Shipping Mishaps Chapter 18

The Nautilus dropped out of hyperspace on the gravitational edge of the Gregen system, 51 AU from the white main sequence star, and 1.5 AU from the nearest station. It slowly decelerated to a proper in-system velocity, and communicated with Gregen station 8 to get parking orbit coordinates. Then engine 14 exploded.

*-*-*

Geo fell out of her bed in the sick bay when the explosion happened. “What the pug ugly just happened?!?” she yelled at no one in particular. I'm not supposed to get up for another two days...To heck with that. She slowly climbed up off of the floor, wrapping her hospital gown around herself. 12,000 years and umpteen thousand light years away from home, and hospital gowns still suck.

Moving slowly, she walked unsteadily to the door.

*-*-*

“All engines are shut down. We are drifting on the solar wind.” Campys voice was crisp over the bridge's speaker. “Reactor outputs have been lowered to minimums, so we only have life-support.”

“What do we do now?” Grug asked from his station on the sensors.

Captain Lod was about to respond when a young voice piped up from the door, “You get me eyes on the damage, make sure fire suppression is working, and send a couple of techs and marines to go figure out what the hell happened! I want to know if this was just an accident, or if it was sabotage. I also want to know if we will need to repair it now, or if it can wait for later. Comm, contact the station and tell them we won’t be taking our parking spot after all.”

Glug, a little late on the uptake, announced, “Admiral on the bridge!”

“Admiral, aren't you supposed to be resting? In MEDBAY?!?” Said Captain Lod.

“Plenty of time to rest when I'm dead.” Responded Geo.

“May I remind you that you were recently almost dead?” Captain Lod quipped.

“No, no you may not.” replied Geo.

“Fine.” said Captain Lod, shaking his head in despair.

*-*-*

Ten hours had passed since the engine explosion had sent the Nautilus adrift in the Gregen system. Station 8 had offered aid, but had been politely declined. The ship's officers were sitting in the Captains meeting room, listening to the technical report.

“With the untimely death of engine 14, we have had to disable thruster group 10. This will mean an 8% reduction in acceleration while in system.” Said Ovkew, the Nautilus' Gorakian head technical officer. “The rest of the engines are holding steady, but any swift maneuvering will most likely cause overloads, and possibly more explosions.”

“So what was the cause?” Asked Geo.

“Lack of proper maintenance for the last 2-3000 years. While we had them shut down, Souga and I looked over the remaining engines. They are so far past their maintenance dates that it is no longer funny. Thank the 17 that this was a military ship, otherwise 14 going up would have caused a cascade of failures that could have torn the ship to pieces.” Ovkew answered.

“So, not sabotage?” Geo asked.

“Not unless you count being set up to fail 'sabotage'.” Souga answered.

“As an aside, Admiral, we need to hire more technical crew as soon as possible. Otherwise this kind of thing will keep happening until we are no longer 'lucky'.” Said Ovkew.

“Duly noted.” Geo said, wearily shaking her head. Why didn't I go back to sleep as soon as the emergency was over? She thought. Am I just that big of a glutton for punishment? “Campy? How many crew do we need for this tub to be ‘baseline’ functional?”

“According to the specs I have been reading, to assure baseline functionality, this ship requires a skeleton crew of 300.” Campy immediately replied. “Proper minimum crew is 3,000 personell.”

Nods or similar gestures could be seen around the table.

“There is more. For 'standard' operations, the Nautilus needs 90,000 Naval personnel, 10,000 auxiliary personnel, 20,000 marines, and 100,000 pilots.”

“That's only part of it. This ship is too big for just that. I went looking for all of the old specifications. This ship wasn't meant to support the fleet, this ship was meant to BE the fleet. We have the manufacturing, shipyard and dry-dock facilities to repair or build anything up to the size of a large Destroyer. We can pump out Corvettes by the , and fast attack craft by the tens of . IF we had the resources on hand, and the personnel.”

Campy almost laughed at the faces now. The room was quiet enough that everyone heard Geo's stomach gurgle.

“I have been combing through the remaining records in my deep storage. With the build plans and templates we currently carry, we could outfit...well, lots of places. With lots of illegal tech. And bring lots of trouble down upon ourselves.” Campy finished quietly.

*-*-*

Four days had passed since the accident, the packing crate that had brought them here had been delivered, and Geo had finally been released from medical. Not that she had been well confined, no one had wanted to argue with her, mostly someone had been assigned to follow her around to pick her up whenever she collapsed and bring her back to med bay.

Staring at the ceiling of her own room for the first time in most of a week, Geo yawned. Today was the last day of testing. If all systems were green, they could begin the long limp to Oanov to get the Nautilus running properly. And maybe find another 300 crew members? There was also the down time to consider. Did she pay the crew? Or give them unpaid leave? Would everyone be able to live on the ship while the repairs were taking place? How long was it going to take? With the new engine damage Campy had been unable to estimate the additional time.

“Oh well. Plenty of time to burn that bridge when we come to it.” Geo said aloud. She climbed out of her bunk and started the stretches Grik had demanded she do at least three times a day. And where had Grik come from? “She” had just shown up two days ago, and was introduced by Grig as her assistant. Very strange indeed. “Another day, another mystery. Maybe we should rename the ship to 'Mystery Incorporated'? Nah, that would never work.”

“I believe that would just confuse everyone.” Campy said, voice coming from his 'favorite' speaker near the door. “Also, we have had no clear response from the Oanov shipyards as to a complete estimate or timeline on repairs. They are taking the ‘We need to see the damage to give any estimates’ approach.”

“Hey, Campy, is there some kind of hologram projector that you can use outside of the tanks on the bridge? It would be nice to be able to see you, not just hear your voice.” Geo asked.

“No. Not on the ship anyway. I believe some of the newer stations have that capability. We can check into it when we get to Oanov.” Campy replied.

“OK.”

*-*-*

Geo walked into the bridge, nodded to the crew, noting the tension in the air, and said, “OK folks, let's get this show on the road. Engineering, how are things?”

The answer came back almost immediately, “Everything is in the green, or yellow. We are good.”

“Helm?”

“All systems green.”

“Astrogation, do we have a course set?”

“Yes, Ma'am! All ready to go.”

“Alright, everyone strap in, this could be a bumpy ride.” Geo said. “Punch it!”

Everyone on the bridge looked at her.

“Sorry, old saying. It means 'Let's Go'.” She said, cheeks flushing a bit.

The helmsman increased the throttle slowly and the ship gave a little tremble, but accelerated.

“Hyperspace drill online and charging.” Astrogation called out.

Several restless minutes passed as the Nautilus came up to speed.

“Drill fully charged.”

“Engage!” Geo ordered.

The bridge crew looked at her again.

“Um... Jump to hyperspace?” Geo reddened again.

“Firing Drill. Hyperspace in 3... 2... 1... Go!”

The Nautilus made the transition to hyperspace.