Mutineer's Fate: Gear Work

episode 107

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              “Your work lacks precision, Cadet Dane,” the instructor rotated the holographic blueprint of a shield generator about with a swipe of her hand. The transparent image hovered above the actual meter tall standing generator, now bolted to the work cart in the center of the classroom.

              “Your connections are unfinished,” she continued, moving a strand of her hair out of her eyes and across the ridges of her forehead. “Your welds are brutish, and your layout is inefficient.”

              Danes final year project was the last up for review because he had been forced to return to the medical unit. His wounds had reopened after the exertion of moving his bulky generator to class.

              Now it took everything he had to stand at attention, his face swathed in so many bandages only his right eye was exposed, his wounds still seeping. The medics had not felt it necessary to give him any pain meds, so his head was swimming in agony.

              There might have been a few moments this year when he was not worried about being sent to the cells, stabbed in the back by one of his classmates or being tossed out an airlock by a sadist space instructor. And most of them had been while working on his engineering projects; brief, fleeting moments where he’d been excited about his progress on the shield generator. He even thought it might earn top marks.

              Never the less, right now, all he wanted was to make it through the final project presentation and head back to his bunk.

              “Your interior is childishly structured and unnecessarily spaced,” the older woman sneered at his work. “It makes your field generator too bulky to be practical. Why?”

              Dane almost didn’t hear her but, “Easier to repair on the fly.”

              “HA!” the half Klingon woman laughed. “Or maybe you were just too lazy to refine the design, cadet. Points off for sprawl.” And she clicked off the hologram of his design and with a kick, sent the cart and generator spinning across the room to a blocked off section just in front of mounted canon. The floor and wall were scored with burn marks and the floor littered with the remains of other shield generator projects.

              “Your design rank pretty much drops you out of contention for high marks, Dane,” the woman walked over to the canon and armed it. Above them all another hologram appeared listing the highest ranked cadet projects alongside their possible ship postings. Dane’s name sat nearly the bottom without any possible postings on his column.

              “Let’s see how long it takes this trash to fail.” And then she flicked on the canons beam and it opened up, instantly activating his generator. The canons beam flared when it came in contact with the plasma shield, bowling and bubbling outward.

              “Impressive,” Dane’s instructor noted. “Your generator survived initial contact.” She then gave three quick taps on the canons control panel. The beam intensified.

              The shield bubbled became more apparent at the point of contact but did not otherwise show any sign of disturbance.

              Another two taps and the canon emitted a noticeable hum. The shield bubble finally bent, flexing like a balloon being poked.

              “Very impressive,” the half Klingon woman almost whispered. With another wave of her hand, she brought back up the holographic blueprint. “What did you do to get this level of resilience?”

              Dane wasn’t sure if she was actually asking him, she’d spoken so quietly and since he was growing dizzier with every passing moment from blood loss he did not try to respond.

              He barely looked up.

              “Ok, cadet Dane,” she adjusted the canon once more. “Pretty good resilience but it’s an old trick. Let’s see how this junk handles the full array.”

              The room lit up from a sudden onslaught of pulsing particle fire. Then the canon shuddered to a stop, it’s barrel spun as the unit ejected the firing unit and replaced it with another. Just as suddenly the unit began firing plasma bursts at the shield.

              The plasma bubble bent and wavered but held. Buzzing rose in Dane’s ears, but he thought he heard Instructor Torres mutter a curse as the canon reconfigured to fire polaron beams. Still the plasma bubble held.

              “Adaptive?” She asked. “With so small a computer core?” she turned and gave Dane a dark and suspicious glare and saw that he was barely standing.

              The canon switched again, opening up with a powerful antiproton beam. The bubble flared and bent even further but held once again. The students watching from behind the observation shield began murmuring in earnest. One called out “Magenta!” and there were some laughs.

              “Disruptor.” The instructor ordered and the canon reconfigured again. The room was awash in the emerald glow of the new beam. The shield visibly bucked, and sparks flew from the shield unit beneath, but the field held.

              “Phaser.” Torres snapped. The new beam flared in amber as it pounded on the shield. The generator began to smoke.

              “Tetry…” just as she was about to order another change the shield finally failed, flaring horribly, allowing the phaser beam through and getting viciously holed by the tight beam.

              Warning alarms sounded, lights flashed, and an emergency field corralled the explosive result. Torres stepped away from the smoldering unit and looked up to examine the results on the holographic status board. Dane’s shield generator rated highest in every category save for design which was the only rating not based on its test performance.

              “Well,” she began reluctantly. “If it wasn’t for your…”

              Dane moved past her and stepped over the safety line to his crippled generator carrying a lumpy tool kit. With his one non-bandaged eye he peered down into the scored hole and after a moment reached into his bag, withdrawing two bulky components and dropping them to the floor.

              Then he popped the upper housing off the unit, exposing it’s interior.

              “Cadet,” Torres snapped. “I don’t give extensions…”

              With two loud cracks, Dane pulled out a couple of, still smoking, chunks of ruined machinery.

              “You’ll pass, Dane,” Torres admitted. “Leave it…”

              And with two sharp klicks, he replaced the gear and snapped the housing back shut, then after stepping back over the line, he turned his one-eyed gaze back to his instructor.

              Torres snarled at the challenge and activated the canon at once. The beam flashed and Dane’s generator responded instantly, the bubble blooming like a flower but holding against the sudden assault.

              Torres called out, “Tetryon!” and the canon rotated and out and was replaced by a second that fired a bright blue/white beam. The shield held, it’s color changing to match that of the beam.

              She allowed the beam to pour into the shield for a long tense moment before finally shutting it off and the room erupted in raucous cheers.

              “MAGENTA! MAGENTA! MAGEN…”

              With a snap of her head and a murderous glower, the elder instructor silenced the room. The cadets all took reflexive steps back; instructor Torres did not use agonizers to instill discipline; she used her fists.

              And that had proven more effective.

              After a moment she turned that glower back on Dane, to find him looking back at her although his lone eye was hidden in the shadow of his bandages. So, she turned her back to him, walked to his still functioning shield generator and popped the top off for inspection.

              Dane watched her, his head still swimming and not getting any better. He listened as she disconnected something inside his unit and then, after reconnecting it, uttered a noncommittal grunt. She never turned back to face the class as she barked; “Dismissed!”

              But just as Dane was turning to leave, he noticed his name moved to the top of the leader board. Or maybe he imagined it, as he passed out before the class emptied.