots do for
sport,” he waved to indicate the hapless shooters. “If they need practice there
are appropriate methods to do so." She just kept staring at the burn mark.
He sighed. She turned and glowered. He knew her heart wasn't in it though. She
bit her lip and turned to the guards who were doing everything they could not
to meet her gaze.

"We'll get it fixed,"
she said.  He knew the we in that was the engineers of course.

He shook his head. "Not good
enough. Unless of course you mean changing the training schedule and getting
the guards to stop shooting up the ship and robots." He signaled the robot
to come out. It wobbled. The guards watched.

 "This is a cleaner. It's
designed to clean the interior of the ship and scan it for problems," he
explained. He pointed to the discolored wall panel. "For instance, that
was under a layer of grime, when the robot removed it; we found a leaking
sewage line. Bacteria builds up all over the leakage, gets into the air system
and makes people sick."

One of the guards looked over the
area, then covered her mouth and looked away. "By identifying the area, we
managed to fix the problem and clean up the mess. This robot and others like it
do all sorts of things like that," he explained patiently, hoping the
message was getting through to all of them.

The Chief nodded tightly. "You
made your point. Next time, address your points to me, not my people," she
said coldly.

He nodded. "Fair enough,
you’re their boss; it's part of the chain of command," he said as he used
full command presence and each of them straightened instinctively. There was
something said to the warrior mindset, when command presence was felt, they
snapped too. He nodded. The Chief gave her guards a long look over her shoulder
then turned and left without a further word.

He nodded and returned to his
quarters. "Point, set, match," Sprite observed almost gleefully.
"Hardly," he snorted. "That was a little too easy don't you
think?" he asked. He turned and made ready for bed again.

"Ah, that's because she was
chewed out by the Captain on this very subject yesterday," Sprite answered
smugly as she pulled up a video feed.

"Spare me the drama, just
hit the highlights," he said. He pulled down the bed spread. "Well,
she told the Chief to knock off the destruction and ease up on the paranoia.
Curiously she called her granddaughter."

He looked up at the ceiling.
"Great, just great. I think someone else said something about that
earlier. Family resemblance?" he asked. That was probably how she got off
the hook with that shoot up in the boat bay come to think of it, he thought.

Sprite projected an image of each
of them, then karated facial recognition points. A subprogram scrolled through
calculations for a moment. "A sixty eight percent match based on facial
recognition software. I don't have the ability to do a genotype comparison,”
she reported when the program finished.