Episode 501: Shakedown Cruise

Air Date: 04 Jan 2011
Present: Kim, Maer, Terri, Andy, and Bobby

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Saturday, 04 Jan 2522
Vandenburg, Boros
Georgia (Huang Long) system
Morning

After two months of R&R, spending the winter holidays with Nika’s family, it’s time to get back to work. We’ve done what we can to free the ship from the SmartShip interference. Our doors are taken off the system, allowing us to close and open them at will, but we are unable to lock them. Nika finds a concealed safe in hydroponics, behind a panel outfitted with a faucet that doesn’t work. Joshua is surprised and chagrined at her discovery—it’s a bit lowering to be outdone by someone who’s blind.

We look at the safe and are unable to crack it. It’s a good safe, but we also suspect it’s booby trapped. Arden examines it and thinks it’s designed with a glass sandwich with gas or acid trapped between the layers. Any attempt to drill through the safe will crack the glass and release what it holds. It might be lethal and it certainly cannot be beneficial to either the safecracker or the safe contents. We haven’t time to find a professional safe cracker or locksmith to open the safe for us before we leave. We’ll just have to wait until we have some money and time to spend on getting it open.

We find passengers and cargo bound for Whitefall, the moon off Athens. They are the Johnny Appleseed Company, hauling hundreds of seedling apple trees and sacks of apple seeds to Whitefall. They can pay us 570 platinum once we get there. Boros is an Allied world and only credits are legal tender. We prefer not to be paid in credits, so we will be paid where their platinum is legal. Fair enough. We lade on the cargo, settle the passengers on the passenger deck and burn atmo off Boros on January 4th, 2522. Whitefall is a two day journey away and is mostly uneventful.

Mostly.

Sunday, 05 Jan 2522
En route to Whitefall
Georgia (Huang Long) system
0130hrs, ship’s time

It’s in the middle of the night, Joshua’s in bed, and he’s dreaming…

Quiet, quiet, stay extra quiet. He can’t make any noise. He can hear them looking for him. Joshua’s given up his usual hiding spot for something more challenging, hoping not to be found. It’s a hard spot. He’s twisted into it and it’s uncomfortable. He’s found a cabinet, a half sized one, and though he’s not a large child, it’s cramped inside. Very cramped. He’s jammed on the floor of it with the half shelf digging into his back. His legs are folded behind him and he’s trying very very hard not to spill out the front. The door is open a tiny crack—it’s so dark and claustrophobic he can’t bear to close it all the way. There’s light shining through the crack and through it he can hear them coming.

Handler: (calmly) This is just going to make this worse. It’s not so bad once you get used to it.

Joshua curls up tighter in his hiding place.

Handler: Joshua …

Hold your breath! Don’t move! Don’t make a sound! Joshua hears footsteps approaching, coming closer and closer. They stop at the cabinet door… Joshua bolts and runs!

A hand grabs his shirt collar and lifts him high. Joshua kicks and screams and tries to get away. More hands grab him and hold him fast. Joshua is strapped down, arms and legs, to a gurney and they wheel him away. Heart racing, Joshua hears someone screaming. He realizes it’s him.

Joshua: No, no, no, nononononono…. !

The gurney shoves through doors, many doors. Joshua glimpses the comfortable living areas he’s familiar with giving way to the medical facility… and that only makes the horror worse. Images of medieval torture flash through his head. Devices like iron maidens and the rack. Screws, forks, knives.

Joshua: You don’t have to do this! Please let me go …

Bright lights. So bright. Overhead, overwhelming everything. Joshua blinks, trying to find relief. Voices. People talking about him beyond the glare. He can’t see them.

Voice One: Are you sure he’s ready for this?
Voice Two: It doesn’t matter what we think.

Something dark grows in the glare, something coming closer and closer to his face. A contraption. It looks like a helmet, a mask. It touches his face and Joshua feels something very like fingers, like probes, searching for and finding his eyelids. There’s a prickle as the probes latch onto his skin and pry his eyelids open. Joshua struggles. Nothing changes. The probes remain.

Joshua sees nozzles approaching, big as cannons, coming ever closer to his vulnerable eyes. He can’t move his head. He can’t dodge what’s coming. Closer and closer, bigger and bigger, the nozzles come. They hiss and spray. Acid!

Joshua screams.

Joshua: Please … Let me go …

He hears a buzz. The nozzles come closer, closer, eye-piercingly closer—.

Joshua wakes.

Joshua: Aauuughh!

Beside him in bed, Rina jerks awake and clutches air where her gun would be had she been wearing it. There’s no one else in the room save her fiancé. Everything’s as they’ve left it. Nothing is missing or out of place. Joshua’s sitting up in bed, shaking and moaning and scrubbing his face. Nightmare. She’s careful not to touch him.

Rina: (softly) Joshua. Wake up.
Joshua: (though his fingers) I’m up. I’m awake. I’m up.

Joshua rubs his eyes. He can’t stop rubbing his eyes. He takes a few deep shaky breaths. Rina scans the room again and keeps her voice low, painfully aware of the thinness of the walls between quarters.

Rina: You all right?
Joshua: … yeah … (rubs)
Rina: Tell me.
Joshua: Give me … give me a few, please.

His hands are still shaking, he’s still trembling from the dream. Rina makes no demands but sits and says nothing. Joshua cuts loose a cleansing breath and looks up.

Joshua: (huffs) That was not a good one. That was not a good one. Gaughh… I don’t think I ever dreamed that particular one. Thankfully. It was my handler … I think it was my handler.

As he speaks, Joshua has the feeling that his eyes are not entirely his own. And that is just ….

Joshua: Aghh. I want to dig my eyes out. Is that possible? (off her look) I’m kidding. I’m kidding.

Rina just sits and waits for him to tell her. For his part, Joshua tries.

Joshua: I don’t even know how to begin how to describe that. My … dreaming of my handlers. Or I guess they were—
Rina: Torturers?
Joshua: Well, handlers. Like they were, I mean—
Rina: Not from where I’m standing.
Joshua: I mean … but … the gurney to medical. I don’t remember that. At least, not until now. (heavenward) Thank you, thank you. Like I needed to remember that. (a beat) Yeah. They were, they were doing something to my face… and my … my eyes. They were spraying things in my eyes.
Rina: (thinly) Oh, dear God …
Joshua: Like I don’t have my own eyes anymore. Like they were never my eyes. Or they were my eyes, not since I remembered. I … I’m … going to get up and walk around. Cuz I don’t think I’m going back to sleep.

Rina looks at her watch from sheer habit, sees nothing but skin. Dierma. She’s going to have to replace the one she lost to Potemkin. She squints across the room at the door panel and catches the time off the display. 0130 hours.

Joshua quits the bed and pulls on some clothes. Rina watches him.

Joshua: I’m gonna wander the halls a bit. Don’t mind me. I’ll be back.
Rina: I’ll make coffee.

She gets dressed and they part outside their quarters, she to the galley and he to walk the corridors. She crosses the crew lounge for the galley aft and listens to the engines. They’re humming right along at speed class 4. Nothing strenuous, a nice gentle shakedown cruise. She remembers Joshua screaming beside her in their bed and shakes her head. So much for nice and gentle.

Joshua goes to the bridge to sit there for a while. Beglan is on watch duty.

Joshua: Hi, Beggar. How’re things?
Beglan: It can’t be shift over yet.
Joshua: No, no, it’s not. You don’t mind if I sit with you for a bit, do you?
Beglan: No, come on for’ard.

Joshua sits at one of the unoccupied stations. Beglan eases back in the pilot’s chair.

Beglan: You remember what set of controls it was to set the air conditioning? It’s a few degrees lower than comfortable. I was afraid to touch anything. I don’t want to accidentally open the airlocks or something. (spreads hands at console)

Yeah, that would cool things down right quick. Joshua cranes his neck to see where Beglan’s pointing.

Joshua: Yeah … I want to say it was that button. But this time around it could be that button or it might not be. Shipboard electronics, as you probably know—not my onboard specialty. How’s she flying?
Beglan: Not bad. Not bad at all. Flying in pulse like this we’re not doing a whole lot of steering, but I noticed she seems to keep a straight keel. A lot different from the old ship.
Joshua: Yeah. She’s a lot different from the old ship in a lot of ways.
Beglan: It’s the mass. When you have three times the mass, you can have a bit more … (gestures)
Joshua: Inertia?
Beglan: Inertia. Keep it in mind.
Joshua: How do you feel being onboard our ship? I don’t think I had a chance to ask you how you like being aboard our ship. Of being part of the crew.
Beglan: I’m glad to get out in space. As much as I like Nika’s family I always feel a bit … awkward staying with a group of people too long. I start to feel a burden. But here, I feel I’m doing something, although I have to get that computer up and running.

Ah yes, that old SmartShip reboot.

Joshua: That’ll come in time. It’ll come in time. (sighs) Yeah. I’m … yeah. I’m going to bed.
Beglan: You look like you’re not doing so well.
Joshua: Yeah. Not a … Yeah. Nightmare. Nightmare.
Beglan: Ah. I understand.
Joshua: I don’t usually have them. Well, okay. Not that often. And never this one. So, just a little off my game. That’s all.
Beglan: Well, it’s to be expected. You’ve had a rough lot.
Joshua: (breathes laugh) A little bit. A little bit of one. But we’re up and flying and that’s what’s important. And that’s …
Beglan: I have to admit I was nervous when we passed that gorram big cruiser or whatever it was up there, in orbit of Boros. But they paid no heed to us so I guess we’re all good.
Joshua: Everything seems to have held up well. Thank Foreman for that, I guess.

After all, Foreman changed our pinger and registry information before parting company with us on Boros.

Joshua: I’m just gonna … (rises from chair)
Beglan: I think when we make landfall on Whitefall, we should do our business quickly and go without pulse back to the planet. It’ll be longer but it’s … There’s some fairly high speed maneuvering if you go through pulse from a moon to its planet. Not recommended. That would be my recommendation.

After all, had Nika been able to take the wheel, it wouldn’t need recommending.

Joshua: All right. I’ll take it to the Captain when she’s up. I mean, it seems sensible to me. It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea, to be honest. As you pointed out, being in pulse ain’t the same as being in the Black and out of pulse. So ... we’ll give everyone on the ship a little bit of that. (sighs) All right. Well. I think I’m going to go fix something. Some food. You want anything?
Beglan: No, I’m all right. But, um, one of the passengers I let go down to the cargo hold. He was, um, wanted to smoke and I wasn’t sure if we let them smoke on the passenger deck.

Huh. Joshua has to think on that one. Do we let people smoke on the passenger deck? Under normal circumstances, a ship of our class should be able to handle the smoke quite well. But our circumstances aren’t quite normal, thanks to the SmartShip mucking up our HVAC systems.

Joshua: That passenger. When was this?
Beglan: Early in my shift.
Joshua: Do you know if he came back or not?
Beglan: Um…
Joshua: Okay. If you don’t know, I’ll go check. I appreciate it.

Joshua leaves for the stairs.

Meanwhile, Kiera’s up. She’d been woken by Joshua’s screaming and immediately dressed to check out passengers to see if they too were woken by the noise. It’s her job as Steward to see to their comfort and if necessary, provide a plausible explanation for the disturbance. She meets Joshua on the stairs as they both travel down. Joshua’s puzzled to see her.

Joshua: Why are you up? Oh, wait. Never mind. I’m sorry.
Kiera: Everything okay in there?
Joshua: Yeah. Yeah, it’s fine. It’s … yeah. It’s fine. Let’s go see if—Beggar said he let a passenger down to the cargo bay to smoke.
Kiera: Oh, all right. I was going to check and see if they got woken up.
Joshua: I would hope not. I dearly hope not. If they would have to worry about that. If they had to worry about the volume from the upper deck.

Our passengers are all middle-aged seed salesmen. They seem to be very competitive. Apparently the Johnny Appleseed Company has bonuses for the most seed sold. This group has worked together for many years and they compete with each other for the perks. It’s a high-pressure world and the salesmen work hard, drink hard, and smoke hard doing it. They seem nice enough but they’ve definitely got an assertive streak a mile wide.

Kiera: Do you want a little back-up with him or you want to go check and see if he’s still there?
Joshua: I wanna go see if he’s still there.
Kiera: I’ll go with you.
Joshua: Okay, thank you … (mutters to self) … Cuz the cargo bay creeps me out.

Joshua goes straight down the stairs to the cargo deck. Kiera follows behind. The cargo deck has been laid out like a sapling nursery. The atmo scrubbers seem to be keeping pace with the smoke from the cigarette. It doesn’t seem excessively smoky or smelly down here. It’s dim, though, and Joshua and Kiera spot the glowing orange tip of the lit cigarette before they see the smoker holding it. The end flares to yellow as the salesman takes a deep drag, lighting his face for a second before the tip fades to orange again. He’s pacing as he smokes and he shuffles to a stop when he sees Kiera and Joshua approach.

Salesman: (flustered) Oh, I didn’t wake you did I?
Joshua: No, no. I just had one of my crew tell me that you were—
Salesman: Yeah, he told me it was okay to come down here and—
Joshua: No, it’s fine. It’s fine. As long as the smoke doesn’t hurt the trees.
Salesman: Nah, they’re hardy trees.
Joshua: Then I’m happy to have you down here. I just wanted to–Beggar said it was at the beginning of his shift that he had you down here and it’s been a while and I wanted to make sure you’re all right. I was up anyway.
Salesman: I should probably head back to bed.

The salesman snuffs his cigarette out in one of the sapling tubs. In the dimness of the hold, Joshua and Kiera see a small glowing reddish point of light beyond the passenger—perhaps another cigarette, improperly snuffed? Kiera moves aft to find out and she doesn’t go two steps before a klaxon starts blaring.

BWAHH! BWAHH! BWAHH! BWAHH—!

It’s the fire alarm. In fact, a mellifluous voice in English and perfectly accented Chinese says over the noise:

Warning: Fire! Fire! Sealing off cargo deck. Initiating emergency fire operations.
Jǐnggào: Zháohuǒ le! Zháohuǒ la! Fēngsuǒ huòwù jiǎbǎn. Qǐdòng jǐnjí jiùhuǒ xíngdòng.

The pressure doors on the stair landing hisses shut, sealing off access to the upper decks and trapping Kiera, Joshua and our passenger in the hold. The warning lights at the main cargo airlock flash to life.

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