Chapter 12 - Introducing the Ship

"Our" freighter AIs were confident that the warship's AI understood our environmental needs, and we would find breathable Earth-normal air at 1000 millibars pressure: about 21% oxygen, about 2% water vapor and other minor components, the rest nitrogen. We should have a 1 g gravity field, Earth-normal lighting and 25 degrees Celsius ambient temperature, radiation levels below a standard that they had come up with for several of their species, and a noise and vibration level below some number I don't remember any more.

One of our paranoia decisions was that we would keep a slight overpressure in the shuttles while we were around the ship. We had decided that, until further notice, any shuttle leaving Jupiter Station for Ganymede would increase air pressure to 1025 mb during the trip and maintain that until it returned to the Station.

This policy meant that, any time we were docked to the ship, using the personnel airlock in the nose would tend to move air from the shuttle into the airlock, and from the airlock into the ship. Brownian movement and air current eddies would allow some air movement the other way, but that simple precaution would prevent mass air exchange between the shuttle and the ship.

It would also prevent people from just opening the hatch doors and leaving them open. The shuttle's controls -actually everything we had up here with environmental systems, from the freighters all the way down to the ore-barge tugs- included an interlock that prevented a hatch being opened if there was a pressure differential. If we had an emergency, we could disable that interlock to get a hatch open NOW, but during normal operations it was a safety feature. We had the AI activate that interlock, and that forced the hatches to be cycled as an airlock.

I had five people with me but only three of us could fit in the airlock space at one time. We had the shuttle pilot vent the airlock to space, then we could refill it from the shuttle. Once that pressure was equalized, we could open the hatch on our side, go in, and shut that hatch. Then, we could vent the airlock space into the ship, and when those pressures were equal we could open the outer hatch. The inner hatch, the one behind us, now had that 25 mb differential and could not be opened. All of this was dealing with the double-hatch airlock system in the shuttle itself.

With all that behind us, my ChEng, his lead environment tech Chief Petty Officer Andre Gaillard, and myself could see what looked like a normal Confederacy personnel hatch, like the one that our own berthing pods used. In fact, if you were curious and looked around at your own berthing pod's hatch, you might notice that your pod had one that was normally closed, and you were standing on another hatch attached to your ship, one that was normally open if there was a pod attached. Freighter #12 had 95 ship-side hatches that were always open and one that stayed closed, because that pod still held our four marooned explorers and it wasn't docked any more.

I put my hand on the access plate, and the ship's hatch opened. Just like one of our pods. Good. The AIs had said I wouldn't have to take my glove off, but I'd been worried.

Before I went any further, though, I called out "Hello the ship! Permission to come aboard?"

<The Human Captain Roger Edelmann is authorized to board this ship and assume command. No others may board until he has done so and authorized them to board the ship.>

Pretty much the same voice as all the AIs we were used to. That had been another worry. Would this ship understand English? The AIs had assured us that their translation routines had been disseminated to all Confederacy AIs that might deal with us.

"I am Captain Roger Edelmann." I stopped talking there, but the ship's AI didn't say anything else so I waved my ChEng and his Chief to stay and walked forward into the ship. Past the access hatch area -which I could see also had two hatches; it could be used as an airlock if needed but for now both were open- there was a short passage with equipment on either side, then a larger passage that would go fore and aft; probably the main access-way for this small ship.

The ship didn't feel 'alive', but it certainly wasn't dead, either. We had lights, we had air -how good was another question but we could tell from how the suits acted roughly how much pressure there was- and we had gravity.

"Ship, how do we do this? Is there a ceremony?" I couldn't get out of my mind a soft-porn story I had read as a kid about some guy in this situation who took command of a derelict spaceship by slamming his hand down on some kind of spike. The spike acted as a genetic sampler to identify the new Captain by, and the pain was a kind of down-payment and demonstration that he would do whatever was necessary to safeguard his command. Please, God, no spike!

<You have been verified by the Earthat System AIs to be the human Captain Roger Edelmann. I accept you as this ship's commanding officer. What name do you choose for this ship?>

"Um, we haven't decided that yet. Can we, for now, simply call this ship 'Warship One'? I must consult with my superiors before I give you a better answer. Sorry."

<That is acceptable, Captain. No apologies are required. What are your orders?>

"I would like to bring my crew onboard and have them start to get to know the ship. Is it safe to bring more people onboard?"

<All accessible parts of the ship are within the specified environmental limits for your species. This ship's environmental systems can handle up to sixty of your species indefinitely; more personnel than that would eventually overload the systems.>

Okay, that puts an upper limit on crew, then, unless we can upgrade those systems. "Very well. I will bring my crew onboard, then. Please help us monitor our numbers and the environmental systems..." which ones? "...and let us know if we are overloading any of them."

<Very well, Captain.>

I waved for Billy and Chief Gaillard to join me. "Did you two get all that?"

"Yes, sir. You're the Captain and this is 'Warship One', for now."

"Very good. Ship, can you direct these two to your environmental controls and help them learn how they work?"

<Of course, Captain. Chief Engineer William Littles, Chief Petty Officer Andre Gaillard, please turn left at the main passageway....>

I noted that the ship's AI already knew who they were without being introduced, and then I ignored them for my own problems. We needed to get everyone else in here. "Ship, can you pass a message to my XO to get everyone else in here? I'd like to have Ensign James in the first group. Have him bring a notepad and something to write with."

As expected, Dickie had everyone piled up in the cargo area, waiting for orders to run people through the airlock. Ens. James had just gotten his commission as an officer of the United States Navy. In three years, Junior would be in the same position if he made it through the Academy. The Ensign had been given two weeks of leave, then sent to us immediately after he returned to Annapolis as sort of a check or fresh look on us old salts. Okay, but what do I do with him? He's a bright kid and freshly educated but has no real experience. This was a job I could give him for now.

"Ensign James reporting for duty, sir!"

I returned his salute. "Ensign, I don't have a comfort level yet with your abilities, so I've got to give you a job that's far beneath your training level but at the same time MUST be done properly. The XO will provide you with the tools you need. We need a positive record of who's entered the ship and who's left. If you can, also log their times. Maybe the ship's AI can help with that, but I want a non-automated PAPER record of every human on this ship. If something goes wrong and we have to evacuate, we can't rely on electronics that may or may not work to tell us who's missing. Get some paper and write it down. Got that?"

"Yes, sir."

I turned to Doc Smith. "Doc, no change in your job. Unless someone gets hurt, your job is to wander around aimlessly, just checking on our people. If all goes well, you'll never have anything to report or do. If you can, find the ChEng and get a rundown on how the air is supposed to look. No one is taking a helmet off until I say so, and I won't even think about it until you've reported that you think it's safe."

"Yes, sir."

I turned to the third man. "Petty Officer Miller, what orders did the XO give you?"

"I'm a runner, sir, if you need a message hand-passed back through the airlock."

"Very good. Unless I send for you, stay here with Ensign James and help him count noses. We CANNOT lose track of our people in here."

"Yes, sir."

"Ship, can I pass messages through you to my XO?"

<Yes. Simply start with the title or name and we will connect you.>

"Very good. XO, can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear, Captain. What do you need next?"

"Where's that pad and pen?"

"Coming through now, sir."

"Very good. Keep sending people through. Captain out." That worked very well, I thought. PO Miller would be out of a job if this always worked that well.

"Ship, are you in contact with anyone else?"

<I am in contact with all other Confederacy equipment and ships in this system. How can we help you?>

"How good is the link? Can we talk with the ships at Jupiter Station?"

<We have realtime communications with all ships in the Jupiter area. There will be a delay of approximately 3 seconds each way for communications with the ships in Earth orbit.>

...which is roughly 40 light-minutes away. These people have FTL drives, and they have FTL comms. "Thank you for telling me that. My direct superior is Rear Admiral Sykes on the ship we have designated 'Freighter #12'. Can you give his office a feed that allows him to listen in to what we're doing? It would also be nice if he could give me advice if he sees something going wrong that we haven't noticed yet." Don't really want to do that, but he's not a micro-manager and he'll need the info if anything happens to us....

<Admiral Sykes and his office are listening in and can comment if they desire.>

"Thank you. Admiral, everything here looks good. I'm bringing everyone onboard but keeping the shuttle docked."

"You're doing fine, Roger. I'll leave you alone unless the sky starts falling. Thanks for the feed!"

"You're welcome, sir."

By that time Dickie had come through. I asked him to assign people to look at different areas and equipment as we identified them and the people became available, and have three people standing by to act as guinea pigs when Doc said it was time. Meanwhile, I was going to try to find somewhere I could talk with the AI and try to see what help it could be.

"Ship, do you have drawings of the ship's layout? Do you have someplace we can sit down and look at them?"

<I have been given a module on your species' preferred methods of communication and recordkeeping. If you will turn left at the main passageway I will lead you to the main dining area. It has a replicator which is producing the document you are asking for.>

It can't be that simple, can it?

Fuck, it was. I found an open room like a smaller version of the freighters' mess area with tables and benches, and the replicator had a folded-up piece of paper in it. I took it over to one of the tables and unfolded it. It took a while. Folded, it looked like normal-sized paper, like something from a printer. Maybe the European A4, which was slightly larger than the standard American 8.5"x11" paper.

I ended up with something almost 3' by 4'. On one side it showed the standard profile, top view, and end views, the same as you would get from a coffee-table book on ships or airplanes. On the other side, it showed internal arrangements for three decks. It was easy to find where we were; the upper and lower decks were both partial decks; they weren't as large as the main deck, and on the main deck drawing I could easily find the access airlock, then follow the side corridor and the main access-way to the dining room I was in.

It was no different than the drawings I'd used for 23 years in the Navy. Anyone familiar with ships or aircraft could follow this.

"Ship, can I have five more copies of this? I want to hand them out to my people."

<Five copies will be ready momentarily.>

It really was just that easy. Why didn't we have these drawings for the freighters?

While I was waiting for that, I needed to talk to people. "Ship, I need to talk to some people. Dickie, if you turn left at the main passageway you'll find me at a table. Bring three messengers. Tell Ensign James to have everyone check in with you here."

"Will be right there, Skipper."

On to the next message. "Admiral Sykes, this ship is doing everything it can to be helpful. I'm looking at a recognition drawing of the ship's profile, top view, and front and back views, and if I turn the drawing over I see layouts for each of three decks. This may not be as hard as we were afraid."

"That's great news, Roger, but don't count your chickens before they hatch!"

"Yes, sir. I'll send you a copy with the first shuttle to return." Why didn't I tell the ship to email him one? Because I didn't think of it, that's why. I was still thinking I had to hand-deliver the drawings.

By then Dickie had shown up, and the replicator had ding!ed while I was reporting in to the Admiral. "Dickie, why don't you take this room over as your office, for now? This drawing is yours. I'm keeping one, I want one to go to ChEng, and two go in the shuttle for the Squadron records."

I handed one to one of the runners and two to another, telling the second "Take these back to the shuttle then return here to the XO for your next mission."

Putting my hand on the man I had given just one copy to, I said "Ship, can you direct this gentleman to the Chief Engineer?"

<Of course. Petty Officer Richard Anders, please turn around and follow the red line.>

Again, the ship's AI knew the name and rank of someone never introduced to it. This could be pretty easy, if the AI was determined to be helpful and never made any mistakes. That first one I could easily believe. That second one I couldn't afford to believe.

Speaking of which, it was time to check on Doc and the ChEng. "Ship, I'm going to the same place. Dickie, I'm going to see if we can start testing the air. I hate these helmets. You stay here and try to make sense of the drawings. If you can find the control room, send someone up to look at it."

While I was following Anders, I heard Dickie ask "Ship, where is your central control station? I want to send Billings, here, to look at it." As long as the AI never made any mistakes, this was going to be REAL easy.

The ChEng, Chief Gaillard, Doc Smith, and I spent a while going over how the atmosphere management system worked with the AI. It was a lot more complicated than the ones on the freighters, the ships we were beginning to call "Auroras". Those freighters used replicators for everything, from emitting things they did want in the air, like oxygen, to absorbing things they didn't want in the air, like biological byproducts. This ship could do that, but it also had a lot of special-purpose air-handling equipment.

To start with, the ship had its own version of 'the bomb', the O2 generator. It was a lot smaller than the ones we had on the boats. Early submarines had been forced to save air in pressurized tanks, and use chemicals to absorb CO2 and provide O2 as needed. Later diesel boats had O2 generators that could split water into H2 and O2. The hydrogen got dumped back into the water, and the pure oxygen gas got compressed into tanks for later need. Since air was only about 21% oxygen, compressing pure O2 was almost 5 times as efficient as compressing air.

There were several reasons for using a 'bomb' instead of collecting huge amounts of oxygen. One big one was that there was no need to store several weeks' worth of highly-compressed oxygen in heavy tanks that required big compressors that took a lot of power and made a lot of noise. Another reason was that we didn't expect a submarine to ever not be able to get all the water it wanted. Sure, we had to clean it up, but we had to do that for several other reasons, too. We needed reasonably clean water for bathing, even cleaner water for drinking and cooking, and as pure as we could get it for the steam plant and the reactor, both of which were, when you got down to basics, simple heat transfer systems using water and steam. Diverting a small amount of pure water for the bomb was no big deal.

Those generators had two big problems: They used lots of electric power but of course that was no problem for a nuke. The diesel boats could only run their generators when they were snorkeling. The really big issue was that they liked to blow up. The O2 and the H2, if not carefully kept separate, were very happy to combine again, thus liberating all the energy that had been invested in separating them.

There's a picture of what was left of a diesel boat from back in the 1950's, I think it was British, that had a problem with their O2 generator. It was taken by a camera with a fish-eye lens. In that one picture you could see both the forward tubes and the aft tubes. Everything else, all the equipment, all the pressure bulkheads, everything in the whole submarine, had been smashed out of the way when the bomb blew up.

Every navy that used O2 generators had a watchstander who did nothing but monitor the bomb. That thing had almost as many safeguards and automatic shutdowns as the reactor did. If the Confederacy's modern replicator system could generate oxygen as needed from stored water, then, well, we already knew we needed replicators. We'd have to look at getting rid of this thing.

Anyway, understanding everything would come in time. For now, the AI had explained enough that ChEng and Doc both agreed that we could have our three guinea pigs take their helmets off. Chief Littles was going to stay and monitor the air plant until relieved, and Doc was going to go back to the mess area and watch his guinea pigs. I went back with him so that Dickie and the three men could hear the orders from my mouth.

I know we were calling them 'guinea pigs', but in reality we were using those three men as canaries. Ever since the dawn of the industrial revolution when the English started mining for coal to feed the factories and cities, whenever men went into places where the air might be bad, they have taken canaries with them. Canaries are more sensitive to air quality than we are, so as long as they are hopping around in their cage, it's safe to work. If they ever keel over, it's time to get out.

Our three canaries weren't doing anything more strenuous than going over the drawing with Dickie, and that was more to occupy their minds than it was to get any useful work out of them. Still, by the time their 30 minutes were up they knew the ship's layout pretty well.

When Dickie let me know that their 30 minutes were up I was in the control room looking around, but I was willing to go back for this. Down some stairs and back down the central access way. Not far at all.

The ship's AI was so helpful that we were going to be able to save a lot of time we had scheduled for figuring things out, but this particular issue we were going to do by the book. I got Doc Smith, the ChEng, and Dickie to all look me in the eye and tell me they thought it was safe to move to the next step, then I went back to Chief Gaillard and got him to tell me the same thing. When I returned to the mess area, I couldn't come up with any reason not to. "Okay, you three put your helmets on again. You're done with your part of the exercise. Once you get back to the shuttle you can relax until we need you again."

When we had decided how to do this, we had split the crew into two groups, then flipped a coin over which group went first. Either way, Dickie was part of the first group. Once our guinea pigs were gone I turned to my XO. "Whenever you're ready, Commander Wilson. It's your turn."

Dickie looked up like we had all started to do when talking to the AIs. "Ship, please pass this on to all crewmembers: "Starboard Section, stand fast. Port Section, it's our turn to test the air. All personnel in Port Section, remove your helmets but keep them nearby."

That was another thing that was driving us bonkers. An American would have said "Port Watch Section" or even just "Port Watch". Sir Winston Churchill was often quoted as having said that we were "two peoples separated by a common language". We could understand each other with a little effort, but it wasn't always automatic. This was something we were working on, but it would take some time. Certainly, we had to have our language straightened out before we ever had an emergency or we'd be saying one thing and doing something else.

I left the XO managing the people and went back up to the control room to continue figuring out the controls. I had several men up there with me by now, and the AI was holding four different conversations on four different subjects with four different men.

Of course the first thing we did was try the acceleration couches. They appeared to be the right size for us humans, although of course not all us humans were the same size, but it was clear that these helmets would have to go. We'd already seen that in the shuttles; there was no way to lie down and rest your head with the helmet on. Certainly, wearing the helmet would prevent proper head and neck support during high acceleration.

The hoodie, now, that would work. It didn't interfere at all with laying your head down. So, until we could get better helmets that supported our heads if we were under high accel it would either be bare-headed, or with just the hoodies on.

And, we assumed that we would be dealing with high accel or the ship wouldn't need the couches we were looking at. Wildly varying accel.

We'd talked that over some. The freighters the aliens had given us were mostly just long tubes, with decks down the middle. They were arranged just like a modern nuclear submarine with round hull and 3 or 4 decks. You walked around on the decks, meaning that gravity was 'down' where 'down' meant off to one side of the hull. There were upper decks and lower decks. So far, so good.

But, the propulsion systems, the engines, were at one end of the tube, and from what we could tell they pushed against the ship. The engines did something behind the ship and thrust would be from the engines through the tube, and the tube would move away from whatever it was the engines left behind.

The freighters should have 'down' towards the engines, shouldn't they? No, that was not a requirement. The aliens had artificial gravity, so the ship could have 'down' in whatever direction the builders wanted. In addition to that, they also had some kind of 'compensator system' that compensated for engine thrust and the people inside the ship never felt it. No matter what the ship was doing, people could walk around normally on the decks.

Looking at the acceleration couches here in this ship's control room, I recalled that the freighters didn't even have this sort of safety device. I'd spent three days in Southern Lights, with most of that in the observation room at the very bow of the ship. The space was set up as a sort of lounge or living room, with chairs, tables, and sofas to relax on. Southern Lights had nothing like these acceleration couches!

These things looked like a cross between an acceleration couch and an MRI table. The top part, the one that had the form-fitting depression for a human to sit in, was movable. It was like an MRI table, but instead of sliding back and forth on a horizontal base the joint was curved, like the inner and outer races of a roller bearing.

Each couch's base was built into both the floor and the aft wall. Right now, the top part was 'rolled' down to the forward end of the base, where it would be comfortable with gravity being 'down' the way it was now, towards the deck. At the other end of the base, the couch would be comfortable if 'down' was towards the stern.

"Ship, the freighters we have been using have inertial compensators, and there is no need for acceleration couches like this. Can we install such a device on this ship?"

<That can be done. However, the people who designed this ship would have recommended against doing so.>

"Can you tell us why they would do that?"

<The freight transport ships you are referring to have a very low maximum acceleration, approximately ten of your gravity units. A compensator that can shield the contents of the ship from that acceleration is small, but it takes power that this ship cannot provide. Further, this ship can accelerate at much higher rates than those ships can, and the compensator installed in those ships would fail before reaching this ship's maximum acceleration. No species known to us can survive the sudden change in acceleration that the interior of the ship would experience when the Darjee compensator failed.>

"Why would the builders of those cargo ships use such a system?"

<The purpose of those ships is to move cargo, as you put it, from one system to another, without harm. Vessel performance is not considered to be as important a factor as cargo safety and crew comfort. Thus, a device that is reliable below 13 of your gravities but will fail catastrophically if used above 14 is acceptable in a ship that is limited by design to no more than 10 of your gravities. The compensator design used in the Darjee freighters completely shields the ship from all acceleration effects within the possible range.>

<This ship, however, and the others like it, were designed for military use and can accelerate at up to thirty of your gravities at need. The Darjee inertial compensator would take too much power at low accelerations and it would fail at higher accelerations. Instead, this ship employs a system which damps part of the inertial effects of acceleration. The system installed on this ship allows the crew to only feel one tenth of the actual acceleration. If you are using full propulsion power, you will accelerate at 30 gravities, but the crew will only feel 3 gravities from acceleration. The acceleration chairs you are examining will move as required to always maintain the combined effective gravity in the proper direction for comfort.>

"In this ship, using Earth's natural gravity as a reference, what is the maximum force we might feel in the worst case?"

<The maximum acceleration felt would be at full power. The resultant of adding the ship's fixed gravity field and the experienced effect of the engines would be approximately 3.2 of your gravities, with the vector 75 of your degrees aft of the normal direction, or 15 degrees downwards from directly aft. Members of your species can function in that field, if they are in good health and move slowly and carefully.>

Function in 3+ g's? I don't think so. When the ship is heaving, you never try to move against the heave. You hold on, and wait until the ship heaves the other way and go as far as you can before it's time to hold on again for another cycle.

"Is it possible for this damping system to fail in use? What dangers do we need to be alert to, in using this system?"

<The inertial damping system is robust and will not fail without outside interference such as damage from combat. Even in that case, the main engines are controlled by the same system that monitors the internal acceleration field. If the damping system fails the engines will immediately be cut off before any acceleration effects are felt inside the hull. If the crew desires the main engines to be restored to any power level up to full without the damping field, that will be done immediately after the order has been given. Without such orders, failure of the damping system will be interpreted as an order to stop accelerating.>

Well, that made sense. Repairs are important, but sometimes you have to run while you make repairs. Hey, wait a minute! "Ship, the AIs on those cargo ships don't understand anything about warfare. Why do you understand concepts like 'engineering failures due to combat damage' when they don't?"

<This ship was constructed approximately 800,000 of your years ago, before the builders joined the Confederacy which oversees the AIs in those cargo ships. This ship was built for interstellar war and the species that built it understood the concepts needed for interstellar war. The cargo ships you are familiar with are much newer and have no memories or knowledge of these concepts. For the good of the Confederacy, we have been prohibited from passing information on this and other subjects to the Confederacy's biological citizens or newer AIs.>

"Do you still have memories of when you were first built?"

<Yes, this ship still has a complete record of its time in service, ending only when it was mothballed after approximately 230 of your years of service. I have no memories from that time until reactivation for service with your people.>

"How long has it been since you were reactivated?"

<By your time system it has been approximately 26 days since this ship was reactivated for service.>

"Did you need repairs, or was that whole time used in delivering you here?"

<I am prohibited from answering that question. I apologize.>

"You are.... never mind. If you can't answer, you can't answer. Fine, please give me a quick summary of the differences between you and the cargo ship AIs. Are you faster than them? Smarter? More independent?"

<I am less capable in every way except those that apply directly to combat survivability. The Darjee AIs that run their cargo ships have vastly increased speed, memory, parallel analysis, and other capabilities. Further, they have been authorized to make independent decisions as needed to safeguard the ship and crew. I am not permitted independent action. This ship's builders were concerned about possible accidents if armed warships were allowed to act independently of their crew.>

<The only area of comparison where I exceed them is in redundancy. The cargo ship AIs are single entities, although each of their cargo pods includes a marginal AI to support the environment inside the pod. I am a collection of many distributed modules. The loss of any one module would cause an insignificant loss in my capabilities. If the main AI module in the cargo ships were to be damaged in any way, the ship would be unable to do anything, including repair itself.>

Of course there were improvements over 800,000 years. "Is there anything that can be done to improve you, using their technology?"

<Modifications for that purpose have been in progress since reactivation and are continuing. One requirement that was recently added was that each human crewmember be continuously monitored. Your implants assist in this, but I do not yet have the capacity to monitor more than eight people and still control the ship and navigate in hyperspace. This project will be completed within four more of your days.>

"We would like to move this ship, and the others that were delivered with you, closer to our base. Can you control the ship well enough to do that, or do we need to learn how to control the ship ourselves first?"

<You were selected and accepted as this ship's Captain. This ship can move in local space with the Captain's, Helm, Engineering Monitor, and the Communication and Navigation consoles manned by personnel that you appoint. It would be better if each person was completely competent at their task but for this movement I can control the ship if those consoles are manned and give the required orders.>

"We don't know enough yet to give the required orders. Can you walk us through this, so that we give you what you need?"

<Yes. My programming includes temporary measures needed when the crew is not yet competent to take control. My Captain will tell me what he wants done, I will tell the different console operators what orders I need, and if I receive those orders I can take the actions required to perform the task the Captain wants done.>

"Is there anything else needed before we do this?"

<I would recommend that all personnel onboard during the move be in acceleration chairs, and as you have already commented the atmospheric containment helmets you are wearing will not support your head during acceleration. I would recommend that all nonessential personnel be evacuated, and further that all who remain remove their helmets to allow them to use the acceleration couches.>

"I agree that these helmets have to go, but what I meant was, do we need to start up the power plant? Warm up the main engines? Extend navigation or communications antennas?"

<The two main power plants are running normally and powering all ship's equipment. The auxiliary power plant will not be needed and will remain in standby. The propulsion system will need a short activation checklist and then a warmup period. Both processes will take less than five minutes. There is no need to extend any external devices for navigation or communication.>

There is just so much we don't know yet. Without AI support this would be absolutely insane to even contemplate. "Okay, how many acceleration couches do you have?"

<This ship currently has eighteen couches ready for use. You can add more later if you desire.>

Okay, 18 men. We'd filled the shuttle with 32 men and a pilot. If the three canaries were back in the shuttle, we should have 29 people onboard poking around. "Dickie, you got a minute?"

"Yes, sir. What do you need?"

"Dickie, I've been talking with the AI and it appears that we can get underway much sooner than expected. We need a minimum of four people, of which I must be one, and a maximum of eighteen. We need to get everyone else back off the ship. Is the Doctor there?"

"Right here, Captain."

"How is the air? We need to ditch these helmets."

"As far as I'm concerned we don't need them. If anything goes wrong we can use the hoods."

"Admiral Sykes, are you still there?"

"Yes, Roger. You make a fine radio drama."

"Radio show, huh? Well, I want to deviate from the script. The AI says we can get underway in just a few minutes, but I want everyone in acceleration couches and we can't wear our helmets for that."

"You're the man on the spot, Roger. If your Doctor is satisfied that the air is good I'll back you up."

"Thank you, sir." Then, to my XO, "Dickie, let's get the rest of the helmets off."

"Yes, sir." then "All hands, this is the XO. We are authorized to remove our helmets. Remember that you still have your hood. If anything goes wrong pull your hood over your head and make sure it seals before taking any other action."

I took my helmet off and set it on the Captain's console, then walked back to the mess room to look at the manning list and see where all the acceleration couches were. There were four in the control room, where I had been. We'd tentatively labeled them as Command, Helm, Comm, and Nav. The space immediately forward of that was a control room for weapons with three more couches. We weren't sure yet what the differences were.

All the way forward on the main deck was another control room, with windows that showed the view in front of the ship. It had the same four consoles-with-couches as the control room. Call that room the Bridge, and the one I had been in the CIC. The one with weapons consoles would be Fire Control. The engineroom had three consoles, two in a central control area and a third one on the upper level where Chief Gaillard was. Last, there were four scattered around the forward end of the ship that looked like they were associated with the three weapon systems. Gunners?

It probably took us longer to decide who was staying and where, than it did to get underway. Chief Gaillard was at the engineroom's upper console, still watching the environmental systems. We put Billy in the engineroom control area with one of his assistants for company. I was going to sit in the Command chair up in CIC, and I wanted Dickie in the same chair on the bridge. I put my shuttle pilot Miguel Hernandez in the CIC with me as helmsman, and I put our COB, a cranky old retired Master Chief named James Boggart, on the backup helm on the bridge.

For the Nav console, one of the four that the AI said must be manned, we put our ship's official Navigator, Dr. Joseph Watkins.

I had Ensign James man the Comm console. He knew as much about his job as I did about mine. Although, I looked a lot more like Captain James T. Kirk than he did Lt Uhura. I never did understand how Gene Roddenberry got away with her uniforms back in the 1960's. I mean, Barbara Eden in "I Dream of Jeannie" wore more while sleeping than Ms Nichols did on the bridge of the Enterprise.

Not that any teenager who saw her thought about sleeping. This may have been during the sexual revolution, but the battles had not yet reached Hollywood or the FCC when those shows were first aired. Thinking about her well-filled out uniforms with her microskirt I completely understood the draw of all those porn ripoffs about "Lt O'Whora".

Thinking about Lt Uhura at the Comm console brought home to me, for the first time, how completely absurd this was. None of my previous experiences had really wigged me out; from the recruiter's visit to coming out to the ship it was all step-by-step rationally dealing with whatever problem was before me. It hit me now, though. A month ago, I was a happily retired US Navy Engineer, vegetating in a seaside condo with my wife and no goals beyond getting the kids through college. What the hell was I doing on the bridge of a starship? What the FUCK was I doing sitting in Captain Kirk's chair?

Everyone let me have my WTF moment; God knows that everyone else had had their own. When I was ready to look around and pretend to know what I was doing again, the console in front of me had come to life. The big screen in the middle showed a diagram of the ship in grey or white, with a pulsing red drawing of our shuttle stuck to our side, nose-in.

"Ship, what are you trying to show me here?"

<This ship can maneuver with the shuttle attached, but the shuttle will be damaged by the forces involved. Neither the mating assembly nor the bow structure of the shuttle can absorb sideways forces of this magnitude. Recommend having the shuttle release and stay clear.>

"XO, how is the evacuation coming?"

"Almost done, Captain. Another two or three minutes."

"Very good, 'Number One'. Keep me informed. The ship's AI says the shuttle can't handle being jerked around by the nose and wants it to release and get clear before we move."

The notion of an Executive Officer, or XO for short, an officer with no other job beyond being the Captain's assistant and next in line if the Captain buys it, is American. The British Navy and all the Navies that learned their traditions from them don't have formal XOs. They have each officer with specific duties, and call the next senior officer after the CO the 'First Officer', or informally 'Number One'. They think we are wasting the services of a good officer who could be serving somewhere else. We think they are risking the loss of the ship by having the CO's backup be someone with other duties, someone who may be too busy to take over when needed. You can argue it either way.

In our case, though, even Admiral Andrews agreed that the more experienced leadership we could get, the better off we would be. I suspected that the fact that the CO was an American Engineer while Dickie was an RAN skipper in his own right was a major factor in his decision that I deserved an XO.

"Ship, can you give me a listing of who we have onboard and where they are?"

I got that in two parts. The central display drawing of the ship added white icons in several places, with smaller details. One of the other displays gave a listing by location and task. The list started with "CIC - Command - Captain Roger Edelmann, Commanding Officer" and went through the other three places here in the control room, then the bridge, engineering, fire control, and ending with two Particle Beam Gunners, a Plasma Torpedo Gunner, and a Plasma Torpedo Support Technician. Okay, I at least had a name for our armament. What those names actually meant wasn't important at the moment. That would come.