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CHAPTER EIGHT

  How exactly does a starship work? That’s a very interesting and very technical question. The short answer that every child learns in school is that they’re propelled by a bubble of magic, but that’s far from specific. The long answer takes a bit of technical knowledge and a bit of adeptness. LC Aelon Onoviel, Chief Tactical Officer aboard UCST Cosari, is incredibly adept, even if he supplies almost no technical knowledge. But one of the things I’ve learned in my life is that you can pretty much only have one or the other. Just like some kids are good at sports and some are good at math, you’re either a technical genius or have really great hands.

  Um. Dragons be damned. I’m usually a lot better at this, but it’s been a long few days and I was awoken by an admiral last night warning me my life might be in danger. I have an excuse. Okay… stop thinking about Aelon’s hands… stop thinking about Aelon’s hands… that’s not helping. I’ll switch thoughts and come back to this in a minute.

  The Engineering staff is monitoring the mana flow of the main battery as they prepare for launch. Three main systems running on the main battery are the reason starfield travel is possible in the Ugly Dirt Box. The first system is the Life Support Bubble. The Bubble is exactly what it sounds like. A greenish colored bubble appears around the ship, sealing us inside a small pocket dimension.

  This pocket dimension orients us so up and down still mean the same thing when we’re in the air. It also protects the ship from damage. If you throw a stone at us while the Bubble is activated, the stone disappears when it hits the green field. I’m not sure where the stone goes, but it doesn’t go through the Bubble.

  Finally, the Bubble helps us keep clean air and water inside the ship. Honestly, I have no idea how that part of it works. Tanna told me once that the air comes from the pocket dimension, and the water is somehow created out of the air. I’m not very good at understanding the extra-dimensional aspects of the process.

  The second important system is the Flight Spell. The Flight spell is exactly what it sounds… dragons be damned. I hate repeating myself, even in my own head. But these things really are simply named for a reason. I think that reason is because science mages worry about much larger things than what to call their spells.

  Anyway, the Flight spell affects the Bubble directly, not the ship. So it’s not really the ship that’s flying – it’s the Bubble that flies, and carries us along with it in the pocket dimension. Tanna told me once that, in relation to the outside of the pocket dimension, we’re not actually moving. If you were to stand in the other dimension when the Bubble forms the pocket, you’d see a starship appear out of nowhere and sit there for a few weeks before disappearing again after doing nothing exciting.

  Folk in that other dimension must get really confused. I suppose that is assuming there are folk in that other dimension. I don’t really know. I’ll ask Tanna later.

  Okay, yes, Tanna is my main source for everything about magic adeptness. That’s why she’s the Chief Engineer, and I’m XO. She knows this stuff, and I know I can rely on her for it. And yes, she tutored me during Academy so I could pass those tests. But that was a fair trade for my tutoring her on leadership tests. She never would have made LC without my help all those years ago.

  Anyway, the third system is the Propulsion System. This is the one that propels us in any particular direction. It “pushes” the Flight spell in certain ways to move us up, down, left, right, or any direction around a sphere. This is where the Tactical department comes into play. As long as Engineering is monitoring the spells and mana flow, the Bubble and Flight systems will just work automatically. But Propulsion needs to know where to go, and Tactical is in charge of making sure we get pushed in the right direction.

  Cap and I take turns whenever we begin flight to another world. One of us oversees Engineering, and the other oversees Tactical. Both departments need to be in-sync when we’re first launching the systems to avoid any problems with system failure. Activating Propulsion when the Bubble fluctuates can cause a lot of unhappiness for those folk who aren’t immediately killed by being thrown against a wall as fast as a dragon can fly.

  Today is my turn in Tactical, and I’m watching over Aelon and his team as they prepare their terminals and consult their starfield maps. A terminal in Tactical looks different from a standard one anywhere else. They have a spherical replica of the Bubble with numbers around it. They can spin the sphere and target specific points to which they apply the Propulsion spell.

  The starfield maps give them exact directions to follow to get from any one world to another. All of the directions are previously mapped out by the explorer ships, and it’s just a matter of following them. The terminals are set with timers and warnings when direction changes have to be made, but the actual change in direction must be done by hand after verification from Engineering that everything is working properly.

  When they first created these systems, they made them automatic like landcraft. Then when a ship reached its destination with no living crew members aboard due to a Bubble failure, the Admiralty created a new ‘efficiency’ and gave new jobs to folk who are both good at following directions and good with their hands.

  Sigh. Um. Excuse me. Hiccups. Yeah, hiccups. I’m better now.

  Lieutenant Commander Onoviel’s flight team consists of twelve folk total, but only four are in the Tactical room currently. They take shifts so someone is always awake to make the directional changes at the proper times. There are always four folk on-shift at any given time – one main pilot in charge of directional changes, a copilot who verifies the changes before they’re locked-in, and two monitors who watch for alarms and verify the maps and timers. Overall, it’s a rather boring job for long periods of time. In total, there might be twenty directional changes that have to be made over a week of travel. The rest of the time is staring at alarm signals and talking, and none of the talk gets very deep. It’s a great job for folk with better reflex precision than mental precision.

  I look at Aelon’s back and chuckle a little inside. Yeah, those “hiccups” are gone now. I focus in on the discussions to find out where we are in the process.

  Tanna’s voice comes over the communicator in Aelon’s pilot terminal. “Bubble is holding steady. Mana flow is good and stable. Flight activating… now. Flight is now active. Tactical, prepare launch procedure.”

  Aelon’s hands fly across his terminal. He looks to a goblin Ensign on monitoring duty, who taps some keys on a terminal before signaling to Aelon. He speaks into the communicator in a rich baritone voice, “Tactical copies. Preparations complete. Launch procedure ready for activation.”

  “Engineering copies. Mana flow to Flight is stable. Spells are holding, waiting for Propulsion activation. Tactical, you may activate when you are ready.”

  “Tactical copies. Activation in ten seconds.” Aelon’s hands fly across his terminal, and he aligns the sphere in front of him so he’s looking directly at the bottom of the ship. A timer counts down the ten seconds, until “And three, two, one. Launch activation,” he says and touches the sphere with two fingers.

  Internally, we don’t feel anything. We also have no windows to see anything outside of the ship, so there’s really no way we can know if we’re moving or not from inside. This is where the ground crew comes into play. They have a communicator which can reach into the pocket dimension of the Bubble within a certain distance, which they use to tell us we’re actually moving. Should be coming on any second now…

  “Ground Control confirms launch activation. Timing is synchronized. You are airborne, Corsari. Safe travels.” The ground control chief signs off, and a green light goes out on the communicator terminal.

  Aelon manipulates his sphere and terminal options again. “Engineering, please confirm stability of Flight and accuracy of Propulsion.”

  “Engineering confirms. Flight and Propulsion are stable with solid mana flow. P
ropulsion verification alert shows 99.2% accuracy, with the point-eight percent towards coordinates 19, 127, 4 from zero.”

  The monitoring team goes nuts on the math to figure out what needs to be adjusted in their directions. Aelon seems to think it over for a second, then turns the sphere to a certain point and waits. When the two folk in monitoring finish their math, the copilot verifies their solution, then turns to Aelon. She checks Aelon’s terminal against the solution and gives him a smile and nod. He may be slow at a lot of things, but he knows his directional math better than anyone on the ship.

  He turns to the communicator. “Tactical confirms point-eight percent at coordinates 19, 127, 4. Directions have been adjusted and we’re ready to make our first directional change in one minute, seventeen seconds.”

  “Engineering copies. Awaiting the first directional change.”

  Everything goes quiet while we all wait for the remaining minute. Numbers are triple-checked, timers are re-verified, and I watch. Aelon doesn’t seem to do anything, but I can see his head move as he constantly checks his terminal to make sure nothing is out of place.

  Shortly, he speaks again. “Tactical preparing first directional change in ten seconds. Five. Three, two, one.” He touches the sphere with two fingers. “Direction change complete. Engineering, please verify accuracy.”

  “Engineering copies. Verification complete. Accuracy remains point-eight percent at 19,127,4. Tactical, please verify remaining directional change times.”

  Aelon gestures to his copilot, who begins reading the timers and direction points from her terminal. A male voice in Engineering begins responding, telling me that Tanna passed this task onto her shift assistant as well. That’s fairly standard. Shift leaders usually manage launch and landing procedures, whether they’re the Senior Officer or another step down the chain. Those are usually the only two folk on-ship who are qualified in all of the procedures that need to be followed, and each one works a different shift for those reasons.

  Aelon turns his chair to look at me behind him, smiles, leans back and puts his hands behind his head while stretching his legs out as far as they’ll go. He may be an idiot, but he knows what he’s good at, and he’s very smug about it. I find it easiest to just play into it and keep him happy.

  I smile at him. “Well done, Tactical. Another successful launch under your belt. If you keep this up, we’ll have to give you to the Academy to teach all of their kids how to fly the Aelon way. I’ll be sure to add this to your record.” I turn to take in the rest of his team. “And congratulations to the rest of your team for their skill in accurate directional planning. Cap and I are always fighting off the other ship commanders who want to steal you away. You’ll just have to be happy being stuck on the Corsari with the rest of us.”

  The tactical team cheers and starts congratulating themselves, and Aelon turns back around to focus on his team. I’m sure the next few minutes are going to be filled with scintillating conversation and very deep thought, but I’ll never know because I don’t have to stick around for that. Now that we’re on our way, I’m out of here. I head for the door and exit into the hallway.

  It’s a short walk to Cap’s office. I let myself in and take a seat in a chair by his desk. Since Engineering’s three levels down and Cap has little dwarf legs, it’ll take him a bit longer to get up here for our post-launch meeting. Still a little tired, I grab the chair next to me and turn it around to put my feet up on it.

  I’m dozing a little when I hear the door chime. I open my eyes and Cap strolls in. He sees me laying in his chairs and laughs. “Damn, girl. I got less shut-eye than you did. Only got an hour after the Admiral’s staff finally got his quarters organized enough for the ‘everythin’ must be in its proper place’ bastard to be able to sleep without movin’ crap around again.”

  I grin at him. “Sorry, Boss, but at least you didn’t have to clean cake off the ceiling of a VIP mess area that was supposed to be clean until some goblin ensign decided to have a bachelor party in there after stealing Calgonnel’s permission. It’s one of Aelon’s team, but you know you can’t tell that elf anything after a successful launch except ‘Aelon is great’.”

  Cap sits at his desk with a sigh. “Alright. Alright. Both our jobs suck goblin toes. But we’re damn good at ‘em, so I guess we’ll keep doin ‘em. Aye?”

  I sigh. “Aye, Boss.” I smile. Exchanges like this are why I love working for Cap. “Tactical was perfect as usual for the launch, and Aelon is as smug as a goblin baby that just stole its first toy. Engineering?”

  Cap laughs. “You know that new elf kid Tanna just got down there? Ensign… uh… Labrinien, I think his name was.” I nod. Brand new elf boy fresh from the Academy. He joined us right after we docked, replacing an older Lieutenant who retired. Cap continues, “He’s sittin’ close to the battery monitorin’ terminal watchin’ everyone work, and Tanna comes over, steps in front of him to check somethin’. Her ass right in his face. Swear on my armor, he actually reached up like he was gonna grab it! Right before he touched it, she bounced away to another station and he put his hands back in his lap before anyone noticed. Crossed ‘em across his groin like he suddenly had to hide somethin’. “

  At this point, I’m laughing so hard I can’t see through the tears in my eyes. New ensigns are always funny, but this is awesome. Cap takes a drink from a water cup on his desk and continues. “It was all I could do not to make fun of the poor kid right then and there. But I’m a good captain who would never embarrass his brand new friends on their very first launch.” He nods at me and smiles.

  I choke down another laugh. “Absolutely, Boss. You’d never do that on a kid’s first launch. You’ll wait a day until you come up with a good one-liner for it.”

  He grins, holds up his cup in salute, then takes another drink of water. “Well, elf, if we’re both done here and our folk are holdin’ the ship, I say we go take a nap. We’ve got a week of flying to get done, plenty of paperwork that can be avoided, and a few hours before we let the Admiral out of the bag. He’s likely slept through the whole launch. Lucky bastard.”

  I chuckle, salute, and head for the door. A nap sounds like a great idea, and it was Cap’s idea, so I’ll just have to follow orders.