Episode 501: Shakedown Cruise, Part Two

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Ohhhhhhh, crap!

Joshua runs to the nearest wall comm and starts yelling down it.

Joshua: Hello! Hello?!
Beglan: (from the bridge) I hear ye. What’s goin’ on down there?
Joshua: Our smoker didn’t quite extinguish. He wasn’t quite Smoky the Bear down here.
Beglan: There’s a fire?!
Joshua: No. There’s not a fire, there’s a cigarette!
Beglan: Hang on. I gotta stop the airlocks from opening!
Joshua: We’re in the cargo bay.

And all the lights go out in the cargo hold. Darkness. Then a few lights twinkle on from the various console pads, a few bulbs from the emergency lighting system glow slowly to life … but for all intents and purposes, it’s black as night down here. All across the ship the lights go off. At least the klaxon is no longer on—it’s fallen silent. Silent as a tomb.

Nika’s sound asleep in her cabin aft of the bridge when the klaxon wakes her, but even in the chaos she can sense our ship coming out of pulse. She’s instantly awake and gets herself to the bridge. For once, her blindness isn’t a handicap but an advantage—the current lack of light makes no difference at all.

Nika: (crisp) Beggar, what just happened?
Beglan: I … stopped the airlocks from opening.
Nika: Did you just shut down the pulse engine?
Beglan: A bit.

Nika starts to curse inventively in Chinese. Then:

Nika: Really?
Beglan: There are people down in cargo.
Nika: How many people we got down there?

Speaking of down there … Kiera finds our passenger before he can stumble and fall in the dark.

Kiera: Might I suggest a nicotine patch from now on, sir?
Salesman: (crustily) That’s a sensitive fire alarm you got there. You told me your electronics were a bit wonky but c’mon ...
Kiera: My apologies.
Joshua: Yes, our deepest deepest apologies for this temporary incident which will soon be solved.
Salesman: Excuse me but my night vision hasn’t caught up with me yet. Am I still in the cargo hold?
Joshua: Yes.
Kiera: Yes, we still are. If you’d like to take my arm, I’ll reach out and—

Our passenger reaches out and grabs, but it’s not Kiera’s arm he’s grabbing. Kiera calmly takes his hand off her.

Kiera: Here, let me show you where my arm is. There, that’s my arm. Thank you.

And just above the threshold of hearing, Joshua catches Kiera’s purring growl. Grr-rr.

Joshua: The engineers will have the lights on shortly.
Salesman: We’re not going to run out of air down here are we?
Kiera: No, we’re fine.
Joshua: No, we’re not going to run out of air. Unless for some reason you’ve smoked 50,000 cigarettes down here. Which is not the case. We’re gonna be fine. We’ve got plenty of air. The lights are going to be back on in, I’m guessing, within … wait for it, hold on to this number … ten minutes.

Rina is in the galley tending the coffee things when hell breaks loose and she makes her way to the engine room. She’s not as familiar with Equinox as she was with Summer’s Gift, but she manages get there without breaking her leg in the dark. Meanwhile, back on the bridge, Beglan and Nika are standing in the glow of the consoles.

Beglan: You probably don’t remember that, but there’s a switch, an emergency power switch here, in propulsion.
Nika: Yeah. Good to know.
Beglan: Actually quite handy. I’m thinking about turning it back on but I’m a little worried about our people down in the cargo hold.
Nika: Yeah, hold that thought for just a minute. (tries comm) We need to—shi…! If you cut everything, including the comms … (thinks)
Beglan: I’ll leave you here where you can see and I’ll walk down and find Rina to power—.
Nika: I’ll get Rina. It’s okay. She’s in engineering.
Beglan: That’s right. I guess you don’t mind the dark.
Nika: (dryly) Is it dark?

After all, for all she knows, every light in the house is on.

Beglan: Yeah.
Nika: All right. You stay here.
Beglan: You tell me when to flip that switch.
Nika: Yeah, I’ll be back, being as you’ve shut the comms off.
Beglan: It seems to me that’s a bad design flaw.
Nika: Yeah, I would say that’s an adequate assessment of the situation, yes. Stay right here.

Arden has managed to make it to the bridge in time to hear that last from Nika.

Arden: Beginning to think this ship is a bad design flaw.
Nika: Oh, thank you, Arden. That’s helpful.
Arden: (mending fences) What can I do to help? In this situation? Outside med bay? I’m sure I can find a flashlight around here someplace. What can I do to assist? What can I do to help?
Nika: I’m going to head down to engineering. And see what Rina can do to get us up and running. But Beggar cut the master power switch which in addition to cutting the fire suppression system down in the cargo bay, which was about to vent at least two people out into space on us—
Arden: I heard that.
Nika: It’s also cut the comms.
Arden: Which two people?

Do we care about that right now? Really? Nika says nothing but gives him The Face. Even though it’s dark, you can hear it coming across loud and clear. And we can hear something else. From aft, a passenger’s voice drifts up from the deck stairs:

Passenger: Is everything okay up there? The power went off. We heard an alarm and the power went off … When are we—are we heading for the escape pods or somethin’…?
Arden: I’ll go downstairs and calm the passengers.
Passenger: … I remember you took us on that tour … and we kinda ignored you, cuz we were trying to play cards …
Nika: All of you go back to your cabins.
Passenger: And we were checking our Cortex mail while you were giving your emergency thing and we kinda forgot what the emergency thing was …?

Nika strides down the portside corridor aft for the stairs. Her weeks dirtside pacing the ship stands her in good stead here, her gait is normal and her steps assured. She calls down the stairwell.

Nika: Go back to your staterooms.
Passenger One: (faintly) Which one is mine again—? (a bump!) Ow!
Nika: Please clear the hallways. Navigate off the walls.
Passenger One: You know, I served once aboard a ship if you need any help with anything ...
Nika: I’ll keep that in mind, thank you much.

From the bottom of the stairs, we hear a second passenger address the first.

Passenger Two: Didn’t you load ammo?
Passenger One: Yeah. That’s a job. More than you’d ever done.
Nika: (amused, despite) Yep. That is a job. We like that man.

Meanwhile, down in the hold, Joshua, Kiera and our passenger have found the stairs up but are stopped at the first landing by the pressure door. It’s shut tight, prepared to hold fast against decompression, and with the power off and without the proper tools, there’s no way they can open it. It’s back down the stairs to wait for rescue.

Nika covers the fifteen feet to the aft corridor, calling as she goes.

Nika: Rina! Where are you?
Rina: (calling back) Engine room!
Nika: As if I needed to ask.

Nika goes the rest of the way to the engine room, mindful of the four steps up at the end of the corridor. She sticks her head in. There’s emergency lighting on in here, more for Rina’s benefit than Nika’s. And Arden’s, who’s right on Nika’s heels.

Nika: What just happened?
Rina: Yeah, I’m working on it.
Nika: Can we get power back up?
Rina: To the doors, at least, and nothing else just in case—
Nika: No. Reroute it around so that the cargo bay doors don’t open?
Arden: Just do the voodoo you do so well.
Rina: Workin’ on it.

Rina’s got a penlight and she’s tracking down a solution. Her hand-drawn plans of the SmartShip wiring paths aren’t much help here.

Nika: Beggar says we can toss the primary power switch back up on the bridge, but if we do that I need to know you can move quickly enough so that whoever’s downstairs isn’t vented.
Rina: The easiest way is to disconnect the servos on the cargo doors entirely, where they are.

Rina realizes that it’s a safer bet to go down to the cargo bay and do it there than do it up here and hope the electronics system doesn’t kick in at the worst possible moment. She starts packing her tools in her bag.

Nika: What exactly would that entail?
Rina: The little motors that work the door, at the door.
Nika: No, would that require outdoor evaccing there?
Rina: No, it’s accessible from the inside, I just have to get there.

And to get there means bypassing the stairs and using the access hatch connecting all the decks. It’s just past hydroponics for’ard and Rina makes her way for it. The hatch is a purely mechanical one, with a big wheel to open, close, and seal it. The state of the power or the electrical systems has nothing whatsoever to do with it. Which makes it mighty handy in situations like this. She grabs the wheel and puts her back into turning it. It groans and squeals but she gets it open. There are ladder rungs mounted to the walls, a straight shot three decks down. She shines her flashlight down the shaft, sees it’s clear, and puts her boots to the rungs. Nika stays her with a word.

Nika: You’re gonna have to come up here and tell us when it’s done or I could stand here and listen while you shout if you want. Just bear in mind I don’t speak Russian so when you shout, don’t shout in Russian.
Rina: I’ll try not.
Nika: Aside from cuss words, cuz I picked up a few of those.
Rina: Okay. So dierma means everything’s okay, yebat’ menya means we’re screwed. Okay? All right.

And down she goes. In the hold, Joshua, Kiera and the Salesman settle down to wait.

Joshua: How long have you been a seed salesman?
Salesman: Oh, twenty five, twenty six years, maybe.
Kiera: So what’s so special about these trees?
Salesman: These’re a fine variety of hardy apple trees. Useful throughout the Verse. They can handle —.
Joshua: Any environment? Almost any environment?
Salesman: Well, not any environment, but they’re fairly suited to the rugged environment of some of the Rimward planets. Don’t need watering for the most part.
Joshua: Wow.
Salesman: It takes about a year for them to go and bear fruit. They gotta sit there a little bit but after the initial watering, they’ll pretty much survive on little or nothing.
Kiera: Are they single fruiting or do they have a double season?
Salesman: Some of them are single, some of them are double.
Joshua: (interested) How much does one of these things cost?

The Salesman perks up at this. Hey, a customer!

Salesman: Well, to buy one, they’re expensive, but if you buy a bunch, they’re not too bad. Of course, these’re already sold.
Joshua: Oh, no, I was just trying, you know …
Salesman: Well now, for growing in a ship, I wouldn’t recommend these seedlings but we possibly might have some seeds that might serve you well.
Joshua: An apple tree in Botany Bay would be awesome.
Kiera: A dwarf fruit tree would be pretty awesome. Do you have other dwarf fruit trees?
Salesman: Well, I’d have to order dwarf seeds. They aren’t big sellers, bein’ a Core sort of thing, but I can see a ship like this could probably use some.
Joshua: We could talk about it, certainly, once the power comes back on in five minutes or so.

Kiera settles all of them on the steps as they talk and she’s careful to put Joshua on the stair between herself and the Salesman, without making it look like a snubbing. Meanwhile, Nika calls down to Rina who’s made it to the hatch to the cargo bay.

Nika: Do these stupid little manholes actually go all the way down to where they are? Why don’t we tell’em to come up?
Rina: (calling up) Well the problem is, is it comes out on the cargo deck behind the airlock door.
Nika: Oh.
Rina: Yeah. So hopefully when I come out on this end, it’s not going to decompress on me.
Nika: Please do not go floating into space. I do not want to fetch your ass.
Rina: And I’d hate to have my ass fetched.

Of course, that won’t happen: the hatch is made specifically to lock in place if vacuum’s present. Rina braces herself and hauls on the wheel. It gives and turns.

Rina: So far, so good. Hang on a minute.

With a squeal of the hinges, the hatch opens and Rina drops to the airlock deck below. She’s got the access panel to the door servos off and the motors disconnected in minutes. Once that’s done, she inserts the key wrench into the requisite slot and starts cranking the doors open. As soon as she’s got an opening wide enough, she steps through and taps her wrench on the doors.

Rina: Privyet! Anybody down here?
Kiera: Excellent!
Joshua: Duh!
Rina: Just follow the sound. (taps some more) I’m at the airlock door.

Tap, tap. She holds her flashlight up to guide them. Kiera, the Salesman and Joshua see it and Joshua carefully guides the Salesman along.

Joshua: We should be out of here shortly.

The Salesman nods but seems to prefer leaning on Kiera more than Joshua. Kiera sighs into the dark and halfway to the airlock doors, Joshua starts getting this …. angry, angry feeling. It boils up from nowhere, incredibly hot. It should be lighting up the cargo hold, it’s so damned strong and bright. Joshua spins around in the dark and bellows:

Joshua: Get your hands off her!

What the hell?! The Salesman freezes in his tracks, as does Kiera.

Joshua: (still hot) Back away!

Kiera finally finds her voice, as does the Salesman.

Kiera: Uh!
Salesman: Hey, easy there, son.

For her part, Rina’s not entirely sure what’s happened but she’s already coming up with worst case scenario. Dirty old man. Just wait til Rina gets her hands on him … She can hear Kiera saying in a soothing tone:

Kiera: It’s okay. It’s okay.
Joshua: We can keep our hands to ourselves on the short walk to the hatch door.
Salesman: Take it easy, Captain.
Kiera: It’s all good, Joshua. Really.

It is. Really. But how to make Joshua believe that? Cuz, damn, if Joshua don’t sound like he’s ready to eat the Salesman alive.

Kiera: It’s cool.
Joshua: It’s good?
Kiera: It’s good. We’re all good.
Joshua: It’s good? We’re all good?
Salesman: We’re all good. Hey.
Joshua: Good.
Salesman: All right.
Joshua: Walk.
Salesman: Wow.
Kiera: You heard the man. Let’s walk.
Salesman: Yeah, hey. I’ll go first.
Joshua: That’s probably a good idea and I’m going to have to ask you to restrain from smoking the rest of this trip.
Salesman: All right. Yeah. (taken aback) I asked somebody but ….
Kiera: (to Salesman) It’s okay.

Well, maybe not so okay. The Salesman’s face is dead white in the beam from Rina’s flashlight. He looks rather scared of Joshua. After all, the Salesman is pushing 60 and he’s not that big a guy. Kiera pats him soothingly on the back and is looking rather annoyed at Joshua. There’s a fair amount of what-the-hell? behind her expression. She sees the passenger up the ladder first and he goes slowly—he’s not as spry as he used to be. Kiera makes to follow him up the ladder, pats him on the ankle, and he yelps.

Salesman: Hey-hey! See? She’s started it.
Kiera: It’s okay. (pats)
Salesman: (pointing up) Does this first door go to our…our deck?
Rina: Yes. Yes, it does.

Rina gives the man the hairy eyeball but nothing more inimical than that. If she’s going to hurt the guy for putting the moves on Kiera, she wants to get the entire story first. After all, it was too dark in the hold to see what elicited such a violent reaction out of Joshua.

Kiera: I’ll go with him and make sure he’s okay. Anybody got a flashlight I can borrow?
Rina: Here. (hands Kiera hers)
Kiera: Thank you.
Salesman: I have a lighter.
Joshua: No, let’s not do that, sir.
Kiera: We’ll take you back.

Kiera turns to Joshua as she puts a foot on the rungs.

Kiera: Thank you for your chivalry, sir.

And she gives Joshua the weirdest look: What the hell was that? And she turns back to our passenger with a smile.

Kiera: Come on, let’s go on and get you tucked in again.
Salesman: Really, I didn’t mean anything. I was trying to—
Kiera: (lightly) Oh, I know. I know.
Salesman: Was that your boyfriend?
Kiera: No … He’s kinda like an older brother. Kinda really protective sometimes. He’s just odd. Don’t worry about it.
Salesman: He’s got good night vision. He’s got implants?
Kiera: You know what? Maybe. Some people are born with vision like a cat. But that’s why we have a flashlight though. Is there anything we can get for you?
Salesman: Well, there was this farmer back out on the Rim somewhere, he had this beautiful daughter. Beautiful daughter …

And the passenger’s voice drifts down the hatchway as Kiera follows him to the passenger deck.

Salesman: And so there I was, my mule was out of H2 and I had only half a box of seeds left. And half of them were still.

Warning: raunchy story ahead. Kiera turns on the white noise generator in her head and gets the old man settled. Down below, Rina takes Joshua by the hand and keeps him from going up the ladder. Joshua stops easily, without any trace of anger.

Rina: (quietly) Hey. What happened in there? Dirty old man? Getting fresh?
Joshua: He was accosting Kiera. I solved the problem.
Rina: Okay. Could you show me where the man was smoking?

Kiera seemed fine, no matter what really happened, but there was still the issue of the smoke setting off the fire alarm. Rina takes a deep sniff but can barely smell the smoke.

Joshua: Yeah, it’s over this way. He was smoking somewhere over there.(a beat) Can we get back up there? It’s dark down here. I mean, really dark down here if you haven’t noticed.
Rina: Then why don’t you go up without me. I’m going to see if I can’t find that cigarette butt and really take it out.
Joshua: I believe we got the cigarette butt. I think it’s done. (off her look) All right. All right.
Rina: Fine. I’m going in.
Joshua: Going in where?!
Rina: The hold.
Joshua: The cigarette’s taken care of.
Rina: How do you know it’s a cigarette?
Joshua: Because we watched him smoke it.
Rina: So?!
Joshua: Okay. I’m not leaving. I’m not leaving until you come up.

She’s thinking that nothing normal would have set off the alarm. What if the passenger had something other than a cigarette? Something worse? Maybe it’s the hour or the fact that she’d been rudely awakened in the middle of the night but Rina’s twitchiness won’t let her rest until she’s investigated the matter for herself. Joshua waits at the cargo doors as she goes in. Sometimes it’s easier not to argue with the woman.

She finds the butt that set off the alarm. Apparently our passenger failed to snuff it out completely on the tree and it smoldered on a leaf, producing enough smoke to set the fire alarm off. Sometimes a cigarette is just a cigarette, but what if the passenger had smoked more cigarettes. What if …?

Rina: Is it really a tree?
Joshua: (from the airlock) I’m not standing here all night for you to verify every one of these apple trees, Rina! It’s dark.
Nika: Seriously?!

Nika got tired of waiting for them and has just stepped off the bottom rung when she hears this last exchange.

Nika: What in the bloody hell is going on down here?
Rina: (calling back) Fishing out the butt.
Joshua: (off Nika’s squick) Not a metaphor.
Nika: Thank you. (squick!) Uhnnn! … Oh, my God …
Joshua: She’s searching every apple tree, in the dark, for the cigarette—
Rina: (calling back) Don’t want it to smolder, start another fire.
Nika: Fish her butt out, because I’m going to the bridge and I’m telling Beggar to turn on the power.

Not entirely satisfied but knowing an order when she hears it, Rina marks the tree where she found the cigarette, pockets the butt, and returns to the airlock. She cranks the airlock doors shut and at Joshua’s urging, reluctantly takes the ladder up. Nika listens at the top of the shaft for her and when Rina steps on deck, Nika goes to the bridge to tell Beglan to flip the switch. Flip. Flip. Flippity-flip.

Beglan: Uh, I think you’re going to have to start the engines from engineering.

Joshua hears this and says into the gloom of the corridor.

Joshua: Rina. (a beat) Rina.
Rina: (distracted) What?!
Joshua: Why aren’t you in engineering?
Rina: All right, fine.

She takes off aft, her fingers on the touch strip she’d mounted for Nika. Darned things have come in handy. Joshua sighs and steps back onto the bridge.

Joshua: All right, Captain. Rina’s headed toward engineering.

Rina steps into engineering and gets the engines spinning right up. Piece of cake. The lights and comms flicker back on as the power returns and the fire alarm sounds again but shuts off after a second or two. On the bridge, everyone sighs and Nika frets at the delay.

Nika: I wonder how much that’s going to cost us?
Joshua: Not much. Just a hundred hours of fuel.

Our gas tank’s bigger, so a hundred hours wouldn’t bring us as close to the wire as it have on our old girl. Still …

Arden: I think we need to reset the fire alarm.
Beglan: (nervous) Everyone’s okay?
Joshua: Yes.
Beglan: No one’s out the airlock?
Joshua: Nope. We’re all good.
Beglan: No fires?
Rina: (over the comms) Yet.
Joshua: (back at her) Hey. None of that. (to Beglan) Nope. We’re all good. Thank you, Beggar.

Meanwhile, Kiera’s settling the passenger in his cabin. Mind it’s like the care and feeding of trolls, but she gets the job done and sees the man off to sleep again. That done, she turns for her own bed, knowing full well that she’s going to have to rise early to get everyone’s breakfast. Joshua goes aft to the galley and dumps the coffee to start a new pot fresh. Rina snags a cup for herself before it goes down the drain.

Rattled and annoyed by the false alarm in the cargo hold, we inspect the SmartShip system again but alas, the picture doesn’t change. Our onboard computer just can’t handle the program. The two are just incompatible—it’s like we’re trying to run Snow Leopard on a 386. We’ll either have to replace the system or replace the computer. Neither option is viable while we’re in transit. Perhaps once we have Nika’s eyes fixed and we get paid for a cargo run or two …

Beglan enlists Nika to recalculate our course to Whitefall. Being out of pulse has changed our trajectory a bit. They crunch the numbers and plug them in.

Beglan: If we can trust the ship’s computers, we’ve been flying for this long and we should only have this far to go.
Nika: Find one of the beacons and run through the calculations again. When’s your watch up, Beggar?
Beglan: Ahhh… I don’t remember, what with all the excitement.
Nika: Go. I’ll sit.

She shoos him out of the chair and send him off to bed. Nika sits on the bridge and takes up the rest of his watch. Joshua enters with a fresh cup of coffee for her. She takes it gratefully and the rest of the night passes without further incident.

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