Shipping Mishaps Chapter 16

O-Dark-Early in the morning saw Geo getting up for her second day of exercises with the marines. Calisthenics, stretches and gravity increasing run all around. Then the standard half hour to get clean and eat. Geo had begged off of the rest of the training for the morning due to “Admiral Duties”, but honestly the pain in her lower gut was starting to be adamant. She took some painkillers, and promised herself to go see Grik tomorrow if the pain wasn’t better in the morning.

*-*-*

Geo was sitting in her comfy chair at the officers meeting table. “Campy, Lod? What do we know about the deceased soldiers we found yesterday?”

“We know the names, rank, and service numbers for almost all of them. The ones without ‘Dog Tags’ as you call them, had military issued civilian ID.” Captain Lod said. “I would hazard a guess that they were contractors who worked the retail shops and such onboard ship. It is also possible that they were the family members of military personnel. I really don’t know how things worked back in the old days, since I never served myself.”

“I believe that the civilians were indeed contractors, as several of the deceased appear on the payroll files I have recovered.” Campy said.

“Glad we have some information to send on to the Fleet.” Said Geo. “When will that report get sent out, after we drop out of hyperspace?”

“No, we will connect to one of the hyperspace relay beacons that we pass and dump it off.” Lod said.

“...um how does that work?” Geo asked, a slightly bewildered look on her face.

“Well, when one starship loves another starship very much—“ Campy started.

“SHUT UP CAMPY” Lod and Geo shouted in unison.

“Fine. Be that way.” Campy pouted.

“Geo, do you understand the basics of energy, and the movement there of?” Lod asked.

“Objects in motion stay in motion etc? Yes. Also, the vast majority of ‘known’ energy types move at the speed of light. Yay, 8th grade science.” Geo replied.

“Good. I would hate to try to teach you the basics along with everything else you have to learn.” Lod responded. “Anyway, when an energy signal that moves at the speed of light passes through a space that already accelerates objects past the speed of light, you end up with FTL communication with a nominal lag of per 300 Ly. The problem, and probable cause of the lag, is that the signal degrades fairly quickly in hyperspace. To remedy this, Gong Galactic, before they were broken up as a , developed the ‘Hyperspace Relay Drone’ system, or ‘HRDS’ for short..

“Boiled down to the basics, the system is a bunch of near AI beacons that pass data packets between themselves. Their effective range is around 20 Ly, but in some cases they have been able to reach 30Ly.”

“Thanks for the history lesson.” Geo replied after a moment of thought. “Now, on to the pressing question at hand: What do you mean ‘Everything else I have to learn’?”

“Well, you know, along with the training you are doing with the marines, you should be training on all of the ships systems, learning basic engineering, that sort of thing…” Lod slowly looked between Campy’s speaker and Geo, “You have been learning all of that, haven’t you?”

“Got to go! Important computer stuff to maintain!” Campy said before ‘fleeing’ the conversation.

“Admiral?” Lod’s voice got louder at the end of the word.

“Well, . I didn’t realize that I actually needed all of that. I just thought…” Geo stalled.

“Do you even want your license? Do you EVER want to actually captain your own ship? Do you want to understand your ship?” Lod asked, anger creeping into his voice as his feathered crest started to flutter.

“Um...I’m sorry...I…” Geo buried her face in her hands, “I will do better. I swear on my mothers grave, I will do this properly.”

“Good. Thank you for taking your ship seriously.” Lod said, voice and crest calming down.

*-*-*

Three hours had passed since Geo had started reading the (badly translated) training manuals. This is tougher than geometry she thought. I hope the basic engineering courses are better than the Astrogation one. A chime sounded and Campy's voice interrupted her, “It's time to report for weapons training.”

“Thanks Campy. Any more of this and I swear I would... Do something bad.” Geo said, relieved to have something else to do.

*-*-*

Weapons training. The name said it all, even though it wasn't what Geo had thought it would be. It's not just about shooting things. Interesting. She thought as she watched the lecture from the middle row of workbenches.

“And that is how you disassemble the MK 231 Integrated Heavy Weapons System.” Lt Kiki ended her lecture and demonstration to the contingent of marines. “If you have any questions, you can call me or one of the Sergeants over during your disassembly.”

Geo looked at her work group, two of the slug like gurgmisk named Bubb and Nugg, and a quiet Octo nicknamed “Slorpy”. Nugg spoke, “So we take the charging handle and twist it like so,” he performed the action, and they went to work.

*-*-*

Grug and Glug were walking down a disused hallway, off of another unused hallway, off of a third hall, that connected to the main corridor. “I'm glad the cleaning crew hasn't gotten this far yet.” Grug said.

Glug was watching the hallway ahead of them, as the dead end came into view, “I told them my quarters were down this way and that I 'liked' the disheveled look of the halls. They said they would leave it this way.”

Grug taped an unseen door control on the blank wall, “Good idea, that.” The wall opened, revealing a huge “room” full of humidity and lush jungle vegetation, “Aah, home sweet home.”

*-*-*

Disassembly and reassembly of the MK 231 weapon took more than an hour for Geo's group, but they eventually completed the task. They then lugged the heavy squad weapon to the firing line for final inspection and test fire.

“OK, looks like it should work,” Kiki said after checking the weapon over. “Attach the power cable, and fire the up.”

Geo and her team attached the power cable, disengaged the safety and aimed the beast down range. “FIRING!” The heavy weapon bucked as the spinning barrels spewed a plasma bolt, followed by a laser beam, followed by the third barrels charged particle beam, then back to the plasma.

*-*-*

Several gurgmisk came over and greeted Grug and Glug, as they removed their uniforms. “Anything new from the outside?” asked a smaller gurgmisk.

“No. Still delivering packages across the galaxy. Admiral Geo is still in charge.” Grug replied, running “his” grasping tentacles across the child's head. “Come on, lets us go home and eat some dinner.” The party of gurgmisk headed into the luscious jungle.