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“...Then the giant moon-ship blew up and the evil empire was destroyed!” Seven year old, Jordon Brinks grinned up at Celix and Boron.
Jordon had come upon them and begun following them. He had just finished telling Boron a story his father had read to him in bed the previous night. Celix had mostly stared straight ahead and tried not to listen as they walked, occasionally though, he had rolled his eyes in disgust at the haphazard retelling.
“Wow, that’s an exciting story, Jordon.” Boron said, grinning. He liked children and the things children liked. Growing up a box-baby meant Boron’s childhood had been accelerated to only three months. By human standards he was a mere five years old. He still felt and acted like a child at times, yet physically he looked to be in his twenties.
“Why didn’t the evil people in the moon-ship just blow up the planet that was in the way?” Boron asked, questioning a possible flaw in the story. Jordan shrugged and Boron continued. “The attackers wouldn’t have had time to analyze the plans and gather for an attack.” A thought occurred to him. “Maybe the giant laser has a long recharge time.”
Jordan shrugged again, raising his palms upward this time. He hadn’t understood most of what Boron just said. “I’ll ask Dad tonight, he’ll know.”
Celix knew the story well. Two thousand years ago it had been one of a million classic stories stored on the archival ships. The ships had accompanied the colony ships leaving Earth. Jordon had just butchered it. He would have corrected Jordon, but the story was so wrong that he didn’t know where to begin; it wasn’t worth the effort.
Reaching the engine room, Celix entered his code into the keypad and the door slid up. It was a cylindrical room that spanned four levels. In the middle of the room was the cylindrical engine and reactor combo, which spanned three stories. A wide, clear, walking area encircled it on the second and third level. Near the door they had just come through was a lift, used to reach each level of the engine.
Five PGC crew members were in the room and didn’t notice when they entered. Celix gruffly asked one of the humans on their level, “Selarr? Is she here?”
The man turned and shook his head. Looking up, he called to someone on the second level. “Trell, which area did Selarr say she was going to?”
A female regllig yelled back. “The east vallu compartment, sub-section six.” Celix disliked reglligs; they stunk like rotting cabbage, their voice had a hollow sound to it and they were too polite--he avoided them when possible.
Having signed-on less than four months back, Celix wasn’t totally familiar with the ship yet. “Where is this compartment?”
Jordon got in the lift and took it to the fourth level; it was one of his favorite places.
“Well,” the crewman looked puzzled, “The east vallu compartment is that way,” he pointed starboard. “Once you’re there, keep going until you find sub-section six. She’ll be in a hub cleaning the coolant tubes,” Seeing the blank look on Celix’s face, he said in a voice normally reserved for when talking to a baby, “Do you need a map?”
Celix noticed a splotch of grease on the man’s right sleeve and scowled, this was the guy that hadn’t held the lift earlier. He didn’t like the this guy. Looking at the name tag sewn into the overalls, he read the name, ‘Smith’, how original. The next chance he got, Celix vowed to get him recalled to the personnel center. “No, I don’t need a map.”
Celix turned and left the engine room, side-stepping Boron who was momentarily surprised by the abruptness. He recovered quickly though and followed after Celix.
Jordon liked the fourth level because it was more than just a separate room. There was a large cube in the center that went from the floor to the ceiling. It was covered by a multitude of switches and indicators on each side. He didn’t know why it wasn’t a cylinder like the other levels, but since the crew rarely came up here, he assumed it must not be important. The room would have been lit just by the various indicator lights and screens, but the main lights activated when a presence was detected.
Jordon had been able to spend many hours in the room, pretending he was the pilot of a fighter ship, the best weapons officer in the galaxy, or anything else he could dream up. He especially liked the indicator lights that were on the opposite side of the cube from the lift. A bank of switches controlled the section of lights directly above them. The lights were labeled in a language Jordon couldn’t read, so he didn’t know what their purpose really was and didn’t care. But this was better anyway, because he could imagine they said whatever he wanted.
A lot of component and displays on the ship did nothing, their function performed by a duplicate system in an adjacent section. Only the engine crew really knew which systems were an essential part of the ship’s workings and which were powered only because no one had taken the time to disconnect them--and even they had trouble identifying which were which sometimes.
Jordon liked flipping the switches when pretending; sometimes he imagined the green ones gave the status of the engines on his fighter, just like the pilot’s station on Brink’s Edge, the yellow were for energizing the blasters, the red were only for emergencies, like when all else had failed and he was about to be destroyed by the Scourge.
It wasn’t often that he got the chance to come up to the fourth level, though. Selarr would invariably see him take the lift up and soon come to shoo him out of the room. She was always in the engine room it seemed; Jordon didn’t think she slept--ever. This was a special day though, because he’d had the chance to play fighter ship pilot in here twice already today.
The lift whirred to a stop, he froze, maybe the crew member wouldn’t come to the other side and see him. “Jordon? Are you in here?” Jordon walked around from the other side, looking at the floor. “Come on, you know Selarr doesn’t like you up here.”
It was the regllig from the second level, Trell, he thought her name was. She waited for Jordon to get in the lift and pushed the button marked ‘To’, which Jordon knew meant ‘One’ in the language of the people that had created the engine room. “You’re new, aren’t you?” He asked. “Is your name, Trell?” She was about Jordon’s height. Reglligs have a grey, rounded, flexible shell which they can fold up into for protection.
Not many people had intentionally made conversation with her, so she was taken back for a second. “Um, yes. My name is Trell.” She smiled. “I came on-board two weeks ago at the personnel center. They needed someone good with languages.”
The lift came to rest on the first floor. “So you know what all these say,” Jordon pointed to the markings in the lift.
“I do.” She proceeded to tell him the level numbers and read some of the caution messages.
“That’s so fun!” He said. “I wish I knew another language like you. Do you know many?”
“I know about thirty languages, but I’m not fluent in more than two or three.” She paused for a moment. “If it’s alright with the Captain, I could teach you a language if you’re interested.”
Jordon’s eyes got wide, “Yes! I’ll ask him tonight!” Suddenly he remembered something. “Oh! I’m late for my lesson with Villa!” He began running to the door. “Bye!”
Trell watched him leave but was interrupted. “Crewman Trell, get back to work.” Smith called down from the second level.