Running With Argentine (3 page)

An
Obscure Uninhabited

Star
System

Chief Engineer
Carlton West had never been bashful about saying what he thought.

He preferred to think of himself as strategic.

He wasn’t stupid enough to say something that would directly
get him reprimanded, or worse… but he constantly pushed the boundaries. It was
just in his gregarious nature.

As far as the crew was concerned, you either loved the chief
or you hated him.

There wasn’t a politically correct bone in his body.
Everyone that had ever met him would end up being shocked by his behavior after
the first five minutes, but a surprising number of them saw that shock turn
into grudging admiration or humorous acceptance.

In his own way he was probably the most honest man in the
room and, like in all politically correct cultures, this made him dangerous to
friend and foe alike.

“Something’s got to give, I tell ya,” he said. “We can’t
fight a war with the Vilanese and be having these internal problems at the same
time.”

Like many regimes, the People’s Republic of Chezden was
constantly picking fights with their neighbors. The official word was that they
were simply defending themselves against aggression. The elite classes that
pretended to be in the know quietly confided that yes, it was territorial
expansion, but the People’s Republic was justified in this because of its moral
superiority.

The more cynical citizens of the Republic figured that the
regime just needed continual outside threats to maintain its rule by fear.

Regardless of the reason, the People’s Republic had gone to
war with the planet Vilan some 14 months ago. A minor war with a single planet
should’ve ended quickly, but somehow more and more worlds had been pulled into
its defense.

What had started out as a routine distraction for the regime
had turned into an embarrassing and expensive proposition.

“Argentine you need to know, there’s a lot of grumbling
about us still not getting paid.”

Chief West was the only member of the crew to ever call him
by his name; everyone else called him, ‘First.’

It wasn’t as if he didn’t already know this. He wasn’t
getting paid either. True, in space there weren’t many opportunities to spend
it, but they’d had two ports of call in the last several months and that’s when
tempers had really flared.

“Has there been any word from the Fleet Paymaster’s Office?”

“It’s the same thing they’ve been saying for the last couple
of months,” Argentine responded. “It should be any day now.”

“Yeah right,” the chief said. “I’m telling you, this is
going to end ugly.”

“What do you think is going to happen? Is the crew going to
slit our throats in our sleep?”

Argentine’s tone made it clear that he didn’t think that was
really a concern, but on the other hand things were starting to get frantic.

“No. WSO Stark has got his security boys and girls to keep
that from happening. At least it won’t get that far out of hand, I don’t
think.”

Argentine changed the subject, “So how are things in
engineering? Are we finding what we need?”

The Pelican was currently drifting alongside a large
asteroid field in an obscure star system. The chief had suggested to the
Captain, that since they weren’t being resupplied, it might be a good time to
harvest a few raw materials.

“Well, considering we haven’t been resupplied in six months
the engines are doing surprisingly well. We can remanufacture some of the
electronic components but we need to locate some metals. Once we find some
rocks that have adequate amounts of gold, platinum, and palladium we’ll start
the extraction process.

“The truth is, having the downtime to put my crew to work on
ship’s maintenance is the priority - the ore extraction just makes a good
excuse.”

Argentine knew that the chief needed every bit of
maintenance time he could scrounge… The Pelican wasn’t a new ship and the
captain would much rather be racing off somewhere acting important than give
him the downtime that he, and the ship, needed.

When he’d first come aboard the Pelican it’d taken him a
while to figure Chief West out. It was immediately obvious that the ship’s
engine room was better cared for than most in his experience, but the chief
himself was an enigma.

For example, while there were several approved uniform options,
he always chose to wear his white coveralls. It was certainly acceptable for
the heads of departments to wear white, but it was a practice more commonly
adhered to on larger ships - and seldom for engineering. Working with equipment
is, well… a messy business. Since most engineers tended to be of the hands-on
variety they typically wore dark gray.

Not only did Chief West wear white, his uniform was always
impeccable. Argentine belatedly realized that it was one of the reasons the
chief got away with his brashness; Political Officer Bloomington mistook it as
a loyalist’s esprit de corps. Argentine suspected that it had far more to do
with his desire to primp than anything else.

He’d almost, once again, misjudged the chief when he
discovered that one of the engineering crewmen was somewhat of a savant. Rory
had an awkward country bumpkin way about him, but he was a natural on anything
mechanical.

Once Argentine realized that Rory was as bad at the theory
side of things as he was good at the mechanical side, it all made sense. The
chief and Rory made for a very good team.

ΔΔΔ

They were both
sitting in Chief West’s cabin when he pulled a small crystal decanter from his
locker.

He splashed a bit of the amber liquid into two different
snifters.

“This is almost the last of it, Argentine,” he said.

First Officer Argentine picked up the glass and inhaled the
mild fumes of the cognac. He didn’t know whether to curse the Chief or thank
him for introducing this rare pleasure in life.

“Can’t you get anymore?” he asked.

“I can’t get any more of anything,” he responded. “My
requisition requests aren’t just ignored, they’re not even acknowledged
anymore.”

“How did you ever get around to being able to requisition
cognac anyway?”

“Oh, you know. Do a favor here, help someone else there… It
all works out.”

As old friends often do they remained silent for a while.

“Argentine, I need to ask you a question.”

The raised eyebrow invited him to continue.

“No, I’m serious. I need you to think about your answer and
for once in your life not be flippant.”

“My goodness,” said Argentine. “This sounds stellar in its
importance.”

“Well, it is. I’m very concerned that something is going to
happen.”

“So what’s your question?” he asked.

“How many people on this ship do you really trust?”

That was a sobering question. After giving it due
consideration Argentine responded, “Oh, I suppose there’s three people I feel
completely good about, maybe four. Why?”

“Who are they?”

The chief obviously wasn’t afraid to push.

When Argentine hesitated he continued, “Can I assume that
I’m one of them?”

“Very well, if you must. I’ll give you that. I trust you.
There, I’ve said it. Is that really what you wanted to know?”

“No. Keep going. Who else do you really trust?”

“Well, there’s Sami and Janet…”

“Oh for the love of… Sami is a good kid but Janet, really?”

“What’s wrong with Janet?” he asked

The Chief highly suspected that Argentine was just yanking
his chain with this one but it was too important a subject to just let it
slide.

“There’s nothing wrong with her… If you like career
climbing, backstabbing, ambitious crewmen that are willing to rise through the
ranks on their back, and then heartlessly stab you in yours, there is
absolutely nothing wrong with that woman. If you want to trust her with your
life, though, just make sure I don’t get stuck with the cost of your funeral.”

Argentine couldn’t help but wonder if there wasn’t a story
behind that…

“Come on,” he said. “She’s not that bad… and she’s never
come on to me.”

“She comes on to you all the time…”

“Well, she does flirt a little.”

The chief raised his eyebrows in mock astonishment.

“You’re the one that asked who I would want to be stuck on a
desert island with,” Argentine insisted.

“I never asked any such thing,” the chief responded
exasperatedly.

Now he realized, Argentine was just yanking
his
chain…

“Seriously, you don’t consider her that trustworthy. Do
you?”

“No, I suppose not. But sometimes it’s nice to dream,” he
said whimsically.

“So, is there anyone else? Is there anyone else on the ship
that you really trust?” the chief persisted.

“Well, there might…”

“No, there’s not. I’ll answer that for you. You know as well
as I do that just because we get along with them doesn’t mean we can totally
trust them. Not when the stakes are this high.”

“What do you mean by
this high?
”

“Never mind about that right now. I just need to make sure
we’re on the same page. Can we agree on who’s trustworthy?”

“Sure, I suppose. But what difference does it make?”
Argentine asked.

Just then the General Quarters alarm sounded.

The two men looked at each other and Argentine said, “The
Captain didn’t say anything about running another drill.”

“I think he gets more nervous and paranoid every day, but I
suppose we’d ought to get to our stations.”

Neither one of them really believed this was anything except
for the Captain flexing his power again, but Argentine couldn’t help but think
about the timing. This would usually be when he takes his dinner, and the
Captain never let anything interrupt his dinner.

An
Obscure Uninhabited

Star
System

Astrogator
Samantha Parker was trying to figure out why her boob was blue.

She was standing in front of her cabin’s mirror when she
noticed it.

She’d been preoccupied thinking through the new ballistic
trajectory challenge when she’d realized she was almost late for her watch. As
quickly as she needed to get going she still stopped changing clothes long
enough to figure out the puzzle.

She checked her discarded clothing. Sure enough, one cup of
her bra and the pocket of her coverall were covered in blue ink. She had a bad
habit of chewing on things when trying to work through a problem. Apparently,
this time her pen had been the focus of her unconscious habit.

She pulled a new coverall out of a drawer and realized she
wouldn’t have time to scrub. Well, it wasn’t like anyone was going to see her
boob, and blue wasn’t a bad color anyway.

ΔΔΔ

Astrogators are
a weird, rare and strange lot. It takes a very unique and rare talent to be
good at it. It’s not just the math, although that’s enough to disqualify most
people. There’s an element of intuition to it that is almost impossible to
quantify – or predict.

To understand what an astrogator does, imagine that there is
a flat hard surface as large as a football field. Now pretend that there are a
thousand dimples in this surface, such that if a marble is rolled across its
face it might be caught by one of the dimples and circle around to the bottom
of it.

Now imagine that the marble represents a spaceship… and it
needs to get from one side of the flat surface to a small pinpoint location on
the other side. If the surface is tilted just a little so the marble will keep
moving, this will simulate the thrust of the ship.

Bear in mind that many of the dimples are as large around as
manhole covers and start out very shallow before curving dramatically into a
deep hole.

Now, if the marble intersects the edge of one of these
dimples at the exact right speed – and maintains it - it will circle the hole
without ever falling in.

The hole and the dimple represent, of course, a star and its
gravity well. When a ship is in stellar orbit, circling the dimple, it can increase
its speed to go careening off into space or it can decrease its speed to drop
lower into the gravity well. The calculations of knowing exactly how deep the
well is and exactly what speed is needed to maintain orbit is only a small part
of an astrogator’s duties - and is usually handled by the far more common class
of astrogator wannabes, called pilots.

What takes even more calculation is to use the edge of the
dimple to alter the ship’s trajectory. The goal is not to be captured in orbit
but rather to be slung around to a new course without reducing speed or
expending energy.

To really understand what an astrogator does, a person would
need to calculate and launch the marble from the edge of the surface so that it
maneuvers its way around all the dimples. Its launch would have to be such that
it would avoid some of those dimples and get close enough to others to have its
course curved and changed, and have the trajectory so perfect that it arrives
at that small pinpoint at the other edge.

There is no such thing as a straight line in space.

This is the task of an astrogator.

It’s an impossible task unless that same person is allowed
to stop and make mid-course corrections.

Even so, there’s still not one person out of one-thousand
that has the mental capacity to make the marble arrive within even a few yards
of the pinpoint destination - especially if they have to plot past more than a
few gravity wells per jump.

What made Sami Parker so special, however, is that somehow
she could consistently make that marble arrive within a few inches of that
destination – and do it with fewer course corrections than almost anyone else.

Of course, this is talking about a flat surface and space is
three-dimensional. In addition, the stars and their gravity wells are also
constantly moving and changing their position in relation to each other. All of
this adds a thousand levels of complexity to the equation.

This is a big reason why space travel is so incomprehensible
to most people. It also helps demonstrate why Sami’s skill was so valuable.

It wasn’t just the accuracy of her trajectories; it was the
amount of time that was saved by not having to constantly drop out of Dreamspace
to recalculate.

How much time does it typically take to travel from one
point in space to another? It depends upon what path the ship takes and how
many stops it needs to make to readjust its course. Therefore, two ships with
equal engines might take significantly different travel times to reach the same
destination – depending upon the skill of the astrogator.

Most people think that when a ship breaks planetary orbit it
simply flies off in the direction it wants to go. That, however, is never the
case.

Spaceships don’t travel from planet to planet; they travel
from the orbit of one star to the orbit of another star.

Once a ship breaks planetary orbit it is still orbiting the
star. Instead of trying to power itself up the steep side of the star’s gravity
well it is much more efficient to simply increase its orbital speed until the
centrifugal force pushes it up and out from the dimple.

So when traveling in space a ship breaks the orbit of one
star and travels its circuitous route to the orbit of another star.

If someone was watching the marble on the flat surface
again, that person would see it moving just fast enough at the edge of one
depression to keep it from falling in and then, when wanting to break orbit,
adding just enough speed to break out of the depression and careen off in a
precalculated direction.

The arrival at the destination star would be very similar.

The marble would arrive at the edge of a dimple with just
enough speed to be caught by the depression and maintaining just enough thrust
to continue circling that depression. Once a ship is orbiting a star system it
can reduce its speed at a rate calculated to let it “fall” to a lower orbit
that intersects with its planetary destination. At that point the process is
repeated so that the ship can arrive at the correct angle and velocity to be
captured by the planet’s gravity and establish orbit.

Of course this is all an oversimplification.

Ships traveling between stars have actually slipped out of
our space-time continuum and are traveling through what most people call
Dreamspace. It’s actually one of the universes nearest to ours in this
multiverse existence everyone lives in (or so the theory goes). The rules of
physics are different there and the speed of light, fortunately, is a couple of
orders of magnitude higher.

Dreamspace is totally removed from everything in this
universe except for gravity. Gravity is the one force that tends to bleed over
from one universe into the next.

Conversely, there are things in the other universe, or
Dreamspace, that don’t exist in this universe. And the gravity of those masses
can bleed over into this one.

This is what we typically call dark matter.

Way back when, at the dawn of mankind’s technological
achievements, physicists discovered there wasn’t enough mass in this universe.
Indeed, they calculated that 87% of it was missing.

They knew this because the galaxies couldn’t possibly rotate
the way they do with so little mass accounted for. But when they looked for it
they couldn’t find it.

It couldn’t be seen and it couldn’t be measured. It couldn’t
be observed in any way whatsoever other than by the gravity it produced - and
its gravity
was
there. At the time, other universes and Dreamspace were
only a theory and the mystery of dark matter evaded humanity for centuries.

The point is, a modern-day astrogator needs to be able to
calculate courses utilizing the gravity wells of objects both in our universe
and others.

Computers can obviously aid in this process but there is a
certain instinct, a human intuition if you will, that has been found to make
all the difference in success or failure. Very few human beings have this skill
and the very best of them claim they can somehow visualize the gravity wells
they’re plotting their courses around.

Astrogators are typically bald or, at least, keep their hair
short. This is because when they are anywhere in or around their ships it is a
good bet they will be wearing their dreamcaps. This is a yarmulke-like
interface with the ship’s astrogational computers.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of
view, astrogators tended to be anything but well-rounded. There was an element
of autistic
savantness
about them at the best of times, and when their
minds were expanded through their dreamcaps, they could get downright spooky.

To make it worse, most astrogators enhanced their mental
expansion with drugs.

As a matter of fact, the number one reason for an astrogator
retiring was burnout…
literally
burning their brains out with pharmaceuticals.

The less scrupulous element of mankind could make a fortune
by providing those expensive drugs to astrogators in return for their services.

At any rate, being a skilled astrogator, especially one that
eschews drugs like Sami, is an asset worth almost as much as the cost of a
small ship itself.

ΔΔΔ

Sami was fast
walking her way down the corridor when the General Quarters alarm went off. It
was loud and startling enough to make her almost miss a step, but she caught
herself and broke into a controlled trot.

When she entered the bridge she immediately knew something
was wrong; this wasn’t just another drill.

Captain Kerry was sitting rigidly on his bench and it looked
like all the blood had drained from his face.

Political Officer Bloomington stood staring at the Captain’s
screen. Not that it was displaying anything unusual; it was the same asteroid
field that they’d been drifting along with for half a day now.

It wasn’t until she took her seat at the astrogation station
that she realized the problem.

“Captain, fourteen ships have entered the system. Best guess
is that they are Viennese and some of her allies.”

“Really? I’m so glad you noticed that. Maybe I should sound
the General Quarters alarm?” he said sarcastically.

“
Mister
Parker, what I need from you is a better
analysis of their intentions. It would also be helpful to know if they realize
we’re here.”

It wasn’t unusual that the Captain would be asking her for
that type of information. Because of the nature of astrogation her station
controlled the best sensors on the ship.

What was unusual is that he would address any crewmember by
the title of
Mister
. It was typically considered an insult and was
something that, in his pettiness, he reserved just for her.

“Aye aye sir,” she replied unphased. She was used to being
the target of the Captain’s displeasure and honestly didn’t spend much time
worrying about things she couldn’t control.

“There’s no way to know for sure, but my best guess is that
they have not detected us,” she continued. “We probably appear to them like
just another drifting rock. As long as we don’t power up our drive we’ll
probably remain invisible to them.”

First officer Argentine walked up to her with a half-smile
on his face. Without realizing it when Sami had changed clothes she had gotten
some of the still wet ink on her fingers. That might account for the blue
smudge that covered the left side of her face.

“Have you decided to tattoo yourself blue?” Argentine
quietly asked.

Quickly crossing her arms across her chest Sami’s eyes
opened large in horror. “How did you know?” she whispered back.