Chapter 38 Day 2 Setting the Pace
The bridge was silent and twilit. With Azminn astern, the curving bank of view-panels showed only the subtle glow of the nebula's gases entwined in the twisting lampblack flows of the dust and rocky drifts. And because we were inbound, only three stars of the eight nebula stars shown through the haze – the other five, and the galaxy beyond were either out of view or hidden behind the veils of gas and dust.
Molaye was at the helm and Illy as the lookout/communications station. Behind them, the bank of specialized control consoles – cargo, environment, communications, navigation, sensors, weapons, and more – blinked and glowed softly, unattended. Every control on the bridge is duplicated somewhere else on board and all are monitored from the active control console and the detailed ones behind. Redundancy is a basic safety precaution.
The engineering station was vacant. The engineers were standing their watch in the engine room rather than on the bridge this voyage. For planetary runs with the engines operating for only two or three days at a time, they were comfortable monitoring them from the bridge. But with upwards of twenty days of constant running ahead, the engineers felt the need for more than just console lights and screens to look after their engines, so they moved their watch two decks down to the engine room control center to better see, feel, smell, hear and be one with their engines, reactors, generators and pumps at work.
Illy glanced up as I entered.
'Ready for a break?' I asked quietly. I'd no scheduled duties, so either I or the first mate looked in during each watch to give the watch a short break if needed.
She nodded.
'Then I have the lookout,' I took formal possession of the lookout.
Molaye glanced over and smiled as I thankfully perched myself on the tall, vacated chair. I'd never felt heavier aboard the ship because we'd never accelerated this long and hard in my years aboard her. My whole body ached. One-gee plus gravity, when you're not used to it, can do that. She'd been concentrating on her minute adjustments to the rocket engine balance using the array of nine control levers on the console before her, searching for just the right balance – the groove – to get the best, most efficient, performance out of the ship.
Up till now, I'd been monitoring the ship's status via my com link, just a light overview that would alert me to anything amiss, but otherwise didn't demand much attention. Essentially just a feeling that assured me everything was right. Now I synced my com link to the lookout console so all the radar, radio and ship's system's data became accessible in great detail directly through the com link and through the readouts on the console before me. The lookout position is manned at one time or another by everyone aboard ship. The system techs are the most knowledgeable people about the radar and sensor systems, but everyone can keep a general watch, monitoring the long range radar for hazards down course while keeping an eye on all the non-engine mechanical and data systems aboard ship. We were in a well charted and well-traveled space lane and had just began to build velocity, so it was not an intense job at the moment. Once we reached interstellar velocity, we'd once more be encased in a shell of ionized gas and dust, blinding conventional radar and making peering ahead a lot more demanding. And when we reached Anjur and turned for Zilantre, we'd be off current charts and coasting through the inner drifts between the Helgot and Myzar drifts where uncharted meteor streams and drifts might be expected, so the lookout post would become a much more demanding duty then, even with drones ahead to extend our sensor reach.
'Still searching for the groove. I see we're up to mark 5.7 now.'
She grinned. 'Aye, and I'm thinking it could go a bit higher, with your permission, of course, Captain,' she added, more of a challenge than anything else.
'You think so, pilot?' I replied, just to play the game.
'After fifty years at running at mark 3, the old girl's got'a find her new groove. Those Starliner Express Set engines are good, solid engines, Captain, and they seem to want to run now that they don't have to just jog along. I'm beginning to think that their groove will be more around mark 6.7, maybe even 7 or a hair above.' This, with a sidelong glance.
I believe I'd been warned about this. However, with one of three pilots also the ship's owner, and the fact that I actually didn't mind seeing what the ship could do, I wasn't about to make a big issue about where Molaye, Min or Vynnia “found” the groove. Still...
'Mark 7 you say...'
'Or a little more…'
'Or a little more…' I parroted, giving her a stern look.
'But only if you're able to handle it, of course. It'd be a lot more gee-points than, ah, we're used to,' she added, brightly with just a hint of challenge in what was left unsaid.
I wasn't so ancient that I couldn't tolerate mark 7 – slightly more than one Unity Standard grav. Not yet, anyway. 'I can stand it. But here's your limit, Lucky. I've no intention of putting up with the engineers whining about how we're abusing their precious engines, groove or no groove. You, and your fellow pilots can take this packet up to whatever mark you care too, just so long as the engineers agree to it. But not one tick higher. I don't want to hear one peep or bleat from Riv or Lilm, and so you better make certain they're on board with every tick you take it up.'
'Oh, they're on board, Captain,' Molaye assured me cheerfully. 'We're getting their blood pumping. They're remembering they're engineers, not caretakers. Besides, Starliners are built for running at mark 7. They've been held in check for too long.'
'So you say, from your long experience as a pilot.'
She wasn't intimidated. 'From my feel for the engines, Captain.'
I wasn't going to win this on that basis, so I didn't even try. 'Right. Well, settle it amongst yourselves, pilots and engineers together. However, just so you know, I remember that little chat we had with your folks, and they suggested that I should be very careful about what I agree to when it comes to you. So I'll just say that I'm going along with upping my mark 5 to mark 7 only because – engineers on board – the sooner we reach our velocity, the sooner we can be done with engines and relax a bit, not because you've talked me around to it.'
'Why Captain, your word is law. I'm a Guild pilot after all. I wouldn't think of trying to tell you how to run your ship,' she said, with a straight face.
'I don't believe that for an instant,' I replied sternly. 'I expect all my crew to give me straight, honest answers. Please do so in the future.'
'Yes, Captain,' she said meekly, laughing with her eyes.
'Good,' I said and turned to my displays. If I didn't have absolute confidence in Molaye, as a pilot and as my protégé, I'd have reasons for being nervous. But I did, and wasn't.
When Illy returned, I chased Molaye off of the helm. 'Take your time, I want to feel what mark 5.7 feels like,' I told her. I had, in truth, never piloted the ship at more than mark 4 in my 15 years aboard her.
I switched my com link to the helm console, put my hands to the levers and took charge of the ship in more than just a name on the books.
The rockets, as I mentioned, are controlled by a set of nine levers, one for the main engine and one for each of the smaller, balancing engines. At this point in the voyage, the pilots were fine tuning each rocket's output, adjusting as the engines settled in and searching for just the right balance to keep the ship on course and running as effortlessly as possible. The levers themselves can be set for a wide range of sensitivity. At this stage they were set for fine adjustments, so moving them produced only a minute change in the engine's output, though, like everything aboard the ship, this analog control mechanism directs a far more complex computer driven response. In the old days, before the robot revolt, this process would have been entirely automatic, but these days humans are required to be involved and invested in every significant process, and so we have a human pilot conning the ship with hand operated controls that 12,000 years ago would have seem comical. The upside however, is that the vast power of the rockets is at your fingertips.
Molaye had to stand in front of the console glaring at me to get me to give up the helm. Between the com link and my hands on the control, it was, as I said, what you become a rocket ship pilot for.
After giving up the helm, I drifted down to the noise and heat of the engine room where Riv was standing watch.
He nodded as I crossed the catwalk to the control station on top of the main reactor and engine.
I stepped close, and more or less yelled to be heard over the deep roar of the engine and the various whines of the pumps and generators. 'A word with you, Chief.'
He slipped out one of his ear protectors. 'What's up, Skipper?'
'I'm here to make sure we're all on the same chart, Chief, and warn you that our pilots – Molaye anyway – plans to push your engines to mark 7. As far as I'm concerned, anywhere between mark 5 and 7 is fine with me. But what is not fine with me is hearing you complaining about your poor engines being abused and pushed beyond their safe capacity by our pilots. I don't want to hear any carping and whining at all. I've told Lucky up there that your word is law when it comes to pushing the engines. When you say Enough, it's enough. And that's how we'll run it.'
'So now I'm the one who has to say No to your girls, am I?'
'Aye, you are. They're your engines, as you've told me on more than one occasion.'
'And when the pilot/owner tells me to pile on more gees, I'm to say No to her as well?'
'Well, I'm not going to,' I replied with a grin. 'I have to draw the line somewhere.'
'Good to hear, though I'd have thought you might've drawn the line short of kidnapping...'
'In hindsight, you might be right,' I laughed. 'But that's a planet astern. Now I'm drawing the line at telling her how to run her own ship.'
'And handing the job to me.'
'Aye, but you're the man for the job, Chief. Besides, she's not had any cross-training in engineering, so you can just make up any old excuse, say, something about a reflex coolant recovery pump bearing that sound a bit iffy or whatever and it should fly. Even owners need to learn who runs the engine room, don't they?'
'By Neb, they do, Skipper,' he said with a grin and a wink, adding, ' You don't want them getting any wild ideas about owning the engine room too,' and with that, he replaced his ear protector.
I gave him an ironic salute, and retreated to the part of the ship that was mine.