Tales from the Service: The Postmaster's Special Delivery

2952-04-24 – Tales from the Service: The Postmaster's Special Delivery 

Petty Officer Samuel Planque was waiting barely five minutes when Lieutenant Langer returned from within the ship bearing a tool-bag and a pair of EVA suits. The sly grin still had not faded from his face, and Samuel decided he did not like that look. 

“Duce’s bunk is on deck three, portside.” Langer gestured to one side, as if this explained his intentions. “About twenty meters that way. I’ve already had the ship vent the compartment for maintenance.” 

“What for?” Samuel glanced between the titanic package beside him and the suits slung over the lieutenant’s shoulder “Oh. Oh, no, sir, don’t you think that’s taking-” 

“Relax, we’re not going to take anything apart besides the viewpanel plug, and I supervised putting them all in before we made the Gap crossing.” Langer tossed one of the suits to Samuel. “The skipper wanted me to check them for fatigue during the next patrol anyway. I’m just starting early. With Duce’s.” 

Samuel caught the suit and winced. His EVA certification was technically still valid, but he hadn’t been topside in a suit since he’d made Petty Officer, more than a year before. “We’re both over-qualified to do hull inspections, Lieutenant.” 

“Then it’s a good thing we’re volunteering to do this on our down time.” Langer stepped into the lower half of his suit and pulled it up to his arms. “Go find us need at least three tethers while I call the port controller for access to the service airlock.” 

Samuel sighed, dropped his shoulders, and started rummaging through the storage compartments around the dock-side end of the umbilical. Since this was a Navy dock, his access keys unlocked everything, and soon he had set out two thruster packs and several coiled tether lines, each with a mechanical claw at one end and a sturdy clip lock on the other. He attached one of the tether lines to his own suit before he even shrugged it on, and then passed one over to Langer, who was muttering something into his comms earpiece. 

Evidently, the controller didn’t ask too many questions; a moment later, Langer was finished on the comms. “All clear.” He pointed to the crate on the wheeled dolly. “Can you get that down to the service airlock by yourself?” 

“No problem, sir.” Samuel grabbed the dolly’s yoke and pulled it around toward one of the big lifts at the center of the docking hub, conscious of the way the suit’s collapsed helmet bounced against his back as he did. Though light enough, the insulated, airtight EVA suits were uncomfortable things to do any sort of manual labor in; Samuel was sweating by the time he manhandled the crate into the lift and it began to move down. 

There was nobody on the lower level, so Samuel was spared having to explain what he was doing. The entire space below the main docking deck was littered with unused machinery, piles of spare parts, and unlabeled crates, enough that he was briefly tempted to wonder if anyone would notice if he simply left the crate in some corner. 

Before he could do more than wonder, Lieutenant Langer appeared from a ladder-way off to one side. His helmet was already on, but not sealed. Squaring his shoulders, Samuel flipped his own suit’s helmet up, listening to its stiffening ribs snap into place before lowering it over his head as a wobbly, clear-fronted bubble. One by one, the various indicator lights around the margin of the faceplate came online before his eyes. Those which monitored pressure remained solidly red, since Samuel had not tightened any of the suit’s pressure seals. 

A few minutes later, after Samuel and Langer had helped each other seal up and check their suits, they manhandled the crate off its dolly and into the service airlock. Unlike the ship’s hatches, this portal was large enough to accommodate it Langer’s bag of tools, and two spacers quite easily. Langer pressed a button on the back of one suited wrist, and the airlock began to cycle. 

“Should only take us about ten minutes.” Langer’s tinny voice over the radio still carried much of its sly satisfaction from earlier. He hooked his tether to a carry-handle on the crate, then clipped a second tether to his belt. “One clip for the payload, one onto the hull.” 

Samuel nodded and affixed his first tether to the crate. He wasn’t keen on the idea of letting the troublesome package tumble off into space with him attached, but they were working on a ship in dock; there was little likelihood of anything tumbling in just the correct direction to float past all the station’s various extensions, arms, antennas, and other sprawling fixtures, and that assumed they sent the crate tumbling to begin with, which they didn’t intend to do. 

As the outer airlock door ground open, Langer led the way out onto the station’s hull. Samuel followed cautiously over the threshold where artificial pseudo-gravity reached its end, and made sure he had one magnetic boot securely affixed to the threshold before he stepped out into the zero-gee environment beyond. 

“I can’t wait to see the look on his face.” Langer muttered, possibly not realizing his comms were active. 

Samuel checked that his own radio was turned off. “I can’t wait for this to not be my problem anymore.” He grumbled. Langer might technically be right about them not doing anything worth getting in trouble, but he didn’t like any of it, and couldn’t imagine there not being trouble, somehow. 

As you might imagine, Mr. Planque was quite right, which is why he sent this story in. Langer’s decision to entomb the gigantic package directly in the tiny crew bunk-space of the package’s addressee caused no small amount of trouble, but most of it was for the prankster who managed to get himself shipped a package nearly the size of his own crew quarters. Planque lost his postion as the ship’s postmaster, but after this, it seems like that came as something of a relief. 

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Tales from the Service: The Jokester’s Delivery

2952-04-17 – Tales from the Service: The Jokester’s Delivery 

The fleet-mail system in use by the Navy gets little attention outside the service. Obviously, most communication between ships is handled digitally via datasphere interfaces we are all familiar with, but spacers in the fleet have the right to send physical parcels to each other as well, within reason. Everything is scanned, and any data device sent in this manner is subject to being copied and searched as a security measure. Most of the items sent, I am told, are physical-print books and souvenirs; the only time I myself have ever used it was to borrow and then to return a print mystery novel recommended to me by a spacer I met in sickbay. 

Apparently, someone in Seventh Fleet has learned to trick the system into accepting large items. This odd work-around, naturally, creates many headaches for everyone involved. 

Petty Officer Samuel Planque accepted the slate with a frown, hoping to find that he was being subjected to some sort of elaborate prank. Unfortunately, the fleet-mail codes looked to be in perfect order. He ran his scanner over the digital identifier blocks just to make sure, but each one came up green. 

“There, you see?” The deliveryman, a Navy longshoreman in a gray coverall, snapped his fingers and pointed to the huge crate on the dolly behind him. “Your problem now, postman.” 

Samuel sighed. “I guess.” Normally, the fleet-mail system used by the Confederated Navy would only permit small parcels to be sent to any vessel. One needed to have friends in very high places to get anything bigger than a kilo accepted by fleet-mail, and a large package could be rejected at any stopover for the thinnest of reasons. The system was intended to move only the usual constantly-bartered bits of a spacer’s life: sweets, souvenirs, paper books and magazines, and the occasional handwritten love letter. Once, Samuel had tried to send his cousin aboard Philadelphia a potted plant cutting no more than a handspan across wrapped in protective packfoam, and that had been rejected as too bulky. 

As the longshoreman strolled off, Samuel glanced behind him at the hatch. Even if he could get the dolly through that – and he doubted it – the armored airlock on the other end of the umbilical was significantly more constricted. Even if he could get the huge crate aboard Sarina Shaw, it would certainly not fit in the tiny lifts or down the spiral-stair accessways to the fourth deck, and if by some miracle he found a way to get it onto the fourth deck, it would take up all the space in the destroyer’s postal station, leaving him no room to dole out the other parcels from the locker or to process items into the fleet-mail system. 

Samuel paced around the crate, considering his options. It had come too far through the system to be rejected and returned to sender, and he obviously couldn’t open it without risking a court-martial charge for tampering with fleet-mail, and there was no guarantee the contents were significantly easier to move than the crate. He could call the station’s logistics chief and ask for the use of a launch to move the item to Shaw’s hangar deck, but old Huddleston would never second his resources to a mere postman, and that would only solve the problem as far as getting it inside the ship anyway.  

The first thing to do was to attempt to contact the addressee. Samuel scanned the slate again and was unsurprised to find the huge box addressed to Spacer Technician Harvey Duce. A practical jokester who spent more time on punishment duty than anyone else aboard, Duce probably had friends just like him on other ships. Doubtless one of them had discovered the loophole to make fleet-mail move gigantic packages, and the contents were both useless and embarrassing to the recipient. 

Duce, of course, was aboard station on shore leave, like most of the crew. A quick call to his Navy comms code returned only the forlorn beep that indicated Duce’s comm was turned off. He would not be returning to Shaw until it was time to leave the station – and, knowing him, he would probably return at the last moment in restraints, escorted by two glowering station security men. 

Grinding his teeth, Samuel grabbed the dolly’s control yoke and maneuvered it toward the hatch. To his surprise, it did fit through – barely – and he was able to work his way up the umbilical to the ship’s airlock. Less surprisingly, the top of the crate was almost a half-meter above the top of the airlock’s outer hatch when he got there. He sized it up, and decided that it would never fit through at any angle. 

Someone cleared their throat behind Samuel, and he turned around to see Lieutenant Langer standing there. “Sorry, sir.” Samuel started shifting the dolly to one side, only for the top of the crate to bump into the angled umbilical overheads. “Strange mail delivery today.” 

“I’ll say, Mr. Planque.” Langer looked up at the towering parcel. “I didn’t think fleet-mail would move anything this big.” 

“Normally it won’t, Lieutenant.” Samuel shrugged. “This seems to be an exception. Let me back it out of the umbilical to let you by.” 

Langer moved back out of the tunnel and to the side while Samuel threaded the dolly back down and out onto the station dock. For some reason, it took far longer to move out than it had to move in. "All clear, sir.” Samuel waved Langer past him. “Sorry for the wait.” 

“Do you want me to send some help?” Langer gestured to the dolly. “That’s at least a three spacer job.” 

“Three spacers won’t help me any.” Samuel shrugged. “If it won’t fit in the hatch, it won’t fit in the lift or the accessway, and I can’t reach Mr. Duce. There’s no process for sending it back, either.” 

A frown spread across Langer’s face, followed quickly by a sly smile. “It’s for Duce, eh?” He held up one finger. “I’ll be right back.” 

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Tales from the Service: The Computer's Score

2952-04-10 – Tales from the Service: The Computer's Score 

As I indicated last week, Hari Moser and Brighton Blue did in fact find the Incarnation force they had been looking for. No significant battle came of it that I am aware – the alert was raised here at Sagittarius Gate for several days around the time of these events, but no attack happened. Ashkelon has not been out of the system for some time, so either the Incarnation force was not intending to attack us here, or their commander did not press his attack after having surprise stripped from it. 

Almost the moment Brighton Blue completed its jump into the K7820841 system, the room-scale holo-display surrounding Hari Moser began to light up with blinking orange motes. These, he knew only too well, represented probable starships picked up by passive sensors, but yet to be positively identified. Within a minute, there were more than thirty of them around the nameless, planet-less star. 

Fortunately, most of these were far from the cluster of green motes ahead of him, representing his own formation, which had just arrived at the system’s outskirts. The bogeys were concentrated on the far side of the star system, where they were easy to see, with the red dwarf’s radiation reflecting off their hulls. Unless there were more stationed on the near side, where the ship’s telescopes would have a harder time finding them, Blue and its formation would have plenty of time to have a look around and charge their star drive capacitors before enemy forces could converge on them. 

Hari didn’t think there would be many, if any, ships on the near side of the star. Based on the locations of the orange pips he could see, they were set up to be least visible to an intruder coming into the system from the Sagittarius Gate direction, and best positioned to pounce on any vessel from that direction that started moving in-system before it noticed them. Blue had come from the opposite direction, having already been hunting for sightings of the enemy force for some weeks. 

“We’ve got them.” Hari gestured to the scattered orange motes. The computer would come up with a positive ID on at least one of them shortly, proving that this was the Incarnation force setting up for an attack on the Seventh Fleet base. “Lieutenant Peters, how long until we can jump out again?” 

“About five hours, Captain." Peters, at one of the terminals around the command compartment’s outer wall, helpfully added a timer high up in the display area over Hari’s head. 

While this was not enough time for large vessels to reach them, it was enough time for well positioned strike pickets to converge and attack. “All ships, maintain battle stations. Expect sporadic strike-level attacks with little warning.” 

At his words, the green indicators for his ships flashed pale blue, then, from the center of the cluster outwards, returned to their original color, representing the receipt of his orders. They had gone to battle stations just prior to making the jump, and though no officer or crew spacer aboard any vessel in the formation would relish five hours at their alert stations, it couldn’t be helped. Strike craft were too small to pick up with the ship’s telescopes until they were very close, and there was no way to predict where the pickets were stationed when Hari’s force arrived. 

“Amazing.” Commander Harridge, the ship’s first officer, was on the bridge, but the comms system carried his incredulity down to the command center as if he was just behind Hari. “How did you guess they’d be here, Skipper?” 

“It wasn’t exactly a guess.” Hari hoped this enigmatic answer would satisfy Harridge for the moment. During a battle alert, chatter on the comms channels was heavily discouraged. 

“Bogey identity confirmed.” Bridgit’s voice sounded almost smug, if smugness was possible out of a computer program. One of the blinking orange motes stopped blinking and turned red. “Incarnation heavy cruiser, I-3 type. Shall I mark all these unknowns as provisional hostiles?” 

Hari nodded. “Do it. But continue to identify each target. The more data we can collect, the better.” 

“Aye.” This time the computer voice was snappy and professional as usual. 

“Looks like... about twenty-five Tyrants, sir.” If Peters was afraid, he didn’t look or sound like it. “Enough to make real trouble in the Gate if the battle line isn’t home.” 

“Let’s hope they’re home, then.” Hari scowled. “When we get clear from here, they’ll have to either retreat or rush their attack.” He didn’t see the sense in pointing out that the Incarnation commander they were dealing with was a clear risk-taker, and would most likely rush the attack. That wasn’t his problem, or Peters’s - they just needed to get as much data as they could back to the forward relay station as quick as could be managed. 

“Gravitic signatures lighting up.” Bridgit announced. Three dotted red arcs swept through the air in front of Hari to show the courses of several of the enemy ships. A moment later, another one joined them. The red arcs didn’t at first converge on his formation, but each was already creeping toward the cluster of green. “None of these vessels are in position to intercept us within five hours, assuming the known range of I-type cruiser drive performance.” 

“Helm, give us a withdrawal course. Bridgit, keep an eye on the chasers and look for anomalous acceleration profiles.” Hari glanced up at the timer. His crews might be busy shortly fending off strike raids, but Bridgit’s automation systems could not be distracted. 

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Tales from the Inbox: The Prodigy’s Interview

2952-03-19 – Tales from the Inbox: The Prodigy’s Interview 

Elliott Deadman slid into the chair opposite Sadek Sherburn, a look of nervous relief on his youthful face. “Well...” He stared hard at the elegant floral-patterned tablecloth for a long moment before continuing. “Jakeman’s not exactly bad at what he does. But I’m better.” 

“That’s a bold claim.” Sadek reached into the menu to order another round of fried mushrooms. “Especially since he’s got twenty years of experience you don’t.” 

“Oh, that he does, Mr. Sherburn.” Deadman nodded. “Being his shipmate for six months, I heard all his stories. Some of them twice over. But I won’t be so much trouble, and I’m a better tech. Especially on newer machinery.” 

Sadek smiled. “It’s easier to be a better tech on newer machinery, because it doesn’t break down as much.” 

“Sure, as long as you don’t think you’re smarter than the operator manual.” Deadman scowled. “From what he told me, I think Jakeman spent so long hitting cranky Navy atmospherics with a hammer until they stopped making funny noises that he tries to do that to everything.” He sighed. “The only reason I got a chance on DeMario was because they needed someone to read the manuals and do the regular maintenance that kept things from becoming his problem.” 

Sadek knew that this story was entirely unfalsifiable, of course. Deadman seemed earnest, but that was no guarantee of anything. “Did you?” 

“Most of the time.” The boy sighed. “The only things he ever got working again the same shift it broke were the common food-fabs. He does fix everything, eventually, but he never asks for help, and never consults the manual.” 

Sadek cringed, imagining Jakeman disassembling all the factory-new components aboard Traveler every time something failed due to lack of proper maintenance. “What about you? Could you fix things if they broke in a way the manual didn’t explain?” 

“I haven’t run into a breakdown I can’t fix yet.” Deadman straightened, his voice reflecting the pride he took in this statistic. "Those might take me a bit longer than they’d take someone like Jakeman, but the rest, I can do five times faster." 

Sadek’s mushrooms arrived, and he gestured to the plate. “Try one of these, kid. Oh, do you want a drink?” 

Deadman gingerly picked up one of the mushrooms, rolling it between his palms to let it cool. “Do they have ACF?” 

Sadek flicked his way through the menu until he spotted Ashkelon Cardamom Fizz in the specialty drinks section. He was passingly familiar with the drink, mostly from advertisements and product placement in holo-dramas; it was a sweet, spiced and carbonated beverage popular with the youth whose flavor came from a fruit grown on the world of Ashkelon and an Earth-native spice which took well to the soil on that world with little gene-tweaking. “ACF coming right up.” He jabbed the indicator twice. “Hells, I’ll try one too.” 

Deadman brightened. “Thanks, Mr. Sherburn.” He examined the fried mushroom in his hand for a moment before biting off a small piece and chewing thoughtfully before swallowing. “This is a vegetable?” 

Sadek picked up one himself and waved it in the air for a moment to let it cool. “Technically mushrooms are fungi.” 

“Fungi like mold?” Deadman made a horrified expression, but gamely dropped the rest of the mushroom into his mouth and made a show of chewing and swallowing, clearly feeling wretched the whole time. “I guess they’re...” He hiccupped. “They’re all right.” 

“No edible fungi on your home-world eh?” Sadek smiled. “I suppose that would make it hard to stomach.” 

The attendant arrived with two bright orange bottles, which he unsealed and set down along with a pair of ice-filled glasses. 

Sadek gingerly sniffed the effervescent liquid within It smelled sweet, fruity, and slightly spicy, but nothing like the eye-watering odor of Jakeman’s meal. When he poured it into the glass, he was surprised to see that the orange bottle’s contents were a rather drab olive-green color; all the ACF advertisements he’d seen had featured people drinking directly from the bottle, and had used orange splashes of color to suggest that the drink itself was in fact orange. 

“Oh, yeah, it used to be orange.” Deadman shrugged and took a swig directly from his bottle. “It switched a couple years ago, just before I left home. Supposedly the coloring agent they used wasn’t all that safe.” 

Sadek shrugged and took a sip of the drink. It wasn’t quite as sweet as he was expecting, with a complex, tart, spicy flavor that reminded him of the spiced (and heavily spiked) punch he’d once had at a shipboard Emmanuel Feast celebration. “Hey, that’s not bad.” He took another sip. 

Deadman brightened. "Must be weird having it for the first time. Are you really considering me, sir?" 

Sadek shrugged. “Sure. No decisions today though.” He liked the kid, he had to admit, but he had to meet all the other applicants. Perhaps there was even something he could do to check out Deadman’s story in the six days he had remaining before Kel arrived. 

“Right, of course.” Deadman pushed back his chair, as if to stand up. 

“Hold on.” Sadek held up a hand. “Stay here until you've finished that drink. And while you’re here, you can tell me why you’re so keen on getting aboard Kel’s ship. It’s not just getting one over on Jakeman, is it?” 

Deadman looked surprised for a moment. “It’s... It’s kind of dumb.” 

Sadek arched an eyebrow, but said nothing. 

“At first I was coming here to warn you about Jakeman, and that’s it.” Deadman shrugged. “But then I looked into it, and it seems like aboard Traveler, I’d get a chance to see more than the Gap run or a few mining stations.” 

“You want more adventure than the gap freighters?” Sadek chuckled; the Gap run was notoriously stressful work for most crews, as a navigation or powerplant failure out there in the middle of all that empty space between galactic arms meant certain death.  

Deadman nodded, then took a long swig of his drink. 

Sadek opened his mouth to say that this was unlikely aboard a little ship like Traveler, but closed it again, remembering how apparent the trouble surrounding Kel’s vessel had been to Alicia Powers. “Well, you're young.” Sadek drained the rest of his own Ashkelon Cardamom Fizz, and was surprised to find that he wanted more. “Hopefully you’re nothing like me, so when you’re my age, you’ll have some sense.” 

This will be the last excerpt from this lengthy account for a little while; we have other items that we have been approved to publish, plus a few other items from the inbox that are worth review in this space. I will say that, in my experience, Jakeman and Deadman are depicted as very archetypal varieties of spacecraft technician, suggesting that their characters are not quite portrayed accurately in this account. 

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