A/N: Chapter 2 has been changed a bit, the part at the end got moved to the begining of Chapter 3. Thank you for your patience and a big shout out to kaktas for reviewing and motivating me to update. Please remeber I am not the author but I do pass on all reviews to my Dad who is. I hope you enjoy and if you ever want explinations for some of the hidden puns, please leave a review and I will reply.
Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it isn't ours, please don't sue.
***
Nausea assaulted Slim's senses as the Wanderlust dropped out of hyperspace and into the newtonian universe. The translation had been at the usual safe minimal velocity, and the discomfort in the pit of his stomach was short-lived, but very real all the same. Some veteran spacers claimed they got used to it after a while, but he doubted very much that was much more than braggadocio, posturing for the youngsters. Human physiology, no matter what weird and wonderful tweaks and alterations the genetic engineers had applied to the basic earth-formed genome, was the product of 5 million years of earthbound adaptation, and hyperspace was just plain unnatural. NO one had ever figured out why the passing nausea assaulted people during the downward translation, but then, no one had ever figured out morning sickness in newly pregnant women either. It just was!
Her Majesty's Navy was pulling into the Damocles System to pay a courtesy visit to one of the more influential local governments in the Philosopher's Arm. Troy was a rising economic force locally, and the hub of much of the trade that the fiercely independent planet-states used to exchange locally produced raw materials and manufactured goods. The locals also had a suspicious ability to "find" and repatriate "stranded" crewmembers from "lost" merchant ships that had been disappearing with increasing frequency while trading in the Arm. The warship would pull into a polite parking orbit, and the important bridge officers, plus or minus a few Marines, would pay a courtesy call on the local leadership to inquire how the Royal Manticoran navy might help make trading lanes more secure for the local authorities. The presence of Marines would be to assure that no-one missed the message behind the courtesy, that this was an armed incursion into local space and that the Wanderlust was prepared to deal forcibly with anyone found committing piracy or aiding and abetting pirates. Meanwhile the rest of the crew would get to cool their heals while the higher-ups were wined and dined planet-side.
The distribution of individual stars in this region was not as organized as most clusters or bands of suns. There was a relatively empty region within the local space (if anything about the impossibly vast reaches of interstellar space could ever be considered "local") that seemingly should have held several more star systems. It was instead a void, referred to as the Socratic Gap, across which trade had to journey to travel directly between several of the more prosperous planetary systems. The gravity waves that all modern starships used to "surf" through the enormous distances between the tiny balls of mass that constituted stars and their planetary harem were especially erratic in the Gap, sometimes stranding transiting ships and forcing them to drop into normal space in the midst of interstellar "nowhere" waiting for the next wave to swing through and power them on to their destination, much like the infamous Doldrums on Old Earth's oceans during the time of wind-powered navigation. Of course, such stranded starships should just putter along using their gravitic drives at sublight speeds, but this was equivalent to having the crew tow the old sailing ships behind row-boats. The interstellar distances were too vast to gain much at less than relativistic speeds. Most Merchanters just shutdown systems to save reaction mass while they waited for the next disturbance in the space-time continuum to swing through. Any lurking armed ships who found them in such a vulnerable state could have little trouble convincing the unarmed crew to surrender their ship and "accept" the hospitality of the raiders.
Environmental Specialist Stephan "Slimemaster" Schwarzpunct was an academic by nature and a researcher by training. Unlike regular Navy non-coms he was not in the habit of waiting for officers to anticipate problems and figure out solutions, or to order their underlings to solve it for them. "Slim" was used to using his own mind to extrapolate situations and identify possible areas for further study. The only way an "eternal student" remained at university long enough to approach PhD status was to have a nose for potential research projects that the department heads might fund. It wasn't a stretch to apply this inquisitive nature to naval technology, especially at the fuzzy interface between the Navy and the Marines.
The Navy was all about ships: detecting them, identifying them, and sooner or later, destroying them. Human crew members were just parts of the machinery helping the ship do whatever the Captain (or God, there really wasn't much difference) wished the ship to do. Marines, on the other hand, had to actually be ready to deal with other humans, in space or in ships or even on planets. Each Marine was capable of and trained for individual action, and while they were trained to act as a unit, they were individually armed and expected to individually use their weapons upon need. Most navy types had no need for the required basic training had-to-hand combat, except in the occasional bar fight while off the ship. Marines, on the other hand, were required to develop high skill levels in unarmed combat, both in free-fall/null-G environments and within gravity fields of various strengths. Stephan's responsibilities bridged that gap to a certain extent, since he was accountable for both the ship-board oxygen recycling system's algae growth tanks, and for the miniature algae systems the marines might need in a base camp without breathable atmosphere.
Although the Mark 23.6 microscrubbers are designed for planetside deployment within an enclosed environment, they may have an application on damaged ships stranded in the Gap. Given this command crew's history, and the nature of our current mission it is likely that we may encounter damaged ships we feel compelled to enter, crew and deliver to a nearby system. If the gravity waves don't cooperate the damaged ships may need to be occupied longer than normal expectations allow, and the need for a longer term ore larger scale application of the microscrubbers may present itself.
His note in his journal marked a new project to take up the long boring hours that seemed the norm for life in the Navy. The Mark 23.6 Scrubber units were designed to deploy individually with portable bubble enclosures, each unit providing enough oxygen recycling capacity for 40-50 Marines working and sleeping within the controlled environment, while creating enough excess O2 to resupply their personal breathing units for a 2 T-Day tour outside the artificial environment. They were designed to link up if several bubble units needed to be joined to create a larger enclosed space, for whatever reason.
Slim wasn't familiar with why the Marines would need larger or smaller environmental enclosures, nor was he concerned with such military details. His focus was on the little tanks of green goo that turned the waster products of human respiration into biomass and breathable Oxygen. If the algae needed a little help from some complicated organic materials to help them do their job, well, the human digestive system could provide that also. The basic theory was simple and elegant. The complications came in when you realized that said algae were turning all that carbon from the CO2 the Marines exhaled into even more green goo, and you had to make sure the bad gas got in while you let the good gas out, cleaned it up a bit, and released it back into the humans environment. Disposing of the excess algae that was created as a by-product was not usually an issue, space was a big place. However, if they set up on a planet, they had to neutralize the active biological elements in the waste before it contaminated the local environment (which was always a source of amusement to the Marines deployed on a planetoid without any atmosphere or life of any kind).
The problem that had presented itself to him was the possibility of a situation arising wherein battle damage (or sabotage) would disable a merchant ship's recycling system. While the Wanderlust carried enough repair capability for her crew to apply short term fixes to their own ship, Merchanters were MUCH bigger and they would not have the redundant and battle hardened systems a warship like Wanderlust took for granted. Given the unpredictable nature of travel within the Gap, a damaged Merchanter might still be stranded for longer than patchwork repairs on her environmental systems would last.
It seemed obvious to Stephan's' analytical mind that a damaged ship was just a larger version of the enclosure problem the Marines portable microscrubber units were designed to sustain. The main issue was scaling the little units up while still using their portability to allow salvage of any damaged ship. He could work out the math, and figure the flow rates, disposal needs, and lighting requirements (Algae still worked on photosynthesis after all, and the "photo" part was light), but he would need the help of an hardware engineer to figure out the plumbing, so to speak. Linking the systems together would also require more strength on onboard a merchant vessel if it was to hang together in the multiple "G" accelerations typical of any starship. The inertial dampeners could only do so much, and he was assuming the ship was damaged. He needed to bring in a relatively open-minded engineer who had the time and interest to help him on what was admittedly a purely theoretical problem. Slim decided he needed to talk to his friends in Marine territory about the issue. Maybe they would know of a relatively approachable engineer he could work with, outside the chain of command.
***
Helena Paris clung possessively to her husband's arm as the guests entered. It wasn't often that foreign dignitaries came to call this far from the centers of trade and culture, but then again, these emissaries weren't just passing through. The Star Kingdom of Manticore was sending a message, even if they only sent one heavy cruiser to deliver it. The celebrated personage in charge of this particular warship was FAMOUS, or infamous, depending on your point of view, and how many close relatives had died at her hands or by her side. Helena had done a little research on their honored guest, and was currently speculating on just what sort of trouble she had gotten into this time to be sent out in only one ship, to the very edges of human occupied space, to deal with a simple pirate issue.
I suppose they don't have that many trained ship's crews, ships and command personnel left after that hideous business with Haven. What was the toll? 3 million dead, something like. And ALL over a little misunderstanding? Tsk tsk! She must have been guilty of an unfortunate "I told you so" to rate this assignment.
The ballroom/banquet facility was a large if not ornate structure, lined with simple but elegant pillars of subtly veined and colored rock cut from some of the impact craters on the other less fortunate planets in the Damocles System. Being surrounded by rock formed within the last century or so by simultaneous heating and crushing due to meteor impact was a subtle way the government and people of Troy reminded themselves daily of the ephemeral nature of their own existence. One little deviation in the orbit of Sword and Troy could end up a smoking ruin, like its sister planets closer to their primary. It did put things into perspective.
Jonathan Parrow nodded to Chief Executive Hector Paris and his wife as he entered the room. She was, as usual, dressed in a clinging gown with just enough cleavage to be noticed but not so much as to be vulgar. She wore a matching set of earrings and necklace made from pale blue impact gems mined on the inner planets (when the danger wasn't too great). They accentuated the line of her long elegant neck, and drew the eye to... well, he'd better not spend time getting distracted right now. He had too much to do tonight to let the feminine wiles of the First Lady distract him, much as he might want to be distracted.
He surveyed the crowd as the Royal Manticoran Navy made its ENTRANCE. Their dark dress uniforms were elegantly functional and the habitual confidence and grace of each officer's walk lent an air of quiet invincibility to the group. Conversation all but stopped as they came into the room. It was one thing to realize that the Lady warrior was taller than common and reportedly strikingly good looking; it was another thing entirely to see her first hand, towering over the other women and most of the men in the room. Most humans nearly 2 meters tall or taller, looked out of proportion, stretched or somehow mis-assembled. Their guest of honor, however, looked like a classical statue, just a little outsized compared to the normal run-of-the-mill specimen of Homo Sapiens. The proud arch of her neck and the vaguely Asian tilt to her deep brown eyes gave a slightly exotic air to her, without distracting from the intensity of her gaze as she casually took in her surroundings. The Sphinxian Treecat perched proprietarily on her shoulder only added to the mystique she radiated.
Despite himself, Jack was so captivated he almost missed the three armed men, suitably attired for the occasion, that casually took up positions around the room. As though the four muscular Marine officers that had accompanied her to this reception weren't enough to discourage any trouble makers. Most of her bridge staff were with her, and they fanned out throughout the gathered crowd of locals as they entered, starting casual conversations to break the ice.
The message was crystal clear. The Manticoran Navy was in "town" and they were perfectly comfortable there. Pirates and over-enthusiastic "entrepreneurs" be warned! All done very politely without a hint of push or shove. He had to admire the quietly efficient way military power and influence had just been seized; but Jack's eye was drawn away from the show by another stranger in the room.
She was the polar opposite of the famous naval hero they were currently entertaining: slightly smaller than average height, light brown hair, a nice but unremarkable face, dressed exactly so that she wasn't too showy, but neither was she underdressed. The rich brown tones of her gown were conservatively cut, and though she was wearing jewelry, the simple smoky citrines contributed to the overall pattern of ballroom camouflage. This is a professional information hound, or I haven't seen the type before. He guessed she was an agent for some interest group or other, trying to find out what the impact of the Navy's arrival would be on Troy, and possibly in the rest of the Philosophers' Arm. He surveyed the evolving geography of the crowded room, identified a few people with whom he could have a few short words and started to gradually move in a intercept vector with this new player.
Helena stood by as the captain was introduced (wasn't she supposed to be an Admiral or something more?). While her husband made idle conversation and she automatically kept up her bubble-head act, her attention was suddenly seized by the green eyed, six limbed creature on the Captains' shoulder. The 'cat's eyes were almost mesmerizing, as though it was examining her thoughts. She shook here head distractedly to break the strange spell, and when she glanced back, she could almost swear the cat winked at her, flicked an ear, then trained its feline gaze on other people in the room. What was that about?
She looked around quickly, but nobody else had seemed to notice, or were too polite to indicate if they had. Helena had read some strange speculations about Treecats, most of which she put up to "Cat People" and their exaggerated devotion to their felines. But this "exchange" was just weird! And was that just a hint of a smirk or hidden smile from the corner of her guest's almond eyes, all the while listening intently to what Hector had to say? Helena Paris had the feeling she better not be in the position to keep secrets around these two. There was more to the arrival here on Troy of the most famous naval officer in the known galaxy than temporary exile over yet another scandal.
Andrea Jackson was just settling into her crowd observation mode when she noticed one of the local men moving in her direction. From his casual manner and slow approach, he expected her to notice him and was sending a clear message that he was as interested in discretion as she was. Good! A contact this quickly either meant she had badly misjudged her appearance, (she seriously doubted it) or he was another information farmer, who recognized a kindred sprit among the glamorous crowd. She hadn't arrived with the Navy, but her business here was just as official as it was low profile. They were here for guns and show, she was here for facts, contacts and to gain as much leverage as she could obtain for Her Majesty's Secret Service. No little black hand gun, no license to kill, no sabotage equipment, and definitely as little attention as possible. but she was an agent just the same; and the lab boys had supplied her with a few neat little gadgets she might find useful on this particular mission. She made several slow steps into the path of her intended partner in conversation, just to let him know she understood his intent, and agreed to a meeting. The glittering multitude swirled past them, oblivious to their purposeful yet seemingly random mutual approach, as the two agents' social vectors converged.
***
The corridors in this part of the Wanderlust were narrower than usual, and seemed to have fewer side branches than more densely populated parts of the ship. The polished metal gleamed with the customary spotlessness that occupied the time of so many of the navy's lower ranks. The lyrics from an ancient Old Earth comic opera song scrolled through his memory "...I polished up the handle so care-full-ly, and now I am the ruler of the Queen's Nav-ee!"
The winding nature of the passageways and the muted low-frequency sounds coming from behind the bulkheads, almost like a growling stomach of some gigantic beast, reminded Slim of the part of the ship he was in; the bowels, literally. All around him the waste products of 355 humans (and one Treecat) were being dealt with in as efficient a manner as the environmental engineers who designed her could work out. One doesn't just leave a trail of ... stuff floating through space to mark your path. Furthermore, materials ejected while in hyperdrive tended to follow along and make a little cloud around vessel guilty of just dumping their waste "overboard". Of course it would have been frozen solid in an instant in the implacable cold and vacuum of space, but having a halo of human waste around your ship tended to make it hard for smaller craft to dock with her, and it even clouded the sensor array.
Thus a large part of the environmental system was devoted to recycling as much material as possible, and storing the rest until they reached an official disposal station. The simple camping equipment Slim had used back in his archeologist days had a similar arrangement. So I guess we're just camping out in space, instead of on a planet, and that makes this big complicated warship nothing more than a large recreational vehicle!
The thought amused him and he found himself mentally pursuing the ramifications of referring to the Queens Navy a bunch of rec-v's, when he suddenly bumped into the reason for his sojourn into this part of the ship.
"Pardonez Mois! You are looking for somesing, yes?" The short dark-haired man in the overused and underwashed work uniform stared myopically up at Slim from a height at least 15 centimeters lower than his. Slim was quickly snapped out of his reverie, as much by the clipped French accent as the physical impact itself.
"Bon Jour Monsieur! Are you perhaps, Engineering Specialist Henri Bonchance? I was told I could find him here somewhere, but I seem to have gotten turned around. I would like to discuss a problem...""
"Ssshhhhh!" The little man suddenly put his finger in front of his mouth in a quieting gesture, abruptly interrupting Slims introduction. "Les Murs, ils ecoutent!" he stared about him, crouched, both hands making the silencing gesture and indicating their surroundings. "Zee walls, zey listen."
He peered about as though someone might materialize in the hallway at any moment, which in this lonely part of the ship was about as likely as The Captain's Treecat suddenly developing a distaste for celery.
"Allez! Come! Come quickly. We will talk where it is private!" He gestured nervously, both index fingers extended upward as though he were trying to direct an unseen choir, and led the way down the corridor to what looked like a service entrance in the wall. He paused, looked around again furtively and then looked directly at Slim. "You must avert your eyes while I unlock the lab!"
Stephan was having second thoughts about this little trip. The guy was obviously a bit off balance. But Sergeant Johansson had assured him Mad Henri was harmless, devoted to the welfare of the ship and his Captain, and an absolute genius with outside-the-box engineering. Slim had worked with and for some pretty nutty old professors before. Henri wasn't all that different. He obediently turned his head away and waited for permission to look back. A pneumatic door hissed open and light flooded out into the corridor, along with the strong smell of garlic.
"Vite! Quickly, you must come in before zey notice my place"
He stepped in after the strange engineer and the door hissed shut on his heals. The room was large and completely cluttered with various mechanical paraphernalia, most of which Slim couldn't put a name to or even speculate on its function. A hot plate in the corner was apparently used for cooking meals when he was too busy (or too paranoid) to go to the ship's mess. A bowl held the remains of something cooked with a great deal of garlic, an odor that permeated the room. It was as though he had stepped through a magic door, out of the navy and into the laboratory of a retired inventor. It was obvious that no ship's cleaning crews ever penetrated this space.
"You ARE Henri, aren't you? The Marine Environmental Tech sent me to find you. I have a little problem I would like to run over with you."
"But of course, I am Henri! Bienvenue to my little kingdom. Monsieur...?" The little man trailed off, inviting a reply.
Ship's Oxygen Renewal Specialist P.O. Stephan Schwartzpunct belatedly remembered his manners, and a little of the ancient language his new acquaintance obviously preferred. "Pardon moi. Je m'appelle Stephan. Comment allez-vous?"
"Please, monsieur, I am pleased you speak a little French, but I would not wish to tax you wit' it. My Standard is quite good, no? Still, you 'ave quite overwhelmed me wit' your effort. Je suis votre serviteur. I am your servant! What can Henri do for you?"
He no longer slouched over, once he was out of the corridor, and his expression had brightened considerably. But he still gestured as he talked with both hands, thumbs out, both forefingers pointed at some unknown target, moving them in mirrored unison to punctuate his words.
Slim was somewhat taken aback that his hard won language skills could be so casually labeled as speaking "a little French". The waitresses always found it delightful! Still, he had to admit he was short on practice with a true native speaker, rare as they are in a galaxy dominated by Standard-speech. Certainly the little engineer was trying to be very civil.
Henri turned, gesturing to his little lab and Slim noticed a large damaged bolt slung from a leather thong around his neck. He tried for a some humor to break the ice.
"Is that bolt a handy spare, or do you just use it to defend against the rats down here"
Henri's eyes suddenly hardened. "Zere are no rats on My Lady's ship!" He grabbed the bolt, almost shoving it up into Slims face. "Zis is my lucky piece, mon boulon du bonchance! My survival!" He vibrated with the vehemence of his emotion, shaking the bolt a the end of its leather thong.
"Look! Look! See zis bolt? See it? Zis bolt, she save my life! She is from, zee Madrigal. The ship was being blown apart, an' zere were lazers slicing through 'er, an' I sought zat I waz a gonner. Zen one beam burst through zee 'ull straight toward me. Je meurs! I thought, zen mais, it struck zis very bolt an' waz deflected away! Zee bolt, she waz cut out of zee ship, an' no sooner 'ad zee lazer miss, did she come into my hand." He held up the palm of his right hand and proudly displayed the burn mark the hot bit of metal had caused. "It waz zen I knew zee ship, she wanted me to survive. So I took zee bolt an' 'eld it an' found my way to zee pinnace where zee survivors had gazerred, an' left zee ship. She was destroyed, but 'er spirit, she stayed wit' me! She loved me best for I treated 'er like a true lover, an' she wished pour mon survival! I 'ave witnessed it now several times, my dear lover protects me!" The little frazzled man kissed the twisted blackened metal knob of the bolt gently for all his excitement at relating the tale. Coming up for air he turned his wide blood shot eyes once more to his captive audience.
"If you must know she 'as done zis more zan once! She is mon guardian angel! When we were captured by zose imbéciles fanatique, zey killed all zee women ovicers." He paused to spit on the floor and then twitched and looked about as if worried someone had heard his spittle spattering on the ground. "Zose were not men! Zey were fils de pute et vraiment baiseurs, err, how you say-" He suddenly jerked up and looked around again. After a few moments he came back to himself. "Well let us say zey would not 'ave lived long if zey 'ad done such a thing on Corsica. We are true men. But ah oui I was telling you about zee prison.
"Well zey 'ad us all locked up zere, good an' tight; but one night I 'ad a dream. In zee dream I met a beautiful woman. I knew at once she waz zee Madrigal! She told me to use 'er to unlock zee cell doorz. My Lady, zee Captain, was come to rescues us. In zee noise and stink of zee fighting I used zis very bolt to break zee lock. We were out of zee cells even as mon grande dame waz arriving. I cut zee Duchess' work in half an' survived zee disaster entirely! It waz all thanks to zis bolt!"
He held up the bolt again and kissed it once more with dramatic flare. "I served on Madrigal as her Maintenance Engineer. I took care of 'er like a lover an' when she waz at her 'er end, she took care of me. Even now, we are as one." He caressed it again. "I keep zis piece with me always, an' always I come back alive. Zee military ovicials zey wonted me to retire, but je n'irai pas! I shall never leave zee duchess' side! Mon belle copine, zee Madrigal, she say «Don't leave 'er side! » and I do what my lady commands. She keep me alive an' I serve both of zem with my very soul! If I am fated to die, I will do so with zee duchess an' my love." He kissed the bolt a third time his lips darkened now with soot.
He paused, breathing hard. The intensity of his expression bored into the startled young draftee.
"Ah! I see it on your face. You do not believe. But I 'ave proof." He suddenly lurched over to a desk buried under various papers and drawing devices, and snatched up a tattered looking document.
"I 'ave worked out zee t'ermodynamique details 'ere." Holding the notebook triumphantly high. "Zey laugh at Henri, but Zey do not read my proof. Zee Madrigal, she spare me pour un grande destin. Zis bolt is l'seprit du Madrigal, and she will protect us!" The light of fanaticism blazed in his eyes, daring the young specialist to doubt him.
Somewhat shaken by the virulence of the little engineers reaction, Slim quickly started to apologize. Henri waved him to silence.
"No, my young friend, you could not know, It all 'appened long ago, at zee start of zee war.
"Admiral Courvosier took out zee little Destroyer Madrigal in support of zee Grayson Fleet (although it was hardly a fleet at zat time) against a raiding party of those little vermin from Masada. He 'ad no way of knowing that a peep Battlecruiser was hiding nearby, 'on loan' to those diables primitif. When zee cruiser sent a flight of missiles after zee Graysons, mon Admiral, he stay behind to shield zem wit' our superior defensive systems.
Madrigal, she fought bravely, but in zee end, zey were too much. Zee Graysons escaped, but Madrigal she was destroyed. But Mon Grande Dame, she returned to save us. Now we, Madrigal and I, we protect her. For zis reason alone was I saved."
The bolt still hovered under his nose. As Stephan examined it, he noted that the damage appeared to be where some intense energy source had partly melted the centimeter thick hardened alloy like butter. Although he was no student of military engagements (at least until they had been buried a while and dug up again), every child's basic History of the Star Kingdom included a mention of the plight of the crew of the Madrigal. His eyes widened and he nodded his head in respect as he realized he was standing in the presence of a ghost out of that past. The horrors that crew had experienced would have driven anyone around the bend. It wouldn't hurt one lowly algae tank tender to give the little engineer the respect and tolerance he had earned.
"I see. Please forgive me my ignorance, Henri." Stephan murmured respectfully. "I am comforted by the presence of l'seprit du Madrigal on this ship."
" Ça ne casse rien. Is not'ing. You could not know. I am just an old engineer who spends too much time lost in 'is past." But Ship's Engineer Henri Bonchance eyes glittered with unshed tears as smiled up at his new friend.
Curiouser and curiouser. You've really tumbled down the rabbit hole this time Stephan. Is the March Hare nearby?