Spark the Runner Ch. 06

"Yeah," Okami spoke up. "Does your Mess have coffee?"

"They better had, or somebody's getting gigged," the Captain told her. "Our Mess has been running twenty-four/seven on this run-up to deployment. At sea, they'll observe the watch rotation to keep an eye on stores consumption. Here in port, there's generally food and drink whenever you want it. Anything else?"

When no one spoke up, he went on, "Okay, Number One... stem to stern, answer the questions you can, and make sure Ms. Okami gets her coffee. I don't want to get written up!"

"Aye, Captain," Collier told him, then turned to the others. "If you all want to follow along, we can stop in each space as we get there for a brief rest and any explanations you want."

"So this is the Bridge... Command, if you will. Down one level, where you came in, is where all our Monitoring stations are, including Navigation and Communications, Sonar, Mineral Spectroscopy, Triple-C sensors, Fire Control and Damage Control. Most of their information is replicated up here. Let's head on down..."

He led them into the Down Levitator and exited when they got down to Sail 1.

"This is Monitoring and is part of the Deck division," he explained. "You'll find that our divisions are color coded. Deck is tan, which is why most of the people you see around you are in tan uniforms. We've got some fancy sensors, courtesy of our new trade partner friends, which can analyze the surrounding waters and sea floor for various elemental content. Saves a lot of time prospecting. When we get a promising strike, the data's fed to the Bridge and different units come into play. Questions?"

"Can we see them in operation?" Spark asked, intrigued by whatever Xeno-tech had already been shared.

"Unfortunately, no," the First Mate told him. "When we're docked, the only thing around us is concrete and force fields. Not terribly subtle for the equipment. If you ride along with us when we're out in the water, we can show you then. Anything else?"

"What was that Triple-C thing you mentioned?" Spark asked.

"Complex Chemical Compound Analysis," Collier answered. "It's a piece of Xeno-tech that continuously monitors the water we're moving through for compounds of interest. It can handle most of the industrial waste stuff that lands in the ocean. Turns out some of our partners may have an interest in harvesting some of what we consider pollutants. Anything else?"

There weren't any more questions, so he went on.

"Below us, on Deck 1, is Helm and Dive Control, and the Auxiliary Collection and Refining Control. Let's head on down." He led them to the central Down tube and they followed.

"There are four other divisions, as the Captain mentioned, besides Deck: Electro-Tech, which are the people in blue, Engineering, which are the people in Yellow, Stewards, who are the people in the light grey, and Medical, who are the people in white. You'll become familiar with them, too, on your way through the boat. Most of our crew is aboard, since we're getting ready to deploy, so you may meet a number of them. We don't currently have any Xenos with our crew, although we've had them working with us in the past and probably will again in the future.

"This space is Helm and Dive Control. Basically, the station that drives the boat. When we're actively collecting and refining, the auxiliary controls for that equipment are here as well. This is part of the Deck division. I'm going to take you forward from here, to where most of the gear that supports Navigation, Communication, Sonar and Sensors, along with the boat's computer systems and most of the other electronics. You'll see mostly blue-shirts -- our nickname for the Electro-Tech uniforms -- working in there. With luck, our Second Mate, Janet Stearns, will be there. If you'd follow me..."

Collier walked to an open hatch that led forward and stepped through. Everyone else followed. They found themselves on a walkway down a long tunnel with overhead lighting. Down each side were equipment bays and small corridors that branched off the main one. Ahead, they could see some of the bays open with blue uniformed crew working on the contents. They also saw intermittent tan and yellow uniforms as well. Collier walked them forward, essentially explaining the bays were where all the equipment lived and the crew were getting last minute bugs out of the systems.

They picked their way carefully through the work crews until they got to a side corridor with a number of blue and yellow uniformed crew standing around a women in tan, who appeared to be giving them directions. Collier led his group up to stand patiently, waiting for her to be done. She noticed them, and with a final "Go!" to the crew around her, she turned and came towards them.

"Mister Collier," she greeted him. "What have we here?"

"Mister Stearns," he answered and Spark automatically noted that the Mates were Mister, regardless of sex, just like back on the Aquila. "We've got some VIPs touring the boat. I'd like to introduce Professor Lenox, Mr. McLeod, Ms. Okami and Ms. Go. You know Ms. Alvarez."

"Mister Stearns is Second Mate and responsible for Nav-Comm and Computer Ops." He paused and looked at all the open bays. "What's going on, Number Two?"

"Port SSS has got the hiccups. E-tech and Engineering sent me these people to find out why and fix it. I'm guessing you folk have a vested interest in this boat, to be touring it while we're getting ready for our shakedown."

"Yes, ma'am," Spark spoke up. He was probably blowing protocols all to hell, but he didn't particularly care. "The Professor is one of the Consortium Directors, and Okami and I are the Solarian Trade Reps. Along with my wife, Lizzie, who can't be with us right now. Oh, and I'm Jamie. Mr. McLeod sounds too formal. Ms. Go is out enclave liaison. Our 'vested interest' is in understanding what you're doing so we can sell it. And by the way, what's an SSS?"

"Side Scanning Sonar," she answered. "The port side array is acting up. So... welcome aboard! Personally, I think you're going to be proud of what we're going to produce for you. This is turning into one amazing boat."

"It looks like it," the Professor answered. "May I ask, what is your experience with submersibles?"

"Wet Navy Lieutenant, EWS/SS, mostly on the NAFS Iroquois, SSGN-921, sir. Fifteen years and an Honorable."

"That's Electronic Warfare Specialist, Submarine Service, right?" Okami asked.

"Yes, ma'am," Stearns answered.

"Okay, I'm impressed," Okami told her. "Good luck with fixing your gear."

"Thank you, ma'am."

"We'll get out of your hair," Collier took over, then turned to the others. "We aren't going down there, but a bunch of the gear is also down on Deck 2, right below us. We're going to turn around and head back on Deck 1 through Sick Bay and Stores, and back to Propulsion. Thanks for your time, Number Two. Good luck."

"Not a problem, Number One," she nodded. "Have fun." And with that, she turned to go back to her crew and supervise the tasks they were working on.

"This way, please," Collier told the and did, indeed, lead them back through the Helm area and through an aft hatch. They found themselves in a white, sterile looking sort of hallway with crewmen in white and red uniforms moving about.

"This is the Sick Bay," he told them. "Berths and OR's on the starboard, labs and offices on the port. I don't see them here right now, but our doctors are Dr. George Roche and Dr. Beth Davis. They're both certified trauma surgeons and just got certified in Xenobiology. We're about as state of the art as the Xenos can make us. With double bunking in the berths, we can handle up to twenty-four patients at a time. The doctors' uniforms are white. The med-techs you see working here have the white uniform with the red stripes. Unfortunately, if you've got any medical questions, I'll have to aim you at the doctors. Hopefully, you get to meet them while you're here."

"Beyond Sick Bay here, is Stores..." He led them to a hatch farther aft which opened onto a farther corridor. There were huge storage containers lining both sides, some with refrigerator markings on them, and a number of grey-uniformed crew moving pallets around and making notes on tablets.

"Grey-backs," Collier commented, indicating the crew. "Stewards Division. They handle Mess. They've also got the Purser, and Laundry, and a bunch of miscellaneous stiff, like the barber and the Store. Everything on this deck, from here to Engineering, is the consumables we use on an extended stay at sea. As an aside, like any vessel, you don't want to piss off the Cook." He smiled slightly, then asked, "any questions?" There weren't any, so he led them down the corridor to a closed hatch at the far end. They noticed overhead bay doors as they walked, closed, but obviously for loading and unloading supplies.

When they got to the hatch, Collier pulled out an ID card and held it to a sensor as he put his hand on a pad and looked into a camera. After a moment, a red light over the hatch went green and Collier opened it, pulling it towards him.

"Watch your step," he warned them as he stepped through. They carefully followed and found themselves standing on a broad balcony looking over a huge amount of equipment and a deep drop.

"This is Propulsion," he told them. "Normally, it would be loud in here, but a bunch of the Xeno-tech has helped us quiet it down and still get more than adequate power, speed and maneuverability. If you were going down into the guts, you'd have to wear hardhats..." He indicated a row of them hanging on the wall. "The yellow-jackets get slightly better protection and more comfort using a helmet provided by the Sirians. I don't see him at the moment, and our Chief Engineer is John Manford, and he's responsible for all this. We might meet him later. Oh, and our Chief Technologist, or 'Tech', is Sara Plume. Hopefully, you meet her later as well.

"From here, we're going to go back to the central Levitator and down to Deck 2. And get Ms. Okami her coffee. Any questions before we go?"

"Yeah, actually," Spark spoke up. "Is this boat nuke-powered? Or Xeno-tech? Or more simply, what makes it go?" That got a smile from Collier.

"We use high-pressure recapture turbines fed by a Vegan power plant to turn the screws and a couple of auxiliary units for electrical power. A Vegan force field allows us to exploit supercavitation for the entire boat. All control surfaces are manipulated using hydraulics and servos. All systems have redundancy built in. Each watertight compartment has access to escape pods capable of functioning independently. Some of the crew have characterized it as riding in a cigar tube with a neutron star up our ass. Some of us are a little more charitable. So far, the Xeno-tech has all come through."

"Supercavitation," Spark iterated. "For the entire boat? What's your top speed?"

"We're about to find out," Collier told him. "Theoretically, we should be able to hit 200 knots or better."

"Holy shit..." Okami murmured.

"That would be top speed, Ms. Okami," Collier pointed out. "Collection and refining is done much, much slower... like in the 10 to 15 knot range, at most. We're designed to go out searching for a profitable area, then slow down and collect as much matter of interest as we can. We're set up to do both first and second pass extraction, and then we take our haul back to base, where they finish the refining."

"Excellent," Spark commented. "Thank you. So let's go pacify the homicidal caffeine junkie." Okami gave him a bop on the arm.

"Fair enough," Collier nodded. "Follow me."

He led them back to the central Levitator and down to Deck 2, where they found themselves in a broad foyer with another set of hatches leading fore and aft. There were a number of crew in tan, blue, yellow and grey moving around as Collier took them to the side.

"Forward from here, up to the Nav-Comm equipment bays, is Recreation. Basically the place the crew can blow off steam. We've got exercise equipment, pods for gaming, reading, watching movies or whatever, plus space for table games and so forth. One huge advantage of the Xeno-tech is how much space we recover because of their miniaturization and efficient uses of energy. That translates to a lot more space for the crew with the same displacement and processing power.

"If you want to see it, we can," he went on, "or, aft, is our Mess and beyond that Berthing."

"I vote for the Mess," Okami told him and the others laughed.

"What Okami wants, Okami gets," Spark told the First Mate. Collier took a quick look at his chrono.

"Then let's do that now," he suggested. "We aren't quite to the dinner rush, although there will be hot chow available, if you're hungry." He turned and led them through the aft hatch and they found themselves in a double-sided cafeteria. There were serving lines on both sides with tables on either side of the aisle that ran down the middle. There was a mixed group of a dozen or so crew eating, or getting their food.

"That line is hot food and drinks," Collier pointed out, indicating the port side. "That side is cold food and drinks," he told them, indicating starboard. "We don't have a cashier, per se, but the end of each line has an inventory control, so we can keep track of what's getting used up and how fast. At the far end is an island for hot coffee and tea, iced coffee and tea, and a couple of different juices, if that's all you want."

"Coffee," Spark decided, looking over to Okami.

"Same," she said, looking to the Professor.

"Tea, please," he told them, looking to Su Ling.

"Tea, also, please," she told them, looking to Ms. Alvarez.

"I'll pass, thank you," she told them.

"Then let's do it," Spark told Collier, who led them down the aisle to get their drinks. On the way by, Spark noted that there was a decent variety of food available, both hot and cold. He decided hitching a ride on one of these Collectors could be kind of nice.

They got their drinks and Okami walked away with a half-liter cup of hot java. Collier pointed out that they could take a trip through Berthing, but the first couple of pods would be indicative of the rest of them. They agreed to poke their heads in and then leave. When they did, two things jumped out at Spark. The first was a status board just inside the hatch indicating which pods were in use, including Do Not Disturb and Wake Time indicators. The second was the pods themselves, which were designed to handle someone the size of a Crescian, or larger. Very comfortable, to Spark's eyes.

They satisfied their curiosities, then headed back to the Levitator.

"Next down is Collection and Refining," Collier told them as they descended. "This is where the heavy work gets done."

They exited the Levitator into a relatively small compartment lined with workstations and displays.

"We've got four main intakes in the bow which feed the seawater back to the first stage of processors, located fore of this compartment and accessed through that hatch. If you want to see the actual equipment, we have to hardhat it." Collier pointed to a rack of hardhats next to the hatch. "Like the Engineering spaces, access is controlled. I'm not sure if your IDs would work, but mostly it's only on a Need Access basis.

"The first stage is a bunch of Xeno-tech to separate out the materials we're interested in. They get routed as a sort of sludge to the second stage while the rest is vented back to the sea. That set of workstations, on the forward end of this compartment, are the monitoring and controls for the Stage 1 processors. That information is replicated up on Sail 1.

"The second stage is generally amidships, about where we are, between us and the pressure hull. Plus a little trailing aft. It gets the sludge from Stage 1 and further separates out materials we want. Again, excess water and sludge is vented back out. The output from Stage 2 goes further aft to storage tanks which we take back to the enclave for unloading when we're full. We can extract up to four desired materials at a time. That aft hatch leads back to the Stage 2 equipment and Storage. Again, if we're going back there, its hardhat country. The mid-ship and aft workstations handle Stage 2 and Storage. Again, their info is replicated up on Sail 1.

"Any questions?"

"Who supports the extractors?" Spark asked.

"E-tech and Engineering, depending on the piece of equipment," Collier told them. "Plus our Xeno consultants when we need them. We're pretty much stable and good to go at the moment, so we don't have any of their techs with us. I think the Captain is rethinking that for our shakedown, though."

"If you've got Crescians, Sirians and/or Regulans onboard," Okami spoke up, "all of whom are phenomenally randy, what do you do about sex?" Collier looked down at his feet and shook his head slightly. Then he looked up at Okami.

"We've already had to deal with that," he explained. "We have a special, soundproof and padded, compartment in Recreation to account for that. Willing participants only. You have to ID in, so we don't accidentally leave someone unaccounted for..."

"Not a major distraction?" Spark asked.

"Amazingly not," Collier told him. "The Xenos are very conscientious about getting the work done and playtime, though intense, comes second. And our crew has had to be conditioned to work in -- shall we say stimulated? -- environments. They, too, have done amazingly well. All the Consortium employees here were carefully screened not to be xenophobic. The result is a lot of um... camaraderie."

Spark smiled to himself. He knew how that could work out.

"Presuming I can look at the design specs elsewhere," Spark told him, "I don't see a reason to use up your time looking at the equipment, if you don't want to."

"Most of it is Classified," the First Mate told him, "but I'm sure you've got a high enough clearance. Besides, most of it is covered by heavy shielding and kind of boring to look at, anyway."

"Then let's head on down to Deck 4," Okami suggested. "Then we can get out of your hair."

Collier looked at the others for any objections, then told them, "okay... back to the Levitator."

"Down here is Ballast, Waste Processing and other life support processes, like distilling fresh water and the air scrubbers," Collier explained as the stepped off the Levitator. "In the spirit of redundancy, Helm and Dive Control are duplicated here. Just in case. Waste processing is a combination of Earth and Xeno technologies which extract everything useful, then turn the rest to dust, ejected to the sea. Fresh air and fresh water are generated here, too. We also maintain a set of emergency stores here, again, just in case."

"What are those, um... yellow-jackets... doing?" Spark asked, noting a dozen or more of the yellow-clad Engineering crew clustered around some piece of equipment.

"I'm not sure," Collier answered him. "Let's find out." He led the group over to the cluster of crewmen.

"Mister Murphy! Chief Manford!" Collier called out as he realized who was in the center of the huddle.

"Mister Collier!" the tan uniformed gentleman answered back as everyone turned to look.

"We've got some VIPs touring the boat, Number Three," Collier explained. "I'd like you to meet Professor Lenox, Mr. McLeod, Ms. Okami and Ms. Go. The Professor is a Consortium Director. Mr. McLeod and Ms. Okami are two of our Solarian Trade Reps. They're getting a close look at what they'll be selling." Then he turned to his group.

"I'd like to introduce you to Mister Richard Murphy, who is Third Mate, and to our Chief Engineer John Manford. Mister Murphy has responsibility for Helm and Dive Control, Safety, Life Systems and Escape. Chief Manford has the Engineering Division, with responsibility for Propulsion, Life Support and the non-Xeno Extraction Machinery."